party political broadcast

thích quảng dức: meet the monkees

☛ 'i wanna hold your hand' ☚

notekillers: something wicked this way comes

Philadelphia experimentalists, Notekillers first aired here on SibLINGSHOT ON THE BLEACHERS on August 7, 2008. Approximately one year after Art Decade brought them to my attention in a post on which founding guitarist, David First dropped in out the ether to oblige in an impromtu Q & A.

Loosely associated with the No Wave scene, Notekillers opened for fellow Pennsylvanian, Glenn Branca at Hurrah's in NYC some time in late 1979/early 1980. Despite an instrumental sound clearly ahead of its time, the group released one single on their own 'American Bushmen' label and promptly fell below the radar.

Formed in the Bicentennial year of 1976 by long term friends First and Barry Halkin - as peanut farmer, Jimmy Carter marched up from Georgia to claim New Hampshire in the primaries - Notekillers duly recruited Stephen Bilenky on bass and stepped out to perform their newly rehearsed material to a largely resistant string of Philadelphia clubs. The prevailing climate was one of spiralling inflation and recession. Production was on its knees and Carter was forced to bail out the Chrysler Corporation when things turned bad up in Michigan.

The city of Philadelphia too was running short on brotherly love.

The noise Notekillers promoted offered no respite. Dispirited by the antipathy which greeted bookings, the three sought refuge in a basement belonging to Bilenky's father and immersed themselves in a regime of constant rehearsal. Their perseverance delivered occasional breaks - local opening slots for New Jersey's The Misfits and, significantly, DNA - but nothing approaching a record deal. After three years weathering a storm of relative disinterest, Notekillers remained unsigned.

Allegedly, the group was pencilled in as support for Sid Vicious in February of 1979; a singular opportunistic note which soured when Vicious OD'd a week before the scheduled show. Just out of Riker's and playing on the spoons.

Never pin your card to a junkie in a game of snakes and ladders.

At the end of their collective rope, they pooled their resources and opted to record and print a single on a strictly limited run.

Without proper management or the surety of a contract, the group - now four with Thomas Johnson on congas - caught a ride to the Big Apple and set about shopping their vinyl to a handful of independent retailers.

Ed Bahlman of 99 Records in Greenwich Village liked what he heard and booked Notekillers as support for Glenn Branca, but failed to let First in on his own emergent label.

Inexplicably, their unique take on experimental music was somehow lost in the sonic assault initiated by "No New York" and culminating in the Noise Fest held at White Columns in June, 1981, at which Notekillers were conspicuously absent.

Thurston Moore:

"I first picked up the Notekiller’s 7” 'The Zipper' b/w 'Clock Wise' in 1978 at 99 Records on Macdougal Street. I bought it because they were the opening band for Glen Branca [sic] at some gig at Hurrah’s (which I missed)... total no wave speed psychosis with some outer region chops going on. All instrumental and wicked hot. Never got a chance to see them and sometime around 2000 I was asked to make a theoretical mixtape for Mojo magazine..."

David First - now residing in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, having relocated there in 1984 - happened on the published article and decided to make contact. This led to Moore being drafted in to the frame as executive producer on a Notekillers retrospective CD; released on Moore's Ecstatic Peace label the following year.

Featuring material culled from "2-track reels, dusty cassettes and an 8-track".

Moore:

"...it was decided to compile a Notekillers CD with the aforementioned 7”, an unreleased test-pressing only 7”, live tracks and demos. An amazing CD of a band so on top of their game as far as ripping guitar and odd-school time signatures. So ahead of it’s time..."

A fortuitous development. Not No Wave, precisely, but something ambitiously dissonant and oddly melodic both. And all the more compelling for it.


▼ NOTEKILLERS: THE ZIPPER from "The Zipper b/w Clock Wise" 45 (American Bushmen) 1979 (US)
▼ NOTEKILLERS: CLOCK WISE from "The Zipper b/w Clock Wise" 45 (American Bushmen) 1979 (US)

NOTEKILLERS | OFFICIAL SITE
DAVID FIRST

BUY NOTEKILLERS 1977-81 CD | ECSTATIC PEACE

double helix

The first strand is, of course, side A of the debut single predating "No New York". Produced by Robert Quine.

