Monday, December 29, 2008

The Week in Listening 12/15 - 12/21

12/15/08- The Red Crayola- Parable of Arable Land LP 1967
The Red Crayola- Coconut Hotel LP 1967
The Red Krayola- God Bless The Red Krayola and All Who Sail With It LP 1968
The Paper Chase- Young Bodies Heal Quickly, You Know CD 2000
Milford Graves and Don Pullen- Nommo LP 1967

12/16/08- Milford Graves and Don Pullen- Nommo LP 1967
Silver Jews- Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea- CD 2008
Eddy Current Suppression Ring- Primary Colours CD 2008
This Heat- self titled LP 1978
The Sundowners- Goat Songs EP 1994
Miles Davis- The Complete Live at the Plugged Nickel Disc One 1965

12/17/08- Lee Morgan- Charisma LP 1966
Archie Shepp- The Magic of Ju-Ju LP 1967
John Coltrane- Live Trane: The European Tours CD Disc Two 1961
Sonic Youth- Sister LP 1987
The Chills- Kaleidoscope World LP 1986

12/18/08- Various Artists- Daptone Seven Inch Singles Collection Volume One CD 2006
Shuggie Otis- Inspiration Information CD 1974
Herbie Hancock- Sextant LP 1973
Cat Power- The Greatest CD 2006
Judee Sill- self titled LP 1971

12/19/08- Marvin Gaye- Let’s Get It On Deluxe Edition 2CD
Tony Williams’ Lifetime- Turn It Over LP 1970
Jimmy Giuffre- Free Fall LP 1962
The Jim Hall Trio- Jazz Guitar LP 1957
Marylin Crispell- Labyrinths CD 1987
Animal Collective- Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished 2000 CD
The Great Unwashed- Collection CD 1992
Various Artists- A Million Dollar$ Worth of Doo-Wop Volume 3 CD

12/20/08- David Grubbs- An Optimist Notes the Dusk CD 2008
Tortoise- Mosquito/Onions Wrapped In Rubber b/w Gooseneck 7” 1993
Alan Licht- Plays Well CD 2001
Fugazi- The Argument CD 2001
Palace Music- Lost Blues and Other Songs CD 1997
Calexico- Convict Pool CDEP 2004
Yo La Tengo- Little Honda CDEP 1997
Mogwai- EP+6 CD 2000
Mirah- C’mon Miracle CD 2004
The Microphones- The Glow Pt. 2 CD 2001
James Blackshaw- Celeste CD 2004
Suni McGrath- Seven Stars b/w Fantasia 7” 2008
Beirut- Gulag Orkestar CD 2006
Sun City Girls- You’re Never Alone with a Cigarette: Singles Volume One CD
High Places- self titled CD 2008
Shawn David McMillen- Sampler CD 2008
Mighty Flashlight- self titled CD 2002
The National- Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers CD 2003
East River Pipe- Poor Fricky CD 1995
Mazzy Star- She Hangs Brightly CD 1990
Sufjan Stevens- Illinois CD 2005

12/21/08- Archie Shepp- Blasé LP 1969
Art Ensemble of Chicago- Go Home LP 1970
Joseph Jarman- As if it Were the Seasons LP 1968
Dave Holland- Conference of the Birds LP 1972
Anthony Braxton- Trio and Duet LP 1974

MONDAY 12/15- Mayo Thompson’s Red (C)Krayola is one of the longest running and most enigmatic underground concerns. The band’s earliest material has been a recurring source of inspiration from within the underground over the years, and the reputation of those releases as some of the best outsider expression to arise from the second half of the ‘60s is secure. The thing to remember if you haven’t heard them is that in Texas they do things in the extreme. That’s where Red Crayola were formed, releasing records on International Artists, home of the Thirteenth Floor Elevators and others. They recorded three records during this initial phase, but only two were released at the time. All of them are fantastic and individually unique documents of an era and of Thompson’s beginnings as an artist of major importance.
The first one is most easily integrated into the general psychedelic tendencies of the period. But that doesn’t mean its sound is anything other that singular. It crosses wild freak-outs of collective free-form splatter with a curious and hard to define conceptual aura and in the process comes off like a field recording of a large pack of hippies who drop out of art school and go completely off their nut. The majority of the record’s tracks are bluntly titled just that: Free Form Freak Out. It’s far less about good vibes and more concerned with an explosive exorcism of all that was so oppressive about the decade, hence: "War Sucks", one of the tracks on the album with a distinctive title, which combines with "Hurricane Fighter Plane" and "Transparent Radiation" (covered by New Zealand’s Pin Group and Spacemen 3, respectively) to form a triangle of moments that highlight the extreme territory that was being examined and also shows how influential the record has been since its release. Even though it’s an unabashedly psychedelic recording (the back of my budget reissue states File Under Psychedelia), its extremity has never been integrated into the lore of hippiedom. Instead, its reputation as a high watermark of the oddball ‘60s fringe stands tall, having influenced weirdo punks (Texan's Really Red), indie-rock bands (see above), and young experimentalists (David Grubbs and Jim O’Rourke, for two).
The second Red Crayola recording didn’t see release until Drag City brought it out almost thirty years later. Coconut Hotel is so unlike its predecessor that it shouldn’t be surprising that the label refused to release it. Minimal instrumental segments that blend into a soundscape that’s like a thousand miles away from any kind of rock experimentation to see release at the time, it totally eschews even the slightest relationship to the debut or to rock structure in general. Many of the segments are only seconds long, and if you turn to glance at your CD player’s display and find it on track forty-two (like I did) while absorbing the sound as one long occasionally baffling sonic experience (like I did), then perhaps you’ll understand just how off the path and in the deep weeds Thompson and his cohorts were at this point. It’s a head-scratching thing, but it has a weirdly twisted intellectual pull.
God Bless did see release, however. Instead of a return to the sound of the first record, the modus operandi is to apply the unadulterated minimalism of Coconut to a batch of structured songs with lyrics (and some moments of pure experimentation) and in the process land smack dab in the middle of ground zero for a certain strain of art-rock. There is sparseness to the sound and friendliness with the often high concerns of academia on display here that’s different from the expansive qualities of much rock experimentation (and Parable, for that matter); the brevity of the tracks and the direct somewhat poppy structure they sometimes adhere to share an intellectual discipline and a lack of reliance on established norms (genre tropes) that smacks of the atmosphere of the university instead of the rock scene. I’m guessing that this record would please listeners that have a predilection for the music of Robert Wyatt, ‘80s David Thomas (or Pere Ubu in general, actually), David Byrne’s assorted non-Tropicalia inflected solo work, or Jim O’Rourke’s albums of song based material. This is my favorite of these three releases, and it’s maybe the place for the uninitiated to start, since it’s the one that bares the most (loose) resemblance to Thompson’s later work.



The Paper Chase first entered my consciousness as one of many bands on the Kill Rock Stars label. I made a mental note to look into them, but then a good friend hipped me to their first, pre-KRS effort, and I’m quite pleased with that state of affairs. The sound follows a post-rock path into a bruising experimentalism that still retains a songlike center and is dripping with a strung-out emotional intensity that just begs to be played loud. Integrated into the sound is a production based enhancement of dynamics that really increases the weight of the music as it unfolds, deepening the strident down tempo quality and enhancing the tug of its sweetly abrasive angst. The seeds of the record’s success lie in its focused delivery: nothing is sloppy or offhand. This is a slowly boiling study in torment, and I look forward to hearing more.
The Graves/Pullen record is a rare jewel from the guts of free jazz in the ‘60s. Released on LP and never issued on CD, it’s been talked about in hushed tones for about as long as I’ve been clued in to outsider sounds. And since the internet is such a great equalizer, people without the stature of Thurston Moore or John Zorn can actually get to hear this thing. It’s a drum/piano duo that matches the loose and at times explosive rhythmic mastery of Graves with Pullen’s unique approach to avant-piano, full of silence and small abstract gestures only to erupt into sharp note-clusters that defy the explicit forward momentum that’s such a large part of most jazz pianists’ approach (simultaneously sounding distinct from the sound of Cecil Taylor, who plays in a similar fractured style, but which is often specifically ABOUT momentum). Graves is also distinct from his peers in free-drumming, having a sweeping joyous clatter to his style, which is very much in the mode of percussionist, with all kinds of non-typical material is in his arsenal and equally unusual ways of utilizing them (my introduction to his playing was a video clip of a trio with bassist William Parker and horn manic Peter Brotzmann, where Graves was playing a cymbal with his forearms). These guys come together and produce a fine, hard to define spillage of bang and thunk that never sounds tossed-off. Rather, it drips with the interweaving of intense non-linear communication and leaves off plenty of sparks. Having to experience this through download means I can’t read Nat Hentoff’s back cover liner notes while listening, but them’s the breaks.


