Sean Noonan

Noonan on the punk-rock/avant-jazz vaudeville tip. Sean is a friend of mine for years and played in the dirty jazz trio the Hub and now primarily does his solo project, Brewed By Noon. I think he's getting a grad degree in composition here in NY at the moment and playing a lot in Germany and just generally freaking motherfuckers out regularly.

Happy new year.  It's been awhile.
I will start this post with some recently acquired stuff that I am enjoying.

Liars - Sisterworld

I checked on-line to see what the official release date of this is, but I found conflicting results.  I decided not to look anymore, mostly because I don't give a shit when it came out/will come out.  The fact is that is is available by dubious means right now, and it is a tasteful blend of drone and bombast that makes me feel like a badass as I listen to it walking down the street.  In fact, the chimey bells near the end of the second track make me think of the chimey bells in the "For a Few Dollars More" soundtrack.  Badass.

Here is the second track.  It is called "No Barrier Fun":

Speaking of walking down the street listening to music, I used to own a pair of Shure in ear/sound isolating headphones that I enjoyed, but one day the left channel unexplainably stopped working.  I reverted to the stock apple earbuds, and while the earbuds are fine, switching from the expensive ones to the stock buds was a decisive downgrade.  Fortunately, the pain is over because I got some new headphones over the holiday gift giving season.  They are Etymotic HF2s, and they are pretty sweet.  If you don't mind jamming little things in your ear to seal out the outside, these come highly recommended.  Some say that they don't have enough bass.  Others say they are accurate.  I say that listening to big muffy headphones with bigger drivers in them sounds a bit better, but I don't always want to walk around with the big muffies.  For those of you who are subway listeners, you will be pleased with their sound isolation performance.  I like mine very much.    

Broken Bells - Broken Bells

I've also listened to Broken Bells a few times.  If you like the Shins, you should check it out.  As far as I know, Broken Bells is James Mercer from the Shins and Dangermouse.  It's better than the last Shins record.  I feel like someone had told the band that that album had to be a modern masterpiece, and they got all stressed out about it. Unfortunately, it ended up sounding more like a tinkered with James Mercer solo project than a solid band effort.  Broken Bells is smoother, the songs are good, and it sounds as if it came together naturally. The poppy songs are well accompanied by the synthesizers and sequencers that provide much of the music.  Some of the production is quite elaborate, with dramatic chorus style back up vocals, but it sounds good.  Here's a sample.  It's called "The Mall and the Misery":




I've always been bad making these kinds of lists, but here are some choices from the past year in no particular order.  I'm sure I'm neglecting some important stuff, but I already told you I was bad at this:


Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
Circulatory System - Signal Morning
Zu - Carboniferous
Sunn O))) -  Monoliths and Dimensions

Here are a few that I thought were from 2009, but were from 2008:

The Go - Tracking the Trail of the Haunted Beat
Dead Man - Euphoria
Dungen - 4


That is all for now.  Have a lovely year.

Jim

Midlake - Courage of Others

I'm sure I'm not the only anticipating this: http://zak425.blogspot.com/2010/01/midlake-c0urage-of-0thers.html

Mississippi Records/Tapes

Part One: Mississippi Records.

For the longest time I wanted to check out Mississippi Records. I always saw them shouted out in interviews and in cool magazines, but I never got around to it. Then, Quentin Tarrantino movie style, flash back to like 2 years ago, on the way home from work I stopped in Beacon's Closet, a thrift store in Brooklyn, and picked up this LP "Life is a Problem". No details, totally random, but cool packaging and amazing old school funky blues gospel shit from the 30's, plus a bonus 7". The whole thing had a certain vibe to it. Then a few months later I pick up a few other LPs that always had that same kind of vibe... "Washington Phillips" and "I Can't Stand To Live In This World Anymore"... I always dug those LPs. Well, turns out I have a Mississippi Records record collection like 5 LPs deep. They even did that Phillip Cohran reissue from a few years ago. That thing is awesome.

Part Two: Tapes

Another thing I got into in 2009 was the tapes scene. hahaha, records were no longer esoteric enough for me so I had to get into cassettes. Next is 8-Tracks only, then reel-to-reel machines. But seriously, i have a tape deck in both my cars and the busted-ass speakers sound just as good with the analog tape vibe as CDs, and I score cassettes at Garage Sales for like $.25 a pop... Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, shit like that usually, but last weekend I got all these old school Sonic Youth and Velvet Underground tapes at an Estate Sale. The Velvets tape has a nasty cigarette burn in it, it adds to the sound somehow.

