WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Cassettes Playing Backward

  

Tony Coulter here, with another post spotlighting audio artifacts picked up in Portland, OR, my home of eight months. As always, I've given you my favorite tracks -- the ones I would have played on the air if I still had a show on FMU. This time 'round, the focus is on cassettes -- and on sounds from the '80s "cassette underground." For the sake of optic stimulation, I've also thrown in a quintet of homemade cassette covers, lovingly preserved since my own tape-trading days.

And now, please fast forward past the jump....

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 63 (MP3s)

Give the Drummer Some's
Favorite Downloads from the MP3 Blogosphere

I first stumbled on Shin Jung Hyun's amazing version of "In-a-Gadda-Vida" (see below) on the wonderful blog Cities on Flame With Rock and Roll. The link there is inactive, but the original post is still up. (Read my 2008 eulogy to the site's late, lamented blogger Dirk here.) Last week on my radio show, I started off a set of Bollywood tracks with the opener of Bappi Lahiri's score for the 1977 film College Girl. Seems that Lahiri, like Shin, is, like, a total Iron Butterfly fan: Everybody Dance With Me (mp3).

Three years ago, Beware of the Blog and the 365 Days Music Project brought you a version by the Goddard High School Stage Band (Roswell, NM): Listen (mp3)

Shin Jung Hyun & the Questions  ~  "In-a-Kadda-Da-Vida"
(Blog: Bomber Blog)

Seoul Searching
It's not like Iron Butterfly's enduring fuzzfest has been covered by absolutely everyone. I mean, who has the time? On the other hand, any tune performed by such wide-ranging talents as Mongo Santamaria, David Van Tieghem and the organist at Reverend Lovejoy's First Church of Springfield ought to have more bands mimeographing the sheet music. After checking out this mind-melder, slurp your tongue up off the floor and be sure to check out the dizzying cover of Wilson Pickett's "Funky Broadway" elsewhere on the album.

Joe Cain & His Orchestra  ~  "Latin Explosion"
(Blog: Orgy in Rhythm)
From the album: Listen, Dos Trompetas (mp3)

Thank You for Smoking
I'm not sure if Joe Cain ever clacked a clave or squeezed his knees around a set of bongos, but his contributions as conductor/arranger on a series of killer Latin percussion albums in the fifties and sixties earned him instant induction into my personal Mambo Hall of Fame.

Roland Kirk  ~  "Meets the Benny Golson Orchestra"
(Blog: Seventeen Green Buicks)

An Orchestra of One
No one blinked in '61 when Kirk dragged his rig (tenor/manzello/stritch/flute/siren) into the studio to record with Hammond B-3 bad-ass Brother Jack McDuff. This unusual session from '63, pairing the "exotic" iconoclast with the suave, elegant Benny Golson might have made a few junior execs at Mercury nervous. Bonuses all around! The results, as you will hear, are gorgeous.

Lou Johnson  ~  "With You in Mind
(Blog: Funk My Soul)
From the album: Beat (mp3)

Sweet Lou
Most people know his early work as a faithful interpreter of the David/Bacharach catalog and other Brill Building fare, but Lou's last couple of LPs—this, his most recent, was recorded in 1971—are way rootsier affairs. Co-produced by the New Orleans soul geniuses Allen Toussaint and Marshall Sehorn, With You in Mind is a smoldering stewpot brimming with chunky organ riffs, manic brass wailing, and sassy backup vocals (not to mention the occasional sitar flourish). The must-hear highlight is the eight-minute psyched-out lovesick epic "Transition."

Various  ~  "King Records Anthology"
Volume 1 | Volume 2 | Volume 3 | Volume 4
(Blog: Visit Me in Music City)

Cincinnati Makes (Records), the World Takes
Long before impresario Syd Nathan called "Please, Please, Please" by James Brown "the worse piece of crap I've heard in my life," his King Records label was a regional powerhouse in the hillbilly and C&W market. (Nathan's Federal subsidiary would nevertheless make a killing off of Brown's early releases.) These four compilations comprise the first 50 78rpm country records to roll off King's presses, starting with "The Steppin Off Kind" by Grandpa Jones and Merle Travis in '43 (recording as the Sheppard Brothers) all the way through J.E. Mainer's "John Henry" in '46.

Various  ~  "The Breeze from Erin"
(Blog: Ceol Álainn)
From the album: An Phis Fhliuch (mp3) by Willie Clancy

Flageolets of My Fathers
Subtitled "Irish Folk Music on Wind Instruments," these airy laments and puckish jigs were captured during historic field recordings made for Topic Records in 1967. Whistles and flutes abound, but bagpipes and accordions are well represented, too.