TUESDAY 12/16- This Heat is one of the only bands to land squarely in the middle ground between prog-rock and post-punk. In the process they’ve been name-checked so many times that for a while, when the records were quite scarce for a suburbanite, the two syllables of their moniker took on a proportion that was almost oppressive. You couldn’t read a goddamned fanzine (or CMJ, for that matter) without some big-city hipster going on and on about This Heat This Heat THIS HEAT. By 1994 I’d found vinyl copies of all kinds of roughly similar (and out of print) material (Wire’s Pink Flag, Pop Group’s Y, the Wanna Buy a Bridge? comp), but this band eluded me for the longest time. Well, those days a long over and I must say that the debut release by This Heat is simply an amazing record. These guys simply don’t sound like anybody else, and because of this the music is just ridiculously contemporary. Scratch that. If this album came out last week it would be hailed as ahead of it’s time. Because of the proggy background of the band (though I can’t think of another prog-rock group that are even in the ballpark of This Heat’s sound) they bring a musically adept approach to the beginnings of the post-punk phenomenon (too wide open to be called a genre, or at least that’s the way I feel today) that contrasts with the more basic (but often refined and quite effective) musicianship which gave so much post-punk it’s appeal. Lots of post-punk groups were influenced by Can, but This Heat is a legitimate extension of that band. And Eno, for that matter. Anybody into those last two as well as Faust, Neu!, or the UK post-punk thing in general that hasn’t heard This Heat needs to get on the ball quick. It’s not just for big-city hipsters anymore.
The Sundowners was a quick spurt of low-fi in the trappings of collaboration between Will Oldham and Bill Callahan (a.k.a. Smog or (Smog) or Chan Marshall’s and Joanna Newsome’s ex) in their younger, less refined days. I’d never heard it until now, and it slid by me so fast I thought I was listening to a homemade cassette that was mail-ordered from an address found in a hand written ad in the back pages of Dagger zine. Which means it slid by me really good. It’s noticeably less damaged than the early Smog stuff I’ve dug, and it finds Oldham much closer to the locus of the home-taper experience than I ever thought I’d find him. What an unexpected turn of events.
Miles at the Plugged Nickel is for some the apex of the guy’s output. After avoiding his work for most of the fist half of my twenties, partly due to Davis’ antagonism to other more avant-garde musicians and also misinformation about the electric period, I borrowed a copy of the original two LP of the Plugged Nickel recordings, and was given a lesson in knee-jerk reactions. It’s often said that this specific moment in Davis’ vast discography is the closest he came to free playing, and regarding the pre-electric stuff that’s probably right. I’m just getting introduced to the extended box set incarnation of this week long engagement, so I’ll have much more to say when more time has been spent. That may take a while, so patience, please.

WEDNESDAY 12/17- Lee Morgan is a cat that I pretty much ignored for a long time. His rep as a Blue Note mainstreamer didn’t call out to me while I was immersed in noisier, less accessible music, whether jazz or no. But he did play (quite well) on one of my favorite Blue Notes, Coltrane’s Blue Train, so I never dismissed him or anything. And in the last 5-6 years, I’ve come to enjoy many of the more inside releases from the Blue Note label, so Morgan’s been getting some playing time around the manor. Charisma finds him with a killer group. Jackie McLean and Hank Mobley on reeds, Cedar Walton on keys, Paul Chambers on bass, and the always dependable Billy Higgins on drums. This was my first play with this one, and it largely served as the soundtrack to dishwashing and floor mopping, so I can’t get too deep into what makes this one special. I do feel confident in describing it as a very inspired date, and it lessened the monotony of my chores. There are still some big gaps in my Morgan education that need filling, but I get the feeling this one will rate highly when I have a more complete picture of his recorded legacy. It’s about as in-the-pocket as contempo jazz gets in this era, but the skill level and imagination on display seems to elevate it above the norm. If this style of jazz speaks to you, then I’m guessing you’d find Charisma to be a good one.


Loose, raw, bluesy, and angry: these are all words that apply to the sax playing of Archie Shepp. He was one of the first players involved in the ‘60s jazz avant-garde that I listened to, after Coltrane and Coleman. Impulse! was fairly attentive to putting out his stuff on CD back then so it was possible to get a handle on his sound up close and personal and in the process come to a better understanding about the free jazz scene of the era he helped to define. The Magic of Ju-Ju was never released stateside to my knowledge, so this record is fairly new to me. It fits solidly into what Shepp was throwing down during this period, however. He had a unique approach; thick with the intertwined history of the music and those who made it and drew inspiration from it, barbed with questions demands and ruminations on the state of racial inequality, and infused with a jagged and exploratory vigor that made him quite a polemical figure in the heady days when he was ramping up to his peak. Unlike Coltrane, there was no middle ground with Shepp. You either were with him or against him, and that seemed to be the way he liked it. This record is a deep plunge into the roots and rhythms of Africa and how they were/are connected to the American phenomena of jazz, and also a lesson in how examining this influence could extend a new direction for the music. The title track is over 18 minutes of prime Shepp, wailing, musing, laying back, pushing forward and interacting with his fellow players. It’s quite a blowout, but it’s not quite at the level of the celebratory groove insanity that was pretty much perfected on the BYG/Actuel records he released not long after this. This is not to infer that it’s something less than great. I haven’t heard a record by Shepp from this era that isn’t still an incendiary document, and any understanding of Fire Music flows directly through his stuff.
The Coltrane material from the live box above, at least what I’ve heard so far is the classic quartet with Eric Dolphy added, and this was really the sound that started it all for me RE: jazz. I bought a cheapy import disc from my local mall called Abstract Blue (I still have it), took it to my apartment and had the top of my head blown clean off. The second disc of this box begins with the exact same brain-flaying burn-through of "Mr. PC" that opened Abstract Blue and it finds Coltrane skronking like a madman, Dolphy running through some fine upper register motion, and Elvin Jones going absolutely apeshit crazy towards the end. It’s like everybody decided (except McCoy Tyner maybe, but he was the default grounding presence in Coltrane’s band) to recast the tune (from the classic Giant Steps) by throttling it and removing any traces of polish or decorum from the piece. It still gasses me how much sheer inventive chutzpah this band had, so much that it created all kinds of controversy over the intrinsic worth of the music. The recordings captured on this box are one substantial part of what’s possibly the most influential and important body of work to come from jazz in the second half of the 20th century. Truly essential.
Sister is a cornerstone record for me, and my discovery of it directly led to my interest in non-rock specific sounds. These guys, along with Minutemen and some of their indie peers weren’t shy about praising various forms of music that fell outside the boundaries covered in the typical fanzine or small-press mag of the time, and I really ate it up. Cynics often dismissed this as mere hipster name dropping, but personally I always thought this bellyaching reeked of a snide laziness or an excuse for narrow-mindedness. It’s not like it was particularly hard to find much of the stuff being referenced. But anyway, this has almost nothing to do with why Sister is such a great record. It is essentially the middle step in the development of the line-up with Shelly on drums into one of the great rock bands of all time. Evol to Sister to Daydream Nation is simply an amazing progression, and the growth on display here is hard to find fault with. It features some of their most perfectly realized songs ("Schizophrenia", "Tuff Gnarl", and "Pacific Coast Highway") while making strides in refining the overall expansionist sound that influenced a few tons of bands over the following decade or so. And it really holds up. There’s so much beauty spread over Daydream Nation that the smoking symmetry of this one is sometimes devalued. If I could only own two of their albums, this one and Daydream would be the easy picks, and certainly nostalgia over their impact on my impressionable mind plays a part in that. But nostalgia is a hard damned thing to avoid. You just need to be sure what you’re being nostalgic about is worth it. This is, and then some.
Regarding the big four of ‘80s Flying Nun/New Zealandic sounds, The Chills were often loved. I can’t deny that the others, The Clean, The Verlaines and Tall Dwarfs, didn’t rank higher in my personal pantheon, though. And this really hasn’t changed. But I can’t deny that The Chills sound better at this point than they did when I was just a young upstart. I’ve really come to terms with the uncut love of the pop muse that figures as the band’s raison d’etre. There was always enough buzzy guitar action in the works at this stage (they later ended up on Slash, where I pretty much lost track of them) that I could swallow them whole without any unpleasant aftertaste, but I was still a few years away from getting turned on to both The Beach Boys and much of the at times lilting pop-psyche that is the core of much of this stuff. The Verlaines did similar things, but had an approach that was more direct while being a little less classicist. All of this is to say that The Chills haven’t lost an ounce of what made them such a thrilling and exotic presence. I’ve just grown into them.

THURSDAY 12/18- The Daptone sound is impossible without the revolutionary funk-science of the most cooking James Brown units, but what’s so essential to why they matter is how it straddles a line between homage/return to basic principles and a living breathing relevance to what’s happening right now. This duality reminds me of both the brute old-school intensity that’s revolved around Billy Childish for almost three decades (a rediscovery of Link Wray/early UK Beat-rock) and the spread-out sweetness of many of the new-ish instrumental folk pickers like Jack Rose (basically descended from Fahey/Kottke/Basho/Lang) In all three cases the parties involved serve as a history lesson while refusing to let the music exist with anything less than a sodden vitality. This collection of singles holds all the ridiculous energy that any single disc assemblage of Brown inspired soul/funk/R & B does, but is injected with the blunt reality that it’s happening RIGHT NOW. This isn’t retro, it’s inspirationally classicist.
Shuggie Otis is/was a guitar wielding weird-meat who never achieved widespread success largely because he was so hard to pin down. He’s known to folks who’re keyed into the folds of deep-hippiedom (playing with both Al Kooper and Zappa) and to soul music scientists. The above album isn’t really a lost record, but it should have been much bigger than it was. His song "Strawberry Letter 23" was a smash hit in cover form for The Brothers Johnson, and anybody who has an interest in ‘70s soul/R & B (particularly in the album format) needs to hear this. The bonus tracks from an earlier record called Freedom Flight are less genre definable, and add a nice coda to the more straight ahead material. Too bad Luaka Bop didn’t give Freedom Flight a stand alone release.
Since time has allowed for a reevaluation of jazz music’s Fusion Era, Sextant can be appreciated for the fine recording it is. But you can also play it between records by Can and Kraftwerk and really feel the unity. In this sense, it serves as a part of the scope of references that refined what Tortoise has done in the post-rock field. Apparently this record wasn’t a big seller, and Hancock subsequently moved into a more commercial direction. This seems to be the fate shared by almost every non-Miles/McLaughlin fusion record that I really enjoy. For every Sextant there are numerous crap albums from Al Di Meola and Spyro Gyra. I remember listening to Hancock’s subsequent record, Headhunters, twice. Once was in a music class in eighth grade, and the other was courtesy of a acquaintance who was much more taken with fusion than I was at the time (or now, for that matter). That was almost fifteen years ago, and my reaction was that of indifference. I’m pretty curious to go back to it now to see if my opinion has changed. My feelings for Sextant are quite high, however. The level of experimentation and the engaging sounds that result is very attractive, and if records like this were more common during the fusion period it’s obvious that the era wouldn’t have such a dodgy rep. It fits well with electric Miles and early Weather Report, and if you are taken with them and haven’t heard this then you know what to do.

