The Clash - Vanilla Tapes

You discover something new everyday. For example, I learned today that I don't like the taste of water AND I came across this magnificent artifact.

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Wikipedia: The Vanilla Tapes were demo tracks recorded by the English punk band The Clash -- in essence, an early version of their album London Calling (although the track Remote Control was a song from the band's first album). Roadie Johnny Green was to deliver the tapes to the band's new producer, Guy Stevens; Green fell asleep on the train ride to the studio. Waking up at the station where he was to disembark, he panicked, and in his rush left the tapes behind. After that, the tapes were considered lost until March 2004, when Clash guitarist Mick Jones was moving boxes and came upon a copy of the tape.
The newly discovered Vanilla Tapes were released as a bonus disc when London Calling was remastered and re-issued as the Legacy Edition in September 2004. According to the booklet, there were 37 tracks on the tapes; only 21 were included on the CD.

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Angus MacLise - The Invasion Of Thunderbolt Pagoda

For JW... Some "inspired choices" herein.

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ALLMUSIC: Angus MacLise is best known as the original drummer of the Velvet Underground, although he dropped out of the lineup before they had made any records. His brief stint in the Velvet Underground, however, was just one stop on a lengthy career in experimental music and films that was more diverse and extensive than most realize. As a percussionist, MacLise merged the avant-garde and world music, particularly Asian music, and was a significant collaborator with avant-garde musician La Monte Young and several experimental filmmakers. The nature of his contributions has been difficult to assess in light of the scarce availability of recordings in which he participated, a situation that changed with the release of a compilation of his work, The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda, in 1999.

More on Angus

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George Harrison - Wonderwall Music

Get your poppy Anglo raga on to start a blissed out and perhaps creepy Halloween weekend. a tasty piece of work . The cover pretty much says it all. As literal as covers get other than calling your record something lame like "Peel Slowly and See" and you have a big banana on the front.

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This album was the soundtrack to the 1968 film Wonderwall, which starred Jack MacGowran, Jane Birkin, Irene Handl, and Richard Wattis. The film received it's World premiere at the Cannes film festival 17th May 1968, at which George and Ringo both attended. The director was Joe Mussot, who was a personal friend of George's, and invited him to compose the music for the film. George was shown an unfinished version of the film, and made home recordings of each theme which he used as an outline in the actual recordings. But, many were just basic outlines, and George relied on the experience of the musicians to expand and develop the themes in the studio.

All the English titles were recorded in London in December 1967, and the Indian titles were recorded in E.M.I.'s studios in Bombay between 9th and 17th January 1968 (incidentally, the same sessions produced the backing track for "The Inner Light").

The album sleeve was designed by Bob Gill, John Kelly and Alan Aldridge, with the front cover painting by Bob Gill.

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Famous L. Renfroe - Children

Tree Hugger Balustrade writes: I humbly submit to the curators of the fantastic Forest Roxxx a solemn and uplifting album that will hopefully carry us all home to victory next Tuesday. I've been listening to a lot of gospel lately, and this album is absolute gold, a true gem that I have played 50+ times in the last three months. I even bumped it loudly from the cabin of a night train to Romania, which elicited a shushing by the porter of our car. Thing is, true faith can't be shushed, so I recommend blaring some Famous L. Renfroe on our way to the promised land.

17dots: We know absolutely nothing about this album, and seemingly neither does the label. A promo of Children made its way to Joe and I, and we immediately fell madly, deeply in love. This is really raw R&B/soul from the late ’60s/early ’70s, loud and boisterous and just loose and shitty-sounding enough to really drive home how special the record is. Check noted soul aficionado Mike McGonigal’s review for yet more enthusiasm. Start with the title track, and work out from there. Seriously, this is amazing.

Euclid Records: No one seems to know much about Famous L. Renfroe's "Children", including Fat Possum--the label that's issuing it--they've even misspelled Renfroe's name on their own website. I first heard of this great lost soul/gospel album through the efforts of legendary zinester and gospel music afficianado Mike McGonigal, who even went to the trouble of contacting gospel music scholars in hopes of finding more information, and turned up...nothing.

All we have to go on is this artist's statement: "A long time ago I used to hear beautiful spiritual singers singing beautiful spiritual songs and I wanted to be a singer too. I first started my musical career by singing in small local groups in my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee. In the year 1968, I came to Seattle Washington and started singing with local groups but failed to find one that was stable enough to record so I decided to cut an album by myself. The music was written and produced by myself who except for the drum parts, done the entire record." Intrigued yet?

"Children"--apparently cut in 1969 in Memphis--features funky guitar vamps and idiosyncratic gospel quartet styled harmonies that apparently are all sung by Renfroe himself. This album is raw, mysterious and so inspired that it makes you catch the spirit whether you're so inclined or not. One of the guys on staff here mentioned to me the other day that he was so glad that he's heard this album--if he were lying on his death bed, this is what he'd want playing in the background. Not a bad way to go out. I have a feeling that "Children" will slip under almost everyone's radar this year, but make sure that you don't miss out.

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Meshuggah - obZen

Happy Helloween!

Thee very latest in Swedish Metal!!!

(Special Pumpkin for my baby brother, the Angel of Death666)

allmusic: On first listen, the sound on Obzen, Meshuggah's sixth full-length, is startling, not for its trademark rapid-fire key and tempo changes, or for the intricate, insanely knotty riffs that careened over 2002's Nothing or 2005's Catch Thirty-Three. Instead, it is the rampaging charge that leads off the set on "Combustion," a balls-out sprint that recalls the band's earlier catalog albums like Contradictions Collapse, Destroy Erase Improve, and even Chaosphere.

Power, focus and attention to the bone-crushing power are at the center of Obzen. That said, it loses nothing in terms of the band's keen focus of musical or technical innovation or drummer Tomas Haake's songwriting. What it does leave behind is some of the mathy quick-change-for-the-sake-of-it annoyances that were more a show-off of athletic prowess than actual compositional tropes.

