Lost in the Grooves

Moving House

2006-04-28T08:53:00.000-07:00

Editrix Kim will be taking her future LITG postings to the new and improved Lostinthegrooves.com, currently featuring great lost albums and a couple dozen ace obscure music bloggers.

Users of feed readers can subscribe to Kim's blog here.

Or just pop over to the site and poke around.

First Nick Sylvester, then this

2006-04-19T16:32:00.000-07:00

Tis the season for petitions. Chuck Eddy was let go from his music editor position at the Village Voice yesterday. Sign here to urge the new owners to reconsider.
***

To Michael Lacey and Andy Van De Voorde of Village Voice Media:

We the undersigned, consisting of music publicists, music people and Village
Voice readers, hereby request the reinstatement of Chuck Eddy as music
editor of the Village Voice. The official reason given for his termination
was "reasons of taste." Seeing as Chuck did his job and did it with
efficiency, intelligence, character and humor, to say nothing of good taste,
we find the grounds for his dismissal unreasonable bordering on
incomprehensible and ask that he be restored to the position he has occupied
for the last seven years.

Village Voice senior editor and rock critic Robert Christgau said of Eddy,
"There have been many good music editors, but Chuck Eddy was the most
efficient, most professional I worked with. He was fabulous to work with. He
was the only editor who got his sections in not on time, but ahead of time.
He was so easy to work with. He was great."

Since Village Voice Media assumed control of the Voice in November, Chuck is
the 17th employee to leave the paper, either by resignation or termination.
It is clear that the Voice is being made to change in ways that are
rendering it indistinguishable from every other weekly in the country. Chuck
had been writing for the Voice since 1984, it was voices like his that made
it the paper what it was. Their loss is our loss.

Respectfully,

Mark Gorney - Worldisc (www.worldisc.net)
Josh Mills - It's Alive Media (www.itsalivemedia.com)
Regina Joskow - Universal Music (www.umusic.com)

Zines for Amoeba Petition Success!

2006-04-13T14:10:00.000-07:00

Just one week after the editors of The Big Takeover, Dumb Angel Gazette, Roctober, Scram and Ugly Things posted an open letter to Amoeba Music seeking to get the store to carry indie zines, and after more than 350 kind folks took the time to sign the attached petition (link below) pledging their support, we were contacted by the management of Amoeba's L.A. store with a gracious email offering to work with us to make a select group of high quality indie music magazines available to their customers. Interested publishers can contact me for more information.

The specifics of the zine section are yet to be determined, and it's not clear which stores beyond LA will be effected, but for now I just wanted to spread the good word. It's great to know that sometimes all it takes to get a timely idea adopted is finding the right way to ask. Thanks again to everyone who took the time to sign the petition or forward it, and stay tuned for Zines at Amoeba!

Kim
Editrix
Scram
http://www.scrammagazine.com
http://www.petitiononline.com/amoeba/petition.html

McDonald's History Tour, April 22 in SoCal

2006-04-06T20:18:00.000-07:00

Scramsters are invited to join our pal Chris Nichols as he leads a groovy tour into the secret recesses of fast food history. It's the:

McDonald's History Tour
Saturday, April 22

Join McHistorian Chris Nichols to discover the rich and hidden history of Richard and Maurice McDonald, founders of McDonald's. Travel in a luxury motor coach down Route 66 and into the Inland Empire where you will visit the sites and people that helped form the world's largest restaurant chain.

Tour stops will include a working orange grove, you'll tour a 19th century blacksmith shop where the first automation tools were invented, a visit to the museum on the site of the very first McDonald's. We'll also meet some of the folks who were there at the beginning. From a carhop to the neon man who installed the very first golden arches.

A non-McDonald's lunch will be served at the museum. Snacks and water will be provided. Our story starts when the brothers come to California and ends when Ray Kroc buys McDonald's.

McDonald's History Tour
Saturday, April 22
10am-5pm
$50 all inclusive
Send payment to:

Chris Nichols
c/o Los Angeles magazine
5900 Wilshire Blvd., 10th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90036

or paypal to : mcdonaldstour@yahoo.com

Questions? Call 213-804-4184
http://mctour.blogspot.com

Amoeba Needs Zines!