Bob's your uncle.

The second strand is only available on the retrospective, "DNA on DNA"; one of four tracks recovered from the mysterious "Fiorrucci Tape", date unrecorded.

▼ DNA: YOU & YOU from "You & You b/w Little Ants" 45 (Lust / Unlust Music) 1978 (US)
▼ DNA: HORSE from "DNA on DNA" CD (No More Records) 2004 (US)

ikue mori: desert colonies

Where to begin ?

Ikue Mori arrived in New York from her native Tokyo at some point in 1977, quickly gravitating toward the CBGB's scene in downtown Manhattan. It was there, presumably, that she first encountered guitarist, Robert Quine.

In early 1978, Mori replaced Dublin born Gordon Stevenson in Arto Lindsay and Robin Crutchfield's DNA.



DNA, 1978: ikue mori; arto lindsay; robin crutchfield.

As the tiny No Wave movement gathered momemtum - disenchanted with the market forces which had descended on the Bowery - intermarriage and incest between localized tribes became rife. An open exchange of creative fluids.

Where one cell might bleed out, perish, mutation was a more likely prognosis.

Stevenson was invited by Lydia Lunch to play bass in Teenage Jesus and The Jerks. He accepted. Lindsay and Crutchfield instantly recruited Ikue Mori to sit in on drums for DNA. As it was, both bands appeared on the Brian Eno project, "No New York". Alongside The Contortions and Mars. Shortly thereafter, Crutchfield himself bowed out and was replaced by Tim Wright, formerly of the Cleveland incarnation of Pere Ubu.

Crudely painted at best, you get the picture. A petri dish seething with bacterial fermentation. As far removed from an irradiated desert as is imaginable.

DNA disbanded in 1982. Mori was drawn to collaborating with a sequence of experimental artists including Fred Firth, Tom Cora and John Zorn. She jettisoned traditional percussion in favour of a signature arrangement of three self-programmed drum machines. An evolution of the synthesized sound arguably pioneered in New York by Alan Vega and Martin Rev.



Bob Quine, of course, is no stranger On The Bleachers.

His work with a diverse range of artists through the eighties and nineties until his death in 2004 goes well beyond the remit of session musician. Or his tenure as Voidoid. By 1994 when he teamed up with fellow guitarist, Marc Ribot to revisit the landscape of Ikue Mori's "Painted Desert", Quine had previously worked with Zorn (and Frith) on 1985's "breakthrough" recording, "The Big Gundown". Itself a radical reworking of popular themes by Ennio Morricone.

Familiar territory. But stripped of the complex structure of Zorn's earlier project; the sheer weight of competing performance.

Recorded at Sear Sound, NYC, 14-16 February 1994.

Mixed by Joe Ferla at Sound On Sound, 24 July 1994.

Ikue Mori: Drum Programming;

Robert Quine, Marc Ribot: guitar;

Recorded by Alec Head. Produced by John Zorn.

▼ IKUE MORI: SANTA ANA EXCURSION from "Painted Desert" CD (Avant) 1997
▼ IKUE MORI: MEDICINE MAN from "Painted Desert" CD (Avant) 1997 (US)

bang the drum

the circus comes to toy town.

From the subsidiary imprint of Don Robey's Peacock Records, operating out of Houston, Texas from 1949 until 1974.

Every time Brown tries to get down with the people - in making a quip about competing for votes with the X-Factor - it makes me wince. 

The whole discomfitting charade reminds me of Richard Milhous Nixon's passing resemblance to Ed Sullivan.

Still. Things can indeed get worse. Witness Mr. Blue's excruciating collaboration with one Gary Barlow.

▼ LITTLE CARL CARLTON: COMPETITION AIN'T NOTHIN' from "Competition Ain't Nothin' b/w Three Way Love" 45 (Back Beat) 1968 (US)

that was the week that was

Perhaps the best strategy might be to strap each of the 'three' candidates into a steel chair. Interrogate them as to policy.

