March 2009

  • The Vaselines: Again

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    It’s difficult to figure whether or not people would still be talking about the Vaselines if not for the insanely vigilant fan boy antics of the late Kurt Cobain. Between his name checking them in various interviews and Nirvana covering something like three of their songs, it’s safe to say that even if the Vaselines were to be culturally relevant today, it would be in a completely different way. Cobain’s push for Sub Pop to release an anthology for the band over fifteen years ago resulted in a huge resurgence of the Vaselines music. And if you can even find a copy of that disc, collectors would be impressed. The Way of the Vaselines, though, is about to get a price bump with the impending release of Enter the Vaselines.

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  • Pelt: Ayahuasca

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    THIS POST got me thinking about the expanse of Jack Rose’s catalog. I was lucky enough to see him a few years ago, and he was in a number of ways, able to out perform Peter Walker, whose lone ‘60s recording is touted as a monumental folk/raga album. And while people’s opinion on that subject might differ, it would be agreed that the over reaching enthusiasm for all musics is what pushed Pelt to seek such a wide breadth of inclusion in its work.

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  • ChiTownSound: Tortoise

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    Tortoise has a range of influence more than readily familiar to any listener that’s even a fan in passing. Its music finds its root in as vast an array of influence as any pseudo intellectual touting the cultural import of post-modernism. It’s all been figured before. Tortoise is a group that makes music that, at times, barley seems as if it’s there. And now, the band returns after its three years away from recording to release a new disc, Beacons of Ancestorship, via Thrill Jockey on June 23rd. The following hyperbolic nonsense is from the press release:

    Tortoise is a group that resists easy metaphors and analogies, who can be described as sounding like only themselves and no one else.

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  • Windspitting Beets

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    Growing up, Nickelodeon seemed to be my only friend (awww…). But the cartoons as well as the Mark Mothersbaugh scored themes were ample company for me. As TV raised me, my analog friends came and went, but some stuck with me in memory. Of course Rugrats is still on and Pete and Pete was released on DVD not too long ago – although I dare you to find a copy. But I have no idea if Doug made it to the digital revolution. Him, Skeeter and Patty Mayonnaise (who may have been my first love), are missing in action as we speak.

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  • Flowers-Corsano Duo: Brute Force

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    As a harbinger of new noise, VHF Records has released work from Jack Rose as well as the likes the Flowers-Corsano Duo. And while those two projects seemingly share little in an aural sense, the concepts propping them both up are pretty similar.

    Rose, who founded Pelt during the ‘90s, has gone on to ply the depths of pre-ware blues to great affect, even earning the opportunity to tour with Peter Walker a few years back. But whereas his newer works have been focused on acoustic playing, his label mates, both Chris Corsano and Mick Flowers, have worked in a more noisy dispensation. The former having cut his teeth along side Paul Flaherty, maintains much the same fervor that the sax player worked within.

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  • Iggy: We Will Fall

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    With the dissolution of the Stooges, Iggy Pop sought to continue his life long journey through the many hued biz of rock and roll. His last band had broken up, reformed, released one of the finest albums of the decade, began working on new material that could have potentially proved financially useful only to fall apart amongst the flowing smack.

    Fortunately (or not) for Iggy, David Bowie had stayed by his side as the duo worked on their respective albums. For a time, it even seemed that Bowie had, to a certain extent, hijacked Iggy’s career and steered it to his liking. Of course, even if this was the case, it proved to raise Iggy’s level of fame and yielded a few post-Stooges classics.

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  • One Kiss: Hackamore Brick

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    New York in the early ‘70s was awash with rock dudes who fancied themselves poets, soothsayers and more over, trend setters. That’s not to say that some were not, but there’s such a glut of rock music from this era that it, at times, becomes a bit difficult to do anything other than take a passing listen to much of what’s being dug up again.

    Recently, the smart asses at Chunklet found it necessary to taut a band that went by the name Hackamore Brick. A few songs were posted over there that made clear that the quartet - Chick Newman, Robbie Biegel, Bob Roman, and Tommy Moonlight - were more than simply a ramshackle group of pseudo musicians. But that certainly doesn’t portend any sort of greatness.

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  • Deep Psychedelic Moods

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    Psych music has such a huge back catalog at this point, it is sometimes difficult to pick out artifacts from the original period that are authentic as opposed to folks who figured that it’d be a good way to make a name for themselves to record in this particular mode. But even some of those sham records have become scarce enough that collectors loose their collective minds when discussing them.

