Oh Hey! Busy time of year, idn't it? As a result of new pressures and responsibilities -- some fairly disturbing, others outright inspiring -- on top of the old ones, Womblife will soon be bringing on at least one more (semi)regular contributor to both help lighten the load on yours and offer a more broad coverage of all those special sights and sounds that help make life a little bit more bearable. That's all I will say for now, though this guy has already been a contributor of sorts with recommendations and past comments leading to many blogs posted here over the years.

A few more recent live actions:

As mentioned at the bottom of this recent post, I was privy to some mighty fine electronics/noise/jazz improvising at the recent Improve Lottery jam held at the Phoenix Project. I was also majorly modified at the time so don't really remember any of the proper lineups or much more beyond a kind of propulsive miasmic goo that felt like one of H.P. Lovecraft's parallel dimensions had crashed into our own with all sorts of squiggly beasties and glowing shark-plankton swimming through the air. It was pretty neat. [All that stuff I just typed was paraphrased from Stuart Gordon's brilliant From Beyond, which you all must rent right now if you've never seen it.] Anyhoo, looky over here for detailed lineups of the Improv Lottery and another link where you can even download each and every set, as recorded by Zanzibar Snails member Michael Chamy. He also manipulated feedback/electronics that night in the fourth ensemble. I've already stated somewhere that the fourth set was my favorite, with a kind of John Coltrane Ascension blasted into outer space vibe about it. Featured players in all sets are members of DFW local area bands such as The Tidbits, Zanzibar Snails, Subkommander, Yells at Eels, Akkolyte and more.

For yours truly, this past week has been the live show whirlwind here in Big D, and all the more so given who all actually played. First up was a rare opportunity ('least in these parts) to see Marissa Nadler at the Modern Art Museum of Ft. Worth, a locale that was a far cry from the small pub/bar she played four or five years ago in Dallas, back when she was, in her own words, "still a child." Could be said Nadler has done a lot of growing in the last few years, developing a powerful, brisk fingerpicking guitar tone and honing that operatic voice of hers to a resounding ghostly lilt. Then there's her supporting musicians, multi-instrumentalist Jonas Haskins (from Earth -- the band) and guitarist Carter Tanton of Tulsa (which is also a band), two guys who perfectly accent, augment, open up and support our forlorn chanteuse through her perilous journeys.

Though I arrive too late to catch local songwriter Bosque Brown's opening set, Nadler more than makes up with a compelling show drawn from her first, third and fourth albums, which is perfect as this offers my first chance to see some songs from Songs III: Bird on the Water and its followup, Little Hells, (both Kemado) in a live setting. Though she may have still been "just a child" when she recorded that first album, even then Nadler had forged her own unique poetic expression of the classic existentialist lost soul -- what we all fear becoming. It's all there in the lines of the remarkable opener to her first album, Ballads of Living and Dying (Eclipse). The song, "Fifty Five Falls," is as much a warning as anything else -- the tale of Mayflower May and her fifty five falls of lonliness and isolation. Such a dire yet completely lived in little song. It's one that can haunt the listener and the player on an equal plane, but so refined and accessible is its melody that we've no choice but submit to its dark spell. It was very cool that she closed her set last Wednesday with this amazing little gem since it's the very first song I ever heard by her. Also loved her Neil Young cover (which was actually written by someone else) whose title escapes me, and her ethereal rendition of Leonard Cohen's "Famous Blue Raincoat" (check out her video for it here!). It's always a gift to spend a little quality time Marissa Nadler. And the songstress she's touring with, Alela Diane, is a dream in her own right, offering a slightly more earthy folk chanteuse sound. She's a beauty, and I was happy to nab a copy of this limited 10" recorded with Alina Hardin. Includes ace covers of "Maddy Groves" and one of my all time favorites, TVZ's "Rake." All in all a truly magical night.

Then two days later I made it out to The Lounge on Elm, which is becoming one of the better local venues for good punk/garage/psych underground happenings, all three genres The Axemen embody every aspect of without even trying. They're just naturally weird. I was shocked to find that they and Times New Viking had piggybacked onto Health's bill at The Lounge. Auckland's Axemen are living legends and a first wave Flying Nun band to boot. Lead guitarist Bob also has an amazing indie pop type band named Shaft that you probably ought to hear sometime if you like your 3Ds and Clean records. The Axemen are an altogether more skewed and scuzzier garage art punk slop concoction closer in line with earlier Pere Ubu, Public Image Limited and New Zealand's own Scorched Earth Policy, though you could say that The Axemen have an even more absurdist wit than all of the above. Just wrap your ears around the Siltbreeze reissued Scary: Part III 2Lp to try and figure it all out. It's ugly. It's beautiful. It just might make you piss your pants. Live these old goats kick out a raucous punk snarl that had me thinking Stooges one second, Beefheart and Wire simultaneously the next. Absolutely pummeling stuff that sounds right at home in the state of The 13th Floor Elevators and Red Crayola. Times New Viking tore it up as well with what amounts to probably the best gig I've seen by them to date.

Then the next night it's back over to The Phoenix Project for a regular prog extravaganza featuring the likes of local drone fusion act Small Talk, Denton's Orange Coax, Philly's Many Arms and some goofy German duo called Schnaak and Ft. Worth's own Great Tyrant. Small Talk squawked and blurted with clarinet over moog and a weird creeping backdrop of cutout translucent images and swirling oils. Orange Coax did the hurky-jerk no-wave freakout like X-Ray Spex in a mash-up with Teenage Jesus and the Jerks and ave the best drummer I've ever seen in a live setting (possibly a slight exaggeration). Many Arms were like King Crimson worship on steroids or Mahavishnu meets Sonic Youth. Cool enough, but them cats just don't know when to quit! Schnaak offered a bit more solace to the bombast with some trippy almost ambient interludes mixed into their prog throb. The Great Tyrant brought the iron-hulled synth dirge crush like Nick Cave fronting a cross between early Swans and prime Hawkwind. But I was beat, so left before they finished.

And then just this past Monday made it out, spur of the moment like, for the Blues Control gig at Mable Peabody's and was not sorry I made the trip. Also pleasantly surprised to see lots of the young and familiar local weird noise yokels out and about on a Mondaynight digging the crusty Brooklyn ghetto-tech highway boogie that Blues Control conjures, and they brought it this night with urbanized noise mantras that bridged the gap between early 70s prog and boogie rock and good old fashioned homemade noise sych. Very sweet indeed. There were more bands, which probably rocked real good, but I didn't hang much after saying hey to Lea and Russ (Russ wearing the same Warmer Milks shirt I got from Mikey Turner the first time I met him a few years ago - ha!) .

