EARLY PREVIEW FROM BLASTITUDE #27:

D: Alright, I guess we can do D&D. I don't know if you can tear me away from this Souled American though...
D: Oh, you're getting into it now?
D: Oh man, yes. It has completely clicked. I've been listening to Fe, their first album, and this one, Around the Horn, which is I think their third... I mean, I listened to Fe twice last night, and once tonight.... Around the Horn both nights...
D: This sounds great.
D: Oh, this is one of their very best songs, it's called "Second of All."
D: It's so sweet and sad.
D: Now listen, you have to listen to these albums a couple times at least before you even begin to maybe like it. They are a completely off-putting band at first. And I have to be honest, it was an essay on them in the new Believer mag, the music issue, that turned me around. It wasn't even the greatest essay, I mean it was littered with Believer speak...
D: Like what?
D: Well, let's just pull it off the shelf here and I'll read you an example... are you recording?
D: Why yes I am.
D: Alright, this is all going in. (Thumbs through magazine.) Actually, this is really a fine essay. I can't knock it. I mean, there is a certain post-Dave Eggers preciousness about it... like this stuff: "Using an approximate calculus that accounts for current mood and desired mood, I pick an album. Whatever I decide, I decide this: to listen to Souled American." But really, I can't knock it, it states its case really well. He recognizes the exact things that were bothering me about the band, and articulates them really well, and then explains why the band is great anyway. It really worked.
D: Well, this is sounding great to me right now. I have heard them, like one other time, and yeah, it didn't click.
D: Like I said, you definitely have to listen at least three times before you'll even begin to like it. It may take longer than that - the writer of this essay says he's STILL not even sure if he likes them. Anyway.... I think we can start shuffling. Listen to this bass player though, he is absolutely sick.
D: Yeah, I had noticed him a little bit. Totally strange.
D: Yeah, he's incredibly good though. He kind of just clumsily dances around these songs and keeps them totally fired up and in the moment. Plus he kind of lays these weird chord suspensions down from time to time, in a more jagged Phil Lesh kind of way. He never lets the songs become just country songs. He never lets it be Uncle Tupelo. I don't think they would be anyway, the way the guys sing. I think that's the real acquired taste. But it's actually stopped bothering me. We can start shuffling, though.
D: Alright, here goes...........

D: Speaking of Phil Lesh.
D: Man, why does it always go to the Grateful Dead when we're doing D&D?
D: Because you love them.
D: Yeah, I guess it might be because I have 24 complete shows on here and like 16 album releases. Almost four days worth of back-to-back no-repeat Grateful Dead....
D: That's insane.
D: I'm not even gonna say one word to defend it. Anyway we've got a "Bird Song" here, one of their greatest songs.... not sure yet if this is a great performance... sound is a little distant. I'm guessing this is from....... that's Keith on piano.... how about a '77 show?
D: Looks like '72.
D: Okay, okay... oh, is this that Veneta, Oregon show?
D: Yes it is.
D: Alright, I've been warming up to this show... there's quite a bit of lore about it... it was an outdoor show at like Ken Kesey's cousin's farm in Oregon, I think it was a benefit for something, and they made this crude film of it, their first attempt to make the Grateful Dead Movie, basically... it's called Sunshine Daydream and there's some clips on YouTube. The movie is like 63 minutes long and it's never been released, and looks pretty damn good... good live footage, hippies running around in a field, and some footage of Neil Cassady driving the Merry Pranksters bus, with "I Know You Rider" in the background. Pretty sweet....
D: These are our real American icons.
D: Oh fuck you. Anyway, it was like 100 degrees that day so it was kind of a rough show, not musically rough, but everything else.... also one of the last shows where all members were on acid while playing.
D: I still don't understand how they were able to do that.
D: I think they were just so familiar with their own music, and also familiar with not just how to play it, but how to actually use it as a safety zone while tripping. But yeah, I think they were pretty much over it by '72. But man, this song is such a momentum-kill to start a D&D session with. I mean, this is like 12 minutes long, and it's lovely, and mellow, and now I just want to lay back and listen to this all night. But shuffle on we must.......

Oh lord, this is "The Needle and the Damage Done," the Harvest version even... I mean, couldn't this at least be a version from some weird stoned bootleg? I've got over 1000 albums on this thing, we're here to check out the obscure stuff!
D: You probably don't actually have any obscure stuff. And this sounds awesome.
D: Well of course it does. I was just kidding about the obscure stuff.... nothing's obscure anymore. The only time something is obscure is if nobody wants it.

Okay, this is gamelan music from Music From The Morning Of The World. [Track: "Gamelan Anklung: Margepati"] Still not digging very deep there, Mr. iPod. But, this is one of my favorite albums that I own. One of my first serious 'world music' finds. I wanted some gamelan music just from reading about it, because like John Cage and then the Sun City Girls were into it, and this was the album I found in the world music section, original vinyl, cheap. Turns out to be a real classic of the genre. This was actually the first release on the Nonesuch Explorer label, in like 1968. Such alien music.
D: Yeah, the sense of time and rhythm, the way it speeds up and slows down...
D: Incredible. And of course the sonorities, the harmonies, the way the melodies move... it's almost like science-fiction theremin music rearranged for.... whatever it is they're playing it on... I mean I hear all the bells of course but there are other higher tones that sort of float in between the bell hits, and they don't sound like they have the bell attack... almost like a flute tone or something... you hear what I mean?
D: Oh yeah, I hear it. I just think it's total mystery music.

D: OH GOD, this is good. Oh yeah, this is Velvet Underground, my god.... is this on Loaded, or is this an outtake? "Oh Sweet Nothin".....
D: I think this was the last song on the Loaded LP. It's like 7 or 8 minutes long.
D: It's so good. It's actually making me think of Souled American a little bit, this kind of slow and streched-out country style, but.... this is so much smoother and prettier.
D: While still being just as sweetly sad.
D: I think so. When Lou sang like that it was just so sweet... or god, is this Doug Yule? I'm never sure. Like, that can't be Moe Tucker on drums... too much cymbal and hi-hat.
D: Can't be. Just a second.... [googling] Oh hey, says here, "Moe Tucker was pregnant, and Yule's brother Billy sat in on drums for most of the sessions."
D: I'm pretty sure I knew that. I've known it a few different times.
D: It also says, "Doug Yule ended up recording many of the vocals in the final mix." Let's see... [more surfing].... yep, Wikipedia says that Yule sang on "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'."
D: Well there you go. Bravo, Mr. Yule......

