WFMU's Beware of the Blog

The Necks live at WFMU (MP3)

In honor of the return of this Australian trio to New York, here's the full MP3 of their transcendent performance from my radio show back almost exactly one year ago (why do they keep leaving the warmth of the southern hemisphere?). For the uninitiated, the Necks hail fron Sydney, and since 1987 have utilized the piano/bass/drums format in a singular, unorthodox fashion that has left them uncategorizable, yet critically-acclaimed and in high demand from jazz, ambient, and avant-rock festivals. The trio of Chris Abrahams (piano) Tony Buck (drums, percussion) and Lloyd Swanton (stand-up bass) have performed their sprawling, dense, and tranced-out pieces in art spaces, clubs, the Sydney Opera House, and last week at Issue Project Room (where I caught the first night of a two-night stand). Issue's recording of night #1 set #2 has also been uploaded to the Free Music Archive, and is stunning; at one point it was somewhat like witnessing and hearing the ocean at work. Gentle, seashell-like percussion mixing in with sheets of other acoustic strings and keys. New Age? Someone mentioned that before the set, not sure what to expect, and in a sense there is a certain harnessing of organic, natural elements. Nature itself does seem to sit in with these guys. Overtones emerge as repetitions pick up ever-so-slowly (a normal "piece" can take an hour or more), individuals listening can hone in on certain phrases that maybe others don't concentrate on, the template the Necks present is precise, but open, and always hypnotic as any Spacemen 3 or Kompakt release. Their 2009 visit to WFMU, engineered by Irene Trudel, was a huge honor for me; getting to watch up close as the ideas rolled out and gather mass. Hope you enjoy it as well. Special thanks to Irene and Regina Greene.

Faust live at WFMU Fest in Brooklyn 10/1/09 (MP3's)

(Poster left Henry Owings, photo right Greg Cristman) We were honored to have Teutonic titans Faust headline the first night of WFMU Fest (which ran October 1-3 at the Music Hall of Williamsburg and also included the likes of TV Ghost, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Talk Normal, VeeDee, Pissed Jeans, Drunkdriver, Sightings, Aluk Todolo, Cold Cave, and the Guinea Worms); it's a rare occassion for these living legends to hit American shores. They without doubt had a healthy hand in shaping modern experimental, industrial, electronic and even pop music; in Julian Cope's words, "there is no group more mythical."

For those who were hesitant to see what a nearly 40 year old band held near and dear to their hearts could be up to, doubts were instantly dispelled as the crowd was treated to a heavy dose of Faust IV-heavy classics and crazed improvisations that  seized the moment (coupled with live painting and cement mixer  action). A few weeks back Faust OK'd a broadcast of the set, and I had an opportunity to chat at length with Jean-Herve Peron and his dog (streaming archive from my January 19th show is here, and you can go right to the interview segment here), and now we're happy to say you can grab the entire October 1st WFMU Fest show on MP3! Severe thanks to Regina Greene, Jean-Herve, and Scott Williams for the fantastic mix. By the way, a few other of that weekend's artists (namely Talk Normal and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks) have all posted some Mp3s from WFMU Fest on the Free Music Archive. Enjoy!

Faust, live at WFMU Fest, Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn NY Oct 1, 2009. Lineup: Jean-Herve Peron, Zappi Diermaier, James Johnston and Geraldine Swayne.

Icky Boyfriends: Making Me Proud to Be American

From Seeamanaboutahorse's You Tube page, the late 80's/early 90's San Francisco ambassadors of primitive party music. The mere line ""You keep on talking to me / just like the McLaughlin Group / you're about as interesting as Campbell's Soup" still speaks volumes to me. Check their 2CD anthology on Menlo Park, A Love Obscene. Film shot in Super 8 by Robert Arnold at 18 Sycamore (former residence of Snakefinger).

International Harvester

First footage I've seen of this amazing Swedish psych powerhouse, a group that was founded around 1967 by Pärson Sound/Träd, Gräs och Stenar's Bo Anders Persson. Johan Kugelberg's recent Swedish Underground exhibit at the Kasher Gallery in Soho brought a lot of photo images of this era to life, and the sound of these three bands has had a big impact on me through the years so the new visuals are very welcome. It makes perfect sense that Persson started Parson Sound (which morphed into International Harvester upon opening for a Swedish Doors gig) after experiencing Terry Riley's residency in Sweden; the heavy trance element, flowing ethno-vibe and rock-riffery heaviness are well documented on the Silence label's Sov Gott Rose Marie reissue (still in print). It's a monster. Seeing TGoS some years ago at Tonic was also transcendent, despite the fact members were getting into their 70's (via Exdoomorbedoomed's YT page).

