The Stash Dauber

Improvised Silence in the Star-Telegram

2012-01-27T15:29:00.000-08:00

The Star-Telegram's Preston Jones gave us a shout-out. (It's in the last paragraph.)

Mo' Jass

2012-01-26T21:42:00.000-08:00

I don't pretend to be a jazz expert. I remarked to my sweetie this afternoon that the way I listen to jazz is comparable to, say, someone who keeps reading Ulysses and Moby Dick over and over, and nothing else. It's taken me 40 years to absorb Ornette and Cecil, and now I'm really just getting started on the AACM. For shame. A few other way stations on the journey:

1) FZ. I've written elsewhere about how Weasels Ripped My Flesh prepared me to hear Ascension. Other important gateways were Waka/Jawaka and the second side of The Grand Wazoo. Listening to live bootlegs of Zappa's '72 "music music," one realizes how at sea he was, on the mend from near-fatal injuries in between the end of the Flo and Eddie band and the one with George Duke, Ruth Underwood, and Napoleon Murphy Brock that caused his cult to balloon.

2) Fuzak. Being a rockarolla of a certain age, I was once a sucker for what St. Lester referred to in print as "Mahaherbiehancockorea." Jeff Beck's Blow By Blow alerted my high school guitar mentor and me to the idea that maybe we should learn how to play good. We were wrong, of course, but the ex-Yardbird (whom I admire as much for Truth as for anything else) did go on to become a Zen master of guitar in spite of us. Personally I found John McLaughlin, Beck's avowed inspiration in this move, to be a mixed bag: I liked his early albums Extrapolation and especially Devotion (with Buddy Miles and Larry Young) fine, but to my then-less-feedback-scorched ears, the Mahavishnu Orchestra sounded like nothing more than the music one would hear in an elevator descending to Hell. (In this regard, it was not unlike King Crimson.) That said, I liked his drummer Billy Cobham's album Spectrum real much, especially a tune called "Stratus" that Beck actually covered on his Live At Ronnie Scott's DVD a couple of years ago. During my three semesters at SUNY Albany, I attended performances by Weather Report (the Alphonso Johnson lineup) and Larry Coryell's Eleventh House (my friends and I were obnoxiously drunk and yelled "ROCK AND ROLL!" throughout the opening set by violinist Michael Urbaniak and his scat-singing wife Ursula Dudziak; Larry -- who had once foolishly thought he could cut Hendrix with his bebop chops -- used a device called a Mu-Tron excessively, while his drummer Alphonze Mouzon ran laps on his double bass pedals). Later, I witnessed the New Tony Williams Lifetime with Allan Holdsworth. Tony was the loudest drummer I ever heard until I met Jon Teague; it wasn't until I heard him on Miles Davis' Filles de Kilimanjaro and Eric Dolphy's Out To Lunch that I came to appreciate his musicality. Holdsworth -- whom we have to blame, at least in part, for Eddie Van Halen (and Bill Pohl) -- was technically astonishing but also kind of monochromatic. Probably the best of this bunch was the Gateway Trio that teamed guitarist John Abercrombie with the ex-Miles Davis riddim team of Dave Holland (bs) and Jack DeJohnette (ds). Abercrombie was a little more subtle and slippery than Beck, McLaughlin, Coryell, or Holdsworth. I hear echoes of him in the latter-day work of Nels Cline and Bill Frisell, who both emerged in the late '70s but didn't enter my consciousness until much, much later. Holland was the leader on Conference of the Birds, an era-defining sesh that teamed AACM figurehead Anthony Braxton with Blue Note/loft eminence Sam Rivers, and now leads a big band of note. DeJohnette went on to make lots of interesting records, my favorite of which is New Edition (not the boy band), with David Murray and Arthur Blythe (see below).

3) The Fifties. What a year 1959 was: Kind of Blue, Giant Steps, Mingus Ah Um, The Shape of Jazz To Come and Change of the Century. I love the Sonny Rollins of 1957, the Miles Davis Quintet of 1956, and all of Thelonious Monk. But I'm not an aficionado of the period. I remember a coworker at a record store where I moonlighted in the late '90s asking me what my "favorite obscure Blue Note album" was. I muttered something about Fuschia Swing Song, busied myself stocking CDs, and went red.

4) Ornette alumni. As important a figure as he's been in my life, I'm ashamed to say I've never seen Ornette Coleman live. I had tickets to see him once in New York but the show was canceled, and when he and his harmolodic progeny were regular visitors to Caravan of Dreams, I was busy being in the Air Force and starting a family. But I did see Old and New Dreams the first time I visited New York after moving to Texas. I'd been a Don Cherry fan since hearing Eternal Rhythm (Don and Sonny Sharrock with European free improvisers in 1968, and an important influence on my part, at least, of HIO), Brown Rice (which was simply called Don Cherry when I had it on vinyl ca. '76, a funky harmolodic world music record with Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins), Relativity Suite (with the Jazz Composers Orchestra), and the first Old and New Dreams record on Black Saint (which I recently found on CD while crate-digging at Recycled). Charlie Haden, who grew up playing in a family bluegrass band like Matt Hembree and whose daughter Petra has made a couple of records that I really like, recorded a great series of duet albums back in the '70s: Closeness and The Golden Number (mentioned in a previous post), As Long As There's Music with pianist Hampton Hawes, and Soapsuds, Soapsuds with Ornette. I missed out on his Liberation Music Orchestra records until the G.W. Bush-era Not In Our Name, and now like Ballad of the Fallen even better. My favorite Haden, though, remains Haunted Heart, the '92 release by his L.A. noir-themed band Quartet West which I was able to buy in an Air Force base exchange the year I got out. Ronald Shannon Jackson, who drummed in Ornette's original Prime Time and one of Cecil Taylor's most demanding and rewarding Units, made great records throughout the '80s with his own Decoding Society, including Eye On You, Mandance (which remains a regular spin at mi casa), and When Colors Play. He's still playing and composing here in the Fort. I never really "got" James "Blood" Ulmer's '70s albums, and didn't hear his magnum opus Odyssey until many years after its '84 release.

5) "Great men." Before there was Wynton Marsalis, CBS tried to market Arthur Blythe, a good alto saxophonist from California via Lower Manhattan, as the Next Big Thing in Jazz. Blythe made good records, too. His major label debut Lenox Avenue Breakdown was a breath of fresh air in '79, a marriage of exploratory freedom and accessability; you could even dance to the title track, if you were so inclined. The follow-up collection of standards suffered from an ugly, shrill mastering job, but Blythe's masterpiece was probably his third album, Illusions, which alternated selections by a band featuring tuba, cello, and electric guitar with a straight-ahead quartet featuring Air's rhythm team of Fred Hopkins (bs) and Steve McCall (ds). Hopkins is all over the Wildflowers set referred to in a previous post, and I was a fan of Air's Air Lore (wherein they reimagined Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton) when it was new; since then, leader Henry Threadgill has gone on to do even more interesting things. (Burn me that Zooid album, Terry?) The best recorded performance I've ever heard by Hopkins and McCall is "Miss Nancy," a track from Blythe's Illusions. While I was stationed in Louisiana in '91, I somehow managed to stumble on a copy of Sonny Sharrock's Ask the Ages, simultaneously a great guitar record (the master of skronk had really gotten his tone together in the '80s -- see his overdubbed solo Guitar) and the closest thing you could find at that late date to a new Coltrane record (Elvin Jones and Pharaoh Sanders in full effect, along with Charnett Moffett, whom I'd once seen levitate the Recovery Room in Dallas with his brothers when he was _almost_ in his teens). The records Sharrock made with Last Exit (which also included Shannon Jackson and saxophonist Peter Brotzmann) are almost too intense to listen to, in the same way that Fushitsusha is. It's sad that Sonny passed in 1994, on the verge of signing with RCA. Another improbable find of my last year in the Air Force was Joe Henderson's Lush Life, the estimable tenorman's tribute to Ellington's collaborator Billy Strayhorn, and So Near, So Far, wherein he explored Miles Davis' music (having had the shortest tenure in Miles' band of anyone since Sam Rivers) in the company of ex-Miles sidemen Al Foster and John Scofield. Speaking of Miles, while his '80s resurgence never really did it for me, I became a fan of his '73-'75 period my last year on active duty, when I heard Agharta and Pangaea for the first time and discovered Pete Cosey. Finally, I've heard a smidgin of the prodigious recorded outputs of David Murray and David S. Ware, but I'm more impressed than moved by their achievements. Maybe I just haven't heard the right records. Now back to trying to parse George Lewis' very select AACM discography.

Peter Helms Feresten: "my mind wanders to the south side of town"

2012-01-26T17:38:00.000-08:00

Christopher Blay sends:

This exhibit is a composite vignette of Peter Feresten’s labyrinthine portfolio. The works in this exhibit focus particularly on the photographer’s strong affinity for the south side of Fort Worth and his anthropological drive to document the marginalized and unfamiliar parts of the city. Feresten’s work is an irreplaceable document of where he lived and an honest portrait of the city.

“Peter was born June 15, 1945, in Fall River, Mass., to Wanda and Morris Feresten. He was trained in the social sciences and studied comparative religion at Columbia University, as well as fine art at the Rhode Island School of Design. Arriving in Fort Worth in 1975, he dedicated himself to public education and developed a program for the serious study of photography at Tarrant County College. He brought his unique vision and the art of his photography to so many in the Fort Worth area. In addition to the people he touched through teaching, Peter left a significant body of photographs of the Stockyards of the 1970s, as well as the churches and blues clubs of Fort Worth's African American community." (Fort Worth Star-Telegram, September 20-21, 2007)

This exhibit is free and open to the public. The Art Corridor II Gallery at TCC Southeast (2100 Southeast Parkway, Arlington) is open Monday-Friday, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Saturdays 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The show opens February 2nd and runs through March 8th.

Improvised Silence in the Dallas Observer

2012-01-26T09:32:00.000-08:00

Dallas Observer scribe Jesse Hughey also gave a shout out to HIO's impending gig.

ADDENDUM: But wait, there's more -- T. Horn talked to the Observer's Audra Schroeder.

Jass: The Devil's Music?

2012-01-26T09:28:00.000-08:00

I've already blogged at length elsewhere about my obsessions with Ornette, Cecil, and Mingus, but lately, after reading George Lewis' AACM book, it seems like all I want to hear is jazz from the '70s -- the stuff I was into when I briefly gave up rock 'n' roll in favor of Monday night wrestling, and became a jazz snob.

So I've been re-reading Gary Giddins' Weather Bird: Jazz At the Dawn of Its Second Century, a collection of his essays from the decade-plus (1990-2003) when I got out of the Air Force and, by degrees, back into music -- for it was Giddins' Village Voice scrawl, more than any other scribe's (although I was also an avid reader of Rafi Zabor, Francis Davis, and Howard Mandel), that helped me begin to get a handle on jazz from '75 (when I dropped out of college, my head full of chemicals, Harry Partch, and Captain Beefheart) until the early '90s, when I finally let my Village Voice subscription lapse.

I've also been revisiting The Bad Plus pianist Ethan Iverson's bloggage on '73-'90 jazz, which reminded me of some things I'd forgotten, and pulled my coat to some others I'd missed. (Dave Holland's Conference of the Birds and Billy Hart's Enchance, for just two, and more surprisingly, two Charlie Haden albums that slipped by me when they were new: The Golden Number -- a much better record than the earlier Closeness, which I failed to realize when I had both as a teen -- and The Ballad of the Fallen.)

A couple of triple CD anthologies got me started down this road. The first one is Jazzactuel, a compendium of material released on the forward-looking French BYG label between '69 and '71, curated by noted obscurantists Thurston Moore and Byron Coley. (It's currently Amazon-available for about 40 bucks, although I've seen copies at Recycled in Denton recently for less. Recycled is also your best Metromess source for the Italian Black Saint label's catalog. You heard it here first. Next time I'm in li'l d, I need to hunt for Muhal Richard Abrams' Hearinga Suite and Blu Blu Blu.) The BYG sessions -- which Lewis describes as "ad hoc, impromptu, even insouciant" -- captured a particular moment when the '60s American avant-garde, including familiars of Ayler, Coltrane, Ornette and Cecil as well as AACM expats and Sun Ra, was at its zenith in terms of international esteem, and the label was as important in its way as ESP-Disk, Delmark, Nessa, Blue Note, and Impulse at documenting the new music.

More to the point as a listening experience (to these feedback-scorched ears, at least) is Wildflowers: Loft Jazz New York 1976, an audio snapshot, produced by Alan Douglas of "dead Hendrix" fame, of a week-long festival at Sam Rivers' Studio Rivbea that I had as a download before iTunes took a dump and obliterated 70% of my downloaded music; I recently scored a CD copy for about 20 bucks. Wildflowers features a nice mixture of '60s veterans and the Chicago, St. Louis, and California crews that arrived in New York in the early '70s to revitalize (artistically, if not commercially) the jazz underground there. A few leaders are featured on both sets (Anthony Braxton, Dave Burrell, Cecil Taylor Unit mainstays Andrew Cyrille and Jimmy Lyons, Art Ensemble of Chicago founder Roscoe Mitchell, Sunny Murray). Wildflowers participants like Braxton, Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake, David Murray, Henry Threadgill, and Rivers himself went on to make some of the most intriguing music of the '70s and succeeding decades, which I continue to investigate.

JATSDFM - "Schematics"

2012-01-25T23:48:00.001-08:00

That busy beaver Hickey gots another single out. How on Earth does he do it?

ADDENDUM: It's also here in downloadable form.

Improvised Silence in the FW Weekly

2012-01-25T14:07:00.000-08:00

This week, the Fort Worth Weekly's "Hearsay" column includes a blurb about Improvised Silence, HIO's new monthly gig at the Cellar on Berry St. Read all about it, then c'mon. Starts at 9pm, and it's free.

Nels Cline's Rig Rundown

2012-01-24T18:50:00.001-08:00

Jeff Adcock and Frank Cervantez are rekindling my equipment lust. Thanks, fellas.

1.23.2012, FTW

2012-01-23T06:21:00.000-08:00

Finished reading George E. Lewis' A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music, probably the best music book I've read since Lloyd Bradley's Bass Culture. Lewis combines an insider's insight (he joined the AACM in 1971) with extensive interviews he conducted with fellow members and an academic's perspective (he's a Columbia University faculty member) to tell a story that's particularly compelling to one as obsessed with the idea of music-as-community-fulcrum as your humble chronicler o' events.

Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians germinated in the mid-'60s in response to the demise of the local club scene there. Creative musicians who'd developed their skills through a combination of private teaching, high school programs, and autodidacticism (working with recordings, seeking mentors from among more experienced players, practicing with peers) sought to find performance venues for their original music, which deviated from the dominant fixed performance model (standard repertoire and small group instrumentation which was cheaper to book because it didn't require extensive rehearsal), by becoming their own promoters, relying on grass-roots funding as well as the Cold War-spawned government arts bureaucracy.

Their cooperative aesthetic flew in the face of the "great man" theory of jazz, typified by the heroic solo, and the competitive model of music making typified by "best musician" polls. They sought to erase the dichotomies between composer and improviser, and "high" and "low" art.

In Chicago, they had an organic connection with their community as teachers (the AACM ran its own music school) and role models of Afrocentric pride and economic self-determination. Founding AACM members achieved international success when they traveled to Europe -- where their popularity could be seen as a reflection of local attitudes toward the political turbulence of the day -- and New York, where they were forced to compete economically not only with the mainstream but with the previous generation of the avant-garde. Expatriates not only from Chicago, but also St. Louis (home of the Black Artists Group) and California (where Horace Tapscott's L.A.-based Union of God's Musicians and Artist's Ascension performed a similar role to the AACM and BAG) were a vital part of the New York jazz underground during the late-'70s "loft jazz" era (a label they reject).

Their economic fortunes flagged with the coming of the '80s, when Wynton Marsalis and the neoconservative "young lions" that followed in his wake were anointed the arbiters of "real" jazz by the critical fraternity and Ken Burns. (Lewis quotes Dr. George Lipsitz: "Struggles over meaning are invariably struggles over resources.") The most prominent -- AACM founder Muhal Richard Abrams, the musicians in the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Anthony Braxton, Henry Threadgill -- retain their undeniable stature. Lesser-known latter-day members maintain the AACM tradition in Chicago.

