American Hardcore - The History Of American Punk Rock 1980-1986

When the Steven Blush book came out I jumped all over it, devoured it and loved it. I foisted it on friends and spread the love like mayo. This was my high school soundtrack (tho a little heavier on the SST and Twin/Tone). I proudly sported combat boots and the bars on backpacks for years until, as Barlow said, "...started smoking pot - things sounded better slow."


This is the music that connected me to something bigger - mostly it expanded my political worldview, a worldview rooted in frustration, anger, misunderstanding and contempt for affluence and its arrogance. Quickly the HC scene became misogynist, fascist/racist, laden with a jock mentality and had outlived its purpose and, almost appropriately, the genre's key practitioners transitioned into metal or glam.

But this is exciting stuff. Nothing like it had been heard before. Makes me happy. Sadly, the documentary based on the book was cold, overly-regimented, overemphasized a lot of the mindless, musclehead Upper East Coast hardcore thuggery and had very little narrative arch. So, in summation, skip the flick, grab the book and sit down with this compilation for a taster's choice of white, Reagan-era male teenage aggression.

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Track Listing:

01 NERVOUS BREAKDOWN - Black Flag
02 OUT OF VOGUE - Middle Class
03 PAY TO CUM - Bad Brains
04 FUCKED UP RONNIE - D.O.A.
05 RED TAPE - Circle Jerks
06 FILLER - Minor Threat
07 I REMEMBER - MDC
08 NIC FIT - Untouchables
09 KILL A COMMIE - Gang Green
10 BOSTON NOT L.A. - The Freeze
11 STRAIGHT JACKET - Jerry’s Kids
12 BOILING POINT - SS Decontrol
13 WHO ARE YOU?/TIME TO DIE - Void
14 CAME WITHOUT WARNING - Scream
15 FRIEND OR FOE (1983 Demo) - Negative Approach
16 BAD ATTITUDE - Articles Of Faith
17 THINK FOR ME - Die Kreuzen
18 MY MINDS DISEASED - Batallion Of Saints
19 HATE SPORTS - 7 Seconds
20 BRICKWALL - Big Boys
21 I WAS A TEENAGE FUCK UP - Really Red
22 HATE CHILDREN (1980 Demo) - Adolescents
23 ENEMY FOR LIFE - YDI
24 RUNNIN’ AROUND - D.R.I.
25 DON’T TREAD ON ME (1982 Demo) - Cro-Mags
26 HA HA HA - Flipper

HEAR

John Coltrane - Ascension

I feel like if I don't listen to this once a month I start to dry up a little bit, become less open.

One of my favorite records of all time. Kinda mystified why I haven't brought it to the table before.

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Allmusic: Ascension is the single recording that placed John Coltrane firmly into the avant-garde. Whereas, prior to 1965, Coltrane could be heard playing in an avant vein with stretched out solos, atonality, and a seemingly free design to the beat, Ascension throws most rules right out the window with complete freedom from the groove and strikingly abrasive sheets of horn interplay. Recorded with three tenors (Trane, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp), two altos (Marion Brown, John Tchicai), two trumpet players (Freddie Hubbard, Dewey Johnson), two bassists (Art Davis, Jimmy Garrison), the lone McCoy Tyner on piano, and Elvin Jones on the drums, this large group is both relentless and soulful simultaneously. While there are segments where the ensemble plays discordant and abrasive skronks, these are usually segues into intriguing blues-based solos from each member. The comparison that is immediately realized is Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz of five years previous. However, it should be known that Ascension certainly carries it own weight, and in a strange sense makes Coleman's foray a passive adventure -- mostly due to an updated sonic quality (à la Bob Thiele) and also Trane's greater sense of passionate spiritualism. Timed at around forty minutes, this can be a difficult listen at first, but with a patient ear and an appreciation for the finer things in life, the reward is a greater understanding of the personal path that the artist was on at that particular time in his development. Coltrane was always on an unceasing mission for personal expansion through the mouthpiece of his horn, but by the time of this recording he had begun to reach the level of "elder statesman" and began to find other voices (Shepp, Sanders, and Marion Brown) to propel and expand his sounds and emotions. Therefore, Ascension reflects more of an event rather than just a jazz record and should be sought out by either experienced jazz appreciators or other open minded listeners, but not by unsuspecting bystanders.


HEAR

Woody Guthrie - Songs To Grow On For Mother And Child

The week drives this tasty selection.

One of the last recordings Guthrie made, this collection of children's songs is magical. It is not patronizing or stupid or disingenuous. It gets into a child's mind and speaks in their voice, to them. It should be put on repeat in every nursery. Sounds and noises and silliness abound, and yet there is something more...

It prepares young minds for the magic of Callahans and Beams and Bonnie Princes that will come later.

I found it when our boy was born and the song Goodnight Little Arlo rang through our home. I offer it for the Gretas and the Dres, but mostly for the new and quiet little eskimo we call Greer. Your daddy surely loves you.

Hear

David Axelrod - Song of Innocence

Good lord it's been a weird week at the FROXX estates. Birth, sickness, surgery, fatigue, rock stardom. A veritable cornucopia of all that which makes a well-rounded human experience.