Okay, now we're in 'treated field recording sound collage' land. Immersion style. I don't think this is Sublime Frequencies though.... that bird sound is mad annoying.... it might not be part of the original field recording.... oh shit, it's over! And right into "Chameleon" [by Herbie Hancock]! The iPod is really playing the hits tonight.... so who was that field recording? "Chameleon" is sounding tight as hell, by the way. Who played drums on this album?
D: Was it Lenny White?
D: I don't think so...
D: [Wiki-ing] I guess it was... Harvey Mason.
D: I don't even know who that is. But he is the drummer on the best-selling jazz album of all time!
D: Anyway, back to the lecture at hand, who was that previous track by....
D: Yeah, the field recording thing....
D: Well, it wasn't quite Sublime Frequencies, but it was Sun City Girls! [track plays again]
D: Oh really? Proto-Sublime Frequencies....
D: Title is "Bamboo Gazebo Arousal," and it's from Sumatran Electric Chair.
D: I was gonna guess that. I really like that album. It's one of Alan Bishop's favorites too. And those bird sounds are real, of course.......

Okay, now we're in bootleg land... or maybe this is the Tower Recordings or something.... oh, never mind, this is Alistair Galbraith. From a very recent live thing he put out, obviously a lo-fi recording, sounds good though, he's cutting through just fine. I've never heard him like this, with no overdubs, no 4-track trickery. Oh wow, it's over... I guess that was a trick. The way he truncates his songs on tape, I guess he does it live too.

And this next thing sounds like FREE FOLK. Hmm. Really not sure who it is. Goofy sounds. Old-timey sounds. It's kinda waltzy. [Singing starts.] Oh man, this is really quirky. This is practically Elephant 6. But not quite, there's something a little more laid back about it. Oh, he's singing "I hear a new world calling me..." Is this a Joe Meek song?
D: I don't know...
D: This is probably Magical, Beautiful, covering a Joe Meek song...
D: It is Magical, Beautiful, you are correct.
D: This is pretty impressive. It's got that woozy Magical, Beautiful feeling. The slide guitar and stuff like that. Okay, we've got this damn iPod, time to put it to use... jump to the artist Joe Meek and see if we can hear the original. I know I have it on here.
D: Coming up right........now.
D: Oh wow. This is super weird.
D: Insane.
D: Literally! I was just reading about Joe Meek, and I didn't know any of that stuff, how he like, I don't know, killed his neighbor or something?
D: Whoah, I didn't know that.
D: He did, he freaked out and killed some innocent stranger and then killed himself I think.
D: Let's see... [Wiki strikes again].... yep, in 1967, at age 37, he used a shotgun to kill his landlady and then killed himself.
D: Sigh. Well, the Magical, Beautiful version was pretty cool.
D: Yeah, it's actually a more fleshed-out version.
D: Yeah, Meek's version is amazing but it's kind of all sound effects. What's this, just the next song on the Meek album?
D: Yeah, it's called "Orbit Around The Moon."
D: I like the surf stuff.
D: Yeah, well his biggest hit was "Telstar" by The Tornadoes... or was it "Tornado" by The Telstars? [wiki wiki wiki wiki] Okay, it's "Telstar" by The Tornadoes.
D: That's gotta be surf.
D: Yeah, there's a link here on the Wikipedia page for you to listen to a snippet of the song, but I can't get it to work. It's an "ogg" file.
D: Yeah, I don't mess around with those. At least not yet. I finally messed around with a FLAC the other day. That was kinda silly. "CD quality!"
D: I thought CDs were supposed to suck, man....
D: Totally! I love it when I see an album ripped at like 120.... it's like some full-length deluxe CD reissue with bonus tracks, and the whole thing is like 39 megs. Alright, this is pretty rad, but let's get back to shuffle here.... adios, crazy Joe Meek....
D: Yeah, I think "Entry of the Globbots" is a good track to go out on...
D: Wow, listen to those chipmunks chattering....
D: Yeah, I mean.... you know, nothing but respect for the victim and her family, but... [points to speaker] didn't they hear the warning signs??

D: Oh great, you shuffled me to some classical music. I love this stuff at work, or at home with the family, but dammit, NOT FOR D&D! It's like, "Alright Blastitude readers, check out this latest obscure break-out underground artist, his name is.... J.S. Bach!!"
D: Actually this is Chopin.
D: I coulda probably guessed that right. Fred Chopin. Hey, guess what, it's beautiful.
D: For the record, this is one of the Nocturnes. Opus 9, Number 3.
D: Listen to you!
D: I care deeply.
D: Next...

D: Oh, you'll like this.
D: Sounds like the Dead doing "Morning Dew."
D: Ha ha, exactly.
D: It is the Dead?
D: No, but that's why you'll like it.
D: This is really nice. Great singer. This isn't from Chile or Argentina or something, is it?
D: Um, it is from the Southern Hemisphere.
D: Oh, is this..... Amanaz?
D: Yes.
D: Oh god, this is a wonderful album. I think it's gonna ruin all the other 70s African psych reissues for me. I already couldn't get into the Witch album after hearing this first. Are they singing "Sunday Morning"?
D: Yep, that's the title.
D: See, I was just thinking how this sounded a little like Doug Yule-era Velvet Underground, specifically that "New Age" song off Loaded, the one that goes "Can I have your autograph?"
D: "He said to the fat blond actress...."
D: Exactly. I think they might've modeled this song on it a little bit.
D: Well they did name the song after a VU song...
D: Oh wait, do you think they were actually influenced by the Velvet Underground? Like they were listening to the banana album over there?
D: Of course it's possible....
D: Yeah, but on like cassettes or something? Was Verve or Polydor or whoever making cassettes in the early 1970s? I mean, I'm thinking of the Group Doueh story, how he only heard Hendrix via cassettes manufactured in and imported from Spain or something like that....
D: The more I think about it, I don't know.... I think the "Sunday Morning" thing is just a coincidence. I mean, hardly anyone in the USA was listening to VU, how could it have made it to Africa?
D: Well you know what they say, only two people in Africa heard the Velvet Underground, and they both started a band!
D: They were both in Amanaz!
D: Wiki THAT, my man.
D: I bet I won't figure anything out. "No page titled Amanaz."
D: Hm. Google "Amanaz + Velvet Underground."
D: Nothing but "CD Now" ads.

D: This is Kurt Vile, another fantastic dusted ballad from the Constant Hitmaker album. "Everyone that I know/Talks to me way too slow/I lose track of what they say/Before they walk away." Skip Spence worthy, right there. Let's just stop recording and listen to this shit.

