Nov '07 Archive
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Dickso FJS
More Effort Please Originals 002
Well – we nearly fell down the big-blog-black-hole over the summer. No posts since July!! RRRRRuuubbbish.
Well we’ve been busy parenting, raving, MacBook wine-spilling, moving, love spreading, rain-camping, motherboard destroying, wedding-attending, Mills & Booning and more mundanely, working… depending on which one of us you’re looking at.
Well let’s get back on it. Here’s another original Kams track fresh off the hard-drive.. bit of a late night sprawler – one for tired bum shake 5am kids. Hope you like it!
Keep an eye out – cause I’ll try and be a bit more active over the next few months.
- Kams - Dickso FJS [14MB]
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Bumping For Alteration
More Effort Please Originals 001
A little track of my own for your ears…
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Greg Wilson Live @ The Garden Festival 2007
Holy smokes kids, we got a winner!!!!!!
The legend that is Greg Wilson has been kind enough to furnish us with this killer live mix from the recent Garden Festival, over yonder in that there Croatia….
Greg Wilson – pioneer, innovator and all round good egg. This man’s been at it since 1975, had the first residency at the Hacienda, had a hand in the now legendary Electro series and he’s still goin right strong as you’ll be able to tell from the mix…it’s a total smasher!!! I’m not gonna go on any more, I sound like a geek….JUST HAVE A GO ON IT….
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Twin Beams
Pedal Steel III – Susan Alcorn
Finally I get to finish off the pedal steel trilogy… well worth waiting for though. (Feedburner tells us there are 14 of you now… crikey, someone ring the lawyers!)
The third track ‘Twin Beams’ is by the Texas based pedal steel improvisor/composer Susan Alcorn whose gorgeous solo pedal steel pieces are really worth tracking down.
This piece was written as part of a collaboration that Alcorn had taken part in with Chris Cutler in 2002, accompanying poetry he had written about the Kosovan war. It is also included, as a solo piece, on the 2006 album ‘Curandera’ on Fleece Records, which I couldn’t find for sale online – but should be available by emailing the label I’d imagine. Go on – buy it.
I had a very pleasant and obliging round of emails with Susan – who sent me the track via email last week. After reading that she had previously collaborated with Pauline Oliveros, an artist with a deep understanding of live instrumentation and electrical and electronic processing, I asked particularly about the relationship with electricity and whether the amplification of the steel guitar bore any influence on how she composed. Below are excerpts from her reply.
Concerning Pauline. Yes, I have worked with her, and even more importantly, her outlook on music resonates with me. Pauline’s approach is to listen deeply. She calls this Deep Listening, and she’s built a whole theory of music around it. It’s a more feminine, more round and holistic, way of approaching notes and sounds – listening, reacting to and incorporating everything you hear.
I think Pauline thinks deeply about electricity and its relation to sound. I, on the other hand, don’t really think much about that on the conscious level (though at times I wish my instrument were acoustic – I have played slide guitars for almost my whole life, and I miss the pure and direct sound of the dobro. I do, however consider sound as an abstract quality, though I never really intellectualize it (nor anything else in music for the most part). I try to play my instrument as a partner with respect, listen to the instrument, listen to the sounds inside and outside my head, feel what it is I want to communicate. I’ve played the (electric) pedal steel guitar through amplifiers for over thirty years, much of that in bands at dance halls, so perhaps because of that, I take the electric and amplified aspect of it for granted.
Whatever subtleties come out of the notes I play, are for the most part not related, I don’t think, to electronics. They’re more related to the ways I approach the string and the instrument physically.
Actually (I’m contradicting myself and thinking as I type) amplification plays a big role because without amplification, the tiny little things which become so evident when you hear them on a recording or live are only audible due to amplification. I use a volume pedal and that’s an important part of it. I can use different manners of picking, etc. to help bring out different sounds.