I like the homage (and the frommage!). This David Axelrod effort goes out to Arlopop who welcomed a new womanchild to the clan this week; to Baywatch who melted faces on stage with his nifty rock outfit; to noodlehansy who suffered the slings n arrows of a baby's monsterheadcold; to me and oobleoptica who spent too much time inside the ill walls of medical facilities with our loves.


Ah, the motherfather circle of life. Let this play as the exit music for a harrowing week all my fellow thrivers & survivers.

Vida!

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Allmusic.com: Producer, arranger, and engineer David Axelrod made his mark with Cannonball Adderley, Lou Rawls, and the Electric Prunes. He created recording dates -- both live and in the studio -- with crisp innovative production, forward-looking arrangements, and killer sound effects (the Prunes' weird "Mass in F Minor" is a case in point). No one, however, expected him to make his own records. Nonetheless, in 1968 his first concept work was issued under the EMI imprint. His inspiration was Songs of Innocence, English poet William Blake's watershed collection of poems; Axelrod set seven of them to music using a bevy of studio musicians and a lot of clout at the label. Using a rock orchestra, Axelrod created a suite that blended pop, rock, jazz, theater music, and R&B that has withstood the test of time, and has been revisited and sampled by electronica pioneers such as DJ Shadow and DJ Cam. Perhaps the best known tune of this mystical mixture is the jazzed out, slow groove of "Holy Thursday," with its bluesy bop piano lines and huger than huge string section playing a vamp from a Count Basie tune. Meanwhile, the rhythm section floats a steady, swinging rhythm to the guitars and brass who answer with dramatic harmonics centered around a complex yet elegant melodic, and the guitar itself screams overhead. It's a jazz boogaloo with classical overtones. And yes, it, and the rest of the album, sound as if it would be excessive and awful. This was visionary work in 1968, and, to commit heresy, withstands the test of time better than the Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album that allegedly inspired it. Axelrod's psychedelia is implied; its compositional form and feeling that drive him to celebrate the wildness and folly of youth with celebration and verve. And as a result, the music here sounds fresh, free of cynicism and hipper-than-thou posturing, remaining new each time it is heard. Song of Innocence made critics turn their heads in its day, regarding it as a visionary curiosity piece; today it's simply a great, timeless work of pop art that continues to inspire over three decades after its initial release.


HEAR

Faust - Faust

While we're freaking out and getting out there with the jams, I might as well throw one of my top five Krautrock records at you (Faust has a few others in that five).


This is a big/beautiful/brilliant record. More collage that pop... more art, than rock... more feeling than technique. It's everything music should be when you boil it down: Weird, primal, and noting a shared language among a collected few.


Invite this LP over for a slumber party.

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Trouserpress: First active in the early '70s, Germany's Faust played a mix of jazz, folk, minimalism, rock, noise, pop and modern classical that refused to be defined. In doing so, its music managed to become allied with a number of ground- breaking styles. Industrial noisemakers trace their roots back to Faust as one of the first groups to approach rock as electronic studio music. Faust's eclectic psychedelia also pigeonholed them as one of the most internationally influential (especially on the noise and industrial generation, starting with Cabaret Voltaire) of the early- '70s German progressive-rock experimenters. Faust's first album appeared the same year as Kraftwerk's, but the group disbanded two years later without ever enjoying much commercial success (or even international exposure) and has thus become fairly obscure, although its work has been kept in print via reissues.

Released as a dramatic picture disc — an X-ray of a hand embedded in clear vinyl and packaged in a transparent sleeve — Faust consists of three long, post- psychedelic jams, each composed of a couple of ideas loosely strung together. The group uses droning fuzz guitar, primitive electronics, silences, piano tinklings, warbled vocals, cabaret accents, tape manipulation and probably at least one kitchen sink. The way Faust throws these elements together suggests dada music for the electronic age.

HEAR

Les Mogol (Moğollar) - Dances and Rhythms of Turkey of Yesterday and Today

Scored this from Spacerockmountain and have been head over heels/head up ass in love with it. Stripped down, simple stoned grooves, a little like Sun Ra circa "Out There a Minute" with old school Turk instruments. Sorta like ragas thru a psychepop filter. Gotta listen. Very easy to fold yourself into, like the first Residents record. And snap! there's funk?

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Allmusic bio: True pioneers of Turkish pop music, Mogollar take their name from one of the largest empires in history, the Mongol Empire. As this empire was feared by many, Mogollar were seen as heroes to free Turkish pop music from the enslavement of Western patterns. Founders of Anadolu pop, which would lead to a whole new genre and hundreds of bands, they achieved far more than originally expected, and what many musicians couldn't have even dreamed of. Mogollar are actually a combination of two bands, Siluetler and Selcuk Alagöz Orchestra. Hasan Sel (bass), Engin Yorukoglu (drums), and Cahit Berkay (guitars) from Selcuk Alagöz Orchestra joined forces with Aziz Ahmet (vocals) and Murat Ses (keyboard) from Siluetler in 1967. The band's first single, "Eastern Love," was released in February of 1968, while Mogollar's breakthrough came during the summer of the same year when they achieved a third-place position in the Golden Mic music contest with the song "Ilgaz."