But mainly when I'm talking about the tapes scene I'm talking about bands like The Skaters, James Ferraro and all his many side projects. LA Tape scene like The Smell type bands on Not Not Fun, etc. Sun Araw, Emeralds (forgotten best of band from 2009), Sunburned Hand of the Man, shit like that. This Blog has a million cassettes. There are a million blogs like this. Also, at Other Music they always have random, limited edition like 100 print run of cassettes from lo-fi underground Brooklyn labels for $5.00 or less.

One of the main reasons I've been into bug out music like this is because I do a lot of it in my Kid Scooba project, which is my favorite music project of all time (sorry, Monastics). I actually got around to taking some of my recent jams and making my own cassette because I'm gay like that. Check it out, holla at me if you are interested because it really is dope if you are into this type of music, plus the hand made one-of-a-kind cover, you just have to promise not to sell it on eBay. I may digitize it some day, but it won't fit on a CD because it's 100 minutes.

Check you when i check you. DC OUTT OUUT OUT!!

Kid Scooba Rig:

Even more thoughts on the music industry....

Here's a really interesting article on NPR's website about digital technology, overuse of compression, and recorded music's economically driven trend to get louder and louder. I have to say, I completely agree with the article...

http://tinyurl.com/y9an23a

More thoughts on the music industry

This essay in today's NY Times I thought captured some of the discussions that we have on this blog about music, piracy, worth reading. I posted about it on another site as well, a discussion group called the Junta that a few people on this blog have been to, and which anyone in the NY area who posts/reads this is welcome to join, just reach out to me via DC.

The Year We Make Contact

R.I.P. Rowland Howard

Damn. One of my favorite guitarists of all time is gone. This is a nice little treatment.



I personally believe These Immortal Souls was one of the most underrated bands of all time.

It was a good year to be a Flaming Lips fan

Besides releasing the great, return-to-the-weird Embryonic a few months ago they've just covered Dark Side Of The Moon in it's entirety. I'm sure there will be a few people dismayed by the propensity of an another artist attempting this feat. Personally, I think it's got some great moments. Not end to end perfect but some great moments. The Great Gig In The Sky is probably my favorite. It's got that Peaches chick doing all the whoa-whoa-whoa shit. Definitely worth a captain crawl search.

Best of 2009

This might piss some people off, but the biggest thing for me musically in 2009 was moving totally away from file-sharing services like Soulseek to just getting all my music from blogs. Captaincrawl is the greatest thing since, uh, not sliced bread... how about porn? Yeah, that works. I can find almost any album with a little digging and it's amazing to be able to experience so much music. Right now I'm on a quasi-working from home/staycation here in NY and will be downloading my face off (finally got the Rapidfire premium service...) all week from the "best of" lists off Pitchfork, NY Times, Time Out and elsewhere.

In terms of my picks from 2009, no surprise that EJ and DC captured a lot of what I've really like this year. I'm not going to list Black Moth Super Rainbow or Tobacco, or Kurt Vile, but I gotta include Mountains. I don't think the following list is any particular order, just some observations on my favorite albums this year or artists I discovered this year.

Mountains, "Choral": Great album, captured a lot about how I feel about music right now, the title track is a kind of perfection, by the end of it if you close your eyes it sounds like God breathing. Heavy, and beautiful.

Jim O'Rourke, "The Visitor": So hard to pin down what this album is, just one 38 minute long track, it's elusive and amorphous, and I don't get tired of listening to it. He recorded it in his apartment in Tokyo.

Juana Molina: I got hip to her music this year and listened to her non-stop basically all through August, massive crush on her, love her story about how she was a huge comedian in Argentina and then started playing original, inventive music, she's a true artist.

Tortoise, "Beacons of Ancestorship": These guys just get better and better. One of my favorite bands, I hope they stay together and make music for years to come.

Bonnie "Prince" Billy, "Master and Everyone": I like most of his albums, but this one is my favorite, dark, anti-social and mysterious.

Dirty Projectors, "Bitte Orca": A totally original, wild indie-rock album, you can hate on them if you want but this is a great record.

Grizzly Bear, "Veckatimest": Another great record, I liked their first few albums but they have really grown as a band this is a great listen all the way through.