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  • The Axemen: A NZ Protest

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    It’s understandable that Australia and New Zealand have a contentious relationship. I used to live in Cleveland, don’t anymore, but still cringe whenever I see a Stealers logo anywhere. The fact, though, that the Aussies recently claimed that New Zealanders are hermits, or some such, seems a bit beyond me. Anyway, New Zealand, as much Australia, has a pretty rich and important musical history. The Tall Dwarfs (sic) and Chris Knox have impacted current indie musical trends in a pretty noticeable way. You’d be able to hear it even if Jay Reatard didn’t tell us straight out.

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  • Old Punks/New Warped Tour

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    As the Warped Tour continues to age, the crowds remain the same age. It’s kinda like that dude’s quote from Dazed and Confused minus the perversion. But regardless of that, even if you were an attendee of the festival during its formative years and have grown frustrated with the line ups of subsequent years, there are a number of old tyme bands slated to play this year. I can’t say that the following list of folks would make me want to shell out the ticket price, but it at least made me think twice about it.

    The Adicts

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  • The Secret Syde - Hidden Secrets

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    Before independent labels copped business models and started acting like scumbags – not all of ‘em, but you know if you’ve screwed someone over – the early ‘80s laid waste to band’s dreams. Releasing a record, at that point, was tantamount to a bloody political coup.

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  • Records Take a Beating

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    I haven't figured out most of the amenities and benefits of living in the Bay Area as of yet. I do know, however, that I live roughly five minutes away from Amoeba and Rasputin on Telegraph. And once I get over being denigrated by the sporadic outbursts from bums, going up there will probably be even more enjoyable.

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  • Los Reactors: Punk, New Wave or Other

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    As the ‘80s dawned punk began to splinter. Hardcore developed and some dudes even got keyboards. New wave could be considered a media construction, but there are groups who organically came to that sound. Putting Los Reactors into this category might be met with disapproval. So, perhaps their just a punk band. But either way, the legacy of one of the band’s singles, “Dead in the Suburbs,” has kept the group rather vital over the last three decades – the Briefs even cover it on their (Looking Through) Gary Glitter's Eyes seven inch.

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  • Peter Laughner: The Bard of Cleveland

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    Growing up in Cleveland, one’s privy to a certain kind of folk lore not present in other cultural bastions. The people that ‘made it’ from this Midwestern town usually left or were soon forgotten after whatever modicum of fame doused them. It’s not as if one can claim that it’s really too bad. It’s just how it goes. And coming from this climate of decay, it’s actually to be expected. The physicality of what surrounds one during each day imports that message all too frequently. Perhaps it’s for this very reason that certain neighborhoods within the city sport the highest foreclosure rates in the nation.

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  • Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters

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    Hawkwind is known for a number of reasons. Counting Lemmy as an early member of the group is certainly one of them. Being a fine purveyor of space rock is probably another. And having some rather bizarre lyrical content could be figured as another. There had obviously been other bands that talked about the future, space ships and other mythical or mystical things, but Hawkwind seemed to do it convincingly. The place that these musings came from, though, was a singer that sporadically left the group only to return again. But obviously, the fact that Hawkwind functions today – kinda – is probably enough proof that their line up wasn’t too consistent.

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  • Dan Melchior's Broken Menace

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    More often than not, any sort of dissection of Dan Melchior’s work refers to excessive use of odd noises and supplementary production foibles. And while those are unquestionably part of his repertoire, the basis for his work is Americana in its broadest sense. Now that probably seems an over statement due to his upbringing in Shepperton, England. But Billy Childish is from England as well and that gentleman has no qualms with exercising his far flung tastes. But in regards to Melchior, he’s even moved to the States to continue his career, whereas his former colleague still resides on that island over there.

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  • Andrés Segovia vs. Education

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    There’s an arts and crafts store not too far from my house and upon the suggestion of a misguided friend, I was told to go and check out some of their used goods being hocked at a reduced price. To my surprise, the store had a number of used records and cd’s in addition to a rather stunning woman working the register.

