time flies when yr (not) having fun

Wow, blog. It's been a year almost. You're still alive! Me too, barely. There's a section of Rob Sheffield's book "Love Is A Mixtape" where he debunks the Great American Adage of "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger" and counters it the observation that whatever doesn't kill you will usually leave you crippled. He's got a point. There's not enough whiskey to undo the damage done by this past semester. And what for? I graduate and then I'm like ten grand in debt and still working for Northwest (if I'm lucky and Delta doesn't downsize me) but I've got a piece of paper saying I'm not as dumb as I look. Of course I feel like an asshole saying things like that when there's people who have to worry about whether or not a mortar is going to land on their head while they're out buying groceries but overeducated, underemployed white middle class suburban guys have problems too, as is evidenced by Pavement's back catalog.
Anyway, I haven't written for the pure pleasure of bending words to my will in a long time, and lest writing become a Pavlovian response to the ka-CHUNK of a shotgun round being chambered, I figure I better get back into it. I've been meaning to write about this for awhile and since I'm damn near done with the semester, now is as good a time as any.
So anyway late last year, much to the dismay of those who waited too long to put their copy on eBay, Criterion released one of the holy grails of out-of-print cult cinema Two Lane Blacktop. Up until this point I had only ever seen it on a 2nd gen VHS dub, so seeing it fully restored was a real treat. This should be required viewing for any foreigner (or American citizen for that matter) who laments American cultural imperialism. Sure, it's a drag that McDonalds is making the world fat and all, but this serves as a reminder of why America dominates the global pop-culture market; we're just too fucking cool. Or at least, at one point we were, once upon a time. Two Lane Blacktop is like a time capsule from an era before product placement and major label manipulated soundtracks. Which is surprising, since Dennis Wilson and James Taylor (yep, that James Taylor) star in the film. They're known as The Mechanic and The Driver, respectively ( and existentially). They're a couple of drifters with a custom made, primer grey '55 Chevy making a living on illegal drag races. They get involved in a cross country road race for pink slips with GTO, played by Warren Oates. (Guess what he drives?) It's basically a trip across the country along the country two lane blacktop roads seen through the eyes of a disillusioned post-peace & love counterculture in the grips of an identity crisis and a reaction against the emergence of hyper-consumer society. Case in point, the main "conflict" of the film is the customized '55 Chevy vs. the mass produced Detroit muscle of the GTO. The only product placement is the ubiquitos Coca-Cola, but the film largely takes place in the "old weird America" of mom-and-pop diners and no-name motels along the side of The Road. Even though this film is more pertinent now than ever, it's highly unlikely anything like this would be made today in the studio system. There would have to be at least a car promotion tie-in, as well as gas stations, fast food joints, sunglasses, etc. etc. etc....

Going off on a slightly unrelated tangent. I'm just going to throw it out there that I do rather enjoy Tarantino's work. I don't particularly subscribe to his point of view where he considers himself the next Godard, but his films do strike a certain chord with me as a record/film junkie. That being said, I think he could've learned a thing or two from road movies when he was mining ideas for Death Proof: You don't have to talk so fucking much. That's the beauty of these films, like Two Lane Blacktop or Vanishing Point. The dialogue takes a back seat (no pun intended) to the wind blowing in through the windows and the Zen koan-esque roar of a red lined engine as the landscape unfurls through the windshield.

self serving bullshit, a new crush, and this week's playlist

Two more reviews on the Foxy Digitalis site, this time around for James Blackshaw and Woods.

I'm swooning HARD from one track specifically on the new Keren Ann disc. She's that Israeli-born Parisienne who could basically be lumped in with that whole Norah Jones/NPR set but whatever. The new disc is kinda psych-lite, some Mazzy Star thing going on in the first track that's lovely, but it's the song "In Your Back" that really slays me. Lyrically it's basically aching & lovelorn but it sounds gorgeous. It makes me feel like when you get a phone call from a girl you're starry-eyed and super crushed out on and wondering if she's thinking about you, and since that feeling is utterly ephemeral and transforms to either sour grapes or is consummated, thus killing the butterflies and pinning them up in a little glass case, it's nice to find it distilled and encoded onto a little plastic disc so you can slip into it whenever you like. (just in case you think you want to call me a pussy, I should let you know that I'm wearing a Darkthrone t-shirt as I type this)

I've also been slacking on putting up my playlists from my radio show so I'm going to try to archive them here more regularly to indulge my own sick needs

Some Velvet Morning - May 21, 2007 - 89.3 FM streaming live at www.whfr.fm

1. James Blackshaw - "Cloud Of Unknowing" - Cloud Of Unknowing
2. Windy & Carl - "Smeared" - Mind Expansion, Vol. 1
3. The Delta Waves - "Lovers Leap" - Dream In Real Time
4. His Name Is Alive - "USA vs Gamelan" - Cloud Pop
5. Odd Clouds - "track 6" - Cleft Foot of the Woods
6. The W-Vibe - "Tape Like Cross" - Game Program
7. The Soundtrack Of Our Lives - "Broken Imaginary Time" - Behind The Music
8. Outrageous Cherry - "The Book of Dead Time" - X-Rays In The Cloudmine
9. MV & EE with The Bummer Road - Canned Heat Blues - Mother of Thousands
10. Stone Breath - "Sunshine In The Eyes Of Death" - Lanterna Lucis Viriditatis
11. The North Sea - "Take It From Me Brother Moses" - Exquisite Idols
12. Gary Higgins - "Thicker Than A Smokey" - Red Hash
13. Six Organs Of Admittance - "This Hand" - Dark Noontide
14. Giant Skyflower Band - "The Archangel (Hurray For The Beast)" - Blood Of The Sunworm
15. Franklin's Mint - "Carousel Baby" - Gold
16. Bonnie Prince Billy - "Lay & Love" - The Letting Go
17. Hush Arbors - "The Werewolf Om" - Hush Arbors
18. Current 93 - "Then Kill Caesar" - Black Ships Ate The Sky

Marissa Nadler - "Fifty Five Falls" - Ballads of Living & Dying

sun warmed synapses opened

So since the last time I updated (over a month ago, I know) I've started writing for Foxy Digitalis, an online webzine for weird music. I just had my first review published there, on The Stumps, a New Zealand band, so click that link there if you want to read it.

I probably would have been updating more had the sun not been making a regular appearance over the skies of Detroit. You have to realize that when you live through a winter as ugly as there is here, those first few days of warm sunshine feel like some sort of blissful opium fueled hallucination. You're not quite sure if it's real or not but you don't really care either, I'll usually take a false sense of security over reality any day. In conjunction with this warm weather I've found my new favorite CD to listen to while staring up at a tattered American flag waving atop a skyscraper. "Person Pitch", the new solo effort by Panda Bear (aka Noah Lennox) of Animal Collective. I have a hard time coming up with words to describe something this pure and good that sounds like it comes from Utopia so I probably won't write all that much about except to tell you to go buy it. It's full of lots of warm reverb laced vocals and softly throbbing drum machine loops that will have your heart beating in some kind of sympathetic rhythm to it (like when you put two clocks next to each other and their second hands fuse, ya know?) I've found the closing track "Ponytail" to be especially hypnotic while watching the weatherworn stripes of the flag on top of the Guardian Building in a slow motion wave set against the muted blue sky. That flag is some sort of admittance of our flaws and it somehow made me feel better about being from here. We're far from perfect but at least there's enough of us to own up to it.

