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

Guitar: Pat Metheny's Journey into Noise

I am just finishing up a solo electric guitar album. During the process, I naturally dialed up some of the solo guitar records that caught my attention over the years. Today we're going to visit one of the more forgotten attempts, even if its progenitor is one of the better known of the guitarists I listened to.

There are several obvious solo electric guitar records: Neil Young's Dead Man, Sonny Sharrock's Guitar, Fred Frith's Guitar Solos, various electric guitar experiments in late period John Fahey, any one of a handful of Derek Bailey odysseys, etc. Of all the guitarists I listened, Pat Metheny is the highest profile (save Neil Young, of course). Yet, 1994's Zero Tolerance for Silence sunk almost as immediately as it surfaced, an anathema to both the hardcore fans of Metheny's light, cerebral jazz, and the growing legion of guitar noise aficionados spawned by the 80s NYC downtown scene. Way too noisy for Metheny's mainstream crowd, lacking of the extended techniques obsessed over by the new noise heads, Zero Tolerance fell into the cracks between.

Zero Tolerance is fairly simple: solid body electric guitar, humbucking pickups, high gain amp; no effects, no feedback, no oddball tunings, no "tabletop guitar" techniques . . . just Metheny shredding atonal improvs with his multi-tracked self. Technically, it's all rather straightforward, but the cumulative effect was compared by some to Lou Reed's notorious Metal Machine Music (though not by anyone who has actually listened to both records). It's understandable that Metheny's crowd wouldn't cotton to his self-described "2-dimensional" foray, but in spite of Thurston Moore's endorsement, it didn't catch on with the avant improv crowd either.

When this record came out, I was eight years into my avocation as a noise guitarist, living in Bloomington and working with two noisy rock improvising outfits, The Belgian Waffles! and The Catkillers, and many other inspiring friends and musicians, some of whom I still work with to this day. Like pretty much everyone else, I was at a loss on this one: in spite of the comparisons to Metal Machine Music, a record I was (and am) quite fond of, it very clearly was not trying to achieve the same thing. There were no kaleidoscopic phantoms hiding in the sheets of noise, there was no  annihilation of space like the burning of the oxygen in the air. Though almost as noisy at points as MMM, it never loses its pointillist articulation: unlike pretty much everything I was listening to at the time, you could easily imagine this scored and accurately reproduced by an acoustic string quartet. Noisy as it was, it had none of the touchpoints I looked for, no refusal of music as music, no refusal of guitar as guitar. And yet, I found it compelling, though perhaps not compelling enough to listen to on a regular basis.

25 years later, I am starting to get more of a vocabulary to deal with ZTFS. After years of neglect, I pulled it back out and loaded it into my changer with 5 other guitar discs. In the intervening time, I have delved deep into classical, avant garde and otherwise, as well as a lot of free improv with acoustic roots. Still, it doesn't quite grab me by the throat: it feels sterile - something that is perhaps intentional, as evidenced by Metheny's characterization of the music as "2 dimensional" - and tends to live in an uncomfortable abstract zone that fails in the way that many Jackson Pollock paintings fail. As far as my own interests go, I am not and never will be interested in the primarily technical problems he was probing, and the fact that he only explored this particular mode once ensures that any answers he found remain unarticulated, and that any development he could make remains arrested . . . if indeed he found anything compelling to work on in these sessions.

At the end, I still find this album interesting, if not exactly essential listening. It definitely has its moments; perhaps these moments will continue to reveal themselves to me in the future.

Below is the album in its entirety, since it obviously is meant to function as one piece with five movements. If you feel the need to only sample part of this, listen to part four, which has an almost funky quality to it in places. Or, get all five parts rolling at once to get that much closer to Metal Machine Music . . . actually, yeah, that's the way to listen to this. Gets a lot more fun.

That's it for now. More solo guitar discs sometime in the future.

Humbly Submitted: Your Juneteenth Playlist

Allow me to offer a possible soundtrack to your Juneteenth celebrations.

And let me also observe that Google's spellcheck, like the US government, does not recognize Juneteenth.

The Friends Theme but it's Clapping Music by Steve Reich

Profligate Vinyl: London Calling

Welcome to the second edition of Profligate Vinyl; you can find the first one here.