I wrote the ‘Twin Beams’ piece at about 5 or 6 in the morning in Leipzig, Germany for a concert with the Chris Cutler Project. He had written a series of poems related to war, Kosovo, etc. (2002), and he encouraged us to write music for them. We were in rehearsal, and he still needed more material, so I wrote it before rehearsal the day before we were going to play. The piece – written for piano, percussion, three voices, cello, and pedal steel guitar – made use of quarter tones and chord voicings that combine very “consonant” sounding intervals with dissonance – so you have, on the one had a very physically pleasant sound like a major triad and then an extra note or two that is fairly outside that tonality are put in, which to my ears it makes it more interesting. When I play this piece solo, to accommodate the quarter tones, I bend my bar which gives it a more microtonal feel. The sounds that seem to arise from nowhere out of a note are done with harmonics and bar manipulation. This is the steel guitar and the different communities of sound coming out, and electronics plays a part in this being able to be heard, kind of like a microscope does visually, but I rarely think about this. I usually think (though that’s not a good word) about something I want to communicate and go from there. I try to listen and give room for space. So there, to make a short story long, is the answer to your question The short answer, I guess, would be, “very aware, though I rarely think of it consciously”.
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Genius of Love
Tom Tom Club – Genius of Love
Wowser wowser wowser…..
So – been a big couple of weeks, the brain pain has set in…but cripes it was worth it!!
The Garden Festival absolutely rocked – totally amazing from start to finish, amazing sets from the likes of Soil & Pimp, Rainer Truby & Eddy Ramich, Crazy P (big up you massive beauties), YesKing (Salop Massive!!) Phat Phil & the Sick Trumpet crew, Bobby Beige, Tirk boys droppin Disco gems on the terrace, Faith, Unabomber Luke and so many more besides, it were right bloody special…massive big ups to Nick, Eddie and the Crew for what has to be one of the best rave experiences of my life.
All that topped off with a Pirates of the Adriatic Futureboogie megarave boat party – big love to Domu for helpin us smash it right up and big love to everyone who reached on that weekend, you know who you are…smashin…
So with all that love in the room, here’s a little bit of something from that special place….oh my lord, I’m havin an online moment…
Bristol People – come join us at the Park on Friday for more Club Dave Party Action, free entry before 11….
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Lufuala Ndonga
Every now and then, undefinable lo-fi genius comes to town…
Bristol take note – Konono No.1 bring their wall of speakers to Fiddlers on Friday August 3rd. I reckon it might get sweaty.
More on Konono No.1 at Crammed Discs
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Banana Boat Song
Croatia Massive!!!!
Woop woop… setting sail in the morning for The Garden Festival on the beautiful Dalmatian coast of Croatia.
A little festival, only one year old, but it looks like it’s gonna be a little smasher. Loads of wicked DJ’s and live acts, amazing setting and last year it was a right good knees up so fingers crossed everyone’s in for more of the same.
We’re doin a Futureboogie boat party on the Sunday so if you’re there, climb aboard and say hello.
Sunshine days – here’s a little bit of boaty action for you…
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Strawberry Letter 23
Shuggie Otis
Big thanks to everyone who made it down to Hotplate on saturday, it was a blinder!!!
Thought I’d post up some stuff for everyone still suffering from Glastonbury, there seem to be a lot of us out there!
Any chance you could move it to later in the year Michael??
Guess not….
Heard this at the festival and remembered just how amazing it was…
Sundrenched psychedelic soul vibes from way back in the early 70’s from the LP “Freedom Flight”... absolutely amazing stuff, as is most of his material. Although the amount is limited due to his retirement at the age of 22 he’s definitely worth investigating. I have no idea what prompted this but I’m sure there’s an interesting story out there… check out the guitar solo over the last minute or so of the tune, tripped out floaty action (does that make any sense or am I still suffering?) – what a dude.
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Cro Magnon
Cro Magnon – Space Love
Bit slow on the uptake here…
Bloody computers…
For all you Bristol peeps out there – if you’re about we’ve got a new night starting tomorrow at The Tube – Hotplate…
Disco vibes shall be the order of the day – expect an across the board mash up from myself, Lukas and young Christophe
Here’s a little bit of the ever brilliant Cro Magnon to get you in the mood….
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Stoned on Love
“There must be a million things to make a man feel good”
I can’t find anything on the web about Forris Woods other than this track was released on Abbot Records.
