SUN RA Nothing Is... (ESP-DISK)
KIM PHUC Wormwood Star 7" (CRIMINAL IQ)
POPOL VUH Affenstunde (SPALAX)
PADDED CELL Night Must Fall (D.C. RECORDINGS)
MI AMI Ark of the Covenant 12" (LOVERS ROCK)
Collective Voice Podcast #274 (24.01.08, includes spotlight on Blues Control/Watersports)
UNDERGROUND RESISTANCE Waveform EP (UNDERGROUND RESISTANCE)
BLUE OYSTER CULT Secret Treaties (COLUMBIA)

The key track on the Sun Ra album for me will always be "Exotic Forest." Incredible atmosphere on this one, percussion clusters and flocks winding their way over & through Ronnie Boykins's bass ostinato. Sweet memory of freaking out to this track late one night in like 1996 while driving on a back-road highway somewhere in Ohio in the middle of a two-day road-trip from Omaha to NYC. (Was not on drugs other than caffeine, don't worry.) Kim Phuc single is a rager. Very heavy, legit intensity level, terrific recording. Go Pittsburgh. Here's their myspace. Popol Vuh sez "It's monkey time!!!" Padded Cell album is so-so, fun and groovy if you happen to be in the room when it's playing but overall a case of 'rad sounds, no songs (retro funky lounge we-should-be-doing-soundtracks division)'. What is it that makes Mi Ami and Underground Resistance -- bands that are also arguably playing something that could be called "dark disco" -- much better? I think it's level of commitment... Mi Ami and Underground Resistance have really absorbed and digested the ingredients they work with, and thus the notes they play are coming from somewhere deep inside, where with bands like Padded Cell, the notes stay outside the body, comfortably resting in the same retro context they were found in. The only thing they touch them with is their fingers, arranging them around in different rad patterns from track to track.

GRATEFUL DEAD Live at Old Renaissance Faire Grounds (Veneta, OR) 1972/08/27
MOOLOBALI TRAORE s/t (SUPER SOUND)
CYMANDE s/t (JANUS)
NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS The Boatman's Call (MUTE/REPRISE)
O.P.M.C. Amalgamation
LIQUID LIQUID s/t (GRAND ROYAL)
OMAR-S 004 EP ("Day"/"Night) (FXHE)
PATTI SMITH Easter
MRR Radio #1160 (this was great)

JIM O'ROURKE The Visitor (DRAG CITY)
HIGH PLACES s/t (THRILL JOCKEY)
SOFT MACHINE Third (COLUMBIA)
KEITH JARRETT Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues op. 87 (ECM)
FRIPP & ENO (No Pussyfooting) (ISLAND)
FRIPP & ENO Evening Star (EG RECORDS)
SCRIBBLER My Old Lady 7" (STUMPARUMPER)
GHOST HOSPITAL D+ 7" (TEEN APE)
GONE TO CROATOAN They 7" (EOLIAN)
ANCIENT SKY s/t LP (PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINE)

O'Rourke and High Places albums spun while frying up some potatoes and veggies with 4-year old daughter, cozy inside with window half-open on a cold and sunny fall day. Drag City and Thrill Jockey, pretty sweet, can't complain. Another sweet memory is this time like 19 years ago, during my sophomore year in college, when I had to go move my car late at night and I turned on the radio right in the middle of the most blasted free-form rock organ playing I had ever heard up to that point. (I guess Stevie Winwood's work on Hendrix's "Voodoo Child" was the previous champion... or no, Live in Japan, duh.) It was the local Lincoln, Nebraska community radio station, KZUM 89.3 FM, and I sat in the car and listened for a while until, realizing the song wasn't gonna be a short one, running back to my dorm and calling the DJ. He told me it was Soft Machine, from the album Third. When I picked up the album used a year or two later, I learned that the track was "Facelift" and the organist was Mike Ratledge, but my favorite side turned out to be Robert Wyatt's majestic and serpentine "Moon in June" composition. Also loved the band photo in the gatefold and would spend minutes at a time peering at it, assuming I would eventually find drug paraphenalia. I don't believe I ever have... see if you have any luck (click for a nice larger view):



No pussyfooting: (No Pussyfooting) is kinda boring. Cool as an experiment/provocation album, but the follow-up Evening Star refines and improves on the ideas, and so does the Fripp & Eno-worshipping career of Heldon, whose debut came one year after No P.

Also listened to a few unknown-to-me new releases, hoping to write reviews which may appear sooner or later...

CHEAP TRICK "Tonight It's You" (EPIC)
KING TUBBY & FRIENDS Dub Like Dirt 1975-1977 (BLOOD & FIRE)
THIN LIZZY Jailbreak (MERCURY)
VELVET UNDERGROUND White Light/White Heat (VERVE)
SLY & THE FAMILY STONE There's A Riot Goin' On (EPIC)
DEUTER Aum (KUCKUCK)
OST Wild Style LP (ANIMAL)
DIMINISHED MEN Shadow Instrumentals LP (ABDUCTION)
MOON DUO Killing Time EP 12" (SACRED BONES)
PRUNALOG SUSAN PENTAGRAM 23 7" EP (TRIGGER ON THE DUTEN-DO)
BURGER/INK [Las Vegas] CD (MATADOR/OLE)

Had to check and see if Cheap Trick's "Tonight It's You" was still as glorious as it was when I was 15 years old. And, despite 80s production (by 70s master Jack Douglas, no less) and dorky video, I'd have to say it pretty much is. Tonight's other heavies: "Guidance Dub" by Tubby, all-time fave "Runnin' Back" by Lizzy, "I Heard Her Call My Name" of course, Burger/Ink "Milk & Honey" (or for a youtube example, "Love Is The Drug [Paris, Texas]"), "Military Cut (Scratch Mix)" by Grand Wizard Theodore & Kevie Kev Rockwell (sounds insane loud on headphones), and Sly Stone's "Thank You For Talkin' To Me Africa," one of my all-time favorite jams... saw a guy online call it "ghastly funk," which is perfect. It's almost 9 minutes long, and I think I could handle 9 hours. There's A Riot Goin' On continues to amaze in new ways, and I've been listening to this album for 20 years now. Now that I'm aware of Bobby Womack's uncredited contributions to this album, I feel like I'm hearing him all over the grooves... the loose and spindly funk rhythm/lead guitar lines that percolate throughout this tune have gotta be him (this sweet little column on "Tele funk" agrees)... that's probably him on background vocals too...

(Man, do read that Tele funk thing, it's nice. Off the foundation of Steve Cropper came Catfish Collins, Leo Nocenticelli, Freddie Stone and Bobby Womack, on up to pre-Purple Rain Prince and King Sunny Ade! And, doesn't it seem like the Tele funk window has really come and gone? I mean, who's gonna pick up a Telecaster and play Tele funk today? I don't know, maybe there was a Tele on the last Erykah Badu album or something, but I doubt it.)



(And in case people are forgetting, Bobby Womack had an awesome look, really one of the great rock'n'roll glasses-wearers.)

The Deuter Aum album came out in 1972 and looks like this:



Great cover and a fine 'middle second tier' krautrock album, with some genuinely cold new age synth textures (especially towards the end of Side B) tempered by a nice folk music circle-jam feel that crops up in a few places.

