Tangentially tied to the Rudimentary Peni crew, S-Haters worked a similar musical territory. If that's your steez, take a listen. As a warning, there's some of the worst drumming ever recorded on this track. But the fact that the East Bay Ray cribbed guitar lines can over come that is a testament to the offering...

This is darkly beautiful stuff.

It’s rare in today’s experimental music cadre for a guitarist to play an electric instrument while restraining the tendency to let loose and churn out fuzz ridden, almost nonsensical noise. Playing free certainly has its place – and always will. But more often than not, it seems as if there’s a reduced number of emotions being exuded during those freeq outs. And while it might be said that introspective music is all dour, without too much aggressive reward, it’s still possible to relate anything from a pensive feeling to exuberance with the least amount of notes possible and in a controlled setting.

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Sandy Bull along with Robbie Basho make up the second tier of American Primitive Guitarists from the sixties. The pair’s being relegated to that lower echelon isn’t based on talent as much as both performer’s inability to pull in as wide an audience as John Fahey, Leo Kottke and others associated with the movement. That being said, both Bull and Basho rank as two of the most talented players to record in experimental modes during the sixties – in America, with guitars, at least.

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Even before issuing its first single, the Bristol based Cortinas had already garnered some national press for its simple, punky stylings.

Forming in 1976, the band counts as one of the earlier proponents of the genre over there on the other side of the Atlantic. Despite forming at a relatively auspicious time, though, the Cortinas never really impacted the scene.

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With just the catalogs of Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian and Eddie Lang making up the truly unique early guitarists in the jazz idiom, exposure to other players sitting in the same general style is always welcome. Of course, a bit further on down the line, the genre gifted listeners with Wes Montgomery, George Benson and Grant Green – each function in relation to pop musics a bit differently. And while guitar jazz continues to morph into new, unexpected branches, looking back at a few earlier players should go along way towards expanding perceptions of what the progression of styles actually sounded like.

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After my griping about the way in which reissues have been framed to take in the CLE scene as an apt reference point, Debris pretty much removes any discontent which may have been touted around in my heart.

Again, the angle by which writers and labels talk about Debris’ Static Disposal seems like bunk. It’s all Beefheart and Stooges references with the pervasive Ubus being dunked in for supplemental explication. Appropriate? Surprisingly, yes.

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Have ya’ll seen Bored to Death, which stars Jason Schwartzman, Ted Danson and Zach Galifianakis? Yeah? It’s pretty funny. After watching How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, though, it’d be easy to feel cheated if one’s enjoyed the aforementioned television show.

The two efforts aren’t exactly the same. But there are a great many similarities. Either way, the movie, which was released a year prior to the show making it onto TV and based on the writing of a journalist, is probably just as entertaining as the cable show.

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If you grew up listening to or watching media springing from Great Britain, you already know what the word ‘tosser’ denotes. If not, google it and find out why the title to his movie is amusing in more than one way. It’ll be worth the time, guaranteed.

Rock Paper Scissors: The Way Of The Tosser did the rounds at festivals a few years back and was able to garner a bit of positive press, even if the interwebs haven’t always cast an enthusiastic vote. But with a feature as peculiar as this one, there’s good reason why a spate of normals didn’t quite get the whole thing.

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Hearing Columbus dudes get air time around the turn of the millennium was truly amazing. It’d been the better part of a decade since Bone, Thugs ‘n Harmony did anything that folks paid attention to outside of Cleveland. And Columbus hadn’t exactly been churning out hits in the ensuing times. So, for MHz to gain a bit of momentum, RJD2 to get a record deal with a prestigious label, Copywrite head in the same direction and Camu Tao as well was all kind of inspiring. And while the expansion of the internet has been touted as giving random people the belief that their work, of whatever variety, to be heard. For me, it was this stuff. I hadn’t ever even entertained the notion of working out hip hop stuff (I still don’t), but in my life time there hadn’t ever been any sort of spotlight shined on the state I hailed from.

Along with all of this, illogic and Blueprint were kicking around. Heady times.

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Honestly, I get insulted when acts from the mid-seventies find themselves compared to the Cle – Akron axis of bands (Ubus, Devo, et al). For the most part, no other cadre of groups, working so early in the decade, issued a consistent catalog. And Sacramento isn’t any different. Certainly, Ozzie has a place in record collector’s hearts. More over, Tales of Terror were a good band. But that was a bit later.

Either way, though, the Twinkeyz aren’t a bad group. But really don’t warrant the kind of enthusiasm the internet has poured forth. And certainly being contrasted with CLE bands doesn’t do the Cali group any good. Yeah, there’s a sort of robotic persistence of vision, but that’s subverted a bit by Donnie Jupiter’s vocals.

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