With a hippie and reformist attitude (protesting war and colonization), Mogollar first interjected psychedelic elements into their hard-rocking beat music. In their early live performances, violins, cello, and trumpet accompanied the standard guitar-bass-drums lineup. While they were building up a large fan base, their first Anatolian tour changed their lives -- as well as the future of Turkish rock music -- forever. While touring cities in eastern Turkey, members of Mogollar realized that in order to benefit from folk music they had to utilize traditional instruments like baglama, zurna, yayli tambur, and tulum, in effect creating what would come to be known as Anadolu pop. Attempting to combine the dynamism of Turkish folk music with that of Western-oriented pop, they knew they had to write songs in the Anadolu pop style, and "Dag ve Cocuk" was the first ever such pop song to be recorded.


When they were at the top of their league, singer Aziz Ahmet left the band. After a short period with vocalist Ersen Dinleten (later to become the lead singer of Ersen ve Dadaslar), the band moved to Paris without a singer in 1970. Finding the phone numbers of record companies from a telephone index in a cafe, they managed to persuade CBS to provide them a three-year contract. In 1971, Mogollar recorded their first album, titled Les Mogol, as they were known in France. The completely instrumental Danses et Rythmes de la Turquie -- d'Hier d'Aujourd'hui was a compilation of Mogollar versions of traditional Turkish folk tunes, and it was instantly showered with positive reviews -- some even named them the Pink Floyd of Turkey -- and it was even awarded the Grand Prix du Disque by the Charles Cros Academie in Paris.


In 1971, Baris Manco, who met the band in Paris, joined Mogollar. The two parts seemed to fit so perfectly that they even changed their name to Manchomongol. However, the union lasted only a few months. From then on, Mogollar was always on the brink of falling apart, working with many singers and having a lot of lineup changes. Among the singers they've worked with, Cem Karaca was probably the most significant, and the single Karaca and Mogollar recorded together, "Namus Belasi," is a landmark song in Turkish popular music history. Between 1974 and 1976, only Cahit Berkay and Engin Yorukoglu remained from the band's initial lineup. Mogollar recorded two more albums, Ensemble d'Cappadocia and Hitit Sun, the latter being the more popular of the two. These more jazzy recordings were also the signs of a search for new musical directions. Not long after, in 1976, Mogollar disbanded.


HEAR

John Zorn - The Big Gundown & Spillane

Oh, so that's the way you all want to play today.

Two masterpieces by Mr. Zorn.

The usual suspects appear. The bloodshed is massive. This stuff is nuts. You will be deliriously pleased.

"I feel like I just smoked a pack of cigarettes and forgot to blow out the smoke."

allmusic on The Big Gundown

On this intriguing concept album, altoist John Zorn (who also "sings" and plays harpsichord, game calls, piano, and musical saw) utilizes an odd assortment of open-minded avant-garde players (with a couple of ringers) on nine themes originally written for Italian films by Ennio Morricone, plus his own "Tre Nel 5000." These often-radical interpretations (which Morricone endorsed) keep the melodies in mind while getting very adventurous. Among the musicians heard on the colorful and very eccentric set (which utilizes different personnel and instrumentation on each track) are guitarists Bill Frisell and Vernon Reid, percussionist Bobby Previte, keyboardist Anthony Coleman, altoist Tim Berne, pianist Wayne Horvitz, organist Big John Patton, and even Toots Thielemans on harmonica and whistling among many others. There are certainly no dull moments on this often-riotous program.

allmusic on Spillane

Using his "file card" technique to create the title piece "Spillane" (whereby musical ideas written on note cards form the basis for discreet sound blocks arranged by way of a unifying theme), John Zorn forges an impressionistic narrative out of stretches of live-music jazz, blues, country, lounge, thrash, etc., and a variety of samples and spoken dialogue inspired by Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer detective novels (recited by John Lurie). Like he did on his Ennio Morricone tribute The Big Gundown, here Zorn blends a disparate array of sound sketches into a pleasing, if not especially determinate or always logical whole. (In his self-penned and expansive liner notes, Zorn says that the text and his overall conceptual take on Mickey Spillane's work form the thematic structure of this piece.) Clarity aside, "Spillane" comes off as an exciting and atmospheric evocation of the clipped prose, seedy dives, and back alleys found in hard-boiled Spillane books like Kiss Me, Deadly. Sticking to the disc's tribute theme, Zorn uses Japanese actor Yujiro Ishihara as the inspiration for "Forbidden Fruit." Working with the Kronos Quartet, turntablist Christian Marclay, and Japanese vocalist Ohta Hiromi, Zorn concocts an exotically frenetic, atonal cut-up piece to evoke the actor's films from the '50s. And bringing things back home, so to speak, Zorn features Texas blues guitarist Albert Collins on the lengthy and slightly abstract blues jam "Two Lane Highway." Helping "The Iceman" out are organist Big John Patton, bassist Melvin Gibbs, and drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson, among others. In addition to these veterans of past Zorn recordings, the likes of keyboard player Anthony Coleman, guitarist Bill Frisell, and drummer Bobby Previte contribute to the Spillane disc as well. Spillane is not only one of the highlights in Zorn's catalog, but also makes for a fine introduction to the composer's vast body of work.