Chan Marshall’s progression from a left field uground presence of note in the ‘90’s to her current position smack dab in the middle of the thick of this decade’s indie affairs has been an enjoyable thing to watch develop. Many find her flightiness to be an annoyance or at least a weakness, but that’s not my thinking. As her recordings become more inclusive and welcoming to those with less rarefied interests she’s managed to keep her finger on the pulse of a deep vein of fertile sounds, partially due to her decision to surround herself with such strong musicians (she reminds me a bit of Jeff Tweedy in this regard). The other aspect relates to her own ability as a songwriter, singer, and interpreter of cover material. The Greatest is a very nice, deep listen. It really reveals how strong Marshall’s connection is with older root forms. Maybe I’m way off base, but I can’t help thinking of Dusty Springfield being produced by James Luther Dickenson (which never happened, but should’ve) in relation to this thing. The use of Memphis stalwarts like Teenie Hodges really adds to the late-night ‘70s soul sessions feel that inspires me to make this hypothetical allusion, and this baby has a sweet veneer. And she seems built to last in numerous ways that many current indie flavors (I’m not calling out any names) don’t. I love bumping into her work, and look forward to this happening for some time.
Judee Sill was the first person to release a record on David Geffen’s Asylum records. I was curious upon first hearing about her, but only took the plunge with this listen. I’m glad I did. I wasn’t knocked out of my chair onto the floor, but that’s not what this record is trying to do. It reminded me quite a bit of gradually developing pleasures to be found in the work of Laura Nyro, and one listen made it clear that I’ll be visiting her work many times. Things didn’t go well for Sill’s life and career, and it’s difficult to not take this into account when hearing this record, but the impression that I was given told me that any extra-musical factors were quite minimal in relation to this album’s success. If Nyro and Joni Mitchell are part of your diet, than I think including Judee Sill would complete a nice trifecta.

FRIDAY 12/19- Many prefer Stevie, but I’m an unabashed Marvin man. His ‘60s work is just flipping fantastic, and he stands for me as the one Motown guy who made the deepest and most immediate transition into the next decade. Let’s Get it On, in this expanded and I’m guessing exhaustive double disc incarnation, shows how bold his transformation was. This record is two great things at once: a tightly packed and expertly rendered deep soul slab that can work for solitary listening while also being perfect as the soundtrack for Extended Huggin’ Kissin’ and Lovin’. For me he sits with Al Green at the top of the heap for this sort of thing. I like how this set was assembled, presenting the original record in its entirety on the first disc with a few extras afterwards, and dropping all kinds of extra material on the second. This provides the goods for soul geeks (like me) without disrupting the massive flow of what makes the recording such a big deal. It’s just a fantastic document of a great artist at the peak of his powers.
My little dip into the fusion realm inspired me to think on Tony Williams, and how I’d not spent enough time with his Lifetime material. The band on Turn it On is a monster: John McLaughlin on guitar, Larry Young on organ, Jack Bruce on bass, and of course Williams on drums. It has been so long since I’ve really listened to any Lifetime stuff that it’s hard for me to give it a satisfactory assessment. It makes me want to get reacquainted with the debut Emergency!, and then spend some more time with this one. Turn it On is an unusual record that doesn’t really call to mind any other fusion outfit. Williams’ unusual vocals will be a sticking point for some, but I dug them okay. The addition of Bruce seems to make this a strong candidate for those who are keen on the phenomena of rock band’s dabbling in jazz, instead of the other way around. I’m thinking Soft Machine. McLaughlin just slays on this thing. My interest in William’s has been rekindled by the offhand listen to this record, and he also plays on the Plugged Nickel box, so I see a lot of the man’s playing in my near future.
Jimmy Giuffre and Jim Hall are two extremely interesting players and these two albums, while new to me, are important for a variety of reasons. The Hall record is his debut as a leader, and it has suffered some serious abuse at the hands of a horrid producer who both edited and added overdubs to subsequent reissues of the material, which is bad enough, but the unedited masters no longer exist. This seriously sucks for a variety of reasons. Hall is easily one of the greatest jazz guitarists to appear after bop, and it would be nice to hear the album in its original form. Bassist Red Mitchell and under recorded pianist Carl Perkins suffer most from the editing, which is a crime since Perkins’ is such an interesting musician. The out-of-print CD reissue that I downloaded thankfully doesn’t include the overdubbed drums of Larry Bunker, and it’s hard to chalk up the decision to add them to anything other than hubris, for the music clearly needs nothing, being a warm and deep inspection of familiar tunes with Hall already possessing an assurance in his sound and a maturity in his communicative skills that’s quite striking. Mitchell sounds great as always, and Perkins is unique and completely in the spirit of things, equal to the task at hand. The record’s so good through the flaws of tampering that I can only hope to stumble onto a copy of this original LP in some antique mall that doesn’t know its worth, where I’d snatch it up so fast my physical movements would make the whooshing sounds you hear in cartoons. Yup.


The Giuffre record is a masterpiece of outward bound clarinet playing from a guy who should be much better known. Giuffre’s abstract approach to his instrument on this record is often expressed in solo terms, working through a riveting range of demanding sound ideas in a way that’s quite distinct from any other avant-garde approach that I’ve heard from the period, but he does have the fine contributions of Steve Swallow on bass and Paul Bley on piano, and when they are integrated into the framework the sound becomes a bit more familiar if no less distinct, if that’s not too vague. Free Fall is easily one of the most striking jazz listens I’ve had recently, both in terms of ambition and in simple pleasure. I don’t think it’s currently in print, which is a drag. If your interest is peaked, the music shouldn’t be that hard to find (I found it, after all), so start looking.
The Great Unwashed was a brief flare-shot into the sky above ‘80s New Zealand. Existing initially as a duo of ex-Clean brothers David and Hamish Kilgour then adding another early member of that band in Peter Gutteridge for the final stage of their lifespan, the sound is very much a continuation of The Clean’s sound, though it has even more of that band’s casual, for the hell of it brilliance. I bought this on tape in the early ‘90s (along with a Gordons cassette) and promptly lost track of them (the format was notorious for that sort of thing). It’s cool to get reintroduced to it.

SATURDAY 12/20- This was largely a day for indie rock, though the latest from David Grubbs, like much of his work, is quite experimental in nature. This is not to imply that songs aren’t to be found. It’s just very slippery in its lack of taggable qualities. This also shouldn’t imply that this new record is a cold distant listen. I found it quite satisfying and look forward to further installments.
Tortoise are a band that work best for me in the live setting (which is opposite of Spoon for instance, who appeal to me most on record), but the recordings that I have are all pretty great to varying degrees. The Mosquito 7”, unheard by me until recently, ranks quite highly in the scheme of their studio work. The playing is fantastic (as it always is with this crew) and the sound at this early stage of its conception lacks the refined quality that developed later. I like that refined aspect just fine (sometimes I love it, even) but can’t deny that the lack of it hit a certain special spot. Paradoxically, I’ve spent more time with Standards, TNT, and the recent A Lazarus Taxon collection than the first record by these guys, but this agreeable little missive makes me think that’s been a mistake of oversight on my part.
Alan Licht’s Plays Well is a stone blast, and a great example of low-key experimentalism. It makes me smile, which is something that a lot of roughly analogous work doesn’t do. It drips with some extended Velvety string repetition, and Licht’s guitar playing across the running time of this disc is of very high quality. His wild manipulation of a disco record reminds me of a similar recording from Terry Riley, but the piece is also distinct in its expressive verve. This record is one of the first things I’d play for someone who had the false impression that the realm of the experimental is an exclusively foreboding place.
My personal favorite Fugazi record remains In On the Kill Taker, but all of their recordings give me a charge to differing degrees. I’m generally of the opinion that the band got better with age, with Guy Picciotto’s thorough integration into the weave of the sound. His strong (at times arty) presence seemed to ignite Ian’s songwriting, singing and guitar playing away from his default sweet-spot and into less familiar areas. In the process, they became a band that was less about the delivery and refinement of a certain sound and message and more about taking that sound into unexpected and appealing places. Of course, Lally and Canty are also a part of this turn of events: this band always felt like a collective expression of equality that’s comparable to (but also unique from) groups like Minutemen, Sonic Youth, Mission of Burma, Shellac, or even something like the Godspeed/A Silver Mt. Zion experience. The Argument is very likely the last record we’ll ever see from these four as a unit (barring vault clearing releases), and that’s okay in a bittersweet way, because they’re all involved in quality work in the here and now. This is a strong coda to one hell of a band, so strong that the unavoidable aura of finality that comes with it is lessened significantly by the reality that they went out while still being a vital, inspiring group. That’s a sweet thing to consider.
The whiff of the fumes from this collection of early Will Oldham material always takes me back to a certain time and place. I wasn’t the happiest of people then, but hey, I’m not the happiest of people now. Some things don’t change apparently. But Will Oldham changes like a chameleon. And like that animal, you always know it’s him. The point in my life that this disc takes me to was always improved by the depth and irreverence of his loose and loving application of older musical models, and I can still remember playing "The Ohio Riverboat Song" (on 45) like a dozen consecutive times and being unable to shake its weird pull. It still impresses.
Calexico is a great band. This EP might be my favorite thing from them that I’ve heard, mostly because they do bang-up version of two songs from a couple of my favorite bands, Love ("Alone Again Or") and Minutemen ("Corona"), but also for the gripping emotive qualities of the title track and for the increased effectiveness of it’s brevity. I know some folks who give EPs the short shrift, and that’s as valid a way of approaching things as any, but here’s one that can’t be shrifted shortly. Calexico’s strength, at least here is in how their ability as players allows them to inject the songs with a power that never oversteps into flashiness (in this way they remind me of Lambchop and even Yo La Tengo). It’s about the communicative effect of songs and emotion. I’ve played this one a lot since picking it up and it continues to feel twice as big as it actually is.
Speaking of Yo La Tengo, the Little Honda EP blares so righteously on its title track cover of the reliable chestnut from The Beach Boys that it can’t be ignored either. Ira’s guitar is in typically outstanding form, and his solo on "Little Honda" in particular is a great example of the grandiose simplicity of stun-mode. But this trio is possibly the best vessel of cover-song science currently going. The reading of William DeVaughn’s "Be Thankful for What You Got" is evidence of that. The mode the band is in on this release is like the essence of the greatest oldies-station ever programmed wrapped up in one of Lou Reed’s old sweaty t-shirts. Take a deep breath.
I like Mogwai. Frankly, I don’t pay them as much attention as I should. Instrumental guitar centered post-rock is the name of the game at the point of the above release, and listening to it is a solid diversion. They really don’t fall too heavily into a default sound at this point (don’t know about later, I’ve been bad at keeping up with them), mixing in varied influences and sounding generally inspired. These guys used to catch a lot of guff from hard-asses as being sort of junior league experimentalists, but I think that’s a contrarian way of thinking. They’re not the most earth shattering band to hit the CD racks, but I don’t think that’s their intention. This stuff works on its own terms, and it sounds good to me, and if that’s the case, I think its good enough for a lot of folks. Maybe you’re one of them. I wonder what Joe Dante thinks.
Mirah and The Microphones are two great examples of why pegging the K sound is a mistake. Do people still peg the K sound? If not, it’s true that many once did, and even back then it was a problematic generalization. Mirah sounds closest to what some people think of when they compartmentalize the releases from this label, but it is injected with a sweet veneer of strings and a late night feel (Pink Moon-diggers should like this one, though it doesn’t really sound like Drake, just kind of feels like him to me) that’s unlike anything else I’ve heard from the K imprint. It’s maybe true that Mirah’s voice isn’t all that far from the quality vocalisms of K standby Lois, but that shouldn’t be a big deal.
The Microphones are a seriously different proposition, while still having sympathetic ties to what Calvin Johnson is continuing to refine with his label. I’m really just beginning to listen to this rolling project of Phil Elvrum’s in earnest. Previously, I’d listened enough to know I liked it, but hadn’t tread much further. The Glow Pt. 2 is considered by many to be his best work, and it gives off an aura (a glow, if you will) that makes it clear why it’s so revered by fans of the Neutral Milk Hotel/early Decemberists’ axis of sound. And I’m a fan of that and then some, so it looks like I need to get cracking. This also has a good late night allure, but also feels like it would sound great in the first hour of sharp early summer sunlight after a judiciously experienced all-nighter. I need to try that sometime.
James Blackshaw is a newbie to me. I can’t imagine that anybody who finds the thrust of prime Fahey dipped in a mildly psychedelic mixture an attractive experience would not groove to this one. I’m going to be downloading more on the strength of this record, and I’ll add that the quality control displayed thus far by the Tompkins Square label is nothing short of exceptional. The ease and lack of expense with which you can hear their stuff (EMusic plug) is also admirable. Blackshaw is a main mover in the new acoustic movement that’s partially defined by Tompkins Square’s Imaginational Anthem compilation series, and it’s like an explosive rebirth of the serious heft from the best years of Fahey’s Takoma label. I’m psyched.
Suni McGrath is also on Tompkins Square, is also squarely in the wheelhouse of new as old as new acoustic spillage, and is also recent discovery for me. Unlike James Blackshaw, he stretches back to the ‘60s as a recording artist, recording for the Adelphi label, and I’m quite intrigued. Like the Frank Fairfield release I’ve written on recently, this is a 7” release with available downloads, and I’m happy as a clam that this stuff is getting documented on an actual tangible format. The two songs here spurt by pretty quickly but leave a nice impression and the tangle and weave of these recent acoustic developments is likely going to take years to fully appreciate.
I might be a little late to the game, but I really like the debut release by Zack Condon’s Beirut. Largely inspired by Balkan folk music, the sound is thick with old world instrumentation (horns, accordions, various acoustic strings) and a morose atmosphere that escapes any flirtation with pretense by including such touches as drum machines and an engagement with contemporary song craft and production. I’m still getting a handle on it, but it has an appealing slow burn that I’ll have more to say about later.

