That California Jangle

David Crosby's tone-deaf comments upon the death of Eddie Van Halen reminded me of my long-standing annoyance with the solipsism of 60s/70s California hippie culture. I remember in particular the front porch hangs I used to have with Elijah Pritchett, and how our mutual animosities to that hippie culture came to be animated primarily by one band: The Byrds.

I also have to admit that my first interest in rock music was The Byrds, from a band biography and four song seven inch sampler I got from Scholastic Books when I was in grade school; obviously the book was deeply sanitized to the point of not at all being useful as a story of the band, but most of the band's music goes down pretty easy, so there wasn't much need for sanitizing that, save holding off on some of the band's more obviously druggy songs (though it really seems "Eight Miles High" was on there . . . but of course, that was a song about flying in an airplane lol). I don't remember exactly what was on the record, but one song did stand out: "Lover of the Bayou". That one was dirty.

Anyway, it got me to wondering if I was just done with The Byrds, so I did what it is I do: put together a giant Spotify playlist, based on fan's favorites from the band, and immerse myself in it until I figure it out. This was, in fact, probably the first band I did that with, many years ago, when I joined Spotify not too long after its birth. The playlist was just over three hours to start (three hours is kind of the magic playlist number for me, because that was my average DJ shift on WQAX back in the day). Unlike the Bob Dylan playlist that I have been working on this year, which started out at just over six hours then was lightly trimmed back to about five and a half, the Byrds playlist was cut down to under an hour and a half after I lived with it for a while. A lot of The Byrds's output leaves me cold and bored; some I consider downright repulsive (Crosby's "Triad" immediately comes to mind). The sheer length of the playlist was overwhelming to me as well: I could never handle that much Byrds. On the other hand, once I got it to the point that it would fit onto a 90 minute tape, it became a useful playlist, and one I listen to a fair amount. I emailed Elijah to let him know of my work, but he remained unconvinced.

To be fair, I did have to follow it up with a Minutemen playlist when I listened to it last Tuesday.

Anyway, here it be:

And yes, "Jesus is Just Alright" is on there. And yes, I'm still down with "Lover of the Bayou". And yes, if this band disappeared into the mists of time, I would barely miss them. But here it is.

The Byrds Power Rankings: Most Overrated/Underrated

1. Graham Parsons/Gene Clark
2. David Crosby/Clarence White
3. Sweetheart of the Rodeo/Younger Than Yesterday

Rory Gallagher Redux

 Seriously not stonewalling here, but I got another pop/rock/blues playlist for y'all. I'm a huge fan of Rory Gallagher's first two solo records. I first became aware of them from a Polydor compilation of the highlights of the first two released in America under the name Sinner . . . and Saint. I'd had records of his pass through my possession before, but this is the one that stuck, until I realized it was actually a comp & just picked up the first two on CD. I have to say that they were dead on with the track selections. I love the songwriting on this: after these albums, he mostly stuck to white boy blues and boogie, loosing the variety of songwriting that he demonstrated here.

For my money, he should have been the white blues boy who got all the accolades that fell into Eric Clapton's lap . . . part of that is I just never understood what made Clapton such a god-like guitarist to so many people, and part of it is about Clapton being a lazy, generally bad songwriter. On the last count Gallagher too ended up being a slacker, but this is some quality stuff right here. In the end, like all guitar heroes, he wasn't really called to account for his songs, as long as he played that guitar.

And indeed, while I consider the songwriting a couple steps above decent, the main reason I'm here is for the guitar. Despite all the dissimilarities, there is something about Gallagher's best solos that remind me of Coltrane . . . though for the life of me, I can't put my finger on exactly why. Perhaps it's the fact that the solos are simultaneously explosive and economical: that for all the notes, there doesn't seem to be a lot of excess.

Anyway, here's a playlist, essentially Sinner . . . and Saint re-imagined as a double LP. If you are interested, I have written about Rory at greater length elsewhere.

We've Got the Seventies Covered

  So, what we have here is songs of the seventies, covered. I mean, in case you couldn't figure that out from the clever title just above. 

  The big joke in the 80s and 90s was to take an incongruous songs and do "punk" covers of them: virtually every punk/alt rock/roots rockabilly/experimental/indie rock band had a cover or two in their pocket. The covers ran the gamut from jokey to sincere, to mark sharp contrasts or deep affinities. Sometimes bands would ditch incongruities and shout out similarities, or even do tributes to favorites: my own 80s/90s band, The Belgian Waffles!, covered God and State, Pere Ubu, Flipper, Crass, Joy Division, the Ramones, and the Flesheaters, among others. These were all meant as tributes, and they were songs that were important to us. I would say the "jokiest" cover we did was of Nancy Sinatra's "Lightning's Girl", though we were all fans of that song as well.