The melodic orchestration of Catch Thirty-Three has all but disappeared, and in its place is a direct, almost machine-like sense of communication. What's most remarkable is the live drum kit work by Haake. He's constant and startling — the completely crazy bass pedal work on "Bleed" would leave most drummers in the dust. You have to wonder, since the last album featured so many triggered laptop tooled drums.

Again: power, compositional ethics, and musical acumen are all tied to one thing, building a foundation that just gets wider, deeper, and more intense as the album wears on. Check the frenetic slash and burn ethos in "Pineal Gland Optics," where both guitars stagger their rhythmic attack keeping vocalist Jens Kidman on the money the whole time. It gives way to the unwound pummeling drum and guitar solo riff that introduces "Pravus," with its sense of taut dynamics, hair-trigger tensions, and an explosiveness that is literally unequaled.

This is sheer attack metal, played by a band that has run from simplicity to excess and incorporated them both into a record that is on a level with anything else they've done, even if not all the elements marry perfectly yet.

Just get it.

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160 kbps

Misfits - Static Age

Happy Halloween!

(special request from the Dobber)

(fulfilled courtesy CZarth)

If you're gonna scream

Scream with me

Moments like this

Never last

When new creatures rape your face

Hybrids opened up the door

Ooh baby when you cry

Your face is momentary

You hide your looks

Behind these scars

In hybrid moments

Give me a moment

Give me a moment

Give me a moment

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Pussy Galore - Exile on Main Street

You heard of the legend. Now hear the legendary... or something. Another in the annals of the Pussy.

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Heron - Self-Titled

So velvety and smooth... like a large bowl of ice cream covered in butter.
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Allmusic: Heron's self-titled debut LP was mild, drumless British folk-rock with the rural/pastoral feel common to many early-'70s records in the style. That pastoral feel, in this particular case, might have been in part deliberate; the record was actually recorded in a field by the River Thames, and though the sound quality is very good, you can occasionally hear some birds and faint ambient outdoors noises. The music is very friendly, acoustic guitar-based stuff that, as improbable as the blend seems on paper, is a little like a combination of Simon & Garfunkel with the Incredible String Band, though there aren't many of the weirder elements of the latter.


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The Free Design - Stars/Time/Bubbles/Love

A free sample of street grade mid-week, death of Summer malaise-battling audible Prozac.

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Allmusic: On the Free Design's 1970 record, Stars/Time/Bubbles/Love, not much has changed with the Dedrick clan. The group's amazing vocal harmonies are still very much in evidence, the lush arrangements are still fuller than Grizzly Adams' beard, and the songs, like the cute and silly "Kije's Ouija" and the finger-snappingly groovy "Keep Off Your Frown" (which sounds like an unlikely cross between Oscar Brown, Jr. and the Zombies), are still lighthearted and fun. Most of the songs sound like they exist in the the Dedricks' own strange little world of harmony and childlike innocence; the only one that sounds influenced by the times is "I'm a Yogi," which has sitars, a mild psychedelic break, and groovy lyrics. It sounds more like Yogi Bear than the Maharishi, but then that is the charm of the Free Design. The record is filled with some of the band's best work: the bouncy, perky "Bubbles" (a song later covered by Dressy Bessy on the Powerpuff Girls soundtrack record); the sweet "Butterflies Are Free," which features the Dedrick sisters on lead vocals; the brash (for them) "That's All, People," which sounds like a lost Jimmy Webb track, with great vocal interplay among the siblings; and the strangely bossy Christmas tune "Close Your Mouth (It's Christmas)." The only track that falls short is their cover of "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head," which is the rare Free Design effort that sounds like run-of-the-mill elevator music. Pretty much any Free Design recording is going to be a treasure for fans of intelligent, witty, and above all, sophisticated sunshine pop.

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Because We Love You...

Oliver Sain - St. Louis Breakdown

How I became Familiar with: The Works of Oliver Sain. You know how it is. Some music you get from friends, some because you read the review, some because you saw the show, some because you wanted to get into their pants, etc, etc. Ah, let me count the ways.



Eight years ago and I remember it like it was tomorrow: One of these perhaps familiar scenarios involves you or me driving alone late-at-night or early-in-the-morning and hearing something new and mindblowing come wilding out of some obscure radio station, your ears agape, only to then have to wait for the DJ to come back after an eternity or so later and hopefully tell you what you heard 40 odd minutes ago, and if he doesn't -- which in all likelihood, he won't -- hope that you can find a pay phone and dial Information and get the station's phone number and get a hold of that DJ and ask him. And hope that you aren't slurring too badly to pronounce the words that you will use to inadequately describe what you heard and the approximate time at which you heard it, and why it is a matter of utmost importance that you find out who the fuck it was.

Now, Mr. DJ. Sir. Please?

FleaMarketFunk: James Brown may have been the hardest working man in showbiz, but Oliver Sain was the hardest working saxophone in St. Louis. Throw in a whistle, and sho’ nuff funky bass line, and get out on the dance floor!

Soulwalking: Oliver worked with many diverse artists, ranging from Puff Diddy to Loretta Lynn. During the 1970's he became popular on the dancefloor with hits such as 'Bus Stop', 'Booty Bumpin', 'Party Hearty' and 'Feel Like Dancing'.

Dusty Groove: A genius instrumentalist/producer from St. Louis, and the man behind more soul classics than you might imagine.

StlBlues.net: Musicians come and go, but in St. Louis the person who has been at the center of music in every capacity (and survived) with the greatest influence is Oliver Sain. As multi-instrumentalist, bandleader, arranger, songerwriter, producer and owner of recording facilities, Sain is the man.