Ugly Kid Joe, No Longer an Influence in the Burbs, It Seems

Via Metal Inquisition
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Radon 10th Anniversary bash on WFMU

Years ago I first came in contact with the Radon label via my pal Marlon, hearing a live set by Italian avant-rock composer Daniele Brusachetto, learning about his fellow countrymen OvO and then finally being sent a pile of CDs (mostly samplers) from the transient Radon head Scott Nydegger coupled with frequent correspondences enthusiastically talking about the state of experimental music made us fast friends. As I got familiar with the many facets of this label, Scott made sure that I was introduced to everyone in his orbit, and what really impressed me most is that Radon dealt with its business and artists unlike few others. Everyone was scattered around the world, because Scott just floated around meeting people and putting the music out from wherever he was (as opposed to working out of an office and dealing with the biz); anyone who shared the vision was invited in and were all friends. Fractured breakcore from Ripit, industrial tubthumping from Sikhara (Scott's outfit), introspective psychedelic drone from Fabrizio Polumbo under the name (r), and glorious ascensions from Steve Mackay (saxman then and now for Iggy and the Stooges) all intermingled under the Radon umbrella. Through the years quite a few units of the stable has landed in the WFMU studios on various shows; Mackay put out an LP backed by some heavyweight improvisers on Qbico called Tunnel Diner culled from sessions on my show and Acapulco Rodriguez's as well (some MP3's here). Koonda Holaa, aka Kamilsky, is an eccentric Czech ex-pat who holed up for years in the high Mojave and also visited FMU (check him out on the Free Music Archive, he's terrific) and actually landed surreal opening slot for the Stooges in Moscow a few years back. Now, Radon takes a break, but to celebrate a good decade, Scott invited me down to Jason LaFarge's Seizures Palace studio in Brooklyn (in the cavernous Gowanus space where Martin Bisi also made all those great Lydia Lunch, Sonic Youth and Swans records) and we recorded a full on American/Portuguese summit jam of Sikhara, HHY & Drums of Habnom and United Scum Soundclash. It's a gorgeous, free-flowing hour of microscopic sounds, Neubauten-esque tribal percussion blowouts, scabby sampling and a simple celebration of the joy of free sound in a gigantic room. I aired the program on December 29th, but you can grab this session below. Please also boogie over to the Free Music Archive's Radon offerings. Much excellence to be found. Somewhat saddened to hear of the label's hiatus, but other imprints like Soopa and Urck seem to be picking up some of the slack with a similar level of vision and social circles.

Bill Kelly's Top 10 for 2009

Teenage Wasteland's faves:
THE NORVINS "Time Machine" (Soundflat)
GRAHAM DAY & THE GAOLERS "Triple Distilled" (Damaged Goods),
THE YUM YUMS "Whatever Rhymes With Baby" (Screaming Apple / Pop Detective)
THE DOLLY ROCKER MOVEMENT "Our Days Mind The Tyme" (Off The Hip)
THE A-BONES "The A-Bones, Not Now! (Norton)
MARK & THE SPIES "Give Me A Look" (Screaming Apple)
THE REVELLIONS "The Revellions" (Dirty Water),
THE TOL-PUDDLE MARTYRS "A Celebrated Man" (Secretdeals)
YESTERDAY'S THOUGHTS "A Moment To Pray" (Sound Effect)
THE COCKTAIL SLIPPERS "Saint Valentine's Day Massacre" (Wicked Cool)

Honorable mention goes to THE BISHOPS "The Bishops" (1234) which came out in 2007 but I didn't get the opportunity to hear until this year.  The two best 45's I had the pleasure of hearing were THE GARAGE GODS "She Don't Love You Anymore" / "Had Enough Of Your Lies" (Lost In Tyme) and THE RANTOULS "Little Bit Of This" / "Little Green Hat" (Chocolate Covered Records).  Party on...

To see more WFMU staff year end lists, go here.