The surviving members of Sun City Girls (the brothers Rick and Alan Bishop) would surely spit venom if you called them an indie-band, but I think it’s fair that a large chunk of their record sales came from buyers who could roughly be described as consumers of that niche. They’ve been around so long that they predate the indie nomenclature, initially hanging on the wonderfully weirdo fringes of the late punk circus. In those days, they were boosted by Placebo Records (home of skate-punk staples Jody Foster’s Army), and they marched forward from the demise of that label (and the punk scene in general) to land squarely in the thick of the following decades deep underground. Sun City Girls was always a bit hard to pin down, never settling for one specific angle and often displaying an acidic, sardonic humor that perhaps cost them the fandom of more uptight avant-garde types. The fuck you spirit of punk was always a part of their delivery, and the way they psychedelicized and often battered everything from assorted styles of ethnic music to ‘70s soul hits to Fugs covers was always a treat. The above is a collection of work released on singles in the period when they were perfecting a damaged and comely take on Middle Eastern music that’s best absorbed by the Torch of the Mystics LP. The stuff here is nearly as great, however. Sun City Girls are one of the great “rock” trios of all time, while also being one of the most confounding. To put it simply, they never get old.
Speaking of the deep underground, Shawn David McMillen has some strong pedigree in relation to this vague scene, playing with members of Charalambides and in bands such as Warmer Milks and The Abrasion Ensemble. This nifty little four song sampler that Tompkins Square has available shows him to be working within a sun-baked psychedelic acoustic sensibility. The stuff would be downright fantastic as the soundtrack for a loose filmic rumination on ragged and dusty landscape, but I’m not sure if they still make that sort of thing. Shit, cameras are cheap these days (or they will be soon). Maybe we could make our own. We’ll need some plaid shirts (preferably with buttons), a rusted-out stretch car, a boom box, a cowboy hat, a shot gun, a manual typewriter, a case of Whip-Its in the trunk, an Afro-wig, Wayfarer sunglasses, a few packs of Blackjack chewing gum (accept no substitutes), a gallon of cheap tequila, some kazoos, a rattlesnake, and at least six cartons of unfiltered cigarettes. Man, this thing writes itself!
Mike Fellows is essentially the main guy behind Mighty Flashlight, and where ya’ been Mike? If you don’t know, Fellows is quite the musical trooper. He was in the cathartic Dischord Revolution Summer-aries Rites of Spring (as well as Government Issue and Happy Go Licky), the way underrated Teen Beat unit Air Miami with Mark Robinson and Bridget Cross, and has been a valuable sideman for both Will Oldham and Silver Jews. It appears he engineered this years’ quite strong release by faux fat-boy field-rockers Endless Boogie, so he’s not far from the campfire. Mighty Flashlight frankly should have put out more than one album. I don’t want to bum Mike out (Like I know him personally or something. Sheesh) with a reference that’s maybe to obvious or overplayed, but the initial feel to this baby is similar to the bent folkiness of early Beck. A lot of this comes from Fellows’ voice, which is in same sleepy-stoner realm as Mr. Hansen. So much for aging DC punks keeping alive the flame of Straight Edge (joking, people). If Beck never turned you on, I’d still try this baby out. And not to insult Jade Tree (the label that released this), but I think if this record had been released in Drag City or even Matador, it would have a larger fan base. I know without seeing them live, I’d probably never have bought this. Not that Jade Tree isn’t home to some fine bands. But I digress.
I scored this record by The National like four years ago for around three bucks or so, and now their bigger than pizza. They live up to the adulation in my estimation, so this was a steal. In some ways it reminds me of a more rocking American Music Club. At times. A lot of it doesn’t remind me of anything more specific than new manna for the Legions of Leonard, as in Cohen, as in black cardigan sweaters with chapbooks of poetry in the pocket, as in you look like the kind of girl I’d like to date (It’s 4:08 in the morning, and I’m getting a little loose, okay?). Actually, Tindersticks have been mentioned in relation to this band, and that sounds sorta sound. It’s been a long time since Tindersticks has invaded my ear space, but I always liked them (in an era, like right now, where there were a whole lot of bands to like). I missed seeing these guys play in a big dusty field a couple summers back, but I don’t know how they would have gone over. They seem like rock club music to me. A dank, tightly packed rock club full of cardigan sweaters and the people who love them. Where’s my camera?
Where a lot of the capitalized references in the previous paragraph (as well as the main subject, natch) have a take on downtrodden sonics that appropriately adaptable to romanticism (and romancing too, certainly), FM Cornog’s East River Pipe leaps beyond that and into a lyrical murk that festers like a blister of human frailty and ugliness. The hook however is that his songs have an unfettered pop structure that is quite catchy and at times almost sunny sounding. The initial idea seems to be that he’s trying to make the causticity of the words somewhat palatable, and the record does go down at first like a thick sweet slug of cough syrup. What develops over time is the unavoidable friction between the two elements. I don’t know another art form where this kind of dichotomy is really achievable. Slapstick comedy, perhaps? Cornog hints at the depths of despair that Hubert Selby Jr. immersed himself and the reader in through his masterpiece Last Exit to Brooklyn, but the sentiments are surrounded by a sound that’s a bit like the equivalent of a non-techno poppy Magnetic Fields (while often employing the same style of brittle instrumentation). I’ve been gradually falling under the sway of this stuff for a few years now, and it’s proving to have some real staying power.
Since we’re on the subject of staying power, the debut from Mazzy Star has it in spades. She Hangs Brightly takes me back even further than the Palace Music CD. Most people I knew were unaware of the relationship this group shared with Paisley California, namely Opal and Dream Syndicate through guitarist David Roback. Hope Sandoval was the focus point for many, and it’s pretty much impossible to deny her strong presence, but I always dug Roback’s sweet continuation of the Paisley Underground’s examination of the psychedelic west coast. I was doing a passable job at hiding the fact that I was a miserable wretch at the point this record hit the stores, but that doesn’t get me down today. Like Will Oldham, Mazzy Star was a salve to the sores of life. Today it plays like the soundtrack for struggle and survival. We all have our personal greatest hits of endurance, don’t we?
Sufjan Stevens typifies the specific swaggering chutzpah of biting of more than you can chew. If he actually finishes this 50 states thing I’ll eat a sock. Hell, if he completes thirty-five I’ll eat a mitten. I’m confident. But if he only completes five more of the quality of Illinois, he’ll go down as one of the all time greats. I’m just as confident about that estimation. Illinois was simply the best non-jazz record of it’s year. That’s going to make some people huff and puff, but go blow someone else’s house down, will ya? The ridiculous level of invention and imagination that saturates this thing from start to finish just doesn’t decrease over time. I’ve listened to this probably close to fifty times, and on this particular instance, with the lights off and the volume up, it was as revelatory as the tenth. What’s going to be crucial to this baby’s staying power is how particular it sounds. Yeah, Illinois can be somewhat corralled into the place where Jeff Mangum and Colin Meloy strut their conceptual stuff, but he doesn’t really sound like either of them. And the way he folds an influence like Phil Glass into his sound is just spectacular. I’m tempted to say this is a perfect record. It’s only a smidgen less pleasing to me than In An Aeroplane Over the Sea on a personal level, and the thing’s only a few years old. If you’ve spent time with this and feel that my previous sentences bleed with hyperbole, please rest assured that I’m sincere. In fifteen years we can compare notes. Again, I’m confident that I’m not swinging wildly with the pronouncements.