I was underwhelmed on my first two listens to the Diminished Men LP on Abduction but on my third it's really getting somewhere. Sure, this Seattle band plays a sort of avant MOR, soundtracky modern-day surf instrumentalism that would seem polite enough to go down just fine as bumpers to just about any arts & entertainment reporting on your actual local NPR station, but, because their overall presentation is contained and controlled and stays well within the bounds of Randall Dunn's high-quality production aura, it's only now that I'm realizing that they play these themes rather ferociously, and that the stuff in between the themes is actually pretty out there. "Sutures In" is basically a solo synth noise jam and would probably never be an NPR bumper.

I didn't expect too much out of Wooden Shjips subset band Moon Duo, the same way I don't expect much more out of Wooden Shjips than a one-chord rock bassline repeated over and over on top of a backbeat, maybe with some vague rock shouting in the background. That's pretty much what's here, with more or less the same overall dynamics, the debt to Spacemen 3 and Suicide maybe even more explicit. The thing with Wooden Shjips is that even though you don't expect much, they can still be pretty good, and that's true of Moon Duo as well. Now I did say "pretty good," not "great," but as far as a cool-sounding and underwritten record from Sacred Bones goes, I'll always take a spaced-out 7-minute drony jam that barely pretends to be songwriting over some 3-minute drony non-song that actually acts like a song (to the point where people on message boards commend the artist for his or her "songwriting"). I say if you don't write anything too special, try to get good at jamming instead. These guys have gotten pretty good at it.

MORTON FELDMAN "For Bunita Marcus"
MORTON FELDMAN "Interview with Morton Feldman, 1967"
MORTON FELDMAN "String Quartet II" (2/3rds of it, anyway)
BLIND WILLIE JOHNSON The Complete Blind Willie Johnson (SONY)
EARLES & JENSEN PRESENT Just Farr A Laugh (MATADOR)
HAN BENNINK Nerve Beats (ATAVISTIC)
HIGH PLACES s/t (THRILL JOCKEY)
HOUND DOG TAYLOR & THE HOUSEROCKERS s/t (ALLIGATOR)
FACTUMS Flowers (SACRED BONES)
CHEAP TRICK In Color (the Steve Albini version)
JIM O'ROURKE The Visitor (DRAG CITY)

Been listening to a lot of Feldman at work lately... the whole staff is into it. We work in a somewhat fast-paced and unpredictable environment where any music that has a strong depressurizing effect is appreciated, and the John Tilbury version of "For Bunita Marcus" is certainly up to the task. After that we dared ourselves to play all six hours of "String Quartet 2" (the Ives Ensemble 4CD version on Hat Hut), and made it through damn near four of 'em before throwing in the towel and switching over to Blind Willie Johnson late in the day. We might've made it too, but before "String Quartet 2" we had been sidetracked by an hour-long mp3 of a 1967 interview with the composer, in which he said something interesting enough for me to transcribe right now: "With the new stuff there became less anxiety about time itself. I think where someone like Stockhausen has great anxiety about what he does with his time... a kind of hysterical anxiety... you see, Cage doesn't have anxiety." I think this can be applied to rock music as well... of course all upbeat rock music would seem to be inherently anxious about time compared to the music of Feldman, but there's actually a lot of shading possible in there. For example, the Stones and the Beatles have some discernable anxiety about time, Neil Young and Crazy Horse have notably less, and the Grateful Dead have absolutely none (many would say "not nearly enough"). Velvet Underground had plenty of anxiety, but not about time. Same with Can/Faust/Amon Duul/Ash Ra Tempel/etc, all of whom had plenty of anxiety, but not about time, which was what really made krautrock distinctive, the way it blended anxiety and serenity. Anyway, there's a nice Morton Feldman website here: http://www.cnvill.net/mfhome.htm, and if you don't have six hours to sit down and devote to listening to all of "String Quartet 2," but do get hold of the goods, fast-forward to the movement from 3:13 to 4:50 -- it's incredible.

I can't believe we're in the midst of this new American wave of tropicalia... I can barely hang with the original Brazilian wave. Seriously though, it's kind of this new "indie noise tropicalia" going on here, right? With the kicker-off being Black Dice's Beaches and Canyons album waaaaaayyy back in 2002, the appropriate lifestyle branding media seed planted with a coinciding Vice Magazine featurette that talks about "DJ sets on the beach," a "hippy surf film," and the band being "stoner." The movement soon made it to the Pitchfork Nation with the increasing popularity of artists like Devendra Banhart and especially Animal Collective. I guess Vampire Weekend too, huh? I've never heard them so I can't really comment, but I would include today's "beach punk" as a Pitchfork-approved indie noise tropicalia subcurrent... Waaves suxx, of course, but that group Ganglians are total tropicalia, and I think they're actually pretty good. Most of this music I find just as annoying (in its own uniquely American/cosmopolitan way) as I find most of 1970s tropicalia.... but for every Sun Araw side that I still can't get through, there are some artists and records I consistently enjoy, like the self-titled High Places album on Thrill Jockey. This duo takes dreamy melodies and various little instruments and processes it all through a crisp electronic filter that somehow evokes a young Suzanne Vega type busking melancholy folk tunes with a steel drummer on a street corner during the off-season winter in some half-empty Southern Hemisphere resort town. On a big screen HD TV. I've listened to it all the way through a good four or five times over the last year and I'm still liking it more and more. The last song, "From Stardust To Sentience," why, it's downright Cosmic.

I have never really gotten into Factums, but their new (though recorded in 2006-2007) Sacred Bones LP Flowers is probably their best yet. Like all their other albums, it is at least 10 minutes too long, and the songs and jams still aren't quite as memorable as the sound and attack they are played with, but it seems to have shorter and more punkish song constructions than previous albums, played with more overall drive, which makes Flowers more enjoyable while its on, more like the A Frames/Intelligence sides of the band, but rendered with the same Pacific Northwest fog that was the best thing about their previous albums, like an looser, hazier, and antipodal Six Finger Satellite.

The still-unreleased Albini version of the Cheap Trick album, recorded in 1997, is incredible. Zander's voice seems to be even leaner and meaner than it was in '77, the instruments are on fire, and the whole thing goes down like a ripping live set. Seriously great tunes on this album, and hearing 'em with the Albini rawness rather than Tom Werman's radio job is a blast -- accordingly, they redo "I Want You to Want Me" in the roaring Budokan-style instead of the 1977 version's piano vaudeville. Rick Nielsen himself explains the remake in simple terms: "Sonically we never liked In Color. The songs were good, but sonically it's wimpy and we're not wimpy." Why haven't they released it? "Because we're Cheap Trick."

The new Jim O'Rourke album is really, really good. Takes all his experience with minimalist ideas and spins it into his most calmly florid and expansive Van Dyke Parks/film soundtrack/countrypolitan/prog-rock composition yet, a 38-minute epic.

SHORT BUT FUNKY

This evening's inspiration brought to you by this Too Short interview on the top-notch Cocaine Blunts blog, featuring heavy quotes like...

"We just knew that we could do it, so we started doing it. We would take 12″ records from New York artists and flip them over to the b-side and play the instrumental, run it through a DJ mixer with a microphone and rap over the instrumental."

"I just never looked back man, I used to grab the microphone anywhere. I’d be at a high school dance, I’d be at house party. Anywhere. And I’d just say ‘put on the instrumental and give me the mic’. To this day, 42 years old, I’m still saying ‘turn on the instrumental and give me the mic’ and I will rock the crowd."

"That’s my whole thing, it had to be the funk. And we were serious about that 808 too. Our whole thing was we make music for cars, we don’t make music for dance floors, we didn’t make music for listening to in the house, we made the music just for cars and people who had loud woofers in their cars. That was our one dimensional goal. We got music in the trunk. That’s what it was."

