Two More Live Aktionz

White Drugs / Puffy Areolas / Kaboom Live at RGRS 8/19/10

This I was looking forward to mainly for the set by Ohio noise psych punks, Puffy Areolas. Their In the Army 81 (Siltbreeze) is a real humdinger in the hxc skree scene and one of my favorite platters of '10.

Friends and I convened at Snuffers on Lower Greenville for a burger and fries before we headed up the road to Denton and RGRS. Interestingly, this was the first venue I'd ever attended with my good pal, Travis, in town for a couple days along with his girlfriend, Tara. Travis remarked on how things seemed to have come full circle and he was right. Only real difference was we were all hairier now and the previous gig we'd attended at this place some 7 + years ago was no good (Octopus Project/snore/wince). Enjoyed retelling a recollection of my one and only encounter with said club's proprietor, which I won't go into here. Ask me sometime in the great out and about and I just might.

First up was Kaboom, one of them noise punker sort'a groups that mixes a healthy dose of aggro angularity with gallons of ball sweat and mean riffs. Like headliner White Drugs, Kaboom is all herky-jerky with the stop-start rhythms and tough guy vocals designed to kick out the jams as much as intimidate the wimpier segments of the audience. Not bad, far from life-changing.

The Puffy Areolas did not disappoint. Their vibe is one of blaring, screeching punk rock cacophony. Bands that come to mind during their set: Wire, MC5, The Stooges and Comets on Fire to name a few. Hawkwind and Krautrock also popped in the cranial space, but that's probably more a reflection of my own fixations. What matters here is the quality of the songs, and there truly isn't a stinker in the bunch. 40 mins/5 songs of furious screaming real rock for the anti-masses that leave an indelible impression and far transcend any possible Nowave/Krautrock trappings. Sometimes originality is just a matter of turning the amps up to 11 and completely meaning every second. The Puffy Areolas are the shit. Believe every word.

From here there's really only one way to go. White Drugs plays a tight set that draws from their debut album on Amphetamine Reptile (remember that label?). Their short, choppy bass-heavy sludge punk reminds me of classics in the genre, including The Jesus Lizard and Tar, but it somehow feels almost limited after the infinity squalls offered up minutes before. Or maybe my head was still too high up in the stratosphere to properly appreciate their down 'n' dirty noise punk sound. 10 years ago I'd have been all over it. Still, all in all it was a wonderful night spent among friends -- new and old -- and even though we narrowly avoided legal troubles on the way home (got pulled over and promptly sent on our merry way), it was one of those nights where everything seemed to go just right. Glad T & T were there to see it too.

Fat Worm of Error / Zanzibar Snails / Depths Live at The Leisure Womb 8/21/10

This gig marks the arrival of yet another new venue for house shows in the North Texas area, this time on the edge of Ft. Worth. It's a big place...comfy. When I arrived to The Womb there was boxed wine and five large pizzas sprawled out across the kitchen. Saw some of me m8s (none of which had made it out for the Puffies two days before -- bad m8s) and stumbled into the performance space/bedroom just in time for the Zanzibar Snails' trio set (arrived too late for duo Depths), which offered up an undulating soundbath that spiraled through the industrial/drone/noise multiverse with intergalactic grace. Rising tonal tides brush up against distant clarinet, radio crackle and low end guitar groan. Was really struck by Nevada Hill's work on guitar here, alternating between almost doom to more lowercase hum and crackle straight out of the Kevin Drumm handbook (got the 2LP reissue of his self titled on Thin Wrist? Got mine), but every member (including Michael Chamy and Nick Cabrera) brings something compelling to the table. Hope they recorded it. Hope they release it.