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

OTHER RECENT NOTABLES:
Bathory (first six albums, especially The Return... and Hammerheart)
Sex Vid Nests 7" (and live)
Box Elders 7" (best "sent a letter to my baby"/"got a letter from my baby" hook in years)
Hearts of Animals 7" (I was gonna say "dream pop" but there's no genre to describe this music yet - I mean what about that driving drum machine?)
Muslimgauze Jaahgeed Zarb CD (slammin!)
Zbiegnew Karkowsi & Damion Romero 6 Before 6 CD
Helena Espvall & Masaki Batoh s/t CD
Caboladies Body Tides CDR
Warmer Milks Soft Walks CD
The Fun Years Baby It's Cold Inside CD
Vivian Girls LP (great!)
Radio Thailand 2CD
Radio Myanmar CD (all Sublime Frequencies always)
I've got all my Butthole Surfers LPs out again
Fabulous Diamonds LP (one of the very best of all the new Siltbreeze)
These Are Powers Taro Tarot EP (some bold new ground)
the new Grouper LP Dragging a Dead Deer up the Hill is pretty much perfect

Hey, one more thing, I'm heading to an 'undisclosed location' (code name: grandma's house) where there will be no working computer or cell phone. I won't be back for like 9 days, just in case you check this thing more often than that... some good listening tonight: I pulled out this 12" single I forgot I had on the Skam label and it was great proto-dubstep or something from 1998 - still have no idea how to classify post-90s techno, I just like what I like - after the obligatory 10 minutes of internet research I figured out that the artist is Gescom, which is an umbrella name for about 20 revolving people that work together from time to time, including the guys from Autechre. Then I read a little more and realized that the "remixed by Ae" credit that appears on most of these tracks (such as the great "Viral Rival" remix) is actually Autechre themselves, so I was like, "Oh yeah, this is basically an Autechre 12" from 10 years ago, no wonder it's so good, and no wonder I had it filed where 'Autechre' would be." See, I had figured all this out years ago and completely forgotten it.... A friend gave me a copy of the Christina Carter Bastard Wing LP from a few years back and I finally put it on tonight. It's solo piano and voice recordings from 1995, not released until 2003 because it took so long to find someone who could mix & master the rough tapes into something usable. I can see why they made the effort because the music is kinda something else, soaring solo-void free-form soul music, especially the long track and album centerpiece on side two, "Quiet Love." The B&W Siltbreeze-style graphics give me nostalgia for 1995 too. Also listened to a couple Billy Bao things on the iPod, the Fuck Separation LP (10 tracks clocking in at exactly 3 minutes each) (CORRECTION: I'm talking about the Dialectics of Shit LP on the Parts Unknown label - Fuck Separation is the 10" on S-S Records, now sold out at source) and its companion piece the Accumulation 7" (10 tracks clocking in at exactly 1 minute each). The full-length is one of my favorites of the year so far. They absolutely pummel in a way that made us all realize that the AmRep revival had been there all along, right in front of our faces (see also Z Gun #2), and call me crazy but the hardcore academic rigor applied to the whole thing really works, takes it to another level completely, the timing of the tracks, the rigorously applied pseudo surface noise (watch out if you're listening on headphones), the killer graphics, the dubious but provocative back story, the whole package. People who like punk but don't like noise might be a little frustrated by these records, but if you like both, both are very good (that guy Mattin is behind all this and he's already shown that he knows what he's doing on the noise front). Oh hey, guess what, I've gotta go load up the car, so we'll see ya next week...

Hey, Mikey Milks is having a festival at his house next weekend:

Paranormal Over Time Festival July 11-13 Mulberry Farm Garrison, Kentucke

Featuring music by:
Afternoon Penis
Brother Bell
Caboladies
Caves
Child Bride
Eyes and Arms of Smoke
Daniel Higgs
Kraken Fury
Lexie Mountain
Jason Schuler
Shakey
Warmer Milks

+ more or less tba

This festival is RSVP ONLY. Go to Tombstone Gravy for all information.

The new Warmer Milks album Soft Walks has been in the CD player a lot over the last month but I haven't really figured out what to say about it. A few days ago I did write this: "In a career filled with weird turns and exquisitely gross musical decisions, Warmer Milks have gone and taken one of the grossest weird turns possible with their new album Soft Walks: they've made a lush orchestral southern rock magnum opus. This thing is totally serious, filled with weird but well-written songs that are meticulously arranged and orchestrated and recorded. It's also their first of what looks to be a few releases with Animal Disguise, a good home for them. AD calls WM 'a unique blend of southern rock, improv and modern confusion,' and that description, however succinct, describes the nooks and crannies of this album better than anything I've thought of so far. See what you think."



Tonight I've been listening mostly to Dante's Disneyland Inferno, putting up more lyrics for the Sun City Girls lyrics archive. I'm finally almost done with the Dante's portion - it's only taken me four years. (Thanks again to reader 3dsunglasses for starting things back up.) I've had the album for 12 years now, ever since it was released, and it still sounds amazing. To this very day I'm hearing things in it I had never noticed or thought about before.

Usputuspud Disco CS
Crank Sturgeon Onager Sass CS
Bruce Springsteen Nebraska
The Fugees The Score

The Usputuspud tape is on the Caligulan Records label (which I've posted about before, use that handy search function up there), and it's "the solo endeavor of Matt Rogers, guitarist of Crucial Blast and [oops, torn press sheet]rdo's Wildildlife." That doesn't mean much but the terse next line, "It's all harmonica," pretty much guaranteed that I would listen (that and Caligulan's suave packaging). Not that "all harmonica" meant that it would be good, in fact, I listened more to just see how bad it could be. But you know what? It's good. Very good, in fact. The harmonica is slowed down and stretched out and overdubbed and stacked up until it gets louder and thicker and heavier and becomes some cosmic railroad-in-your-bedroom-closet type shit. Seriously, check it out. The Crank Sturgeon tape is on a new-to-me label called Cryptic Carousel. Let me tell you, I haven't listened to Crank Sturgeon in years, and there was something so instantly comforting about putting his tape on and realizing all over again that no one else drags an overamped contact mic through "tape, junk, voice & squawkbox" quite like he does. A sound as recognizable as Hendrix playing guitar.

Hey there - just added a few more posts from (yikes) back in April, with more to come - these will all be appearing below the Bishop Bros. post so be sure to scroll past it if you're looking for updates. Also, over at blastitude.com I've finally updated the EVENTS page and, thanks to reader 3dsunglasses, there have been some updates at The (Unofficial) Sun City Girls Lyrics Archive - check out Box of Chameleons and Dante's Disneyland Inferno for starters...

