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.

HEAVY ROTATION - week of March 23 2009

KURT VILE: The Hunchback EP 12" (RICHIE)
KURT VILE: God Is Saying This To You LP (MEXICAN SUMMER)
DEATH: For All The World To See LP (DRAG CITY)
AMANAZ: Africa LP (SHADOKS)
GROUP BOMBINO: Guitars From Agadez Vol. 2 LP (SUBLIME FREQUENCIES)
IRMA THOMAS: Sings LP (CHANGE)
RTFO BANDWAGON: Dums Will Survive LP (DULL KNIFE)
GARY WAR: New Raytheonport LP (SHDWPLY/DISARO)
KURT VILE: Constant Hitmaker CD (GULCHER)
CAETHUA: Village of the Damned CD (BLUESANCT)

KURT VILE & THE VIOLATORS: The Hunchback EP 12" (RICHIE) Mr. Vile's 'official debut' full-length Constant Hitmaker was Blastitude's favorite album of 2008, but on this brand new follow-up he kinda sidesteps away from the one-man constant hitmaking... now he's got a backing band and they casually throw down a few loud machine-trance workouts, getting into a cool grinding city rock, a little more brooding and grim. On the first album there was a fair amount of sun breaking out of the haze, but now it's definitely night-time. Also, this EP doesn't use any of the zoned-out solo fingerpicking styles that are on the first album, and while on first spin that was slightly disconcerting, on second, third, and now fourth, I don't mind at all. Mainly because the Violators are a serious band - drummer is basically perfect, and so is the way the other two (on guitar, bass, baritone guitar, more) blend with KV's six-string brilliance. I don't even mind that four out of the six cuts are instrumentals, or that the record is over way too fast... makes it that much easier to play it again and again...

Vileness:
MYSPACE.COM/KURTVILEOFPHILLY
DESTINED: KURT VILE
L.A. RECORD
KURT VILE PUSHES BUTTONS
KURT VILE LIVE ON WFMU
BUY
BUY



OFEGE: Try And Love LP (ACADEMY) Reissue of a 1973 rock album by some Nigerian high-schoolers. It isn't quite the raw/chill stunner that my all-time gold standard Amanaz Africa is, but it is a really good album, very solid sun-dappled mid-tempo rock balladry, with some piercing psychedelic lead guitar that, together with an elastic percussive style, keeps the tunes at a deceptively high simmer. Also, it's really a beautiful sleeve by Academy, complete with a nice insert that has a recent interview with the album's producer. BTW, am I reading this interview right -- did Berkley Jones, the guitarist of BLO, "play all the guitar tracks in the absence of the band members"??



SUN CITY GIRLS: Fruit of the Womb/Polite Deception 2LP (ECLIPSE) Hey, the Cloaven Cassettes reissue project is back, still on Eclipse Records, here with #5, the first volume in four or five years. The idea is a projected ten double-vinyl releases, each one reissuing/reimagining two of the 20-plus cassettes that Sun City Girls cluster-bombed the scene with between the years of 1987 and 1990. Fruit of the Womb was "recorded 1984–85 between the first and second Sun City Girls LPs," and it documents a particularly raw, scorching, glowing, go-for-broke session or two, with some songs that are known ("Damcar," "Blue Mamba," "Trippin' on Krupa," "Rappin' Head," "Jokers on a Waltz") and songs that will always be unknown (such as Side B, the 25-minute diehards-only "When the Jewels Roll out of Your Eyes"). As for Polite Deception, it originally came out on the heels of Womb and, according to suncitygirls.com, "side one is a continuation of the previous tape listed." And, the flip features "Gulf Con '79," an impressive early long-form "industrial Mesopotamian Environmental piece." Edition of 950, gatefold sleeve, rad live photos, etc.

