THIN LIZZY - THE BEST OF THE ERIC BELL YEARS

Good god I love Thin Lizzy more than ever. Somehow it took me until really just a year or two ago to finally listen to the Eric Bell albums in depth, and they're so goddamn good I made a Spotify playlist called "THIN LIZZY - BEST OF THE ERIC BELL YEARS," which includes my favorite album tracks, as well as non-LP tracks, all in more or less chronological order as released from 1971 through 1973, all with Eric Bell on guitar. I swear I'm on the verge of tears during at least every other song. You might find opening track "Honesty Is No Excuse" to be kind of a slow (and mellotron-laden) start, but it's Phil at his majesticly vulnerable best and how about that delayed drum entrance; know that they had more pronounced folk/blues/jazz/Celtic overtones as a trio with Eric Bell, which were buffed out by more metallic riffage after he left; not that Bell couldn't get heavy, which you'll hear if you hang in there for "Return of the Farmer's Son," which Phil sings the hell out of over a downright Sabbathian groove. Another current fave is Vagabonds-era B-side "Cruisin' in the Lizzymobile," which is such a funky band theme song ("crui-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-ooh-uh-ooh-ooh-uh-uisin"), and also an awestruck ode to LSD. The way Phil trades off the vocal with Bell gets me every single time, especially when the latter sings "Don't complain / You may never feel like this again..."

NOW BLASTIN'

The baddest-ass Nina Simone clip on YouTube is whichever one you saw last. Especially if it's "Be My Husband."



I'm in that camp that says that every month, not just February, is Black History Month, and every month, not just March, is Women's History Month, but hey, it is March, so how about some music by another Black Woman?



And now for something not necessarily completely different, here's some music by a white man, footage of the late Arthur Russell performing songs from World of Echo, filmed by Phill Niblock:



Over an hour of Russell/Niblock footage, in fact:
https://blogthehum.wordpress.com/2016/02/26/62-minutes-32-seconds-of-archival-arthur-russell-performance-footage-by-phill-niblock/

A person on the internet was just talking about Marion Brown's Sweet Earth Flying, which reminded me that it's my favorite Marion Brown LP. (Special thanks to Why Not? and Afternoon of a Georgia Faun.) I already knew this, but listened today for the first time in years and it sounds better than ever. I had forgotten that both Muhal Richard Abrams and Paul Bley are in the band on dualing electric and acoustic pianos, sometimes doing a little Silent Waying and Bitches Brewing, even some Lawrence of Newarking on organ, but mostly doing their own sweet and strange thing. The 5-minute solo electric piano intro by Paul Bley makes it easy to imagine our sweet earth flying from say a hundred miles away, while Brown's darkly gentle and pensive alto and soprano saxophone solos introduce the element of unstable gravity. Another AACM member, and founding member of Air, Steve McCall is on drums... a couple guys I haven't heard of, James Jefferson and Bill Hasson are on bass and percussion (and narration) respectively. The record label is Impulse! and the year of release is 1974.

SPACIN' Total Freedom LP (RICHIE)

Man... Spacin'. Spacin', man. The lips are back, and this time they're over the mountain. Their first album Deep Thuds from 2012 is superb, and Total Freedom is the brand new (long-awaited?! has it really been four years?!) 2016 follow-up. Spacin' are a band from Philadelphia that play some sort of tranced-out supergunk Stooges/Stones caveman ballcap glampop psychedelia, with stony low-end guitar/drum grooves and sub-cranial hooks. In many ways Total Freedom just does the same thing the first album did all over again, and why not repeat a result that rules? Both records begin with a spaced-out upbeat rifforama rocker that fades into a spaced-out free-form instrumental blowout (on Deep Thuds it's "Empty Mind" into "Some Future Burger" and on Total Freedom it's "Over Uneasy" into "Kensington Real.") Both albums have a late-side-one stripped-down night-skull garage-pop hummer (On DT it's "Chest of Steel" and on TF it's the fabulous "Titchy"). Both albums have an 'African' jam (DT: "Oh, Man"; TF: "Stopping Man").  I should note that even though many of these templates are perfected on Total Freedom, especially the ultra-catchy ultra-groovy ultra-titchy "Titchy" and the blown-out-to-over-8-minutes-long "Over Uneasy," it still might not even top Deep Thuds. That's not a dis on Total Freedom, that's just a measure of how good both albums are. I'm already stoked for Spacin' III! (On pace to be released in 2020!)



"Over Uneasy" live:


P.S. This live Spacin' vid brought to you by the Orthoponix channel, which I can't recommend highly enough for live clips of much of the great current Philly underground, as well as fellow travellers who have passed through...

A MAN CALLED DESTRUCTION & HOLY BOX TOPS

I've been reading Holly George-Warren's recent Alex Chilton bio and finding it really good. It's got me all excited about Memphis music history again, and It Came From Memphis is now travelling alongside A Man Called Destruction for side references and rereads. And, of course, I'm digging the Big Star records back out... haven't put #1 Record back on yet, but Radio City is blowing my mind more than ever, and I literally cried while listening to "Blue Moon" & "Dream Lover" a couple nights ago. I'm also eager to get to his pre-punk/post-punk/post-irony 70s and 80s stuff which I'm not as familiar with, other than Flies On Sherbert; haven't heard his Ork stuff yet, or Feudalist Tarts, for example. Problem is, even though I'm long past the Box Tops section of the book, I'm still listening to their tunes over and over, much more than even Big Star. I always thought (assumed?) Chilton was dismissive of them; after reading the book, I think he was proud of the music but dismissive of being "a toy or a puppet on a string" for the pop market; either way, I had written them off as a teenybopper pop band, but George-Warren's descriptions of their music, and the American Sound Studios milieu that produced it, sent me straight to Spotify, especially after she quotes a Jim Dickinson endorsement of the second Box Tops album Cry Like A Baby (1968): "Memphis pop production at its best, on par with the great Dusty In Memphis, recorded by the same cast of characters in the same period. Those two records were as good as it gets." I've now spent a week listening to The Best of the Box Tops: Soul Deep, over and over, and as Bob Christgau is quoted in the book, the "production can only be described as exquisite." Also, Chilton is ridiculously good as the gruff 16-year-old soul man. So many hooks, such great singing and playing. I made a couple Spotify playlists, the first one of what I think are the very best songs (I put "The Letter" last because you already know it but of course it should be on there anyway because it's fantastic), and the second one of deeper cuts that were singled out in the book. 

First ever TRIP METAL FESTIVAL, coming to Detroit on MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND

"Trip metal aims to capitalize on confusion as a means of connection, rather than a threat to authenticity."

Trip metal is not a joke. Trip metal is always a joke. 

"It is not really any one idea — it is every idea at once. This concept is similar to noise. Noise is every frequency at once, and by filtering, you can in theory make any sound possible. Trip metal can be used as carrier signal that modulates and decodes life in the same [way] a ring modulator multiplies two signals and typically creates a bell tone." 