Alan & Richard Bishop are The Brothers Unconnected, a Tribute to the Music of Sun City Girls and Charles Gocher, and they played the Lakeshore Theater in Chicago, IL on Saturday, June 14. As announced, instead of an opening act the show started with a 40-minute collection of Gocher's film/video stuff called The Handsome Stranger, various vignettes and interiors and uncategorizables, some stuff that I think we've seen before on the VHS series and a lot of new-to-the-public stuff too, the morbidly hilarious head-shot readings, lip-syncings, next-level video experiments, the awesome throwdown version of "Let's Pretend" that was indeed released on the Halcyon Days of Symmetry VHS, and more. It was a fine tribute to the man in and of itself, and then Alan and Rick came out dressed to the nines and sat down with acoustic guitars next to an urn of Charlie's ashes, in front of the great image of Gocher with polaroid that you can see here, and proceeded to play two sets of music. The first was heavy on the songs with words, most from "the book of Gocher," while the second was heavier on instrumental and mostly-instrumental classics, and as intense as the Gocher songs were, the instrumental stuff was perhaps an even greater revelation. It's always been a daring body of work, the combination of non-Occidental melodies and raw American music and a whole lotta guts, but these songs in particular have most often been filtered through a punk/hardcore aesthetic and a loud guitar/bass/drums lineup. Tonight we heard them filtered through an acoustic blues/folk aesthetic by two great guitarists, simple as that, and it was stunning, with Alan more than holding his own with Sir Richard (even though he played the whole first set with just 4 strings... he broke strings during both sets with his serious right-hand technique). I won't tell you everything they played but here's some highlights: "Black Weather Shoes" (even slower than the Grotto of Miracles version, heavy and bleak), "Book of Revelations" (one of the most serious moments of the night - Alan played the music alone with the utmost implacability while Rick did the singing, channeling Charlie right down to the last spittled roar and harsh whisper of his epic vocal, read the lyrics here to get an idea), "Rodent With A View" (a short little gem about harsh food chain reality from Box of Chameleons which got a stunning epic treatment here, one of the best songs of the night), "Eyeball In A Quart Jar Of Snot" (how about that 'walking bass' playing by Alan on the low strings of his guitar, holding the thing in ridiculous poses and making faces while pulling off the most absurd flowing 'changes' underneath Rick's jazz chords and further expert Gocher channelization), "Bitter Cold Countryside" ("this is a song about hangin' a preacher"), "Nyne De Gris Sang" (another revelation in this book of revelations, coming off like some crazy fuzzy manic 60s global pop nugget from some out-of-print a-go-go compilation), regular set closer "Space Prophet Dogon" (totally beautiful with an intense outro/coda that seemed new to me, I'll have to go back and listen to the LP versions for the hundredth time, maybe it's been there all along)... that's maybe one third of what they played. The music was great but I gotta say the venue was a little off... while it wasn't NOT cool to see them in a seating-only theater (because, you know, they are fearless individuals who can work any situation), I think these guys ultimately work best in a setting where people are standing and moving around, the phenomenon that Gocher classically described as "like an ocean-herd, warm waves moving through cold waves of water." When they were playing as a trio in a rowdy club, everything was so multidirectional - there were the three minds of the band, each of which could take things in several different directions, often simultaneously, and all these energies were going from various places on the stage out to various places in the audience, and then from all kinds of varied audience members back to the band, and so on, until so many different currents and eddies and feedback loops were swirling around the room that, trust me, it was a serious drug experience without any drugs necessary. At the Lakeshore Theater the feedback loop was mostly closed (and no, I don't blame it all on the famously cool Chicago audiences because the last two SCG shows here, 2002 and 2004 at the Empty Bottle, were very rowdy multidirectional affairs) but even as a unidirectional musical presentation (you know, like 98% of all shows and concerts) I would highly recommend it, to both long-time fans and curious newcomers. And, there's still a few weeks left of the tour, with a lot of different audiences and venues and directions sure to come...

Here's the remaining dates:

6.19.08 - Cambridge, MA - The Brattle Theater
6.20.08 - Portland, ME - SPACE
6.21.08 - Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda's
6.22.08 - New York , NY - Knitting Factory
6.24.08 - Pittsburgh, PA - Andy Warhol Gallery
6.25.08 - Washington, D.C. - Black Cat
6.26.08 - Asheville, NC - Grey Eagle
6.27.08 - Atlanta, GA - The E.A.R.L.
6.28.08 - Chattanooga, TN - Barking Legs Theater
6.29.08 - Memphis, TN - Odessa
6.30.08 - New Orleans, LA - One Eyed Jack's
7.02.08 - Austin, TX - Emo's
7.03.08 - Dallas, TX - Granada Theater
7.05.08 - Tucson, AZ - Club Congress
7.06.08 - San Diego, CA - Bar Pink Elephant
7.09.08 - Santa Cruz, CA - TBA
7.10.08 - TBA

7.11.08 - TBA
7.12.08 - TBA

New issue #26 is finally up. Tony Rettman interview with bIG fLAME, reviews by R. Queequeg, and the usual questionable stuff from yours truly. Check it out RIGHT HERE. Hopefully in about 6 months we'll have another one... in the meantime keep checking back here at the blogspot for more frequent posts... Today I listened to "Sam Stone" by Swamp Dogg about 7 times. Why didn't anyone ever tell me this was the heaviest song of all time?

In case you were wondering, I am currently 35 posts behind on this blog. I just counted 'em. These posts range from April 7th all the way up to earlier today, and all are currently in various stages of completion, none finished. Stay tuned, I really think they'll all be posted eventually, here and there in flurries. I'll always be behind but I'll (probably) never stop.

In the meantime, believe it or not, the main site at blastitude.com will be updated very soon. We've been working on a new issue (#26) off and on for some time and it's looking like it will finally be up by.... let's see, how about.... this coming Monday, June 2 or whatever. I'm almost sure of it...

Black Flag In My Head
Magical, Beautiful The Right Rock b/w Wings in the Sky CD
The Green Knight The Eternal OM CS
Espers The Weed Tree
Led Zeppelin Houses of the Holy

First time I've ever heard In My Head - what a weird album. Joe Carducci calls it "a masterpiece" in Enter Naomi. I don't think I'll go that far, but even just writing about it now I'm feeling drawn back to how the songs kind of slowly ooze out via Greg Ginn's bizarre prog guitar logic, and how Rollins's vocals are buried in the mix like a dream taking place in the next room. Even if the individual songs don't stick the overall sound certainly does... I'll spend more time with this one, I'm sure... Magical, Beautiful has released a new three-song CD EP called The Right Rock on his/their own I Hear A New World label. Apparently the whole thing was conceived and written while M,B main-man T. Thurston was on a family Caribbean cruise, fueled by the endless waves and complimentary mojitos. So, we get a tuneful and wordy white-guy island lilt that immediately made me think of Van Dyke Parks's Discover America but that notion was just as quickly confounded by long stark electronic instrumental passages. Quick and intriguing sui generis listen, I've spun it three times today. The Green Knight thing is a cassette on the Thor's Rubber Hammer label and I can't recall too much about it other than it being fair-to-middling power-drug-drone.

Jim Collins Music Performed By The High Mass
Terry Rojvi
C.C. Live at Rainbow's End
Boots s/t
Snake & Remus No Tape Outside
Reality 86'd on YouTube
Chuck Dukowski interview at Perfect Sound Forever
Chuck Dukowski Sextet MySpace page

Listened through five albums I know of by the Chicago mystery unit that goes by many names (Jim Collins aka Terry aka CC aka Boots aka Snake & Remus aka Tommy Roundtree aka Arian Sample aka probably more). All of these are worth a look - morbid, grim, melancholy psych-folk textures abound - but the more I listen I really think only two of 'em are in near-masterpiece consideration: the Snake & Remus album (available only in a box set from the HP Cycle label that also includes the CC and Boots LPs, which aren't bad) and the Terry album Rovji. Your mileage may vary, and in many ways the Tommy Roundtree Jungle Blood LP is the most memorable of all....