Listen for music from these and other incredible finds on
Give the Drummer Some, Fridays on WFMU, 9 to Noon (ET).

Check out every installment of Mining the Audio Motherlode

Those Dam Kids

Last summer I had the privilege to visit Amsterdam, Holland during a mid-summer weekend that happened to host a couple great music festivals.  I had an amazing time attending the Applesap festival, a free Hip Hop festival in a park which had guests from the U.S. the U.K. and plenty of local acts that got the crowd movin'.

One group that really caught my attention just off of the reaction they incited in the crowd was local rappers Zwart Licht. Their style drew from American Hip Hop and U.K. Grime and Dubstep, and they had the crowd going mad.

Dubstep Mosh Pit:

Hip Hop Hand Waving:

Amsterdam really intrigued me. From the outside it seems like such an egalitarian society, and their liberal views on many societal issues is refreshing. The city seemed more racially mixed and culturally international than many of the other European cities I was visiting.  The combination of the good festival vibes, a little sun, and a little something else Amsterdam is known for, sent me into a romantic haze about the potential of urban Dutch society, and the U.S.'s inability to overcome its racial obsessions.  Yet I know that they still have some of the same problems endemic to a lot of European societies, including a surging right-wing movement, and the marginalization of immigrant communities.

I was reminded by my experience in Amsterdam after seeing the following video in a post on Black Amsterdam:

Biljmer Breakz is a group from one of Amsterdam's low income "projects."  The Biljmer area is apparently a melting pot of immigrant culture the two largest groups being from Suriname and Curacao.  The area suffers from the same image issues as many low income urban areas with a large concentration of minority populations, including a reputation for crime, gentrification, and community displacement (and an Israeli plane flying into one of the buildings? Crazy!)  The use of Spanish in the first verse really got my attention, here's an interesting explanation from that post:

Although they both have the same Dutch colonial background, the biggest difference between the two groups is that the Surinamese are more English Caribbean and the Antilleans are much more Latino.

They also speak a different language. Surinamese people speak Sranan Tongo (Surinam tongue), a Dutch/English creole language with an African structure. The Dutch Antilleans speak Papiamento, a more Spanish language.

The clip is called “Dit is wat ik wil” (This is what I want). In de the video they speak Dutch, Papiamento, and Sranang Tongo.

Pas op, pas op = Watch out, watch out (Dutch)

I've noticed a strong influence of the U.S. and U.K. urban culture on youth in Amsterdam and there seems to be a strong intention to reflect the realities of those larger countries with a (longer?) history of reverse colonization.  A quick youtube surf of music videos points to an interest in street violence depicted in a lot of American rap.  It's interesting to see what is popular today amongst certain subcultures in Holland, because to me, the most intriguing influence that comes out in youth Dutch youth culture is their unique take on music from the Caribbean region, a genre of music called Bubbling.  I didn't see any Bubbling at the Applesap festival, but I did see it at an electronic music festival the night before, although it was much more commercialized version, leaning towards the dreaded Euro Techno side of things.  I'll probably get into Bubbling at some point here, but if you can't wait, visit my homie Dave Quam's blog, which goes deep into exploring the cultural conversation between the Dutch Caribbean diaspora and its homelands.

Stop the Presses! Here's News of the Dead!

 Big news today, as Hank Williams was awarded the Pullitzer Prize! In 2010! Like, 57 years after he died! It is kind of inexplicable, except that the award comes from the same organization that gives prizes to that Big Gray Pack o' Lies, the New York Times, on a semi-regular basis. Anyway, congratulations to one of WFMU's favorite dead singer-songwriters!

Never Ever Learned to Read or Write So Well

by Dave Mandl

With a juvenile delinquent—a kid who never attended a day of school and couldn’t even be bothered to get a proper case for his guitar—as its Jesus Christ figure, rock ’n’ roll couldn’t exactly be expected to produce anything approaching a Byron or Shelley. But surely a well-formed sentence or two isn’t too much to ask. Here are some of the best-known examples of the kinds of elementary grammatical mistakes that can be found on almost any rock record—some forgiveable, some not. 

• “Insatiable an appetite” (Queen): In “Killer Queen,” Freddy Mercury’s loving ode to a high-class prostitute with fascist tendencies, this bit of linguistic nonsense is hardly the biggest crime. But we ignore clear warning signs like this at our peril: A year later, the quartet recorded the execrable “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and by then it was too late. 

• “You and me ain’t no movie stars” (Alice Cooper): Alice hits the Trifecta: an incorrect subjective “me,” an “ain’t,” and a double-negative, all in one short line. A classic rock ’n’ roll attempt to mimic the language of an illiterate early-twentieth-century plantation worker—especially impressive considering that the lyrics were written between rounds of golf with George Burns in Palm Springs. Surely nothing could top this? Well, how about… 

• “I can’t get no satisfaction” (Rolling Stones): …a glaring double-negative from a London School of Economics graduate? 