"So I always felt like that funk was my edge. It’s slower, it’s funky, it’s not for the dance floor, it’s not radio music. And it was just being rebellious like fuck the radio. People tell you all the time, ‘you gotta make radio songs’. Fuck a radio song. It’s still my philosophy."

"I kept that shit going long after everybody would chop the songs down to 3-4 minutes and they started writing rap songs and structuring them like R&B songs. I was like ‘Fuck that shit. I’m a rapper’. I made some songs where I would come on rapping from the first bar and the song would actually fade and I’m still rapping. I did that shit on purpose."

Haven't even gotten to part two yet..... Hearing Short talk about the slow funk and about "dudes rapping for 15 minutes straight" has got me thinking that one of the 12" records from New York he's talking about up there was "Beat Bop" by Rammelzee vs. K-Rob, its B side instrumental relocated to nowhere near an art gallery.


OTHER LISTENS TODAY
Death For The Whole World To See (they're playing at the Empty Bottle in Chicago tomorrow night, Saturday Sept 26.... part of a 3-show US tour, Detroit tonight and Cleveland on Sunday)
Polvo In Prism (seriously killer album!)
Morton Feldman For Bunita Marcus
Alan Bishop & Richard Bishop Present The Brothers Unconnected
Black Sabbath s/t (this just came up on ipod album shuffle... listening to the title track opener right now for the 100th time and wow, the way Bill Ward uses just the toms and hi-hat on the self-titled opening song, the "wide and progressive arrangements" Carducci was talking about... he makes a lot of room right there, enough for subsequent entire generations of heavy to fit comfortably inside... also amused that my ipod, and Wikipedia, has the bass solo "Bassically" as the intro to "N.I.B.," because up until now I always thought of it as the outro of "Behind the Wall of Sleep"...)

(Just found this 'best youtubes found on blogs' post from 11 months ago... better late than never!)

TOM SNYDER INTERVIEWS FM RADIO DJs sometime in 1979-1984, from WFMU BEWARE OF THE BLOG... The Fugs and Dennis Kucinich both get talked about... Frazier Smith did the KLOS interview with Black Flag that was pressed as a promo LP in '82...


STIFF LITTLE FINGERS from GOOD PROBLEM:


STELLAR OM SOURCE from TOMBSTONE GRAVY:


PFM from ROOT BLOG:


FELA KUTI from TLASILA BLOG (first one is shot and narrated by Ginger Baker!):




JAMES BROWN from TLASILA BLOG:

Checked out Chicago Jazz Fest today... it was nice to see William Parker jamming a 2PM side-stage duet with Hamid Drake. (He was playing again at 7PM on the main stage, presenting "the inside songs of Curtis Mayfield" with an octet featuring, oh, Amiri Baraka and Dave Burrell, but for some lame reason I couldn't stay.) This 2PM deal was billed as an "Art of the Solo" presentation, with Parker presumably giving a lecture, demonstration, Q&A, that kind of thing, but when I got there he had the one and only Drake setting up with him, and began the show with some casual and funny remarks about how it was actually going to be an "Art of the Duet" presentation, going on to say that (I'm paraphrasing) "it's significant to be talking about the art of the solo here in Chicago, because the AACM always stressed the importance of developing a solo repertoire, no matter what your instrument. That way, if the piano player doesn't show up, or the trumpet player doesn't make the gig, so what? You're still cool." He talked about how we always expect the bandleaders to be the horn players or the piano players, but "what if all the bassists and drummers went on strike... what would they do then?" He summed it all up by saying, "So, bassists and drummers are extremely important. How do we know? Because trees don't grow from the top down. They grow from the GROUND UP." (This guy would get along with Joe Carducci.) And then he said that they were going to play, and they might stop and talk some more, but that they would probably just keep playing instead, and that maybe when they were actually done they would take questions from the audience, but that he couldn't understand why music would make anyone want to ask any questions, except for one: "Why questions?" And with that, they launched right into the funky, hypnotic, feisty, drony, completely freestyle duo music that they do (check out the Piercing the Veil album for an example), and they did it for a long time. Parker plays his bass like a massive four-piece drumkit, a constant one-chord/universal-chord style, and Drake either pushes it along massively or lights it up with streaks of fire.



Playing simultaneously on the next side-stage over, requiring a little bit of back-and-forth, was Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Strings. Ever since I saw her lead a large group through an unreal hour-long tribute to Alice Coltrane at Millenium Park's Pritzker Pavilion two years ago, I've been a big fan. This Black Earth Strings group was smaller, more airy, feathery, and etheral, with Mitchell's flute, Renee Baker's violin, and Tomeka Reid's cello fluttering and dancing all around each other, playing intricate bustling melodies and breaking off for careening solos, held down and moved along by the excellent rhythm section of Josh Abrams (bass) and Shirazette Tinnin (drums). I was a little frustrated by the sound, like the band was playing great but having trouble punching through that trademark wind gusting off the lake, but I still think this is what cosmic jazz sounds like today and I really want to hear them play again, as well as check out their new CD Renegades on Delmark Records.


Fred Anderson Trio, Chicago Jazz Fest 2009, photo by mediageek

After that we sat on a blanket and ate up all our snacks while the inevitable Afro-Cuban salsa/jazz fusion band took the stage, absolutely bothering no one, not even myself. I was just lounging, killing time until 5PM, when the main stage at the Petrillo Music Shell was kicking off its evening schedule with a performance by the always-killer Fred Anderson Trio, this time with Drake (again) on drums and Abrams (again) on bass. They came out and basically played for 40 minutes non-stop, starting with an unaccompanied solo by Anderson that cut right through the picnic-blanket crowd chatter, not with honking and screaming, but with forceful punctuation, sharp tone, and deep extended thoughtful melodic lines. You know, Fred Anderson style. Then the rhythm section came in and you know they were good, Abrams with his pulsing guimbri-influenced lines and Drake just being Drake. I've seen him play a lot but he took a drum solo about 10 minutes in that was next-level even for him and basically got a standing ovation. And like I said, they just didn't stop. I'll admit that the momentum came and went, and the transitions between solos, duos, and trios weren't always sharp, but in a way that made it better, because whether he's at the Velvet Lounge or here on this big summer-fest stage in front of a few thousand people, Fred Anderson just shows up, gets into it, and doesn't look back. And the shorter second piece they played was really sublime, Drake coming out front to sit with a big tar drum and sing African style, Abrams driving it with another guimbri-style line, and Anderson sagely hanging back and playing sweet melodic color low in the mix. All in all, it was a beautiful day in Grant Park and the music was perfect... the Chicago Jazz Fest continues to be a sweet end-of-summer ritual in this town.

MILES DAVIS on SOCIAL MUSIC (1982)

BRYANT GUMBEL: But for the most part jazz has, over the years, avoided the mainstream of American music.
MILES DAVIS: I don't like that word "jazz."
BG: You don't? What would you call it?
MD: I think social music. All the social melodies out in the air. There's no jazz anymore.
BG: I'm curious, what do you think of most popular music, or what passes for popular music today?
MD: That's the social music I'm talkin' about!
BG: You think it's good.
MD: Yeah! You take out what you want, and leave what you don't like. You know, like food.
BG: [busts out laughing]
MD: [chuckling back] You know what I'm sayin'! I mean, it's no big thing. It's just the mind that picks it up...