I need to upload some more images and vids of recent gigs and events to the Youtube channel/Photobucket eventually, but the big ol' pile of reviews in the corner is howling like a dying dog, so it could be a while. Have you heard the new Birch Book album? Holy shit! It's going to be a long bleak Winter, my friends.

In the meantime, here's a pretty good quality video of a sweet Zanzibar Snails gig I recorded at The Phoenix Project back in September. Though the visuals are pretty murky most of the time, the sound quality is top notch-ish. Enjoy! Part 2 and Part 3 for further perusing.

And one more clip my old buddy Greg E. captured of The Jesus Lizard last week at the Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin, which I could not attend. Not bad for a rinky-dink video phone thingy, but it's a shame he cuts out right at the start of "Gladiator"!

This is My Music: Vol 5, (Tanz Der Lemmings), Part 1

Ashtray Navigations Sugar Head Record (Deep Water) 2CD-R - Yet another essential dispatch from our old friends at Deep Water. Though the zine has slowed down a bit, the release schedule remains constant with this delightful mind-melter, along with multiple releases by DW's own in-house prog/psych folk unit, Evening Fires, and a new platter by free psych duo Flying Sutra just a few goodies dropped in '09. Where to start with Phil Todd and his Ashtray Navigations? Maybe try here. The UK native has been releasing his ecstatic electro/psych/noise/skree mantra music for well over 15 years now with no let up in sight. To hear him at his most indispensable, seek out the Four More Raga Moods CD on Finland's Ikuisuus and hold tight! The newer and even more outer Sugar Head Record is as fine a deep-space head-trip as you will find in the considerable AN catalog. Its hallucinogenic con trails of crumbling feedback weave a story that's at once cosmic and subatomic, as if Todd and collaborators were soundtracking the fabric of existence itself -- microscopic landscapes bubbling over with new kinetic bursts in every second, all wrapped in an impenetrable amniotic pulse.

Boredoms Super Roots 10: Ant 10 (Thrill Jockey) 2LP - One of the most ass-kicking live shows I've seen would have to be The Boredoms in San Francisco in May, 2005. Cosmic gold! Super Roots 10 is the latest in this series which can be traced all the way back to the early '90s. Not sure where this one falls in The Boredoms' larger cannon, but, it's safe to say, be it remix or studio creation (this is a bit of both) and if released post '96, it's probably worth hearing. This also applies if you're a freak for repetitious noise throb on the strobe-lit dance-floor, a musical trend in recent moons which can be traced directly to the Boredoms' recordings and remixes of the late '90s/early '00s as much as anywhere else. Vol 10 offers up kaleidoscopic tone patterns gliding over a constant wall of percussion that derives equally from the golden Kautrock pulse of yore and minimal house-beat precision of the eternal now.

Headdress Lunes (No Quarter) CD - The great stoned award of 2009 goes to the mighty Headdress for their monolithic Lunes. It mostly eschews the more free psych trappings of their earlier work in favor of a massive ghost drone blues that can be traced to recent Earth records, while maintaining a minimal, stoned desolation that's fiercely psychedelic in its own right. These songs rumble and howl through the infinite void with a reverberating doom feel that feeds the imagination and ignites the soul. Lunes is the perfect soundtrack for cruising the cosmic waves or watching fireworks explode in the dead of night, each song like each concussion -- a little supernova to explore in the darkness.

Melvins Chicken Switch (Ipecac) CD - I ever tell you how much I love the Melvins? Not too crazy 'bout their last couple records, but I'd say Buzz and Dale are still trying, and that's good enough for me. From '87 to '05 The Melvins were one of the most unstoppably ass-kicking metallic punk threats on the planet. Wrap your ears around the likes of Gluey Porch Treatments, Stoner Witch and The Maggot to get the gist. The Melvins play real rawk, but it's rock with a healthy dose of irony and a never-ending penchant for surrealist strangeness that regularly leaves the mind befuddled and the mouth agape. Chicken Switch is just the latest proof of this age old maxim. It's a remix album featuring sound technicians from all over the globe, including some of my personal faves, such as Eye Yamatsuka of The Boredoms, Christoph Heemann of Mirror/Mimir/HNAS, Merzbow, Matmos, Panacea and more. Melvins get all IDM on your ass with a record that's dance-floor ready? Bet your ass.

Magic Lantern High Beams (Not Not Fun) LP - Whilst listening to this heavy fuzz psych drone machine, it occurs to me how nice it is that so many bands are crawling out of the woodwork these days that kick up a racket so clearly indebted to Bardo Pond, themselves so obviously indebted to the glory daze of early 70s stoned-to-the-bone psych/prog endless buildup jamathons, which I guess beats the hell out of three dudes trying to sound like the Jeff Healey band. These guys clearly love Spacemen 3 and Hawkwind, and are just completely zonked out of their skulls in the eternal acid wah-wah riff zone. Way gone and not even playin' around. No lyrics, no voices, just endless instrumental lockgroove ecstasy.

Magik Markers Balf Quarry (Drag City) CD - It's been a real trick'r treat in the last few months going back and rediscovering all the great Magik Markers live gigs and long-gone seedy-rs in the world. Truly think they've only gotten better through the years, and Elisa Ambrogia makes one hell of a front whoooa-man. Balf Quarry is their second full length for Drag City (the solid Boss is the first), and it totally kicks ass with slightly sloppy damaged ferocity that's unlike anything else out there in terms of seething primal/sexual rawk energy. It's true that Sonic Youth turned out a solid album this year, but I don't think it was near this continuously listenable, weird and straight up kickass. 'Course it could be said the Markers owe a debt to the 'Youth's early 80s recordings themselves, but this is 2009 and we ain't gettin' any younger. Bring on the ragged glory. Plus, Pete Nolan kicks ass.

Niagara Falls Sequence of the Prophets (Honeymoon) CD - Gorgeous progressive ethnic fusion workouts from this Philly trio, last heard (by me) sharing a side with the sadly missed Clear Spots. This is NF's third full length of ethnic psych fusion, more composed and sculpted than previously glimpsed sonic rituals but never at the expense of the spirit of the songs. Niagara Falls is clearly going for a kind of meditational mind-wash as their namesake might suggest, but Sequence of the Prophets is more skeletal in spots, and fantastically kinetic and propulsive in others. The pre-Kraftwerk ensemble Organization is one possible musical touchstone, where mythical rites of transcendence as evinced via Florian Fricke's Popol Vuh could be another. Absolutely gorgeous stuff here for prog/psych/drone junkies alike, and they're not afraid to kick up a racket either.