Colombia! The Golden Age of Discos Fuentes

Oye mis amigos! My Latin musica adventure continues with this release from Soundway Records. 20 tracks of Cumbia, Gaita, Fandango, Salsa and Champete. All tracks are from 1960-1976. The standout track for me is Fruko y sus Tesos, Improvisando. Champeta is a style native to Cartegena and is a hybrid of Calypso, Reggae and West African sounds. Yo pienso este disco es 4 out of 5 guitars for the rating. Latin percussion and brass all over the place. Viva Colombia!

I Won't Play Sun City!

Little '80's joke for y'all. Okay, very little.

Anyway, Bigfatsatanist just put up a shitload of skronk from the Sun City Girls, including the ol' posse's fave, Horsecock Phepner. You have GOT to check this out.

Happy New Year!

MMW

FILE THESE UNDER NEW THOUGHTS ON OLD CLASSICS:







Let's not forget Medeski Martin and Wood. Everybody in this band is a fucking monster. Medeski is downright nasty on the organ. One of my fave bands.

dc

Very nice score for $1 at a flea market. Recorded Sept 9th 1958 in Washington, DC.

My favorite releases from 2009 are:

Afrikan Simba - Power in the Word / Protect I 12"

I love this record a little too much. Nice rootsy release from Afrikan Simba. Jahtari is putting out some great reggae music right now. I have about three more Jahtari 12"s and LPs in the queue for my next purchase.


The Orb - Orbsessions Vol. 3: Baghdad Batteries

A nice balance of Fehlmann and Paterson on this one. The second half of this CD really shines. The best orb album in a while.

Spider and the Flies - Something Clockwork This Way Comes

Something about this release really appeals to me. Nice mellowish electronic music.


Paint it Black - Surrender 7"
Paint it Black - Amnesia 7"

Someone I know is into this kind of hardcore and buys a bunch of it on vinyl. He doesn't have a record player so I transfer them for him. I've grown to like this band. The lyrics can be dopey at times and the singer kinda sounds like Henry Rollins but I enjoyed these 7" a lot and their 2008 release "New Lexicon."


Liquid Wicked / Twisted - The Governor / The Superpowers

Dubstep. I'm kinda new to the style but love the bass on this one. The B side is especially nice.

That's all I've got. I tried to listed to new music in 2009 and succeded for the most part.

Cheers! Happy Holidays and all that....

Souled American

One of the great unsung Chicago bands. A big fave from back in the day and something I always enjoy immensely whenever I revisit it. A definite must-check-out for anyone with any Alt-Country, Roots, or Outsider leanings.

They're kind of hard to describe, some people mention acoustic Dead when talking about them, but I am not the person to make that call. The word deconstructed was also used a lot in press. They seem to be John Prine fans, and somewhere I heard they started out as a reggae band. It features some very peculiar bass playing that sticks in my head for days after I hear it. If that piques your curiosity you can get all their stuff here, Their debut "Fe" is my personal pick for nostalgia but "Flubber" and "Around the Horn" are also very, very good and perhaps better starting points. You'll know pretty quick whether you're in or not, and if you're not you'll probably be mortified.

On their last three LPs "Sonny", "Notes Campfire", and "Frozen" the music gets purposefully sparse and even slower, and the atmosphere gets worked to an almost post-rock like quality, which I think is a pretty fucking cool thing for a band that covers "Rock that Cradle Lucy" and "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain". I would be curious to hear what you guys think of it.

Year End

Been so busy at work i'm barely listening to music at all lately.

I went back through the blog and here are my 2009 recaps:

*Album of the Year:
1) Kurt Vile "Constant Hitmaker" on Woodsist
2) FIrst runner up, Mountains "Choral"
3) Second runner up, Merriweather Post Pavilion

*Best Funk Blog Score: Tie between Roger and Human Body and Madhouse

*Best YouTube clip of the year: That Carl Sagan Remix. I watched that a million times.

*Best thing i experienced on the internet in 2009: http://thru-you.com/

*Best Catch Phrase: Keep fucking that chicken

*Best Album downloaded by me in 2009: Colin Wilkie and Shirley Hart, that just really is an amazing cd to me and has become all time classic.

*Best tip-off from a blog member: Goes to............ TJ River tipping me off to Black Moth Super Rainbow.

Check you in 2010 fellas.

dc

too good to not share....

http://decrepittapes.blogspot.com/

gentlemen, start your downloads

JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound

Finally going to post something, sorry it's taken me so long. Here's a great find out of Chicago that I've been listening to lately... Old school soul and r&b... Finally something fresh that makes me wanna dance!!!