ARSENIO HALL: You have an autobiography coming out soon.
MILES DAVIS: Yes.
AH: What is it called?
MD: Miles. Davis.

Arsenio isn't quite the interviewer that even Bryant Gumbel is, but watch the whole thing, he gets some funky stuff out of him about hip-hop (it needs a beat inside the beat) and spitting black-eyed peas for his embouchre.

SOCIAL MUSIC:





I always think I'm going to end up loving his music from the 80s and 90s... not as much as the 60s and 70s, of course... maybe almost as much as the 50s... but it is some hard music to love, with an unforgivingly-80s diamond-sharp pop-funk texture that not even Dave Keenan's "hypnagogic pop" scene would dare touch... I am getting just a little closer to appreciation, and the "social music" concept is helping... I was already way into his icy-sweet take on Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time":



But man, it's so hard to really commit to the icy-sweet 1980s when I can always go back to the cold soft sprinkling of winter rain in dangerous tropics that is 1973...



(Actually, this 4-part Danish documentary on the making of the Aura album (1985) is pretty bad ass, and the music sounds kinda 70s... is this considered one of the best of the decade?)

CDs BY ONNA & BLUES CONTROL

Attention, fans of the Onna 7" that came out on Holy Mountain this year, you may very well want this CD edition too. Not only does it look great in an LP-style gatefold sleeve, it comes with extensive autobiographical liner notes by Onna main-man Keizo Miyanish, repros of some of his unsettling manga artwork, as well as old flyers and live photos and, most importantly of course, over an hour's worth of quality bonus tracks. The two tracks from the 7" are first, sounding just as addictive, ethereal, and punk/new wave/psychedelic as they do on vinyl. I really can't believe how entrancing these songs are... I love the way the second one, though clearly a different song, still seems to be an extension/variation of the first one, and when Miyanish or whoever/whatever does that bird-call at the end of it I always get incredibly stoked. Track 3 is an outtake from the same sessions, and it has the same guitar/drumbox instrumentation and the same haunted eerie near-childlike vocals, but with a notably faster tempo. For the next two tracks we jump ahead 24 years to 2007, and they don't necessarily sound more contemporary than any other Onna material, but still make left turns; the first sounds like a more traditional and PSF-friendly take on jammy outsider rock, the second has an odd blues strut to it, and both have vocals in a less hypnotized/haunted/waved style than the 7". The next four tracks are from a live performance in 1983, the same year as the 7" material, and will be of particular interest to many, as Miyanish is joined in a duo by Michio Kurihara, the brilliant guitarist who went on to the better known bands Ghost and White Heaven. When the 7" came out a couple months ago, it had no personnel credits, and it was easy to imagine that the swooping, surging, and sometimes gently melodic guitar playing on the record was indeed Kurihara -- in the liner notes, Miyanish himself writes "Even now I can still feel his guitar soar within me" -- but the CD has credits, which reveal that guitarist as one Hiroki Mafuyu. With Kurihara, the band sounds surprisingly starker and sparser, like gagaku on Mars (the band, not the planet), just two guitars and voice playing skeletal spooked ritualistic songs, the last one a good 15 minutes long. The disc is rounded out by one more, described as "a solo piece from an obscure cassette release," with no year given. It's another long piece in which Miyanish hammers away on his guitar and sings, again with an ancient ritualistic feel that contrasts the sleek machine trance of the 7". Either way, I can't stop listening to the whole thing... I suggest that instead of going out for dinner tonight, you give that $20 to Holy Mountain instead, it'll get both the 7" and the CD shipped to you postpaid..



Even in these days of the boutique CDR and cassette release, in which all artists can easily release page after page after sketchbook page, Blues Control seem to be operating on the tried-and-true 'one full length per year at most' plan. And this, their brand new album and fairly long-awaited Siltbreeze Records debut Local Flavor (release date July 9), only clocks in at under 35 minutes, but believe me, it's quality over quantity all the way. In what is something of a Blues Control tradition, the album starts with upbeat cheese rock that quickly reveals an escape hatch into other dimensions, here tripped open by a sharp mid-song horn chart, played by none other than Kurt Vile (on trumpet, apparently he didn't dump it) and Jesse Trbovich (Vile's bandmate in the Violators, on sax). These two stick around for the next track "Rest on Water," which indeed sets us all the way down onto deep tranquil seas for 6 minutes that seem like 12 and are still over way too soon... Vile switches to acoustic guitar and Trbovich plays sweet sax that gently ponders a page out of a hymnal from the Church of Anthrax. Track three "Tangier" turns the motor back on and continues the deep travel trance, this time for a full 8 minutes, which brings us closer to the true submersion demanded by side two, a side-long 16-minute prog suite called "On Through The Night." The more I listen to it, I still can't believe how it moves from giant chromium butterfly wings gently flapping back and forth in deep space into laid-back deserter-orc hip-hop instrumentalism into what sounds like the Cale & Riley tune again, except grand finale style, with an entire imaginary orchestra gently joining in. The whole record is really something, light and pleasant on the surface, deep and rich underneath, and I can't stop listening to this one either.



TWITTERVIEW WITH @BLUESCONTROL
by @fingered, re-edited from 6/13/09 live feed
reprinted with permission

F: Where are you now?

BC: Just crossed the Occoquan River, south of DC. Where are you?

F: I'm in Bushwick, Brooklyn. I have to go feed @excepter cats then off to a BBQ before your gig. JFR+lala fled puerto rican parade madness. Hopefully @SSPS will be there tonight though.

BC: Didn't realize today is the parade. We got some good recordings of it 2 years ago. We're playing with @SSPS at Cinders August 1

F: Parade is actually tomorrow, so traffic shouldn't be too F'd up for you. Did you guys meet in NYC? How long have you been doing BC?

BC: Bedford is closed though, right? And the L train is down? Yeah, we met in NYC through a mutual friend. We were roommates 1st.. played our 1st BC show January '06 at the old Lucky Cat.

F: Your live set is a truly mesmerizing and beautiful experience. Who/what are your influences?

BC: Thanks! We are influenced by David Copperfield... and ZZ Top.

F: ZZ Topperfield? What's your fav ZZ tune?

BC: Haha..! The only show we've been to in Richmond since moving was ZZ Top. 1st time I realized I was living down south though.

F: Sweet. Did they play Kings Dominion?!

BC: They played at Snagajob Pavilion...

F: You guys must be getting close to the NJ trnpke yeah? Or still in MD? Gonna run and feed cats. What do y'all eat on the road? Waffle House: yay or nay?

BC: Have fun at the BBQ! We made a pit-stop, so we're just north of Baltimore. I 8 a PB&J, and Lea 8 a bag of grapefruit. OU812. Waffle House is the 2nd-to-last resort, just above McDonald's. But I like 'em scattered, smothered, and covered.

F: Nice. So a few more Brooklyn/East Coast gigs this summer then a few dates in Europe, London/Berlin- you play there before?

BC: We played in Belgium & the Netherlands last year, but nowhere else in Europe. Doing a month-long tour there with Tropa Macaca. That's in September. Then we're touring around the US in October & November.

F: And tonight you play with Kurt Vile who you've played with a number of times and who else?

BC: Kurt & the Violators, Woods, Grooms, and Pygmy Shrews. You checking anything else out tonight? Did u go to the fest last night?

F: Just rocking the Shank tonite. Caught These Are Powers yesterday - those kids are touring China in July!!

