Have always been a big fan of the Art of Noise.


^^^
Word!!






Got the 7"s this weekend and Let It Bleed today. Records, yay!

Garage Sale Season

Got these LP's for 5/$1.00 at a garage sale, everything for $2.00 even:

Big score was this Steve Reich 4 LP box set that is pretty awesome. Vinyl is clean but the box is pretty chewed up. Literally. Looks like the lady's dog got a hold of it.

Got this Philip Glass box set as well.

TWO copies of this John Hassell "Fourth World" joint! Maybe I can flip one for $10.00 on eBay?

This set off my spidey sense for some reason.

A bunch of other shit that probably sucks but at 20 cents a record you have to gamble. The Steve Reich was the score though, this is a really nice record. Maybe its on Spotify? Stay strong, true believers.

dc

Unholy Crap

From the Glowing Raw site:

"

Farewell to Glowing Raw

Dear friends,

Due to the increasingly hostile online file-sharing landscape, and the recent takedown of nearly all my Mediafire links in the wake of the Megaupload catastrophe, I have decided to cease posting on Glowing Raw.  I have been doing this for nearly five years now, and feel that I have accomplished what I set out to do: share the music I love with thousands of people, and spread the word about many great bands that have been unfairly marginalized in today's musical economy.

It has been great sharing so much music with you over the years, and hearing back from many of you about records that made an impact.  I feel proud of this site, and never imagined that so many people would come to use it as a resource.  Thank you for reading, and listening. 

If you have anything you want to say to me, please email me at glowingrawrecords@gmail.com.  If I begin a new project or website, you'll be sure to hear about it.

Alex"

Holy Crap!

Death Grips is on a major label!  They were signed to Epic by L.A. Reid!

Can't wait to hear this.

Record Store Day

Merry Record Store Day! I can't make it into the city to see Black Dice and Fourtet DJ at Other Music and to buy some limited edition swag to sell on eBay... But i did hit up my local spot for the cause:

Sunday Morning Jazz Stacks:



I swore I would never buy another reggae record, yet here we are...



This Leo Smith LP on ECM looks interesting, and a BB King record for $1.00



Anyone else into Record Store Day? Any scores?

Stay up, playazzzz.

dc

Wackie's Rhythm Force

It's what I'm listening to right now.

How about you?

dc

Ace Records

After a few months of seeking out 12"s and LPs, I went back to 7"s this past weekend. I picked up a ton of great new 45s to keep me satisfied for at least a week or two - a great Little Walter record on Checker, an alternate Argo label 7" I hadn't seen and a few new Chess sides as well - including another alternate label layout from them I didn't have in my collection - being some of the highlights.

There are two records on Ace that immediately rose to the top of the stack. One being Huey "Piano" Smith and the Clown's "Rocking Pnemonia" 7" and the other being Frankie Ford with Huey Smith doing "Sea Cruise." These are some seriously rocking late 50s rock & roll from New Orleans. Smoking! You can hear the huge influence these kind of records had on the formation of ska - just fabulously relentless driving beats. The B-side to Sea Cruise, "Roberta," swings like crazy.





I had one 7" on Ace Records previously - Jimmy Clanton of "Venus in Blue Jeans" fame doing a slower tempo track called "Just a Dream." I liked it enough to remember the label and am glad I did.



Ace Records is now a buy on sight, no questions asked label for me.

Sun Araw Vs. The Congos

I'm clearly a fan of the FRKWYS series put out by RVNG Records, who are "pairing contemporary artists and their progenitors by way of remix, reinterpretation, and original collaboration."

The latest collab is between one of my personal faves Sun Araw with reggae legends The Congos (!!!). Also along for the ride is M. Geddes Gengras, not sure what his deal is, but google searches show him as LA-based weirdo noise maker.

The music is truly smack dab in the middle between contemporary weirdness and nyabingi roots reggae. The whole thing was recorded very holistically, Sun Araw and Gengras went to Jamaica and recorded with the Congos in their studio. Let's just say they were keeping it real.

If you know me, you know I had to get the super limited edition (70 copies made with first 20 given away to friends) version on vinyl, which also came with a DVD showing the making of the album, which was interesting and also pretty inspiring.




It also came with a digital download, so if you are interested hit me up and I'll dropbox it to you, which is super easy to do and free. Peer to peer music sharing for life, yo.

Stay thirsty, my friends.

dc

Sandy Bull

I was introduced to John Fahey by my old friend/boss J R Reed, who ran the Karma Records store that I (and Clark too!) worked.  Before Fahey got the hipster seal of approval from Byron Coley and Thurston Moore, he was a cult figure largely dismissed by punkers and noise heads as acoustic folky shit, and by many folkies as too simplistic and repetitive.  I remember specifically one guitarist who commented that Fahey was "okay, but his guitar work is too primitive, and his songs aren't complex or interesting".  I would contest the second point, but a lot of his recordings (leaving aside some late 60's/early 70's recordings where he was playing frequently and at the top of his game) don't demonstrate a level of guitar aptitude that would normally justify solo guitar records.

Why bring up Fahey in a Sandy Bull review?  In the first place, for better or for worse, John Fahey has defined American solo guitar music since his rise in the sixties, to the point that he has become THE post punk figurehead in that sub-genre.  It's not even that Fahey is all that popular outside the musician's community, and lord knows if there is a manual on how NOT to be a rock star, he wrote it . . . but given his influence on musicians from Leo Kottke to Jack Rose and beyond, and the obvious debt that many who do solo guitar music owe him, it is Fahey more than anyone else who currently defines the genre.

More on point, the comparison highlights the issues that I have with most of what I've heard from Sandy Bull. Anyone who has heard any of Sandy Bull's work knows that above all he was pretty badass on a variety of strings.  On this record alone, he gives good reckoning on bass, electric and acoustic guitars, pedal steel, and (above all) oud . . . often playing along with pre-recorded tracks he laid down and played back on a reel-to-reel four track visible in the back cover photo.  None of this ever sounds cheesy, as it so easily could; and neither does the co-billed Rhythm Ace first-generation drum machine.  Throughout, Bull's playing is simultaneously in the pocket and imaginative, and he pulls of an unusual trick of playing fresh and avoiding cliches while never playing a wrong note.  Indeed, Sandy Bull is exactly what my guitar playing friend wanted John Fahey to be.

The problem is that, while the stringwork is first rate, this album falls short as music: it always sound more like a really impressive guitar demo than finished music.  One song, "Love is Forever", has Bull delivering horrible lyrics in a horrible singing voice, rendering the song completely unlistenable in spite of some good backing tracks.  The other songs, while not travesties like "Love is Forever", are pretty mundane.  Only the first song, an almost eight minute workout on the oud, really catches the ear.  But here again, I think Bull falls short compared to Fahey: when Fahey did old blues or folk classics, he transformed them, made them his.  Bull's oud work, while exceptional, comes of as an earnest attempt to emulate masters such as Hamza El Din.  And, unfortunately, as good as it may be, I will always reach for my Hamza El Din records if I want to hear the oud.

It's not a bad thing to strut your chops on solo guitar records, but it always should be subservient to the musical vision.  Leo Kottke approached Fahey-style American Primitive guitar with monster chops, and he would occasionally whip them out, but he rarely let them get in the way.  Richard Bishop (who, of all current musicians working the solo guitar tip, probably owes the least to Fahey) also sublimates his chops to the music.  With Sandy Bull, it seems he believes that chops are music.  And he is mistaken.

The album is worth listening to.  You may even listen to it more than once.  But for me, at least, it's not sticking.