Oliver Sain: I remember one night I spent at the front line, peeping through a hole in the side of a mountian, using a scope to watch a fire mission below. It was cold! My sergeant told me "Sain, you're not the worst soldier , but you're a long way from the best" (laughs). I didn't really care for it.

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Editor's Notes: The tracks on this compilation are culled from three Oliver Sain albums recorded between the fine years 1972 and 1975.

Main Man, Bus Stop, and Blue Max:

We apologize that one track ("Country Funk"), appears to not have survived the digital migration, and that another track ("Going Back to Memphis"), has some serious digital skipping issues. That said, there is still PLENTY to love in this hear file.

Amazon.com claims that even this relatively recent compilation is already out-of-print, although if you really really like what you hear here, then never fear, for there is a kindly thoughtful reseller out there offering a used import version for a mere $100 USD (+ shipping and handling).

Like the man said: overhear at the FORESTROXX, we offers a public service!

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Jim Sauter/Don Dietrich/Thurston Moore - Barefoot in the Head

this is not the cover of the CD I bought back in 1990, but apparently it's since been reissued. Sheesh. Seems like everything I own has been reissued at least once by now. Three cheers for the market. Three cheers for old age. Three cheers for these three gents and their sublime threeway!

Trouser Press: If you don't think of jazz as a full-contact sport, you've obviously never spent any time in a room with the music of th durable upstate New York trio, Borbetomagus. "Punishing" doesn't even begin to describe the loud, assaultive — and often earthily beautiful — sound the members coax from guitar and two saxophones, instruments that here seldom uphold their conventional identities, thanks to innovative use of tone splitting, harmonic distortion and out-and-out brute force.

Initially formed at the tail end of the '70s — concurrent with, but not actually part of, New York's no wave scene — Borbetomagus imbued its free-squealing with a vividly blue-collar style, evident in both the members' biker-ish appearance and the sheer brawn with which Don Dietrich, Donald Miller and Jim Sauter handle their various "axes."

Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore steps into — and almost fills — Miller's shoes on Barefoot in the Head (1990). Playing with percussive force, Moore sticks to underpinning "All Doors Look Alike" (which features some remarkable high-end blowing by one of the reedmen) and leans into a leering grind on "Concerning the Sun as a Cool Solid" with such glee one can actually infer some truth behind the liner-note assertion that he was begging to be "freed from the shackles of the Peggy Lee-descended dogshit" of his day job [liner notes by Thomas Pynchon].

The sound projector (at the time of the 1996 reissue): Thurston Moore proclaimed his love of atonal free jazz by aligning himself with this project (recorded in 1988) and adding his guitar to the great wall of sax erected by Jim Sauter and Donald Dietrich. The latter two are All-American Heroes of the Honk, working for years as two-thirds of the fantastic Borbetomagus, and are creators of such closely-knit and intensive free music that they have successfully cleared my house of unwanted guests many a time.

These two mad reedmen have had no difficulty in swallowing Thurston whole or wiping his electric feedback off the face of the earth with their twinned-bell attack. Forgive an indelicate image, but sometimes their mighty saxes assume the proportion of enormous phalluses, huge and fecund, making Sauter and Dietrich into pagan fertility gods like the Cerne Abbas giant. (So much for the old guitar - penis substitute nonsense - these puffers are the real men!)

Their performances here however can be spacier than on their relentless Borbetomagus records, giving some room to breath; check out the eerie ‘On the Phrase “Ass Backwards” ‘ for a spooky high-pitched drone delirium, although if it’s all-out free blowing you need, then ‘Concerning The Sun As A Cool Solid’ is the 18-minute blastoid transcedental workout for you. This is the way free jazz ought to be, unencumbered by any nonsense like drums, pianos, tunes, or boring old common sense.

Sonic Youth are nearly superstars these days, yet continue to sport their avant-garde credentials which they pick up like old clothes from Salvation Army stores. Thurston drew up a list of Top Ten Free Jazz records for Grand Royal magazine #2 recently; his choices were impeccable and he knows the scene, but another side of it was him boasting of the impossible vinyl rarities he’s managed to snag.

Still, that’s pretty uncharitable because the guy can also play free - and not just buy his way into it. Thurston acquits himself with honour on these tunes. He propels things along with chuntering guitar on ‘All Doors Look Alike’, adds patented jangly slidey noises on ‘Tanned Moon’, drapes feedback everywhere like a black velvet shroud, and there is much humour and glee in the entire event, including witty song titles like ‘The Date-Reduced Loaf’. Add a fine Max Ernst collage cover and you’ve got a near perfect package I’d say.

Wikipedia: Barefoot in the Head (1969). Perhaps Brian Aldiss's most experimental work, this first appeared in several parts as the 'Acid Head War' series in New Worlds. Set in a Europe some years after a flare-up in the Middle East led to Europe being attacked with bombs releasing huge quantities of long-lived hallucinogenic drugs. Into an England with a population barely maintaining a grip on reality comes a young Serb, who himself starts coming under the influence of the ambient aerosols, and finds himself leading a messianic crusade. The narration and dialogue reflects the shattering of language under the influence of the drugs, in mutating phrases and puns and allusions, in a deliberate echo of Finnegans Wake.

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256kpbs

Hmmm...

Listen to the record while reading the book while on hallucinogenic drugs?

Now there's a winning threesome!

Joe Henderson - Page One

My story behind this record is that in 1991, I was slumming across Europe doing the Hostel/Europass/Study Abroad (or two) schtick. I had not so much music, and was understandably elated when Curry sent me an audio care package. One cassette that became an instant favorite included a number of tracks from this here album. And I’ve loved it ever since. End of story.

AllAboutJazz: Tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson was born on April 24, 1937 in the small city of Lima, Ohio. He spent his childhood and adolescence in Lima in a family of 15 children where he was exposed to a variety of musical styles. By the time he was a high school student he was already arranging and writing music for the school band and other local outfits. It was in high school that a music teacher introduced him to the tenor saxophone.