Hear The Big Gundown
note: this is the remastered reissue with additional tracks

Hear Spillane

The Lounge Lizards - S/T

To round out this Lurie homage, I present that which started it all. Part traditional rendition of a hard-boiled lounge/bop quintet mated with a skronky, noise-afflicted no wave exercise.


It's pretty amazing how Lurie was able to juggle the two without utterly losing his mind, but then again the no wave mentality has always been a part of the jazz thought lexicon, such as the common effort to "let's fuck with this one a bit." What really makes this LP cook is that Lurie and crew have the chops to pull off the jazz bit. There is no wasted effort here. Just listen to Lindsay's guitar freak-outs clunking over the lefthand lead of piano. Lurie screeches and blurts to match Lindsay note for note and then they collectively wrangled that beast in for a bit of trad lounge jazz suitable for the best Sally Rand fan dance act. A bunch of circus performers - freaks and high wire acts. An exhibition of coordination and chutzpah.


Chow down catz!

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Allmusic: One might be forgiven for mistaking the Lounge Lizards' debut album for a traditional jazz release at a glance, what with the two Thelonious Monk covers and the participation of producer Teo Macero (who had previously worked with such heavyweights as Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck and Ella Fitzgerald, to name just a few). No, while there's definitely great respect shown here for the jazz tradition, the members are obviously coming at it from different backgrounds -- most especially guitarist Arto Lindsay, whose occasional atonal string scraping owes far more to his experience in New York City's no wave scene than to quote unquote traditional jazz. In fact, the two aforementioned Monk covers seem a strange choice when you actually hear the band, which has more in common with sonic experimentalists like Ornette Coleman or Sun Ra. That's not to say that this is too experimental; saxophonist and lead Lizard John Lurie knows when to blow noise and when to blow melody, and ex-Feelies drummer Anton Fier manages to infuse a good rock feel into the drum parts even when he's playing incredibly complex rhythms. The end result is a album that neatly straddle both worlds, whether it's the noir-ish "Incident on South Street," the art-funk of "Do the Wrong Thing," or the thrash-bebop found in "Wangling"."


Hear

Bill Frisell - Bill Frisell Quartet [1996]

This final glean from the Lounge Lizards lineup melds Curtis Fowlkes with Eyvind Kang and Ron Miles on Bill Frisell Quartet. Frisell's effects laden, occasionally saccharine playing is much maligned by some folks, and I understand the complaints, but I personally find that he conjures a compelling idiosyncratic niche. Nearly all of these selections were originally audio backing for different projects, most for an animated television special by Gary Larson called Tales from the Far Side. (Frisell, Larson and artist Jim Woodring are acquaintances in Seattle). If you listen regularly to NPR, especially This American Life, you have heard a few of these tunes already. Coffaro's Theme seems to be used about every third episode of This American Life; the song does provide a nice fit for the mood of their stories.

I find the instrumentation of this quartet interesting:

Eyvind Kang: violin, tuba
Ron Miles: trumpet, piccolo trumpet
Curtis Fowlkes: trombone
Bill Frisell: electric/acoustic guitars

Score some Frisell.

Frisell shows his respect by hiring a professional for his cover art, that being a drawing by Thomas Hart Benton entitled, The Boy.

Arto Lindsay - Prize [1999]

Banking again off the Lounge Lizards lineup, I have another turn of the century release, Prize from Arto Lindsay, a gentleman sorely represented here in the forest. Prize hit all the right buttons for me in 1999. It's a perfect amalgam of digital and analog, which seemed a lot more difficult in the late 90s and early 00s than it does now. The players convened were of course massively chopped, so that certainly helped gam the amal, but Lindsay really pulled some inspired side work from these folks. Eyvind Kang lends his oddly phrased violin and viola on a number of tracks, and Eno injects undercurrent additions to Resemblances, this tune closing with some noise similar to DNA stylings, a seeming nod to Lindsay's former no wave project. Arto spent his formative years in Brazil when Tropicália was ripe. The lilting beats and bossas from that rhythmic country are never far from the surface, with some of the album even sung in Portuguese.

Grab the Prize.

Arto gets the respect of none other than Matthew Barney supplying not only images of his sculptures from the Cremaster Cycle, but also providing design for the album packaging.

The Legendary Marvin Pontiac - Greatest Hits [2000]

Playing a card off Baywatch's stack, here is a slice from John Lurie's one-off under the pseudonym of Marvin Pontiac. Released at the turn of the century, one of my housemates at the time picked it up and listened to it fairly regularly. I was intrigued by random samples of it as I went about my day, but whenever I would sit down and listen to the entirety I was always a bit put off. The experience was somewhat like looking at the Seven Sisters of Pleiades: whenever it was bouncing on the periphery it was engaging, but when I stared straight at it, something disappeared. Lurie's ever-present jokey atmosphere just didn't have me laughing then. With folks like Marc Ribot and Bill Ware on board, I kept giving this album chances and over time it beat me down. I'm now a disciple of Marvin.


Join the monastery.


Lurie is so respected the allmusic guide allows Marvin Pontiac an artist listing.