I also really like the new album by The North Sea called "Exquisite Idols". It's a meditation that reaches the realization that Ravi Shankar is to India what the Louvin Brothers are to America. At least that's what I got out of it. There's no need to further classify. OK, maybe raga-billy, or What Happens When Sitars and Banjos meet. But anyway, it's really just a celebration of life and diversity, many spokes emanating from the same hub. If more people took that to heart we might not be doomed. "Take It From Me Brother Moses" is a raucous hillbilly gospel stomp but then followed immediately by a debate devoid of structure between a digital tongue and its analog mouth in "Cover Me With Knives".

Thee OhSees is a band you should really be paying attention to as well. They have a new record called "Sucks Blood" that's equal parts dilated pupil psych swagger and a soft pillow to lay your fried mind on for the come down. Same thing goes for Gowns, not that they sound like Thee OhSees, just that you should probably be listening to them. There's a tune on their new album "Red State" that really got under my skin. It's called "White Like Heaven". It's a fever dream of a huge black humming monolith in a desert that you're floating towards, drawn by its energy, and once you reach it you just bask in its aura, suspended in its amniotic droning, oblivious to anything else going on in your fucked up little head. Listen to it here but so help me god don't you dare open your eyes and acknowledge the body you're imprisoned in and ruin it.

I don't mean to be so abstract but give me a break. I've been watching the films in the new Alejandro Jodorowsky box set. They've FINALLY been given a proper release. Jodorowsky has the rare combination of an unflinching artistic vision coupled with a complete lack of ego. These sort of movies would seem contrived and pretentious in less skilled hands. This is what William Blake would have been doing had film been his medium rather than ink and paper. I first saw El Topo about 8 years ago on a terrible VHS tape that seemed to be about a 6th generation dub, and it was in English no less. But now I've got that, Holy Mountain, Fando Y Lis, and an early short film called La Cravate about a girl that sells heads. To sweeten the deal, the soundtrack CDs for El Topo and Holy Mountain are included. I plan on writing a bit more on them once I've watched them a few more times. Until then, be good.

Terrible Black Ponys

I put on Pavement's Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain for the first time in who knows how long just now and I forgot how perfectly that album crystallizes the claustrophobic apathetic feeling that your reach will probably always exceed your grasp. To me it always sounds like idealism's quiet resignation to slow death at the hands of realism, while your escapist tendency rears its shaggy head with a "whatever" smirk plastered across its face and heavy lidded eyes.
I'm seriously not always in such an existential funk. For real. You should've seen me last Friday at the Magic Stick. I was having fun! I got there just in time to see local band The Terrible Twos take the stage. In the grand tradition of rock and roll misnomers, there were five members in the band. It would be easy to slap the "art punk" label on them since they're young, loud, and snotty but they have a keyboard player too. The truth of the matter is they just have a great, raw DIY aesthetic where musical prowess takes a backseat to the fire in your belly that you have to get out somehow. That sort of thing goes beyond any half-assed genre and sub-genre tags. Plus there were kids with honest-to-god mohawks there to see them. I'm not talking about some gentrified faux-hawk, these were big, spiky, fuck-off blue and green mohawks. They're like four leaf clovers, pretty rare to find one and it almost makes you want to go buy a lottery ticket when you see more than 3 in the same place. But the real reason I came to the show was playing next. This band makes Detroit crowds dance, and that's no small feat. Sleater-Kinney played a legendarily lackluster show in Detroit once, and had the balls to blame the crowd for "not giving them any energy". Well listen hun, I just worked 8 hours and paid too much for a shitty beer, so excuse me if I'm not doing cartwheels to your textbook indie rock. Maybe if you played something I can shake my ass too I would move more. Maybe if you were more like the Black Lips you wouldn't have a problem energizing a crowd. They were even a little more subdued this time, and still managed to have a room full of weird white kids spazzing out instead of standing with their arms crossed smoking cigarettes. And by subdued I mean I didn't see any nudity, random spontaneous hook-ups, broken bottles, or bloodied faces on the dance floor like the other times I've seen them. There was still plenty of scuzzy-fuzzy-primal-psychedelic-synapse-sizzling garage punk power to leave everyone sweaty. And unfortunately, unlike the Tijuana gig featured here, there wasn't any head butts or self-love performed by female audience members, but I wasn't really expecting all that. As fucked up as Detroit is, its nothing compared to Tijuana. Dirt cheap booze, unlimited access to pharmaceuticals, and ladies fucking donkeys make a town crazier than harsh winters and rampant unemployment. But, as an added bonus, one of the guitar players looks like a hobbit with a Paul Wall grill. You'll have to take my word for it because my camera was fucked up and I wasn't able to get any pics. The only complaint I can register is that they weren't the last band. On their previous Detroit stop they were in the opening slot as well, but The Dirtbombs played next, one of the few bands whose live show wouldn't disappoint after seeing the Black Lips. This night was a different story altogether as The Ponys were the headlining band. Don't get me wrong, I dig The Ponys. You can kinda tell that everyone in the band had an intense, all-consuming crush on bands like Ride and the Pale Saints at some point, and probably aren't strangers to an occasional bong hit or blotter tab. I love all that stuff too, but I wasn't in the mood for it after the previous set. I felt sort of like how your girlfriend must feel when you're fooling around and she comes before you do and then afterwards she's not that into it anymore. At that point she's thinking about shoes or something. So, sorry The Ponys, I still like you and all but the Black Lips made me feel like a lady and it weirded me out so I went home halfway through your set. We'll try again next time.
xoxo
Anton Lachey

the real world vs. the one in my head

I don't really see how you can argue the fact that we're all connected on some level to a giant web of consciousness. You could of course call bullshit on that, and say how could that possibly be when bands like 3 Doors Down are popular, why is Paris Hilton a celebrity, etc., but the fact is, some folks are just more tuned into it than others. Case in point, The Shins' video for Phantom Limb. Here, watch the video first and then I'll expound more on the theory. Just ignore the comments posted by YouTube members though, the only people that read and respond and care about those are internet nerds who don't really know what they're on about and who no one listens to anywhere else, which is nothing like a music blog.



So anyway, there's a little known band that Pat Smear was a member of called Death Folk that have a song called '39 that I've created an amazing video for in my head over the past few years. It's much easier to direct videos that way, there's no early call times or budgets or actors or musicians to deal with. The video in my head has almost the exact same concept as The Shins video up there. It's all children, in a school play like setting, dealing with grim adult themes tempered with sugar coated special effects to take the edge off. My video had more of a pirate/nautical war theme though, where The Shins dealt more with ground war and cannibalism (I absolutely loved the Donner Party allusions).
The one scene though that really got me going on the whole unifying theory thing was when the kids were dressed as some sort of meso-american indian tribe and cut the ram's head off. In lieu of blood there a red streamer issuing from the neck. The EXACT SAME THING happens in my Death Folk "39" video! It blew my mind. In my video though, the battle climaxes with a cannon blast, and red streamers come shooting out of the torsos of its targets. Can this be considered a theft of intellectual property? I know I didn't have a copyright or anything, but that's my own private thing and I sort of feel violated that it's now out there, out in the cold harsh world, removed from the (relative) safety of my skull. But then again, once you think it, you're projecting it out there for anyone on the same vibration as you, with an albeit stronger work ethic and financial backing, to pick up on. I have a friend who is a big New York City intellectual property lawyer, but I really don't want to bother him with this. I suppose I could sue Sub Pop and director Patrick Daughters, but it wouldn't be any good. I haven't ever told anyone about my video because I'm not very articulate about the stuff that goes on in there for the most part. Plus my case wouldn't hold in any conventional court of law. I would only have a chance in some sort of Gondry-esque dimension, with Charlie Kauffman as my legal counsel. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

xoxox 666
Anton

P.S.
Is it just me, or is James Mercer, in the shots where he is seated and playing guitar with the red curtain background, looking a bit like John Cazale, a.k.a. Fredo Corleone from The Godfather films?