The decade ends with the departure of one of the best guitarists ever

Thanks to several friends for sharing what is the best video clip I've seen in memoriam to the late Rowland S. Howard of Boys Next Door/Birthday Party/Crime and the City Solution/These Immortal Souls, and many collaborations. A real innovator and a terrible loss and unfulfillable gap.

Brian Turner's Fave Sounds of 2009

My musical year in a nutshell (in no particular order):

Moniek Darge - Soundies (KYE)
Lonesummer/Marsh - split cassette (Starlight Temple Society)
Edan - Echo Party (Traffic)
Bill Orcutt - A New Way To Pay Old Debts (Palilalia)
Tropa Macaca - Sansacao Do Principio (Siltbreeze)
Times New Viking - Born Again Revisited (Matador)
Rusted Shut - Dead (Load)
Chopstick - Forgiveness Please (Love Earth Music)
Spill - Where You Aren't (Blackest Rainbow)
Hochman & Hopkins - Bent Broom Rehearsal Tapes (Near Tapes)
Blues Control - Local Flavor (Siltbreeze)
Liturgy - Renihilation (20 Buck Spin)
Purling Hiss (pic right) - Purling Hiss (Archive)
Pissed Jeans - King of Jeans (Sub Pop)
William Basinski - 98982 (2062)
Mayyors - Deads 12" (Hurling Man)
Madalyn Merkey (pic right) - Goddess of the Horizon (Irmavep Tapes)
David Sylvian - Manafon (Samadhisound)
Kurt Vile - Childish Prodigy (Matador)
Puffy Areolas - Lutzko Lives 7" (Columbus Discount)
Sonny & the Sunsets - Death Cream 7" (Soft Abuse)
Warm Climate - Edible Houses cassette (Stunned)
Sissy Spacek - Fortune 7" (Gilgongo)

Reissues/Reduxes:
Bondage-T - Les Bouchers de Verdun  7" (Memoire Neuv)
Sun Ra - R&B Reissues (Norton)
Crash Course In Science -s/t (Vinyl On Demand)
The Ex - 30 (Ex)
Robert Wyatt - Radio Experiment Rome 1981 (Rai Trade)
Pekka Streng - Kesamaa (Love)
Various - Dirty French Psychedelics (Discograph)
39 Clocks - reissues on DeStijl, Bureau B

Best live show by oldsters (old guy tie)
The Axemen @ Union Pool, Throbbing Gristle @ Le Poisson Rouge, Neil Young @ Primavera

Had a mighty good time at WFMU Fest Oct 1-3, and our SXSW show w/Aquarius in March. And a big shout to all the bands that stopped by the show this year: TV Ghost, Airway, Gnaw, the Axemen, Graveyards, Kurt Vile & the Violators, Billy Bao, Pink Noise, Total Abuse, Afterparty, Group Doueh (from a remote in Paris we did), the Necks, Puffy Areolas, Pulse Emitter, Skullflower, Prince Rama of Ayodhya. A fine year ideed for sounds.

Check out other WFMU staffers' year end lists here.

Hopefully will find his way to the studio in 2010:

Remembering Jack Rose / WFMU live sessions

Today's NY Times obit  appeared for Philadelphia guitarist Jack Rose, who passed away from a heart attack Saturday and the young age of 38. WFMU has played his music back to the days of his ensemble Pelt and followed him as he moved into exploring a realm of pre-WWII fascination: ragtime, cajun, blues, jazz. Like one of his heroes, John Fahey, his fandom did not come without the drive to expand and challenge genres and the definition of acoustic string playing. As noted in the obit, despite leaving behind the louder, dronier aspects of Pelt to study a more delicate and complex manner of guitar; his love for La Monte Young and Terry Riley continued to resonate, and his fingerpicking didn't so much work to replicate the music he loved as it did to conjure up ethereal improvisations that belonged to no particular style or era. He took a real initiative to absorb as many avenues of interest that were possible to create a new, distinct vocabulary, while offering lessons to a whole new brigade of musicians this decade who too were excited about challenging the possibilities and parameters of the acoustic guitar.