  The Dickies pretty much made a career out of the goofball side of the coin, with covers of "Nights In White Satin", the theme to the Banana Splits ("The Tra La La Song"), and "Paranoid" being much more memorable than their original material. On this playlist, they are represented by their Sabbath cover. Killdozer as well had a reputation for destructo covers (of which they did many, including an entire album called For Ladies Only), though fans of the band are generally at least as interested in their original material. Here they are represented by their ridiculous version of the 75 Jessi Colter country crossover hit, "I'm Not Lisa" . . . and while the absurdity of Michael Gerald's growled vocals are the first thing you notice, it's the sweet guitar work that really closes the deal. On the flip side, covers like Big Black's "Heartbeat" (Wire), the Minutemen's "The Red and the Black" (Blue Oyster Cult), Nirvana's "Man Who Sold the World" (David Bowie), and Galaxy 500's "Isn't It a Pity" (George Harrison) not only shout out their subjects, but show affinities between the bands covered and the bands doing the covers. Metallica in particular is known for their "Garage Days" covers, and that remains my favorite Metallica work, by and large.

  Then there are the more or less contemporary covers, which for reasons not clear to me, tend to get called "versions" instead of "covers". There are three popular versions of Bob Dylan's "If Not For You": Bob's original, George Harrison's version on All Things Must Pass, and Olivia Newton John's 71 version, which had the most chart action. Harrison's cover is included here. Also of note: Gloria Gaynor's 74 disco hit version of the Jackson 5 hit "Never Can Say Goodbye", and Viola Wills's disco (?!) version of Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind".

  There are some brilliant re-interpretations here: Corrine Bailey Rae does a deep, soulful piano & bass cover of Led Zeppelin's "Since I've Been Loving You" (Jimmy Page's slow blues were always a guilty pleasure for me, and I can't tell you how nice it is hearing one of them without having to put up with Robert Plant). The Contortion's ripping no wave funk version of Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough" is legendary. "Damned for All Time", Judas's song from Jesus Christ, Superstar, is a perfect vehicle for David Yow and Scratch Acid's blitz (and honestly not too different from the original). Shockabilly's explosion of T Rex's "Life's a Gas" is similarly faithful and revelatory. Jon  Langford and his Waco Brothers manage to overhaul and improve one of Neil Young's best songs, "Revolution Blues". And there is probably no version of a song more destroyed and at the same time more appropriate than the Butthole Surfer's "American Woman".

  I could go on, but y'all are getting the point by now. My favorite cover here: the Jesus Lizard's Chrome medley. The cover that gets to the very soul of a song, essentially beating the original at its own game: American Music Club's "Goodbye to Love" (Carpenters) and Thou's "Supernaut" (Black Sabbath). The most epic cover: Television's "Knocking on Heaven's Door" (Dylan). The most brutal and disrespectful: The Resident's nightmare fat Elvis rendition of "Burning Love". The worst cover here: The Bongos take a totally "meh" cover of T Rex's "Mambo Sun" and make it intolerable by mispronouncing the word "mambo" all the way through the song. If you follow this playlist, don't be surprised to see that one disappear at some point.

  And finally, what are all y'all's favorite 70s covers? I'm taking suggestions. No more versions by bands already represented - yes, "Sweat Loaf" is brilliant, but "American Woman" is even better, so that's the Butthole Surfers song included - unless you can convince me that they do another cover that is even better, in which case it will replace my choice. Make sure to put it in the comments, and I may well add it to the playlist. Let me know what I have missed!

70s Covers Power Rankings, Original Artist

1. David Bowie
2. Bob Dylan
3. Michael Jackson/Jackson 5
4. Elton John
5. T Rex
6. Black Sabbath
7. Neil Young

Playlist: The Beatles + (???!!!!)

  Gonna slam you with playlists over the next little while, 'cause I been busy! We're going to ease into it with . . . The Beatles?!

  Well, sure, just consider this my reckoning with The Beatles. I often have talked trash about the Fabish Four, not so much because I dislike them but because I was sick of hearing about them. They continue to be, to my mind, as over-rated as a band can be. Which is not quite the same thing as saying they are no good. This list is part of a continuing series of playlists I put together to examine bands that I am somehow undecided on: the first was a six-hour Bob Dylan playlist, and actually led to an appreciation of Dylan, some 40 years after people first tried to brainwash me into the cult of Bob. I listen to the playlist frequently, and while I remain unconvinced of his status as deity, I nonetheless count myself a fan, if somewhat on the casual side, relatively speaking.

