It's reassuring to know that in 2012, I'm still able to freak people out and ruin their lives with the sound (and in this case, sight) of Diamanda Galás. Twenty years ago, this was a ritualistic component of my weekly radio show on WPRB—these days, I just wait for my wife to walk into the room and then fire up this video clip.
"Saint of the Pit" was released in 1986 and is the second piece from her AIDS-themed "Masque of the Red Death" triptych. Further nightmare fuel here and here. Stunning and utterly distrurbing.
After months and months of inactivity around here, you might say it takes balls as big as church bells to slink back into the blog scene with a random Vulgar Boatmen video. And you'd be right. Hello, good people of the internet. How've you been?
"Change the World All Around" is far and away my favorite song from their You and Your Sister album from 1989. Like the Feelies, Dream Syndicate, and a million other bands before them, the Vulgar Boatmen updated the sound of the Velvet Underground, but added a measured rural sensibility that never would've worked coming from Los Angeles or urban north Jersey. This live version was recorded (apparently at someone's wedding?) in 1992. The sound is a bit crackly at the beginning, but corrects itself quickly.
Weirdest detail revealed by their Wikipedia bio: The two principal members of the band lived in different states and eventually lead different but simultaneously active versions of groups calling themselves the Vulgar Boatmen. YouTube's got a (poorly mic'd) trailer for a 2010 documentary on the group, though I have no idea if the full feature was ever released.
WFMU's Kurt Gottschalk recently forwarded a link to some amazing footage of The Ex performing live on a Paris streetcorner. Watching it quickly set me longing for the years in which I routinely saw The Ex perform knockout sets at the old Knitting Factory on Leonard Street. Let praise be freely distributed to whomever uploaded this 80 minute knockout video of one such concert, during which The Ex ably demonstrate why they are the single greatest and most inspiring band of current history. Any chance to see them perform live should be seized upon as though your life depended on it. No foolin', they are that good!
I'm sure I was at the Knitting Factory on this night—probably in my customary stance near the other side of the stage, knocking back a Maker's Mark and getting my head torn up in the most joyous manner possible: entirely at the hands of The Ex. The author of the original Blogotheque piece sent by Kurt summates this band pretty effectively when s/he writes:
"[The Ex] started their career in Amsterdam squats at the beginning of the DIY movement, played ten times in every single European and international venue, mixed their rock with the freest jazz, and then rooted it in the heart of Ethiopia. The Ex is a symbol for musical freedom in its most rigorous form."
Bravo, I say! For more written eloquence, check out these words from WFMU's Brian Turner, regarding the band's visit to his radio program in January of 2007.
The Ex frequently rotates the selection of free MP3s available on their website, so definitely grab these favorites while they're still in the mix.
Late note regarding the Knitting Factory video: DO NOT MISS the psycho guitar improv that punctuates the song "Lump Sum Insomnia" (pay close attention beginning at the 58 minute mark). The song is from their Starters-Alternators album (1998) and remains a much-anticipated element of their live show. No wondering as to why!
Direct from WFMU's Digital Dump dynasty comes this utterly blazin' new Wiley track. As has been the case for many other stateside enthusiasts of the UK grime/dubstep phenomenon, copycat artists and samey releases fizzled my attentions pretty quickly. (I'll never forget the first time I saw that first Dizzee Rascal video -- It was in a hotel room in France, and when the track started I was so immediately captivated that I literally told my bunk mate: "Shut up, I'm watching this.")
Under normal circumstances, I am never that rude unless it is absolutely necessary.
Anyway, it's great to see Wiley still at it and continuing to drop epic tracks like this. "Numb3rs in Action" is from the 100% Publishing album, coming this summer on the Big Dada label. More info via Ninjatune here.
I would strongly urge you to watch this ASAP, before it gets yanked from YouTube. It's busting at the seams with excellent archival footage, as well as great interviews with scene kingpins and converts like Don Letts, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Jerry Dammers, Viv Albertine, Dennis Bovell, and Stewart Copeland.
And can I just quickly add how jarring it is for me to imagine life in a place where quality art and culture are routinely celebrated the way they are in Britain? Can you imagine American network television producing a documentary of this caliber on any similar subject matter? The British youth culture fixations of my teens and twenties clearly paved the way for my more recent considerations of media, economics, and the complex paradigms that shape them. Considering the way we live, vote, and spend, is it any wonder that we so rarely feel any kind of kinship with the stories told on television?
In further deference to my new life of being woefully behind the cultural curve, I finally watched "Persepolis", the uber-acclaimed animated French film from 2007, based on the graphic novel of the same name. The story considers the 1979 Iranian Revolution, as seen through the troubled gaze of a young innocent named Marjane. Like many other middle class Iranians of the era, Marjane's parents rally against the US-backed Shah, but end up remorseful over the rise of the Khomeini-led fundamentalist government that eventually assumes control.
The perhaps questionable role of graphic novels and political animation serving as historical documents notwithstanding, Persepolis recounts an exceptionally complicated series of events with admirable skill. The characters, especially Marjane and her grandmother (voiced by legendary French actress Dannielle Darrieux), are profoundly engaging and often wickedly funny in spite of the film's grave subtext. To the top of your Netflix cue, stat!
I have a problem with any cultural love-fest that celebrates very recent history. Reminiscent of high school students, who, once graduated, almost immediately come back to visit their old homeroom or English teachers, nostalgia for something that time hasn't yet had its way with has always struck me as a rather banal practice.
Nevertheless, a lot of music fans seem to revel in such behavior, and currently haunting their moldy oldies circuit is the spectre of 90s garage rock—a scene which one might argue has barely had time to keel over and become chilly to the touch. And yet somehow, at no one's insistence, here it is again!