• “This ever-changing world in which we live in” (Paul McCartney & Wings): Macca is undoubtedly too self-conscious and aspirational not to have spotted this obvious redundancy, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that it was an attempt at clever wordplay—like “the movement you need is on your shoulder.” Yeah, that one wasn’t so funny either. 

• “Well since she put me down I’ve been out doin’ in my head” (Beach Boys): Turning the microphone over to Al Jardine is just asking for trouble. 

• “I love she, she loves me” (Syd Barrett/Pink Floyd): LSD. Case dismissed. 

• “ I’m going back to the ones that I know, with whom I can be what I want to be” (Jethro Tull): This is actually perfectly grammatical, but who the hell uses the word “whom” in a rock ’n’ roll song? Did Ian Anderson have his fourth-grade English teacher proofread his lyrics? 

• “I ain’t got no cigarettes” (Roger Miller): Miller did not attend the London School of Economics. 

• “Time Will Tell Just Who Has Fell” (Bob Dylan): I guess it’s possible that Dylan is actually saying “fallen” (the correct past participle) here—he’s so annoyingly nasal on this song that it’s hard to be completely sure one way or the other. 

• “If you love somebody set them free” (Sting): Is Sting trying to avoid sexist pronouns, or is he oblivious to the fact that the grammatical numbers of “somebody” and “them” don’t match? Three guesses. 

• “Till the Stars Fall from the Sky for You and I” (Doors): This grade-school misuse of “I” in the objective case is almost as offensive as exposing yourself onstage, but when you’ve slept with Nico you can criticize Jim Morrison, OK? 

• “Death and hatred to mankind” (Black Sabbath): Given the quantities of cocaine and barbiturates that were coursing through his system at the time, can we fault the young Ozzy Osbourne for this bizarre prepositional screw-up? Of course we can. 

• “You shoulda heard just what I seen” (Bo Diddley): WTF? 

• “We don’t need no education” (Pink Floyd): Tell me about it. 

----- 

Thanks to the following generous people for lyric suggestions: Peter Keepnews, Scott Williams, Joe McGasko, Vartkes Baboghlian, Mr. Finewine, Debbie Daughtry, Stork, Ira Kaplan, Brian Turner, Michael Feldheim, Hova Najarian, Charlie Lewis, Mary Wing, MAC

SXSW: Or What Passes for a Salad in Austin Part Deux

Friday Still with me in Austin? Hunky Dory! Thursday night almost did me in, and Friday promises to go no easier on me and the thousands of other SXSW participants. The weather was amazing, and the first band of the day was, Voivod...see a pattern here? Science fiction and metal together, they're one of my absolute favorite bands, ever! Their performance was at the Scoot Inn, outdoors and sunny, check out more festive photos! With the music keeping my mood elevated, I grabbed a freshly opened young coconut from the place around the corner and zigzagged over to Encore for the WFMU/Aquarius Records showcase! Partners in crime, we all put our heads down and made it happen, whew! Speedwolf was up first on the outside stage, Iron Man (pic at left) followed them with their punishing set of Baltimore doom, and by the time they were finished I had to get some food. I was starving to the point of questioning my sanity. I had been on a steady diet of all types of meat while in Texas, and my system was in revolt, and came quite close to doing just that! I hit a place that I've frequented for a couple of years that always seemed to be a clean deli with plenty of sandwich types to offer. 

Blare This in Your Car, You'll Never Have Road Rage

Bare Wires Live on WFMU

Back on the night of Tuesday, June 30, 2009, I was checking out a bunch of singles that had recently been added to the WFMU New Bin. As soon as dropped the tonearm onto "Let Down" by the Bare Wires I was hooked by the arresting feedback-laden guitar combined with the breathy, almost sweet-sounding vocals. Encouraged, I flipped the record over and was rewarded by "Looking For Some Action," which sounded like it almost could have been an old Real Kids outtake.

I played both sides of the single that night, and then played it again (just one side) the following week. And the week after that. And the week after that. I played that record for 12 weeks in a row, and the only thing that stopped me from playing it on that 13th week was that I'd gotten myself a copy of their LP, Artificial Clouds.

About halfway through those twelve weeks of repeated spins I contacted Matthew Melton, the Bare Wires' singer/guitar player/songwriter, with hopes that the band would be heading out east from their base in Oakland, CA. Sadly no such tour was forthcoming at the time, but the cliche "good things come to those who wait" is a cliche for a reason. In March they set off on an extensive tour across the country  and back, and we're very happy that they came by to record a set at WFMU on what would have otherwise been a free Saturday afternoon in New York City.

