September 28, 2018 - Mason Proffit - Two Hangmen (1969)

Here comes an old Western Orwellian hippie fable for y'all, it's called Two Hangmen, about the meeting and shared destiny of the Narrator and I'm A Freak, who was guilty of thinking, a crime much worse than all.

The first half of the song tells the story, sung with sweet harmonies by the Talbot brothers, Terry and John Michael. Guitars are picked gently, a tambourine comes in, bass, pedal steel guitar. An atmosphere like something from Schoolhouse Rock or One Tin Soldier/Billy Jack permeates the mix.

The second half is a built up repeated lyric outro that begins at 2:26, complete with extreme vocal vamping along the lines of Guess Who songs like Share the Land or Hand Me Down World. The best and most shocking moment hits at 3:11, On both sides of Jesus. It goes on and on until the end, yowls and exclamations coming at you from all sides. OK, guys, I give up already!

Like Lake Shore Drive, Two Hangmen is a song I used to hear a bunch on Chicago radio back in the day, again most likely on Bob Stroud's program. Mason Proffit were from Champaign (just like REO Speedwagon, I wonder if they knew each other?), so they had that Illinois relationship.

September 26, 2018 - Kevin Ayers and The Whole World - Lunatic's Lament (1970)

Lunatic's Lament opens with an uptempo 4/4 drum pattern along with a weird Beavis voice grunting and saying rock and roll. An electric guitar splits the air at 0:06, kicking Beavis out the door. Kevin Ayers sings double vocals with slight megaphone effect: I'm here lying on my bed, just trying to hold on to my head. This perhaps sounds like the words of a crazy man, but the music is not going down that road feeling bad. Unlike The Moody Blues' Late Lament: 'Breathe deep the gathering gloom', the guys playing here are ready to party. Nonetheless, I do hear a brief connection to 96 Tears in the organ chords.

At 0:54, the music enters a middle passage where Ayers sings Times are full of pumpkin people, they appear and they fade away. It is similar to Television's Marquee Moon, when Tom Verlaine sings 'Life in the hive puckered up my night.'

Mike Oldfield, Mr. Tubular Bells, was only 17 when he played the whacked out guitar solo that starts at 1:49. I think he's the lunatic, no? How crazy is that solo?! Again, I am reminded of Marquee Moon and Richard Lloyd's solo on that one, as well as Richard Thompson's solo on Fairport Convention's A Sailor's Life.

September 24, 2018 - Aphex Twin - Xtal (released in 1992)

Richard D. James, of Cornwall, England, alias Aphex Twin, alias AFX, alias Bradley Strider,  alias Joe the Barber, alias Ali Asalia Salias, is a prolific creator of ambient and electronic music. Alas, I have not heard most of his albums, but I like his first one a lot, it's called Selected Ambient Works 85-92.

Xtal is a hypnotic flow of sound, occupying a dark rain-soaked canvas like a scene from Blade Runner. The music is woven with repetitive loops of various tones and samples: percussive ticks, low booms, synth lines, a woman's voice, dropping in and out of our consciousness.

You may ask yourself, seriously, what is xtal? Just click on that there link to find out. Or don't, and be like a ship without a sail.

September 23, 2018 Music from Bandcamp #38

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1) Aditi - PieRreF (Rome, Italy)

Dark and beautiful, an ominous clanking metal sound keeps us on edge as synth sounds, ocean, seagulls swoop around us.

2) Chinook Arch - CONCRETE ISLANDS (Philadelphia)

Ambient field recording. Insects, airplanes. Rising distorted piano tones, edgy and disturbing. A mysterious experience.

3) I'm Not Dead, I'm Alive - The Through & Through Gospel Review (Phoenix, Arizona)

Makes me think of O Brother Where Art Thou? movie. A chorus gives way to a guitar and a guy singing, who is then joined by more of the chorus. Sounds very old-timey.

September 22, 2018 - Ralph Towner - Anthem (2001)

Ralph Towner was born in Chehalis, Washington, in 1940. He attended the University of Oregon and co-founded a group called Oregon in 1970.