So let’s make some stuff up…
Born in 1934 in Wolverhampton, Forris was the son of a local shoemaker. Disliking the smell of leather he joined the circus as a ‘dung boy’ clearing out the animals – this lay the foundations for his future love of mulching and composting, a subject in which he would gain national notoriety for being the first man to say ‘pigshit’ on Blue Peter…
Arrgghgh – just listen to the track.. its great.
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Imitator (version)
Bass warfare
This popped up on my MP3 player on the train to work yesterday and before I knew it I was writhing around winding my scrawny white boy arse in various commuters faces. Bad form.
This is the version with less vocal and more distortion released on a split EP with DJ/Rupture on Tigerbeat6 in 2003.
Low down dirty bum shaker action.
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Little Wooden Church On A Hill
Willie Eason
Pedal Steel – Part IIPsalms 150:4 “praise him with stringed instruments”
Pioneering preacher/guitarist Willie Eason first brought the lap steel into the US Pentecostal ‘House of God’ churches alongside his brother Troman during the 1930’s, beginning a tradition now know as ‘Sacred Steel’, where the steel guitarist plays an integral part of the service alongside the preacher.
Almost unheard of outside the House of God communities until relatively recently the tradition has spawned many notable names including the Campbell Brothers, Aubrey Ghent (whose live version of ‘Praise Music’ is definately worth checking out for a proper hairs-on-back-of-the-neck gospel stomp), Calvin Cooke and Robert Randolph, with the latter popularising the sound after developing a more secular rock/funk orientated style.
The track included here is by the original father of the scene Brother Willie Eason. I know he’s not playing a pedal steel on this track.. its a lap steel guitar, but he played a huge part in creating a tradition that now includes pedal steel players – i’m sure this discrepancy is enough to have some muso pedants frothing at the mouth but it’s a good enough link for me.
The track is also available on the Arhoolie Records compilation called ‘Sacred Steel’ (which also contains the Aubrey Ghent track mentioned earlier) which you can download from emusic.
There are some other good articles covering the Eason brothers and the sacred steel tradition found here:
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Ghostshrimp
Nice and Precise…
More illustration – this time from the hand of Dan James, part of Ghostshrimp.
Again, the site contains a nice shop selling prints/t-shirts/books etc.
Go see.
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Out Of The Blue
BJ Cole
Pedal Steel – Part IFollowing the joys of my little barbeque three-parter i’ve decided to do more of the same, although this time the common theme is based around the Pedal Steel guitar rather than burning meat and warm lager, a lot more sensible I think you’ll agree.
BJ Cole is an official pedal steel session legend, having worked with nearly everyone who ever recorded an album. Check out the list from his own site here to get an idea of how prolific he has been (I mean, come on… Ken Dodd and Jimmy Nail!) but the steps he taken away from the world of pop are where you’ll find his best work.
I first saw him playing with Luke Vibert after the cracking Hip-Hop/Hawaiian/Lounge/Acid album they made together called ‘Stop the Panic’ and it made me wonder at the time why the instrument isn’t played more often in the way Cole does, bearing in mind its seemingly obvious ability to create everything from swooping psychedelia to metallic screeches and shimmering resonance.
The track included here was taken from his website. It’s a piece of music written by current collaborator and cellist Emily Burridge from their album ‘Duets for Pedal Steel Guitar & Cello’ and its about five and half minutes long… making it roughly ten times longer than it took to think up that album title.
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Ninja Mi Ninja
Rougher than Rambo…
Courtney Melody being bloody brilliant. Menace and soul. Soundclash smasher of old.
Thats all…
You can puuurchase this on real vinyl from Juno.
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Share My Life - Inner City
Tunnel Vision
As featured on Dixon’s mighty mighty live futureboogie mix from last year and also dropped by our friend’s at Bump during their recent excursion to Public Life – a converted public toilets in Shoreditch…totally bizarre little club that has always been goin off when I’ve been there – and that night was no exception.
Amazing track – deep, hypnotic, haunting – bloody brilliant: as the man Kenny says ““This is electronic soul music, full of human feeling and warmth”
Too right mon….
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Try It Out
Come alive….
Another scorcher, this one’s been getting a lot of play recently on both the Club Dave & futureboogie fronts…a proper little groover from Gino Soccio, everything about this track is blinding: ace horns, super fat bassline and just enough vocal not to scare you off.
