esotericism and joni mitchell vs. bob dylan

this is a bit of random post, but thought there might be some general interest value here

first off, speaking of esoteric, did anyone catch the review of the new "crystal castles" album on pitchforkmedia today? shit like this makes me want to vomit:

"Crystal Castles may have come on at the tail-end of the blog-house/nu-rave/French-touch mini-rage, but they've now transcended it, moving from scene linchpin to indie stars."

secondly, did anyone read about the recent Joni Mitchell interview where she called out Bob Dylan for being a total fraud? Here's the quote, from the LA Times...

“Bob [Dylan] is not authentic at all. He’s a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception. We are like night and day, he and I.”

Which brings me to one of the most hilarious blog posts I've read in a while, ripping Mr. Zimmerman a new a-hole:

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jwhiteside/2010/04/28/folk-lies-joni-mitchell-outs-bob-dylan/

It's a pretty entertaining read if you've got a moment. To put it into context, this comes from a blog by and for hardcore right wingers in Hollywood, so should probably be taken with a fairly large grain of salt.

ite, that's all i got. Have a nice day!

Radiobutt

down again? are we to believe the claim that somehow music has taken over this dude's life and that he is pursuing other interests? or is the shadowy hand of the web sher*iff at play? I didn't even get to read that guy's interview with the guy who started captaincrawl, and I scored some great stuff recently off Radiobutt, 2.0, including Growing, the new Gorillaz, the new Broken Social Scene, the latest MGMT (really like the title track, a whole post kicking around my brain about the title track...), and now this. bummer.

Momus makes 6 records '87-'93 available free.

Momus. If I could choose the prick to be, I'd choose to be he if only (and this isn't the only reason one should envy his gumption) to have been the guy who produced Kahimi Karie's masterpiece KKKKKKK, getting her to sing about prancing around in print cotton underpants. Perhaps actually making her prance around in print cotton underpants? I love Japan.

I digress.

Momus records here:

The Creation Records

Garage Sale Scores

Scored some good music at a garage sale this weekend. LIke 20 something albums, i think.




This was the big score, Brian Eno box set from mid 80's with all this albums from 1973-1983, plus rarities disc and some other box-only LP. All the records inside are in original packaging with original covers, etc. Score to get at the Garage Sale nice price, and will act as a good bookend for the record shelf. Booyah.



Anyone know what's up with Peter Green? I feel like i've seen this before, the jaguar with the robotic font. This record is real good, kind of early 70's white boy blues vibe.



I never knew that that part of first Tortoise album where a robot voice is saying "Monday... Tuesday... Wednesday.." is actually a sample from "The Who Sell Out". Huh. Did they clear that?



This is a solo joint by the guy from Tangerine Dream, so its all super mellow ambient synth tunes with water drop sound effects in back ground. Pretty good, think i'll find samples on it.

dc

p.s. went and saw Tobacco of Black Moth Super Rainbow fame with EJ last night. Pretty wacky, it was good. We had no idea what to expect.. 5 man band? Solo? It was basically him playing a bass, a mic, and a lap top, and some chick who looked like his girlfriend or something doing some kind of compuer/effects thing, and massive crazy visual component with footage of like 80's pornos and random infomercials and the like. here's an example from YouTube.

Blayyter.

I've been really enjoying releases from Jahtari recently. I think I've mentioned this label on here before. They're based in Leipzig, Germany and release dubby, reggae-ish computer music (ha! I suck at describing things! ...and spelling) that encorporates video game sounds among other things. They have a bunch of free downloads at their website - http://www.jahtari.org/

Esoteric

hahaha, in preparation of the esoteric post i'm going to drop later, check this article out. This is a *joke* article, people, but now I know what it feels like to read some of my posts. And it is bitter sweet....

The Morning Benders

Really into this album by The Morning Benders, a bay area band. They sound a bit like the Fleet Foxes and Broken Social Scene. Actually, even more than BSS, they sound like the BSS guitar player's side project, Apostles of Hustle, which is another cool band, if you haven't check them out.

And, predictably, I love Robert A.A. Lowe & Rose Lazar, "Eclipses", which DC got me hip to off Thrilljockey, anything ambient, weird electronic, I'm all about.

Long Fin Killie

I've been a big fan of Luke Sutherland's band Bows since I picked up their second and final disc, Cassidy (Too Pure 2001). And, though I have almost bleached the ones and zeros off that disc with 10 or so years of laser light and overplay, for some reason I never went back and checked out his previous band Long Fin Killie. Not until this week, that is, when a recently discovered blog that a friend had led me to to grab an amazing array of live and vinyl-only Shellac material surfaced the first record, Houdini, and I groggily hit play on my way to work yeterday.

