Not much to report on really...things 'round here are pretty Quinlanesque deep in the middle of these hot dog days of summer. Typical kick up your feet jagoff aura which I gotta say reminds me a whole lot of those funtime vacations I used to enjoy free of school worries or cares. But as far as music as your way of life goes well, if you were expecting to see any vestige of energy in these parts or elsewhere over the past say...twenty to thirty years then you're only deluding yourself and deluding yourself pretty snattily if I do say so myself. Not that there ain't anything nerve-end snapping that's going on out there in what's left of rock et roll land, but for the most part whatever there is out there that's just beggin' to be the music of my life just ain't making that eternal connection with my ethereal being. Considering the utter lack of aural or visual stimulation to get my mind off the drudgery of life I might as well be spending all of my free time in a black box without any contact with the outside world in a total abyss of sensory deprivation and general brain death beckoning. From the way things are now, it would be an improvement.
Fortunately (for the sake of my mere survival), I did get the opportunity to start on the batch of P.D. Fadensonnen-related Cee-Dee burns along with the debut solo Fadensonnen disque which is reviewed below, and if I didn't admit that I thought they were a good selection of noise-inducing scrank I surely would be lying through my butthole. The pre-Fadensonnen King Crab recording from '08 is an interesting affair that shows just what the guy was up to before he began releasing those pretty feral in themselves CD-R's I've been mentioning all year. This gtr/drms/moog trio really knew how to make an even more atonal, free sound noise to the point where I actually thought these were some late-nineties Faust recordings that somehow didn't make it onto disque. Also in the batch was a burn of an album by the group called International Hello whom P.D. says are the latest incarnation of Monoshock, an act that I will admit I have not listened to in about seven years for reasons that may seem more obvious to me than to you. International Hello certainly do sound a whole lot like what one would imagine Monoshock to come off as in 2011 with the swirls of analog-styled synthesizer and heavy guitar chording, and even though for some perhaps not-so-strange reason I feel like hating this on principle alone I can't find nary a fault with it. If you're interested in a flesh and blood copy of their self-titled debut for yourself it's on the Holy Mountain label and I assume the usual suspects carry it.
Lessee...what else is there to froth on about? Not much really, though you might want to know that I have been spending my ever-dwindling free time collecting and studying old New York club listings either off the web (IT'S ALL THE STREETS YOU CROSSED NOT SO LONG AGO, linked up on the left, have been a tremendous help) or via some ebay wins. I do have some pretty strange, long-lasting obsessions of mine that I still need to sate, and learning more and more about even the strangest, most attention-slipping oddity that transpired in the New York of the high energy days (and before, and beyond) does at least help connect me with a past that maybe wasn't all that much it was cracked up to be in the first place. But hey, it gives me something to do and helps enrich my overall rock et roll knowledge even if I do feel about as stodgy as some of those creepy Revolutionary War historians that you come across once in awhile. But hey, finding out that Rula Lenska played CBGB in the eighties well, it does SOMETHING to me right here (now, visualize me lightly punching my midsection with a weak fist, complete with a pained look of ennui riddling my face) which if anything goes to show you what a desperate person I have become. And hey, I LIKE ROCK FOLLIES!!!.
Now for the typical weekend writeups. Not that much has been gracing my stirrups as of late, and except for a few expected ebay wins and perhaps some left-field wonders that I lost in the collection popping up I don't think the situation's gonna change. Still waiting for that big surge of 60s/70s archival wonderment to finally make its way outta the collections and into the online catalogs, but right now I have the feeling that such a torrent will never happen even if there is somewhat of an interest in obscure and undocumented garage/punk/underground music wallowing out there in the great World Memory Bank we call the internet. I mean, sometimes I get the feeling that hearing a say, collection of David Roter solo recordings or Brian Sands rarities rates the same chance as me flicking on the television set and seeing an episode of NAKED CITY, and that's something I still have a hard time swallowing...the lump in my throat, that is!
OK---enough self-pity, which I find perfectly acceptable as long as I'M doing the woe is me bit!
Fortunately (for the sake of my mere survival), I did get the opportunity to start on the batch of P.D. Fadensonnen-related Cee-Dee burns along with the debut solo Fadensonnen disque which is reviewed below, and if I didn't admit that I thought they were a good selection of noise-inducing scrank I surely would be lying through my butthole. The pre-Fadensonnen King Crab recording from '08 is an interesting affair that shows just what the guy was up to before he began releasing those pretty feral in themselves CD-R's I've been mentioning all year. This gtr/drms/moog trio really knew how to make an even more atonal, free sound noise to the point where I actually thought these were some late-nineties Faust recordings that somehow didn't make it onto disque. Also in the batch was a burn of an album by the group called International Hello whom P.D. says are the latest incarnation of Monoshock, an act that I will admit I have not listened to in about seven years for reasons that may seem more obvious to me than to you. International Hello certainly do sound a whole lot like what one would imagine Monoshock to come off as in 2011 with the swirls of analog-styled synthesizer and heavy guitar chording, and even though for some perhaps not-so-strange reason I feel like hating this on principle alone I can't find nary a fault with it. If you're interested in a flesh and blood copy of their self-titled debut for yourself it's on the Holy Mountain label and I assume the usual suspects carry it.