I don’t know much about him, other than he was French Canadian, this tracks from 1981 – I think – and he also put out the killer tune Dancer which was a pretty big number and still gets a lot of club action today – worth a listen if you don’t already know it…
Guaranteed to get them shakin their tail feathers – dance!!!
PS – Big up to Christophe for furnishing me with me this….hot number!!
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Wake Up And Make Love To Me
Classic Ian Dury Action!
Wowsers – technology eh???
Ian Dury and The Blockheads – what can you say about them – and him in particular, that hasn’t already been said?
The whole Stiff story and everything that goes with it is smashing, a truly inspiring label and always worth a check.
I first heard this in a field in Shropshire, the fairest Shire, many, many moons ago and thought : “What the christ is this?”....what a frontman, what a tune, what a total winner. Always in the box, not played as often as it should be but always a killer when it pops…..enjoy.
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Jillian Tamaki Illustration
I’m going to add some visual bits and bobs up here every now and again – hopefully to compliment the musical listings.
First off is the website of Canadian born illustrator, Jillian Tamaki. Which contains some nice free desktop wallpaper downloads in the shop section.
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Birds
Crying onto your mouse mat..
Apparat’s new album ‘Walls’ was released this week on the, sometimes far noisier, label he co-runs with T.Raumschmiere – Shitkatapult.
Indie pop-esque in feeling, mostly due to vocal collaborations with Raz Ohara, but constructed around a sound palatte of clunks, knocks and fizzes (is that the correct pluralisation?). It manages to be emotional whilst not sounding too schmaltzy or twee. You can almost hear him crying softly onto his mouse mat whilst tweaking his MAX/MSP patches. Poor thing.
Aaaaaanyway… there’s more (and frankly better) journo-speak on the Shitkatapult site, where you can also buy it digitally direct from the label.
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Theme from Symphony No. 6
(German classical composer + 60’s American sleaze) x Japanese guitar legend = ON FIRE!
Kapow! It’s a whammy bar spectacular today with Japanese surf guitar legend Tekeshi ‘Terry’ Terauchi and his band The Bunnys (pehaps the best backing band name ever?) playing the theme from Beethoven’s 6th Symphony.
I could’ve tried to say something interesting about all the cultural cross references going on in this record… but I won’t, because it’s boring… just keep your ears pricked for the raucous snare fill at the two minute mark.
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Sample my Sausage
BBQ Part III
Like an unfortunate splinter of chicken bone stuck in the throat, the final installment of the BBQ trilogy takes a full 90 degree tangent into the world of toungue-in-cheek industrial goth rock with Alien Sex Fiend’s ‘Sample my Sausage’, from the album ‘Another Planet’. Woo hoo.. comedy goth – who’d have thought it?
Does anyone need a serviette?
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Cool Ade
BBQ Part II
Part II of the BBQ selection is ‘Cool Ade’ from Preston Love’s album ‘Omaha Bar-B-Q’, recorded in 1969 with Love’s best friend Johnny Otis and featuring the guitar playing of his 14 year old son Shuggie.
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Bar-B-Q
BBQ part I
After a nice afternoon burning dead things in the garden on Sunday, I decided to spread the sunshine joy with a sizzling BBQ themed post, spread over three parts. Best served with blackened fingers whilst wiping the tears away from your smoke stung eyes.
First up is Wendy Rene’s Stax R’n‘B classic ‘Bar-B-Q’, originally released in 1964.
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Flooded
Mark E Smith + Mouse on Mars = Von Sudenfed!
Imagine if Donna Summer had a voice like that unhinged scary fucker in the corner of the pub, was actually an arsey northern white bloke, never brushed her teeth and spent lots of her career verbally and physically abusing her own band whilst playing on stage.
I imagine this will be all over the music press over the next few weeks. So lets roll out the blog with a class ‘A’ non-exclusive track – also directly available from Domino’s website.
We like to set the bar high.
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LSD
“I started using LSD,
it gave me quite a kick.
Better than booze and easy to use,
but it made me mentally sick.”
Wendall AustinA classic from the brilliant but unsettling Wavy Gravy – for adult enthusiasts, which also features Pinky Pinkston, Sebastian Peabody, Moses Longpiece and Senator Everett McKinley. Obviously.
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