(On a side note, what's with the internet these days? It's a crackdown chill like the end of the Cultural Revolution- great blogs are dropping like flies on a dry evil wind. The site I found Houdini on is gone now.)

Long Fin Killie was 3 records in 4 years- '95, '96, '98. Two of them here. Some other stuff here. It was post-rock guitar squall and free jazz and spoken word. This guy says it was the reason Mogwai formed. Sutherland also played violin on Mogwai's Young Team, so there may be some merit in that. I'm giving Houdini another close listen today, then it's on to the others. What do you guys think?

content

What's up, dudes. Nothing especially blogworthy to report, but the site is hurting for content, so here are a few random records that happen to be on the shelf next to my computer.



Garcia's first solo album from 1972. Really good. Even though it has Dead classics like "Sugaree", "Loser", and, my #1 Dead jam, "The Wheel", it also has some bugged out spacey interludes a la Beatles "Number 9".



Tonto's Expanding Head Band? Where did I get this? I don't what the fuck this record is about. It has some good samples, crazy synth moog I think.



Ten Years After, "Stonedhenge". This is really one of my fave albums, this shit is so good. So good i captaincrawled it for a link for your convenience. This is actually like the third copy of this I have. I would always find it at Garage Sales and shit but the copies would always be trashed. Finally I scored a clean copy.



First album by The Rapture on white vinyl on Sub Pop. I know it is kind of esoteric and douchebaggy to always say "i like their early stuff", but, yo, I do like this album the best, it has that disco funkiness buried somewhere, but so aggressive and rough. DFA and James Murphy would come along to shine these guys up a year or so later, but this first record is so raw and immediate and sparse, its one of my faves.

Stay up, homies.

D-Nice aka "Strongbow"

MGMT-Congratulations; other random musical thoughts

I'm psyched to check out the new MGMT album, these guys come off well in this profile.

I'm also listening to Tomasz Stanko's "Dark Eyes" right now, and it's hitting the spot.

I've also been meaning meaning to drop a post about Heitor Villa-Lobos for a while, anyone into Shostakovich or just any good, moody chamber-music should captain-crawl that name and dig in.

Finally, a productive afternoon or evening can be spent checking out the list of jazz that this guy makes available on the left side of his blog; Adam Rodgers, a NY-based guitarist, is one of the scores I've gotten off this blog. Ability to read spanish is helpful, but not necessary.

Jonsi

Well... I'm a sucker for everything about this guy's aesthetic. This solo record doesn't veer too far from the Sigur Ros stuff, a bit more English spoken, a bit less grandeur. You can stream it here: http://jonsi.com/go. There are interesting vids there as well. Sigur Ros (and Jonsi) have some serious recording chops; while the band records in an intense studio in Iceland, I think he recorded a lot of this one in his New York apt., yet it still sounds excellent.

Cmn ineed yr hlp

A cool, proggy, post-rocky set of Chicago face-rock by some of my buddies back home.

Das Racist

Check out this post on StreetBoners.com with a download of Das Racist's new "mix tape". That Site has been riding this band's jock pretty hard for a while now. I think some, if not most, of you guys will hate this. It couldn't be more Williamsburg-ed out. But I like it, and even though it is funny/jokey (not something i typically like) it is definitely "real".

I checked out "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell" on their MySpace a few weeks ago and it has been stuck in my head ever since.

Whatever, I'm not wasting any more time trying to hype this one. Check it out, "Das Racist". Enjoy!

dc

Feelin' Krauty

There is an enormous but by no means comprehensive posting of Krautrock & Kosmische put up recently at Glowing Raw. I don't much care for the Kosmische stuff, but listening to Krautrock is what I do instead of going to church. Some excellent stuff called out here, and stuff I haven't heard. Looking forward to hearing the solo Roedelius and Moebius stuff. If you haven't heard the Eno/Cluster collaborations, don't have Harmonia's Deluxe, and haven't heard any of Michael Rother's solo, post-Neu!, post-Harmonia work, most of it is here. Harmonia's Deluxe cover art is included here just for that golden sunset feel.