Here at WFMU we have a few staffers under our roof who knew Jack personally, and our heartfelt sympathies go out to his family and friends; it was shocking to hear the news this past week around these halls. His live shows were dazzling, the best one I saw him play had him outdoors on a Hollywood hillside back in 2005. I wish I had experienced the gigs more often. Luckily, WFMU had Jack in our studios on two ocassions,  you can check them out here:

Jack's live performance on the Janitor From Mars show on WFMU, hosted by Rob Lim, 11/22/04 (stream)

Jack's live performance on John Allen's show on WFMU, 10/24/05 (stream)

John Allen offers these words about his experience with Jack at WFMU:

I'm saddened and pissed by the loss of Jack and the future he and his wife Laurie were working on together. There are few guitarists whose work and potential excited me more, and I looked forward to watching all the peaks and valleys of Jack's career over the next few decades. One of my favorite memories of Jack was when he recorded a live set for FMU in October '05. We began the show talking about his influences, and I was sort of egging him on as we both got carried away wondering out loud where he sat amongst audiences both receptive and clueless to the language he was helping to redefine. When he was ready to play we realized there had been a tech mishap and we had to re-record. I cued up another file and asked "do you think we need to talk about any of that stuff again", he said "nope" and
jumped right into his set. That moment gave me a great insight into Jack and his momentum. His enthusiastic spirit was as admirable as was his modesty, he didn't hold back, and in a relatively short period of time he asserted himself to help raise the bar pretty fuckin' high for the next couple generations of players.

Airway live at WFMU (MP3)

The Los Angeles Free Music Society had its earliest roots in 1972, attracting, almost by act of nature, like-minded audio hooligans who huddled around Tom Recchion's esoteric musical recommendations at the Poo-Bah record store in Pasadena. Not just content to sit around a listen to weird records, the LAFMS generally sought out to blur the lines of highbrow Euro-informed avant classicism, dada-rock ala Beefheart, humor-laced psychedelic jammage, and a million more influences. They did it in a very home-styled manner, held guerilla performances, took over parades and art spaces, and documented countless hours of their interactions on tape and the odd LP. Groups like the Doo-Dooettes, Le Forte Four, Solid Eye, and Extended Organ held court at the nucleus, while interactions with many in their orbit led to early documentations of free-blowing stalwarts like the still-viable Smegma, and to lesser extent notables like Monitor, and even Christian Death and 45 Grave wound up encoded in LAFMS documents. It wasn't until the 1990's that a 10CD box set on the Cortical label, and a 4CD anthology of the open-contribution-based Blorp Essette appeared to try to encapsulate things, inevitably only scratching the surface of the LAFMS saga. So when Mike Kelley's curated two-night noisefest landed at Performa's monthlong NYC event, and brought a slew of LAFMS alumni to town, I jumped on the opportunity to have them down to WFMU to decode the long and mysterious history of the collective.

Joe Potts, Rick Potts (pictured right at WFMU), Vetza Trussell, Tom Recchion, Fredrik Nilsen, and Dennis Duck all stopped by my show for a 3-hour retrospective on LAFMS which aired December 1st and is archived here, a huge thrill indeed that was only enhanced by them moving into the live performance room here and plugging in for the first ever studio performance of Airway. Airway started off as an offshoot of Joe Potts' Le Forte Four, mainly as a vehicle for him to issue forth electronic subliminal messages during a gallery showing, eventually growing into a full-on noise rock unit documented on the 1978 Live at LACE LP (available for download on the Free Music Archive). The performance and general awareness of the LAFMS gang led to some serious seeds being planted in Japan and the direct foundation of the insane noise scene that developed in the '80's via the Hanatarash, Hijokaidan, and Incapacitants (whom I posted a video a couple weeks back of here). The daring (and at the time unheard-of) DIY nature of the LAFMS still reverberates today in Wolf Eyes, Ultra Eczema's scene, Sonic Youth (where Recchion had a brief membership) and others (to quote Roland Woodbe on Siltblog: "this was the ground zero of knob-turning, brain scrambling twiddle-zorp, the nascent dawn of Suitcase Rock.") Today, members are still fairly active. Rick Potts, in fact, brought Solid Eye to WFMU when we were just settling into our Jersey City digs, the studio wasn't finished yet so they played in the supply closet.

Thanks to the LAFMS, Danny Gromfin, and engineer Mark Triant for the help (and Mike Kelley and Performa for bringing the group to New York!), enjoy 20+ minutes of Airway live at WFMU, and again, check out the show's archive to hear interviews with all, plus a time-spanning assortment of LAFMS nuggets playlisted.