John Lurie - Stranger Than Paradise OST, Down By Law OST (1984, 1986)

Inspired request from Curry, who claims he can't live without (albeit temporarily flint). We know only too well what he means. Can't count how many times I've seen these films, let alone listened to their soundtracks. I bought both as soon as I they hit the racks (of Round Records in Rogers Park as I recall), and I managed to hold onto them for 25 years. Both are inspired pieces of music that stand well enough alone -- even without the flickering screen to support them -- but Stranger Than Paradise, especially, is a master-fucking-piece-of-work. As I recall, Lurie composed on piano while watching the film, then scored his pieces for a chamber quartet, that was recorded at a church in NYC. This record was a critical soundtrack throughout our college years (for those times when we were actually studying). And even today, when it's dull and white outside, Stranger is the perfect dose of austere cold comfort.
This, for me, is quite simply, the elegant, elegiac essence of sonic melancholia.

Hear Stranger Than Paradise

Hear Down By Law

Spiritualized - Live, Flux Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland, August 14, 1998

Chills. This just solidifies J Spaceman's place in the hall of fame of my earholes. Holy shit just listen to the transcendent chorale arrangement of "Ladies & Gentlemen." Seriously, if you have a heart you have no choice but to feel something here. If you don't feel anything I pity your mournful, loveless, inhuman existence and hope you encounter a young death to spare you from your certainly constant misery.


HEAR

Big Star - Live in Cambridge Mass, March 31,1974

A little heavy on the low end, some muddy mids & dampened highs but sweet melodies on display, some tightass harmonies, and all played on a hodgepodge of borrowed instruments after their van was nicked by a crew of Harvard evil-doers.


Here we find one Big Star opening for Badfinger throwing the red meat in the form of excellent covers of T Rex's Baby Strange from my favorite T Rex LP, The Slider; Candy Says and a Kinks duo of 'Til The End of the Day and We Gotta Go (Also once covered by the mighty Bully Pulpit.)


HEAR

Shellac - Live in Tokyo, 1994

I pulled this one out from deep in the e-archives, buried under zeros and ones and bytes in shit. Though I've had a copy of this for many years I only recently learned it was an actual Japan-only release on Zeni Geva guitarist KK Null's NUX ORGANIZATION label.


One note regarding this release located on the Webz:

When I had Steve & the band autograph the sleeve of the disc, Weston informed me that not only was it a Japan-only release, but specific orders had been given not to export it from Japan.


So this is Shellac before they got all melody-conscious and soft and pussified. I'm kidding. They aren't that, though later releases show more of a leaning toward humor than graphic (ugly) realism. The malady of age Anydong, this ain't a comment on what was and what shall ever be but an offering of a moment in time. Seriously, Shellac rules. Always will. This is huevos.



Setlist:

1	The Guy Who Invented Fire
2	Rambler Song
3	The Admiral
4	My Black Ass
5	Song of the Minerals
6	Billiard Player Song
7	Dog & Pony Show
8	Il Porno Star
9	Doris
10	Wingwalker
11	Boche's Dick
12	Crow

HEAR

Radar Bros - S/T

Slow and drowsy. Dusty and hot. This record, the Radar Bros' debut, was picked up on a whim from a cut-out bin somewhere and after awhile came to optimize for me the alterego of the Brian Wilson sunny day California sound. Hopeful melancholy, warm reflection in simple, stripped-down opiate arrangements. Like the heavy-lidded warmth of an oxycodone n red wine buzz as you lay in your bed at 2pm on a sunny 72 degree day and you definitely don't want to think about tomorrow.


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I'm actually gonna post here a review from Amazon.com because it's one of the best descriptions on this record I came across... or maybe it just matches my feelings best: While the Radar Bros. always save room for excursions into subdued theatrical art-rock, they seem most at ease with the simple, sublime melodies that keep their music from drifting into space. While "The Singing Hatchet" is their tightest production to date, this album is their most effective mood piece. Their primary tone is not one of depression so much as distant longing and quietly regretful resignation, as in the repeated line from "Underwater Culprit": "you can leave the show at any time." Not to say that this album is without range. The melodic variety in the first half is balanced out by more subtle stokes in the second half. The complex Southern California micro-epic "Stay" sits comfortably alongside the simple, haunting harmony of "Supermarket Pharmacy," in which a poignant pastiche of morbid images offer a rare moment of lyrical clarity.

But the Radar Bros. are, fortunately, not preoccupied with clarity. Although driven by the same pop aesthetic that propelled Pink Floyd before they were officially fried beyond recognition, this music is meant to drift into your consciousness, rather than immerse it. If Jim Putnam started singing about his need for psychotherapy, the album would lose its greatest attribute: it's comfort music. For a bleak, airy sunny afternoon or a long, rainy night, "Radar Bros." takes little time to grow on you and, after a while, feels like home.

yeah, it's like mac n chee


HEAR

Ryuichi Sakamoto - Chasm, Bricolages (2005, 2006)

A perfect pair / two of a kind

Chasm is "straight-up" Sakamoto
(w/ a lil Arto Lindsay + David Sylvian)

Bricolages is "wigged-up" Sakamoto remixing
(a bunch of folks who are "reinterpreting" Chasm)

If manipulated digital glitches are your thing

you know, as in, "natural inorganics"
(for today they are mine)
this treat is for you.