On a much less exalted note, I've been borrowing Ray's Gibson SG-1 since the last Stoogeshow. It was burnt up in a fire, and he's chosen to leave the neck unfinished, while the body is painted a Sherman tank olive green, and he had James Atkinson install a humbucking pickup in place of the original single-coil in the bridge position. Its action reminds me of SGs I had when I was young, which has been motivating me to practice guitar at home again, something I almost never do.

With my Hughes & Kettner -- consigned to HIO gigs since I bought Cody Yates' Twin -- I can get a decent saturated tone at a volume that won't disturb the cats, and I've been woodshedding on rock stuff I can't play in the Stoogeband (although I'm trying, so far unsuccessfully, to persuade Richard Hurley that we need to break in Blue Oyster Cult's "Hot Rails to Hell"), like Steve Hunter's intro to "Sweet Jane" from Uncle Lou's Rock and Roll Animal. I doubt it'll change the way I play with the Stoogeband, but as my sweetie points out, it's just nice to be able to enjoy playing again in a setting other than onstage with a band.

Carey Wolff

2012-01-23T05:03:00.000-08:00

"Smolder":

"Our Song":

FZ, Roxy '73

2012-01-20T10:37:00.000-08:00

It's been five years now since the ZFT posted these two songs, from the shows that produced the Roxy and Elsewhere album. While it's highly unlikely that a DVD release is imminent, it'd sure be welcome. The Brock/Duke/Fowler/Fowler/Humphrey/Thompson/Underwood lineup was something special.

My statistically insignificant ballot from the Village Voice Pazz & Jop Poll

2012-01-17T21:33:00.000-08:00

...is here. I'm ashamed of voting with the crowd on the Tom Waits, but happy I could give some play to New Fumes, the Fungi Girls, Mark Growden, the Great Tyrant, and Allen Lowe. Surprised I was the only vote for Rocket From the Tombs and Boris. Oh well.

St. Vincent 4AD Session

2012-01-17T21:07:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of Jeff Adcock, who once brought a suitcase full of fuzzboxes to my house (bless him). I swear, this woman gets the sickest tones of anybody this side of Nels Cline, and her latest album Strange Mercy is the best latter-day American psych this side of the Flaming Lips. But don't take my word for it, spend the next 15 minutes watching this.

1.17.2012, FTW

2012-01-17T09:31:00.000-08:00

The li'l Stoogeband had a better-than-average show at the Cowtown Bowling Palace in River Oaks last Saturday night. It's a surprisingly good sounding room (we borrowed Pablo & the Hemphill 7's PA), we had a decent crowd (some of which we lost by taking a too-long break between sets, something I'd forgotten about since our aborted residency at the late Black Dog Tavern back in 2006, but we thankfully gained a few newbs for the second set), only alienated a few of the regs, and got the payout we were promised before Tyler Stevens had to split to go see her better half jammin' out with Confusatron at the Wherehouse.

The presence of two off-duty River Oaks police officers made some folks antsy, but they were just there getting paid like we were (the place is open 24 hours and they don't want to get jacked, I reckon) and were congenial enough, although I don't imagine they really dug our jams. Only non-snazz aspect was the inability of Rat and Calvin from the Asian Media Crew to rent bowling shoes (Rat thinks "They don't have Asian size").

Hembree opined that our unfamiliarity with our surroundings probably caused us to be more attentive than usual to what we were doing, despite the fact that 80% of the band was under the weather (Richard was "only mentally ill") and I had the worst onstage headache of my life -- a blinding skull-splitter -- throughout the second set. Teague did point out, however, that all of us started "TV Eye" on different beats -- "I was waiting to hear two people who were together so I could join them, but it never happened" -- which the audience, thankfully, didn't seem to notice or care about.

At the end of the night, I think the Stoogeaphiles were collectively happier than I've ever seen us after a show. We'd do it again. Next: the Wherehouse on 2.11 with the Mike Haskins Experience, Fungi Girls, and Doom Ghost, a dream show of sorts for your humble chronicler o' events.

Currently reading George E. Lewis' A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music, a scholarly tome by one who was there that explores musical developments in the context of frequently ignored racial, economic, and gender issues, and invites the reader to rethink conventional critical wisdom in the same way as Joe Carducci's Rock and the Pop Narcotic or Allen Lowe's volumes of historiography.

FTW

2012-01-17T06:49:00.000-08:00

If heavy makes you happy, Fort Worth is a pretty good place to be right now, with bands like Vorvon, Unraveler, china kills girls, Southern Train Gypsy, Stone Machine Electric, the resurgent Garuda, and FTW treading the boards.

Myself, I've never been a big fan of heavy. Back in high school, when my age cohort were going apeshit over Black Sabbath (and Grand Funk Railroad), I was digging the Yardbirds and John Lee Hooker. Who'd have guessed in 1970 that Sabbath would prove to be the most durably influential rock band of that year, 40 years on? I once wrote a review of an Electric Wizard album that started with "I hate this fucking record" and ended with "There isn't an amount of marijuana on Earth that would make this listenable." The era of stoner sludge jogged some memories -- what did Soundgarden sound like, besides Ronnie Dio fronting Sabbath? -- and during the Wreck Room's heyday, Jon Teague taught me to stop worrying and love the doom via Boris' Akuma No Uta and Sleep's Jerusalem. Still, I've walked out on Nebula three times, more than any national band.

But Sean Vargas, whom I've seen at shows around the Fort for ages and whom I recently learned is FTW's frontman, laid a copy of his band's self-released four-song CD on me the other night, when the li'l Stoogeband was playing two sets in a bowling alley in River Oaks, and this morning, I slipped it in the player while I was washing dishes. It started skipping in the middle of the first song (our CD player is getting senile), but I thought enough of what I'd heard to rip it to iTunes so I could hear the whole thing.

Even if you're not a fan of doom metal, you've gotta admit that these guys know what they're doing. Guitarist Jonathan Hill and bassist Nick Huff lock in with thunderous unison rifferama and fuzz-and-wah laden solo excursions, while drummer Mike McBride pounds his kit like he was driving coffin nails in the best Bill Ward tradition. Up front, Vargas -- who recorded all his vocals in one take -- tortures his tonsils like a hybrid of Dio and Matt Pike, a soul-wrenching squall of anomie and melody. He's not just screaming, either -- cat can hit them notes, making him a contender for the most powerful vocalist in the 817. In fact, there's just enough passion and blues (read Joe Carducci and Charles Shaar Murray on the [d]evolution of blues to metal) in FTW's grooves to make a believer out of a skeptic. Check 'em out.

(Their web presence is apparently limited to a Facebook page, so look for the one from Fort Worth and ignore the imposter FTWs from Manchester, UK, and Burlington, MA.)

Peaking Lights

2012-01-16T05:55:00.000-08:00

Another boss find from Cervantez. Have to investigate these folks more.

Peaking Lights live on WFMU from WFMU on Vimeo.

Stoogeaphilia, Mike Haskins Experience, Fungi Girls and Doom Ghost @ the Wherehouse, 2.11.2012

2012-01-13T14:58:00.000-08:00

Nervebreakers - "Face Up to Reality"

2012-01-13T04:26:00.001-08:00

One of my favorite bands on Earth, and part of the reason why I am in Texas, rides again. Video by Frank Campagna.

The Nervebreakers - Face Up to Reality from Bob Childress on Vimeo.

Tyshawn Sorey's "Oblique-I"

2012-01-12T08:36:00.000-08:00

I first became aware of Newark-born composer-drummer-pianist-trombonist Tyshawn Sorey back in 2009, when I reviewed Fieldwork's Door, on which he drummed, and Koan, his second album as a leader, for Fort Worth Weekly. Of the former, I wrote, "Sorey comes as close to dominating the proceedings here as Tony Williams did on Eric Dolphy’s Out To Lunch and Miles Davis’ Filles de Kilimanjaro," while Koan, I noted, was "clearly a composer's record, a work of minimalist formalism."

Sorey combines the cerebral with the visceral like no one since the teenage Williams (who recorded the reflective Life Time at the same time he was propelling Miles Davis' quintet into the stratosphere), and like Williams, on his own dates, he's a composer first, with an interest in exploring the concepts of space and repetition pioneered by Morton Feldman. His first album, 2007's prodigious That Not, was a double CD that offered an additional 70 minutes of music via download. Its highlights included a 43-minute Feldman homage, "Permutations for Solo Piano." Sorey's also an in-demand player: the website for Pi Records, which released Sorey's new album Oblique-I back in September, notes that he's appeared on more of the label's releases than any other drummer. Besides Fieldwork, he's also a member of Paradoxical Frog, another cooperative trio.

Sorey's interest in composition has been nurtured in academia by prolific reedman, composer, and avant-garde icon Anthony Braxton at Connecticut's Wesleyan University, where Sorey earned a master's degree, and at Columbia University, where he's currently enrolled in a doctoral program under the tutelage of trombonist and Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians eminence George Lewis. The ascendancy of the AACM, of which Braxton was also a member, to the academy means that certain collegiate jazz programs, rather than training further legions of Maynard Ferguson-aping scream trumpeters or Wayne Shorter-inspired composing saxophonists, are committed to continuing the creative concepts of the '60s and '70s jazz avant-garde -- a welcome development that your humble chronicler o' events, at least, couldn't have foreseen.

To these feedback-scorched ears, Oblique-I -- I believe that's a Roman numeral and not a first person singular -- recalls the masterworks of the avant-garde wing of the early '60s Blue Note stable: not just the aforementioned Dolphy and Williams sides, but also classics like Andrew Hill's Point of Departure and Sam Rivers' Fuschia Swing Song. Those records still sound vital half a century after their release, when all of the principals that produced them, I was recently astonished to realize, are deceased.

The ten pieces on Oblique-I were inspired by a 2002 conversation Sorey had with Braxton, written between 2002 and 2006, road tested at venues around New York City, and recorded in a single 13-hour session in June 2011. Watching Youtube videos of this group performing back in October, one notices that the musicians are all reading charts with a high degree of concentration. Make no mistake: This is challenging music. In his liner notes, Sorey acknowledges the influence of Braxton, Mingus, Schoenberg, Bartok, Threadgill, and his former bandleader Steve Coleman, rejects the separation between composer and improviser, and indicates that his pieces are intended to be transformed in performance.

"Twenty," "Forty," and "Twenty-Four" feature jagged, angular melodies over ever-shifting soundscapes, with solo voices rising above, then falling beneath the roiling rhythms. "Eight," "Twenty-Five," and "Thirty-Six" are reflective, abstract pieces (the first of which Sorey cryptically cites as an example of "strata logics in relation to layered rhythm and tempi"). "Thirty-Five" juxtaposes slowly unfolding chords with contrasting melodies played by saxophone and guitar. "Fifteen" is a tour de force of shifting moods and tempi, at first relentless, then pausing a moment to regroup before taking off in another direction, gradually building in intensity to a new apex, then winding down to an abrupt conclusion.

Throughout, altoist Loren Stillman is the dominant solo voice, even performing unaccompanied on "Eighteen," while pianist John Escreet is a wonder on acoustic, Rhodes and Wurlitzer instruments. Guitarist Todd Neufeld employs a crystalline tone and precise attack to convey his ideas, and particularly shines on the turbulent, churning "Seventeen," where he plays skronky, spiky lines on an acoustic axe in the manner of Marc Ribot, or Liberty Ellman from Henry Threadgill's Zooid (who coincidentally mixed and mastered the album). Even at his most thunderous, Sorey subordinates his considerable technical prowess to the demands of his material. With Oblique-I, he confirms his status as an artist to watch.

HIO hosts "Improvised Silence" at the Cellar

2012-01-11T16:07:00.000-08:00

Starting this month, the last Sunday of every month at 9pm. Us and a guest artist. This month, we'll be joined by Darrin Kobetich and Giri Akkaraju. C'mon! (Click on the image to make it big.)

Stoogeaphilia - "Rich Daddy" @ the Basement Bar on Matturday (9.16.2011)

2012-01-11T15:11:00.001-08:00

Song originally by the Dicks. Video by Asian Media Crew.

St. Vincent

2012-01-05T04:37:00.000-08:00

I can't remember the last time a guitarist knocked me for a loop the way Annie Clark, aka St. Vincent, has. Frank Cervantez, whose opinion I trust in all things guitaristic, pulled my coat, then through the wonder of social networking, I got turned on to a _lethal_ version of a song from my favorite Beatle album (courtesy of my Stoogeband singer's girlfriend), as well as covers of songs by Big Black and the Pop Group with which I'm unfamiliar. She plays the fire out of a guitar that looks a whole lot like my beloved Silvertone 1478 from high school.

Who is she? Born in Oklahoma, grew up in Dallas, roadied for jazz duo Tuck & Patti (he's her uncle) as a teen, went to Berklee, dropped out, went back home and joined the Polyphonic Spree, then toured with singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens before releasing her first album in 2007. Looks like I'm gonna have to hunt down a copy of her latest album Strange Mercy, which 4AD released in September.

Bilzen Jazz Festival 1969

2012-01-03T21:20:00.000-08:00

Two and a half hours of the best Brit (and Euro) rock had to offer at the ass-end of the '60s. Thanks to T. Tex Edwards for the link!

Dig this lineup:

SHOCKING BLUE - August 22, 1969
Venus + interview

DEEP PURPLE - August 22 1969
Wring That Neck - Mandrake Root

BONZO DOG DOO DAH BAND - August 22, 1969
Big Shot
You Done My Brain In
Hello Mabel
Urban Spaceman
Quiet Talks And Summer Walks
I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles
Canyons Of Your Mind
Trouser Press

TASTE - August 22, 1969
Blister On The Moon
Sugar Mama

MOODY BLUES - August 22, 1969
Tuesday Afternoon
Have You Heard (Part 1)
The Voyage
Have You Heard (Part 2)

SOFT MACHINE - August 22, 1969
Moon In June + interview

MARSHA HUNT & WHITE TRASH August 22, 1969
Interview
My World Is Empty Without You Babe

BRIAN AUGER & THE TRINITY - August 22, 1969
Interview
Pavane
I Just Got Some

STEVE SHORTER & TILLY SET - August 22 1969
Move On Up

HUMBLE PIE - August 24 1969
The Sad Bag Of Shaky Jake / I Walk On Gilded Splinters

LIFE - August 24 1969
Baby Please Don't Go

BLOSSOM TOES - August 24 1969
Stargazer

THE MOVE - August 24 1968
Sunshine Help Me

ROLAND AND THE BLUESWORKSHOP - August 23 1968
Belgian TV - BRT

The Rolling Stones' "Some Girls Live in Texas '78"

2012-01-02T23:12:00.000-08:00

The Rolling Stones, a band about which I've always been ambivalent (Con: overhyped and preening; Pro: the template for '60s-'70s white rock 'n' roll), have been well represented cinematically.

Their early R&B cover band phase is documented in The T.A.M.I. Show, where they had the unenviable task of following James Brown, but their lead singer rose to the occasion, stealing some of Mr. Dynamite's moves, if not the show.

The moment of their apotheosis as Everyhipi's Embodiment of Evil was caught in Jean-Luc Godard's One Plus One, which juxtaposed the recording session that produced "Sympathy for the Devil" with staged vignettes depicting the social upheaval o' the times, while the Maysles Brothers' Gimme Shelter captured the moment when that image collided head-on with the reality of 1969 America. While the latter's a great concert film, its most memorable sequences are those that show the Stones at their most impotent, watching the Hell's Angels murder an audience member and then viewing the footage of the event after the fact. (For my two cents, the Jefferson Airplane's Marty Balin put every other musician onstage to shame that day, entering the crowd to try and stop the carnage and getting his lights punched out for his trouble.)

The Rolling Stones' Rock and Roll Circus, filmed for British TV in 1968 but not released until almost 30 years later, showed the Stones as a shell of a band, with Brian Jones on his last legs; the film is mainly valuable for the opportunity to see the Who ramping up for their own operatic apotheosis with "A Quick One While He's Away," and to a lesser extent, a lip-synching Jethro Tull with Tony Iommi (!) on guitar. A more satisfying document of the 1972 Exile on Main St. tour -- an apogee in retrospect -- was filmed at four concerts in Houston and Fort Worth (where Jagger had sworn never to play again after being served cold hot dogs backstage in 1965) and released theatrically as Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones in 1974.

Which brings us to the artifact in question, filmed in my adopted hometown the year I moved to Texas, when Some Girls was an important part of my summer's soundtrack. (Sure, there are subsequent tour documentaries, including one directed by Martin Scorsese, but who cares? The Stones' historical Moment had passed. They even gave indications that they realized it, titling a greatest hits collection Sucking in the Seventies. Proof: Can you name one Stones song from any album after Tattoo You?)