I knew it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart.

If I am lost it's only for a little while...

Sometimes this whole blogging shit reminds me of the end of a Doogie Howser episode but...

Just when I think I'm going to pack it in and concede my lot in life as another cynical, jaded asshole with a dream deferred, brief moments of magic shine through the murk. I was well into a bottle of discount priced red wine and just wanted to put something on and sulk in a mostly dark room. Elvis Costello was on the deck but the whole High Fidelity thing was hitting a bit close to home so he just wouldn't do. So I lit a candle and chose my Band Of Horses Everything All The Time LP, since I had just played it on the radio the other night and figured "hey, these guys were in Carissa's Wierd, that was some pretty mopey shit, I know exactly what to expect from this record, all I want to do is mope, let's do this". Which was pretty much what was going on until the last 3 tracks of the LP. In the glow of the grapes and the candle those 3 songs had that amazing transcendant, soul-restorative quality that you can only achieve when music (or sex) is at it's best: it gives you a get-out-of-jail-free-card from your own head. The fucked up little bubble that you created for yourself just dissolves when you're reminded that it Really Doesn't Matter. Yes, everything is ephemeral and there's nothing you can do about that. And when you finally get that through your stupid thick skull it all comes gushing out your eyes in a torrent of salty tears and you're finally really smiling and laughing for the first time in weeks even though you're broke and have no job and think you're dealing with unrequited love or anything else that Really Doesn't Matter as long as you're still breathing. Even if the feeling won't last through to the morning, just knowing it's possible to get there again for the shortest reprieve from the darkness is all it takes to keep me going. So thank you Prometheus for the flame. Thanks René Barbier for your Mediterranean Red. And most of all thank you Band Of Horses for making me Snap Out Of It. It's the little details like that which can sometimes slip by unnoticed or be taken for granted that will save you when the big things are trying to bury you.

p.s. - I of course had to listen to the last 3 tracks about 5 times in a row, to savor the moment for as long as possible and it was on the third time that I dropped the needle in exactly the right spot in a room lit only by a flickering candle flame with most of a bottle of wine in me that I realized just how deep my vinyl addiction runs.

Some Velvet Morning playlist from 3-12-07

band song album

Fursaxa - Aegean Lore - By The Fruits You Shall Know The Roots

Matt Valentine - Cork - I Burned One With God But Cocola
If I'm Peaking Which Way Is The Sky?

Stone Breath - Sunshine In The Lanterna Lucis Viriditatis
Eyes Of Death -

The Magickal Folk Being Here Has Gold Leaf Branches compilation
Of The Faraway Tree - Caused Me Sorrow -

Marissa Nadler - Diamond Heart - Songs III - Bird On The Water

Marissa Nadler - Fifty Five Falls - Ballads Of Living & Dying

SheKeepsBees - Fangs - MiniSink Hotel

Songs:Ohia - Whip-Poor-Will - Magnolia Electric Co. (bonus disc)

Smog - Say Valley Maker - A River Ain't Too Much To Love

Bonnie Prince Then The Letting The Letting Go
Billy - Go -

Alasdair Roberts - Waxwing - The Amber Gatherers

Nick Drake - Cello Song - Five Leaves Left

Gruff Rhys - The Court Of Candylion
King Arthur -

Ghost - Daggma - Doctors Without Borders box set

Damon & Naomi - A Second Life - The Earth Is Blue

Mogwai - Yes! I Am A Long Young Team
Way From Home -

Spiritualized® - Ladies & Gentlemen Ladies & Gentleman We Are Floating In
We Are Floating Space
In Space -

Dead Meadow - Beyond The Fields Dead Meadow
We Know -

Some Velvet Morning playlist, 2-26-07

now that the search function is functioning on the radio station's website again, I'm archiving my playlists from each week's show here. This is more just for a record for me than anything else, but you all are free to peruse it as well. If you like what see you please listen in Monday mornings EST from 10 am - 12 noon to WHFR 89.3 FM, or for those of you unfortunate enough to live outside the Dearborn/Detroit area, we stream live online at WHFR.FM.

Feb. 26, 2007. Show #6 of Some Velvet Morning
(band - song - album - label)

1. Bardo Pond - Walking Cloud - Live In Philadelphia - Archive
2. Anagram - Put Your Arms Around Me Now - The Lights Went Up - Scenery
3. The Finches - Human Like A House - Human Like A House - Dulc-i-tone Records
4. Karrie Hopper - You Were Loved - An Unusual Move - Nobody's Favorite
5. SheKeepsBees - Fangs - Minisink Hotel - self released
6. His Name Is Alive - USA vs Gamelan - Cloud Pop - Silver Mountain Media Group
7. Masaki Batoh - A Ghost From The Darkened Sea - A Ghost From The Darkened Sea - The Now Sound
8. Amon Düül 2 - Wie Der Wind Am Ende Einer Strasse - Wolf City - United Artists
9. The Besnard Lakes - For Agent 13 - Are The Dark Horse - Jagjaguwar
10. Windy & Carl - Sirens - Depths - Kranky
11. Charalambides - Voice Box - Gold Leaf Branches - Digitalis
12. Avarus - Sataa Nuuskaa - Ruskea Timantti - Tumulti
13. Red House Painters - Down Colorful Hill - Down Colorful Hill - 4AD
14. Six Organs Of Admittance - Oak Path - Dust & Chimes - Holy Mountain
15. Earth - Lens Of Unrectified Night - Hex: Or Printing In The Infernal Method Southern Lord
16. Hush Arbors - The Werewolf Om - untitled (re-issue of self released CD-R) - Digitalis

The Death Of An Heir Of Sorrows

Sad news from the underground, Arthur magazine calls it quits. Jay Babcock, former Arthur editor had this to say via a post on Myspace:

Laris Kreslins wanted me to buy him out of his 50% share in
Arthur [I own the other 50%] if I wanted to continue the mag since he
didn't want to do it anymore, and I couldn't raise the cash and get
someone to sign the deal that Laris wanted signed. Straight-up
greed/idiocy. Anyways Laris has now barred me from the Arthur
website/blog/mailing lists that I've maintained for the last four
years...

While there are definitely two sides to every story, it's a damn shame that Arthur won't be around anymore. They were a forum for daring, original bands who exist on the fringes of the underground, that would get little to no press elsewhere. While Mojo is still a good read, you're not going to read about Silvester Anfang or Sunburned Hand of the Man in their pages. In addition to covering music, they were an unflagging critical voice against the current political powers that be. While most of it was preaching to the choir, it was nice to have that ally. You'll be missed Arthur. On to happier news...

The Black Lips signed to Vice Records, who have released a recording documenting the glorious, shit hot rock-n-roll trainwreck of their live performances called Los Valientes Del Mundo Nuevo, loosely translated as "The Brave Ones of the New World". In Tijuana of all places. Usually, live recordings aren't worth the time it takes to listen to it, or the plastic used to press them. I've gone back and listened to shows that I had a great time at, but taken out of the context of the connection between artist and performer, it loses its effect. Luckily the Black Lips shows are crazy enough that the energy is translated in the recordings. Albeit in a muted form, but you can still feel that presence. Here's a couple clips from the show it was recorded at:
Boomerang


Now I'm not sure if any of you have ever been to Tijuana, but I have. Boomerang is the perfect Tijuana theme song. After sitting at sidewalk bars drinking 75 cent Tecate cans while the hookers (with rooms conveniently located upstairs) cruise the gringos, your Xanax that you bought at the pharmacia finally kicks in and you feel like walking. Boomerang is the perfect soundtrack, all sloppy diazapam swagger and trying not to attract the attention of la policia (or something worse) while you're pissing in a poorly lit alley. This next clip though is the real meat and potatoes of the record.