At the time it was happening, I liked a lot of its bands and saw many of them perform live pretty regularly. But its more lasting influence manifested in my pursuit of weirdo sounds that pre-dated the Estrus/In the Red/Crypt phenomenon—similar acts who'd come and gone without a tidily-packaged musical movement to be part of.
Fortunately, I was a DJ at WPRB during most of those years, and so had a huge library of old records to dig through for what I then regarded as the missing links between 60s runoff like Back from the Grave, and the more punk rock-influenced sounds of Teengenerate or the Mummies.
The most critical of my discoveries, and the one that's most obviously tarnished my personal aesthetic, were Tav Falco's Panther Burns. Often mentioned in the same breath as the Cramps for blazing a trail into the future with a keenly focused eye on the past, the Panther Burns brought the dark underbelly of American roots culture right into the limelight, yet their considerable role in sculpting the scene that's now being canonized is seldom mentioned. For shame, pop archaeologists!
Equally adept at fuzzed-out rockers like "Cuban Rebel Girl" as they are at incorporating left field influences like beat poetry, fringey visual arts, and tango (!!), Panther Burns have never been easy to pigeonhole, and it's a safe bet that no one's ever going to emulate the full breadth of their expansive oeuvre. The band's catalog is fairly huge, and Wikipedia does an exceptional job of breaking down their long history. But for newcomers to the party, definitely secure yourself a copy of Behind the Magnolia Curtain (Rough Trade, 1981)—far and away one of my most frequently returned-to LPs of that era.
Use this player to hear "Cuban Rebel Girl"—probably one of the more badass songs to rattle your cage this week—and then check some epic Panther Burns video after the jump.
Not many people my age routinely deploy an appreciation for the band Rare Earth, but I have always, always, always loved the song "Hey, Big Brother". This live version, recorded during 1974's California Jam concert (which also counted Deep Purple, the Eagles, and Black Sabbath in the lineup) does a pretty effective job of demonstrating why, even through the thicket of handlebar moustaches and ubiquitous helicopter shots of the sprawling crowd (now alleged to have been several hundred thousand strong.)
Rare Earth, in case you don't know, were among the first all-white acts signed to the Motown label. At their best, they were a funk-rock act that tread smoother, more accessible waters than the James Gang. They had a string of hits in the early 70s, but are probably best remembered for their cover of "Get Ready", which is OK, but doesn't hold a candle to this one. It's nice to see they haven't faded entirely from modern consciousness, as this recent and rather blazin' remix of "I Just Want to Celebrate" from Soundcloud demonstrates.
Watch the video all the way to the end for a short appearance by legendary broadcasting blowhard Don Imus, who strolls through the crowd with the local California police chief.
Imus: "Do you like rock & roll?"
Chief: "Some of it."
Very insightful, Don. Than you for your ongoing commitment to broadcasting excellence.
It's odd for a cover song to reveal so much about a band as unique as the Gun Club were. With the exception of the lyrical overhaul, their rendering of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Run Through the Jungle" is pretty faithful, but goes down like a cruel lover with a mile-wide mean streak. The Gun Club's music excels in revealing the dark and inaccessible regions of the subconscious self—leading the listener down a long and dark corridor, they invite them through an unmarked exit, and then turn on them in a frenzy of sexual and sometimes violent depravity. They were scary, self-destructive, and had an air of real recklessness about them—just like all the good things that come from Los Angeles.
Seen above is Gun Club leader Jeffrey Lee Pierce, from the cover of his Wildweed LP—a record that, along with the lion's share of his band's catalog, totally defined some corner of my personal aesthetic. I buy that album every time I come across a cheap vinyl copy in a cutout bin, which, if you know me personally, might explain why you own it. Oddly enough, Wildweed isn't really a very consistent listen. A number of its tracks have aged poorly, but I've always been willing to look past them entirely on the strength of the song "From Temptation to You", which sounds as lonely and desperate as JLP appears in that iconic photo. My wife and I listened to that song over and over again while driving the rural highways from Jerome, Arizona to the Grand Canyon during the Spring of 2005, and it's now impossible for me to hear it without mentally conjuring the eternal nothingness of that barren landscape at dusk. Use the player below to hear it.
At the opposite end of the GC spectrum are the destructo speaker-crankers that most fans adore them for. This isn't a Gun Club primer, just the appreciation of one fan who believes they complete all the important punk-blues circuits better than any other band who's tried, with hooks and snarl to spare. Witness below: the totally unhinged, hoodoo ritualism of "Death Party", in which Blind Lemon Jefferson meets a blown Marshall stack.
All the original Gun Club albums are mandatory listening as far as I'm concerned, but don't sleep on the (hopefully still available) Early Warning double disc of demos, live songs, and previously unheard solo-acoustic Jeffrey Lee Pierce material. I also strongly recommend JLP's Go Tell the Mountain autobiography, if you can find a copy. (Used ones are currently fetching stupid money on Amazon.) Though I haven't read it in years, I remember it being a deeply personal and commanding read chronicling the years just short of those which lead to the author's untimely death. Reminiscent of the troubled loners, outcasts, and drunks that inhabit the songs of the Gun Club, Jeffrey Lee's narrative is at times like watching a toilet flush in slow motion. And while it's easy to romanticize anyone after they're gone, JLP's story offers plentiful evidence that he was a guy who really lived it, something that his closest confidantes tend to agree with while in the same breath citing his arrogance and unbridled narcissism as the root of his undoing. Like many others, I still find myself deeply moved by the Gun Club, and I remain in awe of their routine exorcisms of the ghosts down every highway, real or otherwise.