After graduation he enrolled first at the Kentucky State College to study music and then moved on to Wayne State University in Detroit. There he had as classmates several future jazz greats such as Yusef Lateef and Donald Byrd. From 1960-1962 he enlisted in the US army where he led several small jazz groups and won first place in a musical competition and was sent on a tour to entertain the troops all over Japan and Europe where he met a few of the expatriate musicians.

After being discharged from the army he traveled to New York and sat in at Birdland with Dexter Gordon and other local musicians. During one of these sessions he was introduced to the trumpeter Kenny Dorham who was so impressed by his musicianship that he arranged for Joe Henderson’s first recording session as a leader with Blue Note Records. This resulted in the record Page One (1963) which to this day remains one of his most critically acclaimed albums. This recording also spawned the standard Blue Bossa.

CDUniverse: The title Page One is fitting for this disc as it marks the beginning of the first chapter in the long career of tenor man Joe Henderson. And what a beginning it is; no less than Kenny Dorham, McCoy Tyner, Butch Warren, and Pete La Roca join the saxophonist for a stunning set that includes "Blue Bossa" and "Recorda Me," two works that would be forever associated with Henderson. Both are bossa novas that offer a hip alternative to the easy-listening Brazilian trend that would become popular with the masses. Henderson and Dorham make an ideal pair on these and other choice cuts like the blistering "Homestretch" and the engaging swinger "Jinrikisha." These both show the already mature compositional prowess that would become Henderson's trademark throughout his legendary career. The final blues number, "Out of the Night," features powerful work by the leader that only hints of things to come in subsequent chapters.

Recorded at the Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey on June 3, 1963.

Originally released on Blue Note (84140).

About this here copy: Apart from the Curry cassette, I never owned a copy of this album until 1996, when I found it used on CD at Amoeba Records in Beserkeley, CA. An “Out of Print” sticker was affixed to the corner, which was their way of justifying the $15 purchase price. Fortunately for us all, the album was eventually remastered by Rudy Van Gelder hisself, so if you like what you get here, you can probably go out and find yourself an even better copy somewheres but below is strictly preremastered stuff...

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320kbps

The Gun Club - Fire of Love

I would be remiss in not posting this after laying that All Music review on you in the "Miami" post indicating "Fire of Love" is the cat's tits. Well, here it is grovelers.

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A snippet from Perfect Sound Forever on "Fire of Love": Jeffrey Lee Pierce - reggae enthusiast, heroin addict, and former president of the Blondie fan club - upheld the confident predictions of many by dying a lonely and fairly depressing death over four years ago, on March 31st, 1997. Pierce's Johnny Thunders-esque holdout in the face of self-wrought bodily deterioration was oddly admirable, yet in no way was the man mistaken for a hero for it. He expired of a brain hemorrhage at a relative's house in Utah, HIV-positive and sick with hepatitis after untold years of drug use, alcoholism and the usual other suspects. Why this event mattered much to anyone lay most prominently in a fantastic record his band The Gun Club recorded 16 years earlier, the masterful Fire Of Love. Listening to that record hammers home a particularly visionary and fierce moment in time when The Gun Club took the raw, dripping meat of shopworn delta blues and infused it with the energy and fire of the Los Angeles punk rock scene. I thought I'd take a stab at conveying Fire Of Love's kick-ass timelessness for those who just might be unaware.

...more of this homage hereabouts

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The Gun Club - Miami

I can't say I'm a fan of neo-classic country though I have a few comrades who made a few bucks on the genre. It just never achieved the great nexus of haunting and desperate, perhaps having more to do with its practitioners being collections of exurb exgrunge kids. I think the words 'contrived' and 'disingenuous' also apply. But that's neither here nor there or your underwear...

When I probe the classic country avec punk rock matter, Ian Curtis comes to mind as a kindred spirit to the dark Johnny Cash chakra of the broken whiskeytango aspiration. And I feel pretty fuckin comfy saying Jeffrey Lee Pierce could be the closest thing to Curtis we have in the colonies. Pierce just took a lot longer and was more methodical in his suicide. But this gets back to psychic bond of the noir and lonesome moan of classic country and the major depressive disorder of the Manchester grime which Pierce bridged. He crossed the pond between the Cash and the Curtis - a tribal chunnel if you will.

Yes there are a few throwaways here and absolutely nothing about this record says, "Miami," but you know soul when you hear it, dig?

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AllMusic.com says: The sophomore record by the Gun Club bore the curse of having to follow a monolith of their own making. Fire of Love sold extremely well for an independent; it was a favorite of virtually every critic who heard it in 1981. Miami showcased a different lineup as well. Ward Dotson replaced Congo Powers (temporarily, at least) on guitar, and there were a ton of guest performances, including Debbie Harry and Chris Stein. Stein produced the album.

Going for a rougher sound, Stein left the instruments at one level and boosted Pierce's vocal. There is plenty of guitar here, screaming and moping like a drunken orphan from the Texas flatlands, but next to its predecessor it sounds drier and reedier. Ultimately it hardly matters. Going for a higher, more desolate sound, frontman and slide player Jeffrey Lee Pierce and his band were literally on fire. The songs here, from "Carry Me," "Like Calling Up Thunder," "Devil in the Woods," "Watermelon Man," "Bad Indian," and "Texas Serenade," among others, centered themselves on a mutant form of country music that met the post-punk ethos in the desert, fought and bloodied each other, and decided to stay together. This is hardcore snake-charming music (as in water moccasins not cobras), evil, smoky, brash, and libidinally uttered.