These quotes are from today's feature on Trip Metal Festival in the Detroit Metro Times. The interview with the festival organizers is highly recommended, as is the festival, which will take place in Detroit during Memorial Day Weekend 2016, and will feature "Morton Subotnick, Hieroglyphic Being, Wolf Eyes, AWK, Aaron Dilloway, Nautical Almanac, Drainolith, Viki, Magas, Lexie Mountain, DJ Dog Dick, Pengo, Rubber O Cement, Panicsville, and many, many more. All the Michigan Underground Group crew will be jamming in different duos or trios as well."




MT: What is the least trip metal thing in the world, aside being interviewed about trip metal?

Trip Metal Fest: Tow trucks.

SHADOW BAND / KING DARVES / QUIT / HUMAN ADULT BAND split 7"

"Here is a group owned compilation made by bands and artists originally brought together by the eclectic underground of New Brunswick, NJ after the turn of the century. A collective spirit brings forth new tracks from each unique artist/group." Indeed, this is like a trip down memory lane for me as well, as all of these New Brunswick bands & artists have been sending stuff to Blastitude dating back at least ten years ago. There was also the Bone Tooth Horn label, and the artist formerly and currently known as 2673; yes, the New Brunswick scene has been interesting for awhile now, and would have been more than worthy of a scene report in The Wire circa 2006 (if one didn't in fact happen). I kind of did one myself back on The Day of the Mushroom, 2007, and though these players seem to have dispersed somewhat from that central hive of activity, this 7" EP is a very nice "where are they now." (I also really like the 4-band 4-song 7" comp EP format for some reason.) The Shadow Band is fronted by Mike Bruno, who I was introduced to via a release under his own name back in 2009 called The Sad Sisters. That was in a striking semi-gothic progressive-folk kinda style, but the Shadow Band sounds a little more classically pop/folk/rock, with a real nice lilting Sunday-morning melody and a sweet guitar/organ arrangement on this song "Blue Dreaming." King Darves first came on our radar back in 2004 or so, first as a weirdo solo noise artist, then suddenly emerging as a some sort of medieval/futuristic also-progressive deep-voiced folk troubadour, most notably with a 2008 full-length for DeStijl Records called The Sun Splits For The Blind Swimmer. His song here is in that style; I know some people have had a visceral reaction to King's distinctive sound & voice and simply can't hang; I've always admired his work but even so was slightly nonplussed by the off-kilter banjo-driven dare-I-say-gypsy-punk musings of this song "yoke/sightline" (actually these are two separate songs as I learned from reading this interview), especially after the elegant smoothness of the Shadow Band, but on 2nd through 5th listens the appreciation is growing and Mr. Darves always gives you a lot to chew on. So, side one is kinda the 'soft' side, and side two is where the volume gets cranked up. It leads off with a track by a band called Quit, who I don't believe I know anything about except that the insert says their label is Log Cabin Recordings; their track "bleeding" is a bit of a wound-up slow-drag somewhat-U.S. Mapley instrumental scorcher and may be my favorite thing on here. The comp ends with the long-running Human Adult Band, who have always been in the Flipper tradition of slow sludgy weird punk but with their own voice/twist that I've never quite gotten a handle on, in a good way; on here they're still leaving my head scratching after two heavy/catchy/confusing minutes called "(If You Got) Worms On The Brain." Human Adult frontman/bassist/founder/CEO Trevor Pennsylvania recently published a book called Lazy Determination that is apparently some sort of band discography/memoir that I would like to read but it seems out of print and hard to purchase, let alone google. Anyway, their song here ends abruptly, as does the comp, which makes it very easy to replay, which I've been doing again and again; long may the Spirit of New Brunswick fly on. You can purchase your own copy for $5 (postage paid in the United States!!!) at https://kingdarves.bandcamp.com.

JERRY GARCIA UPDATE

A friend of a friend (who has a couple thousand friends on a popular social media website) recently mentioned (on said website) that he had been good friends with Jerry Garcia (in real life) and he shared this tidbit:

"First thing that I ever did hanging out with him was we got REALLY stoned & went & saw An American Werewolf In London @ The Roxy."

TEIJI ITO "Axis Mundi"

Been awhile since I've listened to the music of Teiji Ito; might even be since the last time I watched a Maya Deren film, which I haven't done since at least the year 2000. (It's okay, they're pretty etched into my brain.) Right now I'm listening to Ito's 32-minute piece "Axis Mundi," and for the first time I'm listening to it from a post-Don Cherry/Organic Music Society perspective, as I had not heard that particular Don Cherry music until the mid-2000s. This is a very interesting perspective; I think Teiji Ito is one of the very few people even close to being on Don Cherry's level as far as what became 'world music' concepts go. Plenty of evidence on the CD Meshes: Music For Film and Theater, which was released in 1997 by the ¿What Next? label. And right now, you can get the damn thing for under $10 on Discogs. CDs are still cheap, so go buy it, because why on earth would you want a 32-minute track released on vinyl instead of CD? Broken up into two sections, separated by a record flip, when you can just sit back and hear the whole thing uninterrupted? In addition to all 32 minutes of "Axis Mundi," which was composed and performed for a 1982 theater production in Baltimore (Mr. Ito sadly passed away later that year at the young age of 47), it includes his late-1950s soundtracks for two classic Maya Deren films, Meshes of the Afternoon and The Very Eye of Night (the entirety of the former and beautiful scenes from the latter handily embedded below via YouTube technology, with Ito's music in full effect).

Ito went on to marry Deren in the year 1960, but unfortunately she passed away in 1961 at the tender age of 44. It is worth noting that the music Ito was making for Deren's films predates Don Cherry's similar music by basically a decade. Of course, the very Cherry-like "Axis Mundi" was recorded almost 10 years after the Organic Music Society album, so it goes both ways. At the same time, Ito's music is also very Sun Ra-like in the late 1950s, at a time when Ra was just starting to scratch the surface of non-canonical instrumentation and open-form improvisations utilizing Asian concepts of silence. (Mr. Ra appears to have been paying attention to Deren & Ito, as his 1973 film Space is the Place drops a huge reference to Meshes of the Afternoon within its first 5 minutes.)





This is another YouTube of Ito's music, not for a Maya Deren film, but recorded in 1964 for a Japanese film production that was never released. In 2007, Ito's score was released on CD as Tenno by the Tzadik label. (That one goes for a little more money, a whopping $11.99!) It's a little more similar to the "Axis Mundi" feel than the Maya Deren works:

HASTÍO La Ofensiva Interior CS (NO LABEL)

Limited run of 20. Entire run pictured above. Bottom row center is the copy now sitting in my house! 