Ironically, for all the talk of that single, by the time the band made it out this way they'd gone through some lineup changes and written a bunch of new songs and neither song from the single is currently in their repertoire. That's certainly not to say that their set was a disappointment - it absolutely was not. Melton is continuing to write short catchy garage-punk songs -- enough for another LP, which will be coming out in a few months on John Dwyer's (Oh-Sees, Coachwhips, etc.) label Castle Face. While we wait for that album to come out, give a listen to this fantastic live set, which includes songs from the new LP as well as some from Artificial Clouds. Thanks to Bare Wires for coming down, and to Diane Kamikaze for working her usual magic behind the board. Bare Wires are on tour now, tourdates here

Seijiro Murayama Live on WFMU

Seijiro Murayama stopped by WFMU a few weeks ago on his first US tour in 28 years.  He was born in Japan and has lived in Paris since 1999.  The last time Seijiro was in New York was in 1982 when he came to tour with Keiji Haino as the Fushitsusha duo, and stayed for four months at cellist Tom Cora's place in downtown New York.  I imagined aloud how different New York must look to him now, but he quickly replied, "No. Chambers Street is the same.  The place I stayed, it has the same door!"  He was clearly moved by this small personal revelation.  The excitement of early '80s New York was palpable in Seijiro's description of the time. Skeleton Crew, Cora's improvising duo with Fred Frith, had just started up.  Things were happening.  His friend Tom Cora died of cancer in 1998. 

It was Seijiro's last day in the states, he was flying back to Paris in the morning.  While we were setting up, which consisted of not much--plugging in two microphones and situating them above and below his snare drum and lone cymbal--I asked Seijiro which of his US shows had been the most successful.  "Maybe this one," he said.

Bad Ideas, Bare Fruit

Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and is thrown into the fire to be destroyed (Matthew 7:19).

Sometimes the Art World just can't stop itself from getting all Biblical with its condemnation and reproach. The froth and spittle currently raining down on the New Museum's Skin Fruit show is a perfect example, and there is no sign of the tempest letting up. The outrage began last year when the NuMu announced that Dakis Joannou, one of its billionare trustees, was going to fill the place with his stuff.  Only in America does a Rich Man have to take so much shit to show off his crap! In his native Greece, Joannou's goods are on display year-round (at his controversy-free non-profit Deste Foundation). And this isn't a Greek thing either - last year in Madrid I saw tons of great art shows at foundations like Joannou's - some even run by banks. I will admit that the show raises some ethical and quasi-financial issues, but I just say that to use the word quasi!  I have no clue whatsoever if this show will boost Joannou's bank balance and I have yet to find a hater who can do actual math. After reading 100+ takedowns all I've really learned is that the New Museum has sold its soul! Really? (Meanwhile the Pure of Heart MoMa trustee's are using the Marina Abramović exhibit as cover to dive bomb NAKED into their massive Tim Burton pile of money). Skin Fruit is definitely a bad idea, but being a fan of bad ideas I had to check the show out - and I had a blast.

Parse the 100+ harpings and you discover that besides being "soulless" the show is also too "old." This logic implies that Charles Ray, Cindy Sherman, Takashi Murakami, and Kara Walker are now old masters. Silly. Plus I think any critic that is willing to gush over Charles Ray's flowers in the 2010 Whitney Bienial, should at least admit that Ray's piece in Skin Fruit is kind of AWESOME. This ash gray merry go round spins backwards while the horses remain motionless. It's genuinely creepy - like something from the Pedo-Priest scandal making headlines brought to life. The show also has work from Liza Lou, Mike Kelley, Haris Epaminonda, Vanessa Beecroft, and Andro Wekua. I know I know, too many household names. Hey, if you want new - go see the TIM BURTON show before it closes! There are a few eyesores in the mix, but it is a 50 Artist show, so there's an eyesore for everyone. Some complain there are too many dicks in the show - this is true. But there is also a video by Nathalie Djurberg of a tiger licking a girl's butt! HOT.  Like I said, there's something for everyone.

Of course in the Museum context it is generally a really bad idea to let rich people do whatever they want. A couple of years ago when I was living in Boston, the MFA let trustee William Koch fill the museum with his crap and he even parked his yachts on the front lawn! Joannou has waaaay better stuff (and he left his Jeff Koons Yacht at home). I am not saying we have to kiss his ass in gratitude here, but I do think for this he deserves a pass. And I think folks should cut guest curator Jeff Koons some slack too. Sure he did cram the floors with giants  - The Roberto Cuoghis Demon God is 20 feet tall and Terence Koh’s Chocolate Mountains are straight out of a rock climbing gym. But Koons knew that people were coming with big knives to cut this show to little pieces - so maybe all the giants are his way of saying "BRING IT ON!" I dunno. It's not like he is a real curator anyways.