2006-04-05T22:53:00.000-07:00

Dear friends,

In tandem with my fellow editors of The Big Takeover, Dumb Angel Gazette, Roctober and Ugly Things, I've launched a petition campaign asking Amoeba Music to begin carrying zines in their California stores.

Since Amoeba came to Los Angeles, Rhino and Aron's Records have closed down, leaving us with very few places where independent music zines can be found. Since the management of Amoeba doesn't want to talk with us about carrying zines, we hope we can change their minds by showing them how many music fans would welcome the addition of zines to their stores.

So please, if you are a music fan and a reader of zines, take a moment to click below and tell Amoeba that you'd like to be able to find both in their stores. And spread the word!

http://petitiononline.com/amoeba/petition.html

On behalf of my fellow editors, the artists we review, our printers and folks who like to read in the bathtub, I thank you.

best regards,
Kim
Editrix
Scram

The Cool Die in Sets of Three

2006-04-05T11:21:00.000-07:00

You can stop holding your breath now:

Buck Owens
Nikki Sudden
Gene Pitney

Phil Ochs Tribute, Sunday night in Brooklyn

2006-04-04T09:30:00.000-07:00

Never mind the moribund Ochs tributes. Occasional Monk Mike Fornatale and pals send Phil's songs out into the ether in a spirit of glee:

Come see us play! Raucous Phil Ochs tribute show!

We will be bashing our way [tenderly] through a brace of our favorite Phil
Ochs songs on the 30th anniversary of his death, April 9 (Sunday) at 8PM.

KEEP READING!

We've been to Phil Ochs tribute shows in the past. (OK, if you haven't, then
just play along.) They tend to be a bit morose. Even dire, sometimes.

Yes, the guy wrote some pretty depressing songs, fair enough. And people who
play these songs at tribute shows tend to dwell on the sad, hopeless aspects
of them -- compounded by the unavoidable fact that, after all, THE GUY KILLED
HIMSELF after his muse melted away.

But to us, Phil's music isn't about depression, it's about redemption.
Besides -- you know us, we don't do "morose." We're raising the bar. ;)

In fact, we're going to raise the entire bar (Magnetic Field, Brooklyn --
where else?) about ten feet in the air, on Sunday April 9, at 8PM, with a
somewhat cheery and rollicking set of Phil Ochs songs played as only we would
play
them -- and go ahead and read into that whatever you like.

So come, if you're a fan. Come if you're NOT a fan -- you will be by the time
we're done with you. And get there on time, dammit, you do not want to miss
the accordion solo. Or the red white and blue Buck Owens guitar, or the orange
Burns 12-string -- that's right, orange. If that's not worth your time then I
don't know what is.

Who? Peter Stuart -- bass, acoustic and electric guitars, echoplex, singing,
Ben Franklin glasses. Mike Fornatale -- acoustic, electric and 12-string
guitars, banjo, singing, accordion (maybe) and soulless yuppie accountant
glasses.
Wendy Fornatale -- keyboards, acoustic and electric guitar, no singing, and
she'll probably be wearing contacts. Mike Sinocchi (of The Insomniacs) making
his first fill-in appearance with us -- drums, no singing, no glasses, and
really cool hair. And Mike O'Neill (whom I haven't even met yet -- hope he
comes to
rehearsal tomorrow) on occasional bass. I don't know if he wears glasses or
not, but I'll let you know soon.

Magnetic Field
97 Atlantic Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11201
Directions: http://www.magneticbrooklyn.com

So we'll see you there, yes?

Go See The Fleagles!! Free! Sunday in L.A.

2006-03-28T22:46:00.000-08:00

The Fleagles will be celebrating the release of their new CD "Goodbye to Mars" this Sunday 4/2 at Mr. T's Bowl with a free show. The Fleagles will be playing two sets, and in between DJ Don Waller, Agent 00Soul, will be spinning the platters.

Date: Sunday, April 2
Time: 7pm
Place: Mr. T's Bowl, 5621 1/2 Figueroa, Highland Park, CA, 323-692-3136
Directions: Take the 110 freeway northeast from I-5. Get off on Ave 52 exit, go left. Right on Figueroa. Park in parking lot behind Mr. T's and enter from the back.