In the last post, we went deep on the White Album, partly because it existed as a vast fog in my head, and I really had to go track by track to get a handle on it. In the end, we addressed (but did not answer) a few questions: was the White Album self-indulgent? Clearly yes; it perhaps stands as the monument to pop music indulgence. Would it have been better as a single album? Well, yes and no: a 45 minute edit of the album is definitely tighter, and (to my mind at least) an absolutely superb album. BUT: there is a certain charm to the loose indulgence of the whole thing, and while a single album would be better in most respects, the shaggy dog double has a flair that goes beyond the hits.

So, I suppose you could say that is was a split decision on the White Album. Today, we will have no such split decision: London Calling is tight as a drum to the very end, and any cut will be to meat, not fat. Unlike the White Album, I can sing (sort of?) London Calling in order from the beginning to the end. Part of that is due to the fact that I have listened to it so often, but beyond that, the whole album rolls with a certain tension and inexorable logic all the way through. It is The Clash at the height of their powers.

London Calling is a legendary record, certainly in the class of the White Album. It is a major transformation for The Clash, who move from being a straight up punk band to being a pretty versatile rock band, from being a sloppier left-wing version of the Buzzcocks to being a younger, more politically astute version of the Rolling Stones (but with decent lyrics, which the Stones only sporadically indulged). Like any career transformation, London Calling left some of The Clash's older, more purist punk fans behind; but the record is probably more remarkable for how many punks actually followed them through the transition. Those who wanted their punk rage more left-wing, noisy, and pure moved on to bands like Crass and The Ex, but even those who followed a less commercial route often still had a soft spot for The Clash.

Without further ado, here's the 45 minute edit:

Let's start of with a list of the songs left off of the edit:

• Brand New Cadillac
• Jimmy Jazz
• The Right Profile
• Lost in the Supermarket
• Wrong 'Em Boyo
• Train in Vain

Can you quibble with this list? HELL YES you can, and I almost want to reconsider it myself, except that I know it would be an endless process. "Train in Vain" was the only easy decision, and it is a fine song, but a bit of a throwaway, which gets it cut. Other than that, we loose two of the three covers (including a blistering version of "Brand New Cadillac"), "Lost in the Supermarket", which is one of the most famous songs on the record, "The Right Profile", which I wanna put back on the list right now! . . . and, well, you get the idea. This is one goddamn lean record as is, and any cuts are to the detriment of the whole.

Verdict: NOT indulgent, EDITS BAD!

Now, Sandinista, on the other hand . . . 

No Parade - Minutemen (1981)

Profligate Vinyl: The Beatles (a.k.a. The White Album)

This will be the first of what I hope to be a continuing series on double albums. The double album was a big deal in the pop era pre-compact disc: it was considered an epic and extravagant artistic statement, especially since the pop album itself was a relatively recent evolution from singles when double albums started showing up. 

In this series, I will consider a double album in depth, and opine whether or not it would have been better as a single album. To that end, I will present an edited version of the album (in the form of a Spotify playlist). The edited version will be limited to just around 45 minutes, which is the approximate length of the average LP (or, at least, one side of a C-90 cassette). 

In this inaugural edition, I will consider the White Album. 

*          *          *          *          *

"Well I hope I'm smart / But I know I'm not clever / Because deep down inside / I've got a rock -n- roll liver"  -- Tony Woollard/TBW!, "Wicker Park Hyena"

My favorite Beatles-related record is Yoko Ono's Plastic Ono Band record. My second favorite is probably a George Harrison record, but I wouldn't know, because I've never listened to one all the way through. There are many, many pop artists who consider themselves Beatles acolytes; a short list of those bands who actually ended up achieving beyond their masters include Big Star, The Flamin' Groovies, Badfinger, Elton John, and Cheap Trick. The most facile observations on pop music have always been related to the transcendence of the music hall saccharine of the "mop tops".

All this is a mildly exaggerated way of saying that I am not a Beatles fan (though I am dead serious about Big Star and the Yoko Ono record). Some of the first pop albums I listened to as a kid were copies of the red and blue Beatles greatest hits records, but they never really stuck with me. I don't dislike the band, but apparently not acknowledging them as the pinnacle of rock music is akin to being a hater. I have always been surrounded by The Beatles, but I have only ever owned one Beatles album: The Beatles (a.k.a. the White Album).