SUNDAY 12/21- Shepp’s Blasé is from his BYG/Actuel period. He was smoking hot at this point, pretty much unrestrained by the decorum of the Impulse! Label, but because his tenure with that company overlaps and post-dates the BYG recordings, this part of his artistic geography often gets underestimated. Where records like Fire Music and the way underrated Live in San Francisco feel like a passionate and disruptive (and righteous and demanding) presence from inside the walls of oppression, the BYG stuff, all recorded outside the US if I’m not mistaken, takes on a bold, at times accusatory, and at other moments unmitigated freedom (not necessarily structural, to be clear) that might be the best way to appreciate the guy. He was a complex ball of ideas that didn’t really run out of gas until the end of the ‘70s, and if you want to hear what Free Europe sounded like in 1969, this is a great place to start. Vocalist Jeanne Lee steals the show, by the way.
The Art Ensemble of Chicago is another essential group of free jazzers who did the expatriate thing along with Shepp and a host of others, and Go Home is an extremely rare nugget from that period that was apparently released on the Galloway label and I don’t think has ever been given a legit CD reissue. I nabbed it from the internet, and it’s a good one. It lacks the gusto of the more lauded releases from their Euro-stay (A Message to Our Folks and A Jackson in Your House in particular), but that’s not really what they were striving for. The AEoC were a versatile unit capable of going outward with force and musing inward with a collective agility, but always displaying an abstraction and commitment to progress that made them unpalatable to finger-snappers and cocktail-sippers. The collective aspect also meant that they were not in the tradition of jazz as defined by musician leaders and soloist expression. Much of free jazz in the first decade of its existence was really a reexamination of the dominant post-bop model, but AEoC really tapped into the unique heart of Coleman’s possibilities and in the process grasp a thread of jazz history that is tied to the early New Orleans experience of Armstrong, Oliver, Ory etc. Go Home is important (featuring some nice work from Fontella Bass), but if you’re new, hit the more bandied about titles first.
Joseph Jarman was a member of the Art Ensemble, and this Delmark release provides a window into the early explorations of avant-Chicago. Windy City staple Muhal Richard Abrams is here, as is a young Fred Anderson, John Stubblefield (later of Miles’ Get Up With It), and Thurman Barker. It’s also the only appearance to my knowledge of vocalist Sherri Scott. There are more moments of ruckus on this record than Go Home, so if you need that sort of thing it’s here. I might prefer it to Go Home at this point as well. It may not be fair to really compare, but it does seem true to me that the general aesthetic principles that came to be associated with the AEoC were getting refined on the earlier recordings by future members of the group. All of this early material is essential to understanding just how expansive and adaptable the loosening strictures of jazz conception were in the period of its initial neglect. This stuff was almost entirely ignored, and that’s a big part of the reason they ended up in France. This isn’t an unusual reaction to greatness, and it’s nice to know in this case that it has a rather appealing ending.
Anthony Braxton is on Conference of the Birds. So is drummer Barry Altschul, the great horn player Sam Rivers, and bassist Dave Holland (it’s his date). Holland appears on Trio and Duet, along with Musica Elettronica Viva member Richard Teitelbaum on synth and percussion and Leo Smith on trumpets. That’s really all I can say at this point. Except that they both sound excellent on one listen. And that Braxton and Holland both smoke.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

The Week in Listening 12/8 - 12/14

12/8/08- Minny Pops- Drastic Measures, Drastic Movement LP 1980
Company Flow- Funcrusher Plus CD 1997
Deerhoof- Offend Maggie CD 2008
Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood of Breath- self titled LP 1970

12/9/08- No Age- Weirdo Rippers CD 2007
Alice Coltrane- Lord of Lords LP 1972
Lambchop and Hands Off Cuba- CoLAB CDEP
Portastatic- Bright Ideas CD 2005
Tyvek/Cheveu- Future Junk b/w El Tortuga split 7” 2007

12/10/08- Angry Samoans- Back From Samoa LP 1982
The Books- The Lemon of Pink CD 2003
The Rosebuds- Unwind CD 2005
Saturday Looks Good To Me- Dianne Falling Off Of Her Horse b/w
Springtime Judgment 7” 2008
Bon Iver- For Emma, Forever Ago CD 2007
Laura Gibson- Six White Horses CDEP 2008
Evangelista- Hello, Voyager CD 2008
Jeb Bishop- Tiebreaker CD 2008
The William Parker Quartet- Petit Oiseau CD 2008
Art Bears- Hopes and Fears LP 1978

12/11/08- AC Newman- The Slow Wonder CD 2004
Altered Images- Pinky Blue (Plus) CD 1982
Frank Fairfield- I’ve Always Been a Rambler/Darling Corey b/w I Wish I Was a Mole In the Ground 7" 2008
Ran Blake & Jeanne Lee- The Newest Sound Around (The Legendary Duets) CD 1961

12/12/08- Andrew Hill- So in Love CD 1960
Andrew Hill- Black Fire CD 1963
Andrew Hill- Smokestack CD 1963
Andrew Hill- Judgment! CD 1964
Andrew Hill- Point of Departure CD 1964
Various Artists- A Million Dollars Worth of Doo-Wop Volume Two CD

12/13/08- No Age- Weirdo Rippers CD 2007
Algebra Mothers- The Strawberry Cheesecake b/w The Modern Noise 7” 1979
Animal Collective- Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished CD 2000
Taj Mahal Travelers- August 1974 2LP 1975
John Fahey & Cul de Sac- The Epiphany of Glenn Jones CD 1997

12/14/08- ZZ Top- Rio Grande Mud LP 1972
Traffic- Mr. Fantasy LP 1968
Paul & Linda McCartney- Ram LP 1971
Elvis Costello and the Attractions- This Year’s Model LP 1978
Buddy Holly- Legend: From the Original Master Tapes 2LP
Brian Eno- Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) LP 1974
Lula Côrtes and Zé Ramalho- Paêbirú 2LP 1975
Fish & Roses- self titled EP 1987
Neil Michael Hagerty- self titled CD 2001
James Gang- Yer Album LP 1969
Souled American- Fe CD 1988
Mercury Rev- Car Wash Hair CDEP 1991


MONDAY 12/8- Minny Pops was a bunch of Dutch synth-nuts that were far more inclined to incorporate abrasion and a clinical coldness into their sound than to polish any softening gestures to the pop charts. It’s a pretty desolate and dated experience, but I’m feeling kind of desolate and dated lately. This was released on Plurex (a great Dutch punk imprint), but they ended up flirting around with Factory label, and I’m curious as to what those later records sound like.
It’s been so long since I’d spent time with Company Flow that it was almost like a new experience. Hey, nice to meet ya’, you look kinda familiar. Funcrusher stands up pretty well, which isn’t a surprise. ‘90s Underground hip-hop seems to have more staying power than much of the more deliberately commercially inclined contemporaneous stuff, but maybe I’m biased. I feel safe in predicting that this is still going to sound spiffy in a decade. I hope it doesn’t take that long to listen to it again.
This new Deerhoof record sounds just fine. I’m only just getting it under my skin, but each listen reveals depth and development through increased familiarity. One thing I like about them is how their intricate and spastic energy (which at times borders on proggy-funkiness) is so unique to their collective personality that I haven’t crossed paths with a single band that tries to approximate what they do, much less a pack of them. They’ve really worked out a sound that’s undeniably them and is perhaps so difficult to approximate that they don’t have to worry about the pressure of staying ahead of the bandwagon. If it sounds like Deerhoof, it’s almost certainly Deerhoof.


Brotherhood of Breath has been on my radar screen for a long time, but until fairly recently it’s been hard to hear their music with ease. Back in the ‘90s, I’d tried to order some stuff on a couple of occasions only to be find myself in backorder purgatory. Well, the first two BoB recordings are available on Emusic, so I grabbed them up. Chris McGregor was the leader of this group which grew out of a previous band called The Blue Notes. They were South African expatriates, and they have some recordings, one of which (Very Urgent) was released under the name The Chris McGregor Group (also on EMusic). The Blue Notes basically morphed into BoB with the addition of a bunch of the then current British free-jazz upstarts, and they really qualify as one of the few avant-tinged big bands. The music has been described as a mixture of Sun Ra and Mingus, and that’s pretty spot-on. It certainly has its hooks in tradition, but there is an edgy intensity to the playing that really places it in the ‘60s avant/free milieu. Along with McGregor, the names on this record are real heavyweights in the deep history of European progressive/experimental jazz, including Harry Miller, Mike Osborne, Dudu Pukwana, Louis Moholo, John Surman, Harry Beckett, and Mongezi Feza. I’m still absorbing the strong cross-cultural vibe that this record offers, but it suffices to say that it’s a major extension of the freedoms opened up by Coltrane, Coleman, Ayler, Sun Ra, et al. It has some fine moments of intense grooving that never gets too tight and mingles with strong soloing (particularly the trombone), and I’m looking forward to spending more time with this record.