Sign Jeff Barry's Birthday Card

2006-03-28T18:06:00.000-08:00

If you love those great girl group records, Andy Kim and the Archies, send a little birthday love out to the genius who made them swing when you sign songwriter/producer Jeff Barry's virtual b-day card. Bubblegum webmistress Laura Pinto says: "The big day is next Monday, April 3rd, and I want to do something special for Jeff's 68th so I've set up a QuickTopic message board just like I did for Ron [Dante]'s birthday last August. Here's the link:

http://www.quicktopic.com/36/H/C3bqPbmPeEPt3

Bubblegum Achievement Awards DVD Release

2006-03-27T17:54:00.000-08:00

October was International Bubblegum Month, a celebration of the chewy chewy sound that stretched from Europe to Canada to Australia, with the grandest of happenings in Los Angeles: the 2nd Biannual Bubblegum Achievement Awards.

Canned Hamm and the Bubblegum Queen performed live and hosted a night of many delights, including a puppet spectacular by the Bob Baker Marionettes, the L.A. premiere of a documentary based on the book "Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth," Abram the Safety Ape's tribute to Lancelot Link, and musical performances from Ron Dante solo and in duets with his fellow Archie (and 2003 Gummy winner) Toni Wine and the Ohio Express' Joey Levine.

Then it was time for the Gummy Awards, with trophies presented to Steve Barri (Lancelot Link, Grass Roots), Ron Dante (Archies), Dr. Demento (radio hero) & Joey Levine (Ohio Express).

Now available: a 71 minute DVD spectacular featuring the highlights from this most pink and magical night, The 2005 Bubblegum achievement Awards Show. Copies are available for $22 postpaid in the USA and for $25 elsewhere. Please send payment in US dollars to Scram, PO Box 31227, LA, CA 90031, or paypal to scram @ scrammagazine . com.

Please note that the documentary is not included in the DVD package, and the puppet show has been heavily edited due to time constraints. Special orders for a second DVD containing the entire puppet show are possible. Email scram @ scrammagazine . com for more info.

I used to have dreams like this...

2006-03-27T09:40:00.000-08:00

...only they were always set in basements.

A small town Ohio family record store, frozen in time since 1970, has finally been sold to the highest bidder. The contents will be on view and passed on to new homes at the Austin Record Convention over the weekend. Gaze upon the photos, drool, and dream.

RIP Nikki Sudden

2006-03-27T09:37:00.000-08:00

Terribly sad to learn pirate Nikki died over the weekend after a show in NYC.

Scram never got a Nikki interview, though we tried. He liked blondes too much to talk to brownette me and Maggot, but we did speak with his compadres David Kusworth and Marky in a little piece we call Drinkin' with the Jacobites.

Our sympathies go out to Nikki's family and friends.

EMP Pop Conference Takes On The Guilty Pleasure

2006-03-26T20:22:00.000-08:00

I like to think that our anthology Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth had a little something to do with giving a bunch of academics and rock critics the nerve to spend a long weekend wallowing in the guiltiest pleasures their devious little minds can devise. It's cheap! Drop by and leave your blush at the door.

For full schedule, click below--

Ain't That a Shame: Loving Music in the Shadow of Doubt
The 2006 Pop Conference at Experience Music Project
Seattle, Washington, April 27 - April 30

Federal Duck S/T CD (Radioactive)

2006-03-24T23:56:00.000-08:00

When I get my time machine working, maybe the eighteenth or nineteenth thing I’m gonna do is port back to the studio where the Federal Duck were making their (I assume—it’s on Radioactive, so notes there’s not) sole album, grab hold of the pseudonymous producer’s lapels and hiss, “Listen, bub, you got an ace mournful New England garage pop songwriter in this George Stavis kid—so drop the rest of the repertoire and focus on the band genius and in 35 years fanzine writers will cream all over this disc instead of giving middling reviews that rely on that tired old time travel gimmick.” The Stavis tunes really are strong enough to recommend the whole album, which when not working this haunting, wintery academic sound ala the Rising Storm plays around with neo-Vaudeville, heavy acid rock, old time banjos and a smattering of head humor, all played with sophistication and imaginatively arranged. Surprised I’ve never heard of these ducks before.

Dream Lake Ukelele Band on Lost in the Grooves

2006-03-23T11:07:00.000-08:00

Dream Lake Ukulele Band is a Lost in the Grooves exclusive. Click to sample the music or purchase.