Om God is Good (Drag City) CD - More proof here that the best music is really just tonal meditation with killer drum fills. God Is God represents a bit of a shake-up since the last Om full length dropped. Hakius is out, Emil Amos (of the equally meditative Grails) is in, but not much else has changed. Om circa 2009 employs a bit more in the way of ambient effects. A good portion of this album is straight up flute rock! God forbid, Om has gone all prog on us. GOD BLESS! God is Good is as good as the legendary duo (born from one of the most legendary trios of our times) gets with deep inner probing bass/drum groove mantras that manage that seemingly impossible task of making low-tempo skeletal bass/drum psych workouts into spiritual portals to worlds that seem removed from our own subjective spheres yet can clearly be tapped into. Om is the sonic embodiment of this desire. It's also a beautifully recorded album, once more by Steve Albini. After making my way completely through the last two tracks for the 15th time I can say I'm completely certain that this is not only the best Om record to date, it's one of the most purely tantric hard rock platters you will ever feast your ears with. 35 mins of peerless psychedelic meditation. Absolutely essential.

The One Ensemble Orchestra Other Thunders (No-Fi) We (the voices in my head and I) here in the Womb consider Daniel's other group, Volcano the Bear, one of the most adventurous and visceral bands on the planet, but in no way does this impinge on our opinion that this here, the fourth studio LP under the One Ensemble name, is one of the most perfectly skewed slices of chamber folk we have ever heard. For well over five years now Daniel Padden and his ensemble (often times himself, more lately an ensemble of many) have continuously conjured their own brand of weird and mournful gypsy folk meets progressive, and dare I say, jazz fusion. What else, if you're a fan of the aforementioned 'Bear, and you're even remotely interested in compelling modern exploratory composition, proceed directly to Other Thunders. The unofficial title track (which is actually entitled "The Sun") is truly one of the most glorious things I've heard all year.

Plastic Crimewave Painted Shadows (A Silent Place) - Plastic Crimewave is something of an underground psych institution by now, between his rockin' acid punk band, Plastic Crimewave, the Million Tongues psych fests in Chicago and his holy bible of psych space punk dementia, The Galactic Zoo Dossier (available on Drag City press). I love his Damaged Guitar Gods and Astral Folk Goddesses collector cards, among other tasty tidbits. Pretty much any decent indie type record store plugged into the paranormal now should have issues of said journal. It's one of the last and best all print underground zines around, completely assembled, drawn and lettered by Plastic himself. Quite astounding really. Painted Shadows is approximately the fourth widely available PC album, and it's possibly the best yet, ranging from the Aftermath era Stones charged dark psych of opener "I See Evils" to fully-exploded side-long Hawkwindian space mantra of closer "Ecstatic Song" with plenty of smashing snare and fuzz guitar overload piled on for maximum transport. Oneida fans will love it.

Raglani Web of Light (Kvist) LP - This vinyl offering from one man St. Louis drone/noise project, Raglani, is a collision of minimal drone composition, power electronics and ghostly shoegaze fuzz that coalesces into a building ramp that leads straight to the stratosphere and comes crashing back down again. Drawing as much from the heyday of early analog electronic composition as more modern Kranky-esque drone outfits, a label Raglani has released work with, Web of Light offers two side long portals to spiritual tonal enlightenment and even violent catharsis. There's a point on the first side where the dense swirl of impeccably crafted electronics drops out to what sounds like massed choral harmonies the likes of which I've not heard since Mirror's Nights LP. The flip is an altogether more prismatic power electronics excursion that offers a tumultuous, but no less enthralling, atmospheric burn. All in all primo stuff that's ripe for warm analog late-night listening, plus it's one of Mr. Raglani's very best yet. Comes with a beautiful insert of a mind-bending illustration on one side and a clever film credits listing on the other, all in French no less. Snooty!

Starving Weirdos Into an Energy (Bo 'Weavil) CD - And just what universe do these people come from? Can it really be our own? The perfectly christened Into An Energy is a shimmering, exploding, spontaneous symphony of tribal mantra mind melding that deftly blurs the line between aural communication and a more sacred kind of meditation. It's almost the sound of unknowing. I find myself lapsing into these dense drone passages and wondering where does the time go? Is music like this created or is it channeled? Strings, voices, clattering percussive revelry and more come together in synapse melting charges that bypass the ego and go straight to the primordial id. These pieces contain ideas and concepts that are truly beyond my scope of understanding, but that's the beauty of the Starving Weirdos. Essential deep drone for those who appreciate getting lost in the material strands that weave into the fabric of infinity. Highly recommended for fans of Organum/David Jackman, AMM, No-Neck Blues Band, Mirror and other free-wheeling string and percussion drone masters.

Sun Araw Heavy Deeds (Not Not Fun) LP - This really is the shit right here. Sun Araw is the solo gig of Magic Lantern's Cameron Stallones, and Heavy Deeds is just about the most incessantly compelling psych platter to come out this past Summer. How to summarize? Let's just say Sun Araw has discovered its own musical theory of relativity which depends on a firm understanding of the laws of dub multiplied by fractals of funky fuzz, divided by wigged out vocal chants and squared by a pervasive rhythmic pulse that demands the listener occasionally awaken from his marijuana-stupor and actually dance around the place while diggin' on it. Add in some some delectable acid kissed organ runs and an overall laid back underwater cosmos vibe, you've got endless transcendental groove spirals that will work their magic for those willing to shut off their brains and turn on to the freaky harmony of the spheres. Somethin' else.

Zukanican The Stumbling Block (Pickled Egg) - You wanna dance and take gargantuan hits from the big purple party hooka while doing so? You want to spin round and round to the Komische beat and fall on your side in a confused giggling fit after doing 6 whippits at once? I don't really recommend any of that, but I do suggest throwing The Stumbling Block on the old player sometime soon. You'll be hard up to find a more proper soundtrack for any such endeavors than Dr. Harry Sumnall and company's take on primo vintage komische space fusion. It's probably fair to say that not everyone considers the recordings of various Germanic experimental/psychedelic musical purveyors to be some of the most far reaching sonic incantations the world of has ever known, but some of us actually do. And we mean it when we say La Dussledorf was one of the most important bands of the last 50 years. Zukanican understands. Their music is something of a living, mutating embodiment of this understanding. These propulsive hand-made deep space mantras make me think of other eras and scenes too, but to me this CD captures the mind-expanding properties of so many of those past masters while still being utterly in the now and living today. Fans of ethno jazz fusion like Larry Young, Can, Neu, Herbie Hancock in the early 70s, prepare for blast off. Long live Zukanican!