Then it was time for the one, the only...Fat Worm of Error. The Massachusetts art skuzz unit has been thrashing around making a racket for years now, and they seem to have evolved from a more formless experimental approach to full on rawk bombast. Either way, this show was my first proper introduction to their sonic delirium. As they insisted, we got off our duffs and got ready to lobster walk to their post Troutmask Replica squawking. Stand we did and rocked we were for a good hour of intense spindly string bending and lurching rhythms through the broken Dadaist void. I was reminded at different points of Henry Cow, King Crimson, Sonic Youth, Beefheart, The Residents (who I've barely heard at all, but why not, since Fat Worm's singer is prone to donning ridiculous costumes from song to song). All in all, the quintet managed the seemingly impossible task of being fierce, heavy, weird, experimental, ridiculous and non boring to great effect. Even better was hanging out afterwards and watching members of the band and audience break into impromptu musical revelries on the player organ in the middle of the dining room. I actually sort of live for nights like this one. Thanks, Fat Worm and The Gang for making it possible.

Hallogallo 2010 Live at Primevera Sound

HOLY SHIT! Wish I could see this live. You can listen to Brian Turner's Michael Rother special here.

More Music for Those Who Hate:

The Bastard Noise & The Endless Blockade The Red List / The Bastard Noise A Culture of Monsters (Deep Six) both CD - Bastard Noise is a group I came too late, but I've gotten a crash course in the last couple months. Now is the time since the revered Chicago power noise institution has returned to its roots by kicking out bowel-thrashing hardcore doom in studio and on stage that touches on everything from The Melvins to the heyday of Earache and earlier Man is the Bastard power violence epics.

So what we get on these two blasts of prog thrash -- one a split with the equally mind blowing post hardcore spazz freaks, The Endless Blockade -- are brutal rhythms with screeching vocals and pummeling double bass percussion and bass (no lead guitars) punctuated by eerie electronics crackling like hot geiger counters at ground zero of a nuclear detonation. It ain't pretty, but you can't turn away from the ferocious doom noise onslaught of tracks like "Fallen Species" if you're into that sort'a thing. Gotta say The Endless Blockade is even more insane, like maybe a little too insane for my ears these days, but if you love blistering prog infused hardcore and electronics you could do much worse than their "Advanced Directive."

A Culture of Monsters, BN's latest long player continues the feel of the The Red List with monster rhythms smashed to pieces with thrashing beats and eerie minimal electronics. There's a perverse sense of humor about it all that makes it go down easier than one might expect with this sort of thing. Not something I'll pull out regularly but excellent enough for fans of evocative power noise with crushing blastbeats and all the ugly in between.

Locrian Rain of Ashes (Basses Frequencies) / Territories (At War With False Noise/Basses Frequencies/Bloodlust!/Small Doses) CD / LP - Two more doses of dismal metallic drone from Chicago's mighty Locrian, a band that possibly takes its cues from the bad boys mentioned above, Wolf Eyes, early Swans, black metal and even Fripp/Eno. Rain of Ashes offers an hour of live delirium captured for a radio broadcast. It opens on a sedated repetitive note with distant minor keys crawling up the spine like tiny black spiders before immersing the listener in an enveloping cacophony of tortured howls and feedback blizzards designed to disorient and overpower at extreme volumes. It's not a bad soundtrack for trailing off into a nightmare slumber if you can pass out before the screams come in.

Even more satisfying is the newer Territories, a Locrian big band affair that features members of Bloodyminded, Nachtmystium, Velnias and Yakuza along with the core of Andre Foisy and Terrance Hannum. As a result things definitely get opened up in terms of dynamics and diversity. "Inverted Ruins" offers a lurching funeral march of murky electronics and feedback beneath vocal howls that grow more intense and pissed off with each cycle across its 8 plus minutes. "Procession of Ancestral Brutalism," with Blake Judd on guitar and vocals, is a straight up black metal howler the likes of which his own band (Nachtmystium) has never conjured before -- atonal, screeching, howling at the bottomless black void metal -- designed to make your head explode before your soul crumbles into a ball of ash. How fun! Combine this with the more spectral hypnotic vibe of earlier Locrian disks, and you have something that's hard to ignore in the experimental drone metal realm. Territories comes in an edition of 500 on black vinyl, so don't dilly dally, you doom fixated dregs.

