Happy birthday to me. Thanks everyone for the kind wishes! Sorry to Nick and Evita (and anyone else that was expecting me) for not getting by for the rad art party live show, but I found myself mostly illin' today after a long Friday of drinking and rocking in the out and about. Typing these words is the first thing I've really managed to do with any proficiency all day. Phosphorescent is really a great band now, and it was a very fine to see The Kessler almost filled to capacity for their laid back country rock set. Smart choice opening with latest album closer, "Los Angeles," an epic slowburn of building Neil Young guitars and weeping pedal steel moans. Thanks to DeeJay Ceepee for his fine spins between sets. To Mike Tamburo -- thanks for the Birthday chant! Really means a lot my friend. I'm coming up there sooner than later and getting my ass gonged. And congrats to Mike on his recent spiritual union! Very cool, indeed.

Just a few things to report here, beginning with an apology for the delay in updates. You know how it goes. The backlog isn't getting any smaller. Lots of newbies (and not so newbies) to report on, starting off with some drone metal in the next post, then some garage rawk and what should be a fine little spotlight on my old friends at Deep Water, who continue to release awesome underground psych folk drone type recordings that defy easy categorization and indulge the mind and spirit in equal measure.

Some passings of note: Harvey Pekar of American Splendor fame. See the movie and read the book if you have not done so and get an inkling as to why he matters as much as he does. Here's a fond remembrance by one of his friends, Anthony Bordain. Fuck David Letterman.

And farewell to Tuli Kupferberg of the legendary Fugs, still a serious contender for my favorite ESP band and that's definitely saying something. Can't recommend their first two albums enough.

Andy Hummel died! Just four short months after Alex Chilton, too, and they were both 59. Sad times for sure. Only Jody Stephens remains...sigh.

Here's a couple items you can file under Shit I Never Thought Would Happen in My Lifetime:

David Gilmore to Join Roger Waters for One Show on Wall Tour

Roxy Music, Brian Eno Reunite

Movies: See Inception on the big screen or don't see it all. I liked it but can understand some of the criticisms I've come across. Still it's rare that mindless Summer popcorn fodder has so much intellectual curiosity and manages to reference Philip K. Dick and Tarkovsky's Solaris among the other more expected fodder (The Matrix). Also highly recommend A Single Man which just dropped on DVD. Definitely one of the more probing looks into the mind of suicide you'll come across in a mainstream film, but it's hardly what I'd call a downer. Colin Firth is really unforgettable, as are many of the images he sees and the way he sees them. Liked The Runaways, and no that does not make me a pervert. Liked Chloe too, and that's not just because of the lesbian love scene between Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried. It's a decent piece from Aton Egoyan, whose Sweet Hereafter is one of my favorite sleeper gems of the late '90s.

I love this song!

And farewell to Twisted Village, a Boston institution and one of America's most revered freak music emporiums. They close their doors today (July 25th). You guys will be sorely missed!

Thoughts on Neil Young and Bert Jansch Solo Live

Bert looked and sounded great. His voice was clear, his fingerpicked, rolling melodies as indelible and definitive as those classic albums from the '70s (two of which are reviewed here). My friend was new to Jansch (he's not an obsessive like some of us), but as I said, "even if you're not familiar with the Bert's music, you've still heard it." Anyone who's followed 60s/70s prog rock and folk over the last 40 years knows his music. And let's not forget that Jansch was one of the guys who always championed Jackson C. Frank and helped turn a lot more people on to him in the process. Sitting there in the Meyerson and hearing him explain who Frank was to the nearly packed house (of mostly yuppie fucks) and play "Carnival" from The Black Swan was something of a dream come true. I felt like the only guy in that big room that even knew who Jackson Frank was, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't. Thanks to Jansch, maybe more folks will go digging and find something new that just might change their lives all over again.

Young also played with no accompaniment. We reasoned that the high ticket prices were as much to handle the considerable transport costs of Young's amazing stage set up (including two pianos and a pump organ!) as well as a way to weed out the skeptics who might not really dig the opportunity to see/hear a legend in such an intimate, albeit large scale, setting. Even though the set was almost two hours, it felt like half that as Young spent a considerable amount of time strolling about the stage, surveying various instruments and occasionally picking one up and playing it. We were meant to see this as Neil at home, spontaneously trying out this and that. Still it was a carefully choreographed and planned performance (he didn't really stray from the set list) and as such felt like more than just a rock show. This was a a one man stage show: The Story of Neil Young. Whether sitting hunched over his acoustic, kicking out the jams on Old Black or gently walking the stage with his down-tuned resonator guitar, Young showed the packed house scenes from his life and that, yes, he can still play a guitar, and even though he's nowhere near the virtuoso that Jansch is, he has just as much to say and just as much passion backing those notes. Really dug "Love and War" and the unreleased "Hitchhiker" was definitely a monolith. And it's hard to beat "After the Goldrush" on pipe organ. Thanks for a night to remember, Mr. Young.

Also wanted to mention Galactic Zoo Dossier, which remains my favorite print zine today, though there are a few great ones still knocking about (Yeti, Signal to Noise, Dream among them). What makes GZD so darn special is Plastic Crimewave's (aka Steve Krakow) love of all things graphic art and especially vintage comics. So you get key interviews with Guru Guru, Peter Walker and awesome pieces on Eddie Hazel, The Gods (proto Heep!), Hoyt Axton and many more nestled alongside comic panels about acid tripping superheroes and psychsploitation curios from the 60s and 70s, with every single word written (legibly) by hand! And let's not forget the Guitar God and Astral Folk Goddess trading cards! Plus a CD. It's an institution. Order it here.


Shit I'm a' diggin' lately: UNSANE! Aaron Dilloway posted an Unsane clip on Facebook yesterday, and as a result I've downloaded their recorded output on the Ipod and been raping my mind with their noise-core delights. Such an amazing band! I never did get around to scribbling some words on those two (Wooden) Wand records that dropped last year, but I like 'em a lot, 'specially Hard Knox (Ecstatic Peace) and wanted to congratulate James Toth for making the move to the legendary Young God Records. That reminds me -- Swans are back! But then maybe you knew that.


I'm happy that The New Pornographers are making good music again. I'd say Together (Matador) is their best record since Mass Romantic. And just to prove that their hearts are in the right place, they've simultaneously released an EP of Outrageous Cherry covers! Not sure if it's digital only or what, as I've only been able to find it on Itunes. Also in awe of the new Exile on Main St. expanded reissue. It's a monster and the "rebrushed" new songs (actually old takes with some slight mix tweaking) sound pretty stellar. I agree with those who wonder why can't this classic lineup reconvene and do it one more time? Give Woodsy his walking papers and get Mick Tayler back in the saddle where he belongs. Yeah, right! I want to see this too. Other things I love right now: Woods At Echo Lake (Woodsist), Phospherescent Here's To Taking It Easy (Dead Oceans), Jack Rose Luck in the Valley (Thrill Jockey), Rangda False Flag (Drag City), Ohioan High Country (Infinite Front), Bonnie 'Prince' Billie and The Cairo Gang The Wonder Show Of The World (Drag City) Voice of the Seven Thunders s/t (Holy Mountain) and the reissue of The Cleaners From Venus tape, Midnight Cleaners (Burger Records), in its original format no less. Sounds sort of like Ariel Pink, but about a gillion times better. Never a dull moment, folks!

In honor of Neil, I leave you with stellar live version of "Get Right Church" from MV/EE with The Canada Goose Band:

This is My Music Vol 6, Part 2 (Spirit of Love)

Alela Diane To Be Still (Names Records) CD - Another amazing discovery from this past year -- I saw Diane share a bill with Marissa Nadler in Ft. Worth, and she made a definite imprint on the gray matter with her old soul voice, impressionistic lyrics and delicate touch on guitar. With To Be Still, It all coalesces into a warm, gentle slice of Americana that falls somewhere between the hazy country folk of Townes Van Zandt and more recently Gillian Welch. Diane makes it sound all too easy, but I know better.