Hey, it's another #softunderground tape release from the American soft underground! In fact, this tape is by Hastío, aka PN of Seattle WA, the only other person to ever use the term #softunderground besides me, and of course radio and Twitter's own Jeff Conklin, who actually coined the term and then promptly stopped using it as soon as he noticed a couple of other goofballs had joined in. (Hey, can't say I blame him!) Thankfully, Mr. Conklin still plays lots of music in that style and several others on his weekly radio show on the Best Radio Station in the World, New Jersey's WFMU. He has in fact played this very Hastío tape. It features acoustic & electric guitars, electronics, spacey percussion, and wordless lost moaned vocals. You may have heard combinations much like this before from the post-2000 psych underground, but this one really leans heavily on the guitar. In fact, it's often unaccompanied, with a distinct Latino/Spanish melodic sense which is reflected in the Spanish-language album title and track titles like "Un presentimiento vago y pasajero de triunfo..." Throughout, there is lots of space, lots of silence, lots of pause for reflection, and even a few sections that could pass for a flamenco record on 16 RPM next to a healthy water heater. My favorite track is side one closer "El trueno en la ciudad," which eschews the atmospheric overdubs in favor of simple one-take lonesome zonesome heavy folk strumming. (The title means "Thunder in the city." Which is heavy.) [hastio.bandcamp.com]

DURA Five Years CS (GEOLOGY RECORDS)

Almost absurdly beautiful new music in a soft underground (aka #softunderground) psych/folk/experimental style. No vocals, two side-long tracks; on side A, delicate acoustic guitar eventually emerges from long slow-river washes of electronics; on side B, both the guitar and the washes are on equal footing, blended and interwoven, almost as if one is triggering the other. The Geology label is based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Dura is the work of someone named Mattson Ogg, who could live in Milwaukee, or could live in Scandinavia, or could live somewhere completely different. Point being, there's no info about the guy anywhere in the very nice cassette packaging, or on the Geology Records bandcamp page. (UPDATE: It appears that he lives in Brooklyn, New York just like everybody else!)

MEAT PUPPETS - II LP (SST)

A person on the internet just said:

"It's a favorite for me because it's always inviting the listener in to discover new things about both the record and your own mind. This LP is intergalactic and wants to commune with humans."

SOPHIE COOPER Our Aquarius CDR (WILD SILENCE)

It might be true that everything is now on the internet, but that doesn't mean you're going to find out about it any faster. Way back in 2009 I was sent a tape of free-improvised acoustic guitar folk music by Cooper/Jones/Nichols, aka Sophie Cooper, Kelly Jayne Jones, and Pascal Nichols. I really dug it and was always interested in more from those responsible; next thing I know it's six years later and I hear about a new solo album by Sophie Cooper called Our Aquarius. I find it on Bandcamp and start listening obsessively, eventually noticing that it was released over a year ago. Oh well, better late than never; this is a fantastic album. As much as I loved the ramshackle homemade goodness of Ms. Cooper's earlier cassette, this solo work of hers is waaaayyy beyond. Those were improvised and cheaply recorded acoustic guitar & percussion room-jams, where these are songs and experimental instrumentals that are built up from carefully layered overdubs that are very well-recorded indeed. The result is what might be called a 'psychedelic folk' album, and sometimes it totally is, but it's also sometimes a noise album and/or a drone album, and sometimes it's a sui generis album, which is the best generis of all. The tracks have many layers and each one carves out its own deep territory. It's not until the 3rd song "Klias Wetlands" that we get true femme-sung psychedelic folk, and it's a doozy, a haunting number sounding like something the lady (ghost?) (hallucination?) across the lake in The Innocents might sing. There are two more relatively 'normal' folk songs on the album, the three of which would make a great EP/single release in themselves, but they sound even better surrounded by her deep instrumental work and heavy tone poems. Released as a CDR, in a beautiful possibly-hand-made wallet-thing with lyric insert, on the Wild Silence label, which is run by French musician Delphine Dora, whose work is worth serious investigation as well, among it a haunting collaborative release with Ms. Cooper.

MIDWICH PRODUCTIONS

MAGAS Heads Plus (MIDWICH); MOON POOL & DEAD BAND "MEQ" (MIDWICH); VIANDS Temporal Relic (MIDWICH); MICK TRAVIS Face Disappears After Interrogation (MIDWICH) 
A favorite new label is Chicago-based Midwich Productions, who debuted in 2015 by releasing four records, all of them superb. One of them was by label CEO Jim Magas, a 12" EP called Heads Plus, one of his very best records in a long underground career, forward-looking post-techno style-melting electronic psychotronic headtrip party music all the way. Bonus points for the cover painting by Mark Salwowski, which was used for a 1985 paperback edition of Brian Aldiss's infamous 1969 psychedelic sci-fi novel about the Acid Head Wars, Barefoot in the Head; I initially and confusedly thought it was maybe a commissioned portrait of Magas himself; it all gets tied together in the Barefoot-inspired video for Heads Plus track "Machete King." (All of the Midwich releases thus far have been graced by amazing Salwowski cover paintings.) Speaking of underground, Moon Pool & Dead Band's Midwich release MEQ takes a great 2010 track from the Detroit duo of David Shettler and Nate "Wolf Eyes" Young, adds seven "deep, dystopian techno-funk" remixes of it by various co-conspirators, and then spreads it all across 4 sides of vinyl. These first two releases are the most dancefloor-friendly on the label, while the Viands record is the least traditional in that sense. It also features Shettler, though in a much different initial setting, playing in an ostensibly softer keyboard/synth duo, doing two improvisational side-long pieces, but their Temporal Relic is a very deeply heavy album that grows and grows as it goes. It's not a 'techno-funk' album like the other Midwich titles can pass as, but not merely a 'side-long jams' experimental/psych/synth album either, thanks to a rarefied light touch, highly musical approach, and a particularly enticing and subtle sense of rhythm. I honestly feel like its correct genre is, get ready, krautrock. Like, this is an actual krautrock album from 1973, even though it was recorded in 2014 by two guys from Michigan. Mick Travis is another guy from (I think) Michigan, who has a release on Aaron Dilloway's Hanson Records, collaborated with him in The Nevari Butchers, and has his own label Medusa. His record is a 12" EP that really throws the hammer down, not only musically, but with the incredible sci-fi title Face Disappears After Interrogation (a title like that paired with another mind-blowing Mark Salwowski cover painting, featuring a drowned man in an underwater car and a young boy on a bike under irradiated skies, is really just too much). It might be the most traditionally heavy of the four Midwich releases (although none of them are slouches in the department), almost like some weird personal filtration of the gabber sound, except that the Side A track "Multiple Roles" might end up the most submerged-sounding thing in the catalog. Great shit, all four records are very worthwhile, and more is coming from Midwich in 2016.