Sea Of Blasphemy



This is the first song I've ever heard by this band, the first track on the "Let It Bloom" record. This version however, leaves the original in the dust. It's pure breakneck amphetamine garage punk, played at twice the speed of the original, magnified by that effect pedal the Electric Prunes used on "I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night" (I'm not going to pretend to know what it is, I'm no guitarist, I have no delusions). There's also barely contained physical violence and the sweet sounds of smashing bottles, the mark of any good party, as well as a young chica in tight black pants who is so overwhelmed the only thing she can think to do is lay down and manually stimulate herself. That is why every blogger wants to be in a band. No woman is reading this and being driven wild with lust to the point that she throws herself to the floor and pleasures herself. It's been far too long since I've been to Tijuana, my last trip to Mexico was Cancun, which really pales in comparison. There were way too many gueros for it to really feel like Mexico. Oh and by the way all you gueros, it's pronounced "Tee-HWA-nuh", not "tee-ya-wa-nuh". This concludes the Spanish lesson portion of the update.

Marissa Nadler has a new CD coming in March called Songs III:Bird On The Water. I don't really want to cheapen it by giving it some insignificant review that isn't going to come close to conveying the heartache and beauty present her music and tormented angelic vocals. Just go to her Myspace page and listen to "Diamond Heart" and buy the 7 inch.

Another band I can't get enough of lately is The Besnard Lakes. First off, they're a band from Montreal without "Wolf" in their name, nor do they play overdone dancey punk. They do however deliver a lovely brand of narcotic shoegazery reverb drenched surfy psychedelic anthems, so give them a listen you hosers.

Finally, I'd like to thank the Academy for finally recognizing the significant contributions that Martin Scorsese has brought to the world of film. Shame on you elitist bastards for taking so long to award him one. I still haven't seen The Departed though.

Belated Best-Of List

Yeah so what, I've never been in a real big hurry to do stuff. At least it's still the first month of the new year while I'm getting my best-of 2006 list together. I've also never really been into the big rush to get it done while it is still 2006, sometimes December can pull off some surprises, but that's really just a flimsy explanation for my laziness.

1. Current 93 - Black Ships Ate The Sky
I can without a doubt say this was my favorite album of the year. David Tibet (with a little shot in the arm from Mr. Six Organs Ben Chasny) visualizes the apocalypse in the form of the hungry-for-the-heavens black ships. Equal parts delicate beauty and creeping terror until the climactic title track, when he self destructs the odd little world he spent the whole album creating, then gives it a haunting requiem with a reprise from an earlier song. Interspersed with the black ship song cycle are renditions of an early Methodist hymn as interpreted by the likes of Antony, Baby Dee, Bonnie Prince Billy, and Marc Almond. While it is the same song sung about 8 different times, with this cast of mad geniuses putting their stamp on each version it's far from repetitive.

2. Destroyer - Destroyer's Rubies
Dan Bejar sets out to make you forget that anyone else ever wrote guitar based pop songs before he did, but does it by continually referencing those that came before him. If that made sense to you, then you "get it" and don't need me to push this record on you. If not, just give these dense, complex, highly literate yet utterly accessible gems (oh god, sorry, Destroyer's Rubies + gems = terribly "clever" music critic play on words) a few listens and see if you're not converted to the "Dan Bejar is the second coming of Tim Buckley" club. I'm not just the president, I'm also a client.

3. sunnO))) + Boris - Altar
Ever since I read about this one I knew it would most likely end up on this list. It wasn't the nasty, evil, sludgy, droney wreck of an album I was expecting but it was by no means a let down. While the track "Etna" is a slowly bubbling black cauldron of low-end sound, the rest of the album is more akin to extrapolations of sunn's White 1 & 2 ambience and the quieter moments of Boris' "Pink". The grand scope of this album really didn't hit me full force until I was standing in the shadows of Mayan ruins this past December. I was in the grips of a full on psychedelic spell walking along sun-dappled paths to ancient stone edifices listening to Jesse Sykes' ethereal vocals on "The Sinking Belle", which kind of comes off as an utterly hopeless Mazzy Star tune. (that's a compliment BTW) By the time I made it back to the main "castillo" pyramid and "Akuma No Kuma" was playing, I was pretty sure the limestone rocks were vibrating at the same frequency as what was flooding my ears, and me this insignificant bag of skin and blood and organs in the middle of it all. Well even if you can't listen to this masterpiece at Chichen-Itza, you'll still dig Joe Preston's vocoder enhanced vox and the Conan (the Barbarian, not O'Brien) worthy horn arrangements and tympani/gong crashes.

4. Warmer Milks - Radish On Light
Louisville's sons of midwestern darkness have captured the same sort of toned-down ferocity that you can find on "Bad Moon Rising" era Sonic Youth, but crank the weirdness up to 10 and make it their own. Four lengthy cuts comprise the WM's first proper, unclassifiable full length release, ranging from meandering psychedelic dirges with feral, decelerated black metal-esque vocals (In The Fields) Black Sabbath meets the mummy (Pentagram Of Sores) to straight up noise rock exploration on the title cut. The perfect soundtrack for those who've embraced the notion of going to hell in a handbasket and who want to enjoy the ride. Also, you can't help but admire a band who puts THX TO NO ONE in their liner notes.

5. Howlin' Rain - Howlin' Rain
Ethan Miller (Comets on Fire) and John Moloney (Sunburned Hand Of The Man) tone down the weirdness, dust off some Allman Bros. riffs, and get back to the land with this idyllic disc. Miller's voice, unlike in his Comets material, is clearly discernible and imparts a wonderful Canned Heat/early 70s Jerry Garcia vibe to the excellent lyrics, ranging from thunderbolt struck non-believers (Calling Lightning With A Scythe) to modern day murder ballads (The Firing Of The Midnight Rain). It makes you wonder what you're missing on Blue Cathedral. This is what your dad and his brothers would have listened to if they had it in those old photos you've seen when they all have long hair and perfect mustaches and are sitting around with their shirts off drinking beer in the summer.

6. Joanna Newsom - Ys
Appalachian chipmunk warbling accompanied by a lone harp is replaced by a more polished voice delivering epic length fairy tale narratives and grandiose string arrangements, courtesy of a collaboration with Van Dyke Parks. This was another very pleasant surprise for me. I'm glad the elfin Ms. Newsom didn't succumb to the sophomore suck after such a critically acclaimed debut. (Are you paying attention, Clap Your Hands, Say Yeah?)

7. MV / EE & The Bummer Road - Mother Of Thousands
Hippie folk-raga-rock with its bare feet firmly rooted in the New England soil while its head drifts around in the black voids of space. I'm not using hippie as a derogatory term here either. These people are shining bastions of good taste in an otherwise squalid sub-culture, applying all the best aspects of the tune in-turn on- drop out ethos in a contemporary way. They're slowly but surely taking it back from the post-Phish and String Cheese Incident shabby-chic, unwashed, poorly dressed yet expensive pot smoking, SUV with a save the planet bumper sticker driving masses. This should be required listening to anyone with an extensive live bootleg collection who uses the term "dude, you gotta see 'em live" more often than their hair brush.