Ex-Reverie The Door Into Summer (Language of Stone) CD - Killer Philly ensemble here performing a spectral psych folk/glam rock hybrid that conjures a dark minimal magic that's inescapable as heard in the stripped down harmonies and hand claps of "Dawn Comes for Us All." Its austere chorus erupts into an awesome post Sabbath snarl with Gillian Chadwick's ethereal vocals serving as the perfect foil to all that demonic fuzz. They come off sort of like Sandy Denny fronting Bardo Pond at points. The Door Into Summer (its title, I'd guess, taken from the Robert A. Heinlein novel of the same name) is pervaded with a kind of solitary mysticism that references Fairport Convention, Jefferson Airplane and modern day misty eyed psych folkies like Espers (whose Greg Weeks is a big fan). This is the kind of album I thought they stopped making back in '76. Glad I was wrong!

The Kitchen Cynics Flies One / Flies Two (Perhaps Transparent) 2CD-R - I still have fond memories of watching Alan Davidson, who basically is The Kitchen Cynics, having an intense discussion about Mississippi blues with Jack Rose in the basement of a taqueria in Providence, RI. That kind of passion isn't fabricated. And as a songwriter Davidson is all passion and aching emotion with his sepia toned visitations of moments passed but not forgotten. From his home base in Aberdeen, Scotland, he's labored in relative obscurity through the years, releasing 20-plus fuzz tinged trad psych folk collections for the faithful in various formats, showcasing his soft croon and slightly outsider perspective on life, love and the passing of time. His songs are centered around his trusty acoustic and voice, both doused in reverb, along with some effects, flute, piano and bells woven in.

Flies plays like a greatest hits 2CD, only it's entirely new material recorded over the past two years specifically for this release, and I'd say its as fine a summation of what Davidson's been up to as any I've heard so far. He's operating at the peak of his abilities here. Flies One finds sleepy folk melodies draped in reverb and effects with fingerpicked melodies which reach an emotional crescendo on "Green Grows the Laural2," a long lost meeting of psych folk Donovan and the Incredible String Band. It's a masterpiece that takes its time telling a story of youthful longing refracted through the prism of age over a meticulously crafted musical backdrop. Davidson's playing and singing here are destined to leave a lump in the throat of even the most die-hard rationalist. Also remarkable from One is the 16 min "Conversation Pieces" which unites a renaissance air with exploratory prog and improv in a way that should appeal to lovers of spaced out MV/EE. Two is just as good with a combination of delicate instrumentals and even some banjo in the case of the haunting "Miss Tiptoe." Fans of Roy Harper, Incredible String Band, COB (whose "Music of the Ages" is covered here) really need this one, me thinks.

Ben Nash The Seventh Goodbye (Aurora Borealis) CD - Here's another one that's been bouncing around the cosmic corridors for a while now. The Seventh Goodbye is some primo astral folk and blues with a strong debt to Six Organs of Admittance that still manages to sound like something more than just an awesome knockoff. Nash has a great tone within a dense mix of effects, ethnic flourishes, odd percussion and chants, and the results across these eight tracks offer a diverse mix of more song-based morsels and epic trance psych jams that transfix without wearing out their welcome. Nash was just 23 when he recorded this. Impressive.

Shawn David McMillen Dead Friends (Tompkins Square) CD - Dead Friends is the followup to McMillen's solo debut, Catfish, also on Tompkins Square. Where that one evinced a more broken free noise feel, which wouldn't sound too shocking to anyone familiar with McMillen's Ash Castes on the Gulf Coast, this one has a more shambolic country blues feel, with debts to Neil Young, The Band, Stones and McMillen's time with Warmer Milks (which yielded the ridiculously under-heard Soft Walks LP on Animal Abuse). Rickety folk space gives way to the beat down loner blues with slowly cycling basslines and acoustic embellishments before we're dumped in the grime with the damaged industrial psych of "The Moth," which gives way to the Exile on Mainstreet country glory of "No Time Left in This Place," featuring some soaring fiddle action from Ralph White. The more I listen the more I realize this is basically a kind of musical summation of McMillen's psychedelic interests over the years, and as much as I want to try to classify or tag it, it's impossible. Thumbs way up.

PG Six Live at VPRO Amsterdam (Perhaps Transparent) CD-R - PG Six is one of the main contributors in the mighty Tower Recordings (originators of fractured post industrial folk bliss); solo he offers something a bit more controlled and structured in the trad UK psych folk mold. His first two solo albums are classics in the genre -- then and now -- and this awesome live session, captured crisply at VPRO's Dwar's Festival in Amsterdam, comes from right around that fertile period in PG's solo timeline in late '04. The songs here are drawn mostly from his debut, Parlor Tricks and Porch Favorites (Amish), and feature the stripped down duo of PG Six on guitar/voice and Tim Barnes (also of Tower Recordings, Jim O'Rourke, the Quakebasket label, etc) on percussion. PG has since moved on from this sound into a slightly more folk rock sound, but I always hope solo (or in this case duo) PG Six isn't too far from sight, as there is clearly always magic in the air when these two combine their considerable talents. Also very happy to see Townes Van Zandt's "High, Low and In Between" featured here, as PG covers it better than anyone. His voice is an old friend I'm always ready to catch up with. Thanks Transparent Radiation for making it possible!

Skygreen Leopards Gorgeous Johnny (Jagjaguwar) CD - It's been a minute since we last heard from the Jeweled Antlered psych folk butterflies in Skygreen Leopards, and it's been worth the wait as Gorgeous Johnny is the most focused and tuneful fuzz folk diorama they've turned out yet. Along with the expected folk and pop influences (from Donovan to Dylan and Nagisa Ni Te) is a more pronounced vintage psych pop feel (The Kinks, Love, The Zombies) and the arrangements are stronger, the hooks sharper, and Glenn Donaldson has never sounded better with his acid kissed higher register vocals. A very fine folk drift for lazy Sunday afternoons that should appeal to fans of classic folk pop and modern twee strum at the same time.

RIP, Dennis Hopper, American Icon.  Here's a series of videos, as assembled by our pals at Soldier Disease:



And don't forget to check out Matt Zoller Seitz's moving video essay, The Middle Finger in Life:

I am severely blown away by the audio/visual possibilities of the extended trailer for Christopher Nolan's new film, Inception.  WOW!

Watching the LOST Finale Extravaganza right now.  Well I will be in just over an hour.  One long strange trip it's been!  Truly an awesome show for mainstream pulp sci-fi melodrama.  It will be missed.  Where do we go from here?

Addendum: For those who haven't yet, check out Doc Jennings' well researched and deeply felt Recap of The End and the entire series over at Entertainment Weekly.  It's very long and right on. My appreciation grows as my understanding does, with fear and trembling...  


Here's one possible destination:  Tom Lax recounts the recording of The Dead C's Clyma Est Mort, the live album that should've never been (and never was when you get right down to it).  As the intro says, Lax and his Siltbreeze label rival classic outsider indies like ESP and PSF in terms of subcultural influence the world over, and he is gentleman, a master chef and weaver of fine tales.  Don't pass up on that bbq if you get the invitation!  Thanks to Volcanic Tongue for the link.

Five More Randoms

Enumclaw Opening of the Dawn (Honeymoon Music) LP/Digital Download - Enumclaw is the minimal trance drone project of Norman Fetter from Philadelphia's Niagara Falls, operating in tranquil meditative mode across these six tracks of minimal electro-acoustic tones that gather inspiration from the elements, inner space, early minimal composers and Popol Vuh.  Florian Fricke is a glowing light source when it comes to merging modern electronic composition with the sacred, and in Fetter's hands, it's s a sound that goes beyond words to another plane of cosmic awareness.  There are some earthier moments -- tribal hand drums and shaking percussive passages -- but mostly Fetter stays head deep in the thick cozmik soup with cycling synth mantras from the Terry Riley school of drone gracefully gliding over a panorama of shifting melodies.  Highly recommended for fans of early ambient Eno, Harmonia and newer synth-psych head-trippers like Oneohtrix Point Never and Emeralds.    

La Otracina Blood Moon Riders (Holy Mountain) CD - Been meaning for a while to scribble a few words about this biker metal heavy prog syke opus.  These Brooklyn cats continue their natural evolution from amorphous prog psych fusion to some of the most head-smashing, mind-expanding space metal I've blinded my third eye with in recent moons. Blood Moon Riders fuses the best of both sides of the Brooklyn trio's sonic personality while setting the controls for the heart of the nearest supernova.  Followup imminent, but this is still highly recommend for heavy psychonauts the world over.  