Their spooky version of an already creepy tune by Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Run Through the Jungle" runs the gamut from sexual nightmare to voodoo ritual gone awry. Finally, Pierce and company pull out all the roots and reveal them for what they are: "John Hardy," is a squalling punk-blues, with the heart of the country in cardiac arrest. Dotson proved to be a fine replacement for Congo Powers, in that his style was pure Telecaster country (à la James Burton) revved by the Rolling Stones and Johnny Thunders. Miami was given a rough go when it was issued for its production. But in the bird's-eye view of history its songs stack up, track for track, with Fire of Love and continue to echo well into this long good night.

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R.E.M. - Murmur

I think I've mentioned more than once here my tendency to only adopt one album from a band and never sway... only to be inundate by those who feel the compulsion to foist another effort from a group's repertoire on your pasty, overweight narrator.

Admittedly, I was wrong about Alice Cooper. There was more to him than "Love It To Death." But I must say that those who feel like they must open my world to the complete fruits of an artist's labor when I am perfectly content with just the apple or the orange do not understand the frailty of me and how desperately I cling to small instances of the exceptional. There are those, like me, who choose to cherish the relative perfection of a fully-realized fruity vision as a snapshot into the soul of the artist at an especially pure moment. And an aversion to all else that follows or came before is truly the only means I have to avoid letting this worship of this isolated, crystal moment become corrupted by the soullessness of history!

So, with no further adieu, I introduce to you the only R.E.M. record I will ever listen to, Murmur.

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Rolling Stone said at the time: Murmur is a darker record than Chronic Town, but this band's darkness is shot through with flashes of bright light. Vocalist Michael Stipe's nasal snarl, Mike Mills' rumbling bass and Bill Berry's often sharp, slashing drums cast a cloudy, postpunk aura that is lightened by Peter Buck's folk-flavored guitar playing. Many of the songs have vague, ominous settings, a trait that's becoming an R.E.M. trademark. But not only is there a sense of detachment on the record – these guys, as one song title says, "Talk about the Passion" more often than they experience it – but the tunes relentlessly resist easy scanning. There's no lyric sheet, Stipe slurs his lines, and they even pick a typeface that's hard to read. But beyond that elusiveness is a restless, nervous record full of false starts and images of movement, pilgrimage, transit.

In the end, though, what they're saying is less fascinating than how they say it, and Murmur's indelible appeal results from its less elusive charms: the alternately anthemic and elegiac choruses of such stubbornly rousing tunes as "Laughing" and "Sitting Still"; instrumental touches as apt as the stately, elegant piano in the ballad "Perfect Circle" and the shimmering folkish guitar in "Shaking Through"; above all, an original sound placed in the service of songs that matter. R.E.M. is clearly the important Athens band.

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Ut - In Gut's House

sigh. another freshman year college buy. always liked this record. something about it I could never shake, let alone put my finger on.

dusted: With all the relatively recent attention heaped on every shade and color of New York’s famed late 1970s No Wave scene, it’s strange that few saw fit to resurrect the work of Ut.

A trio of women borne out of multi-instrumentalist Nina Canal’s post Dark Days work (a band she shared with DNA member Robin Crutchfield) Ut’s music served as an American analogue to the intoxicatingly discordant clamor that European icons like the Slits, the Au Pairs, and Kleenex/Liliput concocted on the other side of the Atlantic. Faced with indifference at home in Gotham City, Canal and her bandmates Jacqui Ham and Sally Young ditched the states for England, subsequently releasing a couple of great but generally ignored records on the mighty Blast First imprint before calling it a day in the late 1980s.

In Gut’s House first appeared in 1988, at a time when the trade winds had distinctly shifted away from post-punk’s rhythmic dissonance. Swapping instruments with reckless abandon, here the band uses a mix of guitars, bass, violin, and drums to affect a deliriously bent form of aggression. Using percussion as a counterpoint instead of a rhythmic lead, the band lurches and stutters, with members taking turns on each successive instrument.

The sounds here come in crescendo’d spurts, with the strings of tracks like “Evangelist” and “Swallow” alternating between pure evisceration and gentle leads, providing a suitable vehicle for Ham’s harrowing vocal stabs and Canal’s almost intuitive drum work. “Homebled” and “Shut Fog,” on the other hand, find Canal and Ham trading off screeching violin lines against guitars that wouldn’t sound out of place on early Sonny Sharrock or James Blood Ulmer records.

[...]

Theirs was a music that always explored the darker implications of No Wave textures, never once ceding to the hooks or ham-fisted funk that invalidated the later work of many of their contemporaries. Ut never made a real attempt to engage with larger music structures and scenes in which they found themselves, and while this dedication to a decidedly inward aesthetic has subsequently marked their recordings as uniquely original, it has also unfortunately meant that they sound out of place when stacked against many of the bands that existed around the time they did.

Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing – the records these three coughed up during their run sound tied to neither date nor place, evidencing three musicians with a singular vision that could never easily be pinned. At the same time, however, it throws into sharp relief the reasons why they have been largely forgotten.

As a band that couldn’t easily be pigeonholed, Ut suffered the fate of general indifference. A shame, that is – this record sounds even more invigorating today when compared against a sea of No Wave fakes whose only desire so far has been to replicate a long-lost zeitgeist they never fully understood.


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The Pretenders - Pretenders

Just because it needs to be here! I know you all own this already, but every eighteen months or so I'm enamored of it once again, as a beautiful example of wonderful melodic beat-driven poprock. And so I pull it out and play it through. Not a dull moment to be found.