7" ROUNDUP: Sacred Bones Records

The Brooklyn-based Sacred Bones label sent along a package of four new 7" records. This imprint has a serious and classy design aesthetic going... even the envelope they came in is beautiful and I'm sorry I tore it open right across the label logo because I hadn't yet realized it was a specially printed envelope. The tunes, on the other hand, have given me some mixed feelings:



GARY WAR Zontag 7". Here's a band/artist/guy from NYC that I had pegged as a more ethereal and prettified take on the Blank Dogs aesthetic, perhaps the Haircut One Hundred to Blank Dogs' Depeche Mode. That might not make any sense at all because I've never listened to Haircut One Hundred, except for that video where the guy played a xylophone with a couple bananas. And I like Gary War better than Haircut One Hundred (and the Blank Dogs for that matter) -- their full-length LP New Raytheonport, out earlier in 2008 on the Shdwply and Disaro labels, was an elusive and dreamy thing of no small beauty. This 7" on the other hand is kind of a goof. I mean Side A almost makes no sense at all. Side B a little more, but both are somewhat hyper and upbeat almost-songs that immediately run away from the listener, stay there for a couple minutes, and then disappear. It is more 'punk' than the full-length, for what it's worth.



SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY Time Is Racing 7". A band I know nothing about, but sounds like more Blankdogstitude to me, though with more direct vocals, a heavy and pounding drum machine, full-on guitars... the stadium rock version of the Blank Dogs' hiding-in-the-cupboard emanations. The vocals might be too much, taking it straight past Depeche Mode and into the realms of Wang Chung and The Fixx themselves. (Oh wait, the Sacred Bones website says "Douglas P and early DIJ" because they would never say "Wang Chung and The Fixx.") In other words, the music is heavy enough but this is slightly corny overall and I'm starting to wonder just what is the power of this 1980s aesthetic... it seems to have such a huge influence, with Spirit Photography hewing close to the party line while Gary War seems to be kinda frantically running away from it, stealing glances over his shoulder the whole way...


THE PINK NOISE: Gold Light 7". I'll be damned -- more straight-up blankdoggery! Three for three, so I think I can officially announce that Sacred Bones has an aesthetic and they're not afraid to mine it. And I realize it's not accurate to just say "sounds like Blank Dogs" about these records; it's more like a few people decided it would be fun to start a band (or project) that sounds like Joy Division and/or 80s synth pop, and they were in such a hurry to try out their gear and get recording that they just didn't have much time to work on any songs. That said, "Gold Light" does have some hooks, a catchy beat, a "bop bop" that the singer hits in between the verses, and some out-of-nowhere hand drumming. Side B has a driving heavy beat, a station-ID toy-keyboard chime-hook (better when Blues Control did it a couple years ago), and... that's really it. Both songs seem to be right at about 2 minutes long. Right now the critspeak popping into my head for this 7" is "rather slight"... but I guess that is how 45s were back in the day, before these days of 33 RPM EPs and whatnot, and "Gold Light" would sound fine for a couple minutes on the jukebox at some dive bar in the sci-fi movie in your head, sure.



MAX ELLIOTT The Nature o' Nature 7". I saved Max Elliott for last because I had a feeling he would be different... he's recording under his own name, for one... he's also got 3 songs on his 7" instead of 2... and sure enough, he's just a guy with an acoustic guitar singing and playing some folk songs. No drum machines or 1980s keyboards in sight -- not even imitation Ian Curtis vocals! Just a couple minutes in and I like this record the best of all four of 'em. Yes, because it comes as a relief after three records in a row that choose style over substance, but also because his songs are distinctive, taking a kind of old-time ballad feel and stoking it with a little punk fire. Some of the voice breaking on Side B is about halfway to Simon Finn doing "Jerusalem," which is quite a bit farther than most. Anyway, turns out he's from Wisconsin and part of the Dead Luke/Jerkwave crew... he's a member of the Absinthe Minds band and, if I'm reading this article right, he is Zola Jesus's brother.

Update: the Gary War is getting a little better each time I play it, while the Spirit Photography and Pink Noise are actually slipping a little. The Max Elliott is staying the same because it was straight-up to begin with.

AND THIS JUST IN....

Three more 7-inches have come from Sacred Bones, right on the heels of four 7's a couple months ago. Even though last time I wasn't as impressed by the tunes as the overall presentation, bring 'em on I say....

...and in fact, the first one is a winner. Naked on the Vague is an atmospheric avant-punk male/female synth/drumbox/guitar/vocals duo from Australia, and one of the few Sacred Bones bands I've heard before, thanks to their 2008 full-length on Siltbreeze. I wanted to like that one, and I tried several times, but it just never stuck with me, the old "one ear/other" syndrome. This new 7" on the other hand sticks pretty hard. Side A "Chitty Chat" is a short pounding and arresting rave-up, while Side B "Goodbye Dear Cliche" slows it down and zones it out like something that might've been on Siltbreeze in the 1990s instead of the 2000s, and may have even been called "haunting space rock" in an actual paper zine.

Nice Face's A side here struck me on first listen as yet more inexplicable cheese-intentional synth-wave worship; dance-punky 80s stuff that could almost pass for Ethyl Meatplow or something. Side B, however, is a guitar-heavier hard-driving punk tune that picks things up a good amount, thanks mostly to some truly ripping guitar solos. Still not quite enough to save this one though...



And last but quite the opposite of least, a double 7" in a sweet gatefold sleeve. It's by Timmy's Organism, which is solo recordings by Timmy Vulgar, the lead singer of Detroit cult avant-garage punk band Human Eye. Because of the eccentric wildness of Vulgar's main band, I figured this stuff would surely stand out from the 2000's Blankwash, but to be honest, at first it didn't. It still sounded like one guy in a bedroom with electronic equipment singing in a deep voice kinda like Ian Curtis. However, I think I had just gotten my ears blanked out from listening to all these Sacred Bones records in a row, because on a couple more listens it starts nosing above the pack. Vulgar's got a real singing voice and he writes real lyrics... the distortion on his guitars and bass or whatever is way over the top, nothing timid about it... and all of these records use 'sci-fi' sounds, but Vulgar uses ABSURD sci-fi sounds, the aforementioned over-the-top distortion, constant electro/synth whooshes and whistles that sound genuinely extraterrestrial... his guitar solos sound like space opera laser battles. Anyway, there's five tracks on these two records, and they're all real songs... still not reinventing the wheel but it's a fun listen and the final track "No Hassle" is an excellent driving zone-out rave-up.

And thus, I can recommend 4 of these 7 records. So, despite having the best uniforms in the league, the season has been a little disappointing for Sacred Bones so far. But they shouldn't get too down on themselves; they're still above .500, and with a full schedule still ahead, they might still make the playoffs...

PREVIEW FROM BLASTITUDE #28 (some record reviews)

GROUP DOUEH: Treeg Salaam LP (SUBLIME FREQUENCIES) All of these tracks are archival, recorded between 1989 and 1996, but Hisham Mayet's selection and sequencing and most of all Doueh's constantly swirling blasted guitar playing still threaten to make Treeg Salaam the White Light/White Heat to the first album's Velvet Underground & Nico -- it's a little rougher and jammier, and the B side is even a single 18-minute track. Unfortunately, it's no "Sister Ray," but a rather distantly recorded performance in which Doueh's leads are more buried in the mix than usual. It does grow into a pretty intense and hypnotic track though... as far as the John Cale references go, maybe his production of "We Will Fall" by The Stooges is a better comparison... and Side A seriously rips, with several genuine "and then my mind split open" guitar moments.



