On any post, if the link is no longer good, leave a comment if you want the music re-uploaded. As long as I still have the file, or the record, cd, or cassette to re-rip, I will gladly accommodate in a timely manner all such requests.
Slinging tuneage like some fried or otherwise soused short-order cook. Embiggening the earholes
Two years ago, I shared a Keith Levene compilation here called Beyond Pil. I recently realized that Levene didn't actually play on some of the songs. A new comp is in order, both to rectify my mistakes and to bring us up to date with Keith's newest music. He has been busy during these past two years creating music, film, paintings, and books.
The guitar playing that sounded like Levene to my ears on Playgroup's Epic Sound Battles was mostly the work of Sean "Hogg" Oliver (e.g., "Hoggs Might Fly" and "Machine Gun Hogg"). The late Sean Oliver was a member of Rip Rig & Panic, Float Up CP, and Crucial. Crucial backed Judy Nylon on her Pal Judy album. Crucial members included "Crucial Tony" Phillips, George Oban, and Nick Plytas (all of whom were in Playgroup with Sean Oliver).
Sean Oliver was a great guitarist, and he cowrote Terence Trent D'Arby's hit "Wishing Well". Kendall Ernest and the Pop Group's John Waddington also played guitar on Playgroup's two LP's, but (as with many On-U productions) it's not really clear who did what.
"Recording with Creation Rebel down at The Manor was nothing short of surreal sometimes, pure madness," Levene recalled in an interview. "The credits on the sleeves were often wrong as well -- quite a few of the tunes I played on and worked on I wasn't credited for on the sleeve notes."
Levene definitely played guitar on the On-U albums Threat To Creation and War Of Words, and he played keyboards on Tunes from The Missing Channel and End of the Century Party. Though he wasn't on Epic Sound Battles, Levene borrowed a drum track from Playgroup for his song "Back Too Black".
This new collection only includes songs where Keef is credited. With the addition of more recent tracks, it spans 35 years of recordings. Levene has released two albums in the past two years: Search for Absolute Zero and the crowdfunded CZ2014. He has also written two books about his punk years, I Was A Teenage Guitarist For The Clash and Meeting Joe.
Levene has a youtube channel called Teenageguitarist76 with videos about his books, his film "London 1976" and his ambitious (but unrealized) plans for a young artists' education program called the London 1976 Institute. Levene remains to this day an innovative and visionary multi-instrumentalist who never abandoned his ideals to achieve mainstream success, and whose guitar style has influenced innumerable players during the past four decades.
Thought I'd deposit a bit more Smegma. This is a bit fresher than the last batch.
The CD was enhanced!!! It contained the following "Rails" Quicktime video.
This time, contributing their Smegma: Amazon Bambi; Borneo Jimmy; Burned Mind; Conroy; Dr. Id; John Logman; Ju Suk Reet Meate; Mark E.; Myrtle Tichnor; Oblivia; & Zazou Kazoo.
Smegma – Rumblings, Hanson Records HN122, 2005. decryption code in comments
After more than half a century as a vegetarian, I'm trying something new. My daughter is a life-long vegetarian & several years back she went vegan. She's always giving me the business about it. We used to dine at a raw joint called The Green Boheme (they recently moved to Roseville & we haven't made it to their new location). They always challenged everyone to go raw for a month. Well, I decided I'd one up Lao & go raw.
Now, I'm a Taurus & as bull-headed as they come, so sticking to something I start is no big deal. But man oh man…all I do now-a-days is dream about food, whether I'm awake or sleeping. Now it's started creeping into my musick. See what you think of RAW!!!
A year ago last August I decided to brave the Wilds & started going through a folder I have called "Musick that Needs Work". That meant anything from cleaning up the sound to fixing the tags to getting the art work, whatever.
I officially launched this mess with the Art Phag post although the previous post of American Taboo was really the beginning. I decided I’d just keep on in alphawhatical order for a while longer (until boredom set in or my attention span was maxed). I made it as far as F (Fatima Mansions – The Loyaliser CD single) by the end of that year.