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  • The East: No Wave and Punk

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    This might not be applicable in the future seeing as the US will most certainly have to become subservient to another financial power. But as Japan emerged from World War II, much of its popular culture began to mirror the States and other world powers. It was, obviously, an approximation through the lens of another country’s history, but Japanese popular music has taken cues from the west for roughly fifty years. Very frequently, the appropriations have some aspect that’s magnified to obscene heights and ends up making some of the work, while still valid and entertaining, a bit cartoonish. The Flower Travellin’ Band is a pretty good example of that. But as that group mirrored the psychedelic heaviness of Sabbath and others, it was able to transcend some of the obscene clichés as well.

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  • Steve Albini is Serious

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    Steve Albini is famous for all too many reasons to have them recounted here. But he’s fronted a number of groups and produced at least a few discs that are now or have been in your record collection. Somehow he’s become a lighting rod of music and to a certain extent controversial. But regardless of that, he’s been in the music biz, one way or another, for almost thirty years. Along the way Albini’s garnered some insider knowledge that, even if you aren’t in a band, is pretty interesting to look at.

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  • Mick Jones Gets Erudite and Stuff...

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    After parting ways with the Clash in 1983, thus excusing him from the 1985 garbage that was Cut the Crap, Mick Jones could have taken the last three decades off. He’s chosen not to do that.

    After redefining and expanding what punk can and should be able to do, Jones founded the well intentioned, but really rather awful Big Audio Dynamite (B.A.D.). In some ways that group worked with the same source material as the Clash, or even its contemporaries in John Lydon’s Public Image Limited. B.A.D. was adventurous the way that these other acts were – not as noisy, but it just didn’t turn out that well. Again, though, the commercial success that Jones garnered with that act could have sent him into retirement. It didn’t though.

    He began producing records.

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  • Psycho Daisies: 80's Garage, Beat and Psych

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    Uncovering a work from a group on the internets – at least for me - then requires an in depth search of the group’s background. And at this point of digital development, one should assume that every miniscule piece of information about music is at your disposal. It is for the most part.

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  • The New Kraut: Vas Deferens Organization

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    If you try really hard, you can place almost any adventurous rock band into the kraut category. Wilco could even be checked – after all “Spiders (Kidsmoke)” is all immense repetition. But the ever mysterious dudes in the Vas Deferens Organization more astutely can be referred to as purveyors of kraut madness. The music isn’t necessarily all rock based and from disc to disc, the band’s approach might differ. But more often than not, on the 1996 Saturation, the band opts to explore electronic expanses created by some olde tyme synths and intricate, if not over blown, guitar soloing.

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  • 39 Clocks: It's Time

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    The De Stijl label seems to be having a spat of bad luck. A few years back, they released a disc by then unknown folk crooner Wooden Wand. A few years on, WAND or James Jackson Toth, or whatever he’s settled on today has a deal with Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace and seems to be doing rather well apart from his last tour falling apart after his band left him on the road. But De Stijl was also set to release a Wavves disc earlier this year before Fat Possum apparently swooped in a took that glory away as well.

    The impending release of an album by German band 39 Clocks, probably won’t remedy all of this, but perhaps due to the spate of German obsessed collectors trolling record bins today, this’ll be a hit thirty years after being put to tape.

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  • Kid Congo x Pink Monkey Birds

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    In some sort of bizarre accident of timing, Kid Congo Powers has released his new disc – Dracula Boots – just a month or so after the passing of his former band mate and leader of the Cramps, Lux Interior. This new disc represents the first recording from the former drummer since 2006. And while he might best be known for plying the depths of low brow garage and fuzz psychedlia with the Cramps – or the Gun Club for that matter – Dracula Boots seems to traffic in a funk inspired brand of juju rock.

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  • Amon Düül: Live and in English

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    The musical legacy of one of the earliest kraut combos is defined by not only drastic change, but also by some pretty inane hippie caterwauling. There really isn’t a definitive musical statement from Amon Düül or Amon Düül II. And yes there is a pretty noticeable difference. The initial combo, who lived together on a commune somewhere in Germany, was more peacenik fireside jams than anything else. And by contrast, Amon Düül II was something more of a psych or prog combo trafficking in feedback and distortion as much as any Detroit band of the era.

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  • Weasels Ripped My Flesh vs. Soft Machine

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    After posting this piece over HERE about Noisette by the Soft Machine, it prompted a conversation with a dude I know about Zappa and his work during the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. And while we didn’t agree, it made me feel as if a written response was necessary.