Clair Cassis - Clair Cassis (Startlight Temple Society) Former members of Velvet Cacoon, the Portland, OR pagan metal band it's okay to smoke pot to, recently called it a day only to reconvene under the name Clair Cassis, a self described "pop answer to Velvet Cacoon," which is an amusing thought, as this sounds pretty dang doom 'n' gloom, even when compared to the spacier metalgaze atmospheres of VC.  Still, there is a certain self contained charm to some of these blackened morsels, along with necro-fixated witch-hag vocals and lulling prog ambient interludes that meld into a highly recommendable late night excursion through the swirling dark smoke of your mind.  Let there be starlight.
 
The Ritualistic School Of Errors Sweat Stained Fancy Heaps For First-Rate Ladies (Resipiscent) CD - Now this one is difficult with a capital D, but then there is no progress without struggle.  The Ritualistic School of Errors understands this undeniable axiom better than most.  The cut-up weird noise collages found inside Sweat Stained Fancy Heaps for First-Rate Ladies assume many guises and offer no easy path to illumination.  Instead we get jarring pastiches to the absurd and cartoon dementia with juxtapositions of every kind of twisted sample, honk and weird sound under the plunderphonic sun dropped in a blender with cracked accordion, piano, pipe organ, flamenco guitar, screwball operatic vocals, insanity chorales and much more.  It's complicated to say the least, assembled with meticulous mixing precision and actually quite recommended for those who like their tonal insanity multiplied to the nth degree.  File somewhere between The Sylvie and Babes Hi-Fi Companion, irr. app. (ext.) and early cracked Sun City Girls.   

Cadaver in Drag Raw Child Animal Disguise LP - Lord have mercy!  This is the meanest, grimiest, most fucked up slab of doom I've rattled my cage with in years.  Where to start?  Take the Melvins and cover them in shit, set them ablaze and roll them into the nearest tar pit.  Sidelong opener "Walking Through the Gates of Hell" sounds like the resulting explosion stuck in a relentless soul-crushing lockgroove of ugliness and despair.  Screaming gut wrenching howls and shrieks are the order of the day over massive lumbering sludgeoid grunge riffs.   For fans of early Unsane, Black Flag and doom of every kind.  I'm totally serious.  The last track sounds like Skepticism!  This has been out a couple years, but its primal rage demands attention like it dropped yesterday.  No shock to see this was one of Julian Cope's Albums of the Month at Head Heritage.

One more quickie:  Rangda's False Flag comes out today on Drag City.  This is the mythical in our time super noise free psych trio explosion of masters Ben Chasny and Richard Bishop (both guitar) and the incomparable Chris Corsano on hands everywhere splatter percussion, though my cursory exposure to their sound suggests he may actually play some almost-conventional beats on this record, which for Corsano would be downright freaky.

RIP, Ronnie James Dio.  Here's his explanation for the origin of the devil's horns, which he's often credited with first bringing into the metal arena.  Must say his pre metal days are pretty surprising.   Rest well, Elf!  \m/


Howdy!  I actually spent a whole lotta cash on two Neil Young / Bert Jansch tickets a few weeks ago.  Insane.  I swore I'd never be that guy, but timeliness, this and the fact that it's happening here convinced me that it's now or never.  See ya there.  Also had fun at the Hair Police  / Awesome Color / Hawk Vs. Dove concert the other night.  Finally got my Wolf Eyes cherry popped (almost)!  Mike Connelley rawks!  Hope he and the boys comes back to Tejas soon.  Bought some rad merch from the table, more on that later.  Was also happy to score a new vinyl issue of Mainliner's Mainliner Sonic (Assomer) at the Acid Mothers Temple/OGOD gig just before that.  Mainliner is of course one of the all time great blown amp fuzz punk noise bands to come out of the PSF scene, and I think this is the first time Mainliner Sonic has been available on vinyl, clear in this case.  Looks like I blew my own no new records in 2010 challenge.  Come back, Asahito Nanjo!  The world neeeeds yooouuuuu!


Thanks to fellow Womblifer T-boz for pointing out this neat little trick.  It would appear Sunn O))) actually does have a sense of humor.  I've maintained from the start that Spinal Tap was a huge influence, live if nothing else, so the similarities found here seem to be definitely more than just coincidental.  You only need to hear the first 45 secs or so of the Sunn O))) clip to get the gist...

and on to The 'Tap...




Also, a quick shout-out to old friends, The Green Pajamas, for doing the right thing and releasing the digital single, "The Red, Red Rose (Song for Phoebe Prince)," a remarkably heartfelt tribute and memorial to Phoebe Prince, whose story is really too sad to bear, but you've probably heard it by now anyway.  The evils of bullying and victimization have been a subject close to my heart for many years.  It's good to know it's close to Jeff Kelly and Laura Weller's as well.  Here's the story from Blurt, and the song...

Age of Disinformation Age of Disinformation CD-R / D and N D and N 2 CD-R (both Mayyrh) / Zanzibar Snails Vitiligo (Tape Drift) CD-R - There's still lots of activity happening in and around the Zanzibar Snails camp these days.  There's live gigs, and more gigs from side trio, The Watchers (debut release imminent?).  The 'Snails even received a perfect 10/10 grade from Foxy Digitalis for their Journey Into Amazing Caves! CD/DVD combo last year.  

The Age of Disinformation offers something of a detour from the usual ZS trajectories.  AoD is actually a local "supergroop" that features members of the 'Snails, The Great Tyrant, Akkolyte, Yells at Eels and others across 47 minutes of creepy-crawling drone, improv and ambient noise, which as orchestrated by multi-instrumentalist, Aaron Gonzalez, leaves plenty of space for embellishments and exploration.  These mutating oscillations, surges and crackling tones make me think of the frothing pools of analog electronics glimpsed on those early Cluster and Tangerine Dream records, along with hints of harsher noise, radio sounds and early industrial grime worked into the mix.  The results are a dark, enveloping mind swirl that ebbs and flows with primordial currents every step of the way.  Perfect for rewiring the synapses for a more celestial perception of the absolute.  Welcome to the new dark age, my friends.

D and N 2 is the second installment from the duo of Nevada Hill (of the Zanzi's and Drug Mountain) and David Price (also of the Zanzi's) operating via postal collaboration before, captured live in a weekend in an old church in East Texas this time.  And there's a twist:  The master recording of that session was chopped in two at the halfway point and then each half laid on top of one another, so what we have here is essentially a free noise collapsed folk industrial mashup.  It's a mouthful, but at 30 minutes the oblique trajectories of 2 manage to mostly fascinate, offering a fractured web of odd found sounds, broken guitars, harmonicas and the like which together sound more raw and abrasive than the excellent debut 3" CD-R and lands them in the same jagged terrain found on Richard Youngs and Simon Wickham-Smith's mythical Lake (which basically sounds like Jandek gone prog). 

Vitiligo is the name of the condition that causes people to lose pigment and turn white.  Michael Jackson claimed to have it, but we may know better.  As much as anything else, Zanzibar Snails are about reducing elements to their fundamentals.  Boundaries, barriers, matter itself is obliterated within their dark currents.  These five tracks offer the expected scrape and scrawl dementia designed to fuck with minds and obliterate egos, and they're pretty spooky at times.  In fact, the end results are some of the most cathartic raw noise excursions I've heard from the 'Snails to date, with Nevada Hill's electric violin screaming through dense electronics and stumbling percussion like a noise punk Tony Conrad.  Sarah Alexander's acid-opera vocals and effects really start to work their magic by the second and third tracks, as the ensemble alternates between cryptic Dadaist noise intervals and full on brain bleeding sonic mayhem.  It's awesome to finally get to hear Alexander on a 'Snails release as she brings an entirely new dimensions to the proceedings.  The closer is all about the subdued come down and a worthy conclusion to what amounts to a truly harrowing journey.  Vitiligo works remarkably well and simultaneously honors the uncompromising quality of past Zanzibar Snails recordings.  Awesome packaging once again from Hill.  Thumbs way up, peoples.