TODAY'S HEAVIES
"History of the Man" Amanaz
"Trouble Maker" Chrissy Zebby Tembo & Ngozi Family
"Bang Your Head" Gravediggaz
"Strong Island" JVC Force
"You Gots To Chill" EPMD (2009 anthem)
"Psalm 95" Prince Far I
"Ride On Marcus Version" The Revolutionaries
"Atom Smasher" Cirith Ungol
"Black Machine" Cirith Ungol
"Thrashers" Death Angel
"Mouth Breather" Jesus Lizard
"Hot Burrito #1" Flying Burrito Brothers

and of course the wedding stylings of Abdullah Chmairan

THE GRAND HOTEL: Extra Tiger CD-R (FELT RECORDS)
The moral of the story is: never give up on the to-listen stacks, no matter how old and dusty and in-the-way they're getting. I pulled this disc from pretty near the bottom... it was released a whopping four years ago, after all. No idea when it showed up here at HQ, but I never did listen to it, not even once, until today. I had kept it around simply because the art was promising... an enigmatic-enough B&W drawing pasted on a cool cardboard fold-over holder with an envelope for the disc mounted within... but the real reason I finally put it on the stereo today was a case of mistaken identity. You see, I thought that maybe the Grand Hotel was this older (early 2000s) Bay Area band featuring the late Cayce Lindner, who went on to record one great 2006 album as the leader of a band called Flying Canyon. Turns it out I was wrong... Lindner's older band turned out to be The Golden Hotel, and this was The Grand Hotel, a band (duo as it turns out) from Brooklyn that I really knew nothing about. That quickly changed as the readout gave me one 35-minute track, I pushed play, and got immediately sucked in by a desolate misterioso atmosphere that morphed into vaguely bluesy zoner psych and then serious pounding no-mind post-industrial wave-out... by now I'm more than hooked, and then the drums drop out and that's when they bring back the song, now as a free-floating garage/cloud bliss-out. An early mastery of now-prevalent 'new age noise' styles, and a whole lot more than that too. Glad I dug it out, here's their myspace and other stuff. Anyone with an extra copy of that edition-of-15o LP from 2007, get in touch.

And listened to next, another 'oldie'....

IAN NAGOSKI: Effortless Battle CD (RECORDED)
From waaaaay back in 2003, heavy electronics, really holds up well. Interesting stuff as it is rooted in classic loft-style LaMonte Young drone and minimalism, but still fits right in with its early-2000s noise/electronics solo-artist peers, resulting in some pretty crazy low-end and grinding atmospheres that still have a sort of open-eyed wonder. I could be wrong about this, but it seems that Nagoski more or less retired this music when he became a father and opened up a record store in 2004. He has remained active, currently blogging for Arthur Magazine and in 2007 gathering some of his favorite 78RPM records for the stunning Black Mirror CD compilation on Dust-to-Digital. Actually, is the True Vine Record Shop still open? Weeeeeelll, I just found this July 2008 article from the Baltimore City Paper that explains everything... Nagoski is leaving the record store to his partners Jason Willett and Stewart Mostofsky, and says, "I'm going to keep doing what I've been doing only more so--dealing with records (research, listening, writing, creating, teaching)--and--hey!--making my own music again for the first time in four years." Right on... here's an interview with him from around the time of Effortless Battle (and the opening of the True Vine).

BLASTWITUDE

So, dear readers, I would like to announce with great non-ironic excitement that I, Larry Dolman, have joined the Twitter nation, nay, the very TWITTERVERSE itself. (Not ironic.) See twitter.com/blastitude. Like it says on the profile page: NEW ARRIVALS TO BLASTITUDE HQ (& A FEW OLD FAVORITES TOO). Basically, I'll use it to list whatever makes it on the record player in between now and #28. Sign up now and read a little more about how good this new R. Millis CD is!



R. MILLIS: 120 CD (ETUDE)

THIS WEEK IN CLASSIC ROCK (20 MARCH 2009)

Next time you give Killed By Finnish Hardcore a spin, this band-name translation guide might come in handy (click on the image for a proper view)... nabbed from the Legacy Document blog (see also: Cosmic Hearse) which got it from the Saapasnahkatorni blog...

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Might as well check out Joe Carducci's YouTube History of Black Flag, just posted by Arthur Magazine.

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This is a nice resource of informed list-serv kudos and general top-of-the-dome nerd-out info on the Kozmigroov subgenre (aka "cosmic groove")... I think a lot of this came from the Drone On list, pre-2000...

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I just realized that a little bit of Robert Wyatt shows up somewhere during the Radio Palestine CD on Sublime Frequencies... from Rock Bottom, no less! Kudos to that enterprising Palestinian DJ, and to Alan Bishop for picking up his/her signal, which hopefully hasn't since been bombed into rubble...