Reading and re-reading Carducci's Enter Naomi has got me going back through all the key Black Flag texts, and one of the biggest finds the book mentions is Reality 86'd. This is Dave Markey's Super 8 documentary of the 1986 Black Flag/Gone/Painted Willie tour, the same one that the late Joe Cole kept a diary for while working on the road crew, posthumously published as the rather mindblowing book Planet Joe. This final lineup of Black Flag was their least definitive but also pretty underrated - Anthony Martinez was a powerhouse on drums and in some ways that is what the band always missed, a no-bullshit drummer who could really drive their pummeling riffs. Robo was very close but there was something just a little slippery about his style... Stevenson was a great drummer of course but I associate him with the slowed-down prog direction of the band... and irregardless, the real draw of this footage isn't the music so much as the lives led in and around it, and seeing it all on naturally psychedelic Super 8 film, the load-ins and load-outs and goof-offs and roadwork in a world where Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow is always on the boombox and the whole world is constantly solarized... I'm telling you, it brings a tear to my eye. I would like to see this on DVD more than almost any other film, ever, but apparently Greg Ginn doesn't want that to ever happen so it probably won't. You can watch a couple clips on YouTube though, along with a lot of other classic stuff, at Markey's We Got Power Films page. I've been digging through so much Flag stuff these days I've even been listening to recent stuff by the Chuck Dukowski Sextet on their MySpace page. I guess I was scared of this band because I thought it would be some insane shredding lardacious 1972-ish hard rock fusion jazz wearing pastel collared shirts with like pictures of fruit on them.... and that's almost exactly what it is. But listen to their song "Someone Made of Me and You"... it's a very good slowburn 70s rock ballad... and their version of "My War" is actually amazing, Dukowksi asserting his authorship in a big way. But even if you're not in the mood for some serious melting-pot post-apocalyptic beach-fusion, you can't deny Dukowski's unlikely significance as one of the key countercultural figures of the last 30 years (for the trickle-down effect had by his achievement in musical performance, personal style and philosophy, booking agency, and general spokesmanship).

Bulbs Light Ships CD
Sic Alps A Long Way Around To A Shortcut CD
Miss High Heel The Family's Hot Daughter CD
Alan Courtis Unstringed Guitar & Cymbals CD
Meat Puppets Up On The Sun LP
Luomo Vocalcity
Magical, Beautiful Winterlude Winterlude
Woods Family Creeps s/t

I still don't think I'll ever listen to the whole Miss High Heel album in one sitting (see previous post) but I have put it on 3 or 4 times now and I'm really starting to appreciate its internal logic. It helps to not listen to Tom Smith as a "lead singer" but simply as a powerful energy source that drives the ensemble. Thus traditional thought patterns are bypassed, which frees up the particular character of the music: dense and scrambled, loud and extroverted but also strangely distant and alienated-sounding. There are in fact silences, fleeting but heavy, and the rest of the time almost every blast beat fracture, every apocalyptic synthesizer eruption, and yes, every bellowed line of damaged Renaissance-styled verse seems to be right in place. As off-putting and exhausting as it may be, this is still high-quality large-ensemble improv music. The all-time great title track of the Meat Puppets' Up on the Sun is suddenly shedding some new layers for me today, specifically lyrically. We all know how classically weird the opening lines are, "A long time ago... I turned to myself... and said you... are my daughter." Okay, but for some reason I never realized just how high-larious the next line is: "Well then maybe we've got something to talk about." Are they saying something about a dysfunctional family confronting their problems? Or is it just a simple playful solo inquiry into the always-bending mirrors of identity? Then there's something like the song "Two Rivers," which is better than Robert Frost, here's the entire text: "two rivers rolling by/two waters side by side/never touching they remain/two rivers different names/when they meet the waters change/two rivers one name/river flows with many names/water leading water's aim/finding ways to change again/finding yet another name." Eco-psych! Also, there's an insert w/lyric sheet and drawing of the band "by Derrick Bostrom from a photo by Naomi Petersen," and here I am right now reading Joe Carducci's book about Ms. Peterson, heavy (and her name is mispelled, just as Carducci points out that it often was). Magical, Beautiful is Tyson Thurston from Orange County, CA and now Chicago, IL. He has played in Head of Femur and Casiotone For The Painfully Alone, and writes and records his own music under the M,B name, although tonight's choice Winterlude Winterlude is a live mix he made, named after the Dylan song from New Morning (included), in which he DJ's some favorite records right into the board then zips it all up into an 11-track zip file and throws it up on mediafire. He does include a couple Magical, Beautiful tracks, one of 'em a wild improvisation where he lays down some of his neo-classical piano chops in a duo with a free trombonist that goes down in a dubby live-mix haze, with the remainder filled in by the likes of Eric Copeland, Holger Czukay, Keith Hudson, Arthur Russell, Brian Eno, D.A.F., Cornelius (I had forgotten about this Matador recording artist, it's a good track!), and more, all continuous-mixed. It's a very good mix, he gave it a catalog number on his label and it deserves one.

Grateful Dead s/t

Grateful Dead From the Mars Hotel
Grateful Dead Europe '72

Man, sorry to all you Dead-sensitive people for all the Grateful Dead I keep listening to and listing. They are one of the few bands that you can literally lose friends over, and I'm assuming the same is true of readers, so bear with me, or skip to the next post, or just go run around and get some exercise or something.... I'm gonna listen to some Dead albums... their first album is similar to the first Bob Dylan album - both self-titled debuts, both recorded by a visionary artist/band before they became really visionary, both featuring only two original compositions by the artist and therefore destined to be considered a lesser work, but nonetheless a reimagining of traditional American music that bristles with a raw youthful punk energy. Their 10-minute studio version of "Viola Lee Blues" is actually awesome, I think better than any live version I've heard. From the Mars Hotel - man, this album - it's far from great but definitely better than I expected. "Money Money" is possibly the most regrettable song they ever recorded, but even it is undeniably catchy on here and in fact better than "Loose Lucy" in this album's de facto 'battle of the misogynist near-outtakes.' As for the really good stuff, the studio version of "China Doll" is pretty much perfect, "Scarlet Begonias" is a short but sweet reminder of some great live extensions, "Ship of Fools" is a bit of a revelation (great gospel rock, sweet organ playing, certainly better than anything The Band was doing in 1974), and as for "Unbroken Chain," maaaan, if it was on Wolf King by John Phillips, or some Dennis Wilson solo album, or any private press release you'd never heard of, you would be going apeshit over the jazzy/downer 1970s vibe. And I might be able to fool you with it in a blindfold test, because the not-so-immediately-recognizable Phil Lesh wrote it and sings lead. Amazing song, good album - I think I like it better than Wake of the Flood. Europe '72 on the other hand... if you don't like this album, then you'll never like the Dead, it just won't happen. I'd say the same thing about the s/t "Skull & Roses" double LP that preceded it in '71, and of course the two studio releases that preceded it in '70, Workingman's Dead and American Beauty... quite a four-album run.