LIQUORBALL w/STEVE MACKAY: Evolutionary Squalor LP (ROCKETSHIP) As a big fan of their 90s album Liquorball Fucks The Sky, I'll admit that I had initial concerns with this ten-years-later release. The B&W solarized 'avant jazz' live shot on the cover made me ask, "Do I really wanna hear them ten years later jamming with a guy on sax? Even if it is the guy who played sax on Funhouse?" Well, it turns out that the answer is "Yes, of course I do." This is a recording of an April, 2008 live gig (written about and even titled here) at guitarist Grady Runyon's record store and Liquorball showed up ready, laying down sinuous and mean uptempo hard-driving thug-psych grooves that slide and insinuate in ways that sound like they've spent the last 10 years doing a lot of playing and/or growing, and duh, of course Mackay is great. Just like on Funhouse, he knows that job #1 is to riff with the band, and as such his solos never wear out their welcome, and most importantly he knows how to hang back and blend in. Hell, there's a guest harmonica duel somewhere on side one and even that's okay, and in fact excellent, because the groove kills throughout. No monstrous/hilarious vocals this time, just the sound of tough and confident psych jam burn that is older and wiser, and in the right way.

SOME MORE REVIEWS:

A MIDDLE SEX/TEMPERATURES: Unclean Yawn/Bifurcation split LP (CARNIVALS) Nice to have underknown UK band Temperatures back after being blown away by their edition-of-100 Ymir LP a couple years back... their side here might be even better, just a lurching, grinding mutant 16-minute thing with plenty of rock swagger. This band should be huge... at least with this split LP they're up to an edition of 300. Maybe next one will be 500 and they can reach the Billy Bao fans. A Middle Sex is another UK band, and their shit is cool too... some sort of galloping drum-driven avant-pop whatsis... they pick up the This Heat torch and run with it, but they had so much caffeine and/or LSD that they keep dropping it and staring directly into the sun and/or the pretty swaying trees. Then they remember what they were doing and pick up that torch and run again... but then get sidetracked again by a pleasant stream... and so on... and it all flows much better than that would suggest.

BELUGA: Pet 7" (SELF-RELEASED) Fashionable multi-cultural and presumably metrosexual New Yorkers playing "the brand of lo-fi rock and roll they always wanted to play." In fact, they recorded these two songs in one take in their practice space. They've been compared to the Bangels [sic] and the X-Ray Specs [sic], and while the voice of "their Brazilian front woman Isabel Ibsen" does cut with some real sass, the songs are pretty run-of-the-rockin'-mill. It's appropriate that their one-sheet talks about how the band has drawn "the attention of press and marketing teams alike," listing some of the ad campaigns they've already been featured in (K-Swiss!), because this really does sound like the punk rock you'd hear in a mainstream media commercial.

CHEER-ACCIDENT: Fear Draws Misfortune CD (CUNEIFORM) This Chicago band has been operating for 27 years, in which time they've predated, been associated with, and outlived such regional movements as Chicago No Wave and Chicago Math Rock, all while being nothing less than real-deal modern-day epic pop-prog masters. They were recently the deserving cover stars of Signal to Noise magazine and have signed with a real-deal modern-day prog-rock label, Cuneiform, that has been going as long as they have. Their first record for the label is this one, out now, and it's a good one. No one song stands out, but a suite feel comes through instead, in which interchangeably playful and classically prog-melodic male/female vocal melodies circle and glide over cycling and pounding riffs that have a heavy Magma/Udu Wudu bounce. Fans pick it up now, and for newcomers it's an excellent place to start.

MATHS BALANCE VOLUME: Lower Forms LP (SELF-RELEASED) Finally some wax from these deep underground Mankato MN miscreant tape/electronics/mics/weirdness jammers, self-released, down and dirty, B&W paste-on style. Even better, they've used the 12" format to hone their long-form space-out jamming into weird shorter song-forms. There's seven tracks on here, anyway, and most of them have what just might be an actual lead vocalist, a female one at that. If that's her on the cover along with the two creepy dudes in the window (who I'm assuming are the two dudes in Maths Balance Volume), then I'm really freaked out.

RTFO BANDWAGON: Dums Will Survive LP (DULL KNIFE) My intro to this band, and I didn't know what to expect (lo-fi, Columbus, dare I say shitgaze?)..... but this?? A band that sounds like one or two totally accomplished smart and cutting singer/songwriters with plenty of hooks and a crack backing band from say Nashville circa 1974 that has time-jumped just four or five years forward, just enough to know about The Fall and general post-punk guitar damage? And they only caught a brief glimpse of it, too, a very brief glimpse.... I really don't know what else to say but this LP has invaded my life with it's completely well-done songwriting, casually adept musicianship, and sweet male/female vocals... I mean what's up with "Between the Ears" being such a C&W ballad masterpiece (the pedal steel guitar by Larry Marotta himself certainly helps a lot)? What's up with the stately soul of "Like A Bridge Over Dan Shearer," and the inzayne production on its piano overdubs? What's up with the album ending with like a 7-minute damaged-guitar instrumental reprise of the title track? What's up with the cover, the insert, the "dums" album concept? I don't know, you figure it out, I'll be happy listening...

SUETTA: Olympic Stain (1994-1996) LP (SUMMERSTEPS) Flashback to the Lollapalooza generation and some rural Pennsylvania highschoolers under the influence of Dirty and the dark side of 120 Minutes are bashing out some demos. 15 years later one of the band members puts it on vinyl (1oo copies), and I can see why. This is awkward, rough, and derivative music but it has a wild-eyed youthful born-in-isolation exuberance that most do not achieve. It also has that early-90s Homestead Records indie-rock drug-damage down surprisingly cold, although it's possible that these kids were getting it all second-hand, without actual Homestead Records and maybe even without actual drugs. Side B is a mock live show in a house that the parents had moved out of.... it's not as musically worthwhile as Side A but still has time capsule value.

CHICAGO SHOW REPORT: GAS (Claudia Cassidy Theater and side room, 5/26/09)

You might've read me twittering about the "Wolfgang Voigt plays Gas" performance in Chicago this past Tuesday, May 26, but I thought I'd go ahead and explain it with more than 140 characters for those who, like Mr. Holy Mountain, are saying "I know what you mean but not exactly."

Well, it was a free performance at the Claudia Cassidy Theater, a 294-seat room in the Chicago Cultural Center, a big impressive downtown building. I've seen a few other free shows in this room over the years... some sort of Ken Vandermark big band, a Rob Mazurek big band, an Evan Parker & Joe McPhee duo, Tinariwen... all of the Claudia Cassidy shows are billed as "free show, limited seating," and every time I've been there it's been pretty full. For Tinariwen it was standing room only, and I had been one of the many people standing in the back hugging the wall. I knew I wasn't going to make it to Gas until right at the 7PM starting time because of babysitter scheduling, so I figured I'd be hugging the back wall again. No problem.