At the time, Some Girls seemed like a return to form after three crummy albums, the most memorable songs from which were 1) a song that sounded like Santana (no, not "Can't You Hear Me Knockin'," the _other_ one), 2) a ballad about David Bowie's wife, and 3) a disco track with a backward guitar solo by, um, was it Harvey Mandel? Quite a comedown for the avatars of teen rebellion who'd once tossed off generational anthems like "Satisfaction" and "Get Off of My Cloud," whose '69 live incarnation was the model for just about every band I was hearing when I first picked up a guitar in 1970.

In contrast with its enervated predecessors, Some Girls had more of a Noo Yawk City street vibe, the Stones' riposte to the punk and hip-hop developments that were making them seem old hat. And it was _funny_; in songs like "Miss You," "Some Girls," "Respectable," and "Far Away Eyes," it really seemed like ol' Mick was taking the piss out of himself.

When the Stones hit Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum, site of the '65 cold hot dog debacle, on July 18th, I'd been in Dallas for about three weeks, and was trying to hold onto the money I'd saved over the past year and a half to escape from Lawn Guyland, so attending the show wasn't an option. Truth be told, I might not have gone anyway: I was never a Stones fan per se. I found their "world's greatest rock and roll band" hype as hollow as the Clash's "only band that matters" (and I _liked_ the Clash), and thought Jagger was a joke as a singer and dancer. (Isolating his vocal track would be a cruel trick.)

Some things don't change: I laughed out loud for ten minutes watching Mick flounce around with an obviously unplugged guitar, which he wears for a surprising amount of the Will Rogers set. My favorite description of him comes from the comedian Richard Belzer, who said he looks like "a rooster on acid." Watching Some Girls Live in Texas '78, it was impossible to ignore the physical resemblance between Jagger and...Don Knotts. (There, I've said it.) In my mind's eye, I imagined I was watching Barney Fife on acid.

I'd forgotten, too, how trebly the sound on Some Girls was. There's a lot of twang in the Stones' sound -- which at this point owed as much to Gram Parsons as it did to Chuck Berry -- and when both Keef and Woody are playing lead (as they often do), the sound borders on the shrill. It's a stripped-down band, minus the horns but with both Ians (Stewart and McLagan) on keys, a good thing. Still, you really miss the horns on "All Down the Line," which sounds like a shadow of the Exile original.

In fact, the Stones don't really hit their stride until midway through the set, when Mick apologizes for the band's lack of energy, which he attributes to their being "busy fucking last night." (Gasp!) Then they tear into "Respectable." "Far Away Eyes" is straight country, with Woody on pedal steel, still a piss-take, but elevated by Doug Kershaw's fiddle solos. "Love In Vain" is fine, but not the tour de force it was on Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out; Ron Wood's a competent slide player, but his sound doesn't flow like liquid silver the way Mick Taylor's did. The five song sequence that starts with "Tumbling Dice" and ends with "Jumpin' Jack Flash" is the gold here, the band energized and on fire.

My favorite moment is when Keef steps up to sing "Happy." He was awaiting trial for his Toronto drug bust then, and the Stones' future looked uncertain. He'd even written a song about it for Some Girls, "Before They Make Me Run," but he didn't sing it in Fort Worth. He probably figured it would have been too maudlin. He did sing it, though, when I saw him the following year at the Tarrant County Convention Center with the New Barbarians (on the "conditions of probation" tour). My ex-wife, who was also there, denies it, but I swear I saw him toss his cups onstage that night, while he was singing. No Johnny Thunders run back behind the amps for this boy; he just leaned over away from the mic and let it spew. Uh, rock 'n' roll, I guess. He looked like warmed-over death in '78, but he'll still probably outlive all of us.

In 1978, it would have been impossible to imagine a rock 'n' roll future where Black Sabbath was the most influential '70s band, most up-and-coming rockers wouldn't know a I-IV-V progression if it bit them on the ass, Sir Mick Jagger's a knight, and Keef Richards is a best-selling author. But that's the world we live in today, half a century since the Rolling Stones' scuffling bohemian beginnings. If you don't own any Stones DVDs and are looking for consumer guidance, I'd probably stick with the classics (that'd be Gimme Shelter and Ladies and Gentlemen), but I'm glad I have this for the second half of the show and the views in the opening sequences of the city I love around the time I first set foot in it.

BONUS FEATURE: By now you probably think I'm a negative Nelly when it comes to the Stones, but there are actually lots of things about 'em I like. Let me count the ways.

1) The influence of Brian Jones' hairstyle on everyone from the Yardbirds' Keith Relf to the guy in the Shadows of Knight to legions of teenage American boys, including Ron Asheton.

2) The guitar interplay between Keef and Brian on the first side of 12x5.

3) The Rolling Stones, Now!, which is probably the strongest LP by any of those vintage '63-'64 Brit R&B imitators, of whom I consider the Stones the weakest.

4) Their version of Larry Williams' "She Said Yeah," a blaring, fuzzed-out garage-punk explosion that opens December's Children.

5) "19th Nervous Breakdown," the evilest-sounding single of 1966, and their overuse of fuzz tone in general.

6) The "little" songs on Aftermath: "Doncha Bother Me," "Flight 505," "High and Dry," "It's Not Easy."

7) The second side of Beggar's Banquet, especially "Street Fighting Man" (the cassette-recorded cardboard box drums), "Factory Girl," and "Salt of the Earth."

8) From Sticky Fingers: "Sway" and "Moonlight Mile."

9) Driving across the Whitestone Bridge in NYC and the Mississippi bridge in Memphis with "Rip This Joint" from Exile blasting on the cassette player.

10) The second ("mellow") side of Tattoo You.

So there.

The New York Dolls' "Lookin' Fine on Television"

2012-01-02T05:56:00.000-08:00

My Missouri pal Phil Overeem pulled my coat to this release. I'd previously viewed the Morrissey-curated vid of the reunited Dolls at the Royal Albert Hall in 2004 -- a disappointment, as the shades of the departed Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan loomed too large -- and the poignant 2006 documentary New York Doll, which focused on the trials 'n' tribs of hapless Dolls bassist Arthur Kane, an unlikely convert to Mormonism who died shortly after the first run of reunion shows. (A high point of the second film was hearing Kane's coworkers at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Family History Center declaring, "We're New York Dolls fans!")

Ace NYC rock photog Bob Gruen and wife Nadya Beck's grainy B&W video of the Dolls was previously released in "home movie" form, with whole song performances included as a DVD extra, back in 2005 as All Dolled Up, but Lookin' Fine on Television presents a more fan-friendly cut of the material: full performances of songs, with visuals edited together from multiple performances, interspersed with interview snippets. Watching the cobbled-together performance vids, one is struck by how consistent the Dolls' meter is, as is David Johanson's phrasing. For a band whose, shall we say, _casual_ attitude toward musicianship was one of their hallmarks, these guys were remarkably tight in their own ramshackle way.

The lo-fi quality of the visuals doesn't detract at all from the viewing experience. In fact, these performances are infused with more of _the correct spirit_ than the more "pro" vids from The Midnight Special and The Old Grey Whistle Test that you can find on Youtube. It's especially refreshing to see Johnny when he was young and not yet strung out, full of piss and vinegar, with the best hair in rock 'n' roll. He didn't add a lot to his sonic bag o' tricks over the years, so it's all here, in a much better representation than some of the voyeurish latter-day stuff that's out there, when he was wasted and openly contemptuous of his audience.

The interviews remind you of how the Dolls won over the collective rockcrits of the world, if not the mass-ass audience. They're streetwise charmers, the Dead End Kids wearing women's shoes: David the amiable wiseacre, Johnny the sweet-dumb ex-baseball jock, Syl Sylvain the corkscrew-haired moppet, Jerry the lovable lug, Arthur just strange. A bonus feature has scenester/journo Lisa Robinson interviewing David, and David interviewing Johnny, on the sidewalk in front of CBGB's, just before Johnny left with the Heartbreakers to join the Sex Pistols on the Anarchy Tour.

Too Much, Too Soon wasn't just the title of the Dolls' second album. It's also a fairly accurate description of what they represented, given the musical tastes and sexual mores of the time. (Not even remotely effeminate, they were just fashion-forward fellas on the make who realized that girls _liked_ guys who wore women's clothes, and sounded like the Rolling Stones trying to impersonate the Shangri-Las.) Lookin' Fine on Television, on the other hand, is just enough, just in time: the definitive video document of the Dolls.

JATSDFM - "Singles, Etc. (2011)"

2012-01-01T18:29:00.000-08:00

So it looked for a minute like Hickey was going to acquiesce to the idea of a live Joe and the Sonic Dirt from Madagascar performing unit, before he remembered that he hates performing live, rehearsing, etc. No matter. You can download this six-song sampler of his single releases from last year -- including my favorite song of 2011, "Capt. Saddo and Twig" -- for free via Bandcamp. Ain't the intarweb grand?

12.31.2011, FTW

2011-12-31T08:18:00.000-08:00

In October 1979, I was living in Austin when an old ally from Long Island called, inviting me to come up to Aspen, Colorado, to make a rock 'n' roll band -- a fool's errand. I didn't tell him that I hadn't touched a guitar in a year. Instead, I went out and bought the heaviest strings I could find (.013 to .056), gave up my apartment and started sleeping on a coworker's couch to save money, and practiced relentlessly until I had enough for a bus ticket plus a couple of weeks of walking around money. I drove my car up to Dallas, where I left it with some shady upstate New York expats, and boarded a bus to Aspen with my SG, tweed Deluxe, a Kerouac biography, and a suitcase.

When I got there, it took me a whole day to find my friends, who informed me that they'd found another guitar player -- a child prodigy cellist and pianist from Dallas, whom they'd found busking swing music on the street. (My oldest daughter still has the acoustic guitar he was using.) His name was Jay Hardesty. It pissed me off that he was a better player than I was, and we circled each other like panthers through that extremely dissolute winter. He even kicked my ass a couple of times (I provoked him). Eventually, I was run out of Aspen on a rail (long story) and wound up back in Fort Worth around the time Jay wound up back in Dallas.

Then a funny thing happened: he became one of my best friends, which he remains to this day, even though we only see each other every five years or so. He invited me out to jam at his band's rehearsal space, and to sit in on one of their gigs. We stayed in touch as life took me first to Memphis, then to the Air Force (mainly in Texas and Louisiana). He moved to New York City and every time I'd visit him there, he'd give me another piece of musical equipment (all of which I wound up selling to eat, I'm sorry to say). I was in his wedding in 1999.

There's been a lot of water under the bridge since then, including a move to London for Jay and his wife, but this year, he and Kate, who now live in Switzerland, had their first child. (My eighth grandchild was born this year.) It's funny, but I still think of him as "the kid," even though he was born on this date in 1961. I'm sure glad he was.

Les Rallizes Denudes reconsidered

2011-12-29T20:34:00.000-08:00

About four years ago, I was waxing ecstatic on this very blog about a recent discovery (thanks to Jon Teague and Julian Cope): enigmatic Japanese psych rockers Les Rallizes Denudes. Cope's Japrocksampler, published that year, had been an eye-opening portal to a musical world I'd never dreamed existed (even though I'd witnessed a performance, at NYC's La Mama Theater, of the Tokyo Kid Brothers' rock musical Golden Bat back in 1970, when I was 13 and had no context in which to place it).

Cope's narrative starts with Japan's vibrant experimental music scene dating back to the early '50s and winds its way through the surf-influenced eleki style and the Brit Invasion-aping Group Sounds movement to the Japanese rock underground that coalesced around the Tokyo production of the rock musical Hair -- which brought together forward-thinking jazz and rock musos for months of rehearsals and relatively few performances (authorities closed the show after only two months) -- and came to fruition in the masterwork of proto-metalheads like Flower Travellin' Band and Blues Creation, inspired genius-madmen like J.A. Caesar and Magical Power Mako, and the sublimely spaced Taj Mahal Travellers.

True, I was less than impressed when I finally heard some of the discs listed in Cope's valuable Top 50 discography. (Speed, Glue & Shinki? Not so much.) But the good stuff was astonishing, and Les Rallizes Denudes in particular were a Rawk obscurantist's wet dream: a band that based its whole sound around White Light/White Heat Velvets and Vincebus Eruptum Blue Cheer, whose recorded output consisted of hideously rare (and pricey) bootlegs.

Les Rallizes delivered on the promise of the feedback, yelling, and Godzilla-roar glissandos on the MC5's Kick Out the Jams: either a freak's delight, or music as endurance contest. They're probably the only band in the world to make amp hum an integral part of its sound. In Japan, they spawned legions of imitators -- Fushitsusha, High Rise, Mainliner, Acid Mother's Temple -- all of them monochromatic and, ultimately, boring in comparison to Les Rallizes.

While their followers pumped up the intensity and velocity of their jams in a kind of noise arms race, Les Rallizes' music derived its impact from the contrast between Takashi Mizutani's feedback guitar blast and the rhythm section's laconic backing, as they repeated Mizutani's primally simple riffs, one per song, for mind-numbing expanses of time. They favored slow and medium tempos, the whole band's sound awash in oceans of reverb, tremelo, and (when they became available) phase shifters. The perpetually black-clad Mizutani hid his eyes behind dark shades, perhaps to protect them from Les Rallizes' seizure-inducing light show -- a shadowy and mysterious figure crying out from the abyss in a sub-Neil Young yelp.

Ultimately, it got to be too exhausting, not to mention expensive, trying to track down Les Rallizes' catalog, and I drew the line at the relatively inexpensive compilation Yodo-Go-A-Go-Go and the live 2CD Le 12 Mars 1977 a Tachikawa, which the Psychedelic Noise from Japan and NZ website hailed as "the ultimate Rallizes and arguably the ultimate Japanese psychedelic document."

The former ultimately proved unsatisfying, as it contained a 19-minute version of "Smoking Cigarette Blues" that was mastered at a considerably lower volume than the rest of the disc, which either meant that the track sounded like subliminal white noise when you listened without adjusting the volume, or like an indistinct maelstrom of dimly-registered whooshing and thumping noises if you turned it up. Yodo-Go-A-Go-Go did, however, provide my first exposure to Rallizes classics like the mid-period Velvet pastiche "Enter the Mirror" and the ominously lumbering "Flames of Ice," not to mention the highly atypical garage rock pounder "Otherwise My Conviction."

Le 12 Mars 1977 a Tachikawa, on the other hand, lived up to its hype, although it took me several spins and a careful reading of Cope's text to deduce that the second and third tracks on Disc One were, in fact, "Night of the Assassins" (on which Mizutani famously appropriated the bass lines from Little Peggy March's early '60s hit "I Will Follow Him") and "Flames of Ice," since not all the song titles on the CD slick were translated. The ten minutes of what I finally figured out was "Deeper Than Night" that opened Disc Two hit like dub psychedelia, while the 25-minute version of Rallizes' customary set-closer "The Last One" that concluded the disc was an exorcism on a par with Coltrane's Ascension.

Recently, a lot of Cope's Top 50 albums, including a couple of the most desirable Les Rallizes boots, have become affordably available, on CD and sweet, sweet vinyl, via Phoenix Records. Don't snooze on 'em too long, or they'll be gone, as is the way of these things.

Blind Baby Has Its Mother's Eyes collects three performances from the '80s that provide examples of what's best and most infuriating about Les Rallizes. The opening title track proves to be an updated version of "Flames of Ice," and is recorded in unusually high fidelity, with lots of separation between the instruments. Cope wrote that this was the same version of the song that appeared on Yodo-Go-A-Go-Go, but that one had a different bass line and Link Wray "Rumble" chords that are absent here. "An Awful Eternity," split between two vinyl sides, has a sustained drum groove that holds its own against the guitars and bass to create an effect like meditating to deep funk. The version of "The Last One," however, is marred by a shrill overlay of shrieking feedback that can be rendered more listenable by boosting the bass, but isn't conducive to repeated spins.

Heavier Than A Death In the Family, #3 on Cope's Top 50, shares three tracks with Le 12 Mars 1977 a Tachikawa, but Phoenix's twin slabs of manhole-cover-like 180-gram virgin vinyl give their sound a depth and immediacy that it lacks on shiny silver discs. The opening "Strung Out Deeper Than the Night" is the same track as the aforementioned "Deeper Than Night," but the closing "Ice Fire" isn't another version of "Flames of Ice" like you might suspect. Rather, it's a whole 'nother side-long catharsis entahrly. Here the feedback isn't an irritant the way it is on Blind Baby's "Last One." Instead, it's cleansing. There's some boss uptempo stuff here, too: "The Night Collectors" is a space boogie you can imagine Hawkwind blaring to the lysergically addled masses at Glastonbury, while "People Can Choose" is a hypnotically frenetic rave-up from '73, sounding like something the Warhol-era Velvets or early Mothers of Invention might have essayed.