THINKING FELLERS UNION LOCAL 282 The Natural Finger 7" EP (AJAX)

Speaking of the Thinking Fellers... man, they were a hell of a band. So often they teetered on the brink of 'wacky' and 'quirky', things I usually don't like (okay, so often they WILLFULLY TOOK THE LEAP AND PLUNGED DEEP INTO 'wacky' and 'quirky'), but they were such a viciously good band at good ole PLAYING and SINGING, that it never truly mattered. And, they really knew how to arrange three guitar parts at once, giving their music an always-surprising orchestral wallop. I always felt a special connection to them as well because they were originally from my home state Iowa, and they really did exemplify that state's particular twisted, dry, and frankly stupid sense of humor, which I had also been cursed with. Anyway, my single favorite song by the Fellers is the first one on this here EP, released waaaaaayy back in 1990. (Yep, that's over 25 years ago.) It's called "Hell Rules." It starts with the title, another one of those sardonic/bitter post-pigfuck 90s-indie koans, and then continues into the truly beautiful and haunting music, in which forlorn intertwining African High Life guitar lines delicately cycle around, lonesome in the void, a drum kit is replaced by spacy and intermittent hand percussion, and the vocals alternately sound like someone mumbling in another room and a goddamn choir of angels reminding you that, yes, "Hell Rules." "Narlus Spectre" is another Fellers classic, a loping folk-rock number with spaghetti western guitar parts and high-lonesome cowboy vocal melodies. Because, if there was a cowboy in the TFUL282 universe, of course he would be named Narlus fucking Spectre. "Leaky Bag" is a bit of a rager, and even with their twee vocals and derptastic humor, this band could fucking rage. EP closer "Misfits Park" also rages, with a particulary nasty guitar solo; it also has a 'quirky' ska upbeat in the bassline, and you just know at least one of these people non-ironically played Two-Tone Ska at some point (just like their idols in Souled American used to), and EVEN THAT doesn't bother me.

U.S. SAUCER My Company Is Misery LP (AMARILLO)

 Back in the 90s I got into this band first, because they were a “Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 side project″ (not really accurate, but the two bands did share one member, Brian Hageman), and second, because they were on Amarillo Records (the consistently baffling/humorous/fascinating label run by Gregg “Neil Hamburger” Turkington). What absolutely sealed the deal was a brilliant blurb, presumably written by Jimmy Johnson, in the mail-order catalog in the back of the last ever issue of Forced Exposure, which in part read “…some of the most depressingly liberating outings of non-good-time music you could ever hope to lay your head down next to. Sparse drone song structure sometimes opens up for bursts of heavy noise guitar (almost Haino-esque) and general inspirational lethargy. Can’t imagine a more unimpeachingly ‘outside’ American LP any time soon.” I really love that phrase “depressingly liberating,” and I can’t tell you how drawn I continue to be to music that fits that bill, from Neil Young to the aforementioned Mr. Haino to Doom Metal to Meg Baird to Souled American. And, speaking of Souled American, I now can’t help but think that U.S. Saucer was probably formed to simply BE a West Coast version of them in their post-drummer iteration. Not so much to “rip them off” as just to keep that beautiful depressing vibe going, as its originators got more and more reclusive over the years. David Tholfsen is almost as monstrous on bass as SA’s Joe Adducci, and the guitars by Margaret Murray and Hageman do a lot more than just a great Grigoroff/Tuma homage (FE wasn’t kidding about those Haino-esque noise bursts – check out the long coda to “Scold Mourner” for some particularly satisfying slow-burn scorch). 

ROOTS ROCK ROUNDUP (Shawn David McMillen / State Champion / Meg Baird)

Just kidding about "roots rock." I do love the roots of rock (you know like blues, country, folk, boogies, woogies, shuffles, skiffles, Sun Records, softshoes), but the phrase "roots rock" uttered anytime (really from the 1980s on -- dare I blame The Blasters?) can very easily bring to mind a mere nostalgia act or, nowadays, a band of young urban curled-moustache artisans playing at your local gentrified neighborhood's farmer market. Banjos, definitely, along with other instruments that are as much theater props as music-makers. At least two (if not all) band-members wearing some combination of fedora and/or suspenders. "Country-flavored," as Harmony Korine put it on the WTF Podcast. I prefer my roots rock in 2015 to be either unabashed roadhouse dance/brawl music (I can give you no examples), or, if it must be played in the 'post-indie' arena, somewhat spacy and tripped-out, and, more importantly, to not have any immediate and/or overt genre allegiance in its display of said roots (sorry Sturgill Simpson, but a 1970s Waylon Jennings imitation is still a nostalgia act, no matter how many times you mention DMT). Finally, it must have soul, and here are two albums released in 2015 that have plenty of that good ole southern-inflected garage soul:

First up is Shawn David McMillen and his new LP On The Clock With J.J. and Mitch on the 12XU label. We've been listening to McMillen for awhile now, starting in the actual 1990s when he was part of a spaced-out post-krautrock 90s male/female Texas duo called Ash Castles On The Ghost Coast. They released one CD in 1996 on Wholly Other, the house label for Charalambides (another spaced-out post-krautrock 90s male/female Texas duo, as it happens). A few years after that CD, McMillen released, under his own name, a scrambled roots/improv/noise LP called Catfish, and a couple years after that, he released a still very cracked but increasingly song-oriented release called Dead Friends (a fairly grim sense of humor has also shown itself on these records, especially the latter). The title of this brand new 2015 album refers to his band; McMillen plays guitar and sings, while JJ Ruiz plays drums and Mitch Frazier plays bass. JJ and Mitch both sing background vocals as well, so it certainly works from that spaced-out roots-rock Crazy Horse trio template, but this is no carbon copy. JJ and Mitch are light, open, and swinging, and McMillen brings his own loosey goosey voice to it, really coming into his own as a songwriter. I think I saw someone (on Instagram?) compare this album to the Meat Puppets, and they might've even dropped a II into the comment. A big claim, but I really think it's an accurate description of the style. McMillen drawls things like "Kick off your shoes / Gotta take your time" and warbles things like "Walkin' around in the sun all day / Nowhere to go, I think I lost my way / Walkin' around in the sun all day" while playing lots of great guitar, from chunky classic rock rhythm to clean African high life melodies to ripp(l)ing distorted psychedelic leads. Side two stretches things out a bit, in a way even more to my liking, with only 3 cuts (side one has 5), the first a wonderful Soft South African instrumental called "No Passport." Let's hope Shawn, JJ & Mitch keep punchin' that clock.

Today's other new take on the cheese-free heartland roots rock dream is a new 2015 album by Louisville, Kentucky's own State Champion. It's called My Other Car Is A Fantasy Error, and it's on the Sophomore Lounge label. There's a bit of a story here, as I reviewed their first album back in 2010 rather harshly. The band founder, singer, and songwriter (and Sophomore Lounge proprietor) Ryan Davis not only took this review in stride, he's generously continued to send us lots of stuff he's released on his label since then, including great records by Tropical Trash, Sapat, Ma Turner, and more, including this brand new State Champion record, which he thought I might like anyway, despite the negative-review past, and by god he's right. It's not the same lineup that recorded that debut album, and it does seem that Davis has found a band that can double down on his Silver Jews/Pavement/Smog/Drag City ramshackle singer-songwriter influences and play the hell out of 'em and make 'em their own. What's more, he's either writing a lot more hooks, lyrical asides, and punchlines per song than he was on the first album, or he's just figured out how to make 'em cut through and connect; every song has at least a couple that really land, and just the first few lines of the album opener, a nice ranging dynamic tune called "Sunbathing I," contain several: "They're breaking all the trees in my backyard down/They're thinning the air/These bricks are red for a reason/These books ain't read for a reason/It's that time of the season again/I swear I swear aw hell that mailbox hasn't held my mail for years/So you can turn your own snakes to stone/And you can leave mine alone/I've just been minding mine inside my home/A dungeon where the dead do roam/I don't need no one to jerk me off my throne." Can I get a hell yeah?