Mayyors Marine Dot Com LP 7"
Neil Young Dead Man OST
Ash Ra Tempel Best of the Private Tapes (thanks again to FM Shades)
Hall of Fame Live at The Mercury Paw 8/24/98 CDR
Lambsbread Purple Wings CDR

This Hall of Fame CDR is great. I like it better than the First Came Love, Then Came The Tree LP that it came with (although that was pretty good too). It's a single live set in Louisville, KY, from the year 1998, around 45 minutes long. It starts with a good 11 minutes of instrumental space-out and eventually gets into a driving song that eventually gets into other forlorn atmospheres.... one moment reminds me of the Airplane's "Comin' Back To Me" poured even slower. The Lambsbread disc is sounding great. The 4 or 5 Lambsbread releases I have all sound the same (and not in a bad way) but this is an exception - it's kinda got quiet parts, clean tone guitar, hanging space, individual notes recognizable from other individual notes... crazy, huh? Cover art is crazy too... some kind of abstract explosivist painting depicting the power and glory of menstruation... at least I hope that's what it is....

Sic Alps A Long Way Around To A Shortcut CD
Various Artists Basic Channel
Sun Ra Lanquidity
Can Future Days & Past Nights
Can Soundtracks
Music From The Morning Of The World LP

Here's some fine public service by the Animal Disguise label, a collection of all the out of print Sic Alps releases from the last couple years. The first 10 tracks of the disc reissue last year's blink-and-miss vinyl release Description of the Harbor, the greatest thing they've done so far with its dreamy combination of 60s garage pop miniatures and noise-damaged WTF. Also includes the Strawberry Guillotine 7", the Semi Streets 7", the Teenage Alps CS, the Soft Tour in Rough Form 12", one comp track and one unreleased track. Get this CD and Pleasures and Treasures (also on Animal Disguise) and you've got it all until their full-length on Siltbreeze comes out...

Car Commercials Black 93 CS
Tunnels Astral Collage CDR
Rolling Stones Let It Bleed

The Car Commericals tape is on Fuck It Tapes and it sounds like Car Commercials but didn't really make a deeper impression, certainly not like their Judy's Dust LP. Tunnels is a release on the prolific psych label Abandon Ship... maybe one person, maybe two or three, doing creepy pastoral psych/drone instrumentals with some really nice moments mixed in with some stuff that is more generic... decent release overall, though, I'll keep an ear on Tunnels. Still got Let It Bleed on the turntable but now I just keep playing "Midnight Rambler" over and over. The way the band speeds up and slows down along with the "don't do that" vocal incantation, pushed by the foghorn harmonica and swaying slide guitar lick, all building up to the insane finale ("I'll stick my knife right down your throat baby and it HURTS!") .... damn.

Carducci gets Proustian

Snake & Remus No Tape Outside (from Box)
Socrates Drank The Conium On the Wings
Woods Family Creeps s/t CD
Steve Gunn s/t CDR
Isaac Hayes Hot Buttered Soul
Iron & Wine The Creek Drank The Cradle
Grateful Dead 1979-10-28
Rolling Stones Let it Bleed LP
Enter Naomi by Joe Carducci

Man, first time I've listened to the Snake & Remus LP. Don't have the actual box it came in (with two other LPs by "CC" and "Boots"), just got mp3s from a blog, and I think it's extremely good, and my pick for best release so far from these rather prolific Chicago-based anonyms. (See also Tommy Roundtree Jungle Blood LP and the self-titled Arian Sample LP - he calls himself something different with each release, y'see...) No Tape Outside starts with an extremely vibed-out acoustic guitar/crude percussion/warm synth drone ensemble, over which THAT VOICE (Tommy/Arian/Terry/Jim, it's gotta be HIM) explores psychic moods and impressions with his trademark delicate but ominous imagery. "And it tastes so good/it makes you want to run.... and you let it go/and walk away/moving through the climate/feeling all the years.... And it's more than dreaming/And it's more than meaning/And it's more than bleeding/And it's more than leaving..." Could only really be about two things, being one with the universe and/or using drugs, either way it's a great song, and I think the second song is just as good, trading the synth for gentle piano but keeping the intense ruminations - when he sings "Tryin' to piece together a bullshit life" it sounds pretty real to me. And then after a few more songs Side 2 comes along to gently wash everything out with what seem like gentle instrumental versions of the songs on Side 1, a subtle dubwise B-side move, as if not the songs were recorded but simply their dream-impressions, those potentially messy thoughts and words all just evaporated out. Socrates Drank The Conium is quite a band name and quite a sound too - heavy Greek two-guitar power-prog from the early 70's. The On The Wing album is from 1973 and the way these nimble, scorching guitars and bass wind around each other, held taut by the drums, sounds like some wacked-out SST band from 10 years later or the Hampton Grease Band from 2 years earlier playing it straight, leaving the Zappa influence at home for some serious heartfelt hard-rock business. The he-man stadium-rock vocals might give pause (Dusted mentioned Vedder) but ultimately they provide some useful grounding.... Really liking this new Woods CD. I don't know, the band may actually be called Woods Family Creeps on this release, but either way the album comes in a real nice LP-style gatefold sleeve by Time-Lag Records, and the music is a huge jump past the previous Woods album At Rear House (which was pretty good itself). The same indie/poppy/nervous songwriting is there, but there's more aura then before, something psychedelic and confident, and also a little more ancient and spooky, plus there's a nice 7-minute instrumental track right in the middle where the drummer really hits a Swell Maps/Faust stride and the rest of the band follows... the Steve Gunn is on Abandon Ship, sounded nice when I played it earlier today but I don't really remember it now, oops... longish moody instrumentals, I guess, arpeggiated guitar and hovering drony atmosphere. Not a unique approach, but it seemed pretty well-done, I might listen to it again... The Dead show is a personal find, with one of my very favorite China Riders, and Mydland era no less. In fact it's Mydland that makes it - it's early in his tenure and he's still playing funky 1970s electric piano, no Midi in sight, and Garcia is refreshingly low enough in the mix that the band ends up sounding some hazy California version of Future Days/Babaluma-era Can. After that the set gets a little rough, especially during a turgid "Passenger"-"Althea"-"Mama Tried" run. The Dead were one of the few bands truly worthy of the elusive "American Stones" title, but that claim seemed outright laughable tonight when I cut out in the middle of this 989th version of "Mama Tried" and went right into the Let It Bleed LP and the sweetly ominous opening strains of "Gimme Shelter." It's funny about Let It Bleed, ever since I got this goddamned iPod I've been keeping an eye out for (cough) free and (ahem) illegal mp3s of it and not immediately coming across any, but today I was sitting around the house and had the brilliant idea to pull out my vinyl copy and listen to it. After all it's been sitting here the whole time, like it has been for the 20 years or so since I bought it used. Sounds GREAT on vinyl. I've now read Enter Naomi by Joe Carducci two or three times and I'm not sure if I've got what it takes to write about it yet, or ever. By now you might be familiar with the subject, Naomi Peterson, the truly gifted in-house band photographer during the glory years of SST Records. She passed away in 2003 at the age of 39 and her long-time friend and coworker Carducci wrote this book to not only eulogize her, beautifully and expansively, but to eulogize his entire experience at SST Records and how the label epitomized punk as "the nihilist phase of the hippie movement" ("what was left when Hippie found out it had been wrong"), all of which he does in a downright punk-Proustian fashion, fragmented, discursive, occasionally frustrating, and not everyone may want to hang, but there is so much insight here, especially regarding how Black Flag and SST developed, that I've been going over the pages again and again. For just one example, there's the way the book deals with the city of Hermosa Beach as the petri dish where this culture incubated, laying out its history as a surf/beatnik/jazz/boho hamlet where misfits like Greg and Raymond Ginn, Chuck Dukowski, and Spot could really develop a sense of individuality, including such important details as a city highway and transportation system that made it somewhat inconvenient for tourists and daytrippers to ever end up there. The book even reproduces a two-page aerial photo of downtown Hermosa Beach, the Pacific Ocean sprawled out majestically right at the top, with all the key spots annotated. (The Church! The Würmhole! Media Arts! The vegetarian restaurant where Greg met Spot!) I've probably spent a full hour staring at this spread alone. Not to mention an extensive excerpt from Peterson's portfolio, lovingly reproduced, along with lots of other photos, postcards, letters, invoices, and other ephemera that allows these fragments of memory to really take root and grow in the mind of the reader. One of many brief anecdotes that kind of sum everything up is the one about SST Records being in between office spaces and Chuck Dukowski temporarily running the label from a bank of pay phones on a sidewalk in L.A.'s Koreatown. Sez Dukowski, "Once I got started I just grooved and kinda enjoyed what was good about the situation: outside, stuff going on, ya know." Sez Carducci, "Chuck's and the others' ability to roll with anything and enjoy it no matter how goofy, embarrassing, or dangerous was one of the fundamental building blocks of Black Flag and the SST approach." Hell yeah, that ability is one of the fundamental building blocks of any kind of life with any guts, thanks again to Naomi, Joe, Chuck and everyone else for the examples.