Actually I think the critics should take heart - all the nay-saying and hand wringing was fun to read and it did not fall on deaf ears. Chief Curator Richard Flood now knows what blogs are! This is a good thing no? Perhaps he will start facebooking and meet some New Masters? The show runs through June, so there are plenty of Free Thursdays left to check it out.

note: the image up top is not in the show, its by Holger Niehaus - Thanks David for showing it to me. Also, It's good to finally have the time to return to the Blog - hello to all!

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 62 (MP3s)

Give the Drummer Some's
Favorite Downloads from the MP3 Blogosphere

You can't swing a cat and not smack into a tremendous recording among this week's bag of musical tricks. In fact, they're all hanging here like a big ol' audio piñata, just ready to burst. So go ahead and take a whack: BLAM! a mambo maestro goes modern; BOFF! a Jamaican soulster sings pure sugar; FLRBBBBB! an unsung Texan makes his first record; KERR-PLOFF! a African American freedom fighter duets with a Nobel Peace Prize winner; OOOOCH! German folkmeisters channel their inner Fairport; ZZZZZWAP! Apartheid receives an early, elegant shot across its bow. Holy freebies, Batman!

Arsenio Rodríguez  ~  "Quindembo / Afro Magic"
(Blog: Listen to Your Ears)

Growling Tigre
Widely acknowledged as the "father of the mambo," Rodríguez invented the conjunto lineup, updating the standard combo by adding piano, trumpets and congas. Quindembo was an ultra-modern statement, mixing jazz colorings—he replaced the trumpets with saxes—into a outfit delivering rootsy, folklyric material of a more overtly African derivation. Rodríguez's virtuoso playing (on the tres, a Cuban guitar with two sets of three strings) and growling vocals are worth the price of admission.

Pat Kelly  ~  "One Man Stand" and "Give Love a Try"
(Blog: Filé Reggae Downloads)
From the One Man Stand: You Are Not My Kind (mp3)

True Falsetto
Trained as an electrician, reggae crooner Pat Kelly is one of the few recordings stars with skills to pay the bills from both sides of the studio glass. (Indeed, after a long career clutching the microphone, he wound up twiddling knobs for Channel One Studios.) Kelly's sweet falsetto—and his relentlessly romantic lovers' soul songbook—has had him oft compared to Sam Cooke, but Smokey Robinson's pipes and repertoire are, to my ears, the closer resemblance.

High Mountain  ~  "High Mountain Hoedown"
(Blog: Record Fiend)
[Password = record-fiend.blogspot.com]

Southern (California) Rock
At 17, Jerry Lynn Williams cut his teeth playing rhythm guitar behind Jimi Hendrix's lead as a member of Little Richard's '65 touring band. After achieving local-legend status in Dallas/Forth Worth, Williams migrated to L.A. and became an in-demand songwriter, penning numbers for stars, including B.B. King, Bonnie Raitt and Eric Clapton (who said Williams "looked like Jack Nicholson and sang like Stevie Wonder.") Williams's own records never amounted to much, including this lone effort by his short-lived band High Mountain.

Max Roach  ~  "Chattahooche Red"
(Blog: Funland at the Beach)

Wherein Max Duets with Martin
Shamefully out of print (and never issued on disc) this vital 1981 LP presents Max Roach's longtime working quartet at the height of its brilliance. The centerpiece here is Roach's dramatic, propulsive drum duet with excerpts of MLK's "I Have a Dream Speech"—an audacious experiment no other artist could dream of pulling off. Additional thrills: Fresh reimaginings of "Giant Steps," "'Round Midnight," and "I Remember Clifford," along with the western lament "Red River Road," which sounds for all the world like a transitional passage straight out of Oklahoma. [Note 1: Files are FLAC not MP3.] [Note 2: Tracks 8 & 9 are mislabeled]

Gurnemanz  ~  "No Rays of Noise"
(Blog: Female Vocals)
From the album: Der Schwartenhals (mp3)

Volksmusik (with Uncringeworthy Kazoo)
Not nearly as grandiose as fellow German electric-folk ensemble Ougenweide, this quartet was content to deliver less ambitious pastoral fare. With Lukas W. Scheel and Manuela Schmitz singing mostly in English, Gurnemanz sounds a whole lot more Canterbury than Rhineland. Kazoos, however, know no borders.