A few different family members and friends are dealing with some hard shit right now, mostly of a medical nature.  You know how that goes.  Up and down but always looking for the level ground.  I don't want to go into detail, but I do want them all to know they're in my thoughts and prayers daily.   

SUPERHYPED for the premier of Treme on HBO in a couple hours.  The latest new show from The Wire creators, David Simons and Eric Overmyer, is all about New Orleans and its culture/music in the wake of Katrina.  This is a subject I've been interested in since it all went down five years ago, so I'm looking forward to seeing some familiar faces from Simon's stable of actors over the years, along with new ones like Johnathon Goodman and Steve Zahn.  Here's a teaser:  And RIP to David Mills, a writer/co-producer who worked on Treme, The Wire, NYPD Blue, etc. He died of a brain aneurysm almost two weeks ago.

This is My Music: Vol 7, Part 1 (Rainbow Electronics)

Æthenor Faking Gold And Murder (VHF) CD -  Faking Gold And Murder is the strongest Æthenor long player since Deep in Ocean Sunk the Lamp of Light.  Along for the ride this time is David Tibet of Current 93 (he's made more guest appearances on more records in the last year than in the previous 10 years combined) doing his cryptic apocalypse prose thing over Stephen O'Malley and company's dense swirls of electronics, synth, guitars and percussion.  The atmosphere is grim and surreal as squiggly keys and prepared guitars dangle over jagged percussive spikes and massed cymbal gales.  Minimal melodies materialize and seduce like sirens only to fade out and leave us lost once more and hurdling through space with only Tibet's lunatic narrator as our guide through this spontaneously improvised wasteland.


Emeralds What Happened (No Fun Production) CD - No Fun has definitely emerged of late as drone merchants of the finest kind of celestial transcendence.  As has Oneohtrix Point Never, Ohio's Emeralds has been bouncing around those subterranean wormholes for a while now with bubbling concoctions of synth modulation meets minimal guitar backing to reveal luminous star portals to worlds rarely glimpsed in our dimension but apparently visible all the same.  FIve tracks/almost an hour of continuous deep space meditational overtone.  Definitely worth a listen for folks in awe of the golden age of Minimalism and early electro-washed Krautrock.


Esperik Glare As the Insects Swarm (Static Hum Records) 7" - An interesting new arrival on the Dada/noise/ambient tip, Esperik Glare is a one man sound sculptor hailing from somewhere deep in the Midwest.  He comes from the Nurse With Wound / irr. app. (ext) school of domestic creepy crawlings, which means he keeps one foot planted in murky industrial waters, the other in more minimal found sound space.  The title track is exactly what it promises -- a babbling brook of clicks, shivers and windy whooshes that brings its subject matter to life on a molecular level.  It's basically impossible to tell what is making what sound, but the overall caustic atmosphere breathes with a Beginning of The End Complete air.  The flip offers spooky minimal tones and synth drones beneath a spoken work description of said cataclysm that sounds almost like a sparser ambient answer to some of the scariest moments of Current 93's Dog's Blood Rising LP.  Pretty tight. 

Jim Haynes Sever (Intransitive) CD - Jim Haynes first came to my attention as the "weirdo noise maker guy" in Thuja and via his fantastic ambient field recording work with his duo Coelacanth and contributions to the surrealist supergroop The Sleeping Mustache (wiith Steven Stapleton and Matthew Waldron among others).  He also runs the Helen Scarsdale label (see the irr. app. ext. review below) out of his home base in San Francisco, which releases new music that falls somewhere in the minimal noise/ambient/industrial spectrum and pretty much always subliminally kicks ass.  His recent Sever for Boston's Intransitive stretches out over four tracks that waver from machine hums massed with crumbling percussive clicks and crackles to more organic stretches that weave field recordings of wind and sifted earth into precise animated worlds where rationality and logic crumble away till all that remains is a glowing, effulgent aum.  Like "looking" at the world on a subatomic scale through an electron stethoscope.

irr. app. (ext.) Kreiselwelle (Helen Scarsdale) CD - Oh, golly, this is just wonderful.  An ode to dark joy, the third release in Matt Waldron's amazing trilogy assembled under the influence of German philosopher and psychologist Willhelm Reich is an absolute masterpiece of shifting mechanical sound dreams that alternates from warped nightmare throngs to the most stunning post NWW industrial mechanical pulses and back again.  Kreiselwelle is a meticulously composed sonic investigation that spans nearly two years of collecting and collating data and assembling it into a piece of music that is alternately overpowering, resonating, horrifying, uplifting and in every way an amplification of the most mystical properties of existence itself.  This is an industrial noise record.  A surrealist music concrete Dadaist dreamhouse.  A tunnel of love.  A carousel of dreams.  A world of sound.  I love this CD!

Nmperign Ommatidia (Intransitive) CD - Nmperign is one of my very favorite duos when it comes to tearing down the walls between genres and breaking completely free from the restrictions of trad jazz idioms.  Ostensibly a jazz duo (trio with the addition of sound artist Jason Lescalleet on reel to reel / see the brilliant Love Me Two Times 2CD, also on Intransitive), Ommatidia is actually its first studio recording as a duo in its 10 plus years of existence.  These six pieces breathe with the wind, spatter with concussions of bursting raindrops and ultimately engender the spontaneous poetry of nature itself.  That is Nmperign's great feat -- its ability to make jazz music that sounds unlike any other jazz music in the world, but utterly transfixes, draws the listener in and instead of providing a means of escape offers a portal to complete and total perceptible reality.  It's the harmony of the spheres, as heard through the wind and captured on tape.   
   

Nurse With Wound The Surveillance Lounge (Dirter Promotions) CD - Steven Stapleton and all his ol' ghosties (Andrew Liles and David Tibet among them) bring out the dead with these four epics of messed up horror-ambient that are something of a return to form given the overall NWW catalog, including Stapleton and co.'s recent Gas-Huffing Blues, which teetered a bit too close to novelty schlock minus the mad genius that made the comparable Sylvie and Babs Hi-Fi Companion such a recommendable side trip through the Nurse With Wound multiverse.  The Surveillance Lounge's four extended nightmares are closer in spirit and tone to the earlier dread atmospheres of long lost classics like Homotopy to Marie and the skeletal decay of Salt Marie Celeste, plus the more mechanical feel that helped make Thunder Perfect Mind such an inescapable industrial jackhammer.  Then come foreign whispers and shrieking howls over foghorn drones and death-rattle percussion and we know we're slowly sinking into the nightmare muck.  It'd all be a bit much if there wasn't such a captivating compositional depth to what's going on here.  Somehow Nurse With Wound continues to not just matter but to give us a cerebral investigation into paranormal sound that more often than not hits the listener on a primal, gut level.  Every time I listen to this in the dark, I think I see apparitions in the corner hiding in that fuzzy area between real and imaginary.  This is a dangerous record.

Jim O'Rourke Long Night (Streamline) 2CD - Here's an early O'Rourke gem that finds our man lost in the space between the notes. This is some seriously static drone not for the faint of heart (or short of attention span), but those with an ear for texture, and the kind of sloowllly spiraling overtones that emanate from the heart of the darkest celestial night should find some haunted melodic progressions buried deep inside the seemingly static dissonance.  With two discs topping out nearly 80 minutes each the listener is tested for sure but ultimately taps into a highly rewarding listening experience that's ideal for sleep or meditation, foreground or background reception.  Long Night offers a boundless wall of glacial drift that ultimately serves as a worthy precursor to Mirror's impressionist tone work that would emerge a few years later.  I think O'Rourke was just 21 when this was recorded.  Deep, yo.