I didn’t get back to this ball-buster until March of this year. I slipped one in unannounced (Garbage Collector – 1988). Then I mentioned the return on March 27th this year with Good Horsey & followed up with the GTOs.
Since then the project's been on the back burner ATS. Moving it up to the hot fire, something for today, from the letter H…how about Heat-Ray???
Heat-Ray – LOVEALLOVER, Pop Echo Records POP0011, 2009. all decryption codes in comments
In the past I have delved extensively into No Wave music, one of my favorite American musick genres. Ikue Mori & Arto Lindsay of band DNA, James Chance / White / Black, Lydia Lunch / Teenage Jesus…these are some creative souls that have enriched my musical life a great deal.
No Wave was born in the lofts & walk-ups of late 70s / early 80s downtown New York City. The name came about as reaction to the term new wave. At the tail end of the 70s the record industry was trying to rebrand punk & labeled the more pop-punk bands that came in the aftermath of punk as new wave. The No Wave bands wanted to reject this pop side but they also felt no affinity to punk. They were committed to tearing down convention in the rift between sound, music, & art. One band I never posted before (but am remedying right now) is the great UT.
UT formed in 1978, after Peter Gordon introduced Sally Young & Jacqui Ham to ex-Gynaecologists / ex-Dark Day member Nina Canal. The female presence in No Wave was never that rare. There were very few No Wave bands that represented the standard-issue 'guys/guitars' formula of rock music. However, an all-girl outfit was a slightly rarer proposition. But then, UT are an exceptional band. They really came into their own as the survivors of the original scene, the torch-bearers who took the original discordant aggressive attack onward to the next generation, especially on Griller, which was engineered by Steve Albini.
UT developed a distinctly dark sound based on free improvisation & spontaneous song writing. As with many No Wave bands, UT lacked a strong grounding in musical training, which they intentionally accentuated by changing instrumentation on each song. These methodological approaches channeled the raw energy of UT's song writing process into their live performances & finished songs (example: on "Confidential" Sally sings & plays guitar, Jacqui plays guitar, & Nina plays drums; on "Phoenix" Sally sings & plays guitar, Nina plays guitar, & Jacqui plays drums; & on "Absent Farmer Jacqui sings & plays guitar, Nina plays guitar, & Sally plays drums...& that's just in the first four songs!!!).
UT left the US in 1981 to tour with The Fall & eventually settled in London, releasing a number of albums, playing & recording until they disbanded in 1990. After a pause from 1991 to 2010, UT is back doing live dates.
UT - Conviction, Out Records OUT R03, 1985. all decryption codes in comments
I haven't posted up any Legendary Pink Dots for quite some time. Most of their work is available one place or another, from the band themselves or one of the myriad fan posters like myself. I'm just kinda too lazy to go through each release I feel like sharing to find out if it's available or not. That being said, how about some The Tear Garden?
Many of the usual suspects: Edward Ka-Spel; Phil 'The Silver Man' Knight; Ryan Moore; Niels van Hoorn; Martijn de Kleer & several folks from Skinny Puppy: cEvin Key & De Green Guy.
This is a work of fragile powerful beauty that digs even deeper into the psychedelic underground than its predecessors. It's one I never get tired of hearing…
When I watched the video of Alton Sterling being assassinated by two police officers, intellectually I understand the decision of Micah Johnson or Gavin Long to retaliate with violence for violence, with murder for murder. But violence & mayhem are not the answers. Violence simply begets more violence & the level continually escalates.
I often seem to be sharing my reading material with visitors here. Right now I'm reading Fist Stick Knife Gun by Geoffrey Canada.
Canada is an American educator, social activist, & author who since 1990 has been president of the Harlem Children's Zone in Harlem, New York. Harlem Children's Zone's goal is to increase high school & college graduation rates among students in Harlem. Geoff recently received the prestigious National Freedom Award from the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, for his commitment to improving education & fighting poverty.