Clatter clatter thunder rattle boom boom boom

allmusic: "Bricolage," a French word meaning to assemble something from available materials, is such a perfect term for the art of the remix that it's surprising no one has ever used it before.

It's less surprising that Ryuichi Sakamoto, whose work has always had a cool Continental flair despite the artist's Japanese roots, would choose such an elegant term for his swish remix collection.

Focusing on reworks of material from 2005's back-to-the-roots electro-pop experiment Chasm, Bricolages features a cross-cultural and cross-generational batch of remixers including Cornelius, whose playful sense of pastiche is to current hipster Japanese pop what Sakamoto's Yellow Magic Orchestra was a quarter-century before; his take on the spoken word cut-up "War & Peace" is considerably lighter and groovier than Aoki Takamasa's tense, austere version.

Former Japan drummer Steve Jansen, whose collaboration with Sakamoto goes back to the early '80s, contributes the skittering "Break With," bridging the gap between new wave disco and contemporary IDM. However, the most intriguing reworking is Rob Da Bank and Mr. Dan's version of "Word," which transmutes the song into a spookily atmospheric, dubwise dance groove that reveals an entirely new aspect.

Remix albums are only as good as their mixers,
but Sakamoto has chosen a solid team that makes

Bricolages his most successful remix project.

Hear Bricolages

Hear Chasm

Gems #2

What sort of generated this Gems series was my harping to Arlopop about the superiority of a very specific, very excellent Hoodoo Gurus song while the remainder of the LP is utter throwaway dollar bin fodder. And I just couldn't believe how this could happen...


What follows below are isolated tracks from otherwise largely forgettable LPs or soundtracks. Everyone has something great in them right. Some people just need to learn to edit better.



Beck - Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime

Beck is an amazing soul singer. I honestly wish he would throw aside the party rockin' funboy schtick and go back to his roots. This, like Sea Change, is where he shines best and this is truly a moving/heartbreaking/asskicking/truerealtrue/wise up song.

Here Beck covers a Korgis' number for the Jon Brion (one of my favorities who bombed here) produced soundtrack to Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind... a choppy but thoughtful Charlie Kaufman/Michel Gondry joynt. This track just rings & rings. SCHWING!


Hear Beck


Hear the original by The Korgis (Note: this was #1 in France and Spain)





Hoodoo Gurus - I Want You Back


Okay - my inspirado for this whole bit. This is a nearly perfect (albeit overproduced) pop song. The chorus/verse/bridge etc are just perfectly linked together and it is just balls deep in hooks. And, yes, the rest of the album, Stoneage Romeos, is pretty much mindless, Aussie bar rock. Utter vegashite. But please give this a whirl on your 0101010 reader and agree with me.


Hear I Want You Back





Monkees - The Porpoise Song


This is another of my favoritest songs ever and I'd just as soon drink from the dick of a goat as listen to other Monkee records or watch this ridiculous, bullshit psycheTRIPPY! movie. However, this is an inspired, anthemic and just beautiful song. So beautifully orchestrated, smartly arranged and, unlike 99% of the Monkees, it just doesn't try too hard and contains no gratuitous hair flips or ass wiggles.


Hear Porpoise

Stereolab - Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements

This is Stereolab to me. Linear, pounding, focused, stripped-down Kraut-y and not so much of what became that latter day Stereolab thing (groovegroovegroove).

There's a real pessimism here. Some thick melancholy. Which also differs from their current day work where we find a lot more cheer, humanity, optimism.

Crest is likely my all timey fav Stereolab number.

If there's been a way to build it, there'll be a way to destroy it. Things are not all that out of control.

I suppose that's a fairly positive or comforting message... so disregard my blathering re pessimism. Such a great mantra.





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Allmusic: Though it was the group's major-label debut, Stereolab's Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements showed no signs of selling out. If anything, it's one of the most eclectic and experimental releases in Stereolab's early career, emphasizing the group's elongated Krautrock jams, instrumentals, and harsh, noisy moments. The album begins and ends with smooth, sensual washes of sound like "Tone Burst" and "Lock-Groove Lullaby" and smoothly bouncy pop songs like "I'm Going Out of My Way." These softer, more accessible moments surround complex and varied compositions such as "Analogue Rock," "Our Trinitone Blast," and "Golden Ball," which, with its distorted vocals and shifting tempos, serves as an appetizer for "Jenny Ondioline." A hypnotic, 18-minute epic encompassing dreamy yet driving pop, a Krautrock groove, forceful, churning guitars, and a furious climax, it's the most ambitious -- and definitive -- moment of Stereolab's early years. But Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements also features quietly experimental pieces such as "Pause," a slightly spooky song that uses distorted whispers as a rhythm track and places fluttery keyboards and Laetitia Sadier and Mary Hansen's sweet, slightly alien harmonies atop it. Likewise, the very sexy, very French "Pack Yr Romantic Mind" reveals the growing influence of '50s and '60s easy listening on the group's musical direction. If Switched On and Peng! defined the band's essential sound, Transient Random-Noise Bursts With Announcements expanded it, reaffirming Stereolab's place as one of the most innovative and evolving groups of the '90s.