Happy (late) Halloween/Samhain to all the Womb ghouls 'n' goblins out there. Had a laid back All Hallows Eve giving out a li'l candy to the younguns, then went over to a friend's house and horrified another friend with my shocking skeleton get-up. Good stuff.

Also, ya know, I'm not a big digital animation freak, but watching key action scenes from Monsters Vs Aliens in 3D on bluray this evening left me suitably transported back to the age 10 or so, lost in the wonder of it all. Give it a try sometime. Smoke lots of pot right before hand if possible. What else... the highpoint of this week is Cartman's rendition of Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" as heard on the Whale Wars episode of South Park. I can't stop trying to replicate its pop splendor in the shower with the hot water turned up full-blast, steam blinding my eyes. That is sex, my friends.

Made it out a couple nights ago to a big screen viewing of Dario Argento's Deep Red, which I'd never seen before. The 35 MM print was a bit beat up, but I loved it none the less. Figure the modern slasher flick was born with this movie, though John Carpenter and others would take it from here to new plateaus of horrific catharsis. Argento spends much of the time ripping off Hitchcock with a good bit more blood and an incredible "horror prog" soundtrack from Goblin(s), which combined together make my dick very hard. I love Hitch, perverted bald genius. Sadism isn't necessarily an intellectual exercise, mind you (see all those god-awful idiotic Saw movies), but Argento knows how to stage a kill-scene like few in the genre, and his sets are fucking incredible. He may as well be Hitchcock himself when compared to any other horror director working in the last 40 years. Thanks to Dallas Cinemania for making it happen.

Also, Krautrock junkies, feast your eyes on this very cool BBC produced documentary, Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany, a title which lends credence to my contention that Krautrock was, as much as anything else, a successful attempt to rectify past social ills by sharing with the rest of the world some of the most brain-tickling influential experimental rock and roll it will ever know. Those playing catch-up on one of my favorite "scenes" should check it out.

And since it's almost still Halloween, here are a cpl Youtube clips which somehow reflect on or capture the mood of this special time of the year: Satanic Warmaster "Carelian Satanist Madness"
Public Image Limited live on American Bandstand, doing one of the most memorably weird rock songs of the punk/post punk era and tearing down the wall between artist and performer in the process, completely lip-synced and all the better for it. I love this clip!

While I'm at it, Happy Dia De Los Meurtos! Down here in Texas we've developed a special appreciation for The Mexican Day of the Dead, and it could be said Wayne Coyne has done the same. As some of you already know, last weekend I participated in The Flaming Lips March of a 1000 Flaming Skeletons part of the Ghouls Gone Wild parade in Oklahoma City. It was, like, a blast, and I'm too tired currently to go into specifics. So here are a few sweet pix and vid clips that capture the whole vibe of said event. Check the photobucket if you want more. Dig:

Yello, Womblifers. I've scored a leak of The Flaming Lips' Embryonic and I'm loving it. I know, I know, advance MP3s are destroying music. I'll buy a copy...promise. It's definitely their best since Yoshimi, and if you like your Lips extra rare (read as raw) it just might be better with its battery of double drums blasted into the stratosphere via a pronounced prog (read as Miles fusion era) feel that helps to throw things off balance in a reallly good way. Probably one of the more fucked up things that will drop on a so-called major label this year, or at least since the last Portishead record. I expect mixed reviews in general, but don't let that scare you.


Also received a sweet package from my old friends at Digitalis, including the new Bugskull LP, Communications, and Social Junk CD, Born Into It, along with a whole mess of tapes. Man I love me some cassettes, tell you what! Reminds me, here is a list of 101 current and operating tape labels that might deserve your attention if you've got a functioning tape deck and have grown tired of paying exorbitant prices for CDs and vinyl (and digital downloads) while trying to keep up. I still buy all that shit, but tapes are cheaper and they sound great with this kind of music. As I prepare to start a self-imposed exile from buying any new CDs or LPs for the next year, I can assure you I'll still be buying tapes.

Many of the tape labels operating today specialize in some variation of noise, and by noise I don't just mean the harsher stuff, though much of it is pretty harsh. Free jazz, minimal drone, Dada collage, acid boogie psych, grinding industrial pulse and maximal noise mantra (made up that last one just now) are just a few of the possible sonic styles that might be heard on a cool underground noise tape released circa now. Good noise music often times tells a story, whether via a more accessible trad rock performance or just one lone warrior and an arrangement of pedals set upon a cardboard table, hence the term "table-core." Good noise music can also erase thought entirely, even if only for a brief period, like any form of meditation.

Anyway, I don't read Pitchfork often, but here is a pretty good article covering noise music over the last 10 years, though it does skew a bit too much on the American underground at the expense of other vital scenes. Maybe they can put together a sequel covering Europe and so on in the near future. Doubt it. There are opinions that some may not agree with (myself included), but it's still a decent overview for those hoping to play a little catch-up.


Another recent development here in the Womb is my immersion into all things rap and hip-hop. I finally downloaded a Linkin Park album(!), which was recorded with Jay-Z, but I don't know if I'll get around to actually listening to it. Not a big fan of those dorks, but I sure like me some Jay-Z, without shame. It's an intimidating wave-pool to delve into, but don't let that stop ya. The recent discovery of the astonishing Blunted in the Bomb Shelter by Madlib (arguably the finest reggae/dub mixtape out there) led me to this in depth article about rap mixtapes which manages to cover a lot of ground and even go into the history of the phenom. Probably the only time MTV will ever be linked to this blog. Let's hope!


What else, been rediscovering my old heroes The Flamin' Groovies in recent weeks, 'specially during their heavy Stones-centric period. I still think Teenage Head is one of the most criminally overlooked proto punk art blues rawk records to come out of the West Coast. Even Mick Jagger is purported to have said The 'Groovies did a better job than The Stones did on Sticky Fingers. The title track is timeless garage boogie with menacing street-punk snarl. The cover of Randy Newman's "Have You Seen My Baby?" comes off like Chuck Berry on biker speed. Opener "High Flyin' Babe" has a bit of Beefheart's early garage blues down 'n' dirty groove, but it goes down so easy here. Right after this landmark dropped founding member/lead singer Roy Loney would leave the group, on the surface a tragedy, but actually not a bad thing at all as it kicked off a fruitful solo career for Loney, and the rest of the Groovies went on to record the all-time classic Shake Some Action with the great Dave Edmunds at the console. But that's a different story.