Harry Belafonte/Miriam Makeba  ~  "An Evening With..."
(Blog: What... Cat 8 Your Tongue?)
From the album: Beware Verwoerd!

Power Couple
Miriam Makeba recorded this Grammy-Award winning "folk" album with Harry Belafonte two years after testifying on apartheid at the United Nations in 1965 (and having her South African citizenship revoked) and three years before marrying Stokely Carmichael (and having recording contracts and tour dates in the U.S. revoked). Though not credited, Hugh Masekela, Makeba's husband at the time, reportedly appears on this recording.

Listen for music from these and other incredible finds on
Give the Drummer Some, Fridays on WFMU, 9 to Noon (ET).

Check out every installment of Mining the Audio Motherlode

Burn Your Bra Baby (MP3s)

   

Benny Johnson  -  Burn Your Bra Baby  (2:41)

Alex Houston and Elmer  -  Burn Your Bra Baby  (1:55)

Ever heard of a woman named Cathy O'Brien? Strap your seat belt, this is about to get exceedingly weird.

She alleges that she was an incest victim and CIA mind control operative "sold" by her father to Senator Robert Byrd and sexually abused and raped by Byrd, Gerald Ford, George Bush Sr., Dick Cheney, Bill Bennett, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton and a myriad of other government officials of both political parties that were united by their desire to bring about the New World Order. 

O'Brien also claims that for a period of time in the 1970s and 80s, she was sent (by Byrd) to Nashville, where she was put under the control of Alex Houston, a country music hypnotist and ventriloquist who used her as cover while he smuggled cocaine for Uncle Sam.  O'Brien is silent on the question of whether Elmer the dummy played any role in the shocking depredations that transpired.

Here's a link to a transcript of a 1996 speech in which O'Brien goes into great detail about the disturbing events she says she witnessed on a daily basis during those years.  If you're left hungering for more information, don't worry, that's just the tip of the iceberg.  There's plenty more information in O'Brien's tell-all book Trance: Formation of America. 

Many thanks to Mark Lee Allen for fixing me up with the Benny Johnson MP3 and label scan.

PS - I'd love to know the story behind the fact that a "B. Butler" is the co-author of both these songs....

How Beautiful the Silence --- Fluorescent Vibes live on My Castle of Quiet, 3.31.2010

What kind of a ripple are you trying to create? Because there are so many kinds. There's the 2x4 to the face, often effective—I like it a LOT—and then there's the Fluorescent Vibes way: the subtle, the subliminal, the hinted at; the "it's ok if you get it, and it's ok if you don't" brand of putting it out there.

I knew these guys were gold the first time I heard them, or to be more accurate, put on their Possibilities cassette absentmindedly. I asked myself, "Is this an old Eno tape, one that I've played so many times, that it sounds like a band playing across the river, and the river is on fire?! Whoa, no, it's that Fluorescent Vibes thing I just bought from Paul Haney." From this crystal awareness came my invitation to Phillip and Corey to come join us live at the Castle.

And lest you think I'm talking strictly 70s-style Cluster & Eno emanations here, think again. As these sets prove out, Fluorescent Vibes also rock the digital doppler with great finesse, similar to 90s favorites of mine like Microstoria and Hajsch.

These performances are delicate, thoughtful, and cluttered with sonic surprises and engaging, dissonant beauty. A great many thanks to the band for allowing me to title the sets, and that's where my two cents ends appropriately.

Fluorescent Vibes
Set 1 - How Beautiful the Silence

Set 2 - Radio Car

The usual accolades to Glenn L. for Conny Plank-like sensitivity to the material in his mix of the live session, and to Tracy Widdess for her magical alterations of my crap photos of the band.

April Happenings: Family in NYC / Rhizome's 7 on 7 / Issue Project Room Debut

We usually don't cover too many upcoming events here on the blog but there are a few things coming up this month that caught my eye....

Starting this Thursday LA's venerable Family is taking up a one month residency in NYC. For the uninitiated, Family is a small storefront on Fairfax (near Canter's) that sells books,records and art while also hosting a fair amount of great in-store events. Much like Printed Matter here in NYC or Drawn + Quarterly in Montreal they serve as a hub for the local grass roots art community.

Starting this Thursday Family are taking over a space at 70 Franklin Street (between Church & Broadway) with a line up of *FREE* live shows (Lucky Dragons, Kim + Thurston, Lee Renaldo + Alan Licht doing their Brakhage homage) and discussions by the likes of Art Spiegelman, Will Oldham and the unlikely comedy pairing of Fred Armisen with Andrew Jeffrey Wright (who I mention mainly as an excuse to link to "bart vs black bart on jeweled skull").

There's more to be seen on family's blog including some pics of Gary Panter getting the space ready.