Further consumer guidance is available on the Les Rallizes Denudes Record Reviews blog.

Van Morrison - "Cyprus Avenue" @ the Fillmore East, 9.23.1970

2011-12-28T05:27:00.000-08:00

One of the most riveting performances I have ever witnessed, even if only on TV.

Mo' Rationals vinyl

2011-12-27T09:37:00.000-08:00

Released back in 2009, Ace Records' Think Rational! was that rare thing: a 2CD compilation with nary a bad cut, in the manner of The Story of Them, Sun Ra's The Singles, or Westbound's Funkadelic comps Music for Your Mother and Motor City Madness. Of course, this wouldn't have been possible if the Rationals -- Ann Arbor, Michigan, natives who were voted the most popular band in Detroit while still in high school -- hadn't been a remarkably consistent recording unit, even though they only released a handful of singles and one album during their existence. But the plethora of previously-unreleased tracks on Think Rational! were equally worthy, as I was reminded recently when I got my hands on a couple of vinyl artifacts that Ace released in 2010.

The Fan Club Album was a brainstorm of Rationals manager Jeep Holland which actually got to the test pressing stage before the band left his tutelage in 1968 and the idea was shelved. (Three copies still exist; I have a cassette dub that I got from Rationals frontman Scott Morgan in 1999.) Since the master tapes no longer exist, this is Bay Area scribe/garage historian Alec Palao's best effort to reconstruct the album -- hence the instrumental alternate take of second single "Feelin' Lost." No matter; it's still one of the sturdiest slabs of sound to emerge from the teen clubs and VFW halls of '60s America, on the same exalted level as A Session with the Remains. It's also the sound of four kids growing up together through music: one of my favorite stories of all.

The opening triptych of instrumentals show them finding their musical feet. "Irrational" is a rather hamfisted take on the blues, but still shows imagination in the tempo change it employs. "Wayfaring Stranger" is also clever, a hootenanny staple that the Rationals probably heard a lot around their sleepy college town during the folk boom, recast in a surf style. "Strawberry Jam" is a step forward, with guitarist Steve Correll using a sharper, more trebly tone as he cranks out the Chuck Berry-via-Keef-Richards double-stops.

As 1965 progressed, Scott Morgan got up the nerve to sing, and they started writing vocal numbers in the same mold as the Beatles, Kinks, and Zombies of the time. "Look What You're Doing To Me Baby," the B-side of their first single, incorporates some hallmarks of early Kinkdom -- the VII-I chord change, the racka-racka rhythm guitar. "Someday" and "Be My Girl" feature jangling 12-string and showcase Morgan, Correll, and bassist Terry Trabandt's developing facility for harmonized vocals. On the latter tune, you can hear them moving toward the kind of R&B testifyin' that would soon become their stock in trade. Curiously, the least distinguished original here is "Gave My Love," their first single's A-side.

Turn the record over and you get to hear second single "Feelin' Lost" sans vocals, which only throws the song's interesting Beatlesque chord progression into more dramatic relief. "I Want To Walk With You" is another early vocal original which was demoed at college ratio station WBCN, and one of my favorite tracks on the album.

Things start to toughen up with a cover of "Gloria" that holds its own against Them's original and the Shadows of Knights hit cover. I originally encountered the next two tracks on the late-'90s Michigan Mayhem garage compilation (thanks, Larry Harrison!). "I Need You" isn't the Chuck Jackson cover the Rationals released on Capitol in 1968. Rather, it's an explosive Kinks cover, complete with raging guitar solo. "Little Girls Cry," the flipside of "Feelin' Lost," was penned by the Rationals' fellow Pioneer High alum Deon Jackson, who went on to soul-singing success with "Love Makes the World Go 'Round." The medley of "Smokestack Lightning" and "Inside Looking Out" that closes the album applies some psychedelic spice to Brit Invasion-inspired material, showing the clear influence of the Butterfield Blues Band's East-West.

By '67, the Rationals had abandoned Brit Invasion copyism for a garage soul sound, with Morgan and Correll trading lead vocals a la the Righteous Brothers, Sam & Dave, or the Temptations' tonsil-tearing tandem of Eddie Kendricks and David Ruffin. Out On the Floor -- Ace/Palao's attempt at assembling a simulacrum of A-Soulin' We Go with the Rationals, another Holland concept that never made it even as far as the Fan Club Album -- documents this phase neatly, kicking off with "Leaving Here," one of two version the Rationals recorded of the Eddie Holland hit that was also covered by Brit Mod R&B plunderers like the Who and the Birds.

The remainder of Side One is given over to bawlin' and screamin' Stax-style Southern fried soul, including "Turn On," recorded as a promotion for a local clothing store; a rather lugubrious and literal cover of "Knock On Wood;" and a hot version of Little Richard's "Poor Dog (Can't Wag His Own Tail)," sung by Correll, that encapsulates all the best elements of the Rationals' approach to this style.

Side Two finds the Rationals in more of a vocal harmony-rich Northern soul bag -- their great strength, to these feedback-scorched ears -- opening with the aforementioned Chuck Jackson hit "I Need You." The dance-jam "Listen To Me" is next, and my favorite track on the album. "Temptation 'Bout To Get Me," an earlier version of the Knight Bros. hit that was a highlight of the Crewe LP, is just as fine here, while the versions of "Sunset" and "Ha Ha," also re-cut for that album, don't hold up to the Crewe versions, their arrangements not quite fully developed at this point.

While I find Out On the Floor a tad less magical than the Fan Club Album, there's still a lot to like in its grooves. And the joy of finally possessing the Fan Club Album in vinyl form is indescribable.

R.I.P. Sam Rivers

2011-12-27T02:22:00.000-08:00

Jason Moran & Sam Rivers - Black Stars Recording Session Blue Note Records 2001 from jason moran on Vimeo.

Just learned that Sam Rivers died. He was 88 and had a good long life, but I'm still sad to learn of his passing. Sam came out of Boston, was a familiar of Jaki Byard and Tony Williams. Recorded for Blue Note and Impulse, was a key player in the '70s NYC loft jazz scene. Saw him at Stony Brook ca. '76, opening for Mingus in a trio with Bob Stewart (tuba) and Bobby Battle (drums). Sam started the set on piano, moved to flute, then to soprano, finishing on tenor, sustaining an improvisation for an hour. Later on he moved to Florida, led a big band packed with musos who made their living playing in theme parks, and had another trio with two multi-instrumentalists. I'm glad I got to experience his music.

Tyshawn Sorey interview

2011-12-26T07:18:00.000-08:00

Good int with the great composer-drummer. I'd say he's the new Tony Williams. Thanks to Phil Overeem for the link.

ADDENDUM: And here's another one you can read.

The Yardbirds' "Glimpses 1963-1968"

2011-12-24T16:47:00.000-08:00

As I've written elsewhere on this blog, I've been a Yardbirds obsessive for decades, and owned their catalog in myriad forms over the years. Still, I was excited to hear that Carlton Sandercock's Easy Action Records was putting together a multi-disc Yardbirds compilation. His old label, New Millennium, had released two estimable Yardbirds collections: Where the Action Is (1997), a compilation of recordings made for British and Swedish radio, and Cumular Limit (2000), which brought to light a bunch of hitherto unheard live and studio tracks from the band's Jimmy Page era. (Full disclosure: I've written liner notes for two Easy Action releases.)

Five years in the making, Glimpses 1963-1968 is an impressive achievement and a must for Yardbirds completists. Sumptuously packaged, as is Easy Action's wont, it comes in a 7-inch box like the ones they used to use for 45 rpm vinyl albums back in antiquity (I particularly remember the Broadway cast of My Fair Lady that my sister used to like to spin when we were kids). Inside are five CDs, a vinyl 45, some replica gig flyers (one of which advertises a show where the Pretty Things were billed over the Rolling Stones and Yardbirds!) and a booklet containing lots of photos (uncaptioned) and two sets of liner notes, by compiler and Yardbirds: The Ultimate Rave Up author Greg Russo and Mojo scribe Mark Paytress. The emphasis is on live and broadcast recordings, including some that were taped off-air. Interview snippets with band members give the discs a nice audio verite feel, but don't detract from the listening experience.

Disc One covers the years 1963-64, when Eric Clapton was the Yardbirds' lead guitarist -- my least favorite period, but Keith Relf's favorite. Their early demos, which were released on vinyl 7-inches in the '70s, are pretty sedate-sounding, except for "You Can't Judge A Book By Its Cover," which captures some of the raucous excitement that the band was capable of live.

The seven tracks that Castle released as Live Blueswailing in 2003 are here, with upgraded sound. Recorded at London's Marquee Club in August 1964 -- a month after the Five Live Yardbirds LP -- the performances and especially the recording quality compare favorably with that historic set, with the rhythm section clearly audible in noticeably improved fidelity. Relf's stage patter while Clapton tunes includes an amusing discourse on the Yardbirds' equipment woes. Easy Action has included a re-edit of the aborted "Someone To Love Me" -- a song the Yardbirds didn't record in the studio until Clapton was out of the band, and wound up recasting into "Lost Woman" -- from that date, that makes it sound complete.

Versions of "Louise" and "I Wish You Would" from a Peter, Paul & Mary (!) TV show in April '64 are on a comparable level, technically and performance-wise. Rawer sounding but even more revealing are seven tracks taken from the Yardbirds' energetic performance at the 1964 National Jazz & Blues Festival, with Mick O'Neill fronting the band in place of an ailing Relf, highlighted by an aggressively assured "Boom Boom." A storming "I'm A Man" from the Crawdaddy in Richmond, July '64, is similarly ragged-but-right sonically.

The Jeff Beck years are well represented by the second and third discs. Disc Two, covering 1965, has the gold: six tracks recorded for the BBC, and another nine from "lost" UK radio sessions. A version of "Smokestack Lightning" from 16 November has a tape splice in the middle which appends a home-recorded segment to the BBC's master tape, but it's worthwhile to hear how this piece had evolved since the Five Live Yardbirds version. Several musical devices heard here -- the bass line, the bolero riddim under the solos, the modified rave-up crescendo that concludes the instrumental jam -- would later reappear in "How Many More Times" on the first Led Zeppelin album, so Jimmy Page was clearly paying attention. The Yardbirds had a relatively small repertoire, so you get to hear multiple versions of many tunes; "You're A Better Man Than I" from the same 16 November session and "Train Kept A-Rollin'" from a different November broadcast are the ones to beat.

Beck's playing at this early stage in his career is brilliant -- fiery and risk-taking -- in contrast with Clapton's during his Yardbirds tenure, when his style was still developing. Beck particularly shines on the June takes of "Jeff's Boogie" and "Steeled Blues." "Love Me Like I Love You" from 9 August wipes the floor with the version released on BBC Sessions, and Freddie King's "The Stumble" is welcome because it's never been heard on disc before. "I've Been Trying" is a Curtis Mayfield number that gets an inspired reading from Relf & Co., in marked contrast to other recorded forays they made into vocal R&B (cf. "Sweet Music").

You can hear how much the Yardbirds' popularity had grown in a year by the teenage girls' screams that practically obliterate their 1965 National Blues & Jazz Festival performance, which was broadcast in the U.S. on Shindig and is viewable on Youtube. They wore striped short-sleeve shirts like the Beach Boys, and played "My Girl Sloopy," their version of the McCoys' "Hang On Sloopy." So much for blues purism.

Disc Three covers 1965-66, and it's a mixed bag, starting off with the complete released output of the dual-lead Beck-Page lineup: "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago," its B-side "Psycho Daisies" (with Page on bass), and "Stroll On" ("Train Kept A-Rollin'" with new words) from the Blow-Up soundtrack. Three Youtube-viewable tracks from the Music Hall de France also feature Page on bass.

There are three alternate versions of tracks from the Roger the Engineer album. "He's Always There" and "Turn Into Earth" are hybrids of the mono and stereo mixes to provide the most complete versions possible. To these feedback-scorched ears, the lead guitar on the latter seems fainter than on my stereo vinyl version, but the alternate "I Can't Make Your Way" remedies the muddiness of the original track. I wish Easy Action had included "Lost Woman" and especially "Hot House of Omagarashid" (for Beck's _insane_ guitar solo), but the liner notes inform us that it wasn't possible to remaster those tracks because they used phasing.

The live performances of the two songs the Yardbirds performed at the 1966 "Festival of Italian Songs" in San Remo are superior to the studio versions, since they include some recognizable Yardbird gambits (Beck introduces "Questa Volta" with a stolen Buddy Guy riff!), but they're still kind of embarrassing. Two songs from the 1966 NME Poll Winners concert will be familiar to Youtube viewers, who'll have to imagine Beck sliding across the stage to turn on the fuzz box with his hand before the solo on "Shapes of Things." Another unreleased UK radio broadcast from 9 April 1965 yielded previously unheard versions of "Spoonful," "Bottle Up and Go," and a solo Relf take on the folk song "All the Pretty Little Horses (Hushabye)."

Disc Four documents the 1967-68 Jimmy Page era. The four tracks from March 1967 (the German Beat Beat Beat TV show, the video version of which is included as a bonus feature on the 2008 Story of the Yardbirds DVD) previously appeared on the now-unavailable Cumular Limit. One wishes the post-Little Games studio tracks from that set could have made it onto Glimpses; as is, we only get the sound of Relf talking through a wah-wah pedal that closed the Little Games track "Glimpses." Between the eight tracks recorded in Stockholm in April 1967 (which made up the second disc of New Millennium's Where the Action Is) and three from France the previous month, you get most of the set -- minus the overdubbed bullfight cheers -- that the Yardbirds played during their 1968 Anderson Theater performance which Epic released and quickly withdrew in 1971.

Disc Five contains a remastered version of the BBC sessions as previously released by New Millennium, Warner, and Repertoire, with four tracks that appear on Disc Two supplanted by three from March '68 and an interview with Relf.

At 55 bucks American, Glimpses is certainly a considered purchase, but one worth making if you're into Yardbirds obscurities -- if for no other reason than the knowledge that Easy Action always pays its artists (unlike, say, Castle). While Easy Action's website warns prospective buyers off Glimpses if they're expecting high end audiophile sound, do any Yardbirds fans really care about that? Even if you already own BBC Sessions and Live Blueswailing, there's enough top-notch material on Glimpses that's otherwise unavailable on disc to make it a worthwhile investment. For a comprehensive survey of the Yardbirds' entire live trajectory, this is the place to go.

The Kinks live in Paris, 1965

2011-12-23T21:05:00.000-08:00

Fort Worth expat Mike Buck of Fabulous Thunderbirds/Leroi Brothers/Antone's Records fame found this. Amazing!

Setlist: Bye Bye Johnny / Louie, Louie / You Really Got Me / Got Love If You Want It / Long Tall Shorty / All Day and All of the Night / You Really Got Me (slight return) / Hide and Seek

Pssst! Hey, kid! Wanna see the complete "We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen" doco?

2011-12-21T20:15:00.000-08:00

Pssst! Hey, kid! Want a James Williamson bobblehead?

2011-12-21T19:29:00.000-08:00

Got mine today, autographed by the iconic Stooges guitarist himself, with packaging copy adapted from the intro to the interview I did with James for the I-94 Bar in 2001. You can get one here, but hurry: there were only 500 made.

HIO's "Denton Dance Remix 2"

2011-12-20T12:16:00.000-08:00

Here's T. Horn's remix of what we played behind Big Rig Dance Collective at the Black Box Theatre in li'l d last weekend.

The reviewer from theaterjones.com wrote, "The promise of live music provided by the Hentai Improvising Orchestra is somewhat exciting…until they start to play. Using a plethora of household items and some other non-traditional instruments, the musicians create a sound score which sometimes has a sense of melody and direction, but mostly contains a bunch of random sounds." Oh well.

Pssst! Hey, kid! Wanna hear some unreleased P-Funk from 1973?

2011-12-20T04:32:00.000-08:00

Via Grooveshark, with a "bonus track" here. Thanks to Sam Damask for the links.

Doom Ghost's "Demos"

2011-12-19T08:01:00.000-08:00

Who are those guys?
- Butch Cassidy

The Italian kid sent me the link, along with the recommendation, "very old-school, non-gratuitously retro and full of life." He weren't just whistling.