Needless to say, not being a Beatles fan, I have had no involvement with THE BEATLES INDUSTRY, so any information imparted here comes solely from the Wikipedia page. You may feel free to correct or add to any observations in the comments, put please be advised that I don't give a shit. Below is a track-by-track consideration, with each song rated on a 1-5 scale:

Side One
Back in the USSR -- This is good Paul! A cheeky little Chuck Berry/Beach Boys pastiche that manages to avoid excessive tinkering and lives in exactly the space it needs to. 4/5
Dear Prudence -- One of the absolute best Beatles songs, one of the best pop songs period. Simple, direct, evocative, dreamy. And good work on the skins by Paul. 5/5
Glass Onion -- The music on this is pretty tight, but the lyrics are self-indulgent bullshit. Who cares, John. 3/5
Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da -- This is bad Paul! Or, per John, Paul's "granny shit"! Such a horrible, glib, facile song, overworked to within inches of its life. This is quintessential Paul, which is not good. Only a little bit better than "We Built This City (On Rock and Roll)".  1/5
Wild Honey Pie -- Seriously, WTF. Inoffensive, but definitely a waste of time. 2/5
The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill -- A musical cock-and-bull story. A waste of time. What's the point? Who cares, John. 2/5
While My Guitar Gently Weeps -- Good George! The execution really makes it, because it is only an OK song in abstract, but it ends up being one of the best songs on the album. Clapton does a reasonable job on this . . . but, if you really want to hear someone shred it, listen to Prince tear it up on the Rock -n- Roll Hall of Fame Harrison tribute.  5/5
Happiness is a Warm Gun -- Bad John! There is reference to a lot of self-satisfied yammering about this song, about how John did some really fancy composing, and how the band worked through complicated music to make it work. All I hear is three good songs squashed into one okay song that is definitely less than the sum of its parts. Stitching three random parts together with no connective tissue or unifying themes doesn't work unless you are John Fucking Cage and randomness is the point. One of my pet peeves, b'god. 3.5/5

INTERLUDE

You might see a theme creeping up already: I am not a Paul McCartney fan. It seems to me that Paul personifies (is the source of?) the glibness and facility that is the worst trait of The Beatles; the degree to which this glibness identifies The Beatles is the degree to which I abhor the band. It's not necessarily that I expect all rock music to be raw and lacerating, or penetrating and wise, or sparkling and revelatory. Simple pop music is just fine, not everything has to be GREAT ART. Beatles proteges Badfinger come immediately to mind: simple, direct, well-crafted songs that are not overly wrought or clever, that live where they should live (see "Back in the USSR" v. "Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da" above). Perhaps it is wrong to make Paul the focus of this problem, but in my (admittedly limited) experience, he seems to be the main culprit.

Side Two

Martha My Dear -- On the tail of the above Paul McCartney rant, we have another good Paul song. "Martha My Dear" is heavily wrought, but all the cleverness is in service of the song, instead of being the reason for the song . . . that is as close as I can come to explaining what "living where it should live" means. 4/5 

I'm So Tired -- Simplicity! The somnambulant pace of the song sets the atmosphere with the lyrics riding along - "I'm so tired, I haven't slept a wink" - instead of upstaging the song, as is sometimes the case with these over-clever popsters. When John sings "You know I'd give you everything I've got for a little peace of mind", you feel it. 4/5 

Blackbird -- How did Paul not fuck this song up? 4/5

Piggies -- Hard to figure out just how this thing went so totally off the rails. How does this end up on the record? 2/5
Rocky Raccoon -- Another major WTF moment. I mean, sometimes shit just goes bad, but how does it keep going after it goes bad? AND HOW DOES IT END UP ON THE RECORD? 1/5
Don't Pass Me By -- A fairly inoffensive little shuffle. Kinda sums up Ringo, don't you think? 2.5/5
Why Don't We Do It in the Road? -- Cheeky. And only a minute and 42 seconds long, which is perhaps its major attribute. 2.5/5
I Will -- Again, brevity is its major attribute, but it is perhaps the most forgettable song ever written. I'm desperately trying to ignore the fact that this little locus of amnesia required 67 FREAKING TAKES to come into being.  2.5/5
Julia -- Find a way to convert the word "Julia" into music. Use the music to provide a vehicle for images to support the word Julia. Don't overthink it. It is what it is, and it is beautiful. 4/5