The debut by JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound. The record definitely begins on a high-note with the title track "Beat of our own Drum", and perhaps the only track that comes close in intensity is "Baltimore is the new Brooklyn" still the record is worth a solid play through.

Recommended viewing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8HRTTUiko4

It's for some kind of tv program called "chic a go go" and while it's absolutely ridiculous, it's also totally perfect in the sense that it's in keep with the whole throw-back vibe of the band as it evokes the videos of "Ready, Steady Go" programs Otis Redding was featured on numerous times. Hilarious!


It's old-school but it's fresh... definitely wanna catch them when they come to europe.

Buddy Miller "The Best of the Hightone Years"

Don't know if Buddy's been discussed here before, but if you're not familiar with him I recommend you become so. I've seen him a few times, but finally downloaded a record "The Best of the Hightone Years" from emusic. He writes tons of songs with his wife Julie that are recorded by just about every "country" act of note--generally good country, not crap country. His own performances are, I think, much better. He's also kind of character and half (check out the Townes documentary). As I age, I develop a soft spot for some of this high-brow country shit (Miller, Lucinda, even Dolly Parton's more "authentic" records).

Jack Rose-RIP

I've been away for a few days and my man EJ let me know the bad news that Jack Rose died. Before I say anything about that, WTF? I have the last two posts up here, then DC , then EJ, it's like a Monastics forum, I hope some other people chime in.

Anyway, just gotta give a shout out to Jack Rose who was one of my favorite guitar players, a guy whose albums I would listen to late night; you can't go wrong with "Opium Musick" or "Raag Manifestos"; I could listen to those albums every day, they are as natural as breathing, just an idea of music. He is from the Jack Fahey school of open-tuning guitar music that is frequently improvised off of a general idea, not unlike some of the jazz I like best, and with elements of eastern music mixed in. I've always hoped I would be around one night when he was passing through NY, I wanted to see him do what he did, but I guess that ain't happening, dude's dead at 38 from a heart attack. I heard Thurston Moore attended his memorial in Phily the other day (JR was from Virginia). Life's too short and the good die too soon.

Miles electric: a different kind of blue

Watched a great documentary on Miles Davis' electric period last night. It featured interviews with with many of the players and some key critics about the period when Miles shook the jazz world with "Bitches Brew" and all those crazy albums that followed. Really cool commentary by Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Herbie Hancock and, in particular, Carlos Santana. The documentary culminates with most of Miles' unbelievable set from the Isle of Wight festival, when Miles' band played for around 600,000 people, calling it the zenith of jazz popularity. Highly recommended if you're into this era of Miles' catalog.

Brendan Benson (Here We Go Magic)

Going to put together a "best of" list some time, but had to post about the show I caught Friday night, another really good one at Le Poisson Rouge. Brendan Benson, who plays in the Raconteurs, has a good solo career going and there was a really good buzz about his show. Some fired up Asian girl told me when I was trying to get a beer that "he's like all the Beatles rolled into one!" I don't know about that, but he writes good songs, and if you like some of the Raconteurs stuff, you'll probably dig him. I was actually thinking through-out the show about who the music sounds like and I came up with Elvis Costello, Elliott Smith, Wilco, and then they came out and did "American Girl" as encore with opening act Cory Chisel joining on guitar and vocals and the place went nuts, great time. I know Bill Z. was looking for a good indie band fix, captaincrawl him and check out "Alternative to Love" and "My Old Familiar Friend".

BTW, anyone check out Here We Go Magic, dumb name, but good band from Brooklyn, kind of the Animal Collective tip, really cool actually, I think I got it on Radiobutt.

records

while i was repairing my tapan (Macedonian folk bass drum) i got my hands on some Balkan records (mostly on the Balkanton label) and checked them out for Balkan-y inspiration. Here are two of my favorite covers:



Oh then I checked out this gem:

Elvin Jones at the peak of his polyrhythmic powers, 1972, the band's on fire!

Dubious Honor

Hope it's cool, but I'm calling out my main man and sometimes WWALT contributor Matty Varnish for designing an album cover on Pitchfork's 20 Worst Covers of 2009. Hahaha,

The only reason I can joke about that is because Varnish is actually a bad ass with a Grammy under his belt who has designed shit like this:



But then again, he did this!



OH FACE! Hahaha, Feel you Matthew.

Later everybody.

dc

p.s. I picked up the Gaslamp Killer 10", it's pretty dope. I'll digitize it.