This album simply shimmers.

allmusic: Few rock & roll records rock as hard or with as much originality as the Pretenders' eponymous debut album. A sleek, stylish fusion of Stonesy rock & roll, new wave pop, and pure punk aggression, Pretenders is teeming with sharp hooks and a viciously cool attitude. Although Chrissie Hynde establishes herself as a forceful and distinctively feminine songwriter, the record isn't a singer/songwriter's tour de force — it's a rock & roll album, powered by a unique and aggressive band. Guitarist James Honeyman-Scott never plays conventional riffs or leads, and his phased, treated guitar gives new dimension to the pounding rhythms of "Precious," "Tattooed Love Boys," "Up the Neck," and "The Wait," as well as the more measured pop of "Kid," "Brass in Pocket," and "Mystery Achievement." He provides the perfect backing for Hynde and her tough, sexy swagger. Hynde doesn't fit into any conventional female rock stereotype, and neither do her songs, alternately displaying a steely exterior or a disarming emotional vulnerability. It's a deep, rewarding record, whose primary virtue is its sheer energy. Pretenders moves faster and harder than most rock records, delivering an endless series of melodies, hooks, and infectious rhythms in its 12 songs. Few albums, let alone debuts, are ever this astonishingly addictive.

This 256kbps digital rip of my original vinyl courtesy Processed at JVPC labs sounds crackling good!


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A Very Special Treat From Your ForestRoxx

Alice Coltrane - Ptah, The El Daoud

Really expansive, victorious and durn lovely with just an all star band.
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This was Coltrane's first album with horns (aside from one track on A Monastic Trio (1968), on which Pharoah Sanders had played bass clarinet). Sanders is recorded on the right channel and Joe Henderson on the left channel throughout.

All the compositions were written by Coltrane. The title track is named for the Egyptian god Ptah, "the El Daoud" meaning "the beloved". "Turiya", according to the liner notes, "was defined by Alice as 'a state of consciousness — the high state of Nirvana, the goal of human life", while "Ramakrishna" is named after the 19th-century Bengali religious figure; this track omits the horns. The origin of the title of "Blue Nile" is self-explanatory, Coltrane switches from piano to harp, and Sanders and Henderson from tenor saxophones to alto flutes. "Mantra" returns to piano and saxes.

Alice Coltrane — harp, piano
Joe Henderson — alto flute, tenor saxophone
Pharoah Sanders — alto flute, tenor saxophone, bells
Ron Carter — bass
Ben Riley — drums


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The Pretty Things - S. F. Sorrow

Instant Psychedelic Thursday! The first concept album?

"Recorded at Abbey Road, at the height of British psychedelia."

Now there's a thought.

Headheritage.com: The history of rock is littered with lost masterpieces and opportunities missed, but few seem to have been as cursed as "SF Sorrow." You would think that an album recorded at Abbey Road, at the height of British psychedelia, featuring Norman Smith in the producer’s seat, could do no wrong. After all, Smith had worked on Sgt. Pepper and produced Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Unfortunately, line-up problems and label problems delayed and buried the project.

It should be remembered as a classic, however. Smith and the band went to great lengths experimenting in the studio, layering overdubs of odd instruments at odd speeds. What makes this all so much more than the "kids in the candy store" overkill so endemic to the era is the subtlety with which the effects are handled and the fact that the songwriting is first rate. The album was conceived as a rock opera, and inspired Pete Townshend (unfortunately!) to write Tommy. Luckily, the songs are songs first, and the opera concept merely unites the album.
[...]
The album had everything going for it, and like The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society and The Zombies’ Odessey and Oracle somehow missed out on canonisation. The sound represents the apex of British style psych, and the songwriting is on a par with the best bands of the time. There’s more to discover with each listen and each discovery is rewarding.



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Phantom Tollbooth - Power Toy

Oh this is a sweet one that I haven't come back to in suchasucha long time. I hope it's not mad at me. I deserve it. Consummate musicians and oddballs. The revisionists call it jazzcore but that's just stupid. Just bloody STUPID! This band, quite frankly, shares my worldview. I am overjoyed to have this band, which is a real reformer, on my blog.

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Trouser Press says this... Some of those prone to facile analogies have compared this latter-day power trio led by guitarist Dave Rick (an early member of Yo La Tengo and a frequent participant in Bongwater and B.A.L.L. before joining King Missile fulltime in 1990) to Hüsker Dü and the Minutemen, but New York's Phantom Tollbooth was more like a thrash-inflected version of Fred Frith's Massacre than anything else. (In all fairness, the inclusion of an original song entitled "Flip Your Wig" on Phantom Tollbooth didn't help matters.) Various art-rock influences — quick tempo shifts, the occasional jazzy swing and the use of noise as a genuine musical element (rather than a cheap way to telegraph rage or intensity) — gave these guys away.

That said, it must be added that Tollbooth's addition of vocals to its heady and complex clamor wasn't always the greatest thing for the music. One-Way Conversation and Power Toy (which has a pretty funny version of Heart's "Barracuda" and two bonus tracks on CD) contain the band's best, most focused work, a striking synthesis of the art-rock that so clearly influenced its song structures and the frenzied attack of hardcore.

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The Chills - Kaleidoscope World & Brave Words

Some serious, sublime, stripped down, reaffirming straight up pop music. This always falls in the "makes ya feel good" category. Maybe because it is what it is - some folks and basic intrumentation doing good, solid, well-written, well-arranged songs. Piece of friggin' cake. It's like when chefs eat they like really basic, well-prepared items: a good steak au'poivre, a stiff red, solid bread. Not that I'm a chef but when you get in nadsdeep with the free jazz, avante shit and the brain scrambling Pacific Rim noizzze it's nice to sit down to with a hearty pop number.

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Allmusic: The Chills were one of New Zealand's best and most popular bands of the '80s, making a small but consistent series of chiming, hook-laden guitar pop. Both the songs and the arrangements were constructed with interweaving guitar hooks and vocal harmonies, creating a pretty, almost lush, sound that never fell into cloying sentimentality. Throughout their existence, the band's personnel changed frequently — there were more than ten different lineups — with the only constant member being guitarist Martin Phillipps, the band's founder.