See then just how much a politician dares to deviate from the script. And who might squeal if leaned on a little.

The public has already witnessed a rudimentary 'block-in', sans canned laughter and applause. Roped together on a cardboard podium, it might yet develop into a genuine three legged race.

Frankly, even at this early juncture it's already looking a little over rehearsed.

The same questions persist. Who is really to blame for the bungled Northern Rock heist ? Was RSB's involvement in the Goldman Sachs fiasco entirely a result of gross incompetence ?

It has always smelled like an inside job.

When pressed, Mr. Brown promised to dig a little deeper. Try hammering broken matchsticks under the fingernails.

Mr. Blue had little to say. He didn't seem to have learned his lines at all, but then again. Mr. Yellow had already stolen the show, such as it was; the only one out the three invited to put on a show who appeared even remotely lean. Hungry. 

Not a bravura performance exactly, but nonetheless the only Equity Card holder there not calcified with stage fright.

Confined to the wings, Mr. Salmon - in homage to Mr. Pink - relied on some tired slapstick to generate at least one column inch in the morning's review.

He can do that routine in his sleep. He has had plenty of practice at Holyrood.

Still. Unlike in the US, we prefer to run through our campaigning at a breakneck pace. Fill in the blanks - the policies, that is - with impoverished improvisation. It adds to the drama. With less than a month to opening night there is time enough to jot down a few choice words on the back of a cigarette packet.

Save the ad libs for Oscar Night. The BAFTAs, at least.

As Mr. Brown keeps reminding us, it's sleight of hand over substance. There is no flair in British politics. Precious little honesty or stomach for unpalatable truths.

Cue the party music.

further chronicles of the wind-up birds

Well, when all's said and regurgitated, and I no longer give a shit regards the lamentable state of the British music 'scene', something unexpectedly good drops through my virtual letterbox.

The Wind-Up Birds would appear to hail from Leeds. That alone is sufficient cause to trigger a fight or flight response; The Wind-Up Birds chose to squander the cost of a one-way ticket out of there on some instruments and dubious back-line equipment.

Tellingly, the group takes its name from a relatively obscure Japanese novel about a listless unemployed man whose cat flees the litter his life revolves around: "ねじまき鳥クロニクル " by Haruki Murakami.

I prefer the - aesthetically pleasing - jumble of kanji and katakana to its phonetic translation.

The Wind-Up Birds would sooner up sticks than write about designer drugs or rehab. Instead, their songs loiter in those monotonous urban spaces between car park and public house; dartboard and horsehoe bar.

So far as I am aware, they have resisted any temptation to eulogise bird-watching or casual ornithology. I could be mistaken.

Their single is officially released on Monday, 26th of April on Sturdy Records and Tapes. If you happen to be lurking in the vicinity of the Cockpit in Leeds on Saturday 24th where The Wind-Up Birds make a sheduled appearance, you may just bag yourself an advance copy.


▼ THE WIND-UP BIRDS: THERE WON'T ALWAYS BE AN ENGLAND from "Tyre Fire b/w There Won't Always Be An England" 45 (Sturdy Records) 2010 (UK)

archived radiation

▼ PERE UBU: CHINESE RADIATION from "The Modern Dance" LP (Blank) 1978 (US)

▼ PERE UBU: SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY from "The Modern Dance" LP (Blank) 1978 (US)

UBU PROJEX: BUYER'S GUIDE TO PERE UBU

i can't hardly stand it, no-no #2

"one hundred years ago Detroit Electric...
could go 211 miles on a charge."

Not as perfectly distilled as the studio take which appeared belatedly on "VU", this version is allegedly recorded in Detroit, 1969; not San Francisco, as some copies have misreported in bootlegging from the bootleggers.

It very possibly pisses all over the same live performance captured by Bob Quine at The Family Dog.

And, alright. John Cale had run. Andy was no longer in the picture.

By 1969 he'd added a porn cinema to his portfolio and was otherwise busy pushing "Campbell's Soup Can II". Hot dog bean.