Dream Lake Ukulele Band
Dream Lake Ukulele Band
(Crest, 1976)

What do you get when you cross twenty-seven ukuleles, a Little Marcy record, and the Langley Schools Music Project? The result is a bizarre hybrid called the Dream Lake Ukulele Band, a Florida school group whose performances are documented on Crest Records, a New York vanity label. The back cover shows twenty-seven grade school aged students, all wearing white shirts and red vests, the boys also wearing neckties. Sound boring? Not when every kid is smiling and holding a ukulele.

The lead-off, “There’s So Many, Many Ways,” is one of the more charming Christian songs around, but I’m sure my opinion is altered by the sheer innocent joy of twenty-seven children’s voices singing in harmony while strumming their ukuleles. That spirit changes a bit though, when the songs veer off into the Bicentennial patriotic songs that fill the rest of Side 1. Such lyrics as "My Sunday school teacher loves me when I am never late" preceded by "God loves when I learn to shoot the gun" makes one wish that the band director would have been cool enough to be teaching the kids David Bowie songs.

Fortunately, Side 2 has the perfect antidote, for that is where the children present and sing their own original compositions. Compiled under headings such as "Wish Songs," "Name Songs," and "Music Songs," each features a progression of five to ten kids strumming and singing solo. These aren’t loud bratty kids singing "Tomorrow" at the top of their lungs, but more often small waif-like girls singing with very timid voices. My heart melts whenever I hear one girl who sings, "I am Mary, I like to play the ukulele" or another girl whose verse starts by saying her parents are always busy, and then proceeds with "Daddy is a band director, Mommy is a piano teacher, I love them." This record is listed as being Volume Seven, which definitely makes me wish that I also had volumes One through Six. (Vern Stolz, from the book Lost in the Grooves)

Are you a member of the Dream Lake Ukelele Band? If so, please contact us!

The Chamber Strings on Lost in the Grooves

2006-03-22T11:49:00.000-08:00

The newest addition to the Lost in the Grooves fold is The Chamber Strings, a Chicago band of the mid-'90s whose soaring orchestral pop art is like the interesection of Bacharach and Tonight's The Night-era Neil Young. Lovely stuff. Sample some tunes or buy a disk when you click here.

John Trubee's Prank Calls CDs, exclusively on Lost in the Grooves

2006-03-22T11:25:00.000-08:00

The latest addition to the LITG music store are four of John Trubee's legendary Prank Call CDs, available for sample or download:

Greatest Prank Phone Calls Of All Time Vol. 1
Greatest Prank Phone Calls Of All Time Vol. 2
Greatest Prank Phone Calls Of All Time Vol. 3
Greatest Prank Phone Calls Of All Time Vol. 4

LITG Seeks Bloggers Of Underappreciated Sound

2006-03-20T22:07:00.000-08:00

Do you have a blog or website that celebrates great neglected music/culture of the sort we honored in the Lost in the Grooves anthology? Are you interested in reaching a wider audience for your writing? Does your site generate an RSS feed, or are you willing to have a feed created?

If the answer to all of these questions is yes, you might be a candidate to join the Lost in the Grooves syndicate. At our new site, lostinthegrooves.com, we are currently syndicating or hosting the writings of 15 pop fiends. Syndication means we automatically republish their blog postings, with all links and images intact, with a link in every post pointing back to their blog. Hosting means we provide the blogging engine and technical support for the writer's blog.

We already have a terrific slate of blogs--including Andrew Earles, Cult of the Week, Domenic Priore, duck stab, Ed Ward, Gary Pig Gold, Hayden Childs, Ken Rudman, Mark Prindle, Mike Appelstein, Tony Sclafani, Tosh Berman and LITG illustrator Tom Neely--and are eager to add more to the roster. So if you are an offbeat music blogger, or you know and love one, please drop a line to me, Kim Cooper, at amscray@gmail.com for more info.