It's pretty sad that there are already uploaded copies of the Chris Knox benefit album, Stroke, floating around the blogosphere.  Please BUY IT from Merge or don't listen to it at all.  As I'm sure most of you know, Knox recently suffered a life-altering stroke that has left him partially paralyzed.  I enjoyed a pretty amazing night/morning hanging out with Chris and his wife Barbara about 10 years ago in Austin.  I interviewed hims for The Broken Face, and we enjoyed a great breakfast at the Magnolia Cafe and got them both to the aeropuerto just in time for their flight, despite my dunderheaded non-realization that Austin had just opened the new Austin-Bergstrom International airport some months before, which was nowhere near the Austin Municipal or whatever the fuck I was looking for (looser).  Chris is an amazing, intense performer/songwriter with a deep catalog of weird home-made psych pop, art punk and whatnot songs -- solo and with his duo Tall Dwarfs -- that comes with the highest Womblife recommendation for anyone even remotely interested in weird pop/folk/punk/psych (from The Beatles to Elephant 6 'n' beyond).  Recommended records: Chris Knox solo - Meat, Seizure, Beat.  Tall Dwarfs - Hello Cruel World, Weeville, 3EPs, The Sky Above The Mud Below.  His work with early Kiwi punk bands The Enemy and Toy Love also should not go ignored.  The tribute has a stunning roster of some of my favorites: The Chills, David Kilgour, Stephen Merritt, Pumice, Hamish Kilgour, Bill Callahan, Jeff Mangum, Bonnie Prince Billy, The Bats, AC Newman, Lou Barlow, Lambchop, The Verlaines, etc.

Here's one of my fave live clips of Chris from Youtube, complete with broken guitar string:

There's also a benefit concert happening in New York next month (already sold out) with a stellar lineup. Major props to Ben Goldberg of Ba Da Bing for making that happen! 


A group I've been meaning to write more about here one day is Philly's charred to the bone Pissed Jeans.  They merge psych slop and punk trash better than just about anyone else makin' records out there today in the US.  Think somewhere between newer La Otracina and Pussy Galore.  Here is a killer live set recorded on Brian Turner's show on WFMU  which offers a potent example of their mongrel sludge fury.  


I also feel the need to mention Fort Worth's Drug Mountain, probably the scariest band operating in the DFWD triangle currently.  Definitely the loudest.  After seeing this quintet of sax, sax, bass, drums and electric viola (played by Nevada Hill from Zanzibar Snails, who joined the band after it recorded its debut 12" at Steve Albini's studio in Chicago), I was so gleefully pulverized by their Contortions-meets-Jesus Lizard skronk attack that I went and threw down the bucks for their lovely one sided LP, which features an archaic etching on the flip by maestro graphic artist Hill.  You can snag your own at the Myspace site above if that's yr cup of joe, and yessir, it'll make ya go.  Edition of 111.

 
And let me close it with a thank you to friend Aaron Gonzalez -- he of the Gonzalez brothers, who plus their father Dennis are thee fabulous Yells At Eels free jazz/fusion trio -- for throwing me a rough copy of his duo (with his brother Stefan) Akkolyte's forthcoming debut LP, which comes highly recommended for weirdoz into early Napalm Death, Takashi Miike and Ornette Coleman, to name but a few possible influences on their pummeling/absurd grind/jazz/thrash.

Not sure if I ever mentioned the greatness of Gram Parsons W/ The Flying Burrito Bros' (hey, that's how it's listed!) Live at the Avalon Ballroom 1969 (Amoeba Records).  This 2CD is Volume 1, so I hope there's more to come in the series from around this period.  Taken from the Grateful Dead's live vaults, these two shows from early April '69 showcase The 'Bros in peak form with their classic lineup intact and Sneaky Pete Kleinow's fuzz-box pedal steel raining down like liquid phosphorus all over the Avalon.  Even better you can compare the two similar but distinctly different sets from the same tour and see how utterly in the coZmik boogie zone these boys really were, even if only for a short while.  Beautiful, beautiful performances captured at soundboard quality.  Classy album styled packaging with vivid recollections from the period in the liners.

Some Live Aktionz

Made it out to a few sweet shows this past week, including Woven Bones and Tinsel Teeth (at Brofest).  I hung out for a little more action (including Naam and White Mice), but didn't really feel like watching 10 plus bands straight through on a Sunday, so bailed pretty early.  That's right, no Sleepy Sun.  No Liturgy.  The horror (or non horror as it were).  I'm sorry I missed Liturgy actually but also have a feeling their brutalistic blackened onslaught might've been the death of me.  Old fart right here.  Tinsel Teeth's singer (TT is a hXc noise rock nightmare with a small female screamer on vox) stripped nearly to nothing but bra and torn tights and screaming in the faces of/collapsing on various audience members was both hilarious and kind of pitiful to behold, as I'm sure was the intention.  She came off like a rape victim trying to get anyone to call for help, or maybe the last survivor from the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre just after she'd jumped out of the window and finally made it out to the highway.  So, naturally, when she slammed into me, I did my Kung-Fu Panda SKADOOSH thing and she flopped right off the belly and smacked the floor like a fish.  I went to help her up, but some valiant buck beat me to it.  Tinsel Teeth provided one of those what-the-fuck(?) train-wreck type live experiences that left me wondering if people too often confuse creative expression with seething, mutilated rage.  Regardless it's neat to see all the hipster stoics in their tattered hoodies holding their own like billiard pins in the wake of her elephantine bumper-car angst.  Woven Bones were less...complicated.  Minimal bass/guitar grooves with reverb-drenched vox and a cute lil Mo Tucker chick w/ glasses smacking the snare and floor bass (no cymbals per Mr. Reed's instruction), and though they sadly did not play "Let it Breathe" from the Janie 7", I was still adequately rocked 'n' rolled in a Wooden Shjips meets early JAMC kind'a way. 

The next night -- a Monday night mind you -- it was time to get Pocahaunted, drench the Wet Hair and get raddled by Rene Hall at The Lounge on Elm.  Blissed Out and local mellow psych merchants eyes, wings and many other things rounded out the bill.  I guess I arrived too late for Rene Hall, but Blissed Out brought their big fuzz/beat driven sonics down on the Lounge like a thousand com satellites crashing to Earth at once.  Maybe I just don't do enough drugs anymore to really enjoy these subliminal noise barrages, but it made for an agreeable background whitewash while smoking cigarettes and sippin' mixed drinks on the porch.  Headed upstairs for the bird's eye view of Wet Hair, Shawn from Night People/Racoo-oo-oon's (rip) new-ish duo project of banks of synths with live drums and echo-drenched vocals.  Three long tracks ranged from gooey glowing dollops of Spacemen 3 worship to further refracted beams of syncopated beats and komische drones.  Pocahaunted (who I'd not seen before) were operating in a slightly more conventional mode with the release of their rockin' new Not Not Fun platter, Make it Real, featuring some real eye-popping cover art to go with its groovy Raincoats-gone-West-Coast-psych vibe, and live these three ladies and two lads are a sight to behold.  Musically we got grooved out goth rainbow trances and methodical tribal rhythms graced with ceremonial war paint and sparkly sequined wraps and gowns.  I was reminded of the incomparable awesomeness of The Spires That in the Sunset Rise with less witch and more squaw, but as the wording suggests Pocahaunted aren't exactly up to the Spires comparison just yet, but at least they're reaching and in the process teaching.

Then just this past Saturday made it out to the Phoenix Project for a night of jazz -- two performances, one a quartet the other a trio.  The quartet of Norwegian bassist Ingerbrigt Haker Flaten (also of The Thing with Mats Gustafsson), Stefan Gonzalez (drums), Jason Jackson (sax) and Nick Cabrera (clarinet) started with the revered bassist playing upright acoustic for half the show, then plugging in the electric for a while.  The brass players were a bit more low-key and distant beneath the Haker Flatten/Gonzalez rhythmic low end, alternately punctuated and robust and flickering like a prairie fire in the wind.  The final track with Inger on electric bass went deeper into mid '70s Kraut fusion territory and pulled me in nicely.  The closing trio of Vancouver's Gordon Grdina on guitar and oud, Haker Flatten on bass and a phenomenal Canadian percussionist whose name I can't find (bad!) offered more trad swing interspersed with stellar region string eruptions that tempered the primal rumbling builds of Sonny Sharrock with the gale force winds of Sonic Youth.  Every player in this trio delivered stunning, world class performances that kept me tuned throughout on a sonic level and completely fascinated in terms of physical dexterity and observational telepathic precision.  All in all, another memorable night of world class jazz at the Phoenix Project here in Big. D.   

Been neglecting blogo duties of late. A lot of events have come and gone, and I've dug on a few. Too many folks have died lately. Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse, him I definitely had some time for, and just before that Dallas's own Tommy Aldridge of The Great Tyrant and Yeti, and others still, near and far, including an actual relative. Farewell to my cousin, Bettie Claire Winters.