8. Bonnie Prince Billy - The Letting Go
Even if this wasn't one of Will Oldham's strongest albums since "Master & Everyone", this would make the list solely based on the performance of "Strange Form Of Life" from Conan O'Brien this past fall where Andrew W.K. played piano and it looked like Will's pants split at the end after dancing his weird little jig all throughout the song and howling into the microphone at the appropriate times. Bonus points for being recorded in Iceland and for the achingly sweet vocal harmonies with Dawn "Faun Fables" McCarthy. It's a nice complement to Will's world weary, cracking timbre.

9. Six Organs of Admittance - The Sun Awakens
Ben Chasny puts the cryptic, solo acoustic dust & chimes thing on the backburner and unleashes this dark psychedelic beast of an album. He bookends fretboard searing rock (Black Wall) and Ennio Morricone recording with Bedouin nomads (Attar) with a pair Octavio Paz-esque numbers (Torn By Wolves, Wolves Pup) before the murky waters of "River Of Transfiguration" swirl around and carry you down a pulsing, chanting stream of (un)conciousness while ravens in dead trees on the banks look down at you.

10. Various Artists - Jukebox Buddha
The Buddha Machine, the meditation sensation from the Far East (an ingenious little plastic box that plays 9 different mp3 loops) acts as the raw material for this CD that has artists like sunnO))), Robert Henke, Blixa Bargeld, and the Sun City Girls manipulating the loops into lovely walls of sound.

Honorable mentions and comps and shit like that:

Tom Waits - Orphans
Not to be overly pedantic but this wasn't really recorded in 2006. However, the man is a genius and I'm kinda pissed it's taken this long for a collection like this to come out.

Cat Power - The Greatest
Chan Marshall pilfers the Hi Records rhythm band and puts out the best blue eyed soul since Dusty went to Memphis.

Pink Mountaintops - Axis Of Evol
Drum machines and weird electronic tones meet hairy drug music.

The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers
Brendan Benson's polish acts as the foil to Jack White's snarl while they mine the classic vein of rock without being dicks about it (Are you listening, Wolfmother?). Jack's guitar also sounds great with a real rhythm section behind it.

Belle & Sebastian - The Life's Pursuit
They finally get over losing Isobel and put a record worth listening to the whole way through since her departure.

Tim Hecker - Harmony In Ultraviolet
Dreamy electro lullaby sound washes wrap around you like a warm blanket to shield you from the hard, cold world outside.

Everything the Numero Group released
For real kids, if you're a music nerd, you'll drool over the compilations that this label puts out. Obscure enough to satisfy even the most discriminating snobs, ranging from northern soul to Belizean funk.

Pop Levi - Blue Honey EP
Ladytron's old bass player put out a fun little fuzzy 60's psych pop flavored EP. There's also a delta blues/flamenco number on it. One of these things is not like the other...

no title

Listen, I won't lie, I'm shitfaced right now. There is this delicious beer put out by a brewery called Unibroue in French Canada (I'd link you to it if I wasn't smashed, so just google it if you want.) called LA FIN DU MONDE which translates into THE END OF THE WORLD par anglais. anyway I have been meaning to write up my best of 2006 albums list since I am one of "those" lost souls, but I've just been really busy procrastinating. I will say however that I was finally revealed the true power of the ALTAR album while I was visiting the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza in the Yucatan jungle, more of that to come at a later date. I've also been doing the radio show bit here and there but haven't been able to post my playlists due to some sort of problem on the station's website. Hope you all are doing well, if any of you are reading anything I write.

playlist from 12-13-06

I filled in on the Random Acts of Music radio program and played the following

(band-song-album)

Magnolia Electric Co. - The Dark Don't Hide It - Trials & Errors
Lucero - Little Silver Heart - S/T
Frank Black & The Catholics - Manitoba - Show Me Your Tears
Brian Jonestown Massacre - Nevertheless - Tepid Peppermint Wonderland
Galaxie 500 - Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste
Marissa Nadler - Hay Tantos Muertos - Ballads of Living & Dying
Animal Collective - Grass - Feels
Mogwai - Like Herod - Young Team
Warmer Milks - Pentagram of Sores - Radish on Light
Comets On Fire - Whiskey River - Blue Cathedral
Dungen - Panda - Ta Det Lugnt
Black Lips - Boomerang - Let It Bloom
Skygreen Leopards - Places West of Shawnapee - Disciples of California
My Morning Jacket - The Way That He Sings - At Dawn
Howlin' Rain - Calling Lightening With a Scythe - S/T
Franklin's Mint - Carousel Baby - Gold
Flin Flon - Leading Tickles - Boo Boo
Ween - The Golden Eel - The Mollusk
Growing - Cutting, Opening, Swimming Southern Wrights - The Sky's Run Into The Sea
Spacemen 3 - Take Me To The Other Side - Perfect Prescription
The Gories - Goin' To The River - I Know You Be Houserockin'
The Dirtbombs - I Started A Joke - If You Don't Already Have A Look

playlist from 12-03-06

I sat in on the Mrs. Robinson show (indie & electronic) on 89.3 WHFR-Dearborn tonight while she was finishing up a paper for school.
Playlist

(band - song - album - label)

1. Unrest - Can't Sit Still - Fuck Pussy Galore & All Her Friends! - Teenbeat
2. Unrest - Scott & Zelda - Fuck Pussy Galore & All Her Friends! - Teenbeat
3. The Black Lips - Boomerang - Let It Bloom - In The Red
4. Super Furry Animals - Sidewalk Serfer Girl - Rings Around The World - XL
5. Of Montreal - Requiem For O.M.M. 2 - The Sunlandic Twins - Polyvinyl
6. Four Tet - Smile Around The Face - Everything's Ecstatic - Domino
7. Stereo Total - C'est La Mort - Oh Ah - Kill Rock Stars
8. Cibo Matto - Birthday Cake - Viva La Woman - Warner Bros.
9. Miho Hatori - A Song For Kids - Ecdysis - Rykodisc
10. Tom Waits - Tango Til They're Sore - VH1 Storytellers
11. Tom Waits - Ol' 55 - VH1 Storytellers
12. Tom Waits - Day After Tomorrow - Real Gone - Anti
13. Death In Vegas - Help Yourself - Scorpio Rising - Sanctuary
14. Nouvelle Vague - Love Will Tear Us Apart - Self Titled - Luaka Bop
15. Spiritualized - Shine A Light - Royal Albert Hall, 10 October 1997, live - Arista
16. Early Day Miners - Return of the Native - Offshore - Secretly Canadian
17. Brian Eno - Deep Blue Day - Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks - E.G. Edition
18. The Vaselines - Son Of A Gun - The Way Of The Vaselines - Sub Pop
19. Orange Juice - Blue Boy - The Glasgow School - Domino
20. Felt - The Spanish House - The Strange Idols Pattern & Other Short Stories - Cherry Red
21. The Reindeer Section - Whodunnit? - Son Of Evil Reindeer - Bright Star Recordings
22. Edith Frost - Stars Fading - It's A Game - Drag City
23. Six Organs Of Admittance - Words For Two - School Of The Flower - Drag City
24. Joanna Newsom - Monkey & Bear - Ys - Drag City

playlist from 11-27-06

I'm now a DJ on WHFR Dearborn, a college radio station. Our internet address is www.whfr.fm, we stream live in realtime for those of you unfortunate enough to live outside of our broadcasting range. My first show was last Monday night, sitting in on the Cloak & Dagger radio show, whose DJs had prior commitments. I haven't got my own show just yet, so I'm filling in for other DJs who can't do their show for whatever reason. It was my first time being live on the air, and I predictably sucked. Since I'm a packrat who can't throw anything away I decided to keep a log of the songs I played for each show I do.