Phillipps began playing music with the New Zealand punk band the Same in 1978. Following in the footsteps of the Clean and the Enemy, the Same played mostly covers, creating a raw fusion of British Invasion and garage rock. However, the group never recorded. Phillipps applied the same approach for the Chills, the band he formed in 1980 with his sister Rachel and Jane Dodd (bass) after the Same fell apart.

In 1982, the Chills signed with Flying Nun, the influential New Zealand independent record label, and released several singles that were never widely distributed in America and Europe. During this time, the group went through an enormous amount of members: future-Great Unwashed bassist Peter Gutteridge, the Clean's David Kilgour, keyboardist Faser Batts, bassist Terry Moore, guitarist Martin Kean, keyboardist Peter Allison, drummer Martyn Bull, and drummer Alan Haig. While these incarnations of the Chills recorded plenty of singles, they never made an album. Released on the U.K. record label Creation, the group's first album, Kaleidoscope World (1986), was a collection of their early singles; it was later released in the U.S. on Homestead.

With the lineup of Phillipps, bassist Justin Harwood, keyboardist Andrew Todd, and drummer Caroline Easther — the group's tenth lineup — the Chills recorded their first proper album, Brave Worlds, in 1987. Produced by Mayo Thompson, the leading figure of the cult band the Red Crayola and a former member of Pere Ubu, the band wasn't satisfied with the final result, claiming it was too loose and under-produced. The group, particularly Phillipps, was more satisfied with their second full-length album, 1990's Submarine Bells, their first record released on an American major label. Submarine Bells was recorded with yet another version of the band, with Jimmy Stephenson replacing Easther, who was suffering from tinnitus. The album was well received by critics and college radio, yet it failed to break the band into the mainstream in either America or Britain. Two years later, they released Soft Bomb, which suffered the same fate as Submarine Bells. The following year, Martin Phillipps broke up the Chills again, yet the group reconvened in 1996 to release Sunburnt.

Hear Kaleidoscope

Hear Brave

Steven Jesse Bernstein - Prison

My story behind this record revolves around Curry, Cozy, and myself hunkered down with a shitload of shrooms and a tureen of chili in Cozy's Marquette college garden apartment digs situated mere blocks from the madness of Jeffrey Dahmer in downtown Milwaukee circa 1992. Set and Setting indeed. It was a most memorable evening, and it got off the ground with this here record. Truly a remarkable, one-of-a-kind piece of work. And singular acheivement of post-mortem colloboration by which all others should be judged.





allmusic bio: The late Steven Jesse Bernstein was a Seattle performance poet who produced material full of alienation, decadence and despair. He was a clear inheritor of a visceral poetic tradition handed down from such forebears as William S. Burroughs and Charles Bukowski, and much of Bernstein's work drew upon his nightmarish experiences as a drug addict. In 1991, at the age of 40, Bernstein, who suffered from manic depression and had recently relapsed into alcoholism, committed suicide. He had been married three times and was survived by three children. At the time of his death, he had embarked upon a recording project that matched his readings with music by Steve Fisk, who is known for his samples and tape manipulations and for his work with such Northwestern groups as Nirvana, Soungarden and Beat Happening. The album the two men were working on, Prison, was released after Bernstein's death, in 1992. The effort featured Bernstein's tortured muse underpinned and augmented by all sorts of concrete sounds, beats and grooves. As very little of the album had been completed upon Bernstein's death, the album is very much a result of Fisk's vision.





allmusic review: Something of a legend in Seattle circles, both for his material and his suicide three years before a more notorious self-killing by a former labelmate, Bernstein's posthumously assembled record can actually be considered a collaboration between himself and Northwest music figure Steve Fisk. Fisk had only completed musical accompaniment for one full track before Bernstein's death, but had already won approval from the spoken word artist to continue with the rest. The end result is stunning and unnervingly appealing, arguably superior to the similar, higher profile collaboration between Bill Laswell and William Burroughs (the latter of whom Bernstein admired deeply; a photo of the two appears in the album artwork). Fisk's varying arrangements match Bernstein's drawling, quietly threatening tales perfectly, alternately sprightly and disturbing as his readings continue. Even the most relative ambient backings, such as the low rumblings and keyboards on "More Noise Please," have an undertone of unease. Given Bernstein's lack of input in the arrangements, things should feel more stilted than they are, but Fisk never forces the rhythm to Bernstein's readings. Sometimes things take a jazzier tip, thus the opening "No No Man (Part One)" and "This Clouded Heart." More often Fisk conjures up dark, threatening funk/hip-hop not that far from what Tricky would eventually be famous for. "Morning in the Sub-Basement of Hell" is particularly fierce, Bernstein describing a thoroughly scuzzy domestic situation in such detail that Charles Bukowski would appreciate while the beats and bass charge on. At points Fisk treats Bernstein's vocals with echo or distortion for effect, but most often he lets the speaker's voice through clearly, his often violent images cutting straight through to the listener even as the music might be getting the listener moving. The most chilling moments come on "Face" — Fisk introduces only very subtle elements as Bernstein pitilessly details a humiliating, horrifying series of childhood incidents.

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Bow Wow Wow - I Want Candy

This nostalgic artifact goes back to when your humble author was cassette only ...somewhere in the adolescence of the Reagan era when I first tasted sweet Mary Jane, Cali culture and the broadening of the first-tier burb horizon... Indulge my memory, SVP. Additionally, their riff on Manet's Le déjeuner sur l'herbe (above) is damn clever. McClaren, maybe?