Introducing The Lost in the Grooves Record Store

2006-03-15T22:20:00.000-08:00

I am pleased to announce that after some digital hiccups that derailed
the first attempt at a Lost in the Grooves music store, we've been
taken under the wing of the Maryatt Music Group, and are back online
and in business selling MP3s of individual tracks (99 cents) or full
albums (most are $11.95) for download or as physical CDs. The site is
live at:

http://www.lostinthegrooves.com

I hope you'll stop by to hear samples of tracks by our exclusive
artists, including:

BRUTE FORCE (linguistic trickster and singer of the farest-ever Apple
45)... COSTES (Suckdog's early collaborator, utterly unique Francophone
noise guru) ... FUGU (French one man band orchestral pop majesty)...
THE LEOPARDS (mid-70s Kansas City Kinksy pop legends)... GIBSON BROS
(mid-80s punk-blues visionaries from Ohio)... LIPSTICK KILLERS
(Australian surf-garage heroes, with Radio Birdman connections and
perfect pop sensibilities)... THE ORGONE BOX (one man band from rural
England channeling the most exquisite aspects of 60s pop-psych)... SEX
CLARK 5 (brainy, ultra-catchy Beatlesque pop from Huntsville,
Alabama)... SUCKDOG (post-punk avant-garde opera from the incomparable
Lisa Carver)... JOHN TRUBEE (iconoclastic prankster and deconstructer
of jazz and rock convention). Coming soon, more from JOHN TRUBEE and
discs from THE CHAMBER STRINGS and ROSEHIPS.

LITG music is licensed directly from the artists, and they are paid for
every track sold. And due to our partnership with Maryatt Music Group,
you might even hear some of these tracks on soundtracks or in ads.

We welcome your comments and recommendations, on the LITG site or in
the community forum. We'll be adding new music, plus blogs from artists
and writers, regularly, so stay tuned.

Thanks for your interest in Lost in the Grooves, and for supporting
independent musicians.

-Kim Cooper, Editrix, Lost in the Grooves & Scram Magazine

Eefing on the air

2006-03-13T21:27:00.000-08:00

Inspired by Deke Dickerson's article on eefing in the latest Scram, the always intriguing Jennifer Sharpe turned in a neat little exploration of that weirdly American rhythmic wheeze on NPR's Day To Day. It's archived here.

cult of the week - P'o

2006-03-13T00:52:00.000-08:00

artist: P'o
title: Whilst climbing thieves vie for attention
year: 1983
label: Court Records

personnel: Peter Price (drums, keyboards), A.C. Marias (electric bass guitar, voice), David Tidball (clarinet, voice), Bruce Gilbert electric guitar), Graham Leiws (electric guitar, voice, keyboards)

tracklisting: time and time, back to back, holy joe, earl, vanite, today's version, i will, mhona, blind time, crystal streams

further info: http://www.wireviews.com/

cotw say…

what with the re-release of their first three truly groundbreaking albums, it's time to, once again, celebrate the true post-punk genius of Wire. or at least one of the many solo projects featuring bassist Graham Lewis and guitarist Bruce Gilbert, recorded during the band's 1980-86 hiatus.

conceived initially as a live project (and partially improvised in places), "Climbing Thieves..." was hastily recorded before the band was forced to end. the deadpan vocals and drum machine of 'Time and Time' and thundering bass of 'Holy Joe' are reminiscent of a well-tempered Psychic TV. but although the music is decidedly avant garde in places ('Earl' has a creepy, ritualised feel), the slow-paced and semi-ambient album never loses it's sense of beauty, thanks in no small part to the haunting and strangely catchy 'Mhona'. the unmistakable highlight, however, remains 'Blind Tim', a heavily processed synth loop with oriental embellishments over which David Tidball offers a bizarre spoken monologue. once heard never forgotten.

given such P'o-tential, it remains a disappointment that the album's sound is rather muddy. however, we heartily recommend grabbing your wellies and wading towards it.

erik - http://www.cultwithnoname.com

To do: call Abram the Safety Ape, gross him out

2006-03-09T11:49:00.000-08:00

G O R Y D E T A I L S A U D I O P R O J E C T W A N TS
T O S H A R E Y O U R P A I N

Have a good story about a time you sent yourself to the
emergency room, set your hair on fire, or dropped a shot glass into
the garbage disposal... that sort of thing? Here's a chance to share
your story with the whole world wide web world!

A couple days ago, The Art of Bleeding began recording
stories for its GORY DETAILS AUDIO ARCHIVE. Just call the toll free
number, leave your story as a message, and within an hour or two, it
will be uploaded to our online archive so others can indulge in the
sweet schadenfreude of your most painful moments. More details at
http://artofbleeding.com/gorydetails-about.html.