And his plans to cut a deal in Hollywood were given short shrift. At the same moment the Velvet Underground were rolling through the west coast, he was tied up casting Holly and Candy in John Voccaro's "Cockstrong".

Outrageous, when one considers those 'pogroms' off the hoof down in Texas.

Fresh meat was back on the menu.

Verve, too, was beset by financial problems and New York's finest were recording directly for MGM.

I believe I might originally have snared this one over at WFMU. Under a post by Brian Tanner. The bootleg is "out there", to quote from the X-Files.

There is only one solid reason to resurrect it straight on the heels of yesterday's take: the bleeding, tortured guitar solo which Lou Reed visits on the ear. A white hot foil to Sterling Morrison's and Mo Tucker's adrenalin rush.

Detroit Electric, somewhat ironically, pioneered the manufacture of a an automobile powered exclusively by a rechargeable acid lead battery. Production began in 1907, and at its peak its assembly line was turning out thousands of units on an annual basis.

While a steep rise in domestic fuel prices after the first world war did much to generate sales, its original USP lay in dispensing with all need for handcranking; and the potential for having your arm wrenched clean out its socket. Left for dead on a potholed surface before the engine even started.

The Anderson Electric Car Company was rescued after the stock market crash of 1929 and ceased trading altogether ten years later.

If "I Can't Stand It" doesn't give you a hard-on - or get you moist - you are in serious need of some grade 'A' pharmaceutical viagra.

"Sister Ray" up off her knees and prowling on the carpet. Verve to the wishbone.

Small wonder Lou got fat. Lazy. All Lestered out and drowning in lactated juice.


▼ THE VELVET UNDERGROUND: I CANT STAND IT (LIVE IN DETROIT) from "The Psycopath's Rolling Stones" CD (Bootleg) 1993 (Germany/US)

i can't hardly stand it, no-no

Recorded May 20th, 1969, NYC.

▼ THE VELVET UNDERGROUND: I CAN'T STAND IT from "VU" LP (Verve) 1985 (US)

roky erickson: true love casts out all evil

"I have Always Been Here Before".
George Cruikshank illustrates Dickens, Bradbury & Evans, 1846.



Appositely, given the very recent featuring of The Spades' "You're Gonna Miss Me", and mention of 13th Floor Elevators in relation to the Austin influence on Arthur Lee + Love up here on SibLINGSHOT ON THE BLEACHERS, news has broken that Roky Erickson is slated to release his first album in fourteen years.

This coming April 20th; "True Love Casts Out All Evil".

Interpersed with archival recordings dating from his confinement to the Rusk State Hospital for the Criminally Insane between 1969 and 1972, the album introduces previously unheard songs documenting the trauma of enforced medication and incarceration. In a state then governed by the desire to reduce tansgressors to a scarcely believable subhuman level.

Arrested age twenty-one for possession of a single marijuana joint and facing a mandatory ten-year prison sentence, Erickson was advised to plead not guilty by reason of insanity.

His case was ably supported by a previous - wholly unreliable, in light of his repeated exposure to varying substances - diagnosis of schizophrenia approximately one year earlier, when the teenage Erickson was temporarily sectioned under the care of a psychiatric hospital in Houston, and forced to undergo a regime of electroconvulsive therapy.

What ensued from there is a cautionary tale familiar to anyone with even a passing interest in the underground psychedelic scene spearheaded by International Artists; the Houston based label responsible for distributing both The 13th Floor Elevators and Mayo Thompson's Red Crayola.

The abuses Roky Erickson underwent as a result are well chronicled.

Out of the frying pan and into a crooked concentration camp cauldron merry prankster, Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" only scratched at.

Where "True Love Casts Out All Evil" differs significantly from previous solo releases is the sheer transparency which Erickson brings to bear in revisiting that bleak period. A prolonged separation which led not just inevitably to the demise of the Elevators, but the collapse of his relationship with first wife, Dana and his young son. Gone are the lurid pulp metaphors which shrouded material recorded with the Aliens and kept his "Two Headed Dog" on a leash.