  The second was Steely Dan. I will still confess an appreciation of the first album (Can't Buy a Thrill), as well as "Rikki Don't Lose That Number". Other Dan, on the other hand, makes me homicidal. I sifted through the internet to tap into others' opinions of the cuts that displayed the genius of the Dan, and put together a 3 hour playlist. Lived with that for a couple months, then shaved the songs that I really hated. Spent some time with that, then cut some more. At the end, I was pretty much left with the first album and "Rikki Don't Lose That Number". The rest left me with angst on a scale that ranged from mild annoyance  to rage. Ordered a 7" of "Rikki" off discogs and deleted the playlist. 

  Next was Z Z Top. Love Tres Hombres. Remember from high school that I was down with everything through Fandango! Definitely not a fan of Eliminator on. Mined the stacks for any riff that caught my ear and stuck it on a playlist. Lived with the playlist for a couple months, decided all you really need is Tres Hombres, then deleted the playlist.

  And now, The Beatles. Well, I know I like a lot of Beatles songs, and I like couple John Lennon songs. What really inspired this, though, is that this year I have fallen head over heals for George Harrison's All Things Must Pass. It has lately become quite the obsession for me. I decided to put together a playlist with Beatles and Beatles related material, so I could get it all in one place. I would never try to convince anyone that this is in any way definitive, a "best-of", or even coherent and logical. This is a Beatles playlist I thoroughly enjoy, that is all. It has been sequenced for your listening pleasure, but hey - John Cage sez that "random" button is never a bad idea.

  Two more notes: this playlist is subject to change, since the only Harrison solo album I took anything from is his first. Nothing else he did has caught me yet, but I will continue to sift through his albums to see if there's anything else. I imagine I'll find another song or two here and there. Same with Lennon, though I actually have spent time with his records over the years. Paul and Ringo, on the other hand, are as represented as they will ever be. Second: my favorite Beatles-related material is mostly by Yoko Ono, and she does have a couple songs on this playlist. However, even if I like both The Beatles and Yoko, they do not live together very well. Otherwise, this would be a lot heavier on Yoko.

  So there you have it. If you are in a Beatles mood, give this a spin: it just may provide a worthwhile slant for you. And now, on to my Thin Lizzy playlist. I promise the next playlist posted will be of quite a different sort.

Bill's Plague Year 2020 Beatles Power Rankings

1.  Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band

2.  George Harrison All Things Must Pass

3.  The Beatles The Beatles (the white album)

4.  John Lennon Plastic Ono Band

5.  Yoko Ono Fly

6.  The Beatles Abbey Road

Captain Beefheart Playlist!

All y'all shut-ins are sick of your record collections - admit it! Well, earlier in the time of social isolation I came to your rescue with this beast (you're welcome!), and now I've got another for you: a Captain Beefheart playlist! That's the good news. The bad news: Troutmaskreplica is not on Spotify, so this is not a proper Beefheart playlist. It does include some Troutmask instrumental tracks from the Grow Fins box set - which are either rehearsals or instrumental tracks from the actual album, I can't remember and my box is downstairs, and stairs are not really my friends right now - so the album is not totally unrepresented. But hey, don't let that bother you! Plenty of goodness in these three hours. BTW, I did go to the trouble to sequence this & I think I did a good job, but shuffle is always your friend in these situations.

Enjoy! I'll try to hit you with one more playlist before I go back to work . . . we'll see.

BEST CAPTAIN BEEFHEART ALBUMS
(an unassailable list thing)

1. Troutmaskreplica
2. Lick My Decals Off, Baby
3. Safe As Milk
4. Ice Cream for Crow
5. Doc at the Radar Station
6. Bat Chain Puller
7. Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)
8. Clear Spot
9. Strictly Personal*
10. Mirror Man
11. Spotlight Kid

*would have jumped at least three spots
if they had gone with the It Comes to You
In A Plain Brown Wrapper mixes

does not include compilations or the Tragic Band

A Playlist for the Shut-Ins

You need something new to batter your brain just a little? Record stores all closed? Nothing around the casa that really displaces you at the moment? Me neither. Bandcamp has like a million new things (including my new solo record & my old Hoosier Pete record, on my new label), so that's a big help and a good place to start. I want to help out too, so here's a playlist to help to get you through. Two things: 1) if you have a profile on Spotify, you might want to follow this playlist, since I will probably be updating it; and 2) while I usually sequence my playlists, I did not do that here. Hit the shuffle function for best juxtapositions on this one. Enjoy!