Decided to forgo SXSW this year to save some $$$ and avoid that all around madhouse for a change. Turns out Alex Chilton couldn't make it either. He died of a heart attack Wednesday at 59, and was scheduled to play the fest Saturday night. According to WFMU's Brian Turner, Big Star played anyway -- well kind of -- with original bassist Andy Hummell, Auer/Stringfellow/Stephens (the remainder of Big Star's current lineup), John Doe, Chris Stamey, Evan Dando, Curt Kirkwood and others. Sorry I missed it.

When people ask me, as they still do time to time, "Just who the heck is your favorite band anyway?" 90% of the time I say, "Big Star, of course." I'm not going to go all into specifics as to why that is. It's all in the music, three remarkable albums released from 1971-'75 for Memphis's Ardent Records: #1 Record, Radio City and Third/Sister Lovers that capture so many conflicting emotions, sounds, styles and images of an era that's special for so many reasons, and not just because I was born right in the middle of it all in 1973. Music simply sounded better before the encroachment of the digital age. Let's just leave it at that, but I like a lot of the digital shit too.

"Nighttime," "For You," "Big Black Car," "Blue Moon," "The Ballad of El Goodo," "September Gurls," "Thirteen," "Watch the Sunrise," "I'm in Love With a Girl," "Way Out West," "What's Going Ahn," "Mod Lang," "Holocaust" and, of course, "Kangaroo" (to name just a few) define pop excellence that rivals and arguably surpasses heavy hitters like The Kinks, The Byrds, CSNY, Buffalo Springfield and The Who on some deeper, more achingly existential level. I may be a little biased, but I'd waver that less than ten bands in the rock world actually have a Sister Lovers in 'em. The Velvet Underground's self titled comes to mind. So does Chris Bell's I Am the Cosmos and maybe Tim Buckley's Starsailor. Very few others.


(A vintage clip, featuring Alex and Chris, from the #1 Record sessions)

Rhino released a new Big Star 4CD box-set recently, Keep an Eye on the Sky, which consists mostly of early alternate takes and live material from the '70s era, but I've only just started digging into that stuff. Then there's Chilton's work as a teenager with soul garage teen idols The Boxtops, and his later more discordant solo work of damaged post-punk abandon. The Big Star story could probably be converted into its own HBO miniseries, complete with all the layered revelations, unexpected reversals and ironic ambiguities that make something like The Wire so profound. It can be heard in a song, such as Chris Bell's "You and Your Sister" on which Alex lends a harmony vocal long after the two had had their own version of the typical rock band falling out. It's the kind of healing that has to be sung instead of spoken. And for me that's what the music of Big Star is really about -- poems of hope sung in the darkest hour, just before the crack of dawn when the night is chased back into the dusty corner where it belongs. It's questionable whether Chilton or Bell ever really made it through to that bright morning, but then that's the point. It's not about getting there. It's about going as far as you can as long as you can, and maybe feeling a little love along the way.

Here's a recollection from an email of a Big Star/Posies concert I was lucky enough to attend on New Year's Eve Y2K in New Orleans just over ten years ago now. Jesus, where do da time go, mah peoples?

I saw Big Star play the Y2K New Years Eve show w/The Posies at the Howling Wolf in NO and for some reason it felt like a golden moment. My friends and I had rolled into New Orleans a few hours before and made the mistake of hitting up Pat O'Briens for a Hurricane or two. During most of Posies set we were irredeemably sloshed. I was afraid of this too, shooting our collective wad to soon so to speak. My friends actually dared to suggest an early retreat before Big Star even took the stage. How dare they! Ever the rocker soldier than I was (and still am), I insisted that if they could just hold on a little longer, that the band would start and the resultant power of the music and those classic melodies would revive the spirits of all in attendance (and kick in the endorphins too) and all would be well. And all was well.

After the Posies agreeable, low-key all acoustic set, it was time for the main event. As I said before this night felt special. One night you see a band firing on all cylinders/not missing a beat, the next you see a bunch'a pissy crybabies throwing things and blaming the sound man. But more than that it felt like seeing a boxer or old cowboy who'd come to terms with an affliction and slowly wrestled his way back to a place of contentment and even temporary nirvana. They were well rehearsed yet loose, exploding like it was 1972 all over again -- Jody's drums as crisp and metronomic as in the old days, Alex's guitar reverberating out across the packed house and filling the room like a chorus of church bells. He was all smiles too. He drank a toast from the stage at midnight and then broke into an appropriately stumbling version of "Auld Lyne Sang." Probably played close to 2 hours, nothing but hit after hit -- pow! pow! pow! Hadn't seen such a consistently enjoyable pop type set since Nirvana in late 1993, and let's just say Chilton looked like he was having a lot more fun that night than poor ol' Kurdt did back in '93. I've seen Big Star since and it was, dare I say, one of those sloppier, phoned in kind'a gigs. The kind of gig that has to get worked into the mix every once in a while so that the good ones burn so brightly. But that night, amid all the paranoia of impending doom and so forth revolving around Y2K (what a joke that was, right?), it was the stuff of rock 'n' roll dreams and a genuine life saver. So thanks Alex, Jody and the Posies for one of the best shows and most memorable nights of my life, and a lot of great music besides.

From Boing Boing, via Moistworks:

Ben Greenman remembers singer and guitarist Alex Chilton, who died tonight at age 59.

Alex Chilton, who died, wrote songs. He recorded songs. He made songs. He unmade them. In the end, the life was largely in song, and the songs all had life, and that's all there is to say, and there isn't anything that can be done. Once he covered "Let Me Get Close to You," which was Goffin-King via Skeeter Davis:

How long I'll never know
I've waited to tell you that I love you so
Now I have finally said it
Come on baby don't make me regret it

"It's Your Funeral" is an instrumental. There are no words.

RIP, Alex Chilton

Four Tapes

Greg Davis Full Spectrum (Digitalis Ltd.) C-40 - '09 is the year I really started to dig deeper into this Vermontster's discography of celestial minimal noise and electronic dreams. His influences are vast yet sort of simple too: The Dead, La Monte Young, Jim O'Rourke and Mirror styled ambient hazes, and raga of any kind. He strikes an especially dulcet glow across the two glacial drifts of tonal haze that comprise Full Spectrum. This is as transcendent/beautiful as anything I've heard by Davis, which means it's better than the recent Mutually Arising (Kranky), though that same sense of meditative tranquility is found here. As suggested, every hue of the color spectrum gets its space-time due via these magnificent portals.

Dire Wolves Dire Wolves (Secret Eye) 2xC-30 - It's been a treat seeing the new wave of lumbering Cozmik pSych groops come wafting up from the basement like so many black smoke monsters. Pittsburgh's Dire Wolves definitely fit the bill with their sprawling psych jams owing to Träd, Gräs och Stenar, German Oak, Amon Düül II and the like (including Earth before the smoke cleared). The quartet -- featuring members/former members of Arco Flute Foundation, Black Forest/Black Sea, Forest Dweller, Sagas, etc -- that is Dire Wolves somehow manages to explore the corroding line between earth/sky, heaven/hell, order/chaos and show how limitless and vast that seemingly small space can be. What I truly dig about these 4 sides is how easily the group shifts gears from a hypnotic on-'n'-on caveman stomp to something more formless with the most insane/feral acid leads cutting through all the dense smoke -- a sound that was made to be heard on tape. Apparently sold out some time ago, but more releases are forthcoming on other labels. Keep your ears out! Righteous sample time!

Thurston Moore Blindfold (Destructive Industries) C-30 - Blindfold is one of the more interesting tapes I grabbed at the harsh noise fest I attended last Summer. It's quite the monster of creeping ominous 6 string electric guitar dread, somewhere between sadistic Silence of the Lambs informed ambient shades and a much deeper spiraling sound sculpture that for me personally ranks as some of the coolest, most arresting guitar work I've heard from Moore yet. I'm not sure if Blindfold is more intended as a kind of tonal death march, or creeping exploration of the mind of sadism, but it does breathe with an ominous groan that gets under the skin and digs its hooks in deep. Before it's through, the torture drone gives way to a more ecstatic breakthrough, possibly emblematic of the spirit leaving the body of our victim. Either way, a viable transcendence occurs.