First track, "Wink Wink," invokes the spirit of Roky Erickson via its "You're Gonna Miss Me"-ish chorded intro before the singer proffers the invitation, "Let's go steal a van and drive away" like a punk Broooce Springsteen and laments that "the sky is always so fickle with her rain," neatly encapsulating teen anomie in just 2:12.

"The Antideluvian Misadventures of Doom Ghost and Wizard Cat" sounds for all the world like Joe Strummer fronting the Standells, howling the best Foat Wuth-referential ditty since Pablo & the Hemphill 7's "Little Man and Chiva Joe." (Sample lyric: "Live in the shadow of Cowtown ... And yesterday was a touch poetic / But now I'm stuck with a car full of jaded assholes.") The protagonist and his crew cruise for cheap beer, survive an attempted mugging, and drive off into the night exulting, "Blood looks black in the moonlight ... It ain't my blood, it ain't your blood, it ain't our blood."

"No Tagbacks" has the live-in-the-garage sound of the Nomads' Stagger In the Snow cassette from 30 years ago, and like Solna, Sweden's bid for the greatest rock 'n' roll band on Earth, these Funkytown brats sound like they swallowed the entahr history of the Rawk (well, the cool parts anyway) whole and are now belching it back up infused with their own spin and poisoned spirit.

Not everything here operates on such an exalted level, but every tune contains at least one classic riff and killer lyric -- the four-flusher's boast "I never learned to listen / I never learned to run" on the minor key slow drag "Goddamn I Hate the Blues;" the tossed-off line "Too much love is worse than nothing at all" on the surf-or-"Secret Agent Man" simulacrum "Grace of God" -- until "There Is No Score" takes it out with a grinding Velvet Underground-ish riff and indecipherable vocals that make it sound like a Back From the Grave leftover.

Now I've gotta hear these guys live.

ADDENDUM: Like a candygram from the gods (or Santy Claus), they're playing at Lola's Friday night with War Party and Bits of Kids. Hooray!

Darrin Kobetich's "The Longest Winter"

2011-12-18T07:24:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe that it's been almost a decade since guitarist Darrin Kobetich left the metal he'd played in Hammer Witch and Amillion Pounds behind and embarked on a journey as a solo acoustic performer. Three years ago, he released the hour-long improvisation The End of One Enchanted Evening, a statement of some heft that showed the impressive range of his expressive abilities on the axe.

Since then, he's honed his compositional chops, collaborating on some dramatic pieces at Hip Pocket Theater with artist/writer John Carlisle Moore, and explored electronic ambience in The Panic Basket, a duo with Darryl Wood (Confusatron, Parasite Lost). Now, with The Longest Winter -- due for release in January, with a few tracks available for free download via Soundcloud until then -- he takes a giant step forward, showing how the scope of his artistry has broadened and deepened.

The album consists of a whopping 27 tracks, a dozen of them previously released online in different versions for the RPM Challenge, in which participating musicians create a complete album in a month each February. Those songs were inspired by the memorably cold and snowy winter of 2010 in Fort Worth and recorded quickly in single takes so Kobetich could remember them. As he continued tinkering with the project, Kobetich expanded the array of instruments in his home studio (which now includes a drum kit), and found ways to integrate his disparate influences -- '70s hard rock and metal; the solo acoustic masterwork of John Fahey, Michael Hedges, and Jimmy Page; experimental sounds; and folkloric strains from both America and Europe -- via overdubbing.

"Frontier of Fallacies" gives you an idea of what he's been up to. It starts with a bluesy melody, essayed initially by a reverb drenched electric backed by acoustic chords, over a high-stepping martial beat -- as if Dick Dale were to take up cross-country skiing. When a distorted guitar kicks in, playing long, sustained notes against the melody, the effect is reminiscent of Matt Baldwin's cover of Judas Priest's "Winter" from his album Paths of Ignition a few years back. When Kobetich further orchestrates the melody, adding a mandolin to the mix and kicking the drama and intensity up even further, you can hear his arranger's ear developing.

Even more astonishing is "Without," an Eastern European-sounding melody that, after an initial exposition of the theme, explodes into a full-blown metal rampage worthy of Kobetich's '70s exemplars Scorpions and UFO, complete with shredding leads and squealing harmonics. It follows the album's first peak, "On A Cold Winter's Night," wherein Kobetich adds kick and hand drumming to the acoustic mix, along with layers of ambient psychedelic murk that recall John Fahey in his '90s "hotel room" phase.

Kobetich's acoustic playing grows ever more expressive, the performances richly detailed as he explores every crack and crevice in the soundscapes he creates. "Primordial Soup" and "Playing in the Hedges" are dark, ruminative pieces that feature his Hedges-inspired percussive tapping and use of harmonics, as does "Mother Time." The things he does with this technique are amazing to hear and even more so to witness live. "Stuck In Standby," another live highlight, is a loping breakdown with some knuckle-busting flatpicking.

"Twin Falls" winds its way through several tempo changes, alternating chunky chords with cascading flurries of deftly-picked lines. "Across from the Afar" is a Near Eastern-flavored workout for Kobetich on the cumbus, a banjo-like Turkish instrument that's strung in courses like a 12-string guitar. The banjo feature "Gypsy Rag" is overdubbed with scratchy noises to make it sound like an old 78. "Have Banjo Will Travel" is a sprightly overdubbed banjo-mandolin duet.

Kobetich's theatrical work has taught him much about programming and sequencing. In between the big statements on The Longest Winter, he'll string together a series of pieces to create a sustained mood or "scene" -- as in the triptych of "Canyonlands," "Desert Wind," and "Deep in the Meadow," which form an island of heartbreaking pastoral beauty in the middle of the disc.

Taken in toto, The Longest Winter is an engaging mind-movie that you can use to warm up the house on cold winter nights. Or approached in sections, there's enough here to provide you with a whole year's worth of discovery and exploration. It's a sound-world that's worth visiting anytime.

Rocket From the Tombs on the road in 2011

2011-12-16T22:25:00.000-08:00

coelecanth's remix of HIO @ Doc's

2011-12-16T14:03:00.000-08:00

For years, T. Horn has been soliciting remixes of HIO's recordings he posted online. Now we finally have one, with fretless bass improv by Chris Vaisvil. Listen here.

Pssst! Hey, kid! Wanna see a 43-minute Faces set from the BBC in '72?

2011-12-16T13:49:00.001-08:00

Some good jazz records, mostly on Clean Feed

2011-12-16T05:52:00.000-08:00

I said I wasn't going to write a lot this month, but then in the middle of a John Fahey binge (Georgia Stomps, Atlanta Struts and Other Contemporary Dance Favorites and Womblife), an envelope arrived from Lisbon bearing the latest from Clean Feed, the Portuguese label that's established itself as the Blue Note of the 'teens, including a couple that I just had to hear right away.

Live in L.A. documents a performance from a trio consisting of trumpeter Bobby Bradford, bassist Mark Dresser, and trombonist Glenn Ferris. Bradford's a Mississippi-born, Texas-bred Californian and familiar of Fort Worth eminences Ornette Coleman (he's all over Science Fiction) and John Carter who's led his own Mo'tet since the early '90s. Dresser's worked with Anthony Braxton, among others, while Ferris is an Angeleno who's lived and taught in France since the '80s. Together they play a cerebral brand of chamber jazz, with Bradford -- heard here on cornet -- and Ferris intertwining contrapuntal lines and Dresser moving seamlessly between arco and pizzicato attacks. On "Bamboo Shoots," all three instruments play vocally-inflected lines, to which one of the musicians adds a sung response. An intimately alive and organic set.

So Soft Yet is the latest encounter between redoubtable Dallas trumpeter Dennis Gonzalez and Portuguese pianist Joao Paulo Esteves da Silva, with whom he shared a previous Clean Feed release, 2009's Scapegrace. On this 2010 reunion, Gonzalez employs the electronics (mainly an octave splitter) that he eschewed on their first meeting, and Joao Paulo divides his time between acoustic and electric pianos and accordion. On the electric instrument, he sometimes plays percussive and modal figures that give the music the feel of a two-man Bitches Brew. His accordion gives the sound a lyrical lilt. On "El Destierro," both men play unusually sparsely, using silence and space to heighten the impact of the notes that are played. Impressive artistry, beautifully registered.

Frog Leg Logic is the latest outing from reedman Marty Ehrlich's Rites Quartet. The ebullient title track explodes out of the gate, showcasing the group's orchestral heft -- impressive for such a small unit -- and improvisational aplomb. Cellist Hank Roberts can function as a timekeeper or a third melodic voice, as needed. "Ballade" is a lovely lament that breaks down into a blues following the initial thematic statement. Trumpeter James Zollar plays a solo that shifts seamlessly between muted growls and post-bop angularity. When the theme returns in a wash of lyrical beauty, it gives the track a nicely complete feel. "You Can Beat the Slanted Cards" features a seductively circuitous melody, with nicely spare trap-kicking from drummer Michael Sarin. Ehrlich's an ace improviser on alto, soprano, and flute, but his true strength is as a composer and bandleader.

In that regard, he's a direct descendent of his mentor, Fort Worth native Julius Hemphill, who made his initial impact in St. Louis in the early '70s before heading to New York to found and lead the World Saxophone Quartet, as well as his own sextet and big band. Hemphill's masterwork, Dogon A.D. -- which he originally self-released in 1972 and Arista Freedom subsequently reissued in 1977 -- made its first appearance on CD this year via International Phonograph, Inc., in a beautifully-packaged edition (heavy cardboard gatefold sleeve) that includes all four tracks from the original session ("The Hard Blues" wouldn't fit on the original LP and so had to wait for 1975's Coon Bid'ness to see the light of day). There are many elements and aspects of Dogon A.D. -- the complex themes, Abdul Wadud's cello, drummer Philip Wilson's minimalist backbeat -- that are echoed on Frog Leg Logic, but that's no slight to Ehrlich. The Hemphill album's influence on the last 30 years of creative jazz has been as inescapable as, say, Out To Lunch's, making its reappearance the most welcome jazz reissue of 2011.

Pssst! Hey, kid! Wanna read an interview with David Thomas from Rocket From the Tombs/Pere Ubu?

2011-12-15T05:51:00.001-08:00

From the Village Voice. Short version: He gets to do what he wants. And he's currently grooming his replacement in Ubu. Yeah, right.

Doom Ghost

2011-12-14T15:05:00.000-08:00

The Italian kid pulled my coat to this glorious six-song demo by a shit-hot garage-rock outfit from right here in the Fort. I don't know anything about these guys, but I'd sure like to see 'em live.

Pssst! Hey, kid! Wanna see a complete John Fahey show from 1997?

2011-12-14T04:56:00.000-08:00

HIO gets some virtual ink on dfw.com

2011-12-12T18:39:00.000-08:00

Photog/scribe Steve Watkins of dfw.com was present at Doc's Records last Saturday for the "Cavalcade of Unpopular Musics 2" show. Here be's his report.

Darrin Kobetich - "The Longest Winter" free downloads

2011-12-12T06:20:00.000-08:00

Da Kobe's new _27-song_ CD will be out in January. He's offering four songs of home-recorded string-shredding wizardry for free download via Soundcloud to whet your appetite. Get 'em here. If you're familiar with Darrin's work, you might well be surprised.

HIO @ Doc's Records, "Cavalcade of Unpopular Musics 2," 12.10.2011

2011-12-12T05:28:00.000-08:00

True to form, our video camera failed, but thanks to Kavin Allenson, at least we have audio of our performance (via Alonetone).

The Rationals

2011-12-08T11:26:00.000-08:00

I originally bought the Rationals' self-titled debut LP for 99 cents out of an E.J. Korvettes bargain bin after reading about it in Rolling Stone and Jazz & Pop when I was 13 -- about a year after its initial release in 1970. (The J&P reviewer was none other than then-incarcerated ex-MC5 manager/White Panther overlord John Sinclair.) I foolishly parted with it one of the times over the years when I sold my whole collection, but I could still remember every song on it in '97, when I paid $25 for a copy from an ad in Goldmine so I could have Larry Harrison dub it to a cassette for me. During SXSW 1999, I got to meet and spend a couple of days hanging out with Rationals frontman Scott Morgan, and he signed my copy at 3am outside his motel room, where he'd just played me a tape of the then-unreleased first Hydromatics album.

Big Beat, the Brit label that brought us the magnificent career-spanning Think Rational! 2CD comp back in 2009 and a coupla vinyl artifacts since then, just reissued the "Crewe album" (so-called because it originally appeared on the mostly-MOR label helmed by Bob Crewe of Four Seasons songwriting/"Music To Watch Girls By" fame) -- the first time it's ever been legitimately available on CD (a bootleg Italian version was briefly available in the late '90s).

The cover photos were taken by Tom Wright, who'd been Pete Townshend's art school roommate before getting deported from the UK for pot possession, and went on to serve as official tour photographer for the Who and the Faces. In between, Wright managed Detroit's Grande Ballroom for a spell, during the time when the Rationals, who'd been voted the most popular band in Detroit as high schoolers back in '66, were having to open shows there for bands they'd previously headlined over, like the MC5 and the Stooges. (Jim Osterberg had done session work on one of their singles, as had Bob Seger, and Scott Asheton was once considered as a replacement for Rationals drummer Bill Figg.)

It's hard to say what made this record so resonant for my teenage self. Perhaps it was the vocal harmonies, which made the Crewe association seem less incongruous. In the German, Irish, and Italian working class neighborhood where I grew up, the Four Seasons, the Young Rascals, and the Vanilla Fudge, in turn, were all more popular than the Beatles, because of their Italo-American roots. All of those groups based their sounds on the vocal harmony-rich Northern soul tradition that appealed to white kids like those from my 'hood, who would have been terrified to encounter an assertive African-American male like James Brown or Wilson Pickett in person (although they all dug JB and the Wicked One as much as they did Mitch Ryder and the Rascals).

Scott Morgan is surely one of the best blue-eyed soul shouters of his generation, in the same league as Steve Marriott and Rod Stewart, with less of the former's histrionic tendency and more of the latter's wistful edge. In the Rationals, he was Eddie Kendricks (smooth) to guitarist Steve Correll's David Ruffin (rough). Scott played a lot of instruments on the album -- guitar, keyboards, harmonica, flute -- after a period when he'd concentrated on straight standup singing. The late Terry Trabandt on bass and drummer Figg formed an engine room worthy of the Motown hitmakers with whom the teenage Rationals shared stages.

The Rationals' exuberant cover of Robert Parker's R&B classic "Barefootin'" explodes out of the gate like a secular revival meeting, in the grand manner of Motor City bands whose mission was to kill in their first 15 minutes onstage (think of the first side of the MC5's Kick Out the Jams). Trabandt's stuttering bass line locks it in the pocket with Figg's drums, Morgan roars with controlled fervor and lays down choppy chords while Correll zips up and down the fretboard. Their version of the Knight Brothers' "Temptation 'Bout To Get Me" is blue-eyed soul at its finest, and one of my all-time favorite recordings. It's funny the things that stick in your mind after several hundred spins: in this case, the kick drum hits that lead into the second verse, as well as the singers' passion.

Besides supplying the intro that's been my sound check noise for the past five years with Stoogeaphilia, the Rationals original "Guitar Army" is the polar opposite of the MC5's revolutionary rabble-rousing: a celebration of music for its own sake. You can hear the influence of West Coast outfits like Big Brother and Moby Grape in Morgan and Correll's guitars, in the same way you can on the first SRC album. The bass-and-drums break that leads from the instrumental jam into the out-chorus is classic. The revival continues with Etta James' "Something's Got a Hold On Me," highlighted by a tonsil-tearing vocal by Correll. The guitarist also sings lead on the odd, melancholic acoustic number "Deep Red" that closes side one.

The West Coast influence really comes to the fore on "Sunset," which opens the second side with an extended meandering jam that culminates in a transcendent harmonized guitar part. The next two songs are the album's zenith: Dr. John's existential rumination "Glowin'" in a Curtis Mayfield-like arrangement, and Mike d'Abo's "Handbags and Gladrags," which Rod Stewart also covered on his solo debut (and was supposedly scared to death when he heard the Rationals' version during a visit to a Detroit ratio station). In a just universe, both of these tracks would have been huge hits, instead of winding up in the discount racks within a few months of their release.