However, when I got there, the theater doors were closed and an attendant smoothly motioned me to the right with a simple "Seating is over here, thank you." This brought me into a big high-ceilinged room I'd never been in before, with stacking chairs arranged in rows in front of a jumbo TV screen with speakers on each side. The TV took up about exactly 1/6th of the wall behind it, and sat a good 30 feet in front of it. I wasn't quite sure what was going on... had the event been moved from the Claudia Cassidy to this other room for some reason? Renovation, technical problems, low turnout? Or was it going on in both rooms? Probably, but I wasn't sure... there were maybe 100 people in the room I was in... definitely a low turnout for Voigt's first ever USA performance, but still possible, I guess... the show hadn't exactly been heavily promoted, and I'd certainly been to Chicago shows where the attendance was unpredictably lower than expected. Start time was just a couple minutes away, and Voigt himself walked through the room to polite clapping. He gave a friendly wave and amiably said something to the people sitting in front that I didn't make out, and then walked through a door.

Then an announcer came over the PA and gave the usual long introduction to free shows at the Cultural Center. He didn't say anything about the show being simulcast in two rooms so I still wasn't quite sure what was going on. Now, I had already watched the YouTube above and I knew the visuals were going to be great, and I knew that Gas's music was some of my favorite chilled electronic dream fabric of the last 20 years... no problem there. But the setup just wasn't cutting it. As huge as the TV was, the room was much huger, and what's more, it had five, count 'em, FIVE windows that were a good 40 feet tall. Now these are beautiful windows -- architectural marvels, even -- but the show was starting at 7PM with sunset not until 8:15PM, so to say it wasn't quite dark enough in the room is an understatement. It wasn't loud enough either. There were huge vents blowing air that were just as loud if not louder than the quieter, beatless passages of Voigt's music. So, all the elements were there, but it was sort of like watching the whole thing on Shaquille O'Neal's entertainment center or something, from 50 feet away.

A few quick objective notes about the show: it was 90 minutes of continuous music, with several recognizable Gas classics in the mix, starting heavy on the more ambient Pop side, with the classic Zauberberg and Konigsforst beats coming in eventually, to heavy effect. No surprises really, and none necessary. The visuals, by Petra Hollenbach, were extremely psychedelic, pretty much the last word on the intricacy and patterning of the plant kingdom, lit for full-on acid nightmare fantasy enjoyment, slowly panned and rotated and sequenced in ways that reminded me of the Stargate sequence of 2001, with an overall story-arc sensibility (complete with lighting storm climax) that was like some half-remembered fairy tale with no characters.

So, all the elements were there for an intense, great performance. I knew the main theater room was windowless, with a nice regulation sized movie theater screen, low ceilings, and tight acoustics that could get plenty loud. So surely there was a packed house in there enjoying the show the way it should be, right? And sure enough, when the show ended, the huge connecting doors were opened and there they were, a full and very appreciative house of smiling, standing, and ovating minimal psychedelic techno heads. This was a relief as I'm sure the presentation was awesome in the main room. I know I should've made it a point to come a good 20 minutes early at least. My only wish as a slightly crabby subjective attendee is that the venue had either said, "The main room is full, but we have a second room over here if you'd like to stay," or just not set up the second room at all, turning away all latecomers. I mean, of course it seems like a great gesture by the promoters to set up a second room to accomodate the interested public, and I shouldn't be complaining AT ALL about a free show, duh, but the side-room setup was just not appropriate for Voigt and Hollenbach's immersive and overwhelming aesthetic. I really think it would have been better if the guy had just said, "Sorry, we're full. You slack, you lack." (I just made that up as an alternative to the snooze/lose standard, whaddayathink? You don't have to answer.)

I also think that Voigt should release this shit as GAS - THE MOVIE. Those incredible psychedelic forest visuals in a totally dark theater with a killer sound system, 90 minute running time... talk about a midnight movie classic waiting to happen!

So I was over there at Blastwitude, about to post like 14 twitter-dee-tweets (or whatever you call 'em) in a row and drive everyone crazy, when I thought, hey, why not just post 'em all at once on the blog? So here they are. Keep checking over there for daily stuff but seriously, sometimes a 140 character limit just isn't worth trying... you'll notice I took some liberty with some of these....

DEPECHE MODE: Violator CS (MUTE) I'll admit this sounds more dated & less sci-fi hip than the average Blank Dogster, but real songwriting always wins (which comes especially clear on Side B here - "Enjoy the Silence"/"Policy of Truth"/"Blue Dress"/"Clean", damn)

THE GEORGE-EDWARDS GROUP: 38:38 LP (DRAG CITY) Lite psych private press from 1977 -- sweet sounds but not really feeling the songs

TAMARYN: Led Astray, Washed Ashore LP (TROUBLEMAN) With all the annoying 80s goth pop worship going on these days, why is this 80s goth pop worshipping record kinda knocking me out?

"Hey Man" by Spacemen 3 from Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To -- lest we forget, not many can touch this

Interesting self-quiz: How many Wavves songs can you recall from memory right now? Me = zero.

Okay, how many Blank Dogs songs? Me = zero. (Rule: you have to have listened at least 3 separate times.)

LULACRUZA & MJ GREENMOUNTAIN: Soloina CD (UJI MUSIC) Tropicalia/electronica/psych/pop mixing lotsa South American folk instruments w/laptoppery & chanteuse to mild bland effect

TELEPHONE CALLERS s/t CS (NO LABEL) Way-long messy tape of like 40 thrashing crumbling weird punk miniatures from Ann Arbor -- shows promise, would check out a 7"

EMERALDS: What Happened? CD (NO FUN) OK record but I feel like these guys are loosening the tight grip they initially had on generating phantom reflections of bliss cathedrals & now letting in occasional mild wishy-washy 'noise' and 'drone' moves for peers

EMERALDS: Fresh Air 7" (SOUNDESIGN) No noise capitulation here, just 10 min of classic cosmic arpeggiations - nice record - $11 though?

PAPA M: Live From A Shark Cage 2LP (DRAG CITY) Ah 1999... pre-internet... post-rock... a generation discovers Fahey & minimalism... bland masterpiece

WOODS: Songs of Shame CD (SHRIMPER/WOODSIST) Judging from Z Gun #3 review of Family Creeps this band's high vocals & general beardisms are TermBro kryptonite and this one is in fact twee-er than that but I like this band, another good album

MAGIK MARKERS: Balf Quarry LP/CD (DRAG CITY) Drag City debut, another in the bold psych/garage/song style of Boss

@brianhcollins What I meant by "70s/80s stuff from Thailand" is that 70s Thai Orchestra is not from the 70s nor Thailand - there's only one Thai band not from Thailand I really like so far and it's Neung Phak

V/A: Hardcore Amerika CD (http://bit.ly/19Wmdw) - pretty harsh 2001 comp of lesser-known early/mid-80s hardcore, listened to 2 of the 13 bands tonight: Detention from Trenton, NJ are odd, harsh & raging but also musical, political, and even theatrical... Psycho from Boston on the other hand are more psycho, just a little too poppy and tight to be considered part of the Void strain, but they do rip, very fast & mean -- they put out their first record in '83 but are somewhat forgotten due to a) dumb lyrics, b) not being part of Boston Crew, & c) worst of all, later going death metal and doing splits with Anal Cunt and the Meat Shits.

ZOLA JESUS: New Amsterdam CDR (SACRED BONES) Have been unsure (of both artist and label) but I like this - heavy music, primal soul singing (I think I like the Tamaryn record better though)

"HEAVY"

From the excellent Vinyl Underbite blog, this is a crucial piece of music thinking that sums up so much about the shortcomings of today's 'lo-fi', 'psychedelic', seemingly 99% of new metal, anything described as 'stoner', and the list goes on:

"At some point in my salad days I figured out that just turning on distortion and volume does not alone make music 'heavy'; weight comes from the spaces between the notes, the timings, and that which cannot by automated. I think 'Syntelman's March of the Roaring Seventies' [from Dance of the Lemmings by Amon Duul II] taught me the same thing about psychedelic music. It's positively barren and sparse when compared to today's hordes of knob-turning noise kiddies, but more 10th dimensional and mindbending than most 'psychedelic' dross."