 

Also looking very promising next week is "Seven on Seven", a pairing between 7 sets of artists and technologists put together by Rhizome at the New Museum. Will David Karp set up a tumblr blog for one of Ryan Trecartin's alter egos? Will Tauba Aurebach be predictably great? We might not get to find out since tickets are prohibitively expensive (which is understandable since putting together an event like this can't be cheap) but hopefully it will all be shared afterward. Hats of to Rhizome for putting this together. It looks great.

Last but not least: this Sunday at 11 AM, Issue Project Room will also be hosting it's first ever event at their new Livingston Space before it undergoes extensive renovation. Ne(x)tworks will be playing Morton Feldman's rarely preformed String Quartet No. 2 (all six hours of it). Admission is free and more info can be found here. Congrats on the new space.

The Dargerfication of Miroslav Tichy

 I went to the Miroslav Tichy exhibit at International Center of Photography a few weeks ago, and then I went back again last Friday. (See Vinnie Smith’s earlier post here on Beware of the Blog.) Miroslav Tichy is an old Czech, born in Kyjov, Moravia, in 1926. He went to art school, and then stopped painting sometime in the late 1950s. He became very unkempt, dressed in rags, and started wandering around Kyjov with cameras he constructed out of garbage—shoe boxes, twine, lenses from broken eyeglasses. According to some of the local residents who were interviewed for a documentary on Tichy’s life, most people didn’t believe his cameras were real; those who did would call the police whenever he began “taking pictures”—mostly of women’s feet, legs, and butts. The police also hauled Tichy off to the local insane asylum whenever he showed up for the annual May Day parade, because they didn’t want the village weirdo spoiling their proper celebration.

 The images Tichy made are pretty great, because his cameras and his enlarger were made out of trash, and also because of Tichy’s obsession with his subject matter. Last Friday I watched a couple looking at the first few photos at the ICP exhibit; the young woman turned to her date and said, “He sure liked booty, didn’t he?” Clearly he did, which is pretty obvious to anyone who just looks at the pictures. But if you read the accompanying text for the show, written by some curator, you will discover that these images are all about esthetic choice as to how best to represent the experience of village life, or some such nonsense. Instead of shooting interiors or church scenes, Tichy chose to shoot at the local swimming pool for some esthetic reason or other. The fact that there are usually not a lot of half-naked babes at the church didn’t enter into it at all, apparently. But Tichy himself, in an interview in the documentary film that’s showing in conjunction with the exhibit, just goes on and on about sexuality, atoms screwing, dinosaurs doing it—he doesn’t say a word about his “esthetic choices.” He does say, “To be famous, you have to be worse at something than anyone else in the whole world.” So he’s not stupid.

I don’t understand why we have to do the Henry Darger on these guys. Nobody goes to all the trouble of making cameras out of trash unless their passion forces them to make those images. Why can’t people just look at the photos and appreciate them for what they are? It doesn’t lessen the power of the photos to accept that the photographer was the local creepy weirdo, or that any “esthetic choices” were being made by his Little Miroslav.

ICP show until May 9 (Friday is pay-what-you-wish after 5:00).

Also illuminating: the “Problems” section on the offical website.

Thanks for reading my blogpost this time, and may God bless.

 

SXSW: Or What Passes for a Salad in Austin

Austin! It's a place that's become part of my plans over the past few years, because WFMU has been hosting a showcase with Aquarius Records regularly. I come for the music, and take away stories that are more interesting than watching a couple of bands and having someone puke on my shoes. At least the puke part didn't happen this year!! I arrived on Tuesday, after getting my bearings, some BBQ and listening to Motorhead soundcheck over at Stubb's, I sat down and made my skeleton plan for a week in Austin!

Wednesday I was out of the gate to EMO's to catch Dark Castle as my first band of this holiday. A crushing 2-piece from FL, they did not disappoint with their sludgy black riffs. I vowed to see them again this week. The rest of the afternoon at Emo's shaped up this way (at least what I saw): the all out assault that is Landmine Marathon, Salome - great crust/doom, Withered (vocalist Mike pictured right)- sinister and cold at it's best, Fucked Up (with a special appearance by Killah Priest and 9th Prince because GZA didn't make it), and Torche (pic left) closing out the day with their unique brand of  "Godzilla does pop" - yay! I gobbled down a turkey dog with wasabi mustard and onions while walking and then prepared for the evening. It was already the highlight of my week - Montreal's VOIVOD is playing twice tonight- and the sun hadn't gone down yet! Voivod sighting #1 was at the Austin Music Hall (photograph of Snake, Away, and Blacky below), where my sonic metal heroes took the stage to a paltry crowd, slugging their way through a feverish set in front of Motorhead's backdrop. Michael Monroe followed with some solo material and Hanoi Rocks songs, with an athletic stage performance, a dive into the photo pit and Ginger from the Wildhearts on guitar! Austin never filled their music hall that evening, so I got to see Lemmy and his Rickenbacker closer than I have been in a long time, playing Iron Fist, I Got Mine, Stay Clean amongst my faves. I scooted out of there a bit early to catch Voivod set #2 at Red 7 across town!