Playlist from 11-27-06, sitting in on the Cloak & Dagger show (indie rock)

(the format is band-song-album-label)

1. Spoon - The Beast & Dragon, Adored - Gimme Fiction - Merge
2. Arab Strap - The Shy Retirer - The Shy Retirer EP - Chemikal Underground
3. Luna - Lovedust - Romantica - Jetset
4. The Moldy Peaches - Lucky #9 - self-title - Rough Trade
5. Early Day Miners - Return Of The Native - Offshore - Secretly Canadian
6. Saturday Looks Good To Me - Since You Stole My Heart - Every Night - Polyvinyl
7. Tom Waits - The House Where Nobody Lives - Mule Variations - Anti/Epitaph
8. Hush Arbors - Broken Bones - Landscape Of Bones - Three Lobed
9. Marissa Nadler - Annabelle Lee - Ballads Of Living & Dying - Eclipse
10. Destroyer - The Sublimation Hour - Streethawk: A Seduction - Misra
11. The Magnolia Electric Co. - 31 Seasons In The Minor Leagues - Hard To Love A Man EP - Secretly Canadian
12. Songs:Ohia - Whip-Poor-Will - The Magnolia Electric Co. (bonus disc) - Secretly Canadian
13. The Shins - Turn On Me - Wincing The Night Away - Sub Pop
14. The Shins - Girl Sailor - Wincing The Night Away - Sub Pop
15. Elf Power - Peel Back The Moon, Beware! - Back To The Web - Rykodisc
16. Guided By Voices - Liquid Indian - Do The Collapse - TVT
17. The Renderers - Dream Of The Sea - A Dream Of The Sea - Siltbreeze
18. The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Sailor - Tepid Peppermint Wonderland - Tee Pee
19. Bonnie Prince Billy - Buried Treasure - Cold & Wet 12" - Drag City
20. Silver Jews - Room Games & Diamond Rain - Bright Flight - Drag City
21. Angels Of Light - Song For My Father - Doctors Without Borders box set - Durtro-Jnana records
22. SunnO))) & Boris - The Sinking Belle (Blue Sheep) - Altar - Southern Lord
23. Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter - The Dreaming Dead - Oh, My Girl - Barsuk
24. Neutral Milk Hotel - Two Headed Boy, pt. 2 - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea - Merge

Dirt Road Ragas and Expatriate Gypsy Flamenco Blues

When I was a little kid, if my room was dark enough and I couldn't get to sleep at night, I would get a strange sensation that there were no walls around me and I was just floating alone in a big black void. Every now and then when I'm lucky enough I still get that sensation, and it usually has to do with music. I definitely got a big dose of it seeing Jack Rose perform last night. (for a laugh, check out what other musical act comes up when you google Jack Rose) He was playing in a really intimate, quiet room and the droning Americana infused ragas he coaxed out his 12 strings (well, 11 after one of them broke) were utterly transcendant. I had my eyes shut and lost track of time and my surroundings and found myself with that sensation that the walls around me had ceased to exist and I was all alone. It wasn't a hopeless feeling of complete isolation though, but quite the contrary. It's more in line with the Hindu concept of brahman, that we're all connected to the formless, transcendental, and immanent divine. That we're all plugged into the same life energy, like spokes on a wheel issuing from a central hub or those giant aspen tree groves whose root systems are intertwined. It's a really beautiful feeling that will probably last until I see someone with a Calvin pissing on Islam sticker on their truck or hear an Aerosmith song on the radio. It is nice to know it's there though (our connection to the divine no matter how distant, not stupid bumper stickers). He also played some really far out slide stuff on his lap guitar towards the end of his set but unfortunately for me my bladder was full to the bursting point and it was detracting from my blissed out mindset. Jack had a great new CD for sale available on the Archive label. Beautiful die cut and letter pressed packaging in a limited pressing of 1,000. Get yours now before the parasites have them listed on eBay when they're sold out.

After short break and a much needed trip to the bathroom, Peter Walker came out to play. I hadn't heard of this guy until a couple weeks ago when a CD of his came into the record store where I help out. The label on it had Ben Chasny heralding him as the biggest single influence on his music, so my interest was piqued. I hadn't heard him until last night and his performance was astounding. He had been in Spain studying with flamenco guitar masters in the early 60s, and was telling stories of clubs in caves that were hundreds of years old, where they beat you up and break your guitar if you disrespect their culture by playing poorly. His style was a seamless blend of Indian ragas (he had also studied with Ravi Shankar), gypsy flamenco, and American folk. He was also telling stories about how the gypsy music wasn't too far removed from Indian music, and the influence they had on flamenco music. I hadn't really made that connection, but it made perfect sense, and his guitar articulated it more clearly than anyone talking about it could have. It was his first time touring in the United States since the 60s, and it was very inspiring to hear an elder statesmen figure of the counter-culture talk about how he had been playing places like this all around the country, that it was nice to see the underground rising up again. It gives you hope that maybe we're not quite fucked yet. I should take a minute to talk about the venue, The Bohemian National Home. A couple months ago I figured out that I used to go there all the time when I was younger as it was a Lithuanian social club in the 80s. It's a non-descript brick building in a sketchy, very un-fashionable neighborhood that weeds out casual concert goers or someone just looking for a place to hang out and drink. You won't have to filter out overheard inane drunken chatter or cell phone conversations during the music because everyone there is going to be focused on the music. The crowds are always hushed and reverent at the types of shows like last night, but they also have punk and noise shows in the bigger rooms there. They also sell beer for a very reasonable price and keep admission prices low. I feel lucky that there are places like this in my city to go to.

Gravest Hits

Goooood evening...
I bet you all thought I was dead. I've just been sleeping. Like Lestat. My the rumblings of Altar have brought me forth from my slumber. Yup SunnO))) and Boris have collaborated. Not released a split, but all 5 have fused together to create a drony spacey masterpiece. It's good Halloween music. It got me to thinking about my favorite records to listen to around Halloween. So here they are, for this year (since none of these lists are ever definitive), my top 10 Halloween jams. I tried to stay away from stuff like goth (because I'm not 16 anymore), metal (duh, no brainer), or the Misfits (double duh, what song of theirs wasn't about Halloween or a horror movie?)

1. Warren Zevon - Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner
Yeah, yeah, I know that Werewolves of London is the one all the classic rock stations dust off this time of year, but let's give the man some respect. He wrote more than one tune.

2. Pink Floyd - Interstellar Overdrive
Awesome scary psych song. I love the formula of the introduction of the main musical theme, then an open-ended middle exploration before gradually making its way back to the original theme. Much like this next one....

3. Iron Butterfly - In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
O.K. seriously. My dad saw Iron Butterfly with Canned Heat at the Fillmore East in 1970. He said it was a "drug supermarket" and that this song scared the shit out of him. I bet he was on a few barrels of Orange Sunshine at the time. (I think they should bring back barrels of LSD. Just for nostalgia. Like Wacky Packs.) But this song is the ultimate one-microgram-over-the-line anthem. I heard it on FM radio a few days ago but they pussied out and just played the single version so when I got home I put it on the turntable and cranked up to 11. That evil organ part is perfect for the season.

4. Flaming Lips - Scratchin' The Door
Another one in the same vein as the last 2. It's basically their version of Interstellar Overdrive. Creepy, crawly psych guitar lines and weirdo lyrics to boot.

5. Hawkwind - Masters of the Universe
This is my own personal drug freakout song. The first time I heard this song I was ripped on acid. It was terrifying. All I wanted to do was clamp my hands over my ears and go put on the Grateful Dead's "Anthem of the Sun" or something. But my inner Tyler Durden was urging me on, "This could be the greatest moment of your life and you're ruining it!" So I sucked it up and embraced the fear and came out the better for it. I mean, look at me, I got a blog now.