New Zealand's Axemen at WFMU (MP3's)

It's a chore enough these days for any kind of overseas band to land a U.S. tour on any scale, so its was nothing less than a pleasant surprise when we learned that New Zealand's Axemen had a pretty extensive one lined up with Columbus, Ohio's Times New Viking this fall. The Axemen started in Christchurch in 1981, a time when New Zealand and Flying Nun records in particular were stirring up a major musical waves (ones that were felt in countless 1990's US indie bands and are still being felt today especially disciples like TNV), yet the sweeping, strummy pop element that was evident in many of the Nun's stable was only a part of the fuzzy picture that was the Axemen. The band's central core of (Little) Stevie McCabe, Bob Brannigan, and Stu Kawowski recorded in both cheapo home mode and in traditional studios, but setting had little to do with the wide-swing of directions that are evident wherever you drop a needle (or cue up a tape). There's tons of basement weirdness nodding to the more antisocial Velvets and Swell Maps moments, scatterings of drunken White Album recreation attempts, even moments where they sound like Royal Trux way before their time. When they played at Union Pool in Brooklyn last week I could swear they were going for a Stackwaddy/Doors thing, but then they became Half Japanese with Stevie playing sax solos on guitar. In Axemen recordings, they have one song about Elmer Fudd that sounds like Psychic TV, and another that is totally inspired by Grandmaster Flash. They even did a full album of Elton John songs. I have a feeling that if Flying Nun gave them the giant studio budget like they did Straitjacket Fits they would have come up with an album just as great as their Big Cheap Motel and Scary! Part III cassettes that Siltbreeze thankfully reissued in 2009. Check out the clip below (and more after the jump) of the band on a 90's NZ kids' TV show (promoting their Peter Wang Pud album!), and dig in to their November 20th visit to my radio show, engineered by Jason Sigal and Alex Yockey.Thanks for Terre T for leaving us all the food the Reigning Sound didn't eat earlier that day, there were some fancy pastries!

Incapacitants

Making the nature scene, 1991.
Posted via Big Fat Satanist.

Performa 09 Fires Up in NYC This Month

From November 1st through 22nd Performa organization is clobbering this town with it's third series of events. Over 110 of them in fact, spread out over 80 venues, all blurring lines between art, dance, music, film, graphic design and even some culinary action, magic, and Polish Futurism. It's an impressive calendar. A few events are especially exciting amongst WFMU staffers, one of which is a two night stand at the Gramercy Theater November 20-21 curated by renowned artist Mike Kelley (whose grown-man-baby-at Burning Man odyssey I just caught at SculptureCenter in Long Island City was a brainmelt), titled A Fantastic World Superimposed on Reality: A Select History of Experimental Music. Here, some historic works will be presented from John Cage, Fluxus, Fred Frith, Max Neuhaus and Bruce Nauman, with other contemporary performances by in-house heavies z'ev, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Jad Fair & Lumberbob, Thurston Moore w/Ryan Sawyer, Christian Marclay w/Shelley Hirsch, John Zorn, Tony Conrad, Arto Lindsay, John Duncan, and more. It's also a rare opportunity for New York to witness Destroy All Monsters, and I'm especially stoked to see a healthy showing of assorted players from the legendary Los Angeles Free Music Society. Co-founding member Tom Recchion appears as Extended Organ and also locks horns with Rick Potts, Joe Potts, Dennis Duck, and Frederick Nilsen for a set with Airway, who were total seed-planters for Japan's 1980's noise scene development. In fact, I'll be recording the whole Airway contingent during a WFMU studio visit, which will air on my show in conjunction with a whole 3-hour LAFMS retrospective on December 1st from 3-6PM (and you can hear/grab MP3s of Airway's 1978 Live at Lace recordings on our Free Music Archive). Kurt Gottschalk also just hosted enduring composer/vocal artist Joan La Barbara, who will also be part of the Gramercy proceedings (you can grab that special now as a podcast).

As if that wasn't enough in the realm of sonic delights, Joan also helps celebrate the 100th Anniversary of Italian Futurism at what's sure to be a jawdropping event at Town Hall this Thursday, November 12: it's a full-on noisefest featuring performances on the accurate replicas of the intonarumori, noise instruments originally built in 1913 by Luigi Russolo and perhaps accurately described as very primitive predecessors to the analog synthesizer. Luciano Chessa will direct (and play) in an orchestra consisting of Blixa Bargeld, John Butcher, Joan La Barbara, Nick Hallett, Pauline Oliveros, Mike Patton, Anat Pick, Elliott Sharp, Ulrich Krieger, Jennifer Walshe with Tony Conrad, Ghostigital with Skuli Sverrison, Finboggi Petursson, and Casper Electronics. It'll be an opportunity to witness the first ever performance of a segment of Russolo’s “Risveglio di una città”, “La pioggia nel pineto antidannunziana,” (a newly-discovered 1916 Futurist piece for intonarumori), and “Words in Freedom” by Futurist playwright and poet Paolo Buzzi. Again, this all is just a sliver of what Performa has on tap for November in New York, so give the full schedule a gander.