Lessee...what else is there to froth on about? Not much really, though you might want to know that I have been spending my ever-dwindling free time collecting and studying old New York club listings either off the web (IT'S ALL THE STREETS YOU CROSSED NOT SO LONG AGO, linked up on the left, have been a tremendous help) or via some ebay wins. I do have some pretty strange, long-lasting obsessions of mine that I still need to sate, and learning more and more about even the strangest, most attention-slipping oddity that transpired in the New York of the high energy days (and before, and beyond) does at least help connect me with a past that maybe wasn't all that much it was cracked up to be in the first place. But hey, it gives me something to do and helps enrich my overall rock et roll knowledge even if I do feel about as stodgy as some of those creepy Revolutionary War historians that you come across once in awhile. But hey, finding out that Rula Lenska played CBGB in the eighties well, it does SOMETHING to me right here (now, visualize me lightly punching my midsection with a weak fist, complete with a pained look of ennui riddling my face) which if anything goes to show you what a desperate person I have become. And hey, I LIKE ROCK FOLLIES!!!.
Now for the typical weekend writeups. Not that much has been gracing my stirrups as of late, and except for a few expected ebay wins and perhaps some left-field wonders that I lost in the collection popping up I don't think the situation's gonna change. Still waiting for that big surge of 60s/70s archival wonderment to finally make its way outta the collections and into the online catalogs, but right now I have the feeling that such a torrent will never happen even if there is somewhat of an interest in obscure and undocumented garage/punk/underground music wallowing out there in the great World Memory Bank we call the internet. I mean, sometimes I get the feeling that hearing a say, collection of David Roter solo recordings or Brian Sands rarities rates the same chance as me flicking on the television set and seeing an episode of NAKED CITY, and that's something I still have a hard time swallowing...the lump in my throat, that is!
OK---enough self-pity, which I find perfectly acceptable as long as I'M doing the woe is me bit!
***
Who'd've thunk a brand-new Fadensoonnen-related release would've made its way to my door this soon? But this just ain't any ol' Fadensonnen release, but one featuring the man in a solo setting handling all of the instruments (which include, besides the featured Amphetamine Lead/Feedbacker/Drone/Anvil Rhythm/Black Hole Lighter Slide Guitar...drums, percussion, tape manipulation, AM/FM clock radio and toy saxophone!), and it all sounds pretty disturbing, but in a great, life-reaffirming kind of disturbing way! Thirty-four minutes of total high-energy rock abandon which has me thinking a whole lot of the infamous Doug Snyder/Bob Thompson DAILY DANCE album which should be so ingrained and embedded into your psyche that I won't even bother hitching up a link to one of the many on-line reviews of it I have written o'er the years. Let's just say that if you like hard distorted acid guitar wailing and manic percussive scrunch being played over what sounds like one of those old John Cale tape experiments that were released a good decade or so back then this is the one for you! Cee-Dee closer "Uno Lapis" earns points for exceptional tape-loop drone repeato riffdom unheard since the days of at least READ ONLY MEMORY.
***
The latest in a (hopefully) long line of freedom-oriented wares on the ugEXPLODE label, this 'un's got label head Weasel Walter working out with some more of those obscure free jazz players I certainly never head about before. However, after giving this 'un a spin you'll probably muse to yourself just why are these guys nth rung on the jazz ladder while comparatively subpar sputum like Kenny G (wait, is he still relevant?) are considered Public Exhibit #1. Playing variates from free bleat to quiet undertow that recalls everything from prime Art Ensemble of Chicago to recent post-loft endeavors, and if you think that I don't think that this one doesn't measure up to whatever expectations I think I may have for jazz after a good 110+ years of existence then well, I just can't fathom what you're thinking! Dunno if anything along the lines of this or any of the other ugEXPLODE offerings make for current jazz press fodder in DOWN BEAT or whatever print or online jazz journals there may be, but if this remains obscure while jazz becomes smoother and smoother as time goes on well, I would believe that was par for the course!