I was just gonna write about those two albums, but since I've also been listening to Meg Baird's latest Don't Weigh Down The Light every night I feel like I should throw it in here too. I mean, it is pretty spacey, and yeah, it's pretty rootsy (though the roots are more British Isles than Southern USA), but I feel like she's in a league of her own soaring above everyone else anyway. Since she started working with the Drag City label in 2007, she's quietly released a massive album every four years or so, and this latest one (her third) is her best yet. The songwriting digs even deeper than before into a suspended invisible existential realm; as for arrangements, she had a few great musicians on her 2nd record Seasons on Earth, but on Don't Weigh Down The Light she has just one, Charlie Saufley, who is perfect on electric guitar, organ, and percussion, taking Meg's music to levels even more 'next'. It may not be accurate to say that Charlie Saufley is the Charlie Larkey to Meg Baird's Carole King, but I do know that I've already listened to Don't Weigh Down The Light about fifteen more times (and counting) than I've ever listened to Now That Everything's Been Said (but man that "Wasn't Born To Follow" sure is heavy).   

BLASTITUDE YEAR IN REVIEW: 2014

NOTE: I have this habit of writing year-end roundups and then never posting them because I get overwhelmed by the flood of everyone else's year-end roundups and end up losing interest in them, including my own. But I just looked over this one, which was entirely written before January 1st, 2015, and damn, I put a lot of work into it, so why don't you just take a look at it now, when the pressure is off? Sure, some of it is a little outdated (talk of "upcoming" records that were by now released several months ago, for example), but most of it will never be outdated (because great music is timeless and all that).

VASHTI BUNYAN Heartleap LP (DICRISTINA)
STEVE GUNN Way Out Weather LP (PARADISE OF BACHELORS)
IGNATZ & DE STERVENDE HONDEN Teenage Boys LP (ULTRA ECZEMA)
SAPAT A Posthuman Guide to the Advent Calendar Origins of the Peep Show LP (SOPHOMORE LOUNGE)
MA TURNER 'ZOZ' LP (SOPHOMORE LOUNGE)
JO JOHNSON Weaving LP (FURTHER)
EXILES FROM CLOWNTOWN Tape Scissors Rock LP (SOFT ABUSE)
VARIOUS ARTISTS Cool Bands 2 CS (NO LABEL)
LEWIS L'Amour LP; Romantic Times LP (LIGHT IN THE ATTIC)

As usual, an overwhelming amount of significant music was released this year (see this post by our friend at FRR for just one glimpse at the plurality), but there were three 2014 albums in particular that got the most turntable time at Blastitude HQ, and all three have something in common: they're on the softer side of things. Is it because at age 44 I'm almost to where I can legitimately start to say "I'm getting old"? Is it because a head-in-sand retreat from various increasingly brutal social realities is becoming more difficult to turn down? Could it be that the whole entire electric/psych/rock/garage/punk/noise big bang sonic boom of the 1960s, after reverberating strong right up into the 2000s, is finally slowly decaying back into theoretical silence? Is it because I live in a tiny 3-room apartment with three other people, two of whom are 11 years old or younger, none of whom like to listen to my hard and heavy weird records, especially not loudly? Either way, I wasn't the only one going soft; Jeff Conklin of the superb weekly WFMU radio show The Avant Ghetto has been talking about the "soft underground" on air (and the #softunderground on twitter), playing all kinds of music that doesn't have to be hard to be heavy, or loud to ring in your ear. Even silence can be heavy, and think of all the gradations and cross-gradations along the way... Xenakis, Paradieswärts Düül, and Grouper for three really quick and disparate examples. As well as these examples right here:

My #1 record of 2014, which might be the softest damn thing I've ever heard, is Heartleap by Vashti Bunyan (DiCristina), absolutely gorgeous, ethereal, fragile, twilit, gemlike, all of the above. After listening to it five times or so I still didn't really know the hell what instruments I was even hearing. It didn't quite sound like guitar, or keyboards, or anything really, except soft bells, or magic. Add her sweet voice on top of it, singing "Every day is every day/Can't tell one from the other/Wait to fall at the end of it all/As stones skip across the water," and you've got a beautiful heavy record. I also love the fact that it's her third album in a 44-year career, with her legendary debut Just Another Diamond Day coming in 1970, her followup Lookaftering coming 35 years later in 2005, and now Heartleap, which she insists is her last album, coming 8 years later in 2014. There's something to be said for the opposite of prolificacy; thanks Vashti, you've given us plenty!

My #2 record of 2014 is Way Out Weather by Steve Gunn (Paradise of Bachelors), another beautiful modern-day folk-rock singer-songwriter record, soft enough to earn the de rigueur comparisons to The Grateful Dead (of course), John Fahey (at least the generic misconception thereof), "world music" (i.e. Africa) and most likely even some stray "Dad-rock" and "NPR-core" action. All of which may be true, and none of which matters when the singing, writing, and playing is this goddamn good. His 2013 record Time Off worked its way into this Americana-meets-Africana style with a nice guitar/bass/drums trio format, but everything absolutely blossoms on Way Out Weather. The songs are richer, the singing more assured, and the Time Off trio of Gunn, Justin Tripp (bass), and John Truscinski (drums) has grown to include expansive cosmic string-band musical commentary from Jason Meagher (No-Neck Blues Band, Black Dirt Studio, et al), Nathan Bowles (Pelt, Black Twig Pickers, et al), Mary Lattimore (Thurston Moore, Kurt Vile, et al), James Elkington (Freakwater, Jeff Tweedy, et al), and Jimmy SeiTang (Rhyton, et al). Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to listen to the glorious song-end rideout of "Wildwood" for the 200th time.... "you know it ruuuuunnnnnnssssss....." 