6. SunnO))) - Bathory Erzsebet
The whole BlackOne album is pretty amazing October music, and it's really hard to pick one track, but I mean they fucking locked Malefic in a coffin, miked it, and put it in the back of a hearse to record the vocals. Oh, and the dude has crippling claustrophobia. How does that not make for real terror in the vocals. Mixed with the deepest low end your puny human ears can pick up and the tolling iron bells, it's real mood music. Plus it's for Elizabeth Bathory, who according to legend, bathed in the blood of virgins to keep herself looking young. Cher took a beauty tip from her I bet.

7. Six Organs of Admittance - River of Transfiguration
This has more of a psychological scary vibe to it. It's not so much terror as it is the prelude to terror. You know something bad is going to happen in the movie when you hear this, and that moment is stretched out to nearly a half hour on this cut.

8. The Eagles - Hotel California
Don Henley. 3 guitars playing the most over-rated, overblown guitar solo in rock history. Everytime I hear this, I know there's a middle aged guy with a mustache and a business mullet working on his old Camaro in the garage and he closes his eyes and gets really into it at the end and shakes his head along with the notes and maybe makes a little bit of the lead guitar face. The horror.....the horror.

9. Tom Waits - like, most of the songs on The Black Rider
O.K. this one's got November, Flash Pan Hunter, Just The Right Bullets, Crossroads, and T'aint No Sin with William S Burrough's creepy old "I'm not dead yet" junkie vocals on it. Need I say more? This is the ultimate album for fall. For the cold rain blowing down your upturned collar. For scarecrows, rotting pumpkins, and grey skies. Just one more reminder like the thousands of wet leaves plastered to the concrete like thousands of advertisements for summer's demise. But goddammit, it sounds so good.

10. Faust - Faust Wakes Nosferatu
You can't really single out just one track on this album. It's more about creating an overall mood. Ideally there would be no track breaks on this album. Fantomas tried doing that but it didn't really work. It would for this. Plus, they're German.

Well that's it for tonight kiddies. I've got a few cans of beer and a mound of candy to eat (where the fuck are the trick-or-treaters? When I was their age we were out in force, dammit! Nowadays everyone is too scared from watching the news to let the kids go out) and some bad movies to watch. May the night fires and blood sacrifice of Samhain bring us a healthy crop next year! HAIL!

xoxo
Anton

On PBR & Echoplexes

Comets On Fire played one of the scariest, most intense, fucked up, exhilirating sets I've ever witnessed the other night. It reminded me somewhat of Charles Baudelaire's book "On Wine & Hashish" in which he theorized that the only way to deal with living in a fucked up world is to get fucked up. He theorized that you should get intoxicated in any way you see fit, be it "on wine, poetry, or virtue" (I ran into my old roommate and he was on mushrooms but unfortunately he didn't have any more). Comets On Fire use outside sources I'm sure, but those thick, dissonant guitars, ear splitting echoplex and thundering rhythm section is a hell of a way to counter things like your own government doing things to you that they're supposed to protect you from, and soldiers and civilians alike getting blown away for no reason. It was a seldom relenting squall of noise that was like having an electric current passing through your ears and bouncing around the inside of your skull. They all looked like shamans in a trance, leading their small but faithful flock through some kind of ritual. I've listened to the new album Avatar a couple times and wasn't too impressed by it, but live the songs took on a ferocious new life. I'll have to go back and give it another listen and see if they sound different to me now that I've had my ears blown open to them. Another thing that struck me while they were playing is that I don't think there's ever been a band whose name describes what they sound like as well as Comets On Fire. Something from the reaches of outer space hurtling around the heavens at an ungodly speed with a seemingly indiscriminate destination while pieces of it break off and burn away. Today is the first day that my neck muscles don't hurt. I'd gladly suffer another two day bangover to be able to relive that set again.

Oh and I also need to type a few words on the opening act, Miss Alex White & The Red Orchestra. They came off like a faster paced, less polished version of Brian Jonestown Massacre. More of a garagey-psych-punk kinda sound, and instead of a junkie asshole for a lead singer they have a pint-sized curly headed ball of energy who didn't try to start fights with anyone there. Here's a video of a performance from Hamtramck a couple nights before opening for Comets On Fire.

Get this video and more at MySpace.com

Missing The Boat

Yep, it happens even to nerds like me who are always online. Here's a couple reviews that I have missed the boat on.
Espers - Espers II The first time I had ever heard the Espers was today. They're one of those bands I know I'm supposed to like but I had never gotten around to listening to them. I've been missing out on some good shit. They're in the upper echelon of the whole freak-folk/new weird America whatever you want to call that scene. Very similiar to The Feathers. The one thing that really sets them apart is the exquisite trance inducing vocals. Musically they create dense, dreamy, fuzzy soundscapes that are infused with the perfect amount of electricity to keep you from drifting off into acoustic lullaby-land, like on the opening track Dead Queen from the new album.

The Coachwhips - Double Dead Sadly, this is a posthumous CD/DVD release by San Francisco lo-fi trashy danceable (but not dance) punk band The Coachwhips. The CD portion compiles 26 previously unreleased cuts, mostly b-sides, covers, and studio shenanigans. It's really a shame that this band decided to hang it up, as besides the Black Lips, there aren't too many bands pulling off this kind of thing nowadays. Every song on this disc is like the funnest party you've ever been to, raw 2 minute energetic blasts of guitars cranked up to the breaking point, indecipherable shouted lyrics, all pushed at a breakneck speed by an organ. There's even a Gories cover on it. If you don't love this, you haven't got a pulse. I haven't seen the DVD yet but I'm sure it's a blast. If you weren't fortunate enough to catch the Coachwhips live , you should definitely check out this DVD so you can cry into your beer about having never seen one of the most frenetic live acts of the past 5 years. Rest In Pieces, oh ye Coachwhips.

Bummer In The Summer

So it's been awhile since I've had the time to update. I started school again. What kind of dope goes to school in summer? Me, I guess. Since it's been so long, this is going to cover a lot of stuff with some short passages, sort of a tapas style review. The title of this update doesn't refer to the paper I just wrote on the United States' Middle East foreign policy (although it could) but instead to this

Arthur Lee dead at 61
Arthur Lee, frontman for the legendary psych-rock band Love has lost the battle to leukemia. Lee's manager released the following statement:
"His death comes as a shock to me because Arthur had the uncanny ability to bounce back from everything, and leukemia was no exception. He was confident that he would be back on stage by the fall. When I visited with him recently, he was visibly moved by the stories and pictures from the NYC benefit concert. He was truly grateful for the outpouring of love from friends and fans all over the world since news of his illness became public. Arthur always lived in the moment, and said what he thought when he thought it. I'll miss his phone calls, and his long voice messages, but most of all I'll miss Arthur playing Arthur's music."
Arthur was a wild man on and off the stage. On the last tour he did, he would refer to himself as "the first black hippie", boasting that he beat Hendrix to that title. He also served time in jail for drug and illegal firearms possession. I was fortunate enough to see Arthur perform a few years ago with Baby Lemonade backing him. When push comes to shove, Forever Changes is probably my favorite album ever made, which I am listening to as I type this. You'll be missed, Arthur.