TUESDAY 12/9- I’m starting to get a handle on No Age. Not that they’re particularly slippery, but they do seem to have a shifty mixture of punkish energy that is used to throttle an approach that’s very reminiscent of the strains of indie-rock from around a decade and a half ago. This might not seem like such a big deal, or such a hard thing to classify, but No Age doesn’t really have a specific band or even a defined sub-genre that can be used to pinpoint their sound. This is a good thing. I’ll stress that the punk feel that I get from this is just that, a feel. Nothing on Weirdo Rippers suggests punk in any kind of classical form, but it does have the kind of youthful intensity that you’d find at a good all-ages show. The music is more open ended, with a density that is less about songs and more about texture. There were a ton of bands doing this in the early ‘90s, basically continuing the Sonic Youth/Blast First experience into the new decade, and No Age’s vigor keeps it from sounding like a mere throwback. Good deal.


Alice Coltrane used to get bagged on by all kinds of people for the work she did after her husband’s death. It was hard to hear those records for myself back then, so I just waited. Well, the pendulum of opinion has swung significantly in the other direction, so a whole bunch of her stuff is available. Lord of Lords is a very strong album, scored for orchestra, and it is far less based in the improvisational backbone of jazz than I’m sure many people would have liked. But that’s alright. She employs piano, organ, harp, and timpani to interact with the strings, Charlie Haden is on board with his outstanding bass, and the thick, sweetly droning effect is spiritually strong. This is the third part of a trilogy, but I’m not able to comment on that aspect of the recording at this point. This was also her last record for Impulse. The best days of that label were mostly over, and I’m sure the baffled or even hostile responses that her recordings were getting hurt the prospects of a lasting relationship. I’m just glad that Coltrane’s body of work saw some critical reappraisal before she died. She deserved better when these records were released, and it’s nice that she saw some overdue reconsideration.
The collaboration between Lambchop and Nashville electronics duo Hands Off Cuba is short and attractively tweaked. Lambchop are quite adept at taking unexpected turns as they march straight into the heart of greatness, so taking a detour into an area that might initially seem a little too far a field from the heart of what they proffer proves to be much ado about nothing. Or I should say something. The cross-pollination of Wagner and Company’s vibrant acoustic stew with the often abstract textural sonic approach of HOC avoids any kind of contradictory aura, possibly because both sides of this equation seem to have similar artistic temperaments. A lot of electronic music isn’t exactly subtle. This isn’t a complaint, except when that bluntness is grafted onto something that needs room to unfold and develop its strengths. I’ve heard too many bad remixes that never should’ve made it beyond the hypothetical point that do just this. COLab, however, is an appropriate interweaving of sympathetic aesthetics, and it leaves a lasting impression.

WEDNESDAY 12/10- Back From Samoa is such a perfect example of the caustically snotty, brutally brief, non-scientific depths as heights that pure unhyphenated punk could stoop to attain that I’m rather mystified at the non-adulation they sometimes receive. What’s the deal? It’s true that the group was a bit older (less sexy) than their more lauded contemporaries in the hallowed halls of US punk, and that they lack any elements that can be winningly transmogrified into the fabric of romanticized social discord as historical movement (which is great when it’s appropriate, don’t get me wrong), and that they were as misanthropic, negative, and obnoxious as any band ever, often in response to their peers, but for a certain style of no frills bash-it-out anti technique these jokers don’t really have any peers. Group Sex by Circle Jerks is sort of close, but that album’s lyrics often slip into the realm of social commentary. Back From Samoa has none of that. It bounces between vague ranting, doofus celebration and juvenile humor, never reaching for subjects or targets beyond its own backyard. During my last two years of high school, I’m guessing that I played this with more frequency than any other record. It still kills.
Listening to the CoLab EP got me thinking about The Books. It is certainly true that I haven’t heard everything, but I have heard this duo, and I can’t really think of a better mixture of the warmth of live instrumentation and the bent aura of electronic manipulation. As The Lemon of Pink progresses, a gentle but enveloping folkiness builds, words are spoken (captured) and repeated, and the wise use of technology infuses the whole affair with a strange but welcoming quality that leaves behind some fine residue. Just one listen to “There Is No There There” with its perfectly scrambled execution was all I needed to realize that these guys were on to something. Too bad they’re not more prolific.
The Rosebuds are fairly prolific as pop-rockers go. The core of this band, husband Ivan and wife Kelly, have a predilection for riffy, hooky, dynamically strong, instrumentally adept (though non-flashy) and emotionally charged party motion. There is a purity to The Rosebuds that makes any sort of conceptualizing over their sound inappropriate. They simply shut down the contemporary tendency to throw a post- in front of a hyphenated or slangy genre descriptor, and irony is refreshingly not in the band’s arsenal. This is music that’s quality increases in relation to how many ears are digging it, the kind of sound that can inspire a person to randomly embrace strangers. The only reason Unwind isn’t as good as Make Out is because there’s less of it to groove to.
Saturday Looks Good To Me is the project of Fred Thomas of Ann Arbor, Michigan. There is fortitude of knowledge and a depth of love regarding the pop muse in his music, and All Your Summer Songs will rate extremely high in the wrap-up of this decade’s best sounds. The above single shows that Thomas hasn’t lost a smidgen of his ability to write strong songs and deliver them with a scientific mastery of instrumentation, production, and the judicious application of genre. His/their music can dabble in girl-group, Motown, twee-pop, and downtrodden symphonics while never sounding like an anachronism. If you’ve been waiting for a contemporary Spector, well here’s your benevolent svengali.
Laura Gibson’s EP, a solo affair, sounds exactly like the sort of thing you’d hear playing in a group house loaded full of twenty-somethings who make their own clothes and grow their own vegetables (No meat on the premises. But filter-less cigarettes? Sure). It has that sort of intense folkish vibe. Though actually, I should be more serious. The six songs here are largely a heartfelt and extremely well-rendered examination of prewar acoustic blues of a deeply rural bent. Blind Lemon Jefferson, Mance Lipscomb, Furry Lewis, and the wonderful Elizabeth Cotten all get covered with sincerity and skill on this record and the sharpness of the recording really brings out the power of her nylon strings and the unique edginess of her vocal chords. It’s the kind of experience that a hard drive and two computer speakers just can’t defeat. Patty Waters may be the reigning queen of the "Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair" interpretations (Nina Simone fans have collectively quit reading this and went to their respective corners to pout), but Gibson’s version is just dandy. The Pacific Northwest is chocked so full of talent that it seems like you’d be constantly stumbling over bearded solo strummers and packs of loose noodlers while taking a tour of the region. That’s cool. But if I tripped over Laura Gibson, immediately after apologizing I’d feel damn fortunate. She’s that kind of rare bird. I saw her open for Colin Meloy and my interest was peaked. This EP really brought home the goods.


Evangelista might just be the heaviest non-jazz album of the year. It’s the latest record from Carla Bozulich, in collaboration with members of Godspeed! You Black Emperor, A Silver Mt. Lion, and Black Ox Orkestar, and while I’ve always admired what I’d heard from Carla in the past (Geraldine Fibbers, Scarnella), this thing wails with the intensity of a primal scream. That said, this isn’t at all slapdash or one dimensional. Read again who her partners are on this album. There is a strong and smart interaction between Carla and the other musicians, and the aggressive and loose exploration on display is at times close to exasperating. For a reference point, think early Patti Smith, but here’s the deal: I love Patti, though not in the way some older hands do, since they were there to soak in the experience as it happened. I can certainly understand why those who saw her develop and explode the norm in real time speak of her so highly, and I can surely grasp a significant amount of her greatness, but by the time I’d heard her I was just a young squirt, listening to her output and being undoubtedly affected by having absorbed a bunch of other stuff that had taken the various balls that Smith had punted and ran with them into the end-zone marked musical freedom. Yeah. Listening to Patti always provided deep enjoyment, not life-changing revelation. The reason I’m going on at length about this is due to the ass-pinning fervor of this Evangelista record, particularly its last track. THIS makes me feel the way Lester and Lenny and all those Creem Magazine subscribers must have felt the first time they heard Patti speak of pissing in a river from the stage. Describing Hello, Voyager as a harsh, bruising experience might make it sound like something you’d want to avoid, but it’s also sublime and beautiful. I doubt that anyone who listens to it will ever forget it.
Jeb Bishop and William Parker are both involved with the ever developing avant-jazz scene. They have different stories and significance, however. Jeb is a younger trombone player who grew out of playing punk rock and into improvising with a slew of other younger names of import, particularly Ken Vandermark. William Parker is pretty much the dean of free bass playing, and the list of his collaborators is like a who’s who of outsider jazz from the last thirty years. The respective discs above have only gotten two listens apiece, so I’ll hold back on in-depth description until I’ve gained a more solid foundation in what they are about. I will mention that the Bishop is spacious and inviting in its measured abstraction and the Parker is really quite striking in its engagement with tradition. If you have the impression of avant-jazz as undisciplined note-splatter and abrasive cacophony, well both of these discs should serve as a nice corrective to that stereotype. Bishop seems as interested in silence as he is in how to negate it, and while his record is certainly not explicitly bound to any sort reverence to the explicit swing of standard jazz forms, his recording lacks any kind of assaulting element, being at times almost relaxing. And Parker’s record follows in the footsteps of Sound Unity from a couple of years ago, which is to say that it’s the yang to Bishop’s ying, building a strong but suitably loose foundation for strong soloing and interaction that could even get a few smiles out of a Blue Note hardliner. Gee, I said more than I intended. But it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

