NYC Flashback: Information

Digging around WFMU's cassette racks and library can be an invigorating thing indeed; especially since it's a museum of sorts for all kinds of New York City DIY/art-rock/downtown jazz/minimalism etc. with tons of amazing artifacts that probably are in few libraries since many of the artists would hand off homemade materials to our assorted Music Directors through the decades. I've found tons of strange 7" singles in the basement that have blown my mind, have gotten to experience the full cassette of Pussy Galore's Exile On Main Street (maybe they'll let us post it some day!) and enough rich history to make it worth every minute of cohabitating with the "neighbors" down there. A recent bit of NYC history I've enjoyed for the first time was the Tape #1 compilation of some happening downtowners circa 1979-82, originally put out by Mofungo's Robert Sietsema. I got to know a fixture in that scene, Rick Brown, via WFMU around the mid-90s when he was in Run On, and knew about his history with Guigou Chenevier, Fish and Roses, Timber, and the fertile times that were Downtown during that great aera that I sadly missed in person. I was psyched to finally hear this comp as it featured some of his other bands from that era, namely Blinding Headache, and Information. He graciously allowed me to put up "Let's Compromise" (MP3), a song I had only heard covered live by Yo La Tengo, originally written back in 1977. It's a very strange punk anthem indeed, incorporating weird shifty basslines and nodding to the whole European Music-In-Oppositon movement as much as Downtown artpunk (the former being an unlikely influence in the CB's-dominated NYC punk scene to explode). Willie Klein of Mofungo/Blinding Headache and Chris Nelson of Information now have teamed up with fellow downtown fixtures Bob Bannister (Fire In the Kitchen/Tono Bungay) and Robert Dennis (Fire In the Kitchen/Tono Bungay/anti:clockwise) and just put out a swell EP as Escape By Ostrich ("Song #14" here on Real Audio) and just played CB's a while back with Chain Gang (holy time warp indeed!). Meanwhile, Rick checks in with this news: "Five years since their previous collaboration (the band Timber) ended, Rick Brown and Mark Howell have a new project they are calling Inconvenient Music. Brown has moved from drum kit to electronics and homemade percussion while Howell is still on guitar and trumpet. Somebody plays 'funnel', there is some yelling/singing." (photo of Information: Robert Sietsema)