My #3 record of 2014 was like an odd relative to the Steve Gunn record. similar in its deep African-inflected guitar/bass/drum groove and avant blue-eyed soul singing, but like a shyer, more furtive skate-rat cousin, sitting in a corner slumped inside a hoodie. And, where Gunn's music feels like being outside on a warm day next to water, this one is more like being inside on a cold night next to the fire. I'm talking about Teenage Boys by Ignatz & De Stervende Honden (Ultra Eczema), and if I may decode the band name a bit, Ignatz is the nom de plume for one Bram Devens of Belgium, and he plays guitar and sings, presumably writing the songs as well. He's put out quite a few solo and collabo records as Ignatz, affiliated with the Kraak label and in the context of the 2000s CDR underground. De Stervende Honden is the backing band, good ole drum kit and bass guitar, and they are as superb as their name, which is Dutch for The Dying Dogs. A description of the live debut of this band and the effect they have can be found on the Kraak website: "On the way back from the 2009 UK tour together with Silvester Anfang, Ignatz debuted with a backing band at Carlo Levi in Liege. The people present are still talking about it. It was one of those spontaneous magical moments. Suddenly Ignatz was free to rock out, not having to think about his samples or backing tracks." 

Also in keeping with the softgeist, I did love both of the rediscovered/reissued Lewis records, L'Amour and Romantic Times. There was quite a buzz when these were coming out, but I haven't seen ole Lew on too many year-end lists. Maybe everyone actually dislikes the music because of its obvious roots in 'lite' and 'bland' and 'yacht' and 'dentist office vibes' and all that, but I think everyone's just trying to play it cool on the internet. They're suspicious of the Light in the Attic label and think the artist might be a hoax (I don't think he is whatsoever, but it seems to be something people actually believe). Personally, I'm a little annoyed by all of LitA's extraneous gatefolds and liner notes and obi strips on the reissues, because I'm an exact repro kinda guy, but hey, either way, people no longer seem capable of simply sitting down and listening to the music on these two records, which I think is superb deep murmured melancholy softness, with the follow-up Romantic Times taking the first album aesthetic into more daring synth-haze heartbreak territory.

 


After that, there were three not-so-soft records released this year that I really dug. Two of them were released by the Louisville, Kentucky-based Sophomore Lounge label, one not until December: A Posthuman Guide to the Advent Calendar Origins of the Peep Show by Sapat. The previous Sapat album Mortise and Tenon came out 8 years ago (let's hear it once more for whatever the opposite of prolificacy is), and in that time Sapat has undergone significant lineup changes. This has not limited them, but allowed them to go in many new directions. They always had plenty of post-krautrock and free-roots moves at their disposal, but now they're also getting into what sounds like Eastern European prog, a spiky Rock in Opposition approach, and however you describe the vocalist's accent on the album opener "Arson Lieder I" when he sings "But the feeling.... is mutual." Or, however you describe the places new vocalist Dane Waters takes them with her opera-trained multi-octave psychedelic pressure. Also on Sophomore Lounge was the "ZOZ" LP by Ma Turner, which was a heavy edit/distillation of a 6-hour 12-cassette box set that he released in 2013. It has 4 or 5 great songs that are vintage Mr. Turner free-folk, with the rest being varied heady instrumental psych-noise-jam 2000s worship. I've been a fan of this guy since early 2005, and I've always liked hearing him try lots of things, but it's great when he bottles the running water, so to speak, and edits things down to the length of a long-playing record. And, the third not-so-soft record I listened to a bunch this year was Scissors Paper Rock, the debut full-length by Exiles From Clowntown, on the Soft Abuse label. These Australian 'older dudes' started out by self-releasing 7-inches in an enigmatic '1990s free rock' style, and showed a lot of promise (I even interviewed 'em), if not a whole lot of rehearsal or song-allegiance, but on Tape Scissors Rock, given two full-length sides to roam around on, they really knocked it out of the park with a fine coalescence of their disparate improv/jam/song ideas. A really entrancing record that grows as it goes.

That's about it for the 2014 stuff I listened to actual physical copies of. Of course, we all listen to lots of music via the internet now, and I am no exception. Though I'm glad I didn't have to, I probably could've gotten by this year just listening to music on Bandcamp, Soundcloud, and Tumblr alone. For example, when Weaving by Jo Johnson (Further Records) came out last summer, I listened to it on Soundcloud over and over for a few days straight. Still haven't seen the vinyl, but it exists and is already valued like a collector's item. She was the guitarist for Huggy Bear, now doing something completely different and that's cosmic synth instrumentals. This fashionable 70s-reverent retro-genre is not usually a favorite of mine, but somehow the patiently scrolling compositions on Weaving hit the spot just right. I'm not the first to compare her to Laurie Spiegel, one of the greatest cosmic (in academic guise) synth composers of all time, and Johnson's album really does aspire to that level......... Another internet-only phenomenon for me this year was a huge surge in killer punk. I too was enamored with the upstart NWI punk scene (NWI being an abbreviation for Northwest Indiana, which I think of, with admiration, as the boiler room of Chicago, with said scene seemingly centered around the burg of Hammond), particularly the more Devo/Urinals end of it as exemplified by The Coneheads and the elusive CCTV. The louder/harder BadBrainsVoid-isms of NWI bands Big Zit and Ooze were also impressive, and you can find all of them and more on a cassette-only compilation called Cool Bands 2 (no label). Actually you may not be able to find it, unless you're actually in Northwest Indiana and talking to the right punk, but in the meantime you can download it by going to the right blog, and then put it on your iTunes and listen to it a bunch of times like I have. Again, the only place I listened to punk demos and 7-inches this year at all was on the internet, and it's been particularly great to hear so much damn good female-fronted & -played punk and post-punk this year, from bands like Good Throb, Nandas, Sheer Mag, Nots, In School, Pang, Frau, Cold Beat, Vexx, Crimson Wave, Toupee, and a whole lot more (Erase Errata even came out with a killer new album, although that may have technically been in 2015)... the aforementioned Mr. Fuckin' Record Reviews led me to this huge 8tracks mix that covers lots of this action and lots more.............

    

And now for a special honorable mention section that is also a major shout-out to the aforementioned Avant Ghetto radio program on WFMU. I'd like to think I would have heard a lot of these records anyway, but it sure was convenient having them spun and archived on a radio show week after week; thanks so much to WFMU and their mind-boggling archival efforts (listener supported! donate now! every week is pledge week!). I've already mentioned one album I first heard on the Avant Ghetto (Teenage Boys by Ignatz & De Stervende Honden, #3 above); another was a fantastic cassette release by an elusive British solo project with the slightly unwieldy name of Tuluum Shimmering. This year's 3LP reissue of John Oswald's legendary Grayfolded megamix of over 100 Grateful Dead performances of "Dark Star" may have gotten more attention, and the allegiance of all the noise underground Deadheads, but for me one "Dark Star" has always done just fine by itself, and I always found Grayfolded too busy (too many Phils, too many Jerrys, one of each is plenty) and you could find me listening to Mr. Shimmering's marathon loop-driven reimagining of "Dark Star" instead. It was physically released on a C100 cassette by the Tranquility Tapes label, but that sold out in about a week, so once again it was Bandcamp to the rescue. A third 2014 album I first heard on The Avant Ghetto is a new one by Richard Youngs. It seems that most years there are a few new ones by Richard Youngs, and every single one of them is usually goddamn great, but there was something extra-magical about Red Alphabet In The Snow, which he did an edition of 250 for a Polish label called Preserved Sound. I just finally ordered a copy for myself, but it's not here yet; in the meantime I sure have listened to it a lot on Bandcamp, gorgeous hovering long-form flamenco/dreamtone maximalist miniatures built up by all sorts of delicate instruments, most of them stringed ("acoustic guitar, banjo, cifteli, classical guitars, electric bass guitar, electric lead guitars, electric violin, epinette des vosges, shakers, sitar, swanee whistle, tambourine, triangle, 12 string guitar, ukulele, voice"). And finally, the new Astral Social Club Fountain Transmitter Medications LP + CD (on the VHF label) has at least one side that is absolutely killing. That's the track called "Diamonds in the Dreich," which I heard on, you guessed it, the Avant Ghetto, sounding like Walter Wegmuller jamming with Throbbing Gristle in some dystopian near future. I plan to hear the rest of the album soon by purchasing it.