THURSDAY 12/11- Carl Newman is the main cat in New Pornographers, and they are simply a bunch of doozies. He’s also had his hands in other well-baked pies, including this solo record. There is a new one coming out with his name on it that I’m sure I’ll grab when it’s legal to do so (I think it’s already leaked), so I thought about catching back up with this one. Part of what I like so much about his music is the agile heaviness that’s extant. This is essentially pop/rock, so the quality and degree of heavy is applied so it registers subtly and works to advance the propulsion of the songwriting, burrowing hooks into the memory and choruses into the air as the listener gleefully sings along. Other elements add to the cumulative effect, such as the appealing use of keyboards (very power-pop without any bad connotations) and Newman’s distinctive vocal delivery. The bottom line is he tackles a no-big-deal kind of genre sound with loads of panache and I can’t imagine this record will ever wear out its welcome.
I’d pretty much never heard Altered Images until I started downloading music. I say pretty much because one of the John Hughes soundtracks apparently has a song on it by them. Not sure which song or soundtrack. But I definitely knew about the band. Hell, they were featured in the first issue of Creem Magazine that I ever bought. The radio stations in my area didn’t put AI in rotation however, so I went without hearing them until I randomly grabbed a few tunes from the internet. I liked those songs, one from a John Peel session and the other a demo from 1980. They were guitar based popish post-punk that reminded me of the many cool indie-pop bands from the early ‘90s that were coming out on labels like Slumberland. Except for vocalist Claire Grogan, who had a high-pitched and unsteady delivery that’s a bit like Debby Harry’s precocious kid sister. So a few days back I decided to give Pinky Blue a spin and can’t say that I was impressed. Its biggest setback is the ‘80s radio sheen that coats everything. To make matters worse, most of the songs are undistinguished. Things putter along like I’m riding to the mall in the backseat of someone else’s car circa 1986. Man, what a horrid fucking memory. Actually, a few of the remixes here have some sprightliness and enough engaging sonic action that I did smile a little bit. So it’s wasn’t a total loss. But compared to those early tracks, Pinky Blue is a huge letdown. People who actually profess to love the ‘80s might think differently.
Frank Fairfield is a guy I don’t know much about. His MySpace page says he’s a young musician and record collector. His music is a rather amazing channeling of the sort of old timey wonderment personified by guys like Bascom Lamar Lunsford, who’s "I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground" gets covered on this (downloadable) 7”. Fairfield has a superbly heavy hand with his fiddle bow, and the fact that a guy under thirty years of age can pull off sounding like a backwoodsman from the era of the FDR administration while avoiding any kind of minstrelsy is cause for some major pondering. He records for a swell little indie label called Tompkins Square, he’s opened for Fleet Foxes and will be opening for Charlie Louvin, and I’d love to hear more than three songs by this guy. The last time I checked this was a free download at EMusic, so if you have a computer and the interest there should be no further barriers between you and this guy.


Ran Blake and Jeanne Lee are both long serving inspirations from the jazz underground. Blake is one of the most neglected pianists to emerge from the wide open ‘60s scene and Lee is one of the few vocalists to engage in extended interaction with the avant-garde. The Newest Sound Around is basically ground zero for both of them, and after knowing about this record for years and being denied access by it almost constant unavailability (it was in print on CD for a while under the parenthetical title above), I finally got to hear it. Tis nice. Anyone expecting to hear the ripping throat action that Lee emoted on Archie Shepp’s Blasé will be disappointed, but keep in mind that this was recorded in 1961 by two young newcomers to the scene. This is a deep inspection of classic song that leaves the lasting aura of mastery in an early, lively stage. Blake’s playing is quite interesting, always interacting with Lee instead of falling into the mode of accompaniment, which often happens in pianist/vocalist duos. Lee’s voice possesses an assurance and a prettiness that sustains throughout the record. She knows the material, and is comfortable enough with it and with Blake’s playing to inject just the right amount of her own artistic personality to these versions (no diva is she). Jazz with vocals almost always leaves me disappointed, but this one is a keeper and then some.

FRIDAY 12/12- Speaking of underrated pianists, the late Andrew Hill fits that description perfectly. While he’s nowhere near as unknown at Ran Blake, it’s still stymieing how a guy who consistently produced one classic after another for Blue Note records is basically only on the radar screens of serious jazzbos and Nels Cline fans. Hill often gets lumped in with the avant-garde, and while that is less of a disservice to his legacy than just placing him into the mainstream, it still doesn’t accurately describe what he excelled at in the ‘60s. A good word to describe him would be cerebral. Both Hill’s composing and his improvising are positively drenched in unexpected turns that are gracefully rendered. He was able to get incredible expressiveness from some of Blue Note’s most familiar players while often including more eclectic personnel, many of which have painfully small documentation on record. He had a sort of late-career resurgence shortly before his death from cancer, returning to Blue Note with fanfare and some surprising sales figures, but I’m still digging around in his massive ‘60s recordings.
So In Love was his debut as a leader, recorded for the Warwick label, and while the sound quality is a drag it still sheds some serious light on his development. Along for the ride are bass legend Malachi Favors and a little known drummer James Slaughter. This isn’t an earth shattering listen, but Hill still sounds quite unique at this early point, playing around with Afro-Cuban melodies that are pleasantly lacking in the norms for the period.


Black Fire was his debut for Blue Note and it’s a monster. Throughout the record, Hill maintains a tightrope between angularity and essential swing, full of spiky assertiveness and a serious playfulness, expanding on the Afro-Cuban tendencies with stirring artistic progress. He spurs his partners into some fantastic interplay. Tenor Joe Henderson sounds very inspired, and the Richard Davis (bass)/Roy Haynes (drums) rhythm section tangle together into a brilliant fabric of notes and textures. If you’re a newcomer to the music of Hill, start with this disc. It has bucketfuls of the instinctive qualities of the best jazz of its era while lacking even a whiff of workaday sessioneering. It’s just fascinating in the almost offhand heights it achieves.
Smokestack retains Davis and Haynes, subtracts Henderson, and adds another bassist in Eddie Khan. This sort of instrumental line-up isn’t often utilized. It sounds pretty great here. Naturally it’s very much a record about rhythm, with Hill gliding around reacting and commenting on its strong bedrock, and also spurring his cohorts into higher levels of creativity. This isn’t as quite as gripping as Black Fire, but it still has much to offer.
Judgment! is a quartet of Davis, vibe maestro Bobby Hutcherson, Hill and Elvin Jones on drums. The more familiar combo of instruments gives this a surface feel of a straight on post-bop session, but that’s slowly peeled away to reveal a steady engagement with progressive movement. Jones sounds perfect, and Hutcherson blends his percussive tones into a fine tapestry with Hill. Davis is a goddamned anchor. He was Stravinsky’s bassist of choice, and I’ve never heard a record where he sounds less than stellar.
Point of Departure is simply one of the essential jazz albums. It has Hill at an early apex in his career, bringing together one of the most mind bending one-and-done groups ever assembled. Henderson’s back, as is Davis. Add hard-bop mainstay Kenny Dorham on trumpet, the young and amazing Tony Williams on drums and Eric Dolphy on horns. The music lives up to the expectations, holding a constant, evolving beauty: so beautiful in fact, that Dolphy’s presence, while certainly noticeable, never has that smack of idiosyncrasy that’s often present when he played on the more mainstream (I’m not using that word as a putdown) records of others. Everybody is working at the peak of their abilities. PoD has attained a stature in jazz history that’s secure, yet it seems to lack the fervent following that other documents of its era (Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, Hancock’s Maiden Voyage or even Dolphy’s Out to Lunch, for some examples) inspire. This surely has much to do with Hill’s musical temperament, which really requires time and familiarity before the vastness of the whole really begins to have lasting impact. He wasn’t angry or thorny enough to be championed by the advocates of the full-blown free-nation, and he required too much time and attention for those in line with the progressions of advanced post-bop and modal sounds. But as far as Hill’s artistic legacy goes, time is on his side, because he’s still way ahead of it.

SATURDAY 12/13- Algebra Mothers (or the A-Moms, for short) were from Detroit and their one single was a blast of punked-out Devoid hurky-jerk. In the era in which this lived and breathed, bands all over the land were issuing cheap vinyl calling cards that contained their eventual one-shots of undervalued glory. These guys are a quick glimpse of Motor City ingenuity. Keep the Spud-Boy’s epileptic structure and attempt to approximate their veneer of synthiness with fired-up, over the top keyboards straight outta the garage and then drench it all with gnarled-out guitars and the whooping, whopping vocal presence of a late-adolescent angsty-nerd in heat. Fucking sizzling.


Animal Collective is a band that I’d been curious about long before I’d actually heard them. My real intro was Sung Tongs, but until now I’d neglected to go back and catch up with what I’d missed. The debut record is nice, capturing them in a somewhat embryonic form, though it is interesting how strong some of the band’s more developed tendencies were at this early stage, particularly the detailed abstraction of extreme tones as an almost rhythmic backbone for their songs. There are investigations into areas that don’t seem to figure in their current sound (possibly to return later) and also the feel of a group who was essentially playing for themselves, finding a finishing point and then just throwing the results out there to see if anything snuck into the favor of a small segment of the populace. It’s obvious what happened. Animal Collective is a great example of how a band that’s complex and hard-to-pin-down yet still generally accessible to a large number of ears can thrive in the current post-major label, technologically enhanced marketplace. There are certainly plenty of unpaid for copies of their records floating around in IPods or sitting on hard drives, but the reality is that these aren’t really lost sales. What the free flow of tech allows is a stronger bond between the artist and their real fan base, the people who do buy records and attend shows. And when the artist isn’t constantly screwed by bad distribution of tangible product or faced with record label bean counters who are expecting a return on their investment, they spend much more time concentrating on their art and developing the relationship with the people who truly care about it. Animal Collective has been growing for almost a decade, and so has the number of people who care about that growth. The lifespan of bands that play demanding music was once much shorter, and when it was exceeded it was cause for celebration. The tide is slowly turning to an atmosphere where we don’t have to flip our wigs when a group produces a golden ten years.
Taj Mahal Travelers are pretty legendary for playing a splendid strain of experimental drone. One of the most revered Japanese psyche bands of all time and also one of the most demanding since they seem to totally work outside the realm of rock influence, at least on the basis of the above double album. These guys demand that you interact with their sound completely on their terms, which means forsaking the groove and just sitting back so the slow build of abstraction can be more fully soaked up. Taj Mahal Travelers aren’t a gateway drug. They are a bursting bag of prime shit. You either dig what it’s about or you look for other kicks.
The Fahey/Cul de Sac record probably stumped a lot of people when it appeared. Fahey was a long standing master of instrumental guitar in the American Primitive folk style. And Cul de Sac was a bunch of heavy hitters from the deep underground. I’ve only listened to this once, but it’s already clear that the often haunting undertone of Fahey’s playing was clearly absorbed by the members of Cul de Sac, and that the tough and discerning methods of the band helped to reenergize one of the greatest guitarists of all time. If all you’ve heard is Fahey’s Vanguard-era material, you’re in for a shock. But a great one.