CALL TODAY! SPREAD THE WORD!!
Listen here: http://artofbleeding.com/gorydetails.html
GORY DETAILS 24-hr HOTLINE: 888-467-8535

Phil Ochs' early albums

2006-03-06T11:52:00.000-08:00

Phil Ochs All The News That’s Fit To Sing CD (Collectors Choice)… The title of his debut record for Elektra and the cover photo paint Ochs as a topical folksinger and songwriter, a somewhat academic observer of his somewhat trying times. He’s already found a couple of unsung heroes to laud (Lou Marsh and Medger Evers), tosses a sweet nod at Woody Guthrie in the memorial tune “Bound For Glory,” but he also has a tendency to preach. So there’s welcome levity when “The Ballad of William Worthy” kicks in, a funny, sing-song catchy chronicle of a reporter who went to Cuba and had his citizenship stripped for the privilege. A promising debut, but stiff.

Phil Ochs I Ain’t Marching Anymore CD (Collectors Choice)… On his terrific second album, Ochs’ no longer comes across as an uptight young singer of issues, but as a loose and inventive composer using the folk/storytelling conventions to express a more personal vision--one that would reach its full flower after he left New York for the reinvention capital of Los Angeles. In the first two tracks, the title song and “In The Heat of the Summer,” he slips fluidly from the role of universal soldier to topical troubadour, explaining the summer’s riots through a sympathetic class analysis married to a lovely cyclical melody. His confidence, intelligence and the sweetness of his voice make him a fine tour guide to the psychic map of young, left wing America in 1965, and its interests in civil rights, the death penalty, division between the states and the rise of militarism. One flat point comes with “That Was The President,” a predictable and tedious dirge for Kennedy, but even that becomes interesting when placed beside the incredibly powerful song “The Crucifixion” that he’d write a few years later, once he’d processed his grief and disappointment and found metaphors to express how important JFK felt to Ochs and his peers.

cult of the week - Delta 5

2006-03-06T00:50:00.000-08:00

artist: Delta 5
title: See the Whirl
year: 1981
label: Charisma

personnel: Alan (guitars, vocals, marimba), Ros (bass, vocals), Bethan (bass, vocals), Julz (guitar, vocals), Kelv (drums, percussion, marimba) and others
tracklisting: innocenti, final scene, circuit, open life, trail, shadow, delta 5, anticipation, journey, make up, triangle, waiting, telephone, different fur

further info: www.comnet.ca/~rina/delta5.html

cotw say…

with a CD compilation finally seeing the light of day this year, it's high time that we reassessed the work of Delta 5. very much part of the English post-punk 'funk' scene, Delta 5 are probably best remembered as a band with two (female) bassists. a band that, sadly, only managed to produce one full-length album before calling it quits in 1981.

syncopated rather than sinewy, and angular rather than angry, 'See the Whirl' is a measured, arty slice of post-punk that has much in common with The Raincoats as it does with Gang of Four. among the album's many attractive features are the highly distinctive, multi-tracked (unilateral) female vocals, which possess a beautifully deadpan, unhinged quality. similarly, the addition of a brass section, not to mention piano, expands the sound considerably and serves to take the band further away from funk to all sorts of places (big band, country, even latin). many will be disappointed by the lack of punch in the production - you would hardly notice that there are two bassists unless it was pointed out to you - but each short, speedy burst is as interesting as the next. highlights include 'Journey' (part of a second side that has slightly more in common with Gang of Four than the first), 'Innocenti', and more avant garde efforts such as 'Telephone' (with its syncopated chorus and cool guitar solo) and the cowboy romp of 'Trail'.

see the whirl. then purchase it immediately!

erik - http://www.cultwithnoname.com

2006-03-01T08:47:00.000-08:00

YouTube goodness for Lost In The Grooves fans: The Osmonds doing "Crazy Horses". DAMN!

Terrastock announcement, April in Providence

2006-02-28T10:39:00.000-08:00

I wouldn't make too much of the " EXCLUSIVE USA appearance!" by Bridget St. John, who has lived in NYC for years, but then again I would because she is exxxxxxxxquisite!