Men With No IQ's: True Black Metal from Mississippi

Ever since Pete Larson at Bulb reissued an LP of the 1986 primitive recordings by Hattiesburg, Mississippi geniuses the Terrifying Sickos, I've been on a quest to find whatever I could from what must have been a bizzaro circle and scene around them. I got pretty excited when DJ Rick on KDVS aired a compilation tape on the Primordial Sid label that revealed more Mississippi basement confusion by the likes of the Wheezing Crapheads, Cellophane Squids, and a truly drunk, woozy, and inspired version of Black Flag's "Nervous Breakdown" by the Skoalkans (who are said to have opened for Corrosion of Conformity). I got even more excited when Primordial Sid himself found I had played the Sickos and then floated a pile of CDRs my way last year. Then, he recently wrote me to point out the existence of another hallowed combo of legend: the Men With No IQ's. They indeed exhuded the same awesomeness as the rest of the Sid scene, though from a more metal side of things. From their My Space page (which someone else has set up, and on which the bassist has promised more pix soon):

"When I was 15 I used to sneak in to a dive called W.C. Don's in Jackson, Miss to see the monthly hardcore shows that seemed to come around at that point. Inevitably, Men With No IQ's would be opening the show. They were three African American guys who looked about as out of place as anyone ever could. The bass player, Booger Man White and the drummer, Steve Harris (no relation to the bass player from Maiden) were so huge that they would literally dwarf their tiny pawn shop instruments. Sylvester was the hot shot of the band, and he had like 10 Peavey practice amps, all stacked up on one another. Sylvester would always play with his shirt off while the other two guys wore custom MNI shirts and baseball caps that were most likely made at one of those iron-on shops in the Jackson Mall. THEY WERE AWESOME. I regret to say that I didn't appreciate them nearly enough at the time but they would always SLAY."

The Men with No IQ's almost remind me of Teezar in terms of the DIY-metal 80's insanity factor (they were referred to by someone as the soundtrack of a Budweiser and meth binge), but the lines are divided on the reality of that band's existence. I know I for one am disappointed when people go through the trouble of making extensive discographies and biographies and recordings for fictional bands, and I refuse to believe any kind of naysaying on some of them, but needless to say I am salivating over the mention that more MwNIQ's tracks are hovering around out there.

The Men With No IQ's "Can't Resist It" (MP3)

The Men With No IQ's "Dreamin' " (MP3)

Helping Hand for Prince Rama of Ayodhya

We hosted a broadcast (and Free Music Archive MP3s) a while back here on WFMU, and found the Ramas to be three of the sweetest people who we've had the fortune to fill our hallways with music, so it was heartbreaking to hear from Taraka today that their tour had been cancelled due to all their gear and merch being swiped in Philadelphia this past week. I'm sure they'd appreciate all their fans and WFMU listeners to spread the word in getting some help their way so they can continue making their otherwordly sounds. Paypal link here, and more on this great trio here.

TV Ghost live on WFMU (MP3's)

Fresh from their appearance at WFMU Fest, Lafayette, Indiana's finest have a packed touring schedule and killer new release on In the Red Records, who might describe them best: "a band who ushers in a vile and squalid new disposition to ugly art punk and carves out a black hole of pestilence that will delight its sufferers to no end. If one can swim through the murky grime long enough to let one's frazzled senses adjust, it's clear how effectively TV Ghost incorporates the licentious nuances of the Cramps' earliest scuzz, no wave's cacophony, and Suicide's terrifying throb alongside cavernous bellows from the depths of the third layer of hell.": Dolan Hoeft, Jackson Vanhorn, Shawn Ghost, and Tim Gick dropped by Jersey City on October 9th and ripped a killer session on Brian Turner's show, engineered by Mark Triant (and thanks to Alex at the Free Music Archive for the edits).