Procucer, Will Sheff and his Okkervil River admirably aid and abett an entirely lucid Erickson as he navigates territory lesser mortals might fear to tread:

"This is not a cynical comeback record, a lukewarm update on an established legacy – these are the best songs Roky has ever written, unreleased due to decades plagued by the kind of personal tragedies that would destroy someone less resilient. This record has been the most challenging and rewarding, thing I've ever worked on, and we in Okkervil River were deeply honored to show up decades later and help Roky carry these wonderful songs over the finish line."

"True Love Casts Out All Evil" sees its official CD release on Anti-Record before the month is out. Stripped of the Spector pretense and Halloween shtick which plagued good Roky's revival for thirty years, all hyperbole has been exorcised.

For unprecedented access to a redefining document, Roky Erickson premieres "True Love Casts Out All Evil" exclusively at Relix.

Bury "Two Headed Dog". "Think Of As One".

A genuinely courageous undertaking, staves and bars speak louder than words.

▼ THE 13th FLOOR ELEVATORS: DON'T FALL DOWN from "The Psychedelic Sound Of The 13th Floor Elevators" LP (International Artists) 1966 (US)

communiqué #26: hard of hearing

Friends. Roamings. Siblings.

While I am inclined to believe the recent dearth of commentary might just as readily be a symptom of sheer tedium - that interest has waned, as it inevitably must - I have been alerted from a distant quarter that certain comments were not registering as expected.

That there may, in fact, be an issue with Blogger.

One more for the scrapbook.

Now. Deride me as cynical, if you will - or merely desperate in listening out for the scrapings of dung beetles - but I am a firm believer in emperical evidence. So. Seeking to put an end to said speculation, I entered a comment of my own (administrative) making and - lo! - my words were immediately lost to the ether.

Admittedly, a second attempt half an hour or so later achieved the desired result, but it may be that the interface is indeed exhibiting some kind of erratic glitch. That, or you are all off beating your meat elsewhere as I originally assumed.

Should your pearls have fallen on swine, please accept my condolences.

illustration by ib

7 + 7 = 2 +2 = ♥

Released as a single in the summer of 1966 - ahead of their second album, "Da Capo" - "7 and 7 ..." is relentless and driven; owing much to the primal rhthmic pulse emanating out of Austin, Texas, viz. The Spades and 13th Floor Elevators.

Amphetamine fueled flailing at the Hop, with Danny and The Juniors beaten mercilessly in the wings. Whipped with their own guitar leads and dragged backstage to bleed out in the dark.

Arthur Lee and cronies were erratic, misanthropic, and touching bad. Juvenile delinquents who wandered one early morning out of a fleapit on the Sunset Strip into the candy striped dawn of the summer of love.

And couldn't stop blinking.

With production duties on "Da Capo" proper inexplicably delegated by Jack Holzman to Paul Rothchild, a graduate of the Boston based folk scene prior to his involvement with Elektra, the resulting LP - released in January 1967 - is an altogether awkward bridge between the raw Hollywood sound of their debut and the definitive "Forever Changes".

The wrong sort of tension is ushered in as long term drummer, Alban "Snoopy" Pfisterer is encouraged to trade percussion for organ and harpsichord - a role he clearly resented in spite, or because of his classical training - and two new musicians are summarily recruited to fill out the subsequent 'vaccuum'.

Rothchild conspicuously fails to marshal the inflated line-up in RCA's showcase studio; or render focus where it is required.

While Lee boldly proposed Love's much improvised live staple, "Revelation" (formerly "John Lee Hooker") cover the entire second side to "Da Capo" - taking his cue, perhaps, from the well received inclusion of the extended jam, "Goin' Home" on "Aftermath", after The Rolling Stones witnessed Love perform at The Brave New World - Rothchild was roundly criticized for his indifference in setting out to capture the inalienable spirit and energy the group elicited live.

Interestingly, given his casual dismissal of Elektra's most popular act, The Doors, as second rate performers, culminating in his opting out as producer on "L.A. Woman" just three years later, it might be entirely fair to suggest that Paul Rothchild had serious issues in comprehending what motivates a certain kind of individual to venture into the studio in pursuit of a non linear objective. Not for the first time, he was justly accused of failing to deliver.