***
I certainly do remember giving this '88 release a duff write-up back when it arrived during a period in rock et roll music which hadda've been one of the most sterile, annoying times for fresh and exciting sounds to burst their way forth from the poopcrust that made up the surface of then-moderne pop/rock ideals. Pretty much like our times, only back then I actually believed that there was hope for various sixties/seventies hard-gnarl rock stylings to make a comeback which probably shows my naiveity more than my altruism! Well, at least I thought that before rock as a mode for youth creativity and general upsettingness kinda vanished off into a mellow wall of eternal giddy bliss. Naturally, I was a much younger and more rabid town crier for the high energy lifestyle which got me roundly condemned from all quarters, but if I hadda do it all again maybe I would come off even more offensive and generally rude towards everything and anything that stood in the way of the success of pure, unadulterated high energy rockism...sure it wouldn't have done any good, but at least I'd feel a lot better about myself for at least trying.
After giving those two Jing tracks on the CBGB RECORDED LIVE OFF THE BOARD sampler a spin and coming to the conclusion that perhaps this particular late-eighties aggregation wasn't so bad at least as far as eighties post-new wave went I figured well, I wasn't doing anything else this weekend so why not give this 'un another go 'round! And for a buncha survivors (made up of ex-LIVE AT CBGB'S alumnus...Shirts and Laughing Dogs members to be precise) the music can get more late-eighties synthpop as opposed to mid-seventies garage thud. Oddly enough, nowadays I can't find anything here to get offended about which perhaps shows a maturing on my part, or perhaps early signs of Alzheimer's for all I know.
Leader Artie Jing Lamonica has somewhat of a pop-rock sense to his compositions, while his slightly toughguy voice does suit the material in perhaps the best way possible. And although the performance does have a slight tinge of eighties ginch to it at least it doesn't irritate the same way other eighties gnu wave practitioners who mixed their punkisms with Madonna sure got my goat. Yeah, I know that in '88 I wanted to see the entire group's 'nads hung on my mantelpiece but now it seems almost like a quaint reminder of the entire worthlessness of the eighties filtered through the remnants of seventies achievement. And if you can make sense of that maybe you are more of a typical BLOG TO COMM reader'n I ever would have given you credit for!
***ANOTHER ROCK 'N' ROLL-RELATED DREAM THAT I THOUGHT I'D RELAY TO YOU BEFORE I FORGET IT TOTALLY DEPT.: this was a long and drawn-out one I had Tuesday night that oddly enough took place in Los Angeles and involved amongst other things going into what looked like a run down bar and ordering a Guinness because the owners frowned upon loiterers and were giving me evil eyes! However, the bartender didn't have any although he told me that he had something of equal value in an already half-opened bottle which he had to chill (after waiting awhile the drink that I did get consisted of a brand of alcohol-laden Cola called "Local Cola" [written in Coca-Cola-styled script in numerous places across the can!] mixed with a very heavy cream making the concoction of an almost espresso consistency). Afterwords, I somehow met up with the early-mid-sixties versions of Paul McCartney and George Harrison who were lugging around boxes of John Lennon memorabilia which I was trying to get a peek at considering their rare nature. (Don't worry, I'll spare you the part about how I remarked to someone that I was once called "the Jewish Mike Bloomfield"! Yeah, I don't understand that one either!!!) Anyway, throughout this dream I was carrying a rather large stack of albums that I had recently procured at a local record shop, some of which were Mothers of Invention platters that were legit though consisted of rare recordings by the late-sixties version of the band that one would more or less associate with bootlegs. The sleeves were very colorful though, almost in the same style as that one cheap-o Mothers collection that came out on Verve in the late-sixties with the little gumball machine charms. Other records that were obtained included FUGS 4 ROUNDERS SCORE (which might have had the snap from the first Fugs album on the cover 'stead of the chimpanzee-rendered abstract painting!) and LIFE WITH THE LIONS. Tim Buckley's LORCA was also in the pile as were a few more familiars whose titles will probably come to me as the day progresses. If anything, this 'un proves just how much I miss the era of vinyl shopping and pouring through piles of platters just drooling to get the stuff home and onto the turntable, and dem wuz da dayze! Really!!!
Hi Chris,
ReplyDeleteThanks again for the support in the rarity of your free time these days - im beyond flattered by the Daily Dance comparison - i first heard about that from one of your old Blog to Comm posts years ago and tracked it down post haste.
Just a small side note - King Crab is RD Fadensonnen and Zach Lister-Katz - I was but a mere audience member at their shows and occasional one-off jam member at their practice space at best.
Also, for more Weasel Walter action since you've been listening, I would recommend checking out the Weasel Walter/Mary Halvorson/Peter Evans - Electric Fruit CD on Thirsty Ear - totally sick improv session (drums/guitar/trumpet) - I saw Peter Evans do his Evan Parker style circular breathing chops live at the Vision Fest and was completely impressed - this particular disc is a detonation of great interplay.
Keep cool during these dog days,
PD Fadensonnen