Sun Araw In Orbit (Stunned) C-30 - This one will be hard to find and costs a little more than maybe it should, but hot damn if the two 15 min live tracks captured herein do not completely honor Sun Araw's school of less is more groove-ology. No, In Orbit isn't as complete a spiritual transformation as the massive Heavy Deeds, but it still honors that tradition and keeps the lunar module in its proper orbit across 30 minutes of pulsing, clanking see-sawing effervescent splooge. And that's really all any cosmonaut can ask for, ain't it?

All hail Decrepit Tapes!  It's a download blog thingy that seems to specialize mostly in out of print sonic esoterica, which me thinks makes it acceptable to share here.  Most of these things operate under the precondition that if ya like it, buy it; if ya don't, delete it.  When it comes to something as amazing as the Un Plays the Non Hits For You tape, which has probably been impossible to find for well over a decade, I fully endorse the upload/download.  More current ensembles like Hototogisu, Fursaxa and the Double Leopards can all be traced back to this zonked out crude noise meets collapsed folk blissout.  Charalambides and Tower Recording fans will love it.  Lots of other highly recommendable titles to be heard too.  I'm happily decimated, myself.


In out there collaboration news, take a look at this story from LA Weekly's Off The Record blog, about the forthcoming collabowork of grim art between Womblife faves, Xasthur and Marissa Nadler.  Not really such a stretch if you think about it.  Can't wait to hear the results!


Scooting out the door to see these guys at The Granada tonight.  Woo-hoo!

As some of you may know, this past weekend there was a celebration of the life and times of Jack Rose -- in two parts -- A Record Release Show for Luck in the Valley (Thrill Jockey) in Philadelphia (Jack's home town for the last 10 years) at The Latvian Society on Saturday, and the next night A Valentine For Jack Rose at Brooklyn's Issue Project.  By all accounts these were two nights of magic and celebration involving many of our favorite weird folkies and blues dogs here in The Womb.  Below is a heartfelt summation of events written by Bob Bannister, a fine gentleman and guitarist, whose work with Tono-Bongay, PG Six and under his own name should not go unnoticed:

"To begin with, the night sustained that really strong sense of community and mutual respect that is such a big part of "this thing of ours" – joyous (and sad, in this case) and invigorating.

Opening were the Megajam Booze Band – 9 or 10 people, of whom I immediately recognized Harmonica Dan and Jesse Trbovich, plus I think Willie Lane was up there, no doubt others you know. They set a suitably Dionysian tone with a 20-minute over-the-top jamming version of "Proud Mary" – all in all it was a high-energy hard-drinking night (whereas the Issue Project Room show the next day was more acoustic and sombre).

Following was Meg Baird with Chris Forsyth and Willie Lane – they did a couple of tunes from Meg's solo repertoire and closed with a version of Hoyt Axton's "The Pusher" that was pretty astonishing – lots of Verlaine/Lloyd-isms from the electric guitars and Meg really let rip on the vocals; her solo work, as you know, tends toward the more delicate, so it was an exhilarating move.

I'm going to lose track of the order and will be really embarrassed if I leave anyone out. Black Twig Pickers you know well. They did 5 or so characteristically engaging numbers – a take on "Kensington Blues" with Hans Chew adapting Jack's part on piano, and a piece called (I think) "Dan's Friend's Blues" that was gently elegiac, two slightly different melodies alternating unhurriedly. A big part of their appeal is the sense of a return to the pace of rural life, before the hyper-charged, urban migration, bluegrass style began to predominate.

If you've heard Byron Coley read before you know what to expect, and even if you've only read his writing, his live performance won't surprise you – sharp, irreverent humor with an oblique but fierce defense of the countercultures (the real ones!) that he has tirelessly championed for 30+ years. His poem for Jack was a gruff, funny, loving send-off – we should all be so honored.

Glenn Jones mostly played 12-string, including the excellent title track from his new record "Barbecue Bob in Fishtown," the title itself a nod to Jack. Sunday he did the banjo piece from the same record, "Keep It A Hundred Years" – I forget if he also did it Saturday.

Pelt's performance was astonishing by any measure – more so when contrasted with the Black Twig Pickers music. They started with the Tibetan singing bowls, making a shimmering luminous cloud of sound, and finished with an oceanic roar of gongs and cymbals. For the mystically minded among you, I'd call it the sound you'll hear while you're in the bardo of rebirth and I conservatively estimate 10,000 souls found themselves reborn by the end of it.

In between several of these performances were video segments – interviews and performances that I think were from the forthcoming "The Things That We Used to Do" DVD (pretty sure, based on the trailer) and Tara Young's interviews with Jack for her film on Michael Chapman. For a guy who would already be described as "larger than life," to have him projected 8 feet high on the wall above your head was intense to say the least – the interviews capture his personality well, a beautiful memorial, and the performances are riveting.

Michael Chapman's performance was as steady as you'd expect, with the kind of confidence that comes from 40 years of playing. His guitar sound is a big bear-hug of a sonic embrace, his voice gravelly and sure and his unsentimental affection for Jack matched the emotional tenor of the evening.

It hadn't been a quiet night but Paul Flaherty, Chris Corsano, Thurston Moore, Samara Lubelski and Bill Nace weren't running the risk of bringing down the energy level, presenting a sustained high-energy improv tumult, with Flaherty staying in the topmost register of his horn.

D. Charles Speer closed with a long boisterous set – you'd think after 3 or 4 successive generations of people compellingly spanning multiple genres, there'd be no surprises left, but there is still something noteworthy about a set of musicians with so many experimental music connections returning to such straight-up country rock – gives a glimpse of how the Flying Burrito Brothers must have seemed, turning up at the crest of psychedelia.

This is already way too long, but I need to give a few shout-outs to the Sunday night lineup at the Issue Project Room in Brooklyn. Tom Carter's massive drone-guitar tidal wave was a great contrast to almost everything else either night, as was Marcia Bassett's more dissonant threnodic performance for voice and guitar. Steve Gunn did a short but beautiful set – anyone who hasn't heard his Boerum Palace record should try to do so. Pelt added Tony Conrad as a guest and did a huge Outside the Dream Syndicate drone, starting with three violins and two harmoniums – again, impressive on its own, but even more intriguing in the context of all the other music they do."

Thanks so much to Bob for sharing!

I enjoyed the snow days, even though we're not used to 'em down here. I bet I'm not the only DFW dingbat that forgot to buy a snow shovel this year. Doh! 49 states got snowfall concurrently! Freaky. And don't go telling me how this disproves global warming cuz ya got yr science all wrong and don't understand climate change AT ALL. Round here we got a record setting blanket of white that topped out at 12 inches. That's a LOT for Dallas. Chilly Willy's keepin cool, and I'm sitting here warming my slippered feet by the fire, tucked in tight and watching it all melt away. Times like these I recommend digging into the spectral/psych/astral folk heap if you can.



This is My Music: Vol 6, Part 1 (Spirit of Love)

James Blackshaw The Glass Bead Game (Young God) CD - What Blackshaw does with 6 and 12 strings truly exceeds the expectations of so called raga-blues, a style that as exemplified by folks like John Fahey and Jack Rose, really already has no limits in terms of the way melody and repetition can be extended, sculpted and collapsed in on themselves to reveal new sacred modes of communication. If ya ask this old fart, no other 6/12 string open-tuned picker so adequately melds the tangible, natural side of life with the Other World. Blackshaw has a visionary understanding of composition as meditation and the deeper spiritual concerns that guide us all. After all, the album's title derives from Herman Hesse's final epic novel of utopian ascendancy and the resultant stagnation that comes when progress is no longer on the menu. Where do we go when we're already there? A question maybe best left unanswered, but meditated on all the same. These 5 songs are drawn from a well so deep, and augmented by subtle embellishments of cello, flute and harmonium, to reveal the infinite emotional possibilities of a genre we thought we knew through and through.