I am reprinting the preface…
"It was a bad summer, the summer of 1993 in New York City. Late August saw a sixteen-year-old mother accidently shot by a thirteen-year-old boy. He was trying to shoot a sixteen-year-old boy. The young mother was trying to save her baby, who was playing a few yards away. She was climbing a small fence that surrounded the playground. The bullet entered her head, killing her instantly, leaving her draped on the fence. Several days later the police arrested two other boys, both teenagers, who were accused of killing a thirteen-year-old girl. The girl was raped, cut several times with a knife, then as she lay half dead and moaning, one boy stomped on her neck, over and over. She was placed in a large box, carried to an abandoned lot, and hours later one boy came back to set the box on fire. The girls body, burned beyond recognition, was discovered by firefighters who came to put out the fire."
"Then, on August 29, a ten-year-old boy was shot. Two men had another man, their intended victim, in hand, guns out, when he broke away and ran for his life. They managed to shoot him in the thigh, also managed to shoot ten-year-old Luis Rivera in the head. The last the papers reported, Luis was in very critical condition."
"America has long had a love affair with violence and guns. It's our history, we teach it to our young. The Revolution, the 'taming of the West', the Civil War, the World Wars, and on and on. Guns, justice, righteousness, freedom, liberty---all tied to violence. Even when we try to teach about non-violence, we have to use the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., killed by the violent. I'm sorry, America, but once you get past the rhetoric what we really learn is that might does make right. Poor people have just never had any might. But they want it. Oh, how they want it."
"It is because most people in this country don't have to think about their personal safety every day that our society is still complacent about the violence that is engulfing our cities and towns. What if I were to tell you that we are approaching one of the most dangerous periods of our history since the Civil War? Rising unemployment, shifting economic priorities, hundreds of thousands of people growing up poor and with no chance of employment, never having a legal job. A whole generation who serve no useful role in America now and see no hope of a future role for themselves. A new generation, the handgun generation. Growing up under the conditions of war. War as a child, war as an adolescent, war as an adult. War never ending."
"Not like Vietnam, where Americans, if they survived, came home. The war today is home. There is not even the hope of getting out. You just survive. Day by day, hour by hour. Year after year after year."
"For the handgun generation there is no post-traumatic syndrome because there is no 'post'. We need a new term to describe what happens to people who never get out from under war conditions, maybe 'continuing traumatic stress syndrome'…The next generation might be called the Uzi generation because of their penchant for automatic weapons. These children, armed better than the police, are growing up as violent if not more so than the handgun generation.”
"And what about the police? The lesson is straight forward and clear. The police don't care. Like many others trapped in the ghettos of this country, I have learned that the police are not the answer when trouble come to your door."
"And the gun manufacturers in their greed continue to pump more and more guns into our already saturated lives."
"Some may think that violence is new, but it's not. Violence has always been around, usually concentrated amongst the poor. The difference is that we never had so many guns in our inner cities. The nature of the violent act has changed from fist, stick, and knife to the gun. But violence. I remember."
preface – Fist Stick Knife Gun by Geoffrey Canada
Gun Club – Divinity 2x12” EP, New Rose Records ROSE262, 1991. decryption code in comments
Been re-acquainting myself with Pee-wee's Playhouse.
I guess what started this was when I watched the Wayne White
docu/film Beauty is Embarrassing about White's art career. I dug the
part where he worked as one of the creators of the Pee-wee's Playhouse
TV show which served as a springboard for White's burgeoning work in
design (on another of my favorite shows, Beakman's World as well),
creating some of the most arresting & iconic images in pop culture.
As I was watching the first episode, I was lifted off the potato couch by Peewee declaring, "It's Dance Time!" Well, yes it is.
I thought to start with "Land of 1000 Dances" by Wilson Pickett, but realized 'the Pick' only mentioned six.
In the original version of the song, Chris Kenner names sixteen dances, which immediately put my in mind of "Dance this Mess Around" by the B-52s. They do all sixteen dances, even though they only list eight.
Add to that the "Hippy (hippy forward) Hippy Shake" & "The Mess Around" that they don't list, but mess around & dance.
Then Chubby does "Dance the Mess Around" & lists six more dances that no one else mentioned. Add a few more that nobody bothered to enumerate (the Isley Brothers did note the Shingaling & the Skate) & now we're getting into the spirit of things, though far from those 1000 dances as promised.
Various – It's Dance Time (in 1000 dances or less)