The Walkmen

Finished off my busy live music week with The Walkmen at the Bell House last night. I wouldn't say that that was necessarily another case of liking a band a lot more live than on the record; I liked their latest album "You & Me" when it came out and I've been listening to it the last few days and got more into it. But they are definitely a great live experience. The frontman, Hamilton Leithauser, has crazy stage presence and an amazing voice; he's got this kind of Dylanesque inflection but he's got more power behind his voice. I like how low-key the band is, unpretentious, cool under-stated style; dude has his shirt tucked in, not everyone in a band has to dress like a hobo. I got the two songs I was waiting on, "In the New Year" and "Red Moon", the former about 2 songs in to the set and the latter as the closing song of the encore. Same understated vibe in the lyrics for The Walkmen; "In the New Year" he leads into one chorus by building up his voice saying "I'm just like you, I never hear the bad news" and the music crescendos off that. In "Red Moon" he sings about darkness settling all around him, you wait for more but you wind up with a minor chords and some low-key horns and you realize that it's all that needs to be said. My friends Cedric and Christina and I were talking about how their music sounds like 50s ballads mixed with indie-rock, and the occasional mariachi horns, perfect for drunken late night walks past neon lights.

New Gorillaz Single VS Old Recoil Song

I want to connect the dots on something I noticed the other day when listening to the new Gorillaz single, "Stylo." The dots to be connected are located in the years 1991 and 2010, respectively, and they are anchored to the 1991 Recoil album Bloodlines and the 2010 Gorillaz release Plastic Beach.

Part I: The Fountainhead

Alan Wilder was one of the synth guys for Depeche Mode during the period of their signature sound- large, clipped orchestral arrangements marked by swells and fat synthesizers. He left that band in 1995 to devote more time to his other more neglected project, Recoil. I had always thought that all the really finished Recoil material was released after Wilder's departure from DM, but apparently Bloodlines was released in 1991. In a lot of ways, this is the logical realization of what some DM songs only hinted at- there is a hard edge and dramatic darkness to these songs that skirts the pathetic, pre-emo tendencies of Depeche Mode, and the swells and synth lines that were cut off in favor of a more pop sensibilities in his more mainstream band are given full, eccentric rein here.

Part II: The Pupil Learns from the Master

While this record didn't make a big splash on American radio, tricks from Bloodlines' arrangements and style were snuck into the fakebooks and back jean pockets of more than one artist since. Notable among these musicians was Bloodlines guest vocalist Moby, whose '99 hit record Play, one could argue, owes the full debt of its popularity to Wilder's influence. You can hear the Wilder style on the orchestral swells of "Porcelain", and, most relevant to this post, Moby's use of samples of black spiritual music throughout the record. If, like me, you thought this Moby record sounded dated when it came out, that it's aping the style of a mid-'80s stadium synth icon sounds like a pretty good explanation as to why, doesn't it?

I suppose it's only fair to give a taste of what I'm driving at. Below is Recoil's track "Electro Blues for Bukka White," a song that's not much more than a proto-industrial drum sequence, a fat and driving synthetic bassline, and a sample of old Bukka White blues tune, "Shake 'em on Down."

Part III: The Gift of Ancient Knowledge Gives the Hero Great Powers

With the release this month of Plastic Beach, Blur frontman Damon Albarn's guest-driven project Gorillaz' new album, I happily have another reason to dig out the old Recoil material and have a critical listen. Why? Because "Stylo," their lead single featuring Bobby Womack and Mos Def, is a cleaned-up, groove optimized, updated version of the song you just heard above. There was always something plodding about DM's, and Wilder's, songs, but this has been corrected for on the Gorillaz record. That extra half-note or whatever it was that was holding up the tempo of Wilder's song is gone on the Gorillaz track, but the allegiance to the basic structure of the bassline on "Electro Blues" is not.

What's that? You say a lot of songs share similarities like that? That pop music only has so many tropes so a song that sounds like another one is bound to come along sooner rather than later? That's as may be, but the similarities go beyond the bassline. Singer Bobby Womack seems to have been recruited because of how much his singing style here mimics the sampled Bukka White on "Electro Blues." Right down to the inflecting flourishes with which he finishes his sung phrases (a few seconds after his first appearance in the song, listen to that spoken "right now," or the "That's what I'm talking about" later in the song), he proves that Albarn had to have drawn influence from Recoil. Womack's flourishes are analogs to White's barely decipherable "and it's like that" utterances at rhythmically opportune intervals in the Recoil tune.

If you don't believe me, have a listen to "Stylo."



Proof that good musical ideas don't go away, but if they're good enough they may go uncredited.

Darkside of the ... Moon?

I've seen this on a few blogs so decided to jack it for ours.

Some guy did a scarily accurate cover of entire Dark Side of the Moon LP recorded in 8-Bit on a Nintendo or some shit. Pretty amazing.

dc