It's to Blackshaw's credit that he's never afraid to reveal the influence early minimal composers like Terry Riley and Steve Reich, as well as older Romantic traditions and jazz greats like Albert Ayler have had on his rapturous string music; but his compositions of quick flowing rivers of fingerpicked strings and resonating vibrations are worlds entirely of his own making. Moments of this record rank with anything that was ever created to invoke beauty, to reveal the sacred, to illuminate the darkness.

The Goner Hind Hand/Haven (Deep Water) 2CD-R (Deep Water) - Another swell new discovery in '09, courtesy of Kevin Moist's forever-expanding Deep Water universe, comes these spectral musings of one Swede and a guitar. The Goner emerges from the Scandinavian wood as a fully functional one man psych-folk unit. This 2-fer combines two albums from '08 into one affordable package, and its vibe is one of Earth and wind meeting the most tender kind of confessional folk songs. "A Song" in particular is a knockout of redemptive longing that sounds kind of like a cross between early Mountain Goats and Six Organs of Admittance lost in the frosty wild. Otherwise there's the spaced out raga flows of "Travelogue" and the delicate layered picking of "Harbor Song," though accented by some effects weirdness and percussion, still sounding entirely handmade and in the now. The all instrumental Hind Hand focuses more on tone and atmosphere in styles ranging from early Amon Düül inspired percussive deluge to more meandering flows of raga and drone.

Hush Arbors Yankee Reality (Ecstatic Peace) CD - It's been cool watching Keith Wood, who basically is Hush Arbors, evolve over the years from a one man bedroom folk psych noise project, as documented on the brilliant Since We Have Fallen (originally released as a li'l edition CD-R in Digitalis's Foxglove series and since dropped on vinyl by Harvest) to real deal psych folk rock craftsman. I knew then Wood was up to something special. Couple years later I saw him sit in on lead guitar with Sunburned Hand of the Man (still the best gig I've seen by that free noise/psych boogie unit) and remember a moment when Wood stepped to the mic and sang. It was the only remotely conventional number of the set and it totally killed. The rest was outer-space tribal industrial caveman sludge of the highest order, but it was this one actual song, with Wood's unmistakably high timber up front, that totally enthralled and left me hungry for more.

Soon after Wood would travel overseas, find love, find David Tibet (him again) and perform guitar on pivotal records by Current 93 and Pantaleimon, as well as tour with the dearly missed Jack Rose and play guitar with Six Organs of Admittance during their '06 tour. He's since honed his craft, wrote songs, signed to a bigger label, and now comes Yankee Reality.

When I say it's been a pleasure watching this guy evolve, this album is the ultimate representation of why that is. Wood spent a lot of time moving around, hooking up with different kindred spirits throughout the South and Midwest US before finding a larger audience. What really emerged on those early Hush Arbors records was an appreciation for the solitude of nature and the mystical beauty of trees, massive sprawling, seemingly alive trees. Many of my favorite roots-psych albums are about the need to escape urban desolation and get out into the untamed wild, but Yankee Reality is about exactly what it says: the harsh reality of leaving the woods behind for the sake of "modern living." Perhaps that's partly the reason so many of the songs on this record kick-ass with faster tempos and fuzzier backdrops, but the structures and melodies can be traced directly to the West Coast psych explosions happening in LA and San Fran in the late 60s, Neil Young, The Band, right on down the line to more modern alt country and indie rock developments, from MV/EE to the Sky Green Leopards. Wood sprinkles it all with his own fairy dust though and just happens to emerge as one of his generations finest songwriters in the process.

Bert Jansch L. A. Turnaround / Santa BarbaraHoneymoon (Drag City) both CD - For folkniks and true believers alike, Drag City's reissue of three of Bert Jansch's Charisma records from the '70s is cause for much rejoice indeed. It could be said that no one guitarist is more responsible for the development of the modern folk rock guitar sound as envisioned circa 1974. As much as John Renbourne or Richard Thompson, Jansch is an architect of the myriad styles and developments that have come to fall loosely under the acid and astral folk banners. He first came to my attention via his recordings with Pentangle, which combined trad Brit folk melodies along with jazz and blues modes into a intricate folk rock jams, but for me it's the Jansch stuff further down the line, as so perfectly captured on L.A. Turnaround (recorded in '73) and Santa Barbara Honeymoon (caught the following year) that reveal an amazing poet and songwriter in peak form, doling out timeless meditative folk melodies that ride the fine line between country, blues, British folk and jazz to reveal lucid tone dreams that offer one Brit's perspective on the burgeoning Americana roots scene. Neil Young and Graham Parsons could be counterpoints to what Jansch is up to here, but his languid pace and fine voice (augmented but mostly two acoustic guitars and lap steel) offer a welcome British perspective on the proceedings.

Of the two albums, L.A. Turnaround (featuring session work by Mike Nesmith of all people!) is my favorite. It's production crisp, its meld of styles and traditions peerless, but Santa Barbara Honeyman is every bit its match, and includes a brilliant cover of Jackson Frank's immortal folk anthem, "Blues Run The Game." Excellent liner notes, pristine remastering jobs and lots of bonus goodies make for some essential British psych folk here, folks. Good on Drag City for putting these beauties back in circulation.

Marissa Nadler Little Hells (Kemado) LP - 4th record from this old world inspired folk chanteuse continues her journey through bittersweet nostalgia and mellow psych folk dream pop. There is something about Nadler which lies beyond any kind of critical appraisal. Like James Blackshaw, her songs and the characters in them almost exist beyond concepts like ecstasy or grief. Nadler's songs are soundtracks for the lost dreams of sad drifters who have been through the ringer a few too many times, and slowly come to accept the grim terms of their seemingly predestined fates. It's liks listening to a frozen snapshot of hope withering before your ears. Grim stuff, but in Nadler's hands, along with her chosen accomplices, that entropy is something quite poignant and beautiful to behold. It's all a bit dainty and melodramatic for some, I suppose, but I remain transfixed. And remember, no prophecy is set in stone.

Six Organs of Admittance Luminous Night (Drag City) LP - Here we have it, good friends: the ultimate nexus of Ben Chasny as soul-bearing tune-smith and dark-noise spirit-conjurer. The songs here rank as some of SOOA's most thoughtful psych folk compositions, drawing heavily from Brit psych folk greats of yore (Bert Jansch, Jackson C. Frank -- who was actually American but still somehow remains inherently British -- and John Renbourn to name a few). Especially mind-blowing is the hypnotic tone-mantra, "Bar-Nasha," a recurring ode to none other than The Son of Man, which evokes images of fanatical young believers dancing 'round ancient fires, hands skyward, hearts/minds open to infinity. Also of note, the stoned and sad "The Ballad of Charley Harper," which backs gorgeous layered vocals with squealing acid undercurrents in a way reminscent of Flying Saucer Attack's finest album, Further. As with past Six Organs records, there's breathing room for weird instrumentals and free-form drone dreams. Both "The River of Heaven" and "Enemies Before the Light" are my favorites of these. The former borrows an old Stooges melody, which I have no doubt was already borrowed from elsewhere, and recasts it as ancient tribal rite. Closer, "Enemies Before the Light," is one of Chasny's most indelible pieces of music yet with its esoteric spiritual vox moaning over a dense feedback wash, and the most fucked up/glorious acid blues solo of 2009, which ends up sounding more Celtic than Delta before it's finished. This is at once the most frightening and soothing Six Organs of Admittance record I've heard so far. Like a hand held by a close friend on your deathbed. Fear not, proud pilgrim.

Trembling Bells Carbeth (Honest John's Records) CD - Trembling Bells is the brainchild of the great avant-percussionist Alex Neilson, whose drum-work can be heard on recordings by Current 93, Jandek, Neilson/Youngs and more. Trembling Bells exists as an attempt to create a bridge between the British Isles trad folk styles and more recent free-noise and psych folk developments. The thing is Trembling Bells is really just a balls-out, glorious, celebratory folk rock ensemble, a genuine band that is as true to the old sound as it is completely and passionately played with blistering conviction for modern ears, and modern times. Carbeth is no throwback, but it is part of a chain. A chain of song, a chain of remembrance and growing. Albums like this are simply not supposed to be released in pristine form circa 2009, but here it is happening right now, and here you can listen if you wish. To these ears, Carbeth rates as one of the greatest Brit psych folk records of all time, plus one hell of a debut.