Lee Perry & King Tubby Upsetters 14 Dub Blackboard Jungle
J.D. Emmanuel Wizards
Jimmy Giuffre The Easy Way
Steve Martin Let's Get Small
FNU Ronnies 7"
Mayyors 7"
Dry Rot Subordinate 7"
Koro s/t (aka 700 Club) 7"
Washington Phillips What Are They Doing In Heaven Today? LP
Third Ear Band s/t

Man what a great dub album, the one with the long name that is commonly referred to simply as Blackboard Jungle... the cover says "produced and directed by Upsetter Lee Perry" but King Tubby was an engineer, and really this is a historic Scratch/Tubby collabo that sounds about exactly like you might expect... paranoid and wobbly rhythms accented by mad jazzed-out soul horns (sometimes I think these horns are the most consistent Perry trademark), all shaken to hell by Tubby's armageddon mix, the perfect compliment for Perry's brass arrangements because you can hear not only the horns of Jericho but the walls coming down all around them. So many depths and nuances in Jimmy Giuffre's music, especially in the classic trio where his tenor sax is weaving with Jim Hall on electric guitar and Bob Brookmeyer on trombone. One instrument, one mind, one voice that speaks in counterpoint.... So far I prefer this 'inside' trio stuff to his 'free jazz' experiments like Free Fall, but that could change... okay, finally got the vinyl of the bizarre sci-fi 7" by the FNU Ronnies (in a sweet first-time order from Bistro Distro, excellent transaction and source for various punk records) and I'm a little taken aback because I'm used to the brighter and cleaner sound of the mp3s. The first song still sounds pretty bright as it rocks your socks off with a relatively classic punk tightness, but from there it just gets weird.... side two has vocals that sound like that 'second lead singer is a small barking gremlin' thing from 90s screamo, and each side has some sort of confouding and short second track that hangs on there like a misshapen vestigial limb. On Side B the two tracks are separated by a spaced whistling breakdown. Fuck, I'm listening to side B right now for the 3rd time in a row, no way I can get a handle on these low-end heavy movements. I think even they barely understand. This is the first time I've ever listened to Dry Rot, I have no idea what this 7" is gonna be like... before I even put it on I'm vibing off the song titles ("Skin Debt," "Trench Diggers," "Enslaved," "Points of Force," "Bind and Salt," "Release") ... feels thick too, what's in here, a foldout sheet with lyrics and artwork? Damn, it's actually a booklet with lyrics and artwork, a full-page drawing for each song, full-color cover. And now it's playing and the band is pretty raging. A little of the Antioch Arrow/Angel Hair frenzy of yore but with a different swing to it that works pretty well. Koro is a legendary early 1980s hardcore band from Knoxville, Tennessee - Uncle Tony wrote about 'em here seven years ago (an article that incidentally singlehandedly triggered the entire w***d-punk/HC/DIY revival of the 2000s...... just kidding?) so I checked out this reissue Bistro had of their 1983 s/t EP (also known as 700 Club) and they are pretty weird and frenzied, certainly leaning towards the psycho Void and Die Kreuzen side of things that emerged in '82... regardless Koro has a different twist, maybe just slightly less weird, still very fast and alienating stuff. I think I heard that the original goes for over $1000. And finally, being based in Portland seems to give Bistro the inside track on the also Portland-based Mississippi Records label, as they have a lot of their stuff and sell it for the Nice Price. Great label, they did the Phil Cohran Malcolm X Memorial LP, a mysterious "70s Thai Orchestra" LP that has had some people muttering the name "Alan Bishop" (although the correct phrase to mutter is "Siamese Temple Ball"), some roots/gospel-type comps like Life Is A Problem, and this, perhaps their single finest achievement, a lovely LP of the music of Washington Phillips. This was a guy who recorded 16 songs in the 1920s and no one is sure exactly what instrument he played... according to Wikipedia it "has been variously identified as a Dolceola, a Celestophone, and a Phonoharp (and also is considered by some to be an instrument entirely home-made by Phillips)." Either way it creates a chiming and tinkling otherworldly atmosphere over which his heartfelt gospel vocals move and emote in unpredictable patterns of their own. Guaranteed dream-state.