Re The Rolling Stones: I think Mick Taylor's playing is a huge part of what really makes their music the timeless country blues it is. Sure we all love the earlier stuff, and we love Brian Jones, but Taylor stepped into the spotlight along with the biggest band in the world at a moment's notice, and he managed to make that bottleneck slide sing like only a true blues man can. One only need watch footage of The 'Stones live in Hyde Park in 1969, a gig which was a spontaneous tribute to Jones, who'd died only three days before, to see what I'm getting at: And now check out this article, courtesy of The Daily Mail, to see what Taylor's been up to since those glory days. Ain't pretty, but it's an interesting read which might possibly lead to righting some long time wrongs for the under-appreciated genius.


Speaking of singular guitar wranglers, doubt you'll find a more unique/influential string bender than Keith Rowe. The AMM co-founder has managed to remain one of the most visionary experimental/improvised guitarists in the world, and he's still playing over 40 years after the formation of his legendary trio. His more recent stuff can possibly come off as overly studied or academic to the unfamiliar ear, but anyone even remotely interested in abstract drone, noise, ambient sound, free jazz, minimalism the limitless crossover possibilities between them all, should take a gander at this in depth interview with the man from All About Jazz and get their brain-bananas suitably tickled by by this fantastic clip:


I'm also super-happy to see a new Clean album hitting the stores. Mister Pop (Merge) is a beauty that should be heard by all lovers of hummable guitar art pop bliss. One of my fave musical historians, Jud Cost, interviewed the Kiwi-pop legends for Magnet recently. Dig it.


I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned Jersey City's WFMU Freeform Radio here, steered magnificently via the musical direction of Brian Turner. Their Beware of the Blog offers a virtual cornucopia of all kinds'a oddball musical tidbits and obscure live and OOP downloads that you can get lost in for days on end. Most recently been grabbing some sonic souvenirs via their ATP-NY 2009 live broadcasts, including Akron/Family, Melvins and Grouper, among others. And -- get this -- WMFU is smack dab in the middle of its own kickass WFMUfest as I type. Lucky bastards.


Recent Live Actions:

Social Junk / Mincemeat or Ten Speed / Dick Neff / Corporate Park at House of Tinnitus. There was one more solo guy on the bill, but not sure of the name, and that in no way reflects badly on the quality of his set, though it actually didn't do much for me personally. Local duo Corporate Park (Perhaps a name change is in order, guys -- American Airlines Arena?) combined Throbbing Gristle/early Psychic TV electro-skree with death-disco beats that had everyone in the house doing the robot chicken dance. Special props to my mate Kelly for spontaneously breaking into a goofy Ian Curtis like broken limb dance which made me smile. Dick Neff (the drummer for SJ) combined knob twiddling distortion with one man and a drum-set bombast in a way that had me thinking of Lightning Bolt and related noise metal spastics in a good way. Mincemeat or Teen Speed brought the one man and a bunch'a pedals primitive weird noise symphony to an ecstatic hula-hooping climax which left me pleasantly splattered but still in one piece. As reward for a job well done, I bought the beautiful limited vinyl LP, All Critters, whose mind-bending surrealist artwork is worth the bucks alone.

The came the mighty Social Junk, whose brand new Born Into It CD is showing me the tribal-light as I type. This is a record that manages to touch on everything from glitched out electronic sound sculpture to the kind of post/art punk mantras that This Heat so brilliantly traded in for a brief period betweel the late 70s and early 80s. Throbbing Gristle is here too, and more recent weird rock abstractionists, a lot of them coming out of Brooklyn, maybe one or two out of Detroit, but these Philly kids manage to burrow out a sound that's entirely their own through these muddy subterranean tunnels. It's a dark mantra for the ages, as much studied post-punk coming into industrial anything-is-possible experimentation as it is something more intangible and not really of this earth. You get the idea, right?

The primitive, repetitive noise reveries of Born Into It didn't really prepare me for the blistering intensity of the live set, which hones the quality and studied intensity of the above record into something much more devastating and immediate. I f0und myself up close and very personal, three feet from the noise/effects guy on the right and maybe six feet the drummer on the left. We, all of us there, headbanged in unison, a crashing symphony of flesh and bone, propelled by something beyond human -- a crushing noise/doom assault the duo (usually trio) conjured from thin air. As much spontaneous incantation as pulverizing hardcore assault, and we were all the better for it. Very rarely in a live setting have I seen something, so often dismissively dubbed harsh noise, yield such artful results. Cell phone pix of said event:

























And then just this past weekend we made it out to the Improve Lottery at The Phoenix Project, a new performance space on the edge of Exposition Park (just outside of the Fair Park area) which promises to deliver its fair share of quality avant-garde and weirdo aural entertainments in the coming months/years, God willing. The Improve Lotto was someone's brilliant idea (don't ask me who), as was the bottle of Jagermeister my friend and I sipped from liberally throughout the course of the evening. It all turned into a drunken blur soon enough, which under the most secure conditions could be seen as beneficial, but on this particular night seemed something closer to calamitous. Of the three sets witnessed in an alcoholic haze, the one with three horn players, two electronics tinkerers and one free jazz percussive master left the best taste in my mouth. I'd attempt to say more if only I hadn't been so...blunted. So I'll just leave you with this: DFW matters once more. One only need pay attention (if he can focus).

It's coming down to the last days of Summer, folks! Lamentable I know, though I imagine some in California feel differently. Best to our brothers and sisters out there in the scorching West. Getting as many late afternoon dips in as I can before it gets too cold again, and I've been power-watching True Blood episodes like good drugs -- good V, mayn! Finished season one last night, and being one who's had his share of communions with the occult underworld via some of the ugliest redneck dives in and around North Texas, I've found plenty of congruities between TB and my own experiences. There's nothing quite like the rural south for good storytelling. It's ripe for a little pulpy reimagining. I think Alan Ball and his people get it like I do. Also have extremely high hopes for David Simon's upcoming Treme, which deals specifically with two of my favorite subjects, New Orleans and music.

A few more movies I dug on this Summer:

District 9 - Inventive, brilliantly realized scifi that plays like Franz Kafka rewriting The Fly as Bradburyian social commentary. Love the concept. Love the aliens. Love the shit blowing up all over the place.

Ponyo - Yet another fantastical animated masterpiece from the studio that brought us Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Howe's Moving Castle, etc. For me the defining scene in this beauty is the image of a little girl--who until very recently had been a little fish--running as fast as she can atop an undulating bed of ocean waves that are literally alive, propelling her to her destination. Long live Hayao Miyazaki!

Bruno - A fundamentally misunderstood movie. In Borat the butt of the joke is us ugly (but mostly well mannered) Americans. In Bruno the butt of every joke is Bruno himself, a paragon of witless bad-mannered Eurotrash and loud, in your face homosexuality. He's a proud stereotype and in many ways the obvious result of a pop culture overly fixated with itself and precious little else. Borat wants to find "the real America." Bruno wants his own show on the E Network. I LOLed most of the time.