OTHER GOOD THINGS IN 2014
(For this section, I'm basically just recapping the current bands/artists I mentioned on my twitter feed this year. I feel like 90 percent of what I mention on there is from the 1960s-1980s, but then I do believe that any music made with electricity is new music, and that everything after the bomb is sci-fi.)

SPIRES THAT IN THE SUNSET RISE from downstate Illinois, who I used to listen to quite a bit when they first came on the Chicago scene circa 2002-2004, pretty much a poster band for free folk, but also damn good at it with a sound that was tough as nails. I've barely heard them since, besides seeing them play a really good show as a duo in 2007, until recently bumping into this YouTube of their set at the 2014 Tusk Festival (Newcastle upon Tyne, England). Still a duo, they pull an impressive amount of music out of their heavily processed bravura vocals and Canterbury-style reeds and woodwinds.....

STARE CASE played a 2013 gig in Toronto and I tweeted about how you can watch it on YouTube; Stare Case is 2/3rds of Wolf Eyes, John Olson and Nate Young, playing in a notably different deep-listening silence-aware style, with Nate's methodical psychedelic bass playing reminding me of the aforementioned Paradieswärts Düül. They are currently active, though often in hibernation...

The aforementioned SAPAT...

The aforementioned CONEHEADS...

The aforementioned RICHARD YOUNGS showed up again when I tweeted that "My nominee for the greatest song of 2010 is RICHARD YOUNGS "Love In The Great Outdoors." The tweet was meant to not only link to a great song, but also to goof a bit on the idea of year-end lists, and how sometimes you don't know what the best song of the year was until 4 years later because time is elastic....

Long-time Blastifave SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE have a record coming out in early 2015 on Drag City called Hexadelic, and I retweeted some frankly scorching preview tracks you can listen to on Soundcloud....

The aforementioned TULUUM SHIMMERING...

Another excellent global ritual/documentary/music/immersion film by HISHAM MAYET, released on DVD by Sublime Frequencies, called Vodoun Gods on the Slave Coast (filmed in Benin and featuring the jaw-dropping Night Watchman ceremony)...

I don't think JIM MAGAS actually released anything this year (although releases are in the works), but he did contribute to the score for Asia Argento's new film Misunderstood, which premiered at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, and I retweeted a great interview with him about that and other things...

Long-time fave KEVIN DRUMM apparently put out plenty of new stuff this year, including a full-length called Wrong Intersection, which sounded typically excellent streamed over at Fact Mag....

A topical rager by Canadian punk band VALLEY BOYS called "Drone Attack"...

81-year-old jazz saxophonist SONNY SIMMONS put out a daunting jazz/industrial/Fourth World/concrete 8-CD box set on a French label and the tracks from it on Bandcamp are superb....

SIR RICHARD BISHOP is always doing great stuff and you can jump in anywhere....

I only remember going to one single live show the entire year, but it was a doozy: a day spent at the Chicago Jazz Fest at which I caught afternoon sets by the TOMEKA REID QUARTET (featuring MARY HALVORSON) and Jason Adasiewicz's blazing SUN ROOMS, followed up exquisitely with evening sets by great young vocalist CECILE McLORIN SALVANT (her pianist Aaron Diehl and drummer Lawrence Leathers were killing it) and none other than the SUN RA ARKESTRA, who are very much active under the leadership of 90-year-old Marshall Allen and played a set of such swirling stately cosmic beauty that was nearly moved to tears of joy (I mean the show was also free and it was even my birthday, how much more karmically and cosmically correct can it get?!).

Oh yeah, earlier that week I saw MATTHEW SHIPP play a jaw-dropper of a solo set in a high-end piano store, also free, also part of the Jazz Festival. He played music I'm not comfortable calling jazz. This was something beyond that -- contemporary classical, maybe, or several unquantifiable things at once. He also did an impromptu Q&A after the set (included in previously linked YouTube) in which he mentioned none other than Houston, TX noise-rock lifers Rusted Shut...

A stunning grinding ritualistic and dare-I-say ethno-fucking-ambient 2014 cassette release by Japan-based TOLCHOK called After Fog Open, which I first heard on (you guessed it) the aforementioned Avant Ghetto program, and then a few times on the Sky Lantern Records & Tapes Bandcamp...

BHOB RAINEY laying down the (supremely quiet saxophone) sickness (in 2013)...

The thankfully still-prolific ASHTRAY NAVIGATIONS...

The great 2013 LP Handbook for Mortals by LETHA RODMAN MELCHIOR, which I kept spinning in 2014, and is still spinning in elegy as she lost a hard-fought battle with cancer this year in July. She is survived by her loving husband DAN MELCHIOR, who makes some of the best underground music of today in his own right; I'm kicking myself for not ordering their collaborative (or split release?) cassette Rodman Melchior/Melchior Rodman from danmelchior.bigcartel.com when it was still available there, especially if it contains even half of the ephemeral beauty that Letha's solo LP does, and Dan's own 'non-songwriter' 'experimental' work is great too. But the real question is, has Dan put out an LP featuring the guitar-overdrive motorik power trio (plus keyboardist) material he's been playing live in 2014? I'm talking about the gigs at the Philly Record Exchange and the WFMU Record Fair, for starters... actually, I know there's a cassette release of the former gig called Live at the Philly Record Exchange for sale at that BigCartel, I should go buy it right now... UPDATE: Soon after writing the previous I did also buy Rodman Melchior/Melchior Rodman off of Discogs, and it is indeed some damned fine experimental sounds-and-music dreamtone collage... I don't know if this blog post will make anyone else buy anything from 2014, but it sure is getting me to buy a few things... ANOTHER UPDATE: The "guitar-overdrive motorik power trio (plus keyboardist)" stuff I reference above can be heard on the new album by Dan Melchior's Broke Revue, Lords of the Manor. For more on that, see my Best of 2015 list! (Coming soon in early 2017!)

HAMISH KILGOUR, drummer and oft-vocalist for The Clean, released All Of It And Nothing on the Ba Da Bing label, what I believe to be his first solo LP, a nice set of moody low-key psych-tinged songs...