The closing "Ha Ha," snippets from which served as segues between the other tracks, is a contemplative slice of acoustic-guitar-and-flute-driven R&B, with lead vocals by Correll on the verses and Morgan on the bridge, sketching an evocative city scene: "Under the streetight / He sat on the curb / Fast moving headlights / Try to disturb him / Walk and don't walk lights / Help with the words / Chalk on the sidewalk / Really absurd."

The Flash Italian bootleg was filled out with a dozen tracks from singles that subsequently turned up on Think Rational! Big Beat's CD, curated (as was their previous Rationals release) by ace scribe and garage rock historian Alec Palao, includes alternate single versions of "Guitar Army" and "Sunset," and studio recordings of Willie Dixon's "Wang Dang Doodle" and "Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah" from Disney's Song of the South (the latter of which was previously heard on Real O Mind's long-unavailable Morgan comp Medium Rare) as bonus tracks. If you've ever bought a record on this scribe's recommendation and not been disappointed, then trust me now: You need this.

Darrin Kobetich and Harry Hoggard - "Spoonful"

2011-12-08T07:06:00.000-08:00

Live at Arts Fifth Avenue. Darrin will be performing solo and with The Panic Basket at the second "Cavalcade of Unpopular Musics" show at the new Doc's Records and Vintage location (9522 Camp Bowie West) from 5-9pm on Saturday. Also on the card: Breaking Light, HIO, and Drift Era. C'mon!

Take the Stooges Bowling

2011-12-07T15:07:00.000-08:00

Ray Liberio artwork for the li'l Stoogeband's next soiree, Saturday, January 14th at Cowtown Bowling Palace (4333 River Oaks Blvd). A ten spot gets you unlimited bowling, including shoes, plus our noise. C'mon! (Wear earplugs.)

Bindle - "State of Girl"

2011-12-06T21:19:00.000-08:00

Wow. Here's some YT of my favorite FTW band that I never saw. In this incarnation (um, Mk III): Tony Diaz, Matt Hembree, Kevin Geist, Steffin Ratliff, and Justin Pate. I love this band beyond all reason.

Deep Purple's "The BBC Sessions 1968-1970"

2011-12-05T08:00:00.000-08:00

Although I often forget, Deep Purple were my first favorite band, even before the Who and Yardbirds. Back when I was 11, the "Hush" single was the second record I ever bought, after the Beatles' "Revolution," and I owned all three of the Mk I DP albums when they were new. The Rod Evans-Nick Simper lineup remains my fave; I disliked the murky sound on the Mk II edition's defining triptych of albums, although like everyone else I was quite enamored of their live apotheosis Made In Japan when it was new.

Reading the history of the Mk I DP, you can't help but be impressed by the incredible cynicism with which they were brought together: recruited by management for what was to have been a backing group for ex-Searchers singing drummer Chris Curtis, who subsequently fell out. No matter: They were hungry, pro, and ready to go.

Keyboardist Jon Lord was a classically-trained blues fanatic and Hammond B3 specialist who'd played in the R&B-heavy Artwoods, done session work on the Kinks' "You Really Got Me," and led a proto-Purple dubbed Santa Barbara Machine Head that also included Ron Wood. Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore was a protege of session ace Big Jim Sullivan, and had earned his stripes in Joe Meek's studio and on the European circuit of Reeperbahn toilets and U.S. military bases, backing rockers like Screaming Lord Sutch and Neil Christian. Bassist Nicky Simper had played with Johnny Kidd of "Shakin' All Over" fame, while singer Rod Evans and drummer Ian Paice came from a band called the Maze.

Their first album, Shades of Deep Purple, was recorded in a weekend. Over the next year they'd record two more (The Book of Taliesyn and Deep Purple), plus a non-LP single, as quickly and cheaply. Very much influenced by the Vanilla Fudge, they had the audacity to record bombastic covers of the Beatles, Cream and Hendrix, featuring Lord and Blackmore in fiery instrumental workouts. By the time the third album was released, the core of the band had already been rehearsing in secret with Episode Six singer Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover, with an eye toward moving from pop and psychedelia toward a harder and heavier sound.

The 2CD release of Purple's BBC sessions comes belatedly, following similar releases by practically every contemporary Brit band of comparable stature, and was occasioned by the 2010 discovery of two Mk I sessions (from June 1968 and July 1969) previously thought to be lost. The five tracks from a February 1969 Top Gear were included as bonus tracks with the remastered editions of the first three albums. "Hey Bop A Re Bop" from that session is a prototype for "The Painter" from the eponymous third album (two BBC versions of which are also included here).

The rediscovered July '69 session, recorded with the Mk II lineup waiting in the metaphorical wings, shows the Mk I band still playing material from Shades. By the following month, when DP returned to the Beeb's studios to cut two tracks for Symonds On Sunday, they were still playing Mk I material ("The Bird Has Flown") but also lifting the curtain on material that would appear on the groundbreaking Deep Purple in Rock ("Ricochet" is an early version of "Speed King"). It's interesting to note that Blackmore's solos still employ his clean, sitar-influenced tone on both songs; he remains the last great straight-through-the-amp guy in Brit rock.

Compare the August '69 "Ricochet" with "Speed King" from three months later. Blackmore's tone is harder-edged and the whole band plays more aggressively. "Jam Stew (aka John Stew)" from that session is a little more diffuse. By April 1970, though, the new direction has solidified, with Gillan (the original Jesus Christ Superstar) unleashing his blood-curdling shriek -- a harbinger of metal mania to come. The Mk II lineup played like the musos' musos they were. They wrote riffs as solid as the ones Page was penning for Led Zep, and Ian Paice combined the heaviosity of Bonham with the fleetness of Mitch Mitchell.

A September 1970 session, recorded especially for foreign broadcast, showcases the mature Mk II lineup. "Black Night" (which includes the signature riff from the Blues Magoos' "We Ain't Got Nothing Yet" in its intro; surprise!) and the instrumental "Grabsplatter" feature Blackmore playing with the impressive velocity that characterizes his Mk II work. "Child In Time" includes lyrics my sister misheard as "See the blind man / Shitting at the world" the several hundred times I played the Made In Japan version during the spring and summer of '73. In Concert/Texxas Jam superstardom were just around the corner. All in all, a worthy reminder that there was more to Mk II DP than "Highway Star" and "Smoke On the Water."

R.I.P. Hubert Sumlin

2011-12-04T21:42:00.001-08:00

Howlin' Wolf's guitarist, dead at age 80.

Nik Cohn's Last Stand?

2011-12-03T20:44:00.000-08:00

My favorite writer on Earth is at work on what he says will be his last book: an epic novel called Dirty Pictures. Here's an int with him from the NYT.

Psst! Hey, kid! Wanna see the "Space Ghost Coast to Coast" Sonny Sharrock tribute?

2011-12-03T09:30:00.000-08:00

From WFMU via Gary Melton.

Mark Growden and Marc Ribot @ The Kessler Theater, 12.1.2011

2011-12-03T07:46:00.000-08:00

Jeff Liles vid.

12.1.2011, Oak Cliff

2011-12-02T00:15:00.000-08:00

I'm not gonna write a lot this month. Have a bunch of HIO activity planned, and it's been awhile since I gave up trying to write blow-by-blow descriptions of our shows, since my sense memory of those events is evidently not that acute.

However, tonight my sweetie 'n' I did traipse over to Oak Cliff to check out Mark Growden and Marc Ribot at the Kessler Theater. Terry and Hickey will be sad to hear that the BBQ joint next door from the Kess closed its doors last night, but we had dinner at Norma's, which is always a delight, and I ran into Tony Sims, who sounds not averse to performing on one of our "Improvised Silence" gigs at the Cellar next year (assuming management doesn't get cold feet and pull the plug), and graciously laid on me a DVD of the Sex Pistols' performance at the Bronco Bowl in '78, and a coupla noise CD-R's, including one he taped off KNON when he was 13, wa-a-ay back in the '80s.

Mark Growden almost made me cry with a new song he performed acapella, inspahrd by the recent passing of his grandmother and operating off the phrase "Memory my fading/fickle/feathered friend." It's part of a song cycle in progress but might just wind up on Mark's next New Orleans album (the one after the still-unreleased In Velvet).

Marc Ribot is quite a different proposition as a solo performer than as a sideman (which is how I know him best, from his recorded appearances with Waits, Costello, Zorn, et al.). He opened his set with his most challenging material -- 17 minutes of extrapolations on Albert Ayler's "Holy Holy Holy" -- and worked his way back to more lyrical stuff (a cover of his former Lounge Lizards bandleader John Lurie's "Blow Job"). Ribot has prodigous technique but isn't afraid of accidents or "bad" sounds (as Kessler talent curator Jeff Liles points out, Ribot will hammer away at mistakes until they become part of the piece). Other set highlights included an emotionally intense abstraction on Coltrane's "Dearly Beloved," a romp through Bix Beiderbecke's "Singing the Blues," and a ragged-but-right Ribot vocal on an evocative original unknown to me.

Production manager Paul Quigg makes every performer that graces the room sound stunning. The Kess is probably even a greater _listening_ venue than Caravan of Dreams was back in the day, for it's managed by folks that have a sense of proportion, as well as impeccable taste. Too bad somebody didn't tell the _chatty_ folks behind us, whom I was tempted to ask if they could talk louder, since I couldn't make out their conversation over Ribot's playing. A minor blip in an otherwise stellar evening.

Pssst! Hey, kid! Wanna see a "lost" FZ interview?

2011-12-01T13:11:00.000-08:00

From ca. '89, by Miles Lesh. In seven parts on YT.

The XPTs - "Sickle Clowns"

2011-12-01T11:16:00.000-08:00

Ex-Pretty Things Wally Waller, Jon Povey, Skip Alan, and Pete Tolson revisit the Pretties' classic Parachute album. Dig it!

Hey, kid! Wanna hear a bunch of Yardbirds demos from '66?

2011-11-29T22:32:00.000-08:00

Beck was already been out of the band by this time, and the producer was Paul Samwell-Smith -- go fig. Apparently the track ("You Stole My Love") was never finished, but one of the takes turned up on the long-unavailable Cumular Limit. Enjoy!

Robbie D. Love - "I'm the Ghost Man"

2011-11-28T21:11:00.000-08:00

New track from The Red 100s' prolific workaholic, who somehow found time to show up (with his bandmate Raul) for the li'l Stoogeband's set at Lola's last night (before the Queers).

I'm The Ghost Man by Robbie D Love

Heartbreakers Live @ the Lyceum, 1984

2011-11-28T20:56:00.001-08:00

Pssst! Hey, kid! Wanna see a Stooges coverband that wears Santa suits?

2011-11-28T08:34:00.001-08:00

Pssst! Hey, kid! Wanna hear a New York Dolls bootleg?

2011-11-28T08:21:00.000-08:00

An hour's worth of pretty hot performance, live at the Matrix in San Francisco, 1973. Thanks to A2 denizen and AMG scribe Mark Deming for the link.

Wizzard - "Are You Ready To Rock"

2011-11-27T09:00:00.001-08:00

Sometimes I post Roy Wood clips just to wind Matt Hickey up, but this is really like some weird nightmare, especially when he starts playing the bagpipes.

The Owl and the Octopus - "Music to Jog To"

2011-11-25T15:16:00.000-08:00

I'm not one of those cyborgs that jogs with earbuds, but if I were, I'd definitely want to avail myself of T. Horn's latest solo wonderment.

FZ - "Dupree's Paradise" @ the Roxy, L.A., '73

2011-11-25T00:05:00.000-08:00

Zappa's Universe

2011-11-24T23:09:00.000-08:00

I was still in the Air Force when these shows happened in '91. FZ was supposed to attend but had to back out due to illness. Mike Kenneally (the Ed Crawford of Zappadom) and Scott Thunes (everyone's favorite bassplayer) from the '88 band along with Mats Oberg and Morgan Agren, the Persuasions, Rockapella, Steve Vai, Dweezil Zappa, Dale Bozzio, and Joel Thome conducting the Orchestra of Our Time. I had the CD back in '93, but the vid is much better.

Mo' Robbie D. Love

2011-11-24T22:52:00.000-08:00

This kid can't get out of bed without releasing a new rekkid. Yesterday it was The Thanksgiving EP.

The Thanksgiving EP by Robbie D Love

Today, it's The Black Friday EP.

The Black Friday EP by Robbie D Love

Why, he's even more productive than Matt Hickey. And that's saying something. Wonder if he has goats too?

Andrew Greenaway's "Zappa the Hard Way"

2011-11-24T10:23:00.000-08:00

There have been a ton of books about FZ over the years, starting with David Walley's No Commercial Potential back in '71. My faves are Frank's highly idiosyncratic autobiography The Real Frank Zappa Book and Ben Watson's exhaustive Situationist academic treatise Frank Zappa: The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play. I couldn't even bring myself to read David Gray, Barry Miles, and Neil Slaven's bios for the same reason it took me until last year to read Paul Trynka's 2007 Iggy tome; you can only get so saturated with information, even on an interesting subject.

Andrew Greenaway's Zappa the Hard Way, first pubbed in 2010, is a different kettle of fish, however. Rather than taking the macro career/life-overview approach, it trains its focus on a particular and hitherto not-well-documented (in print, anyway) phase in FZ's musical odyssey: his final tour, which took place in 1988 with a 12-piece band, including five horns, playing a repertoire of over 100 songs that included classical pieces, TV show themes, and classic rock hits as well as material from all stages of Zappa's oeuvre. That band fell apart on the road in welters of acrimony, resulting in the cancellation of the tour's last leg and costing Zappa, he claimed, $400,000.

It's been a long time since I abandoned the quaint (but common among FZ fans of a certain vintage) notion that the original Mothers of Invention were his "best" band (which I clung to even after witnessing the Roxy and Elsewhere, Bongo Fury, Zappa in New York, and Baby Snakes lineups in the flesh). Zappa's '80s aggros (which mostly trod the boards while I was preoccupied with Guarding Freedom's Frontier) were longer on vocal power (employing as they did different combinations of Ray White, Ike Willis, and Bobby Martin), shorter on the instrumental music that I preferred -- one reason why I find the Does Humor Belong In Music DVD, which documents an '84 NYC show, unwatchable save the opening "Zoot Allures."

The riddim section of Scott Thunes (bass) and Chad Wackerman (drums) anchored Zappa's bands from '81 (when both were aged 21) to '88 -- a chops-heavy tandem that combined punk-rock energy (Thunes) with jazz-rock metric flexibility (Wackerman). Surprise to discover on reading Zappa the Hard Way that the two hated each other's guts. (At one point in the tour, Greenaway reports, the drummer told the onstage mixing tech to take the bassist out of his monitor completely.)

Thunes served as straw boss during the band's late '87 rehearsal phase. His abrasive manner managed to incur the wrath of all of his bandmates save "stunt guitarist" Mike Kenneally, which resulted in such incidents as percussionist Ed Mann mocking Thunes (using the "Clonemeister's" own words) on mic during a concert in Pennsylvania, the defacing of Thunes' laminated backstage pass by a member of the road crew, and the scratching out of the bassist's name from a cake which was presented to the band in Austria (for which he retaliated by obliterating Mann and Wackerman's names). Ultimately, the horn section refused to continue the tour unless Thunes was fired. Zappa considered the expense of going back into rehearsal with a replacement and canceled the remaining dates. Sic transit gloria FZ, all recounted as objectively as possible by Greenaway.

Lately I've been spending a lot of time watching the DVD of the '88 band's performance in Barcelona, which was originally broadcast on Spanish TV. While it's a flawed document -- the horn soloists are undermiked, and there are numerous dropouts in the soundtrack -- it provides ample evidence of the band's onstage prowess (they compare favorably with the Brecker Brothers-augmented lineup I saw at the Palladium in NYC in '76), while showing nary a sign of the underlying tension.

The range of their repertoire is dazzling. There's a suite of political songs that wound up on the Broadway the Hard Way album; Zappa vocal R&B pastiches from Freak Out!, Cruisin' with Ruben and the Jets, and Chunga's Revenge; arrangements of classical pieces by Stravinsky, Berlioz, and Ravel; FZ's versions of "Whipping Post" and "I Am the Walrus" (the '88 band also played "Stairway to Heaven"); classic FZ instrumentals like "The Black Page," "Black Napkins," "Sofa," "Watermelon in Easter Hay, and "Strictly Genteel;" and best of all, a version of "Big Swifty" wherein Frank conducts a band improvisation in the same way he did on Weasels Ripped My Flesh, in the Baby Snakes film, and in the famous Youtube clip from Australian TV. While FZ was reportedly not happy with the quality of his guitar solos on that tour, to these feedback-scorched ears, they sound as facilely inventive and aggressively in-your-face as anything on his "guitar" albums.