Hear

Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth, Salad Days (1979, 1980)

Mmm. Yum. Can't Say I Have?
Mo Wait! That's All Fang Rong.

This feels like an exercise in DUH.
But, it felt rite so alright -- tonight.
And never forget... that when you

"ass-u-me"
...

allmusic: One of the quirkiest and most idiosyncratic groups to emerge from the early British new wave indie scene, Young Marble Giants (via Cardiff, Wales) were not so much new wave in sound as in strategy. They subverted conventional pop/rock methods by stripping both song construction and instrumentation to its

'ess-en-ce'.

Pop minimalism of the first order,
it now stands as one of the
fist fully formed expressions of
the subgenre that would be called post-punk.

HEAR COLOSSAL YOUTH

allmusic:
Young Marble Giants' Colossal Youth is a collection of

sparse, evocative tunes
emphasizing Alison Statton's floating vocals
and minimal guitar/organ/bass/drum machine arrangements.

Comparable to little else from its time or since,
this is rock music at its most austere.

rocky says:
(oh! and it is so nice, wen
wee and tzee criticks agreee!)

HEAR SALAD DAYS

allmusic: It's rare for any band's earliest recordings to warrant attention outside of their most fanatical followers, but in the case of the Young Marble Giants' Salad Days -- a collection of 15 songs dating back to their very first home studio sessions -- such interest is rewarded;

although "every note quite" as brilliant as their Colossal Youth album, this set is an even purer distillation of the group's "true essence", with the inherent primitivism of the demo process providing the perfect context for their consciously minimalist pop.

It's remarkable to consider how fully formed and distinctive Stuart Moxham's reductivist musical vision was even in its infancy -- these early stabs at classic YMG songs like "N.I.T.A.," "Constantly Changing," and "Eating Noddemix" are intimate + mysterious at the same time, distinguished by the austere spaciousness of their ingenious arrangements and the icy allure of Alison Statton's vocals.

Shuggie Otis - Inspiration Information

My typical end of week audible valium. Loosens up the slax, a little quiver to the spine. The shoulders drop a bit. Yes, Shuggie can do that to you. You will want him to do that to you. Watch the ripples on the lake as the sun sets. Take off your lady's sweater. Slip into a warm bath with a Kahlua drink and some pretzels. Yes, Shuggie can do that to you.

Say it: Yes. Shuggie.

___________________________


Allmusic.com Bio: Guitarist/singer/songwriter/producer/multi-instrumentalist Shuggie Otis may not be a household name, but his "Strawberry Letter 23" is in the record collections of millions of households. The Brothers Johnson's cover of "Strawberry Letter 23" has sold over a million copies, peaking at number one R&B and number five pop on Billboard's charts in summer 1977. It was on their LP Right on Time, which went platinum, selling over a million copies, holding the number one R&B spot for three weeks and making it to number 13 pop in spring 1977. Otis wrote "Strawberry Letter 23" for his girlfriend, who used strawberry scented paper for her letters to him. Another Otis favorite, "Inspiration Information," received substantial airplay in Chicago and other markets, charting #56 R&B in early 1975.


Born Johnny Otis, Jr. on November 30, 1953, in Los Angeles, CA, Otis' formidable musical talents appeared at an early age. He began his professional career around 1965. He played a guitar solo on his bandleader, father Johnny Otis' 1969 number 29 R&B hit, "Country Girl," issued by Kent Records. His guitar skills were so adept that during his teen years, he would have to wear dark glasses and strategically apply black ink between his nose and mouth to appear old enough to perform in clubs with his father.


Signing with CBS Records, Otis began recording virtuoso guitar-laced R&B/West Coast blues sides. His first LP was Al Kooper Introduces Shuggie Otis on CBS. Johnny Otis produced 1970's Here Comes Shuggie Otis, which was issued on the CBS imprint, Epic Records. Otis' Freedom Flight was issued September 1971 and included the original version of "Strawberry Letter 23," the heart-tugging "Someone's Always Singing," "Ice Cold Daydream," and the bluesy "Me and My Woman," co-written by Otis and Gene Barge (known best for his association with Chess Records, Chuck Willis, and Natalie Cole).


His LP Inspiration Information was issued in October 1974, with Otis playing all of the instruments on jazzy and Latin-tinged R&B numbers. The LP was one of the first releases to showcase the electronic rhythm box then found usually on organs. Besides "Inspiration Information," the LP included the sly "Sparkle City," the sweet ballad "Outtamihead," and the lush, strings-laden "Island Letter," which was the B-side of "Inspiration Information."


George Johnson of the Brothers Johnson was dating one of Otis' cousins who gave Johnson a copy of Freedom Flight. Immediately, he liked "Ice Cold Daydream" and "Strawberry Letter 23." The latter song was played at his brother Louis Johnson's wedding during the wedding march. Louis suggested the song to their producer Quincy Jones for an album track. The track's complex guitar solo was played by Lee Ritenour. The Brothers Johnson version is quite close to Otis' original version.