There was the big Bandcamp overhaul done by ARBITRARY SIGNS, which is the label run by Pete Nolan of the Magik Markers... this got me listening to a bunch of their new & old stuff again for a week or two... great band... I believe they toured some this year, and vocalist/guitarist Elisa Ambrogio toured even more (and is touring right now!) behind her solo debut LP The Immoralist, on Drag City...

How about that rad greater New York City area duo called 75 DOLLAR BILL, made up of Rick Brown (who played in Run On in the 1990s for Matador Records) on "percussion and homemade horns" and a guitarist named Che Chen? "They met via MySpace and started playing together as 75 Dollar Bill approximately eight years later," cranking out extended tranced-out Africa-fueled Mississippi-fueled dirty-amplifier extendo grunge-groove, and it's definitely something I want to hear a band play in 2014, and 2015 will work too (check out their January 2015 release Wooden Bag on Other Music Recording Co.)....

ED SCHRADER'S MUSIC BEAT followed up their excellent debut Jazz Mind (released by Load Records in 2012) with another bracing LP called Party Jail (on the Infinity Cat label). It was also cool to hear a song from Jazz Mind used in that disturbing Adult Swim fake Claridryl commercial...

Chicago footwork pioneer DJ RASHAD passed away this year at the age of 34 so I spent some time listening to his music when that sad news was announced...

DEVIN GARY & ROSS played blasted psych covers in art museums in 2012, and in 2014 they released an acclaimed double LP called Honeycomb Of Chakras (label: Feeding Tube) which I have yet to grip....

CIRCUIT DES YEUX, who released breakthrough album Overdue in 2013, spent 2014 doing a lot of international touring, playing for bigger crowds, opening for well-known bands, premiering videos, and she even made this very nice mix. She's going to do good things in 2015 too, starting with a collaboration with Mind Over Mirrors (aka Jaime Fennelly, former member of PeeEssEye)...

I tweeted about long-running #noaudienceunderground stalwart OMIT when I came across a stunning video of a show he played in 2012...

I tweeted about Chicago's ONO because they released a new album in 2014 (Diegesis, Moniker Records), only their fourth full-length since 1983, but their second in two years (frankly I'm finding their 2012 LP Albino, also on Moniker, somewhat difficult to process, but I will always love that '83 debut Machines That Kill People and they continue to play amazing live shows several times a year in Chicago)...

Way back in the beginning of the year I tweeted about SACRED PRODUCT because I spent a whole day listening to like four of his terrific extended nervous-punk trance-out youtubes over and over; apparently this is a solo project by a guy from that band Satanic Rockers, who put out the winner of last year's Album I Have Not Yet Listened To Because Of The Penis On Its Cover Award.

And waaaaay back in the beginning of year I was of course tweeting & retweeting stuff about WOLF EYES and their recent rebirth (because 2014 is #TheYearTripMetalBroke).

REISSUES/ARCHIVAL:
Peter Gutteridge Pure (540 Records), the Mike Cooper stuff on Paradise of Bachelors, Owen Maercks Teenage Sex Therapist (Feeding Tube), Craig Leon Nommos (Superior Viaduct), Flesh Eaters A Minute To Pray, A Second to Die (Superior Viaduct). The Velvet Underground The Velvet Underground - 45th Anniversary Super Deluxe (Universal/Polydor); Bob Dylan & The Band The Bootleg Series Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes Complete (Columbia); Various Artists 1970s Algerian Folk and Pop (Sublime Frequencies). Happily, I know there's many more.

PASSAGES:
James Wheeler, Rock Scully, Clive Palmer, Charlie Haden, Tommy Ramone, Chris Grier, Bobby Womack, Bob Abrahamian, Patrick Lundborg, DJ Rashad, Frankie Knuckles, Scott Asheton, Robert Ashley, Ricky Luanda, Amiri Baraka. Sadly, I know there's many more.

In other news, I read two great music bios this year; George Clinton's memoir Brothers Be, Yo Like George, Ain't That Funkin' Kinda Hard On You?, which is lucid, funny, and informative, highly recommended for any and all P-Funk freaks, to say the least; and Steve Lowenthal's Dance of Death: The Life of John Fahey, American Guitarist. Upon first picking it up, I was surprised how slim it felt, but after finishing it, I was surprised by how much information and insight had been succinctly packed into it. The book makes a hell of a case for the man not as a mere folk guitarist, but as a goddamn 20th century classical composer. It also pulled no punches as to what a difficult and unlikable person he was, tied him into the 90s noise underground much better than a more traditional folk-scene biographer might have done, and contained this beautiful sentiment from the emotional eulogy Leo Kottke gave at Fahey's funeral: "In a country full of crap, John created living, generative culture. With his guitar and his spellbound witness, he synthesized all the strains in American music and found a new happiness for all of us. With John, we have a voice only he could have given us; without him, no one will sound the same." I realize that all of the music I was able to listen to this year, as mentioned above, just might have been "generated" by Fahey's example; it's mind-boggling to think about all the doors of perception that were opened not only by his composing, but by the iconoclastic roster and DIY approach of his label Takoma Records.


BONUS! BONUS! BONUS! BONUS! BONUS!

I made a year-end list last year too, and gave it a snarky title due to the overwhelming preponderance of year-end lists all around me, none of which made me want to listen to any music at all. I was so tired of 'em that I didn't even have the heart to publish mine, but what they hey, I'll publish it now. These records are all still pretty new:

BEST OF 2013 "THE YEAR YEAR-END LISTS BROKE (AS IN STOPPED WORKING)"
CHRISTINA CARTER Texas Modern Exorcism CDR (MANY BREATHS)
LETHA RODMAN MELCHIOR Handbook For Mortals LP (SILTBREEZE)
WOLF EYES No Answer: Lower Floors CD (DE STIJL)
MONTIBUS COMMUNITAS Hacia Aquellos Bosques de Inmensidad LP (TROUBLE IN MIND)
CIRCUIT DES YEUX Overdue LP (LUV)
THE NECKS Open CD (NORTHERN SPY)
TIGER HATCHERY Sun Worship CD (ESP DISK)
DARKSIDE Psychic 2EP (MATADOR)
BODY/HEAD Coming Apart 2LP (MATADOR)
KANYE WEST Yeezus CD (ROC-A-FELLA/DEF JAM)
RAKE KASH Untitled EP CS (ANIMAL DISGUISE)
SALAD INFLUENCE "S.T.T." CS (BRAVE CAPTAIN/POT COFFIN)
CIAN NUGENT & THE COSMOS Born With A Caul LP (NO QUARTER)
NOCHT THE ONLY GHOUL Little Buffalo, Dead Horse CS (VWYRD WURD)
DAN MELCHIOR The Backwards Path CD (NORTHERN SPY)

MAD NANNA live at the Burlington, Chicago

SKY NEEDLE video tour diary