    The antagonist in this pseudo-intellectual debate is of the opinion that the heights that the Soft Machine hits aren’t matched – at least in any sustained manner – by Zappa and his various ensembles. He does site Uncle Meat as an acceptation. Of course, my initial response to that statement was something to the effect of, “There’s other stuff by Zappa that sounds like that…”

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  • The Pogues: If I Should Fall From Grace with God - Expanded Version

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    Amazon has a special limited time deal on this Pogues album. It's an expanded version with 19 tracks. The download mp3 DRM free price is $3.99. You can check it out here. Among the tracks this album is one with Kirsty MacColl "Fairytale of New York," Cover of The Pogues If I Should Fall From Gracewhich is likely a song even if you don't know The Pogues, you'll recognize this version of a very quirky, but very moving Christmas carol.

    I'm not quite sure how to introduce someone to The Pogues, in case there are people who aren't familiar with them.

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  • Larry Coryell: Fusion Most of the Time

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    When describing the varied work from guitarist Larry Coryell, eclecticism usually is mentioned at least a few times. And while that may well be an easy way by which to explain his frequent genre shifts over his forty plus years of work, the initial decade or so, that saw him working is probably the most rewarding.

    Having been an avid jazz fan since a young age, Coryell decided to leave his journalism studies at the University of Washington to move to New York City and pursue a career in music. Upon his arrival, Coryell replaced another underrated guitarist, Gabor Szabo in Chico Hamilton’s band.

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  • Ástor Piazzolla: Monkeys and Cartoons

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    Over the last few months, I’ve watched roughly half of the twenty seasons of the Simpsons. And regardless of what the says about my mental state, I fell as if I’ve not only traveled through a sort of time warp, but also learned (or was re-exposed to) a great deal of American culture.

    At the beginning of the series, the Simpsons’ very frequently served as a major platform to critique modern media and how the populace is affected by it. Everything from television to newspapers and music was lampooned in not only ironic, but appropriate fashion.

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  • Mergers: Albert Ayler and Hippies

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    The fact that Albert Ayler is buried in the same cemetery as my grandparents isn’t the reason that I feel some connection to him –that is kinda weird to say the least. But being a Clevelander surely influenced the sax player as much as any other environment could have – save for ‘Nam of course.

    There’s no exact moment in my head as to when I knew that Ayler was on another level of creativity – beyond Coltrane. Although, I do recall looking through the jazz stacks at Case Western Reserve University’s WRUW and finding pretty much his entire catalog on vinyl – even the original pressing of the one sided Bells. Even if the cover of In Greenwich Village wasn’t some kinda of psychedelic ploy to grab fans, a cursory listen would have drug me in.

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  • Noisette: The Softs Live

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    Soft Machine is either the most rockin’ jazz band ever or the jazziest rock band. Either way, most often along with whatever kind words there are for the group, there’s usually a Miles Davis reference as well. And that’s probably as unfair to the British group as it is to Miles himself.

    The electric Miles combos usually moved between one chord funk raves and uncontrollable flights of noise. The Softs, by contrast, eschewed much of the funk influence – although Robert Wyatt’s drumming might serve to refute that point – to focus on bizarre time signatures and sudden shifts within songs while still being able to leap off into some disturbing shards of noise.

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  • Awaiting Dos: Wooden Shjips

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    There are now and always will be a great number of bands that are working within the confines of psychedelic music. Some come to it organically and some choose to incorporate this particular element into their music. But San Francisco’s Wooden Shjips simply exude it.

    Made up of a quartet of players that, collectively, don’t have an overwhelming amount of band experience, Wooden Shjips at once command attention due to the wall of fuzz that is their sound, but also because the noise they make is nothing short of danceable.

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  • Grisham x Punk x Death Rock

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    When I was seventeen, I was set to drive from Cleveland to Pittsburgh in order to catch the Social Chaos Tour. The Business, Vice Squad, Anti-Heroes and a few other notable folks were set to play there. And for some reason, they saw fit to not make their way to my home town. The day before my caravan was set to leave, the Business and LA punkers TSOL were slated to play a show as a brief reprieve from the trials of their package tour. Having a few extra dollars in hand, my cohort and I decided to catch a preview of what we would soon see in Pennsylvania.

     

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  • OutBloodyRageous: Pete Doherty Returns from the Wasteland

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    The most surprising aspect of this entire effort is the fact that Pete Doherty didn’t turn in something rambling and shambolic.  is the most overwhelmingly tasteful album rooted in rock from not just this young year, but the past few. In Doherty’s voice, listeners can still easily take away that uneasy feeling of early and unrelenting fame that the singer and guitarist encountered. Drug addled isn’t a way in which any of this could be described. And considering the fact that Doherty’s fame – in the press at least – is basically tied to his over inflated antics, that’s just short of bloody stunning.