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Check out the archives of the Collective Voice podcast, specializing in Blastitude-type music, as broadcast 2002-2008 from all the way up in the city of St. John's, NL, Canada....

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Oh man, why am I watching Tommy Bolin youtubes tonight? He grew up just 100 miles or so north of where I grew up, so he was always kind of a local hero back there in the Missouri Valley. I remember hanging out in his hometown of Sioux City, Iowa in the late 1980s and seeing posters of him up at bars... yep, feeling the history... wonder if they're still up... his brief career as a journeyman big-leagues rock guitarist may have been something for ole Sewer City but it really wasn't too much to brag about... he died of a multiple drug overdose at 25 and before that his biggest claim to fame was being the second or third replacement guitarist for over-the-hill bands like James Gang and Deep Purple. Of course, there was definitely potential for more... he was a surprisingly balls-out fusion guitarist, as can be heard on Mahavishnu Orchestra drummer Billy Cobham's 1973 solo album Spectrum... unlike John McLaughlin, he wasn't the kind of over-the-top player that could compete with (let alone subdue) the endless wankery of keyboardist Jan Hammer, so the album is no Inner Mounting Flame, but it's still pretty wild. And then there's his biggest solo hit, a song you may have heard as a 'deep cut' on classic rock radio, an unfocused but kinda awesome 9-minute stone groover/fusion fantasia/cautionary tale called "Post Toastee," as in "Don't let your mind post toastee/Like a lot of my friends did." He didn't practice what he preached, but then again maybe he wasn't exactly sure what it meant either.

Here he is not really helping Deep Purple very much... and they do kinda need some help:



He seems to have been better with James Gang, this is at least kinda insane:



(but he can't hold a candle to Walsh):



Here's all 9 minutes of "Post Toastee":



And this is kinda rad, a 1975 clip from a late-night Denver-area show called Rock Talk. Bolin is in Deep Purple at the time and already pretty post toastee, but he seems like a nice dude and handles himself pretty well. Get a load of the other guy on the panel, the one who seems to have walked out of a Will Ferrell movie... I'm talking about the mustache dude who not only is a FLAUTIST, he's the flautist for DAN FOGELBERG....



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Seems like Seven Up, the crazed Ash Ra Tempel album they cut with special guest lead singer and fugitive prisoner Timothy Leary (you can read more of the story in Julian Cope's Krautrocksampler or this excellent article), doesn't get raved about quite as much as their other early masterpieces. Maybe no one can get past the creepy factor of Leary coming on like a Mick Jagger wanna-be on Side One, but the band is great, consistently laying down amazing pre-Hawkwind spiked-pint acid pub insanity. I mean of course the cringe factor is there, particularly the rather gropy song "Right Hand Lover," in which Tim is all "I'm a right hand lover/I got a hinge on my thumb/I'll manipulate you baby" -- okay I'll stop. But even if you can't hang with Side One, pull it back out and put on Side Two, a single extended performance of one of the most dazed and zoned ballads in psych rock history, a 20-minute take of their key song "Suche & Liebe" (there's a slightly shorter and also great version on the Schwingungen album). The moment halfway through when Leary's beatific mutterings, buried in echo, suddenly become crystal clear as he intones the phrase "You're so beautiful" in an awestruck whisper... well, it's really a MOMENT, you know?

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And as long as we're talking about this sort of thing, I thought I'd throw this in here JUST FOR MEDICINAL POSTERITY, straight from The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook as submitted by Brion Gysin (I haven't made it myself and I'm pretty sure I never will, I don't keep enough canibus in the house): "Take 1 teaspoon black peppercorns, 1 whole nutmeg, 4 average sticks of cinnamon, 1 teaspoon coriander. These should all be pulverized in a mortar. About a handful each of stone dates, dried figs, shelled almonds and peanuts: chop these and mix them together. A bunch of canibus sativa can be pulverized. This along with the spices should be dusted over the mixed fruit and nuts, kneaded together. About a cup of sugar dissolved in a big pat of butter. Rolled into a cake and cut into pieces or made into balls about the size of a walnut, it should be eaten with care. Two pieces are quite sufficient. Obtaining the canibus may present certain difficulties. . . . It should be picked and dried as soon as it has gone to seed and while the plant is still green."