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti Live @ Hailey's in Denton (W/Puro Instinct and Magic Kids, both missed!)

I knew back when I first heard Worn Copy (Paw Tracks) that Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti just might catch on big some day. This was like five years before Pitchfork admonished him new pop savior and marketing terms like "chill-wave" and "glo-fi" were invented to help blow up the memetic bubble.

Flash forward a couple years -- I see an Ariel Pink concert at Hailey's where maybe 40 people turn out. It's not bad. Flash forward to three nights ago -- I see an Ariel Pink concert at the same place, and it's packed to the rafters with indie kids, arty acid rockers, and bored booty-shakers alike. It also is not bad.

I always wondered what would happen if Pink ever got a budget and some classy session people to work on an album, and the well received Before Today (4AD) offers a glimpse into the results. It's a decent enough record -- ever-approachable as one pal put it -- but perhaps more importantly it's an Ariel Pink record. Sure, it's got the 4AD logo on the back, and Pink isn't playing every instrument (including beatbox) himself, but that same oddball tinny guitar sound and tinker-toy disco beat pervades, all fleshed out with truly glorious post Beach Boys harmonic eruptions. Much of the nihilism of the earlier records is gone, fodder for the cutting room floor in the wake of bigger market demands, no doubt. But that's not really a problem given who's on board this time for collaboration/production duties -- including Dallas's own Yells at Eels led by the great Dennis Gonzalez (who also plays with Added Pizzazz, a kind of Ariel Pink/Y@E jazz thing spin-off), and Matt Castille of Ft. Worth's space rock titans Vas Deferens Organization (he's also a contributor to the revered Mutant Sounds download blog) handling production duties. That's right, kids! One of Mutant Sounds' very own is subliminally programming the minds of suburbanite pot smokers via the mysterious properties of pop music. Not much has really changed, has it?

It could be argued that as flash in the pan as Ariel Pink and his band of merry freaks seem to be, this is all actually long in the making, and the pedigree that went into the recording of the songs on Before Today is as varied and outside the mainstream as any you will find, which makes its (seemingly) surprise success all the more satisfying. Whether Ariel really is a pop savant or just an astute observer of weird-rock-with-hooks through the ages (rendering him all too willing to throw Prince, Giorgio Moroder, Krautrock, Beach Boys and Cheap Trick into a blender and click puree), the infectious yet alien charm of his songs speaks for itself. It still works and with less filler this time, but in true Pink form, the end results remain as polarizing as ever.

What I liked about the gig:

• Seeing the great Dennis Gonzalez share the stage with the band for an extended cool drone during set opener, "Hot Body Rub."
• Noting how the band repeatedly recreated the cheap studio sound of songs like "Hardcore Pops Are Fun" with ease in the live setting.
• Seeing so many cool friends come out on a hot as Hades Summer night -- the hugs (and the drugs - thank you, Benadryl!)

• Ariel signing my friend Greg's CD "To Miette" to make up for his daughter's nonattendance. Miette actually saw Ariel Pink live when she was 7 or so. Miette is clearly a very cool rocker, but it was still a school night.

What I did not like about the gig:

• How goddamn hot it was.
• Amazingly long bar lines.
• The creepy, mumbling girl who sat across from me with her legs apart.
• All the dorky party boys who kept jumping on stage, crowding the band and diving into the crowd. Don't get me wrong, I like kicking strangers in the face while being magically transported on the arms of dozens of people I don't know as much as the next guy, but this wasn't really that kind of show, was it? It's a freakin' dance party. Freakin' dance!
• Getting lost on the way home as my friend was hunched over and passed out, unable to give directions.
• Shouting my friend's name repeatedly while driving aimlessly through the Texas night. Actually enjoyed this too.
• How goddamn hot it was.

RIP Tony Dale -- friend, music/culture explorer, mentor, husband, brother, son, indie record label honcho, fan. You will not be forgotten.

You can read Ned Ragget's obituary for Tony here.

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