INTERLUDE

"Clever" is the fulcrum here . . . "clever" is the last thing you want to be as an artist, "clever" explicitly implies artifice, artifice undermines authenticity, and, above all, an artist wants to be "real". BUT: all art involves artifice, so really it's not a matter of ditching artifice, it's a matter of hiding artifice. So, in essence, to be "real", you must cleverly avoid seeming clever. The TBW! lyric quoted above is a case in point: it explicitly derides "clever" music, but itself is clever - the dichotomy between "smart" and "clever",  the resulting comment on the authenticity of "art bands", the Lou Reed reference most of the band's fans surely would have caught, the reference to the band's drinking habits - so seemingly takes on an ironic existence on several different levels. 

As convoluted as this seems, it is not: clever for the sake of clever is a problem. Clever for the sake of the art is required. If it's not in service of the song, it's just showing off. That is why, for all its specific facility, for all its overt cleverness, "Martha My Dear" is still a wonderful song: all of Paul's hysteria serves the purpose of the song.

Side Three

Birthday -- Just a fun little ripper. Fun! Written and recorded in one night! Could have been about 55 seconds shorter, though. 3.5/5

Yer Blues -- This is probably the place to confess I might be giving John the benefit of the doubt on these blues songs. If not on "I'm So Tired", then definitely here. On the other hand, I think this thing rocks. 3.5/5

Mother Nature's Son -- I mean, whatever.  3/5

Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey -- Another raver, the velocity of the song keeping the lyrics from becoming too ponderous. What's it about? Who cares? One of those pop songs that sprays disconnected images, and does so with joy. That's worth something.  4/5

Sexy Sadie -- John is MAD! The fact that he lets the lyrics lie there naked helps the song . . . again, hide the artifice, only this time in plain sight.  3.5/5

Helter Skelter -- Apparently, Paul's answer to The Who's "I Can See For Miles", which Townshend claimed was the nastiest, dirtiest song recorded at the time. As always, when Paul keeps it simple, good things happen: all he wanted was loud and psychotic, and that's what he got. Glorious was simply a byproduct.  5/5

Long, Long, Long -- Paul's organ and Ringo's drums-as-a-melodic-instrument lend a great in-between feel to this song: tending to the ethereal, but keeping the song earthbound. It also gives an indeterminate cast to the lyrics - is it about God? or a woman? - that positions it tensely between the immanent and transcendent, a tension which makes it even better than if you go with Harrison's simple explanation that it's about God. Kids, never trust the artist.  5/5

INTERLUDE

I perhaps do give John a benefit of the doubt that I do not give Paul. I do not consider him infallible by any stretch of the imagination, but without his contributions, there would be little of The Beatles for me to hold on to. "Yer Blues" is the point where that comes to a head: I really can't find any concrete reason that the song song stands out over, say, "Don't Pass Me By", or "Why Don't We Do It in the Road", but to me it clearly does. Heretofore I have spent a lot of time talking about songs and artifice, without really talking much about performance . . . and so it is with The Beatles overall. Other than Paul's bass chops, we really don't talk about The Beatles as musicians: we think of Ringo as a competent drummer in spite of his limitations, we think of George as a competent guitarist, we think of all of them as effective, if unspectacular, singers.

I would make a stronger case for John. One of my favorite (top 5!) Beatles songs has always been the B-side of "Get Back", "Don't Let Me Down". Listening to it again, the arrangement and songcraft are superb, but it is John's vocals (along with Billy Preston's electric piano!) that really make the song. I think John's performances are frequently like that: combined with the direct simplicity of most of his compositions, his vocals and attack are more than effective, they are raw, emotional, and vital.

Side Four

Revolution 1 -- First, I like the single version better, though this is not bad. Second, I'm not real comfortable about the lyrics, which (à la The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again") sound like bourgeois retrenchment for a bunch of newly rich white English boys. Could be wrong about that, but I don't think so.  3/5

Honey Pie -- What is it with this half-assed music hall bullshit? 1.5/5

Savoy Truffle -- Like cheap American chocolate, an overly sweet confection that ends up being empty calories.  3/5

Cry Baby Cry -- A toss off with a catchy chorus. Meh. 3/5

Revolution 9 -- Is it any good? Who knows? Who cares? IT'S AN 8+ MINUTE TAPE COLLAGE IN THE MIDDLE OF A BEATLES RECORD! THIS ISN'T SOME HALF-ASSED BULLSHIT, THIS IS WHOLE-ASSED FUCKERY! 5/5! For what it's worth, I listen to a lot of stuff like this, and it's OK at best: an uncomfortable middle ground between Cage's randomness and Stockhausen's conceptual approach, it ends up falling short on both counts. On its own, I would give it a 2/5. In the context of a Beatles record, I will stick with 5/5. Let's go with 3/5.