Frank Sutton On His Day Off

     

As a nod to the beginning of the 2010 Major League Baseball season, here's the best Frank Sutton photo ever.

He's seen here on his day off, dropping by the L.A. Dodgers' locker room for a visit where he encounters Jim Nabors lookalike Claude Osteen and promptly begins berating him.  More Sutton-o-bilia can be found on an earlier BOTB post over here.

The Reddy Record for Boys

Perhaps some Easter morning, say 50-55 years ago, some lucky little boy awoke to find that the Easter Bunny had not only left all sorts of chocolates and other sweets, but that the bunny had also left a copy of something called "The Reddy Record for Boys".

I don't actually know if what I've imagined here is possible, because I've been unable to determine anything regarding the story of this record, including whether or not it was ever released. The only things that pop up on an internet search are links to the auction where I bought this acetate.

Yes, this is not the actual record, but rather, an acetate of the Reddy Record, featuring a young woman interviewing (and hopefully, interacting with) the young boy who would be listening to the record.

Based on the content of the script, it sounds like this was directed at 4-6 year olds. Beyond that, the references to TV cowboys, and just the general feel of the thing, causes me to think it probably dates from no later than the very early '60's, probably a bit earlier. 

There are a couple of questions that stand out for me, including: isn't this sort of a weird length for a record? It's too short to be an album, and much too long for a 78 - seven minutes on the first side, eleven on the second. Was there a "Reddy Record for Girls"? And of course, who IS this, and who was behind it?

Oh, and be sure to listen for the guy in the booth, who gives the performer a glowing one word review at the end of part one.  

Reddy Record for Boys, Part One (MP3)

Reddy Record for Boys, Part Two (MP3)

Writing on Side One of the Acetate (JPG)

The Early Betty White 1947-1973 by Kliph Nesteroff

Betty White is universally loved. Best known for her work on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Golden Girls, she has been in show business for over sixty years. But what is it that made Betty White so famous in the first place? A recent blitz of cliché-laden profiles aggrandize about Betty's enduring television career, but rarely do they delve into detail.

Betty White was a ubiquitous show business personality long before she ever played Sue Ann Nivens or Rose Nylund. As the most prolific female of nineteen fifties television, she was consistently attacked by newspaper critics. Open war was declared on White who, with her safe exuberant demeanor, was said to represent everything that was wrong with the medium. During that first decade of television she was often dismissed as too perky, too saccharine - even vacant.

In real life she was anything but. Those critics would have been shocked to learn that she was closest of friends with John Steinbeck. Betty White was more than just a sitcom star, singer, game show panelist and television producer. She was the first woman to host a daytime talk show. She helped a struggling film student, the very un-saccharine Sam Peckinpah, obtain his first job. Twenty years later she discovered a small town weatherman she thought had potential named David Letterman. With a starring role on a program that aired five and a half-hours a day, six days a week, for four consecutive years, and all that has come since, it is arguable that she has spent more time on television than anyone else alive.

This is the early Betty White.

Kick it around, people, and have some fun

I always feel self-consciously bourgeois popping off reviews (or quasi-reviews like this one) of money-sucking, ultra-fetishist consumables — even when I have to buy them, which is nearly always. The ne plus ultra of this case might be the Revenant Albert Ayler box. And, yes, I bought one, and have since opened it up just to finger its flowery insides numerous times when the world seems cold and mean, and I realize I’ll never own a Ferrari F430 so I might as well covet this within-reach, insanely juju-infused token of American-surrealist black avatarism. And the music’s pretty cool, too.

 
 Current case in point: The Complete Arista Recordings of Anthony Braxton (Mosaic). This monumental collection of early works by the iconic Mr. Braxton, eagerly anticipated by music geeks the world over, gathers essential, long-OOP works of this essential musician from his first flowering. Solos, duos, trios, quartets, piano duos, big bands and multi-orchestras are enshrined in those rainbow-iridescent grooves. I waited some months before offering up the $136 tithe, and when the blessed tablets finally landed and began to tote up the revs on the holy spinner, my anticipated mystical experience washed out in a wave of letdown. It just wasn’t the same. Boo (h-256) Kelvin–T3 hoo.