Inglorious Basterds - I don't think it's cool to like QT anymore. I'm pretty sure that liking Eli Roth is a sin punishable by death, but gods help me, Hostel 2 was pretty good! True, the first one sucked, but 2 was a gruesome enough surprise, as was Roth's "characterization" of the baseball bat wielding Bear Jew in this one. Yes, some of these scenes seem endless. Yes, Tarantino is obviously sending a love letter to his adoring French fans who see him as a god on par with Jerry Lewis. Yes, the dialogue is laboriously pitch perfect in tone, tempo and execution. He's still an action master. He's also one of America's best working builders of suspense. The scene in the basement pub is potent. Cool bonus bits to rope in film geeks: the inclusion of Henri-Georges Clouzot's suspense classic Le Corbeau on the theater marquee early on, a movie produced in France by a German production company during the early months of the occupation. There's more to the reference too, but I'll stop there; the inclusion of a Leni Riefenstahl mountain girl movie on the same marquee a little later on. Same deal. Google that shit! It's still too long, Quentin.

Finally made it out to the Wasted Words house in Arlington recently where I got an earful of some fine local sounds coming from multiple parts of the sonic spectrum. Though new to thine ears, both opening acts caught my attention. The first set was a one man electronics/drums progressive explosion that goes by the name Collisi. The next, a guy/gal duo called Wu Fru De Lu Vs. Space Dragon Killah (it actually rolls right off the tongue!), sounded like early Animal Collective gremlins lost in the electronic forest. The plunderphonic industrial ambiance of Welby (Mark Church's solo thing) provided an undulating current of processed drones and obscure samples that had me thinking Negativland With Wound. The tectonic sine-wave manipulations from the always dependable Church of the Apoclypse provided a slow-crawling bass rumble that literally had paintings falling off the walls. Really like the new direction away from the drone doom of earlier releases into pure dark matter.

What about The Mike Gunn? They're probably the most criminally under heard Texas psych punk group in my collection, and that kind of sucks because if you like The Melvins, Butthole Surfers or even Comets on Fire you probably owe it to yourself to at least hear these guys someday. Here's a sweet article from Examiner.com that helps to illuminate just why they kicked much ass on their own (stoned) terms and definitely deserve to be acknowledged as more than just Tom Carter's old band, though they're that too. Almaron is the shit!

Ever heard of AMM? Bet you have. They're possibly the most influential group on what's come to be known as free noise. Keith Rowe is their guitarist. He also performs solo and in collaboration with other like-minded musicians, which makes this epic interview from All About Jazz essential reading for anyone with even a passing interest in experimental improvised sound.

Here's one more interview with another Womblife fave, the incomperable Sir Richard Bishop of Sun City Girls fame and beyond. He goes a few rounds with Mark Prindle, delving deeply into magic and sound (two more of my favorite subjects!). Plenty of great interviews and reviews to be read at Prindle's page. I highly recommend the micro-reviews too for further LOL inducement.

More hippie-syke reviews imminent!

This is My Music: Vol 4 (Vol. 4: The Metal Years)

Absu Absu (Candlelight) CD - I've been aware of these old warriors for a few years now, but I must admit shock upon discovering they were actually from Plano, Texas, of all places, a suburb of Dallas that's more known for its (once) high priced country club homes and teen heroin epidemics than real deal furious as fuck occult black metal. Absu started as death metal and devolved to their more blackened state across the '90s. The progression is documented on Tumult's 2CD Diabolic Occult Metal (the band's own designation for its brand of Texas bm), and that there artifact comes highly recommended if so inclined. What else: I've almost seen Absu live twice now, but various fateful anvils have crushed my plans -- scheduling conflicts, bus breakdowns. They're playing a rescheduled hometown gig in late Summer.

Absu is the latest Absu album in a long minute, and if I'm not mistaken, only one original member remains in the band, yet this is genre-defining stuff. Masterful jackhammer riffs propelled by inhuman double bass drum battery, mind-blurring change-ups. More than a hint of the progressive stylings found during weirder passages of recent Enslaved and Leviathan albums can be glimpsed, all deployed with a fury closer to prime Mayhem. Metal with chops that maintains the all important primal metal edge. Hailz, bros!

Current 93 Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain (Coptic Cat) CD - I don't think anyone's ever considered these Gnostic spell-casters to be metal at all, but if not why do so many metal headz love this band? And why does it seem like all of David Tibet's favorite bands are metal, or at least proto-metal? Rush, Uriah Heep and Black Sabbath on down the line to Sleep/Om and Mayhem. Tibet certainly likes to rock, but he likes to rock weirdly, and Aleph At Hallucinatory Mountain is some of the weirdest rock I've heard this year. With contributions from James Blackshaw, Keith Wood, Mr "Party All Night!" Andrew W.K. and the brilliant Alex Neilson (among many others), Tibet has once again assembled a classy ensemble to tell the story of Aleph at Hallucinatory Mountain. There's much more fuzz than ever heard on any previous Current 93 album, big booming drums, and an overall more pronounced doom vibe while still maintaining noticeable links to past c93 releases. I like this very much, but rest assured, your mileage will vary dependent on your penchant for Tibet's crypto-religious fascinations. Overall, almost as good as Black Ships Ate the Sky. Almost.

Locrian Drenched Lands/ Rhetoric of Surfaces/ Burying the Carnival/ Exhuming the Carnival (At War With False Noise; Bloodlust!; self-re.) CD/CD-R/c-38 -- This amazing Chicago duo brings a new twist to the genre of so called drone metal. Named either for the mythical Greek tribe or the musical mode of the same name, both allusions are appropriate for the grim, hypnotic desolation that Locrian conjures. Their sound is pretty much unparalleled when we get analytical, not that I want to. Locrian manages to explore the crossover between early Popol Vuh, Frip/Eno circa No Pussyfooting and more recent doom/black metal developments (Earth and SunnO))) included) with results that are never less than harrowing and deeply enveloping every step of the way. Of the three releases that found their way into my mailbox recently, the Drenched Lands CD is my favorite with its deft mix or languid slow melodies, minor key isolationist loops and endless feed-backing howls. It's an epic that's brilliantly composed and executed from start to finish, and a vinyl version just dropped! The CD includes a massive bonus track every bit the match of its six predecessors. One of the best long players I've heard in '09.