"Terrastock and its audience are part of a necessary support system,
because in a music business centered on the search for the next big
thing, someone has to dig through record catalogues to discover the
next good thing, or search the archives to rediscover the last lost
thing." - New York Times

"A gathering of true believers, somehow combining the retro-obsessed
nerdiness of a Star Trek Convention with the most open-minded and
avant-garde elements
of the indie rock underground, all gathered together under the
genre-spanning umbrella of psychedelia."
- MOCA Los Angeles

TERRASTOCK is the official festival of internationally acclaimed
underground music mag, The Ptolemaic Terrascope (now Terrascope
Online), which has provided a voice to obscure, occult, mind-altering,
and deeply heavy aural explorations since 1989. Since its inception
in 1997, Terrastock has occurred five times, on both U.S. coasts and
in Europe. The festival gathers musicians and fans from all over the
world. The bill features a mix of big and small, wildly popular and
completely obscure, old, new, noisy, and quiet.

This year's line-up of over 30 bands brings performers from four
continents, including Japanese band Ghost (who will be making this
their last U.S. performance "at least until Bush is out of office"), re-emerged 60's
brit-folk icon Bridget St. John, Paik, P.G. Six, Charalambides,
Kemialliset Ystävät, Bardo Pond, Brothers of the Occult Sisterhood,
Kinski, Lightning Bolt, and the elusive grand-daddy of psych folk
himself: Tom Rapp of Pearls Before Swine.

So why are we telling you this? Because Terrastock is and has always
been a just-eeked-out D.I.Y. happening and we need you to help us
spread the word. This is a totally non-profit venture (the bands are not even paid!) but we
must cover enormous airfare, travel and hotel expenses for over 150
performers, not to mention venue, sound and equipment needs. All of this comes from ticket sales and we need your help to get the word out and sell some tickets. Tell
all your friends, or just come yourself!

We're also selling ads in our PROGRAM BOOK and we have tables
available for VENDORS. We are very interested in sponsorship too.
Please get in touch for more info!!

When: April 21-23
Where: Providence, RI, USA
For more information and ticket purchases:
http://www.terrascope.co.uk/TerrastockPages/terrastock.html
Contact: Jeffrey Alexander :: booking@as220.org :: (401) 831-9327

------------------------------
----------------------
Terrascope Online, Secret Eye Records and AS220 present:

TERRASTOCK 6
April 21-22-23 in Providence, RI
Pell Chafee Performance Center and AS220
35 bands! 35 hours of music!
Tickets on sale NOW!
http://secreteye.org/terrastock
PHONE CHARGE: 401-831-9327

Avarus (Finland) **first-ever and EXCLUSIVE USA appearance!
Bardo Pond (PA) ** EXCLUSIVE appearance!
Black Forest/Black Sea (RI)
Brothers of the Occult Sisterhood (Australia) **first-ever USA appearance!
Charalambides (CA/MA)
Cul de Sac (MA)
Damon and Naomi (MA)
Fursaxa (PA)
Ghost (Japan) ** EXCLUSIVE USA performance! quite possibly their
last-ever!
Glenn Jones (MA)
The Green Pajamas (WA)
Kemialliset Ystävät (Finland) **first-ever and EXCLUSIVE USA appearance!
Kinski (WA) ** EXCLUSIVE appearance!
The Kitchen Cynics (Scotland)
Sharron Kraus (England)
Landing (CT)
Larkin Grimm (RI)
Lightning Bolt (RI)
The Magic Carpathians Project (Poland) ** EXCLUSIVE USA appearance!
Major Stars (MA)
Marissa Nadler (RI)
MV/EE Medicine Show (VT)
Paik (MI)
PG Six (NY)
Jack Rose (PA)
Salamander (MN)
St Joan (England)
Bridget St. John (England) ** EXCLUSIVE USA appearance!
Spacious Mind (Sweden)
Spires that in the Sunset Rise (IL)
Tanakh (Italy/Canada)
Thought Forms (England) **first-ever USA appearance!
Urdog (RI)
Windy & Carl (MI)
plus TOM RAPP playing Pearls Before Swine songs with members of Ghost,
Damon+Naomi
and Black Forest/Black Sea ** EXCLUSIVE appearance!