2009 recap

fine, i will be the first to post their "best of 2009" lists:
(keep in mind some of these might have been released before 2009...but my list reflects things i first heard in 2009)

records:
1. Merriweather Post Pavillion - Animal Collective
2. Eating Us/Fucked Up Friends - Black Moth Super Rainbow/Tobacco
3. Ambivalence Avenue + The Apple And The Tooth EP - Bibio
4. Dem - Murat Salim Tokaç
5. Choral - Mountains

tracks:
1. Aquarium - Nosaj Thing
2. Ambivalence Avenue - Bibio
3. Kaini Industries - Bibio (Boards Of Canada song, Bibio remix)
4. Moneypenny Goes For Broke - Cal Tjader (Burt Bacharach song)
5. Cordova - The Meters

shows:
Brahms Symphony 4 at Carnegie Hall. Sounds high-brow, but the shit was amazing.

New Scoobie Brothers Joint

Oh damn! Over Thanksgiving my cousin got me hip to the new Scoobie Brothers video that dropped on the YouTube. It's dope, 5 out of out five guitars.

dc

I Don't Get It

You know I try. I keep an eye on Pitchfork to try to keep up with what the kids are listening to these days. I have a Rhapsody subscription so I can try the new hotness without ponying up twelve bucks or so for each CD. Every so often, I get a good tip: Black Dice, the latest Mos Def, the first Lupe Fiasco, etc. But more often than not, I'm confused.

So it is with Real Estate (the link is to the review, not the album). I mean, really? I've listened to it twice, I don't hear anything. There is more depth and texture to white noise. Or not . . . can someone tell me what I'm missing?

Apropos the hip hop discussion here recently, I went outside my normal hip hop comfort zone and checked out the new Lil Wayne mixtape No Ceilings (again, the link is to the review . . . my link to the mixtape is dead, though I'm sure it would be easy to dig up). I don't get it. I'll try it a couple more times, but I can't see it hanging around my house until the spring. Maybe someone can tell me different.

I'll try to come back soon with something I like.

The Grodeck Whipperjenny

Did I post this already? David Matthews (not Dave Matthews), arranger for James Brown, did this psych LP in 1970. The story is James Brown said "go make a psychedelic album" to try to capitalize on the hippy flower children scene, and David Matthews went off and did this. It's pretty awesome.

Here is a place to download it:

http://musicalschizophrenia.blogspot.com/2009/11/grodeck-whipperjenny-grodeck.html

DC OUT!

Metropolis Ensemble & Sergey Kuryokhin

Caught a pretty amazing show Friday night at Le Poisson Rouge, on Bleeker street in the west village. Before I say anything about the show, first what a cool place LPR is, they have such an eclectic mix of music. Prefuse 73 did a free show there recently, they had a night of doom metal also recently, and the other show I had seen there was James Blackshaw; I'm always hearing about shows I want to check out there. Whoever curates the place has a great vision. Anyway, a friend of mine told me about the Metropolis Ensemble, he knows the conductor, and I was glad I heard about it. They premiered 4 new pieces by different young composers, each one was amazing, though a few went on a bit too long. Lots of experimentation--the first piece was by a female composer who added vocals that reminded me of a Brian Ferneyhough album I have--and the music often transcended genre incorporate elements of Brazilian percussion, Balinese folk music, and jazz. One of the most interesting shows I've seen in a while.

Still going strong pouring through seventeen green buicks, so deep. I've gotten so much killer jazz the last week or so it is ridiculous. One strange and very cool find has been this solo piano record by Sergey Kurokhin, who I guess was a Russian actor who also produced experimental music. This album, Some Combination of Fingers and Passion, is odd and amazing, swinging wildly from boogie-woogie to avant-garde classical to more traditional, Chopinesque sonatas, to free-jazz. It's challenging but not too much so, if you've liked Cecil Taylor or Charles Ives' Piano Pieces you should check this out.

Cymbals Eat Guitars

I know I'm lame. I stopped listening to James Blood Ulmer decades ago. I don't own anything by Frank Zappa. When a cLOUDDEAD tune pops up on the 'ol iPod I tend to give it a knock to check that it's not busted... Yes, I return to the same well again and again and... Sadly, I'm risk adverse.

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/12826-why-there-are-mountains/

Just got their one and only off of emusic. Pretty awesome stuff in the vein of Pavement via Abe Vigoda via Built to Spill. I don't feel guilty for liking the music of my people: upper-middle-class white boys/men of the early to late gen x period (which, to be honest, probably makes this particular act a revival one).