Various Artists Shadow Music of Thailand LP
The Index s/t
Parasites of the Western World s/t
Velvet Underground Another View
Circle Tower featuring Verde

Thanks to Jakob Olausson for including Parasites of the Western World on his list for Dusted... I'd never heard of it before, but it's a self-released LP from 1978, two guys from Portland, Oregon making grandiose prog punk inside the cupboard under the kitchen sink, right next to the windex. Actually, Olausson's quip about filing it between Eno and the Electric Eels sums it up pretty well, tipping towards the Eno side and heavy on the symphonic synth-led instrumentals, but with a ragged blasted quality that especially comes out on the tracks with vocals. There is also a track called "Electrokill." Co-worker plays a lot of early Chicago electric blues like Muddy Waters and Hound Dog Taylor... the other day I was walking by his desk during "I'm Gonna Move Right In" from Another View and with the sharp clean-tone lead guitar and driving backbeat I just figured it was another Chicago blues rave-up until he told me who it was. And from blues/rock hybrids to jazz/rock hybrids, the Circle album is the de facto In A Silent Way tribute they put out on Last Visible Dog early in 2007, and it sounds even more sublime than ever. I can never get enough of the electric piano...

Various Artists Bollywood Steel Guitar CD
Bob Dylan s/t
Neil Young & Crazy Horse Danny by the River
King Crimson In The Court Of The Crimson King

The Bollywood Steel Guitar comp is yet another great listen from the Sublime Frequencies label. You could pitch it to the lounge/exotica 'incredibly strange music' market which is usually a bit much for me, but so far everything from Sub Freq (and that's 44 releases in less than five years) has been presented with genuine enthusiasm and none of the smugness you tend to get when any sort of post-pop post-globalization hybrid musics are collected and imported. And hey, some of these Bollywood steel guitarists could really rip. A huge thank you to the Truer Sound blog for posting a few Neil Young & Crazy Horse bootlegs... I've been looking for something from the Danny Whitten era, and Danny by the River (aka Winterlong aka Electric Prayers) fits the bill very nicely. Reading Shakey by Jimmy McDonough really crystalized just how much Whitten contributed to Crazy Horse, quoting Neil himself saying stuff like this about his rhythm guitar playing: "Billy and Ralph will get into a groove and everything will be goin' along and all of a sudden Danny'll start doin' somethin' else. He just led those guys from one groove to another - all within the same groove. So when I played these long guitar solos, it seemed like they weren't all that long, that I was making all these changes, when in reality what was changing was not one thing, but the whole band. Danny was the key." There are those moments in the extended "Down By The River" and "Cowgirl in the Sand" jams on Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere that all of you know (even if you don't know that you know) when Whitten's rhythm guitar under Neil's lead gives way from sharp stabs to open, ringing chords, like the band has just moved together out of a cloud and into momentarily open sky. Also, his background and double lead vocals throughout Nowhere (which is really the only studio LP he made with Young, some scattered appearances on After the Gold Rush notwithstanding) sound so natural and blended that I never even thought about who was doing them and what a great singer he was. It's actually the same as his guitar playing in that his singing isn't just one person, it's "the whole band." (Keep in mind that Crazy Horse started in 1962 as a streetcorner doowop group called Danny & the Memories.) Anyway I love this boot, two sets from the Music Hall in Cincinnati, Ohio, 2-25-1970. I actually like the opening solo acoustic set better than the electric, the way it starts with the sublime Buffalo Springfield tune "On The Way Home" and ambles on through long Neil raps and a total of eight songs with that vintage foggy downer vibe. Neil even apologizes a little for it with the somewhat famous stage banter "I live uptempo but I play downtempo." Great versions of "Helpless," "Sugar Mountain," an early fragment of "Don't Let It Bring You Down," and more. The electric set is fine and often fascinating but a little rocky and unfocused as a through-listen, that is until they hit the "Down By The River" and "Cinnamon Girl" closing. Both songs are massive - "Down by The River" clocks in at 20 minutes and Neil's soloing is absolutely sick. In The Court Of The Crimson King is one of those albums that you hear when you're young, with little to prepare you for it other than like Genesis and Yes, and it really blows you the fuck away, and then you spend the next couple decades learning about and sometimes hearing every other bizarre and crazy underground record ever made, and then one day when you're in your 30s you pull out that dusty copy of In The Court Of The Crimson King and put it on for the first time since you've heard This Heat or whatever else on the NWW list, thinking it's gonna sound a little dated and pompous and stuffy - I mean Greg Lake is in the band - but then you put it on and the opposite occurs, now it REALLY blows you the fuck away, a lot more than it did when you were a teenager. I mean "20th Century Schizoid Man" alone will never be topped, and the always-terrifying title track now has even more weight after its stunning usage in Children of Men...




Crazy Horse, Feb-Mar 1970 lineup
L-R: Ralph Molina, Billy Talbot, Jack Nitzsche, Danny Whitten

Bill Evans Trio Sunday at the Village Vanguard
John Lee Hooker Urban Blues CS
The Hamlins "Everyone Got To Be There" mp3
Talk Talk Laughing Stock
Mayyors 7"
Magas May I Meet My Accuser

Listening to this classic Bill Evans Trio album, I can't help but think that piano jazz is like the celestial and heavenly version of jazz. The jazz afterlife. Horn-based jazz on the other hand is the earthly realm, where the funk comes in, the breath, the spit, the bodily functions. One is cerebral and the other is physical. Of course Cecil Taylor and others destroy this theory, but Bill Evans sure doesn't. Scott LaFaro on bass and Paul Motian on drums - really incredible nimble light-touch rhythm section. I also have a theory about the blues: I think that Beware of the Dog by Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers (recorded in 1974) was the last great blues album. The Great Migration, the move from the country to the cities, from localization to industrialization, killed the blues (and thousands of other things, literally and figuratively, but we won't go into that like I tried to when I wrote about the movie Killer of Sheep a whole buncha posts ago). Hound Dog and John Lee Hooker may have both developed their music and made their name in a northern city (Chicago and Detroit respectively) but they were both born and somewhat raised in Mississippi - their music was urbanized but not without that heavy rural foundation. No one born in the Northern cities, on the other hand, could make great blues. They could maybe make great entertainment in a Las Vegas/oldies revue sense, but not great true/new blues. Feel free to shoot this theory down, preferably by including the name of at least one great blues album recorded after 1974. The Hamlins just sang "Don't care what you may do/don't care what you may say" on this reggae B-side from 1968, on the Studio 1 label - is this very song where Bad Brains got those lyrics? Or was it a common phrase in reggae music and/or Rastafarian culture? Or a coincidence? Damn, this Magas album and its ridiculously heavy synth basslines keeping these songs in overdrive... this is probably called 'electro' music but I'm starting to cook up a new theory, that this is 2000s rock'n'roll music, like in the tradition of Jerry Lee Lewis...