Allmusic: For many in America, "I Want Candy" was their first introduction to young Annabella Lwin and the band Bow Wow Wow. The song, a cover of a Strangeloves hit, barely scraped the Top 50, but became an enduring new wave classic. The song gave its name to the band's 1982 release, which was mainly a compilation, but included a couple new cuts produced by Kenny Laguna (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts). The Laguna-produced tracks find Lwin sounding more self-assured and slightly less frantic in her vocal delivery. "Louis Quatorze," with its theme of falling for the bad boy, has an instantly catchy chorus that is matched by the stuck-in-your-brain "Baby, Oh No." Of course, no Bow Wow Wow album would be complete without the obligatory come-hither insinuations from Lwin, which appear on "Cowboy." With solid new songs, some of the better old ones, and the hit that made them one-hit wonders, I Want Candy is an enjoyable romp that doesn't overstay its welcome.

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Pussy Galore - Pussy Gold 5000

A little more pussy for you... My first pussy and likely my favorite pussy despite the fanfare for others. Your first is usually your fave, they say.

Trouser Press sez: The aesthetic dilemma presented by intentionally offensive and/or consciously anti-musical groups is probably best settled by a critical rumble in the alley. There's certainly no rational way to discuss the potential merits of a record like this Washington, DC aim-to-offend quartet's four-song 7-inch debut (Feel Good About Your Body) or the eight-song 12-inch Groovy Hate Fuck, a raucous one-take no-rehearsal guitar-army tossoff. Setting the question of their atrocious non-musicianship aside, self-consciously puerile compositions like "Teen Pussy Power," "Cunt Tease" and "Dead Meat" are nothing more than smears of self-satisfied juvenilia. You're supposed to be repulsed by Pussy Galore, but that certainly doesn't make this pathetic effluvia worth hearing. Cheap thrills for vulgar sissies.

Relocating to New York and adding a fifth member, Jon Spencer and his crew issued two limited-edition cassettes at the end of 1986: an infamous home-brew version of Exile on Main St (in its entirety) and a live set called 1 Yr. Live.

With ex-Sonic Youth drummer-turned-metal-pounder Bob Bert in the lineup along with stalwarts Julia Cafritz (guitar, vocals), Neil Hagerty (guitar, vocals, organ) and Cristina (Martinez; guitar, organ), the five-song Pussy Gold 5000 12-inch displays improved — not good, but better — playing and sound. On the studio tracks, that is. The live "No Count" is as wretched as ever. It's still trash, but not quite as rank as before.

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Chris Bell - I Am The Cosmos

Back to our Ardent affection...

Take a stab at the title track and you've had heartwrenching defined for you in textbook fashion. Now add into the recipe the fact that Bell died tragically, struggled with his sexual identity and this heart-wrenching piece of work darn near hits 'insurmountable.'

More on Bell from Crawdaddy

He wasn’t John Lennon—the world could only handle one of those, and even then it had to cut his life tragically short—but Chris Bell was a complex and talented artist who occasionally mustered the strength to roll over and look up to the cosmos even when laying in the gutter. Luckily for those who care to listen, he even wrote some songs while he was down there.

(Broken into 2 parts for your pleasure)

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Hear 2

Sun Ra - Out There A Minute

Free Association! Sunday. Sun Ra. Fundamentals. ABCs...
My Very First Ra record. Released on Blast First in 1989, "this compact disc comprises Sun Ra's personal selection of rare Arkestra recordings from the late 1960's, made in and around 42nd Street, New York City, Planet Earth." This was the first step in a subsequently lifelong and very fulfilling relationship with this here visionary, which may account for the high esteem in which I hold it. Then again, it could be that it's just really really good.

allmusicguide: The 13 selections on this CD by a small group taken from Sun Ra's Arkestra are generally both explorative and introspective. The combo includes tenor-saxophonist John Gilmore, altoist Marhsall Allen, baritonist Pat Patrick, an occasional trumpeter and trombonist (the personnel is not listed), Ra's organ, piano and primitive electric keyboards plus a bassist, drummer and some percussionists. The performances are mostly short sketches that set spacey moods and then fade out; Ra's piano sounds surprisingly like Thelonious Monk in spots.

The odd echo devices and spooky keyboards give this eccentric music much atmosphere. The violent ensemble number "Other Worlds" and the lengthy "Next Stop Mars" are changes of pace (sounding like the 1966 John Coltrane Quintet) while many of the other pieces would work well as soundtracks to a science fiction movie [<-- cheap dismissive reference. Q: why do people always go after science fiction when they want to make a dig? A: because it's easy to beat up on the favorite genre of people who get beat up on].

Although not essential [I beg to respectfully disagree with the arrogance of that opinion], these futuristic sounds from the past hold one's interest [i.e., this reviewer closes his analysis by hedging his bets with grudging acknowledgment that this may very well indeed be some captivating, mesmerizing, and forward-thinking shit that was way outside of it's time].


I'm obviously all red-font-befuddled by the apparent ambivalence of this reviewer. Are we listening to the same record? Messrs. Monk and Coltrane get name-checked, yet it still gets a lukewarm assessment. Sheeeesh! Simply check out "Dark Clouds With Silver Linings" -- that track alone should be enough to secure this collection godhead status.


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The Soul Stirrers (featuring R.H. Harris) - Shine On Me

A little Sunday spiritualized to melt the frost off your pumpkin.

Allmusic: Indisputably among the premier gospel groups of the modern era, the Soul Stirrers pioneered the contemporary quartet sound. Pushing the music away from the traditional repertoire of jubilees and spirituals towards the visceral, deeply emotional hard gospel style so popular among postwar listeners, the group's innovative arrangements — they were the first quartet to add a second lead — and sexually charged presence irrevocably blurred the lines between religious and secular music while becoming a seminal influence on the development of rock & roll and soul, most notably by virtue of their connection to the legendary Sam Cooke. The Soul Stirrers' origins date back to 1926, where in the town of Trinity, TX, baritone Senior Roy Crain formed a quartet with a number of other teens with whom he attended church. After one of the group's early appearances, a member of the audience approached Crain to tell him how their performance had "stirred his soul," and from this chance compliment the Soul Stirrers were officially born.

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