Playlist: Black Kaspar Scrapbook 08/2018

Ah, another damn playlist!

This one is a sound palette for the revival of Black Kaspar - bound to be big news for two or three of you - and bears a lot of resemblance to the Drone Wars Scrapbook from late last year. As a matter of fact, there is overlap: Drone Wars Scrapbook has Movement #3 from Górecki's Third, and this one has the entire Third. They also shared Throbbing Gristle's "Wall of Sound" until I replaced it with an Earth cut.

Speaking of Górecki, this version of the Third is different than the one in the earlier playlist. This one is an earlier version (perhaps the premiere recording?) than the famous Elektra/Nonesuch 1992 recording which actually managed to chart. If you are a devotee of the Third, you will hear a difference: there is more space, more air, the playing is more understated and at the same time more dynamic within the slow, minimalist scope of the composition. The nearest analog I can think of for the rockers out there would be that this version is like The Kinks' "You Really Got Me", and the Zinman/Upshaw/LSO version is like Van Halen's cover of "You Really Got Me" . . . Van Halen's version is melodramatic, overdriven, (over)polished version of the original which no doubt has its charms, but loses some of the subtlety and nuance of the original. You can find a very brief discussion of Górecki 3 versions here, as well as an mp3 for this version.

As for Black Kaspar, we will be going forward as a duo. The plan now is to rely heavily on electronics to accompany the two guitars (I briefly considered recruiting another guitarist so that I could move to electronics full time, but decided against it for the time being). As always, plans can change, but for now we are two, and we likely will not be back on stage for a few months yet.

I will likely be producing more audio scrapbooks. They will be here if/when I do.

Playlist: Acoustic Blues

Summer is in full swing now, the heat and humidity a blanket over the Ohio Valley. The oppression of the weather is likely weighing down on you where you are as well. Nothing like a big tumbler of iced tea (spiked with bourbon, if it's more than just your thirst that needs work) and some low down dirty blues to pass the time until sundown and beyond. Settle down with this playlist at about 8 pm and it will take you into the midnight hour when, hopefully, it will finally be cool enough to sleep.

Black Kaspar Winter 2017/2018: Drone Wars

I'm in the process of organizing my thoughts to approach a show near the end of February. It will likely be the last Black Kaspar show for a while, though nothing is really certain.

Since the end of 2016, the band has undergone a lot of changes. Black Kaspar was always, in theory, a "project" band; the idea was to recruit a band on a project basis. The first Black Kaspar recording, the ridiculously rare Pain Free Living from 2008, featured two of my TBW! band mates, Matt Whitaker and Tony Woollard. Not long after that, I started working with the rest of final TBW! lineup -  Heather Floyd, Dan Willems, and Chris Willems - along with drummer Bart Galloway. Galloway, Floyd, and the Willems brothers were working as the Sick City Four at the time, and I (as Black Kaspar) referred to the Sick City Four as the "mobile strike force", the idea being that, while Black Kaspar was still theoretically revolving membership, working with the Sick City Four allowed me to do live shows on short notice without recruiting a new band each time. Eventually, the SC4 became part of Black Kaspar, due in part to my laziness and homebody tendencies (which meant that I didn't really make a lot of connections with other musicians), and in part to the fact that I really, really like playing with Heather, Dan, Chris, and Bart, and really like what we were doing at the time. After 2008's Pain Free Living, there are two bandcamp releases, 2011's The Rocker and The Null Set, which feature various paramutations of Dan, Chris, Heather, and I working out nebulous ideas and concepts. The first coherent Black Kaspar release was, in my opinion, 2012's The Expression Machine. Jim Marlowe's Loin Seepage label put out Schizo-Tech in 2014, which was the last thing to feature Bart on drums.

After a while, SC4 wound down, and Bart drifted away. Black Kaspar continued, drummerless, for most of 2014 and 2015. We played live rarely; once, to be precise, in a rather infamous show at the Zanzibar in Louisville.

In 2014, we released The Tower. Ruins (The Tower Pt. II) came along in 2016, along with Science Fiction, which included a live show from 2012 and a solo no-input mixer piece I recorded in my basement the same year.

In the spring of 2016, we hooked up with drummer Jeff Komara, just out of Tropical Trash (he is on the first two singles and the album, as well as a couple cassettes). From spring to the end of 2016, the band was Heather, Dan, Chris, Jeff, and I, and it was the most productive period of the band, not to mention the most "band like", although that exact lineup never played live. It was during that period that Year of the Centipede was recorded (released on Gubbey Records in March of 2017). There is still over an hour of recordings from those 2016 sessions that haven't seen the light of day, all of it at least as good as Year of the Centipede.