In the event, Bruce Botnik amply salvaged that raw material which Rothchild was so keen to wash his hands of.

Intuitively. Unburdened by a desire to merely set the levels and run.

More than any previous release, the 'Rothchild free zone' which is "L.A. Woman" goes a good deal farther in cementing the unpredictable nature of a dynamic Rothchild loathed.

Of simply nailing the doors, open and shut.

Perhaps Rothchild was better suited to producing "cocktail music" than he cared to confront.

Possessed of a temperament ill equipped to handle the louche egotism of the L.A. scene as it unfurled, maybe the realization left him more shaken than stirred. And desperate to throw in the towel.

Resistant from the outset to the direction Holzman was intent on pursuing through the west coast offices of Elektra, Paul Rothchild's loyalty to the folk based roots of the label left him exposed to situations better avoided.

As it is, Arthur Lee was astute enough to learn from those failings etched deep into "Da Capo" and put 2 and 2 together; without making the same mistake twice. Originally intent on securing the services of Buffalo Springfield's Neil Young for "Forever Changes", when Young bailed out Arthur wisely decided to go peddle it alone. One decision which never snuck back out the past to taunt him.

♥

Written by Arthur Lee.

Arthur Lee: vocals; guitar;
Johnny Echols: lead guitar;
Bryan MacLean: rhythm guitar;
Ken Forssi: bass;
Alban Pfisterer: organ; drums.

Produced by Jack Holzman.
Engineered by Bruce Botnik.

▼ LOVE: 7 AND 7 IS from "7 And 7 Is b/w No. Fourteen" 45 (Elektra) 1966 (US)

shut up and drink your gin

He went for one day, came back and told his grandmother that they were all imbeciles. He refused to go after that. He led this insular life - never had any idea how to relate to other people in a family way."

- John Corré,
"Punk. A life Apart", Steven Colegrave & Chris Sullivan, Cassell & Co, 2001.

"Alan Jones introduced me to his shop. It was a very intimidating place. You really had to be brave to go in there because because the shop assistants treated you like shit."

- Nils Stevenson,
"Punk. A life Apart", Steven Colegrave & Chris Sullivan, Cassell & Co, 2001.

"Sometimes Malcolm would go missing for days and we'd ask Vivienne [Westwood] where he was. She'd say, 'Oh, I've locked him in a cupboard under the stairs.'"

- Alan Jones ('Sex' assistant, 1975-7),
"Punk. A life Apart", Steven Colegrave & Chris Sullivan, Cassell & Co, 2001.

"There wasn't anything kinky about it. He'd just be locked in under the stairs, sitting there trying to get out."

- Marco Pirroni,
"Punk. A life Apart", Steven Colegrave & Chris Sullivan, Cassell & Co, 2001.

▼ THE SPADES: YOU'RE GONNA MISS ME from "You're Gonna Miss Me b/w We Sell Soul" 45 (Zero Records) 1965 (US)

jackie wilson says: higher and higher

A good time is not inevitably the end result of imbibing a surfeit of Jack Daniel's.

Unless you are secured in the company of brothers Traynor and sundry Nashville wild things. Guided by unwatered spirit; in pursuit of levitation.

A higher plane.

For suitably dishevelled 'remasters' of The Misfits and the Big Bopper, in addition to this exultant toast to Motor City's Jackie Wilson, proceed directly to their band camp in the sky. Let the sun rain on in.
▼ MAX AND THE WILD THINGS: HIGHER AND HIGHER from "Music We Wish We Wrote: Vol. 1" EP (WT1979) 2010 (US)

mo diddley died way back when

a karen cooper complex left me naked...

SOILED.

Bo Diddley meets The Residents.

Or, to quote Bill Altice, former member of KCC:

"The Karen Cooper Complex was "a band that played loosely structured, improvisational rock that was more "Bitches Brew" than Grateful Dead".