Later on in the '90s, Otis played with his own band around northern California and toured extensively. His son, Lucky Otis, played bass with Johnny Otis' band. Shuggie Otis is featured in the book Alligator Records Presents West Coast Blues, issued in August 1998 by Milwaukee, WI, publisher Hal Leonard.


HEAR

Omoide Hatoba - Dai Ongaku [Big Music], Suichi-Joe [Underwater-Joe]

Downright Scrump-Dilly-icious. Wow. These guys blew thru here a few times in the early nineties. And we never. ever. missed 'em. And for years after, we just assumed that everyone in the world dreamt about them, cared deeply for them, wanted badly to have their babies, etc., but the ancienter I gets, the more I realizes that this crush bears the glorious stank of skewed global post-geographies. Wherein Chicago is contiguous with Osaka. Go Figure Metonymy.

Public Bath, Anyone? (find a fuggin link?) Were ya ever Bored with boredoms? You shoulda been so lucky. As Were We. Back in College-town Chicago of late-eighties/early-nineties mintage, we had nothing better to do than troll the record stores for all the well-stocked great-lateness, and all the nightcubs for performativity on tour. We eaterly consumed all the Boredoms we could find, and religiously attended all thee pertinent Japanese shows of greatness (Boredoms, Omoide Hatoba, Ruins, Zeni Geva, K. K. Null, Yoshimi, OOIOO...), which were, invariably: Greatness.

Good Baden. But No diligence for googl-ish-ness, now. What I can recall suggests that Public Bath was based out of Madison, WI. That they (he, David Hopkins) specialized in Japanese (Osaka?) stuff, and that (he) the label founder spoke the male English language parts on these albums, and that he even played tuba (?). And lived over there or something? Which is all unimportant. We should simply worship their cremains for the opportunity to get wiggly.

Historical Help is Appreciated.

I Remember, I Remember! Mommy I Remember (That Memory is a faulty mistress).

Livid! Hells No -- I Ain't Even Dead Yet! Hey. I'm not gonna refrain from acknowledging that these records be far more gelatinous than most "common" sense allows. But if you can truly hear through your ears into this recording for just a second even, you may begin to pretend to imagine the amazing live shows some long-ago roxx-off kids can even yet heartfelt testify to.

Hums yeah. And Feedback too. I had a lot of ideas about suggested tracks for uninitiated or non-believers or would be converts, but I gave all that up after a vibrant revist. Try something. You no like, click up another track. These guys were nothing if not ever motherloving expansive.

HoJo's USA OK SENSAY!. Yeah forget I said that that. I say go strait to "ROUTE 99999" and "SURFIN' U.F.O." and "Marine Snow" and "MOTHER" and "Daisan [Third] Rock" and you will then know that these guys, albeit jokers to the bone, were hardly fucking kidding. (or just chew on the 2nd-to-last-track of EITHER the first or second album). Or you can't suss any of the misencoded zeros and ones and you just tup ti no. (no no. but MOTHER simply must be first). Granted. These recs are done on the fly. A lot of incandescence. Thrifty on the spit-polish.

Don't even presume to go here.

Arms Aloft. So in retrospect they were just another jam band. Which we were oh-so-about avoiding. For shame. Big deal. Because Truly. What a fucking jam band they were. They always fucking bar(n)stormed. And They cured some ears of rarified principles. For Good. (AND There were a lot of fine moments from that scene yet to be recollected...)

Check Out Seiichi Yamamoto

~~~~~~~~~

Dai Ongaku
[Big Music]
Omoide Hatoba
(Alchemy Records--ARCD-015--CD)
1990

LINE-UP: SEIICHI YAMAMOTO; ATSUSHI TSUYAMA; CHU HASEGAWA
GUESTS: YUICHI SUGIMOTO; DAVID HOPKINS; BETSY HOPKINS

1. Astro Volcano Break Down
2. Surfin' U.F.O.
3. Egg Head
4. Mother
5. Daraku Koushinkyoku [Degradation March]
6. C.T.I.
7. Nuba-II
8. Marine Snow
9. Miya [Shrine]
10. Nuba-I
11. Kubi Juui [Pick Up Your Neck]
12. A Scab Forms Crone

Hear Dai Ongaku [Big Music]

~~~~~~~~~

Suichi-Joe
[Underwater-Joe]
Omoide Hatoba
(Alchemy Records--ARCD-031--CD)
1991

LINE-UP: SEIICHI YAMAMOTO; ATSUSHI TSUYAMA; CHU HASEGAWA
GUESTS: YUICHI SUGIMOTO; DAVID HOPKINS; KEN SUGISAKI; KOUJI KAWAMURA

1. 22 Jigen [Dimension]
2. Samurai Acid Contemporary
3. Blues for Turn Table
4. Route 99999
5. Suichi-Joe
6. Chuukaku [Core; Nucleus]
7. Shooting Dub
8. Futoppara (Gyoukusai Warutsu) [Generous (Honourable Death Waltz)]
9. Hau
10. N.C.C.P 1701-1
11. Daisan [Third] Rock
12. IN
13. Sea Monk

Hear Suichi-Joe [Underwater Joe]