ATP-NY 2009: Grouper (MP3)

(photo left: Abbey Braden) It was most rewarding to see that All Tomorrows Parties gave Portland OR's Grouper (AKA Liz Harris) the larger room for her September 12th set from Kutsher's resort in the Catskills; the glacial, elegant movements of her solo performances (armed only with guitar, voice, and FX) were befitting of a past-its-prime ballroom where the spectres of 1950's-1970's entertainment loomed large. That and the fact that a large room's acoustics were perfect for her; in front swirling projected images Harris projected murky, oceanic melodies, lumbering overtones and dreamlike drones, all a seemingly symphonic creation all at the hands of one person and a guitar. It sounded very controlled yet completely vague and very much non-digital sounding. Surrounded by this, you feel completely transported by these dense yet never-overpowering clouds of sound, always distant, but directly connected your cortex in a way I think even My Bloody Valentine could not quite accomplish with their live barrage last year. Comparisons to Arvo Part meets Throbbing Gristle are definitely accurate; there's an epicness about Grouper's music that never quite releases its sense of foreboding while at the same time aims to sooth the soul.

WFMU broadcast a good portion of the weekend from All Tomorrows Parties, and we're uploading new performances every day to this blog and the Free Music Archive's ATP collection. Grouper's set was recorded somewhat simply for broadcast by Jason Sigal, a basic mix and room mic is really all needed to capture this.

ATP-NY 2009: The Melvins (2 MP3's)

More sonic souvenirs from the Sept 11-13 All Tomorrows Parties from Kutshers resort in the Catskills, broadcast over WFMU. The Melvins. A lone blog post can't sum up all there is to say about these guys, except theirs is a world so universal that only these musicians could be the common thread between Lustmord and Gene Simmons (both of whom have made music with them). Simply calling the Melvins the godfathers of Northwest grunge shorts them on many accounts; their beauty, brutality, and enormous palette for experimentation and forward-thinking has never stalled out. It's no wonder they were a handful for Atlantic Records in the mid 90's, but thankfully their post-majors career sees the Melvins invigorated and making some of their awesomest sounds on stage and in studio. Their latest release "Chicken Switch" (Ipecac) finds them remixed by the likes of Merzbow, Eye, Sunroof, Christoph Heeman, Matmos and more. 

Their Saturday, October 12th set at stage 2 of ATP was the first chance I've had to check out the post-2006 lineup of the band, with 80's mainstays King Buzzo (guitar/vox) and Dale Crover (drums) actually merging their band with Big Business (Coady Willis on second drums, Jared Willis on bass). To say they slayed would be an understatement, and in all truth this is the only band that could have one of its members perform in a Snuggy and not lose one fraction of heaviness. We've got two approved MP3s from the set: "Zodiac" and "Kicking Machine" engineered during WFMU broadcast by Scott Konzelmann.

WFMU Fest in Brooklyn This Thursday, Friday, Saturday: Faust, Teenage Jesus, Pissed Jeans and More

WFMU curates and produces its own festival this week! Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, October 1-3, we take over the Music Hall of Williamsburg (66 N. 6th Street in Brooklyn) for an all-out live assault with a myriad of some of our favorite local and international acts. Krautrock godfathers, No Wave pioneers, post-Gristle industrial coldwave, French post-rock doom, and full-on ass-flattening punk rock explosions will abound!

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1st (doors 8PM, $20 advance or door)
Faust
Cold Cave
Aluk Todolo

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2nd (doors 8PM, $12 advance/$15 door)
Pissed Jeans
TV Ghost
VeeDee
Guinea Worms

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3rd (doors 8PM, $20 advance or door)
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks
Sightings
Drunkdriver
Talk Normal

More pics and info on the bands on an earlier post, and advance tickets are still available at the Music Hall of Williamsburg site, or Other Music (W. 4th and Lafayette Street in Manhattan). Words can't relate how happy WFMU is to be able to gather such a criminally great mass of live performers onboard for this. Our thanks to everyone who's bought advance tix so far, the bands, Henry Owings for the poster design and Chantelle Hylton-Simmons for helping us out as well. Great ready for a clobbering weekend of live music, and stop by the station's tables in the venue's lobby to say hello (and pick up some FMU wear or one of our limited-run WFMU Fest posters!) Once again, we are not broadcasting live, so get on out there to be part of this!