SUNDAY 12/14- ZZ Top had a period of hipster vogue that found them embraced by the fans of Sonic Youth and Steve Albini. This kind of thing can be a pain when there is a surplus of irony, but in this case the adulation was quite pure and ultimately deserving. ZZ Top in the ‘70s was just a smoking band. They understood how to translate the brevity and lack of flashy-technique that was an inherent part of their influences into the then new heavy rock landscape without bastardizing what was taken or softening what resulted. Purists often disdain these guys as tasteless or trite, but that’s simply fucked. The forms that ZZ Top pilfered from were never about reverence and solemnity. It was the soundtrack to weekend plunges into joints and dives that offered a smoky, spirit-drenched atmosphere and the possibility of sex or if not, then at least a temporary respite from the rawness of life. They should be commended for declining to kowtow to the curators and guards in the museum-like atmosphere that’s often erected around the still vital and copious legacy of the blues and R & B. They didn’t betray the music, but actually extended much of what was essential about it to heaps of people who probably thought Champion Jack Dupree was a pugilist. How sneaky of them.
Traffic was one of the first Brit psyche bands that I took the plunge with after tasting Syd-era Pink Floyd. I’d always kind of dug Winwood in The Spencer Davis Group, and the early stuff by this band grabbed me then and continues to squeeze me to this day. I think they’ve aged quite well, considering that a large portion of the current music scene shows no signs of shying away from the airy, spacey, occasionally foofy terrain that Traffic was involved with pioneering. These guys eventually went to the dogs, but I think their early impulses are well worth hearing.
I’ve probably insulted Paul McCartney more times than I’ve done the same to George W. Bush, and that’s a shameful thing to consider. It’s true that Paul’s decision making is often odious, but it’s not like he’s alone, and it’s not like anything he does really has an impact on my life, unlike that asshole soon-to-be ex-Pres. It’s just that Paul was the designated whipping boy of The Beatles, the one who eventually proved to be pretty square and unrepentantly careerist. I don’t know how I ended up with a copy of Ram. I don’t remember buying it, but I guess I did, probably because "Uncle Albert and Admiral Halsey" is on this record. That’s the one post-Beatles McCartney song I’ve always liked. Well, the whole thing’s not bad. Yeah, it could’ve been better. No, I’m not going to buy any Wings albums. I would buy a used copy of this on CD if it weren’t overpriced for the bonus tracks, however.
Elvis Costello is another guy that I’ve been rather unkind to at times. Most of the stuff that has his name on it post-1980 doesn’t really thrill me all that much, honestly. It’s really just a case of Costello not replacing the raucous but brainy punch of his second and third records with anything nearly as interesting. Those are the only things by him that I own, and This Year’s Model is just a blast. I’d heard many of his records in a random order, and when I finally listened to this one, "Pump It Up" smacked me but good. This is what the new wave was supposed to be about. Too bad so many people took so many bad turns.
Buddy Holly hopefully needs no intro. Beside his talent, what’s so striking about him should be obvious from listening to a well ordered collection like Legend. He’s really the main guy from the original rock ‘n’ roll impulse to show a strong progression in style without really subverting what he was essentially about. Listening to the early stuff, it’s clear that Holly, while grasping the wildness of the new music, was either unwilling or unable to subtract the elements of his personality that would eventually come to the foreground as that plane crash loomed closer. Another way to put it would be that early on Holly rocked, but he was never really a rocker. And compared to him, pretty much every other chartbusting contemporary either looks like a flubby sell-out (Elvis, natch) or they appear boxed in by the limitations of their own invention (Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard, the many rockabilly wild men, and especially Bill Haley, the opportunistic über-square of all times). Berry and Diddley stand as exceptions due to the unbeatable strength of their sound. Rock snobs generally hate Holly’s later stuff, considering it soft and antithetical to what the whole ‘50s teen uprising was supposed to be about, and yes, I too prefer the corking early junk, but also recognize the fragile sweetness (the sincerity) of the more developed material. It’s all essential.
Brian Eno looms huge over the current music scene. Taking Tiger Mountain is probably the one document of his greatness that I value the most. It’s an unbelievably strange record that has a curved spine of inviting qualities, sometimes rocking, other times mysterious, occasionally exasperatingly pretty, at moments raw and dense, and always enthralling. I’m rather stingy with the genius appellation, but it applies here. This was the big brown nipple that truckloads of soon to be post-punks were sucking on around 5-6 years after this was recorded. Without Eno, the whole landscape of what punk was to spin into would’ve been much different. And certainly lesser. This is desert island material, as pleasing now in its quirky labyrinthine structure as it must have been then.


The story behind the Lula Côrtes and Zé Ramalho 2LP is that nearly all of the copies of the release were lost in a fire. That means it was rare, baby. Brazilian mid-‘70s psyche that flutters and fuzzes and floats and occasionally employs flutes, it’s a real mover. The overall heft of their sound is very spacious and uninterested in gestures to any overt pop or rock sensibility, working up a graceful, loosely melodic acoustic terrain that gives it a certain immediate appeal. Having the length of four sides of vinyl allows the music to really expand and breathe, and these two cats are quite adept musically, using their proficiency to deepen the welcoming weirdness. Very, very druggy. If you are thinking Os Mutantes, don’t. As endearingly oddball (and yes, great) as that band could be they were often an extension of/improvement on gestures to and from within the pop charts. Paêbirú is not that sort of thing. Its subversiveness comes from the extended aleinness of the wide open formlessness it provides.
I’d call Fish & Roses a forgotten band, but I don’t know how many people even knew about them in the first place. New York City art-rock outsiders who released their debut on one of the more interesting and neglected labels (Lost) to call that ‘berg home in the ‘80s, F & R were label mates and peers with such bands as Mofungo, The Scene Is Now, Elliot Sharp, Chain Gang, and Les Batteries. The one aspect of F & R that helped them to stand out even in this considerable company was their lack of a guitar. Now this isn’t such a big deal today, when keyboards and electronics have helped to decrease the omnipresence of six-strings, but twenty years ago it was almost unheard of in the rock landscape. The sorta sub-scene that this band bounced around in had a much wider scope of interest than the majority of the u-ground of the period, and this helped to give their music a unique quality. Along with The Scene Is Now and Mofungo, F & R also had a leftist political sensibility that placed them close to what Minutemen were doing, but frankly most people didn’t seem to grasp this at the time, particularly in F & R’s case, since the more keyboard-driven sound didn’t immediately jive with what Watt Boon & Hurley were throwing down. Another thing about F & R that seems legit is their existence as a continuum of No Wave ideals. This band’s drummer Rick Brown happened to also be a member of Blinding Headache, Information and V-Effect, three No Wave groups that were as terribly overlooked as F & R. I’d surely be nice to see a CD reissue stuffed with all of this band’s recordings. The release on Homestead and the disc on Fell Good All Over are unheard of by me at this late date, and that’s a situation I’d like to see change.
The James Gang is responsible for two of the dandiest slabs in all of hard rock singles-dom, “Funk #49” and “Walk Away”. But I’d always avoided inspecting the albums, figuring that they couldn’t be all that interesting. I’ve grown into a friendlier relationship with a lot of hard rock bands these last few years, so I thought I’d tackle the debut by these guys. In a word: Inconsistent. Much of the material here doesn’t play to the band’s two biggest strengths, the guitar playing of a young Joe Walsh and the heated group interaction of which they were capable. Instead, it dabbles around in a lot of areas that should’ve probably been left alone. None of the music is bad. It just seems ill-suited. The biggest problem with the album has nothing to do with the music, though. It concerns the inclusion of a batch of studio outtakes that largely revolve around the antics of Walsh, who apparently always fancied himself something of a wise-acre. In truth he’s frustratingly lame. As anything that was once interesting about his music evaporated he grew into one of the most odious characters in the whole California Cocaine scene, but at this point he seems more like one of those obnoxious high-school cut-ups who refuse to shake off the persona and grow into a more grounded, less annoying individual. What a dunce.
The Mercury Rev EP is sort of like a trip down memory lane. “Car Wash Hair” was a track from their first album Yerself Is Steam. I played that record more than a bunch of times shortly after its release, but never picked up this EP until recently. So it has the sweet smell of familiarity, but also new angles. The interesting observation about the band at this point is how there was little specific precedent for their sound from within the scene they were working in. While they are often compared to Flaming Lips, the truth is at this point the Lips were still shifting away from the grungy/psychy heaviness that endeared them to Dinosaur Jr fans. I recall aligning Rev with Galaxie 500 back then, partly because Dean Wareham guests on the record, but that analogy seems off target in retrospect. Both bands shared an interest in a psyche state of mind, and I’d have loved to hear a Galaxie (or Luna, for that matter) cover of “Car Wash Hair”, but the comparison still seems to miss the mark. G500 was very much about the absorption and interpretation of classic elements, in their case post-Warhol and Cale Velvets and early Jon Richman. Rev certainly harkened back to older developments as well, but in their case it was much less definable. They were glancing backward and using the past as a less specific palate of possibilities. If you like Mercury Rev and haven’t heard this, search for it. It’s a nice addendum to their early sound. It also has one of those untitled 30-minute bonus tracks that were so ubiquitous in the ‘90s. That was very thoughtful of them.