Anthem is the title track from his 2001 solo album. An instrumental played on classical guitar, it is a quiet, contemplative piece, with lots of space between notes, allowing the haunting reverb to permeate the room. Complex and absorbing, it is an impressive combination of jazz and classical influences.

September 20, 2018 - Michael Nesmith & The First National Band - Beyond the Blue Horizon (1970)

Beyond the Blue Horizon was composed in 1930 and premiered in the film Monte Carlo. Michael Nesmith recorded it in 1970 with The First National Band, for the Magnetic South album.

Crickets. It's morning, but not light out yet. A farmer yawns and stretches, gets himself together, and heads outside. He whistles as he feeds the chickens and gets the tractor started up. He begins to hum a song, trying to remember how it goes.

Orville J. "Red" Rhodes has been quietly playing along on the pedal steel guitar with the rest of the group, waiting for the guy to sort out the lyrics. Have you got it? Yep. At 1:54, Beyond the Blue Horizon starts up in earnest, as the sky lightens in the east.

Our happy farmer takes a first lap on the tractor, doing a straight run through of the song. As the sun peeks in the distance at 2:48, his mood brightens and his voice swells. At 3:43 the sun is up and the farmer is filled with joy, smiling and bouncing along. It's going to be a beautiful day. He putt putts off down the lane, as Red bids him a pleasant farewell.

Michael Nesmith has led a charmed life. His mother made a fortune as the inventor of Liquid Paper, he helped start MTV, he won the first Grammy award for long-form music video in 1982 (for Elephant Parts), he was an executive producer of Repo Man, and he formed his own think tank. Oh, yeah, and he was in the Monkees.

September 18, 2018 - Gedo - 逃げるな (Don't Run Away) (1974)

Gedo are Nirvana's Pacific Rim ancestors. Don't Run Away sludge transformed into In Bloom grunge. From the 70s to the 90s, from Tokyo to Seattle.

Like Nirvana, Gedo was a power trio, fronted by lead singer and guitarist Hideto Kano. Although his voice does not match the dulcet huskiness of Kurt Cobain's, his guitar playing has that same primal aspect to it. His solo, which begins at 2:35, sounds a lot like something KC would have done.

It's just your basic three chord heavy rock. Slow and roughly hewn, comparing it to In Bloom is obviously a stretch, but maybe you will notice a common thread, if not to that song exactly then a connection to grunge in general. No idea what Kano is shouting about, but like Kiss he can certainly shout it shout it shout it out loud. Don't Run Away is from Gedo's excellent self-titled debut album.

September 16, 2018 - Radio Birdman - Hand of Law (1977)

Radio Birdman's Descent Into the Maelstrom was included in the stack of 2016 pancakes, and now the group returns here with Hand of Law. Originally released on their classic 1977 debut album, Radios Appear, I have it on The Essential Radio Birdman 1974-1978, released on Sub Pop and with great liner notes by David Fricke.

Written by guitarist Deniz Tek (who, wow, has had a quite an amazing life), Hand of Law is start to finish pedal to the metal rock n roll. The opening bong-rattling bass and tumbling tiki drums power up a surf punk twin guitar attack...

Fear and terror, watch out boy
The sun is getting low

It's all about the end times, nuclear destruction, road warrior existence. Bummer. The hand of the supreme Law coming down to smash all of creation. Best thing to do is head out for one more ride down the highway.

The guitars are all over the place, scratching and snarling, darting into spaces between words. Check out the passage that connects verse to chorus, the organ gets involved, guitar snakes up the neck along with a soaring "rock as conquering hero" chord progression.

The chorus is fist in the air infectious: the hand of law is coming down. After a third trip through verse and chorus, a hell yeah guitar solo blasts through the speakers and heads for the stratosphere.