Good Night -- A lullaby. Nothing more, nothing less. Gets a little bump for Ringo's vocals.  3/5

AN ACCOUNTING

I've already alluded to the fact that the White Album is the only Beatles record I've ever owned. Even then, I didn't own it when I listened to it in high school (I listened to it with my good friend John), finally buying a used cassette copy in the early 80s when I was in college. By the late 80s I had sold it off to buy some new records, and lived without it until just a couple weeks ago. I have always kept an eye open for a used copy, but with the recent vinyl boom, used copies run around $45, so I just ponied up for a new pressing at $35. After the time I've spent with the album for the purposes of this discussion, I will likely file it into my record stacks, and who knows when I will pull it out again.

Also alluded to is the idea that pop/rock double studio albums were generally considered to be indulgences, and frequently had to account for their extravagance. The Beatles clearly was indulgent by anybody's standards: by my accounting, the average rating is 3.18 out of 5 . . . this, for a record that is generally considered to be one of the greatest of the rock era, in spite of the fact that virtually everyone who discusses it acknowledges it to be full of filler (though, tellingly, there is a lot of disagreement about exactly what songs on the album constitute filler).

Is it better as a single album? Below is my edit of the album. I have not consulted any lists or ratings for this edit, it is based purely on my own accounting. It has been slightly re-sequenced, but generally follows the sequence of the original. So, you tell me: is this better? 

It's hard to deny the edit slams. It goes from being a rambling, chaotic mess to being tight as hell. Still, for my part, I'm rather fond of big sloppy messes (I am, perhaps, one of the very few who will defend The Clash's Sandinista to the bitter end). As chaotic as this is, it still seems of a piece, and it doesn't pay to hack it down. Too clever by at least half, there is still enough here to overcome the almost Olympian self-indulgence. Just don't ask me to spend this much time with any other Beatles albums, OK?

Atari Teenage Riot - Destroy 2000 years of culture (1997)

In Rotation, Late Summer 2018

Not that anybody asked.

Iannis Xenakis (Edition RZ)
Various - Ohm: The Early Gurus of Electronic Music (1948-1980)
Scarcity of Tanks - No Endowments; Vulgar Defender
J Dilla - Donuts
The Roots - Rising Down
Godflesh - Streetcleaner
John Coltrane - Both Directions at Once
Kraftwerk - Trans Europe Express
Karlheinz Stockhausen - Kontakte
Alfred Schnittke - Faust Cantatas
John Zorn - Aporias (Requia for Piano and Orchestra)
Mott the Hoople - Mad Shadows; Brain Capers
Lester Bowie - The Great Pretender
Wombo - Staring at Trees
The Body - I Have Fought Against It, But I Can't Any Longer
Bela Bartok - Complete String Quartets (Takács Quartet)
Allen Toussaint - Southern Nights
Andrew Hill - Point of Departure
Beethoven - Late String Quartets (Alban Berg Quartet)
Leif Ove Andsnes - Sibelius

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.

Bill Orcutt Solo - Festival Météo, Mulhouse, 2017

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.

Sorrow III - Colin Stetson (2016)

Picked up a copy of Colin Stetson's Sorrow: a reimagining of Górecki's 3rd Symphony, based on a long obsession with that piece. I don't know that it's completely successful - I don't know if I'm troubled because the decisions are bad, or because they aren't decisions I would make - but it's worth listening to, and thinking about. I tend to like it best when it strays furthest from the source material, as it does above. I also like the way it doesn't sound quite "right" somehow, like a doom metal version but oddly voiced.

HBD Lydia Lunch

BLACK JUJU - Lydia Lunch - Retrovirus from Dominika M on Vimeo.

Happy 59th, Lydia!

Napalm Death '88 recording, remixed 2011.

This kills.