Moving on to news from the WTF? sector, according to PitchforkMedia.com Smiths' guitarist Johnny Marr is now a member of Modest Mouse. Apparently Johnny had been lending a hand on the new Modest Mouse album and that was supposed to be it, but he had so much fun that he decided to become a full-fledged touring member. In other news, Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock has had to throw out all his old pants and buy a new set with a larger front area to accomodate the permanent boner he will be sporting since Marr's decision to join the band. I'm going to keep an open mind about this. I was a big fan of a couple of the earlier MM albums, maybe Johnny joining the band will be a shot in the arm. OK, onto what I've been playing lately:

Six Organs Of Admittance - The Sun Awakens Ben Chansy follows up last year's gorgeous, folky School Of The Flower with a visceral, dark psychedelic rock album. There are a couple pretty instrumental sections on here, and also stuff that sounds like Ennio Morricone recording with bedouin nomads, but the last track is a long instrumental ambient drone mind-fuck that sounds like those dreams you have where you're walking through a tunnel of living muscle tissue that keeps getting narrower while you're bathed in a pulsing red light. But maybe that's just me. It's heavy, heady stuff, even though the drumming isn't as good as the work Chris Corsano turned in on School Of The Flower. Check out the scorching electric version of the acoustic song "You Will Be The Sun" Chasny submitted to David Tibet's "Not Alone" 5 CD box set, titled "Black Wall" on The Sun Awakens.

Six Organs Of Admittance - Days Of Blood tour CD-R Incredible live recordings from last year's fall tour. Half of the disc is Ben playing solo electric, the other half featurs Keith Wood (aka Hush Arbors on bass and Sunburned Hand's John Moloney on drums. If you weren't lucky enough to see them this summer tour, try looking at Eclipse Records for a copy.

Sunburned Hand Of The Man - self titled? - also picked up at the Six Organs show, this just comes in a purple digi-pack case with a skull and crossbones on the disc that contains 4 untitled tracks of the unnerving, nail biting, heavy drug use induced stupors that you love this band for.

Om / Current '93 split 10"- Inerrant Rays Of Infallible Sun (Blackship Shrinebuilder - Om and Current 93 join forces on this incredible record. The Om side features the trademark rock solid drumming by Chris Hakius supporting Al Cisernos' heavy bass lines and chanted vocals on Rays Of The Sun / To The Shrinebuilder, a more faster tune that's heavier than the selections from their At Gize album. The Current 93 side features David Tibet's apocalyptic poetry atop a single riff repeated until the end of the song (perhaps influenced by Om?). Again, this is heavier than anything from "Black Ships Ate The Sky" that he released earlier in the year, save for maybe the title track. Also, he name drops Reese Witherspoon and Pol Pot in the same verse. I don't get it either, this guy is light years ahead of you or I.

MV / EE with The Bummer Road - Mother Of Thousands - if you only buy one of the dozen or so Matt Valentine / Erika Elder releases this year, make it this one. Available on CD or a 2 LP set, it's a collection of some structured hippie folk rock songs in the vein of The Tower Recordings, as well as long, free-form psychedelic excursions with weird instrumentations. There's a side long version of the traditional "Death Don't Have No Mercy" that was a staple for the Grateful Dead in their early days, but don't look for any Jerry worship on this version, it's a completely different species.

Suishou no Fune - Where The Spirits Are - Far-out and heavy Japanese psychedelic space rock trio on Holy Mountain. Goes from sounding like The Ventures if they were from a galaxy far, far away to ragged extrapolations of the middle freak out section of "Whole Lotta Love". I highly recommend this one for late night herbal influenced headphone voyages.

The Eccentric Soul series - Vol. 8: Wayfaring Strangers-Ladies From The Canyon and Vol. 9: The Big Mack Label - The Numero Group has put out a killer series of CD's re-issuing uber-obscure songs sure to surprise even the most jaded "I've heard it all" music snob assholes on these compilations. The first, Ladies From The Canyon focuses on early 70's hippie folk acts, some with a Jesus slant, with female vocalists. Every song on this is just beautiful, with the exception of Eternal Life by Shira Small, whose utterly tuneless vocals just make it painful to listen to. But the tune "And I A Fairytale Lady" by Propinquity will make your jaw drop. The second is a collection of tunes from a little known label from Detroit called Big Mack Records. Where Motown was slick, Big Mack is raw. They didn't have a rhythm section like the Funk Brothers or an excellent recording studio to work with. These 19 tracks range from raw garage soul to heavy funk. These aren't the most talented musicians that Detroit had to offer (anyone could walk into Big Mack studios with 15 bucks and get a 45 cut) but these recordings were made by folks with a fire in their bellies that supercedes a need for musical ability. Highlights are the Mae Young track "The Man Puts Sugar In My Soul" that out-Tinas Tina Turner, the thunderous, sax heavy instrumentals by L Hollis and the Mackadoos, and the porno funk version of the old jazz standard "Fever" by Essence, complete with Barry White-esque spoken word intro.

well that's it for now. everyone keep cool, especially those in the midwest/east coast.

ciao
Anton

Howlin' Rain

The new project by Ethan Miller (Comets On Fire) and John Moloney (Sunburned Hand Of The Man) called Howlin' Rain can be succinctly summed up in two words: FUCK YEAH!. This is the second side project from brain damaging psychedelic bands to take a turn towards a pastoral classic rock sound. Phil Franklin (also of Sunburned) had released his Franklin's Mint album a couple months earlier, but these albums aren't really cut from the same cloth. As I stated earlier in the Franklin's Mint review that it's is a good hangover record, but the Howlin' Rain is a record to listen to while you're putting your body through what will cause you to be hungover the next morning. It has a hanging out at your friend's weird cousin's farm and drinking beer with your shirt off and blasting at your empty cans with shotguns and all the dudes have long hair and the chicks are wearing tank tops and cut off shorts and there's a barbeque and a bunch of dogs running around and at night someone rolls up joints on a Skynyrd album and everyone gets naked and jumps in the pond kinda vibe. They channel the same kind of energy running through early 70's Allman Bros. and Grateful Dead albums, but it's not without some of the Comets/Sunburned nastiness. (And say what you will about the Grateful Dead being boring hippie wankers. While in the mid-80's they turned into a parody of themselves and Garcia weighed 300+ pounds and was more interested in Haagen Dazs and heroin than remembering lyrics to songs he had been singing for decades, you can't deny that Workingman's Dead and American Beauty are some solid country tinged rock n roll albums). Ethan Miller's voice sounds like a red-lined, beat-up pick-up truck careening down a dusty road on a beer run, especially towards the end of "Death Prayer In Heaven's Orchard" and on "The Hanging Heart", the latter a blistering 9 minute plus epic with Miller dipping into his Comet's styled fuzzy freaked-out guitar tone. A couple tunes feature nice little touches of banjo, like on "Calling Lightning From A Scythe" before they wind themselves up into barbarous rock-n-roll abandon. Tim Daly brings the squalling saxophone sound that appeared on the Comet's "Blue Cathedral" record to a few songs as well, most notably on "Indians, Whores, And Spanish Men Of God", which also has the coolest bass line since Grand Funk stopped being relevant. The album closing murder ballad "The Firing Of The Midnight Rain" is one of my favorites. It's another one of the tunes that they're in no apparent hurry to finish up, with it's deep, head-nodding bass groove anchoring some guitar licks inspired by the aforementioned pair of Grateful Dead albums. In contrast to the gravelly vocals on most of the other songs Miller's voice is more soothing, and has an extended repetitive outro with the album's finest vocal harmonizing singing "all young men sleep easy / in the mud beneath the midnight rain / all love flows towards the ocean / with a smile upon my still face". And the second best reason to actually go out and buy this album instead of downloading it is the blotter paper worthy watercolor art work done by Arik Roper.