The whole song has a very workman-like construction. Check out the precision timing:

The opening bass is ten seconds. The drums come in for an additional ten seconds. First guitar at 0:20, second at 0:25. One verse/chorus (v/c) cycle = one minute. Three complete cycles then into guitar solo at 3:30, which lasts exactly 45 seconds. The final chorus to end of song is thirty seconds, for a tidy 4:45 running total. Solid.





  

September 15, 2018 Music from Bandcamp #37

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1) post-modern baseball - wrigleyville (North Carolina)

a short and sweet tune, piano and vocals. I like the minimalism. hair talk. baseball. wrigleyville. Cubs fan? I don't recall a mention of baseball in the lyrics. I could have been focusing more on the piano.

2) Punk rock e reação! - pasteldemiolos (location not listed)

OK, location not listed, but they're from Brazil. Punk rock and reaction! Fast, then hits a slow middle section, very cool.

3) Plague of human being - Fleshsectioner (Adelaide, Australia)

I had to look up the opening passage...it's from Communion, a film that starred Christopher Walken. So, points right away. Then we are off on a metal conquest. Powerspeed drums. Growls. The whole playbook.

September 14, 2018 - Magnog - A Moments Seam (1996)

Magnog, a combination of Cro-Magnon and eggnog. The holiday beverage of choice back in the paleolithic age. More magnog please, mummy. Or rather, grunt grumble grack, grocky. Actually, the album cover could be interpreted as a galactic figure with eggnog oozing out around him.

I bought Magnog's self-titled album when it was new, in 1996. I was into some other Kranky artists, like Labradford and Jessamine. I took this CD with me when I lived in South Korea. One of my American friends there was into modern dance, and she created a solo performance using A Moments Seam.

It's a drifting, droning space flight. An acoustic guitar is joined by an electric guitar awash with effects. Effects can really take you places, can't they? The quiet vocals float like stardust. Like the guys in Gonn, the three Magnog lads were just youngsters when they recorded this music. Not quite 20.

September 12, 2018 - Gene Clark - Life's Greatest Fool (1974)

Life's Greatest Fool opens against a western backdrop. The music lopes along like a horse and rider trotting west across a painted desert at the end of a movie, various scrub grasses and saguaros casting shadows in the early evening. The panorama rolls out under the eye of Gene Clark, who shrugs (maybe spits some tobacco juice on the dusty ground) and contemplates:

Some walk out winners of those who've lost...

Metaphors and proverbs, the questions, the mysteries. Pondering the esoteric, the profound. What's it all about? My big love of this song is when Gene plaintively stretches out the final opening lines:

Is this the only life for everyone
is it the same?

The way he sings everyone. Wow, I just want to give this guy a hug, this is a heavy soul.

At 1:15, the music turns soulful, joined by gospel singers, as if asking the questions that only a higher power can answer necessitates a more sacred presentation.

A guitar solo from Jesse Ed Davis directs these thoughts to the sky at 1:51, maybe the universe is listening?

It's all cake after 3:00, everyone singing out, now full of optimism, another guitar solo over the final chord progression, and away into the sunset we ride.

September 10, 2018 - Steve Roach & Robert Rich - Touch (1992)

After a stack of heavy pancakes, we should air things out a bit. We will therefore take a leisure trip into the cosmos of drifting galactic dreams, the mind of the furthest star, the sea of electric time...gently floating in a soundscape from the album Soma, by Steve Roach and Robert Rich.

Touch. Relaaaaxxxx. . . . .this is the kind of music I imagine I would hear on radio station W-KOMA at Rancho Relaxo.

Guitar slowly picks out a mellow series of notes. Some long range reverb applied liberally. All just hanging there in the sky.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...nothing....from nothing...leaves nothing....nuhthing...nuh...nuh...numb. numbthing. hum. ring. saturn. some space goddess drawing that reminds me of Edgar or Johnny Winter.

September 9, 2018 Music from Bandcamp #36

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1) Go Buy Records - BTMXXX (Joure, Netherlands)

Sounds to me like these are into the Replacements, as well as some other cool bands. Loud guitar rock for 1:32.