Rhetoric of Surfaces explores similar terrain on a slightly more dissonant mode. Think Skullflower wandering the murky marshes just below the Castle SunnO))) complete with dark clad minstrels conjuring their mind-bending symphonies of industrial despair. The tracks are longer and grimier in this set -- recorded live for radio -- each offering its own glimpse at echo-drenched tonal voids. Rounding out my dandy box of Locrian madness is the excellent Burying the Carnival/Exhuming the Carnival cassette which results in roughly 38 mins of scorched trance dirge -- tectonic bass hum and squealing angular guitars beneath vocal howls of death on side a, something slightly more exultant on the flip. The guitar work is positively vertiginous and devastating in a way that only amplified feedback can be. The aural equivalent to greyfield-sickness stuck in a lockgroove.

Deathspell Omega Mass Grave Aesthetics (Norma Evangelium Diaboli) CDEP - DO is one of France's best and longest running black metal groups. Mass Grave Aesthetics is one 20 min thrashing monster which reveals every facet of what makes these evil bastards one of the best extreme metal bands on the planet: blistering blastbeat eruptions, cycling mid tempo riff mantras and experimental/noisy ambient interludes being just the beginning. Deathspell enthrall at any speed, in any mode, across this suite-like aural desecration. The end results land somewhere between prime Emperor and Nordvargr and challenge the conventional wisdom of just what black metal can be. Progressive as fuck.

Prurient & Kevin Drumm All are Guests in the House of the Lord CD/Prurient Cocaine Death (both Hospital Productions) both CD - This one's special. I must admit past Prurient releases I've heard have left me shivering in the dark with head splitting. Scabrous static dissonances seemingly the preferred mode of discourse. Of course there are dozens of releases bearing the Prurient name out there, and I've barely begun to scratch the surface. All Are Guests in the House of the Lord suggests closer examination of the catalog is long overdue. It sees the one man harsh drone/noise unit's fury tempered brilliantly by microtonal string bender Kevin Drumm's minimal guitar textures. The end results would sit proudly on the shelf between Wolf Eyes' Human Animal and Sunn's Black One. It's almost metal, philosophically speaking, relaying the kind of soul-destroying thematic concerns often explored in harsher metal these days. Like Wolf Eyes, the vocals owe more to classic hardcore, albeit of the most unconventional variety with effected hues ranging from screaming shrieks to nitrous huffing bass howls, all punctuated by grinding distortion one moment, bottomless microtonal chasms the next. The overall feel is one of great regret, vocal howls begging forgiveness on the eve of unalterable doom.

While visiting the Hospital Productions it dawned on me that Prurient's Cocaine Death (a collection of three long gone cassettes) really is a black metal album. It's more like the ghost of a black metal album if this particular record had been scored by David Lynch and Varg Vikernes using nothing but voice, feedback pedals, recordings of the burning of kindling and the shredding of old newspaper clippings, though it's actually much deeper than all that. I have no idea what's making this hallucinatory drone, thinking some sort of fuzzed up synth concoction much of the way, in conjunction with the incredible vocal performances -- again ranging from underwater gurgling groans to the most tortured naked howls -- and an arsenal of cortex tickling things that go bump, The results are never less than fascinating. Nary a dull moment for folks into the trippier side of noise.

Wolf Eyes Always Wrong (Hospital Productions) CD - When confronted with the reality of Always Wrong, I'm reminded of K.W. Jeter's infamous Dr. Adder, the dystopic nightmare sci-fi to end all dystopic nightmae sci-fis. After this one there was really nowhere left to go in terms of exposing/ridiculing mankind's own seemingly inborn desire to destroy itself, often ironically, through ill conceived attempts at improving some situation or another. Basically Jeter is saying that if we're not careful, in the end we're all going to be Frankenstein's Monsters fallen victim to science/technology and our own selfish/perverse desires. Old story -- mankind shooting itself in the foot. Only now we're shooting up our bodies with silicone, and sucking our innards out completely here in the States while young women in Asian countries willfully go under the knife just so they can have more Caucasian features. All the sudden Wacko Jacko isn't such an isolated freak.

Dr. Adder is the go-to guy for underground medical procedures in this technological nightmare. He's the back alley abortion doctor/junk peddler. He's the discredited plastic surgeon who lost his license years ago but still practices anyway. He's equal parts Frankenstein and Joseph Mengele; only his test subjects are hookers and street trash obsessed with augmentation, self mutilation and perversion. Just like those strange visions Jeter channeled back in '72, Wolf Eyes sees it all with a grim prophetic eye today, and they know that in many ways it's already here.

The first song on Always Wrong is "Cellar." It's possibly the most stunning single encapsulation of what makes Wolf Eyes the unabashed masters of sculpted rhythm noise that they are. Its precise composition of primitive surging (non glitch) electronics, street rat vocal ranting and lurching beats is high drama meets visceral sound art. It's the sound of one of Doc Adder's fucked-up back alley procedures gone horribly wrong. And you can almost dance to it. Sick. The rest of this dreaded beast follows suit with jagged distorted squalls, angular guitar clang and electronic howls crawling through the mix like rabid sewer rats hungry for blood. Ugly. Beautiful.

Bone Awl All Has Red/Night's Middle (Klaxon) cass./7 in. - One bone of contention (no pun) among metal vs hardcore geeks is the question of when did the split occur? As in when did hardcore and metal diverge along the rock timeline and become philosophical opposites, and does it even matter? Anyone who's spent some quality time with Slayer's Show No Mercy or Metallica's Kill Em all can't deny the impact hardcore had on the burgeoning thrash scene of the early '80s. But some time on down the line, after Scum and Reek of Putrefaction, a certain subset of the thrash underground took a sharp 180 degree turn away from the more hopeful aspirations of early h/c. Those pesky Norwegians introduced the idea of the tormented death thrash assault which dared celebrate war and blasphemy! The underground rock world was never the same again, having birthed its own Fallen One, self imposed to endless realms of torment and suicidal rage. Blah, blah, blah.

Enter Bone Awl. This Novato, Cali longhair trio plays grim thrash that's back to hXc basics and to the point, so what you got is minimal garage metal with black screech vocals over wicked first wave hardcore rhythms right out of the early Wire/Black Flag handbook. Pretty incredible when you get right down down to it. And they can do it live and make it fun to quasi slam-dance to in the process. One of the best old school sorts of live shows I've seen this year. Pretty much all their releases sound the same (good). There's an LP that's out of print (bad), but either this 5 song tape or 3 song 7" would make worthy introductions.