Spiced up with some looped guitar - liberally laced with Tourettes - straight out of Stevie Wonder's "Superstitious", the opening track to 1981's lost treasure, "Shinjuku Birdwalk" bodes something approaching fractured genius, and does little to disappoint.

As per our friendly San Francisco coterie, much of the joy in listening to "Birdwalk" lies in keeping one ear open for those tortured jukebox 'samplings' layered cryptically one over the other. Invigorated by a rich open vein of kleptomaniac dissent.

A woman's take on James Brown's "Please, Please, Please". As torn by endless diapery as Maureen Tucker. 

Or bent on surviving postnatal depression with the aid of a safety pin.

Tiring, dear ?

Stitch up some vintage Mayo Thompson and get busy with the Red Krayola.

Lay it on with a trowel. Indulge the palette.

My. I think I am in love with Richmond's Karen Cooper Complex. Retrospectively. A song for Karen falling on my lap just after Ms. Black departs.

I'll buy that for a dollar.

Better still. Listen in for free, lovingly curated by WFMU. You can have your cake and eat it, after all.

Karen Cooper Complex:

Karen Cooper; Frank Daniel;
Bill Altice; Burt Blackburn;
Les Smith; Bo Jacob;
Steve Bernard; Wm. Burke.

postscript:

Guitarist, Bill Altice advises me that "Shinjuku Birdwalk" is soon to enjoy a posthumous vinyl release on a New York based label. Plans are afoot to complement the analogue imprint with a reedited CD - featuring previously uncirculated material - on which Bill revisits the original 'crime scene' to employ contemporary forensics.

In the meantime, the Free Music Archive, inspired by the Creative Commons license,  continues to offer "high-quality, legal audio downloads" in support of participating artists. The FMA archives can be permanently sourced through this site's sidecar links.

▼ KAREN COOPER COMPLEX: YOU CAN'T HAVE IT / SHINJUKU BIRDWALK from "Shinjuku Birdwalk" 1981 (US)
▼ KAREN COOPER COMPLEX: LOLLIPOPS / SIMMER DOWN from "Shinjuku Birdwalk" 1981 (US)

cisco pike revisited [one night only]

previous to blade, there beat some monumental pulse.

Written and performed by Kris Kristofferson.

David Briggs: keyboards;
Chris Gantry, Jerry Shook: guitar;
Norman Putman: bass;
Jerry Carrigan: drums;
Donnie Fritts: piano, vocals.

Engineered by Gene Eichelberger, Mort Thomasson,
and Tommy Strong. Produced by Fred Foster.

▼ KRIS KRISTOFFERSON: THE PILGRIM (CHAPTER 33) from "The Silver Tongued Devil And I" LP (Monument) 1971 (US)

juxtapollution has spokane

1967 volkswagan bug.

Troy Holder, custodian of Juxtapollution has been enviably busy of late. Working on his full length debut release and producing ambient sounds for "an upcoming web series": Sockamamy.

Troy first posted samples on his site at the turn of the year, and what I heard up there toasted my socks when the temperature outside was at its fiercest low. Ten below zero and refusing to climb.

Snowflake and fractal.

Allow me to pause and recall watching my breath plume indoors January last. The windows were all frozen shut and the midday sun was distempered.

As failing a star as plant life might withstand.

So. The sounds of Juxtapollution are spare and concise. Cyclic. And maybe brimming with the kind of energized resistance which causes new shoots to press through the cracks of a plasterboard skin.

Troy remains characteristically modest.

The plan, currently, is a limited 100 CD release to support a potential 7" vinyl issue. You have been forearmed. Deploy your defense strategy while you still have a chance.

Juxtapollution has Spokane.

▼ JUXTAPOLLUTION: SONG FOR CHARLES from "Juxtapollution" CD (Juxtapollution) 2010 (US)
▼ JUXTAPOLLUTION: LET'S GO HAVE LOTS OF FUN from "Juxtapollution" CD (Juxtapollution) 2010 (US)

JUXTAPOLLUTION@ONLINE

armand schaubroeck steals

would you buy a used amplifier from mr. schaubroeck ?