2) Baby Don't Sleep - clipping (Los Angeles, California)

Various noisy sounds open this. Then the poetry starts. I only listen to these recordings once as I write them up, so I am not catching every word, but it sounds impressive. I will go back and listen more closely later on.

3) Crane Dance - Tanizaki (location not listed)

Acoustic guitar, background sounds. Then double-tracked guitar. Cool lines intertwining. Background instrument...hurdy-gurdy? Not sure. Cool piece.

September 8, 2018 - Gonn - Blackout of Gretely (1966)

The universe is permeated with the odor of kerosene. With that comforting thought, we're back in the good ol US of A for the time being, specifically in little Keokuk, Iowa, home of Gonn. We'll get back to that opening line in a minute.

Blackout of Gretely is a fabulously deranged garage rock song, created by a bunch of kids who ranged in age from 16 to 19. The narrator is walking down the street at night, thinking in my mind that my life was right. He soon realizes that his surroundings are a bit unusual. It is so dark. (How dark is it?) It is so dark a deep sea diver could not see. It is so dark you couldn't even tell if Mr. Clean was clean. When the guy gets home he realizes that he's been wearing sunglasses on my eyes. ba-dum. (Pause for laughter).

Accompanying the singer throughout the song is an absolutely monster guitar riff. It pounces after the opening line and assails our ears. At certain times during the song, the narrator takes a breather from his story and the music gathers itself in for a few moments... but then the riff shatters the silence. Listen at 1:15, when the riff is isolated from the other instruments. Other than a short solo at 2:20, the riff is a constant companion.

So, now to the big question: how could this guy not know he had sunglasses on? Remember that opening line? Sure...it must have been the kerosene. Not only were the toxic fumes messing with his head, but there was probably some smoke blowing around as well...finally, since he is shouting every sentence like we're deaf, it must have affected his hearing as well. A complete multi-sensory distortion.

You may ask, what is Gretely? It's taken from a book by J.B. Priestley called Blackout in Gretley. They put a little twist on it, see. Gonn is, I believe, officially spelled GONN. They took their name from another group that called itself MADD (years before that other MADD was formed).

September 6, 2018 - J.A. Seazer - Haha Koishiya Sangoshou (Mother Love and the Coral Reef) (1973)

During the past few stops on our musical journey, we have gone from Vietnam to Denmark to Zambia. Today we are in Japan to enjoy a wild theatrical electric yelling riffing composition by the otherworldly J.A. Seazer.

Recorded with his band Akuma no le, which means House of the Devil, Haha Koishiya Sangoshou opens with a winding instrumental section that evolves from a clanking percussion and guitar pile up to, at 0:50, a slow series of guitar and bass riffs that rise up and down the neck like canal locks. The singer comes in at 1:20, sounding harmless enough, but by 1:37 he is in a wailing freaked out panic. The guitar stabs at him like a burning poker and he runs the gauntlet again.

At 2:17 he is joined by a woman until once again the start of his journey is recycled. After another trip with the woman at 3:30, the man passes out from sheer exhaustion and the woman sits quietly by his side and comforts him. At 4:11 the guitar takes one more slash at the whole scene before the curtain falls.

Haha Koishiya Sangoshou is taken from the soundtrack album Kokkyō Junreika (A Pilgrimage Across National Borders). The album is a condensed release, a sort of greatest hits, of what was originally a five hour theatrical production by director Shuji Terayama and the Tenjō Sajiki performance troupe.

September 4, 2018 - WITCH - Tooth Factory (1975)

WITCH is an acronym for We Intend To Cause Havoc. A Zambian group that formed in the early 70s, they were originally influenced by artists like James Brown and the Rolling Stones. Lead singer Emmanuel Kangwa Chanda even called himself Jagari after Mick Jagger.

Their first two albums have a mid-60s garage rock sound. Then, on their third album, 1975's Lazy Bones!!, Jagari Chanda took on a songwriting partner named Shaddick Bwalya. He was into heavier acts like Deep Purple and Black Sabbath. According to Jagari, WITCH's guitarist began to play the wah wah pedal after hearing Grand Funk Railroad's Rain Keeps Fallin'.