SunnO))) Monoliths & Dimensions (Southern Lord) - Took me a few serious appraisals, as it were, but I now know that Monoliths & Dimensions is one of the finest SunnO))) opuses to date. It spans their storied musical catalog in feel and content, yet offers something new too. This is the SunnO))) jazz record! Only not really. It's another SunnO))) record though -- as solid as granite but still somehow progressing and evolving. Attila Cishar delivers some of his most powerful vocal performances to date (anywhere) ranging from guttural spoken word to spectral chant-drone over killer molten riff doom and foundation rattling sub-bass. Perhaps the most incredible thing here is "Big Church (Megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért)" -- thank you, cut & paste! -- which merges the patented sludge doom with dumbfounding choral embellishments and Cishar's own remarkable bass vocal capacity. I'm reminded of an old Mirror track off their Nights LP, banished here to the deepest, darkest of realms. Quite incredible. Dig the sad, sad horns on the eulegic "Alice" (Coltrane I'm thinking - RIP) which is the closest SunnO))) has ever come to that newer, more haunted vibe of recent Earth recordings. It's something indeed. Masterpiece.

Khanate Clean Hands Go Foul (Hydrahead) LP - The people who think Sunn O))) is ridiculously monotonous would no doubt jump out the window after five minutes of Khanate ripping time-space with amps set to 11. Hell even Stephen O'Malley finally got tired of playing this unholy racket and put this beast down for good a couple years back. Khanate lasted longer than most of O'Malley's storied metal/noise ensembles though, so there was clearly something to this strangled take on tortured noise doom meets Fushitusha. No band got to the blackened heart of true doom with such psychotic intensity as these grim thrash/noise miscreants across roughly four albums.

Why even care at all, you say? Well Khanate is fucking TIGHT, man! Their songs may be slower than creeping death, but you will never find a more capable, taut, tension mounting techtonic fury to batter your ears with. So they're gone now. Clean Hands Go Foul is the posthumous swan song, and it's a monster. Present is the strangled low frequency fury of past releases and Alan Dubin's always amazing shrieking vokills, but there's something new too --an almost floating quality in the guitar textures. I'm not saying this is upbeat, but it definitely feels almost suspended in air at times, above what I don't want to know. Something black and boiling over, I'm sure. Odd to think that Khanate will actually be missed by some sick bastards.

Xasthur All Reflections Drained (Hydrahead) 2CD - Concept of art as suffering. No transcendence, no rapture. Xasthur purports to be about nothing more than willfully wallowing in suicidal despair. This is fuckin' stupid but I'm digging it anyway. All Reflections Drained is a definite improvement over Xasthur's Hydrahead debut, Defective Epitaph, and it's drearier than anything the one man (duo here with help from Striborg!) band has released since Nocturnal Poisoning. Drums are more minimal and punk influenced than on earlier recordings. Some new guy is handling vocals and "ambience." Malefic still screams to the moon in a demonic banshee wail, and his cover art remains some of the most unsettling/unique shit in the racks. You'd think it was all done to death at this point, but Xasthur continues to weave a grim spell that's hard to escape. That's kind of a bummer, though, cuz I'm pretty sure this stuff is designed to drive the listener to suicide. I got the version with a bonus CD which I'd recommend grabbing if you come across it but would only call essential to dudes who don corpse paint more than once a month and live in their mothers' basement. \m/

*Author's post-it-note-script thingy: I realize that my definitions of METAL in the above article are rather bold and contrary to what YOU and YOUR DOGMA might consider to be TRUE METAL, but in my world -- NO RULERS, NO RULES -- and if you don't like it, eat turkey, Christian skum!

Had a grand ol' time this past weekend, first down in Austin for the Castanets/Cross (formerly Warmer Milks; RIP WM!) gig. Got to catch up with some pals and rock obscure Youtube clips all night long while smoking copious amounts of...cigarettes. If you haven't heard Agony Bag, prepare yourselves! And don't just enjoy those tasty visuals, folks. Listen to the song! It rocks!

We then hightailed it over to Houston for the Dead Audio noise fest at Super Happy Fun Land. That place really is pretty incredible. The music was all knob-twiddling, semen-spurting, masturbatory fun. Came home with a big box of tapes 'n' seedeez. More on all that soon...

In this blog I get to talk about three of my current/former favorite bands/artists. And if you know me, you know I'm, like, serious.

First: I'm an old hillbilly hippie from way back. So I'd just like to take a moment to remind folks that it wasn't just the US coastal states that had a monopoly on psychedelic roots perfection in the early '70s. 'Course the use of the word "perfection" throws my whole argument off entirely, as there is no such thing, but if you listen to records like The Byrds' Notorious Byrd Bros or The Band's Music From Big Pink enough times under the right microscope you can trick yourself into thinking that these records are, indeed, perfect. That all the following musical acts in the tiny blip on the cosmic radar that is the history of man will ever only be redundant time wasters at best. That's never really true, but we buy into it all the same. There really was a time I thought I'd never hear another album as imperfectly perfect as Neil Young's Live at the Fillmore East or The Basement Tapes again.

Then I heard this.

Doug Sahm is undeniably one of the very best rockers to ever come from the state of Texas or the US in general. None understood the hypnotic power of a repetitive mind-licking extended jam more thoroughly than Sahm and his guys (whoever they might be on any given night) in the 70s. On this night in 1972 Sir Doug's got some of the coolest cats around lending their skills, including legends like Leon Russell, Jerry and Phil from The Dead and Benny Thurman from the 13th Floor Elevators. The two and a half hour set is comprised mostly of covers from Bill Monroe and Hank to Bo Diddley and The Byrds and so many more. It totally rocks like a motherfucker. I mean this is better than The Basement Tapes. Not kidding. The sound is a little "eh". but it wont be an issue once you get about 2 songs in. This is the holy. Courtesy of The Adios Lounge. Enjoy!

Man I sure dig me some Yo La Tengo. Back in the '90s I thought they could do no wrong. Then I lost interest some in more recent times but still dig a lot of their stuff and own it too."Here to Fall" from the upcoming Popular Songs sounds like a return to classic form if ever there was one. Sweet sister soul strings! Courtesy of Arthur. Downloadable too!

Addendum: Here's a kick ass video for the same song directed by Jim McSwain; first in a series of five. Love the con trail kaleidascopes! (Double click that sucker to get the full aspect ratio.)

And now we return to the imperfection of the universe. The only real constants seem to be entropy, transformation, a frittering kind of precariousness that our minds like to misconstrue as perfection hanging from a thread. Music, film, paintings -- reflections of the truths that are collapsing and building up in and out of us all the time. This may have something to do with why I think "perfect sounding" music is mostly total shit, or at least fraudulent, which could further speak to why i so profoundly appreciate the music of The Dead C. It seems to embody some of these stoned pseudo-philosophical ruminations of mine. Much of who or what The Dead C is still remains a mystery to most, but this sweet video interview with live bits offers some fascinating clues. Watch and learn, kiddies. From Live TV Eye via Ned R. on Facebook.