Author Greenaway is a Brit Uberfan who oversees the idiotbastard.com website. Zappa the Hard Way is definitely a fan's book. It's published by a company (Wymer Publishing) whose other products include a Ritchie Blackmore fanzine and recordings by a Deep Purple tribute band led by Mk I bassist Nick Simper. Greenaway's text has lots of first-person POV, but he's also extensively interviewed most of the surviving principals (notable exception: Wackerman), as well as drawing on secondary sources. There's a charming foreword by Zappa's sister, Patrice "Candy" Zappa-Porter, and a revealing afterword by Pauline Butcher, FZ's '68-'72 secretary whose own Zappa tome (Freak Out! My Life with Frank Zappa) was just pubbed.

Not exactly a revelation, but an interesting aspect of the Greenaway book is its focus on FZ's sexuality, which casts a different light on his own take on "Marriage (As a Dada Concept)." Yes, kids, Uncle Frank was a horn-dog. Thunes: "[FZ] spent a lot of time describing in detail many of his sexual exploits but never told me if he loved his wife or his kids..." Or this, from Zappa's daughter and "Valley Girl" singer Moon Unit, writing in 2009: "Our rock royalty of a dad toured for nine months out of the year, cheated on my mom when he was away, but always came back to us, to sleep all day and work all night. When I was little, 'Mom' meant let people be themselves so Dad doesn't leave us for a groupie and we can keep food on the table and a roof over our heads." Or this from Butcher: "[Frank] had often told me that, after music, lust was the most important thing in his life...it does appear that [on the '88 tour] this man who was so into lust all his life, was suffering from sapped energy and a loss of libido."

Was Frank sick on the '88 tour? Did he use the band's disharmony as an excuse for pulling the plug when in reality he was no longer up to the physical demands of life on the road? Did he let the band's interpersonal dynamic get out of control because he lacked the stamina to intercede? Considering the retrospective sweep of the band's repertoire, and one particular line from "Jesus Thinks You're a Jerk" ("And if you don't know by now / The truth of what I'm tellin' you / Then surely I have failed somehow"), it occurred to me that perhaps Frank recognized on some level, perhaps subconsciously, that this was a valedictory tour. (He'd already vowed never to tour again after outings in '82 and '84.)

More sympathetic is the reminiscence by Swedish drummer Morgan Agren of the encounter he and his childhood friend/keyboard player/fellow Zappaphile Mats Oberg had with Frank before the '88 band's Stockholm show, and their subsequent guest appearance with the band onstage (playing a then-unreleased FZ composition, "T'Mershi Duween," that they'd learned off a bootleg tape). After hearing Agren and Oberg play his music, Frank tells Oberg (who is blind), "You have listened to my music so much -- you should know what I look like." Agren continues, "Frank took Mats' hand and laid it on his forehead, and Mats began to feel how Frank looked! And Frank said, 'Don't forget the famous nose!'"

Zappa the Hard Way is a worthwhile read for any FZ fan -- sort of a darker, real-life 200 Motels.

Woodeye/Me-Thinks/Badcreek pics @ meezlady.blogspot.com

2011-11-21T17:44:00.001-08:00

My sweetie posted some of her pics of Woodeye, The Me-Thinks, and Badcreek from Saturday night's extravaganza at Lola's on her photo blog. Click on 'em to make 'em big and leave her a comment why doncha?

11.19.2011, FTW

2011-11-21T08:22:00.000-08:00

It seems that in the last month or so, my sweetie 'n' I have been out more than in the previous year. But it's not every day that we get a chance to see Woodeye, one of our all-time fave bands, who folded the tent a few years back but have played a couple of reunion shows since then. (Good bands don't have to break up, they just don't need to play all the time.) We missed the last one (at Lolaspalooza, when I was playing earlier in the day and didn't have the intestinal fortitude to go the distance), so when we got wind of this latest oppo, we were determined to make it. Especially after the mighty Me-Thinks were added as direct support (even though I feared an overwhelming attack of Wreck Room nostalgia), following openers Badcreek (whom I've been meaning to see live).

It would be impossible to overstate the importance of the Wreck Room in your humble chronicler o' events' personal cosmology. As I've said elsewhere, I've spent a lifetime obsessed with the idea of music as a locus of community; El Wreck is the first place I ever experienced that -- back when I was attempting to earn a living as a freelance journo between 2002 and 2004, and later, right up to the demise of my all-time fave rockaroll dump in September 2007. I met many of my best friends there; I played there every Wednesday night for two and a half years; my sweetie 'n' I celebrated our wedding and my 50th birthday there. And Woodeye and the Me-Thinks are two of the bands I associate most closely with El Wreck.

I was surprised that Lola's didn't run a second bar for the evening, but then again, two of their bartenders were performing; it surely couldn't be because they didn't expect a good turnout. Lots of old familiar faces in the crowd, as well as onstage.

The guys in Badcreek are mostly old veterans and familiars of the late Cadillac Fraf, playing a nice line in what used to be called "Y'allternative." This is convoluted, but their recordings remind me of Neil Young fronting the Blonde On Blonde band (or maybe Mott the Hoople) in the same way as Wilco's Being There (only album of theirs I own) reminds me of Ray Davies fronting the Exile On Main St. Stones.

Live, Badcreek is more energetic and aggressive (in the manner of disbanded local cowpunks Jasper Stone), but this isn't always for the best. Even with an Andre Edmonson mix, frontman Eric Waldron tends to lose out to the general din, and the songs take a back seat to the sound of the band. They've only been gigging since the spring, though, and with a run of shows coming up in December and January, they remain an interesting work in progress. (Someone suggested, and I agree, that they ought to gig with Barrel Delux.)

Speaking of bands from Haltom City, the Me-Thinks were in rare form Saturday, once Ray resolved some tuning issues. (What _did_ musos do before digital tuners? Oh yeah, that's right -- they were just out of tune a lot. But wasn't it Hendrix that said "Tuning is for cowboys?") Andre had Marlin and Bandy's amps firing from the side, and you could really hear their individual parts distinctly -- a plus. The newer material (the two songs from Me-Thinks' recent 7-inch plus other, unrecorded ones like "Loudensucke") sounded as good as the "classic" toonage from their Make Mine a Double E.P. And Jon Simpson's a powerful and underrated drummer. I told him later that this might have been my favorite Me-Thinks performance since he took Will Risinger's place behind the traps.

Then Woodeye.

When my buddy Geoff from Philly, who knows good rock from bad, braved his fear of Texas to come down for my wedding, he was singularly impressed by Woodeye among the bands that played our wedding party. (I was sure he was going to like the Me-Thinks more.) Their 2003 CD Such Sweet Sorrow remains in my personal top 10 for its decade; seriously, have Wilco, Uncle Tupelo, the Bottle Rockets, or any of their ilk made a rec so emotionally impactful? I think not.

Carey Wolff is still as full of self-deprecating horseshit as ever, but I think he's come to realize how deeply folks are affected by his songs, and how beloved is his band that stopped being a going concern when Scott Davis moved to Austin to make his living as a muso rather than a bookseller. These days, Scott is an in-demand session player down in America's Live Music Capital (R), and he and Kenny Smith (the Woodeye drummer that finally "took" after a Spinal Tap-like succession) tour with No Depression fave Hayes Carll.

On this particular night, Scott was rockin' a new SG (rekindling my SG lust yet again), to which he'd added a Bigsby tailpiece, through Fender Deluxe and Marshall clones built by the Orbans' guitar player. Scott's always been the most tasteful of players, with the sweetest tone (in the manner of Pablo & the Hemphill 7's Steffin Ratliff), but you could hear all the playing he's been doing in his fretwork on all the old familiar Woodeye faves. And proud papa Graham Richardson remains the punk-rock wild card behind the Thunderbird bass.

"West Texas Sunset" has the most immediately recognizable intro this side of PH7's "Freedom," both of which I heard innumerable times back in Wreck Room daze. My favorite Carey Wolff songs are the slow, mournful ones -- "Stupid Man," "The Fray," "Motel Room," and "Our Song," which he dedicated to me 'n' my sweetie, imagine that -- in which he puts more plainspoken raw emotion on the line than the average songwriter. (Dre Edmonson remembers a night when Woodeye played the Wreck without a drummer, doing all slow songs, and the bar sold a ton of whiskey shots.) The one that's stuck in my head right now is "Smolder": "You can cry all you want / I can say I'm sorry until I turn blue / You can try all you want / But you can't make me love you."

They can rock out, too, on "How To Lose" (another classic intro), "What's the Matter with Me" (the closest thing in their book to a generic country-rock ditty, and a fan favorite), and their cover of the Replacements' "Can't Hardly Wait" (which I will always think of as a Woodeye song). The audience showed their appreciation with multiple rounds of shots, and Carey responded by singing the title track from his I'm Still the Darkness CD, which always sounded like a Woodeye song, anyway. If he'd played "Nineteen" from that shiny silver disc, it'd have been a perfect evening for me. As it was, it was just a real, real good one.

Pssst! Hey, kid! Wanna watch a Captain Beefheart documentary?

2011-11-20T15:54:00.001-08:00

JATSDFM - "Monobus"

2011-11-20T06:42:00.000-08:00

That overachiever Matt Hickey releases yet another album in his Joe and the Sonic Dirt from Madagascar guise. You can stream/download it and read his explanation here.

Sonny Sharrock in NYC, 1988

2011-11-18T05:03:00.000-08:00

With Melvin Gibbs, Abe Speller, and Pheeroan akLaff.

HIO in the FW Weekly's blog

2011-11-17T20:02:00.001-08:00

The Italian kid gives us a mention here. (Thanks, Ant'ny!)

MC5 - "KOTJ" @ Friar's Club, Aylesbury, 2.11.1972

2011-11-17T05:48:00.000-08:00

Near the end, but still powerful.

Mott the Hoople - "At the Crossroads"

2011-11-17T05:19:00.001-08:00

Mott covers Sir Doug. Yeah!

Arcana - "Gone Tomorrow"

2011-11-16T22:09:00.000-08:00

Teague pulled my coat to this: From 1997, Tony Williams' last recording, in a Bill Laswell-led ensemble that also featured Pharaoh Sanders, Byard Lancaster, Graham Haynes (cornet), Nicky Skopelitis, and Buckethead. One to seek out.

Mind if we dance wit' showdates?

2011-11-16T21:59:00.000-08:00

I asked for a few shows, and for my sins they gave me some:

11.27 Stoogeaphilia @ Lola's w/the Queers and four other bands
12.6 HIO in Denton w/Homemade Dance Project (invitational)
12.8 HIO in Denton w/Homemade Dance Project (invitational)
12.10 HIO @ Doc's Records: Cavalcade of Unpopular Musics 2 w/Drift Era, The Panic Basket, Darrin Kobetich, Breaking Light
12.16 HIO @ Black Box Performance Space, Denton w/Big Rig Dance Collective
12.17 HIO @ Black Box Performance Space, Denton w/Big Rig Dance Collective
1.14 Stoogeaphilia @ Cowtown Bowling Palace
1.20 HIO @ Simone Lounge, Denton
1.29 HIO @ The Cellar: Improvised Silence, hosted by HIO (this is an ongoing series, last Sunday every month)

Who'd a thunk it?

Working on a Stoogeaphilia date at the Wherehouse with Fungi Girls, Spacebeach, and the Mike Haskins Experience. Also a Stooge date at Doc's with one of Big Mike Richardson's cover bands. And HIO may play an invitational house show in December or January with trombonist Patrick Crossland. So there.

The Ballad of Mott the Hoople

2011-11-16T19:08:00.000-08:00

And I guess I lost just a little bit on the journey
- Ian Hunter, "The Journey"

Rockumentaries are a dime a dozen. After all, isn't every band's story basically the same? The best examples of the genre chronicle the careers of performers who are themselves habitual self-mythologizers: The Kids Are Alright, MC5: A True Testimonial, We Jam Econo.

And was there ever a band as self-referential as Mott the Hoople, who made a concept album about their own failure (Mott) as well as not one but two about madness (Mad Shadows and Brain Capers, the latter still a regular spin around mi casa), and capped it all with a valedictory single about breaking up ("Saturday Gigs")? Well, sure there was: the Clash. But they were co-led by a muso (Mick Jones) who spent his formative years trooping around the UK following Mott. So there.

I've been infatuated with the idea of music as a source of community since I was a teenager, which is why I was so easily won over by bands like the Who (with their Mod claque), the MC5 (with their Grande/Trans-Love Energies/White Panther cabal), and the Clash (whose other leader arose from the Ladbrooke Grove squats).

You couldn't find a more _organic_ example of this phenom than Mott, who were thrown together by a mad genius obsessed with Blonde On Blonde (Guy Stevens, who'd previously assembled Procol Harum but lost out on producing "A Whiter Shade of Pale" when he was charged with amphetamine possession and thrown in Wormwood Scrubs for eight months) but made their name on atypically-cathartic-for-the-time (1969) live performances and a lack of rockstar pretension that inspired uber-fanatical loyalty from a small army of young acolytes that included Jones and future journo Kris Needs.

By 1972, the wheels were about to come off the Mott cart when David Bowie saw them, was floored, and offered them a perfect glam era hit single ("All the Young Dudes"), even though they'd already decided to call it quits. Transatlantic fame ensued, including a week-long stand at Broadway's Uris Theater, where your humble chronicler o' events -- who was in the habit of playing air guitar to Mott with his buds, even though a couple of us could actually play by then -- witnessed their performance and intuited, for the first time, the hollowness behind the theatricality of big rockaroll shows (which led to my life-long preference for shows where you can feel air from kick drum heads and speaker cones moving your clothes around, as opposed to the kind where you have to squint at a Jumbotron to see the band), and the fact that Mott frontman Ian Hunter (b. 1939) was relatively old.

Mike Kerry and Chris Hall's documentary The Ballad of Mott the Hoople traces this trajectory in a lively way, including on-screen interviews with most of the principals (bassist Pete "Overend" Watts declined to participate, and Guy Stevens died by his own hand in 1981), as well as important observers like lead singer-turned-road manager Stan Tippins (the ultimate team player), Jones, Needs, ace engineer Andy Johns, Queen drummer Roger Taylor (whose band toured with and learned from Mott), and American tour manager Leee Black Childers. Hunter, guitarist Mick Ralphs, and drummer Dale "Buffin" Griffin come across as clear-eyed and unpretentious as you'd expect, while organist Verden "Phalley" Allen's thick Welsh brogue almost requires subtitles.

True, there isn't as much live footage as one might expected from the ton that's viewable on Youtube (but not embeddable here) -- there's just enough to give you a taste of the band's live insanity and whet your appetite for a more complete sampling that, as of yet, doesn't exist on DVD (although three complete songs from Mott's 2009 reunion are included in The Ballad of...'s bonus features) -- but the stories are good enough to be worth the price of admission by themselves.

Viewing the film, I realized that the Mott I saw in '74 was living on borrowed time. The Mott album was the result of Hunter's determination not to be seen as a Bowie satellite, and it succeeded: the record's passion and heart are real, and enduring. After that, though, he'd pretty much shot his load. The follow-up, The Hoople, sounded like a glam caricature and was amateurishly produced to boot. Ralphs soon decamped for Bad Company, for whose first album he took "One of the Boys" from the All the Young Dudes LP, sped it up, added a different chorus, and wound up with a big 'Meercun hit: "Can't Get Enough."

Ralphs' replacement by Luther Grosvenor aka Ariel Bender (as engaging on-screen as he was onstage at the Uris) gave Mott a shot in the arm, but it was purely a holding action. Grosvenor's subsequent replacement with ex-Bowie sideman Mick Ronson was too little, too late. By then, Hunter says, he'd realized that at the end of Success' rainbow, "...There's nothing. The fun is the ride. There ain't no station." Amen, brother.

Rockumentaries might be a dime a dozen, but Mott the Hoople was one in a million.

Mark Growden's "In Velvet"

2011-11-15T07:20:00.000-08:00

Since his last release, Lose Me In the Sand, singer/composer/multi-instrumentalist/modern day troubadour Mark Growden has been on a roll. Recently relocated from San Francisco to New Orleans, he's got a new job as artistic director for NOLA's Marigny Opera House; new digs with an art room and a music room within walking distance of the mighty Mississippi; an exhibit of his visual art in the works; and a new band, the New Orleans Heavies, a hot nine-piece aggro that features three other horns and another singer alongside Mark's baritone sax and vocals. He seems nourished by the Crescent City's vibrant musical community, and the dark and celebratory vibes of that historic town's decaying Napoleonic grandeur.