Jagari and Bwalya composed "Tooth Factory" as an attack on the band's former manager over a dispute about the mishandling of money. It opens with an immediate crush of cymbals, wah and fuzz guitar, then settles into a mid-tempo groove. Jagari sings about a man of ledgers...with a lot of bills to pay. I don't understand all of the words, but the delivery sounds bitter.

At 1:30, a slower instrumental section unites the fuzz and wah guitars, and the crashing cymbals take a breather. They are back at 2:15 as the music charges into a vocal section of passion and resentment.






   

September 2, 2018 - The Savage Rose - I'm Walking Through the Door (1969)

The opening of I'm Walking Through the Door is a barely audible drone, a bell reverberating in the distance. At 0:20 the doors to an old church in Copenhagen open and a few organ notes tumble out to the right, followed by piano and drums in great pomp. Come inside, all are welcome.

At 0:53 a psychedelic Danish choir known as The Savage Rose enters the narthex in stately procession, singing as if hovering on clouds: I'm walking through the door, Like an open book. For a trippiness factor, listen to this song while watching O Brother, Where Are Thou?; the scene where a congregation walks through the trees and down to the river to be baptized.

The vocal harmonies float up to the heavens and surround the congregation, words stretching out like ceremonial carpets, each line flowing gently into another. The music eases the choir down the center aisle towards the altar. At 2:28 and 2:44 they all pause with ears down to the ground, listening to sweet callings. Encouraged, they step it up a few times over the final minute (3:08, 3:22, etc), and eagerly take their seats in the chancel.

September 1, 2018 Music from Bandcamp #35

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1) Noughts & Crosses - Wolf Cellar (London, UK)

Heavy wolf stalking prey riffs. Kind of Living Color Cult of Personality ish. Howling vocals, powerful and terrifying.

2) Tripping With Cops - Kyle Tussing (no location listed)

Picked electric guitar instrumental. Lots of cool moments, kind of hypnotic. At 2:24, whoa!! Crank up that distortion! Yeah! Birds tweeting after that, becoming trippier towards the end.

3) ¿Que serà? - Vegahertz (Argentina)

Are these guys like the Argentine Ween? It gets fun after a minute or so, when all these weird casio keyboard sounds enter.

August 31, 2018 - Thai Thanh - Bừng Sáng (1968)

Bừng Sáng (Dawn) is a fantastically swinging lounge scene. Imagine a wide stage, heavy curtain backdrop, musicians seated and positioned, in formal attire, backup trio in matching dresses and gloves, and Thai Thanh looking elegant at the mic in front.

After a brief intro, the snare locks onto the 2nd and 4th beat as the bass lopes alongside it.

Thai Thanh certainly has a commanding voice, but for me the tune is all about the backup singers. Their arrangement is a blast. Sometimes I will listen to this song and just focus on them, imagining their synchronized movements and facial expressions.

During the verses, you can hear the trumpet and guitar chomping at the bit to be heard, and at 1:49 they get their chance via a minute and a half music showcase, with four instruments taking solos (a la Year of the Cat):

First we get the piano, sounding very Liberace, candelabrum burning softly, also reminds me of Steve Nieve's piano on Clubland.

Sax takes over at 2:12, ragged and streetwise, with occasional Paul Desmond cool. It plays a bit of the habanera from Carmen at 2:32.

Guitar comes in at 2:34 like a dry martini. Smooth jazzy octaves included at 2:59 (like the guitar on Fleetwood Mac's Hypnotized).

Finally, at 2:57, the trumpet appears. It plays the habanera directly, perhaps having been inspired by the sax. It has a very professional and clear delivery, as though it were the lounge's maître d'.

The singers are back at 3:20 for one more go around, uniting in a final breathtaking chord at 4:18.

Bừng Sáng is another entry from the wonderful Saigon Rock & Soul compilation.