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  • Sonoma Punkers: The Bodies

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    Punk has contributed to the general American mindset more than most would realize, or care to recognize. But of course, bullheaded Americans, as we all are, enjoy claiming things that aren’t ours. So the dissemination of DIY and its inherent trappings, of course, aren’t recognized by the general public. Oddly enough, if you explain, roughly, what that term means, whoever you’re talking to seems to understand the concepts, but just have some other word, idea or name for it. Bloody typical.

    Sonoma’s the Bodies could be one of the examples of this ethic. I would assume, though, that while the band does press some of its own recordings under the guise of Radio Records, they’d see fit to shy away from any sort of categorization such as DIY.

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  • Psychedelic Temptations

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    Of all the notorious producers that sprung up during the ‘60s – Joe Meek, Phil Spector, Big Boy Pete – Norman Whitefield seems to have alluded fame. Within the Motown universe, Whitefield cut a striking figure. Always dapper, and always demanding, the producer – perhaps more than label boss Barry Gordy, Jr. – defined the sound coming from the stable of stars. Detroit, as much as the players on these records, though, informed the music from the Temptations.

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  • Arthur Brown's Crazy Nonsense

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    I can’t say that I’m overwhelmingly familiar with Arthur Brown and or his crazy world. But it was rather interesting discovery, for me at least, to find that his second album is entitled Galactic Zoo Dossier. And while that might just sound like a silly confluence of words and images, it also serves as the name for pretty interesting and obscure zine out of Chicago that happens to be drawn and written by Steve Krakow, other wise know as the Plastic Crimewave Sound. The mag is distributed by Drag City – another Chicago area staple on the music scene. It is hocked at a pretty staggering rate. If you can find a copy, it’s worth it just for the art alone. But the writing is rather illuminating as well with the focus on various forgotten psych bands of decades past.

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  • Dissecting The Space Box

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    In keeping with my recent focus on kraut related esoterica, the following is a run down of the, some would say indispensible Space Box. Considering the fact that I came to this collection after having been introduced to the vast majority of notable acts on it, it’s a bit less daunting. And since I’m a rather negative minded dude, instead of collecting the highlights herein, the following are some acts or tracks that should be avoided – unless you appreciate over bloated wanking and cheesy hard rock.

    Zero Gravity – “Interferon”

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  • Row Land: Roland P. Young

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    Even by the late ‘70s it had seemed that basically every combination of jazz and some other disparate genre had been mined, figured and disseminated. And while that was almost true a Bay Area musician was amidst deciphering some new concoction of jazz, eastern musics, drones, multi-instrumentalism and recording techniques.

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  • Back in the USA: The Crystal Stilts

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    Out of all the non-stop worthless releases currently clogging up record store selves and the interwebs, it was really nothing less than pleasurable to hear the Crystal Stilts a few months back. The band’s combination of the Cramp’s simplicity, with a vocal laziness that can only conjure images of a smacked out Lou Reed, the Crystal Stilts have begun a European tour to lackadaisically spread their gospel. Maybe gospel isn’t the proper word here – how ‘bout rock veracity.

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  • Krautrock Sampler: A Response to Cope

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    Julian Cope has a ridiculous amount of accumulated music knowledge and to challenge him in any sort of authoritative manner would be ridiculous. But seeing as copies of Krautrock Sampler are getting hocked for nearly two hundred bucks on Amazon, I can’t really go on some sort of point by point refutation of his ideas. So, since that book seems to simply be out of reach for me – until I hit the bloody lottery – I’ve seen fight to compile my own sampler or sorts. Truncated, yes. Useful, perhaps, but it’ll serve to initiate the perspective travelers.

    A.R. & Machines – “Beautiful Babylon”

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  • (Who's) The Hillside Strangler

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    Punk has some of the most voracious and obsessive fans in any genre. One of the best examples of their rabid clattering to find and acquire original artifacts from the initial punk explosion comes in the guise of “Hillside Strangler.”

    The Hollywood Squares were made up of a few locals to the LA scene who had a rather well defined musical background. The band’s guitarist, Eddie, and drummer, Tad, at some point during 1977 found themselves accompanying Bernard Constantin at performances across Europe and other more exotic locales. In each other, they found musical camaraderie and once back at home sought to solidify the line up of the Hollywood Squares.