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Damn, "Chestnut Mare" by The Byrds... when that chorus kicks in with "I'm going to catch that horse if I can," it's so great that until now I never noticed what he says right after: "And when I do I'll give her my brand," ouch, "And we'll be friends for life/She'll be just like a wife/I'm going to catch that horse if I can." Just like a wife, eh?

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Speaking of wives, I already have one but I have still fallen madly in love with 1976 Ann Wilson thanks to this appearance by her band Heart on the Midnight Special from that year. Not too into the band, especially that hairy guy dressed like Luke Skywalker (Star Wars wasn't out yet, I'll give him that), but oh Miss Ann.... her stern-shouldered dress, her hunched stance... I don't know how else to work through this so I'm blogging about it....








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And speaking of canibus, here's a repost of the Butthole Surfers Bed-In because everyone in the world should watch this at least once a day.



Take that, Lenono!

INTENSE HAUL FROM RECKLESS RECORDS part 2 of ??

Store credit still ruleth (second visit in as many weeks):



DEATH: ...For All The World To See LP (DRAG CITY) This was the record that got me moving, foot into building, cash (er, credit) in hand. You've probably heard about this one... the year is 1975 and, inspired by The Stooges, a black three-piece band in Detroit are inventing punk rock. They wouldn't change their name for Clive Davis and Columbia Records, so we don't find out about their killer music for 33 years. Drag City has just released the 7 songs they wouldn't give to Clive and vinyl has been immediately hard to get. (Apparently they're between represses; this was the store's last copy.) (Update: now on their third pressing.) On first spin it actually seemed a little cleaner and poppier than I expected, with surprise prog leanings as well... I even jotted down that "both the Stooges and the Bad Brains make these guys sound like the Attractions (as in Elvis Costello)," but I quickly shredded the paper that flippancy was written on because this band is truly awesome -- believe the hype. Tons of great hooks, super sharp and mean playing, undeniable heaviness, surprising tempos and changes... not only do they indeed sound like Bad Brains at times, a good three years early (bassist Bobby Hackney's vocals can especially sound like HR), they are simply a great hard rock band as well, three excellent instrumentalists, as heavy and anthemic as Thin Lizzy... and damn near as charismatic... hell, these recordings even beat Jailbreak by a year...



DISAPPEARS: Live Over The Rainbo 10 26 08 CS (PLUS TAPES) I bought everything Reckless had from this new Chicago-based cassette-only label with an eclectic and fresh lineup so far. Disappears is a current Chicago band that I didn't yet know of because I just plain don't go out anymore. I mean, sheez, you have to go to the Rainbo to hear this band? How old do you think I am, 26?? Anyway, the word "shoegaze" was vaguely thrown out there in the store blurb for this tape, but I think it's accurate, and either way lurking underneath is a good old garage pound, bolstering the dreamy elements with taste and strength. The store clerk did tell me Brian Case of 90 Day Men and more recently The Ponies is in this band, so that makes sense.



CHRIS CONNELLY: Lost Episodes CS (PLUS TAPES) I like the idea of an outtakes release for Chris Connelly's The Episodes album, because that's a seriously good record, with extended jammed-out song structures that certainly lend themselves to varied approaches (rather than just getting the song 'right'). And sure enough, this is a cool tape. These versions seem more stripped down than the album... some of them might be Connelly solo, singing and playing guitar (and one song is a vocal a capella). There are also two really good live songs from "the one and only Episodes live show with the full band" (more info about the tape here). Mid-period Tim Buckley-esque is the easy way to describe what Connelly's doing here, but there's something a little more upbeat and hard-driving about Connelly's stuff, less likely to fracture and get lost in halls of mirrors.



THE TRAVELLERS: The Sound of Travellers CS (PLUS TAPES) Not entirely sure about this one... it looks cool, a Sublime Frequencies-worthy groovy-60s mod-rock band from Indonesia or something (Singapore to be exact), but so far the music seems a little on the elevator muzak side, string-laden with Herb Alpert-style trumpet. Sure it has a nice vibe and if it was playing in a grocery store it would be dreamy but I don't really get a 'real band' feeling, more like it was put together by cigar-chompers and studio lackeys to be thrift-scored years later. There's certainly far worse thrift-scores to be scored, don't get me wrong... it really is a pleasant listen, inhabiting that languid lotus-land muzak zone where everything's gonna be alright.... everything's gonna be alright.... no woman, no cr -- wait, where am I?