"I'm playing more of other people's music than I have in years," he said on a recent visit to the Fort, when he and duo partner Eric McFadden performed for students and faculty at the Jo Kelly School -- Fort Worth ISD's intensive services campus for medically fragile, multi-disabled students -- as well as playing a gig at fonky Fred's. He also said he's been writing songs on his daily walks to the river.

As a result, his new album In Velvet, scheduled for an early 2012 release on Porto Franco Records, is the first since Live At the Odeon where I wasn't already familiar with most of the material via numerous live airings by the time I first spun it. (Of the songs on In Velvet, Smokey Robinson's "You Really Got a Hold On Me" has been a staple of Mark's solo sets for years, and he performed "The Love of It All" and "Sunday Afternoon" live with McFadden.)

In Velvet was recorded live in the studio to maximize spontaneity and vibe; going forward, Growden says all his albums will be made this way. It's eye-opening to hear him in a setting where his banjo and accordion aren't the dominant instruments, and worth remembering that he was a saxophonist first, only taking up those other axes and learning to sing when his horns were stolen. His vocal power, always impressive in intimate settings, is perfectly suited for fronting this large and unabashedly extroverted ensemble. His music's always had a folkloric base, and indeed, several of the songs here are traditional tunes with some lyrical reworking by Growden.

"Drivin' Into the Sunrise" -- great title image! -- kicks the door open with a rollicking groove worthy of Dave Bartholomew, featuring drummer Charlie Kohlmeyer making like Earl Palmer and the horns playing up a storm. (I always wondered what a Mark Growden rock 'n' roll record might sound like.) "The Love of It All," a highlight of both duet performances I witnessed, introduces vocalist LaTosha Brown, and her soaring gospel pipes nearly steal the show.

"Jumpin' Judy" is a band-arranged second line strut that opens with the deep song of Peter Harris' stand-up bass and gives the horns (trumpeter Wendell Brunious, tenorman Eric Traub, and altoist Loren Pickford), Hammond B3 wizard Larry Sieberth, and Growden's longtime guitarist/In Velvet co-producer Myles Boisen a chance to shine.

On "Something Within Me," as my sweetie observed, the preacher's kid from NoCal comes full circle, reminding us how much of early R&B, rock 'n' roll and soul came directly out of the black church. Listening to this track reminds me of walking around Oak Cliff on Sunday mornings when I first moved to Texas, listening to the music from Holiness churches where the bands had drummers and saxophones.

"The Old Lady From Brewster," the album's first single, is a traditional song from the Georgia Sea Islands that Growden's performed with his Bay Area bands, but the New Orleans Heavies transform it into a jumpin' R&B number which Growden and Brown sing with abandon -- "I got paint all over me" indeed! (Hear it via Soundcloud here.)

An added plus: In Velvet even has "rockin'" and "mellow" sides. The latter commences with an album highlight, the instrumental cover of Ry Cooder's "Paris, Texas," which packs the same emotional wallop as the intro to "If the Stars Could Sing" on Growden's classic St. Judas album from 2010, adding cinematic sweep and color to the mood: part Coltrane-esque soul rinsing, part wailing gutbucket lament. "Sunday Afternoon," written by Boisen, has a nice sense of place, and of peace, painting a picture of an idyllic urban interval. The band version of "You Really Got a Hold On Me" loses none of the intimacy of the ones Mark's been playing solo for the past couple of years.

"Old Dutch Davis" features the band on a jazz waltz. "That's All Right" has nada to do with Arthur Crudup or Elvis (thankfully); rather, it's another gospel-infused soother, giving Sieberth (on piano this time) and Brunious room for simple, soulful solo statements. The valedictory "Here's To You" has the same off-kilter riddimic lope as some of Growden's darker, fin de siecle cabaret pieces, but here it's suffused with warmth, and grace.

Mark says that since he's shifted his base of operations to the Gulf Coast, we in the Metromess can expect to be seeing more of him -- a good thing. He'll be back at the Kessler Theater in Oak Cliff on Thursday, December 1st, opening for eclectic guitar genius Marc Ribot. You'd be a fool to miss this.

HIO - 11.11.11 Nightmare

2011-11-14T21:36:00.000-08:00

Short film by Terry Horn with soundtrack by HIO here. This was projected during our 11.13.2011 performance at the Cellar.

HIO Live @ the Cellar, 11.13.2011

2011-11-14T17:51:00.000-08:00

T. Horn posted his recordings of last night's "HIO classic" performance here. Terry played turntables, laptop, and bass; Hickey, keyboard and electric gopichand; your humble chronicler o' events, guitar and electric kalimba. Thanks to Mark Kitchens of Stone Machine Electric for being "the audience."

The Red 100's pics @ meezlady.blogspot.com

2011-11-14T07:06:00.000-08:00

My sweetie posted some of her pics of The Red 100's on her photo blog. Click on 'em to make 'em big and leave her a comment, why doncha?

Pssst! Hey, kid! Wanna hear a new Leslie West album?

2011-11-13T09:36:00.000-08:00

My drummer from college just shared a link to the ex-Mountain man's Unusual Suspects. From the squealing harmonics on "Standing On A Higher Ground" (with a guest appearance by Billy Gibbons, no less), sounds like he's still got it.

11.11.-12.2011, FTW

2011-11-13T08:35:00.000-08:00

Celebrated 11.11.11. with my sweetie by going to Lola's so she could take pics of The Red 100's in a room Andre Edmonson dressed. (She'll post some of 'em on her photo blog when she's had time to go through 'em.) This was something like their eighth Fort Worth gig in the last two months, which perhaps (along with their opening slot) accounted for the scant attendance. Also, there was a band playing Collective Soul covers outdoors a couple of blocks east, which Dre said went on until 2am. (Wonder how they got around the noise ordinance? When the li'l Stoogeband played in the 7th Haven lot a couple of years ago, El Hombre was there at 10p to make sure we shut it down.)

Onstage, The Red 100's are chaos incarnate in the best way. On this particular night, Raul Mercado was having enough guitar problems to be in Stoogeaphilia or something: his cord failed on the first song, which necessitated some quick troubleshooting while Robbie D. Love and Kyle Scheumach held the groove down. These boys might be rough, with a riddimic sense that threatens to come careening off the rails at times, but they're stone pros in the "show must go on" sense. Later on, Raul had to swap out guitars mid-song, after which the 60 cycle hum from his (possibly ungrounded?) single-coils was almost like a fourth instrument in the mix.

Robbie D. Love likes climbing up on/jumping off of stuff more than any muso I've seen since the Immortal Lee County Killers' Chet Weise. Also during the first song, he was balancing precariously atop his guitar amp (which he had on its side, presumably for more height) when it toppled over. Again, the boys didn't miss a beat, even though Robbie's plastic Viking helmet lost a horn.

And Raul's stiff-limbed robot dance resembles someone in the throes of a seizure. It's the same impulse that made Pete Townshend use strings as heavy as bridge cables on his SGs, and kick Abbie Hoffman off the stage at Woodstock, or the reason why I feel like I've been thrown down a flight of stairs the morning after I play a Stoogeshow. In case you hadn't figured it out, I think these boys are out to lunch: same place I eat at. I was sorry (but not surprised) to hear that they'll be moving to Austin soon, but Kyle assured me that they'll be back. We live in hope.

The next night, we ate dinner at Ray's Prime Steak & Seafood, a recently expanded West Side spot located across Camp Bowie Blvd from the Ridglea Theater at 3206 Winthrop -- the first street I ever lived on in the Fort, although my crappy apartment was south of Camp Bowie, in the shadow of Ridglea Bank. It was the inaugural night of Johnny Case's new gig in Ray's new piano bar, with Johnny still utilizing the Yamaha grand that Sardines owner Sal Matarese donated to him for his 28 years' faithful service there.

Ray's is a definite step up from Sardines, a beautifully appointed room (lots of dark wood paneling) with a clientele that _dresses_ for dinner. While the menu is a tad pricier than Sardines', it's still possible to get an entree for under $20 (I had a nicely smokey duck l'orange on a bed of spinach and mashed potatoes, while my sweetie chose the wonderfully creamy lobster ravioli, each $17), while the above-average calamari appetizer was a ten spot.

We were happy to see Mark, a favorite Sardines waiter, was on the staff, and the service was prompt and attentive, but had a totally different vibe than the young, high-energy crew that made Sardines in its heyday such a popular date spot (we ate there with my family the night we were married).

Johnny's still waiting to find out the configuration of the combos he'll be using on weekends, and suspects that any straight-ahead jazz playing he wants to do, going forward, will have to be at Arts Fifth Avenue. While we had to suppress the urge to applaud when he finished a number -- it's not exactly a listening crowd -- it's a great place for Johnny to have landed, and we hope he has many more good years there.

Robbie D. Love's "Love Vibrations"

2011-11-11T07:50:00.000-08:00

Ebullient ultra-extrovert Robbie D. Love's band, The Red 100's, have gotta be 1) the most exciting new band I've beheld since, I dunno, The Mooney Suzuki; 2) the gigging-est mofos in the Fort, and they're from Dallas, for goodness sake; and 3) playing at Lola's tonight, so my sweetie 'n' I are gonna celebrate 11.11.11 by catching their set so she can take pics of 'em on a stage Andre Edmonson dressed.

Listening now to Robbie's solo debut Love Vibrations. Basically all the songs are just excuses for him to blow lead over simple acoustic guitar and percussion backing. He played all the instruments, too, except for a guest appearance by his Red 100's bandmate Raul Mercado on one track. Robbie D. sings, um, like a guitar player; his audible influences range from Funkadelic to My Bloody Valentine to the Velvet Underground.

To these feedback-scorched ears, it's just nice to hear a young cat that's so clearly in love with the feelthy sound of distorted electric guitars. The Red 100's are getting ready to take some downtime to write and record some more. I'll be anxious to hear what else these brash brats have up their collective sleeve.

ADDENDUM: I think "Midnight Tide," wherein the dirty lead/clean backing equation gets inverted, is my fave track here.

Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson by Kevin Avery

2011-11-09T22:46:00.000-08:00

Reading this book moved me a lot more than I thought possible for a biography-cum-anthology of a music scribe's work -- especially one whose scrawl I'd barely read. Of Paul Nelson's writings, the only ones I remember vividly are the four articles he contributed to The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll in 1976, on Bob Dylan (written in the form of a detective novel and withdrawn from the second edition of the book), Rod Stewart, folk-rock, and Lou Reed-David Bowie-Mott the Hoople.

But Nelson was one of _the guys_, and present at the creation to boot. Born in Minnesota, 1936, he established the template for rock criticism with his writings on folk music in the proto-fanzine Little Sandy Review. He gave the future Bob Dylan his first Woody Guthrie records (actually, Bobby Zimmerman _stole_ them, which he admits in his autobiography, although he only mentions Nelson's roommate and collaborator Jon Pankake in that connection), and quit Sing Out! magazine over the publication's lambasting of Dylan's plugging in at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. His personal integrity remained sterling to the bitter end.

Nelson got the New York Dolls signed to Mercury Records, for whom he worked as a publicist and A&R man from 1970 to 1975 (recounted hilariously and at length in the self-interview "Looking Back"). He edited the Rolling Stone record review section from 1978 to 1982, then walked away from writing (and ultimately, music and decades' worth of friends) after clashing with publisher Jann Wenner over the section's direction, wound up working in a Manhattan video store, struggled financially, and died alone in his apartment, aged 70. When his body was found, he'd been dead for a week.

Nelson was a stereotypical gloomy Swede who had complicated relationships with his family, abandoned a wife and son, and pursued a series of unsuccessful romantic affairs. He had obsessive-compulsive tendencies, and struggled with dementia in his later years. He'd contract for work that he never delivered, a few of his pieces were recycled for publication more than once, and he labored for years on a never-completed screenplay. But he had a gift for intuiting an artist's intent and eloquently expressing that understanding. He loved cinema (Little Sandy Review could have been a movie rag but for a coin toss) and detective fiction, and his music writing was filled with allusions to the former and rendered in a painstakingly-crafted style that borrowed its taut, clean-lined lucidity from the latter.

Author Kevin Avery -- a Nelson Uberfan who's also compiled for publication his subject's extensive interviews with Clint Eastwood, conducted for an unwritten Rolling Stone feature on the screen icon and filmmaker -- recounts Nelson's life is as poignantly as Doug Simmons' 1991 Village Voice interview with ex-New York Dolls drummer Jerry Nolan (now downloadable as a PDF), or Josh Alan Friedman's Austin Chronicle piece on Keith Ferguson. He had access to all of Nelson's papers and associates.

Avery recounts Nelson's memorial service, where writer Anthony DeCurtis decried his colleague's winding up working in a video store, to which Nelson's friend Michael Seidenberg responded, "I think all you guys just get nervous that this can happen to you." Part of why I find Nelson's story so disturbingly resonant, I have to admit, is that I see something of myself in him (although he accomplished significantly more and operated on a more highly exalted plain than your humble chronicler o' events), and something of my father (who spent the last 30 years of his life working on an academic paper that was never completed, let alone published).

And part of why I didn't read Nelson more extensively back in the day is because he, like most of his contemporaries (save St. Lester), was more concerned with the primacy of the text than with the way things _sounded_. He violated the journalistic taboo against getting close to the subject, and made friends of performers like Jackson Browne, Rod Stewart, and Warren Zevon -- which meant that he was able to achieve a depth of insight not available to conventional interviewers. I just didn't happen to have any interest in those people back then, although I can see the magnitude of his achievement, reading those pieces now.

The ones that stand out the most for me -- besides the aforementioned Mercury reminiscence -- are the Dylan piece from the Rolling Stone book; a retrospective of the New York Dolls' meteoric rise and fall, penned for the Village Voice a month after their demise; and Nelson's harrowing account -- written for Rolling Stone over months and finally run in a truncated form that devastated its author -- of Warren Zevon's struggle with alcoholism. (Now I'm going to have to seek out a copy of the the Rod Stewart book Nelson collaborated on with St. Lester, to read their conversation "Two Jewish Mothers Pose As Rock Critics.") You might have different favorites, if you care more about, say, Jackson Browne or Bruce Springsteen than I do. But if you care enough about music criticism to be reading this blog, you owe it to yourself to pick up a copy of Everything Is an Afterthought.

Robbie D. Love - "Love Vibrations"

2011-11-09T09:30:00.001-08:00

Solo debut by The Red 100's guitarist-bassist. Check it! Review to follow.

Love Vibrations by Robbie D Love

SRB - "City Slang"

2011-11-09T07:05:00.001-08:00

The one that got away.

Pssst! Hey, kid! Wanna hear a live-in-the-studio Rocket from the Tombs recording?

2011-11-08T06:51:00.001-08:00

From 2003. Available to download for a ten spot via Hearpen.

HIO - "11.04.2011, part 1"

2011-11-08T05:03:00.000-08:00

Some noises we made up in Denton last weekend while rehearsing with Home Made Dance Project are here.

Johnny Case opens at Ray's this Saturday

2011-11-08T04:58:00.000-08:00

Proof positive that you can't keep a good man down: Fort Worth jazz pianner institution Johnny Case writes, "My official opening date at Ray's is Saturday, Nov. 12 at 7pm. Yet to be determined is whether duo or trio on weekends. I'll play solo Tues.-Thurs. starting at 7 each night." The spot is located at 3206 Winthrop, off Camp Bowie Blvd (between Bryant Irvin and Westridge). Best believe we'll be checking it out.

JATSDFM - "LCD"

2011-11-07T20:14:00.000-08:00

It's here! The latest Joe and the Sonic Dirt from Madagascar offering, LCD, is finally finished and downloadable for free via Bandcamp. You know what to do.

LCD by Joe and The Sonic Dirt From Madagascar

Johnny Case and Mark Growden/Eric McFadden pics @ meezlady.blogspot.com

2011-11-07T07:33:00.000-08:00

My sweetie 'n' I don't get out much, but this past weekend we made it out to see a couple of shows, and she's posted some of her pics of the Mark Growden/Eric McFadden duo at Fred's and Johnny Case's last night at Sardines on her photo blog. Click on 'em to make 'em big and leave her a comment, why doncha?

Julius Hemphill - "Dogon A.D."

2011-11-05T06:55:00.001-07:00