I was just majorly feeling this while listening to the Moon Blood album by Fraction. And of course there are lots of other examples. It's why a Neil Young solo acoustic ballad is heavier than every riff-challenged wash-of-sound black metal record that came out last month. Or, to include a louder example, take Dopesmoker by Sleep; sure, the amp settings are heavy, but what really makes the riffing, which is often one repeating note, ludicrously heavy is the timing of the hits....

And I think it all has something to do with these two statements which have been rolling over in my mind for awhile because of the similarities:

#1
Q: What makes the music so hard to play?
A: If you ain't interested in it and you ain't faithful in it, you ain't hittin' on nothin'. You got to have that in here. (points to his heart) You got to be faithful and honest in music, and everybody can't play. They can do somethin', but they don't be makin' no music.

#2
No matter how low the technical level of some of the harder music is - and many times it sure is - it is nearly impossible to play convincingly to audiences if one doesn't live, breathe, and understand it, if it isn't rooted in one's very blood. Because hard music lives so much from primitive instincts of power - from guts - it is hard for an outsider to really master it mentally and physically, no matter how talented and willing that outsider might be.

#1 is from an interview with the late Otha Turner by Adam Lore, published in 50 Miles of Elbow Room #2 (2002). The music they're talking about is fife and drum music, a disappearing regional southern style of black music. Turner is from Mississippi and if interested check out the 1998 CD Everybody Hollerin' Goat on Birdman Records.

#2 is from Ian Christe's 2003 history of heavy metal Sound of the Beast -- the speaker is Thomas G. Warrior of Celtic Frost, talking about his first band Hellhammer. If interested check out their Demon Entrails archival release.

Nice little playlist tonight, while making Swiss Chard and Onions.... and then eating Swiss Chard and Onions... and then cleaning up after Swiss Chard and Onions... and then laying on the floor staring at the ceiling while meditating on the wholeness that is Swiss Chard and Onions....

Richard Ramirez & MSBR Negative/Offensive (A Tribute to the New Blockaders) LP (ECSTATIC PEACE) Side A is perfect for making Swiss Chard and Onions, seriously.
Current Amnesia Shadows of the Estate CDR (LEAF LEAF) Another good one by this dream-tone ambient not-noise artist - edition of 30, check here or here I guess, it's not listed yet.
David Ackles Subway To The Country (coworker laid a CDR on me of this dude's 1970s downbeat orchestral rock and it wasn't American Gothic aka "the one most people know" aka "the first album Greg Ginn ever owned"... weird stuff... I think it's good and epic but not in a way that I really enjoy while it's on)
Eat Skull Wild & Inside CD (SILTBREEZE) Ah, nice to get back to this after 2-3 days off. Sounds especially rich and varied coming after that David Ackles!
Oren Ambarchi Grapes From The Estate (TOUCH) Speaking of stuff "from" or "of" an estate and "dream-tone ambient not-noise," wow -- I've really never heard Ambarchi's solo stuff and I thought this 2004 album would be deep guitar drone or something like that -- instead it's a collection of four chilling/beautiful electronic mood epics.
Mammal Distant Days CS (IDES) Like a sketchbook for Lonesome Drifter and in many places just as good...

• 3 pound organic green Swiss chard (about 2 large bunches)
• 2 tablespoons organic extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons organic grass-fed unsalted butter
• 2 medium organic onions, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
• 2 to 4 organic garlic cloves, finely chopped
• salt & pepper
• other spices optional
  

Wash chard then pull leaves from center rib & stem. Chop stems and ribs crosswise into bite-size pieces. Stack chard leaves and roll lengthwise into cylinders. Cut cylinders crosswise to make 1-inch-wide strips.

Heat oil and butter in a large heavy pot over medium heat until foam subsides, then cook onions and garlic with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper, covered, stirring occasionally, until onions begin to soften, about 8 minutes.

Add chard stems and ribs, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper (as well as 1/4 teaspoon any optional spices if you'd like, still delicious without) and cook, covered, stirring occasionally. Add chard leaves in batches, stirring until wilted before adding next batch, and cook, covered, stirring occasionally, until all are just wilted (a little crunchy is good).

Good mail haul when I got back to HQ today:



Eat Skull Wild and Inside CD (Siltbreeze)
Various Artists Shiftless Decay: New Sounds Of Detroit LP (X!)
Rob Mazurek Quintet Sound Is CD (Delmark)
package of six discs from Majmua Music
new cassette and CDR by Current Amnesia

I hope to write about all of this stuff sooner or later of course, but right now I'm listening to the new Eat Skull album for the third time today and it's great. I liked their first LP when it came out, and still think it's better than a lot of its contemporaries, but it hasn't shown a lot of staying power... already Wild and Inside sounds two or three times as good, really a quantum leap. Yes, they are taking steps away from lo-fi, with playing and recording aesthetics that are cleaner and more dynamic, but that alone doesn't guarantee better music -- like a certain Mr. Horseshit has already reminded us, you can't just turn down the distorto without tuning up the songwriting first. I think that's why someone like Wavves will probably never really be able to turn down, because he doesn't seem to have the actual quieter songwriting moves that are required to pull it off. And "quieter" doesn't simply mean quiet, because there's a whole lot of new room to move and dynamics to negotiate if you get even 20% quieter than the oppressive wall-of-static these lofi/shitgaze/whatever artists get stuck behind. Eat Skull isn't afraid of this new territory at all and in fact have plenty to say with it. Sure, they still spend some of this album in the 80-100% volume range, with a few upbeat skiffly and somewhat Beatlesque numbers like "Cooking A Way To Be Happy," and a couple obvious ragers like the overt hardcore nod that is "Nuke Mecca," but it's when they get into the 40-80% range that the album really shines and glows with a winsome but heavy melancholic dream-pop folk-punk genius that takes great words and melodies and swirls them into earned colors like Misfits black'n'blue, Flying Nun/Xpressway grey, and the Hospitals' technicolor wind-tunnel brown (coupla Eat Skullers play on Hairdryer Peace but you probably already know that). And then there's a stunner like the particularly quiet "Talkin' Bro In The Wall Blues," which may get compared to the Blank Dogs with its synthetic drumbeat and lost bedroom feel, but as cool as the Blank Dogs can sound, I always get the uneasy feeling that if his drum-machine got shut off, or his vocal FX got unplugged, he wouldn't be able to continue the song. "Talkin' Bro" is so much more than a drum program with cool/empty sounds layered on top -- it's got true melody, real words, depth, space, and varied colors. And it's not even the best downtempo song on the album -- that would be "Dawn In The Face," with a great melody and perfect female backing vocals. Seriously, this is the best cave pop album I've heard yet in the 2000s, and I think you should check it out.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Also bought these at Reckless on Saturday:
Kurt Vile Constant Hitmaker LP (Woodsist) Finally!
No Doctors Hunting Season LP (Cock Of The Rock) This album seriously rips and apparently no one else wanted it for $3.99.
Disappears Old Friends 7" (Disappears) Not bad, Side B is a 4 minute number that exhibits some of the extendo-potential that made their live cassette on Plus Tapes a good one.