At the end of 2016, Dan and Heather left Louisville for Indianapolis, and the weekly quintet workshops ended. The idea was to have Dan and Heather come down for the tape release in March 2017, but, for various reasons, that did not materialize. Brian Manley from Insect Policy ably assisted us at the release show and a time or two thereafter, but for the most part, as 2017 dawned, Black Kaspar was a trio, with Jeff, Chis, and I. A fucking power trio, mind you. Achievement unlocked!

The sound changed as well . . . probably as dramatically as at any point throughout the long and winding Black Kaspar road. BK had toyed with the wall of droning guitars before - Death March in 2014, "The Rocker", "Fukushima", "After Image/Beyond Image" from the first two e.p.s in 2011, "Taste the Rainbow" from Gubbey Record's 2013 Headcleaner Louisville music compilation, and even the very first public performance was a four guitar drone - but drone and guitar walls became the centerpiece of the trio sound, driven by Jeff's krautrock drums.

The power trio version of the band played out more frequently than any other version of the band - though that was still only five times, and never outside Louisville (the band has never played outside of Louisville) - and amassed a big backlog of recordings, some of which show up on Soundcloud. There is one bandcamp album, Radiate, and there is a double cassette planned for 2018 from the trio.

In November of 2017, the band (by this time it was functioning more as a band, and less as a project) decided to stop regular rehearsals/recordings/live shows to work on other projects. Chris Willems and I will continue to work together on projects which may or may not end up being Black Kaspar, while Jeff works on his own projects (though likely our paths will cross again). The sole remaining live commitment is to our friend Doodlehound's book/CD release in February.

*          *           *          *           *

Which is a long set-up for the fact that I've got to get my shit together for the February show. I know Chris is on board, I know Dan and Heather won't be, but beyond that, I don't know. Back to the original concept: get a project, recruit a band, develop an idea, go.

Part of the most recent work stoppage on the band is that we were headed to what appeared to be a dead end. I am comfortable banging my head against a wall, as is Chris (there is a reason TBW! lasted for twenty years), but we were at a stalemate with the drones. Black Kaspar has always orbited somewhere between three poles: noise, free improv, and drones. With the trio, drones came to the fore - purely my deal, nobody else's, just seemed to make sense to me. But we worked it, twisted it, pushed it, and finally wore it out. It was high time to reset, work another angle, try a different tack.

To that end, I decided to dedicate the February show to . . . drones? Yeah, that's how I think. Let's have a going away party to the drones; makes perfect sense to me. Hence, Drone Wars!

So I've put together a scrapbook to define my headspace for the show. Thought I would share it with you. It starts with Wagner's majestic overture to Das Rheingold, and continues through the first act: Wagner starts with a sonorous drone, where does he go from there? It also covers Buddhist chants that leaven the droning throat singing with clanging gongs and howling reeds. Sunn O))) and Earth are there, of course, but there's a little disruption and noise as well, from people like John Cage, Robert Ashley, and Pauline Oliveros. There's noise that becomes hypnotic, repetitive, and droning, from Throbbing Gristle. Krautrock's there too, with the eponymous song from Faust IV.  There's silence, like the extended silence that begins Ives's Sixth Symphony. And the drones come in different flavors, from drone metal to Tony Conrad/Phil Niblock/Henry Flynt minimalism (which is much more interesting from where I'm sitting).

I won't be composing much for the show: just recruiting the band, setting some parameters, developing some leitmotifs, and letting the chips fall where they may. There was a time when I was considering really fleshing this out, working past the February deadline and creating a composed work. That still may happen; but right now, it doesn't seem likely. I've really been itching to work more noise back into the sound, and I'm always heavily into improv, so it looks like the other two poles may end up re-asserting themselves.

As for the future of the band, that too is unclear. Being in a loud band means two things: one, heavy equipment; and two, hearing damage. I have been doing this for a very long time, and the amplifiers have taken a toll on my hearing. That can be addressed with visits to the doctor and earplugs; but, barring BK becoming famous enough to make enough money to afford roadies, the day is coming when I won't be able to move those big ass amps and speaker cabinets any more. I mean, that's not happening tomorrow, but it is on the horizon. Maybe when I recruit a new band I need to also get people who can move my shit?

Anyway, below is the playlist/scrapbook. It will be changing as I get closer to the show, so you can follow it on Spotify, or just return to this post as it will automatically update here. I also plan to add more notes on this blog as I make them, and ideally I will get a recording of the set as well.

Ciao!