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  • Burzum: Really, Who Cares?

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    Man. Black Metal is either the most distinct cultural clique in the history of popular music, or just a buncha geeks that got picked on in high school and decided to get tough. Either way though, I think that every one can agree that burning churches isn’t exactly the best way to express one’s distaste - no matter how strong.

    I think that works on a pretty basic human level. Unfortunately, in 1993 lead creep in Burzum, Varg Vikernes (b.k.a. Count Grishnackh) was convicted of a murder as well as burning down a number of churches. Vikernes reportedly smiled as his sentence was delivered and was summarily incarcerated, but will soon be released.

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  • Dee Dee Isn't Home, Man

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    When Dee Dee Ramone died in 2002 much of the mystique that surrounded the Ramones departed with him. Left now is the band’s guitarist Johnny – who not only is a vociferous Republican, but he stole and eventually married Joey’s first love – and Tommy, who only performed as a drummer on the first few albums from the group.

    Dee Dee was easily the most engaging personality. And although there are countless instances of band members figuring that he needed to be kept quiet during interviews, fans were drawn to him. He was as frequently incoherent as he was urbane, but always friendly – unless you wronged him in a dope deal. But it’d be a travesty if his entire contribution to music was distilled in his addiction to smack.

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  • Sounds Are Active: A Major Load of Releases

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    Even if you don’t like the music that Sounds Are Active traffics in – which might be hard to figure since the label touches on a bit of everything – you should probably respect the fact that the one man show of Chris Schlarb has somehow managed to create a small, but formidable and growing musical empire around the musical folks that he’s associated with in the LBC and LA area over the past few years.

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  • Warwick to London: The Edgar Broughton Band

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    I seem to be wading through a haze of psych and prog discs of late – take a look HERE and HERE. And having gotten through some of the unsung masters has only exposed me to a few other folks that have as of yet to see the light of day. It’s not unlikely, though, that you’ve seen mention of Edgar Broughton and his band in the past. They seem to have occupied a rather high profile status in England during the later portion of the ‘60s and into the beginning of the next decade.

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  • Psych: A Timeline of it...

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    The term psychedelic now encompasses so many different things that, while it hasn’t lost its meaning, the term has become something of a catchall that means a great deal less today than it did a few decades ago. There’s now psych-folk, psych-punk and the list goes on.

    For some reason, though, it seems to be pretty clear as to how the term has been used in the past, and how it reoccurred endlessly in music over the last forty years. There’s a rather easy lineage to follow and thankfully, the folks at Lysergia have been kind enough to annotate this history for us.

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  • Tapes: Blues Control

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    We live in a world of curiosities. Some are meant to be understood, some are not and others are simple meant to be enjoyed. And to hear Blues Control is to enjoy it.

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  • Driving: I'm Troubled

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    Mix tapes are one of the most indispensible objects on the face of the earth – they can even function as art objects if you take the time to craft something special as a cover. But while they most often work as mere entertainment, on any long drive, without them, you might not make it to that far off destination.

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  • Picts' Power: Writing on the Wall

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    Theatrical aspects are inherent in any type of performance. The act of playing instruments in front of a crowd, itself, constitutes a type of theater. And for some bands, that wasn’t quite enough. As the ‘60s wore on more and more acts sought to incorporate more visual aspects to their stage performances. Of course the Velvet Underground and the Dead had films projected to accompany them, and even if there wasn’t too much acting going on, there was enough of a bacchanalian setting for the spectacle to come off well.

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  • This is This Heat

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    Why This Heat isn’t the most name checked and lauded band of 1970s England is so far beyond me that writing the rest of this is going to (almost) be bothersome. Bands falling through the cracks occurs on a daily basis – and some of those lost bands and albums are worth hunting down. But very frequently when the collector in you finally locates this supposed gem there’re scant reasons to re-visit the disc after a few initial listens.

    This Heat is not in that category. In fact, they aren’t in any category.

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  • The Nice: The Thoughts of...

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    In many circles, progressive rock has gotten a bad name. Today, that genre’s moniker induces images of over bloated stage shows, lasers, over the top vocals and guitar shredding for only shreddings’ sake. Of course, as with any other musical innovation, there are elements from the time of the genres origins that have become a bit embellished and even cartoonish.

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