01. From the Ashes....
02. Changing Colours
03. Re-Adress the Problem
04. Retreat to Nowhere
05. Scum
06. Stalemate
07. Understanding
08. Multinational Corporations Pt. 2
09. Life

Credits from the split flexi :
Recorded at Birdsong studios, Worcester 19/12/88
Mixed 20/12/88
Engineered by Steve Bird
Produced by Napalm Death

Remixed 2011 by Steve Bird (it seems).

HBD Tom T. Hall!

Holy crap! We almost forgot Tom T Hall's birthday (a day late as this posts)! Mr. Hall, a relentless humanist voice in country music, was born in Olive Hill, KY, on May 25th, 1936.

I much prefer the studio version of "I Washed My Face in the Morning Dew", but I just had to share the cheese of that live appearance on the Del Reeves show. Special bonus features: Nashville super studio pickin' and grinnin', Del Reeves doing a yeoman's job on the high harmony until Tom throws the key change at him and he just gives up, and, of course, the real stars of the show, Del's cigarette and lime green suit! 

Enjoy!

Djinji's Corner - Marion Brown (1970)

A Todd Rundgren Playlist? Why the Hell Not?

Things have slowed to a crawl here temporarily due to computer issues, as well as various projects requiring extra attention. It is only a matter of time before things get ramped back up - I figure the end of July at the absolute latest - but things will be a bit sporadic until then. Those who have been following the blog for the last year (we are 5 days away from the year anniversary of the inaugural post!) know that I moved away from the photo-heavy post-a-day gig I was running last September, and though I could go back to that, seeing that I could do the heavy lifting for photo reblogging on my phone, I don't see the point. So, accept my apologies, and understand that I do plan to get back to work once I get my laptop back and healthy.

Recently a friend put out the call for Todd Rundgren recommendations on facebook. It was good timing for me: I have been sifting through classical records for months now, almost at the exclusion of other types of music, and Rundgren sounded like a decent antidote. I started by recommending a few albums that I lived with from back in the day . . . but of course I couldn't leave well enough alone, so I had to put together a Spotify playlist. This one I managed to keep in the neighborhood of a very reasonable three hours, the same timing as most of my old WQAX shifts.

I think Todd Rundgren is a genius on the level of an Alex Chilton - different, but equally brilliant - but he doesn't have the same hipster cred as Chilton because he was a relentlessly professional musician . . . sometimes "professional" to the point of being a hack. I remember seeing a Rundgren show at some Dave & Busters prototype bar in Indianapolis back in the early 90s: there he was on stage with a white electrified baby grand piano playing to backing tapes while local news anchors and polyester suburbanites aging out of young adulthood circulated the room and the pop-a-shot machines jangled through between song breaks. Rundgren himself was even tempered, gracious in a subdued way, and collected his paycheck with the quiet dignity of a road-weary pro on his way back to the motel to rest up before hitting Cincinnati the next night. More recently, he has shown up as a professor of rock at both my post-secondary education stops (Notre Dame and Indiana University). And, as far as I know, he has never stopped putting out records, even if the last one I bothered listening to more than once was released all the way back in 1982.

Putting together a playlist involves a vision of sorts: I wanted to fairly represent Rundgren, but since his career is swimming in cheese that I don't necessarily want to listen to, it is obviously weighted to the early part of his career, and to music which veers a little bit more toward his "eccentric" side. I included some verging-on-treacly pop like "Can We Still Be Friends?", "Set Me Free", and even (gulp) "Bang the Drum All Day", alongside some of the most sublime pop ever written ("Hello, It's Me" - even with its vaguely creepy 70s vibe - "I Saw The Light", "Couldn't I Just Tell You", "We Gotta Get You a Woman", etc.), totally legit Philly soul ("Sometimes I Don't Know What to Feel"), and more glam/psychedelia than you can shake a stick at. Though Rundgren can be the most uneven of rockers - anyone as prolific as him is going to have everything out on display, good and bad - at his best, though he may have a few equals, there is no one better at 70s white-boy pop . . . and that includes Chilton.

So, here's the playlist. Enjoy!

RIP Glenn Branca (10/6/1948 - 5/13/2018)

Glenn Branca passed away from throat cancer four days ago. Since he passed, there have been plenty of impressive tributes, so let me simply repeat what I posted on my facebook page: I've always had a complex relationship to the terms "guitarist", "musician", and "composer"; but to the degree that I am any of those things, Glenn Branca is the air that I breathe.