Hell. I would too. In fact, I would sooner buy direct from Armand than fill in the paperwork at House of Guitars, Inc. Let's all do our level best to keep said Rochester hoodlum in the style he's grown accustomed to. These days.

My buddy, Gus emailed me the gnawed pick pictured; it has been collecting belly button fluff and lint in a corner of the room which serves as a home made studio for close to four decades, possibly. Well. Three and then some.

Ever since small green Genet snuck off to the city.

Let's agree to scatter dust on the ashes of rock opera. For the time being, at the very least. My contribution to the ugly whole is a song in three parts; an EP's worth of tokens held in security.

Part-time regular on the bleachers, Armand Schaubroeck, is a face full of plump and lip over yellowed teeth. Without the blue mask. More honest than dishonest, or more honest merely than most, Armand - inmate #24145, once - outruns Legs McNeil by the prison yard when it comes to jawing off at the mouth. But backs it up with substance.

With the paws - or subterranean poise - of a born scrabbler.

It was wraithly guitarist, Ken who first tuned me in to this New York jive. Little Jack Horner. Well. I am mellowed by Chilean Sauvignon and running off at the finger, myself. Suffice to say. I warmed to A.S.S. from the first.

If this prototype marriage of Lewis Reed and Nick 'Greasepaint' Cave gives you a hard-on, too, I suggest you look in on Jason Hall's articulate scratchings rather than succumb to the depressingly purple prose touted elsewhere.


postscript

There is no Wikipedia entry for Armand Schaubroeck - official or otherwise - save for three or four paragraphs outlining his association with House of Guitars, Inc., of Irondequoit, Rochester, New York; a joint venture initiated in 1964 with brothers Bruce and Blaine. As of 2006, The Chesterfield Kings allegedly "engaged in a lawsuit with Armand Schaubroeck, owner of House of Guitars, over nonpayment of royalties [on] records released on Mirror Records from 1984 through 1997".

So far as I can gather, the triple LP release "A Lot of People Would Like to See Armand Schaubroeck... Dead" - an observation which seemingly still holds good - was recorded between 1971-2. With specific regard to the musical element of "Scene 18: Night Before Parole", it is interesting to note that David Bowie's "The Jean Genie" was released as a single in November, 1972, ahead of its inclusion on 1973's "Aladdin Sane".

While in part a submission in defence of Mr. Schaubroeck's good character, the jury, clearly, has yet to reconvene.


▼ ARMAND SCHAUBROECK STEALS: ELMIRA BOUND from "A Lot Of People Would Like To See Armand Schaubroeck... Dead" 3 x LP (Mirror Records) 1972 (US)
▼ ARMAND SCHAUBROECK STEALS: SCENE 18: NIGHT BEFORE PAROLE from "A Lot Of People Would Like To See Armand Schaubroeck... Dead" 3 x LP (Mirror Records) 1972 (US)
▼ ARMAND SCHAUBROECK STEALS: SCENE 22: MY WARDEN'S CIRCUS from "A Lot Of People Would Like To See Armand Schaubroeck... Dead" 3 x LP (Mirror Records) 1972 (US)

big star, cotton crisp

Born on a cotton farm in Crisp, Texas in February 1914, Ernest Dale Tubb is perhaps best remembered for his 1941 honky tonk lament, "Walking the Floor Over You". The first country artist to cover the Hayes and Wilson standard, "Blue Christmas" - nine years before the pouting Elvis Aaron Presley dressed it up in festive lights - Tubb was not the kind of man to idly nurse a grievance.

In 1957, under the influence and in possession of a firearm, he allegedly wandered into the lobby of the National Life building in Nashville, Tennessee and discharged a .357 Magnum in the direction of record producer, Jim Denny.

Looking to score a hit, the Texan was so fucked up he fired off a bullet at the wrong man entirely. And missed. Chalking up a rap for public drunkeness and narrowly avoiding serious jail time.

Fast forward a farther seven years.

In 1965, Tubb was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Like flies on sherbet.

▼ ALEX CHILTON: WALTZ ACROSS TEXAS from "Like Flies On Sherbert" LP (Peabody Records) 1979 (US)