FUNKADELIC s/t LP (WESTBOUND) Of course I already have this on CD (I even have it on cassette) but when I saw this distinctly 'VG-' original vinyl copy at Reckless for a mere $19.99 I had to pick it up. Just imagining the way Funkadelic sounds on original vinyl gives me shivers, all cloudy, crackling & popping, perfect vintage. And, for as many times as I've listened to it over the years, this album still threw me for a loop when I spun it tonight... not so much a collection of songs as a collection of rituals, heavy chants and exquisitely slow grooves and gutbucket riffs that pile up and gain momentum and swirl around the room like ghosts.


Maximum Rocknroll #310 (The Health Issue) After completely ignoring Maximum Rocknroll for basically all my life, over the last year I keep finding myself buying new issues off of the newstand. I don't know... at $4 the price is right, there always seems to be at least one band/person mentioned on the cover I'd really like to read an interview with (Clockcleaner, Ray Pettibon, Billy Bao, stuff like that), and in this day and age where deep music zines are hardly ever printed on paper, all of a sudden MRR really stands out for being incredibly packed with opinion, ideas, scenes, addresses, you know, culture. Sure, I don't agree with it or care about it all, but so what? I just like the fact that it takes me a couple weeks to get through the columns section alone. Anyway... this time it's a themed issue, the health issue, so you've got all kinds of random real-people stories like getting a vasectomy, being a nursing school dropout, dealing with herpes, not having health insurance (of course), and lots more. This is also the issue with all the staff's year-end record/band/show roundups, so that's cool too. Lots of Sex/Vid mentions.

AND POST-RECKLESS, a theme emerges:
"Great Weird Black Music, Ancient To The Future"



After getting through the Reckless pile with its Death and Funkadelic, I felt the urge to follow up with another recent archival 1970s record, the one and only Chaos (1978-1986) by Wicked Witch. These are recordings by one Richard Simms, a resident not of Detroit but the original Chocolate City, Washington DC, and this is some loose, murky, and funky mutant machine disco with grunting grooves and over-the-top one-man orchestrations. Not necessarily strong in the tunes department but definitely a missing link between P-Funk and 1980s developments like Prince and Cybotron. Things get really weird, and a little dodgy, when he goes into a full-on Narada Michael Walden-era Mahavishnu Orchestra impersonation, and even weirder when he basically pulls it off. If you think Funkadelic got just a little slick in 1978 with One Nation Under A Groove, don't worry, Wicked Witch was handling things in the 'wrong' department..



After this craziness, I figured I was finally ready to hear Chicago's own ONO for the first time. I was wrong, nothing gets you ready to hear ONO. I had only recently heard about these guys for the very first time when Joe Carducci was in town to read from his latest book Enter Naomi. Before the reading started, a couple striking dudes (big, goofy, dreadlocks, sunglasses) showed up who clearly went back with Carducci and hadn't seen him in awhile. Carducci turned to a page in his book and they all looked at it and chuckled. During the Q&A after the reading, he mentioned that these two were in the band ONO, and had been on his record label Thermidor in the 1980s. The page they had looked at featured a reproduction of their original promo glossy. Checking it out later at home, that picture made me expect something kind of art-damaged and new-wave, and Carducci called them a "non-rock art group" in Rock and the Pop Narcotic. Well, tonight I played their debut album Machines That Kill People, and uh, they sure as hell don't sound like Depeche Mode -- this non-rock art is aggressively spaced-out electronic ritual, with off-kilter drum machines snapping haphazardly, mutant sax caterwauling in some far-off room, sharp but inscrutable guitar scrape, surprisingly heavy low-end surges from the non-rhythm non-section, and wow, the singing of Travis (just Travis, the guy with the dreadlocks)... he's all over the place, from Paul Robeson to Jim Morrison to, I don't know, Robby the Robot? Crazy band. Go here for a great article on 'em from the great Roctober magazine.