Kick-off show the previous night ("4/20", heh) with ACID MOTHERS
TEMPLE, ABUNAI! (reunion), BRIGHT, and JOE TURNER & THE SEVEN LEVELS,
and AREA C -- at AS220

cult of the week - Manuel Goettsching

2006-02-28T01:13:00.000-08:00

artist: Manuel Goettsching
title: E2-E4
year: 1984
label: Inteam

personnel: Manuel Goettsching (guitar, electronics)

tracklisting: quiet nervousness, moderate start, and cetral game, promise, queen a pawn, glorious fight, h.r.h. retreats, (with a swing), ...and sovereignty, draw

further info: www.ashra.com

cotw say…

to produce an album that is heralded as being ahead of its time is one thing, but to have this happen to an album recorded three years prior to its first release, not to mention one that is essentially improvised (!), is quite something else.

when krautrock legends Ashra Temple's guitarist Manuel Goettsching sat down one evening in 1981 to improvise an hour long piece using nothing more than a guitar and synth sequence, he probably didn't bet on creating the world's first ever trance record. but arguably, 'E2-E4' remains just that. centered around a shuffling drum machine rhythm and a syncopated, melodic bass sequence - with a variety of 'ambiences' drifting in and out of the mix - the album is both totally hypnotic and, which is essentially what sets it apart, defiantly fresh and modern-sounding. indeed, I defy anyone to claim it sounds dated. a whole half-hour has actually gone by before any guitar comes in. even then, Goettsching's masterfully understated playing perfectly suits the backing, which remains fairly static for the album's second half. avoiding even the faintest hint of a 'rock' solo, Goettsching instead plays in a jazz style, with some reviewers even drawing comparisons to George Benson.

heavily sampled by Detroit techno pioneers, and part-inspiring the nineties' explosion in European trance, you heard it here first. classic, classic, classic.

erik - http://www.cultwithnoname.com

Tagged, dag nabbit!

2006-02-27T23:47:00.000-08:00

Adrienne Crew has the flu. And in her delerium, she has smeared me with a meme. And also Arianna Huffington, who I fear will not respond, so it's really the least I can do to tag back.

Four LA Things Meme

Four Jobs I've Had in My Life in LA:

Editrix, Scram Magazine
Exhibition Coordinator, MOCA
LP Shrinkwrapper, The Record Connection
Restaurant Critic, Citysearch

Four Movies About LA I Could Watch Over and Over:

The Cool Ones
Double Indemnity
In A Lonely Place
Meshes of An Afternoon

Four Places I’ve Lived All Over L.A. (with food memories from each)

Beverlywood, and Mama Tina's hamentoshen
Venice, and the cookies with sprinkles free from the bakery ladies just for being cute
West Hollywood, Pioneer Chicken dinner when mom didn't feel like cooking
Lincoln Heights, pistachio-cinnamon ice cream on a hot day on Broadway

Four LA Themed TV Shows I Love to Watch:

Quincy, ME
Dragnet
Where The Action Is
The Dr. David Viscott Show, featuring Dr. D.V.'s ginormous head

Four Places I Would Vacation at in LA:

The Biltmore
With the subterranean lizard people below Chinatown
Inside a revolving 76 Ball
Hotel Green (good enough for Duchamp, good enough for me.)

Four LA based Websites I Visit Daily:

LA Observed
LA Brain Terrain
Curbed LA
Lotta Livin

Four of My Favorite Foods Found in LA:

Chicken roll at 101 Noodle Express, Alhambra
Bean and rice burrito (no queso), Super Tortas, Hollywood
Chili en nogada, Babita Mexicuisine, San Gabriel
Glutinous rice balls in fermented rice mash, Giang Nan, San Gabriel

Four Places in LA I Would Rather Be Right Now:

Under the bell wheel, Museum of Jurassic Technology
Butterfly Pavillion, Natural History Museum
Mathematica, god damn it
Pandora's Box, 1966

Four LA Tags:

Allison Anders
Rodger Jacobs
Larry Harnisch
Jonathan Foerstel

Call for Artists: Save the 76 Ball!

2006-02-27T15:03:00.000-08:00

This is an open invitation to artists who love the 76 Ball.

As you may know, Texas oil giant ConocoPhillips has purchased Union 76, and has been quietly pulling down the beautiful orange and blue 76 Balls and replacing them with ugly flat signs in red and blue. The ball's original designer, Ray Pedersen, is behind our petition and boycott campaign to Save The 76 Ball, as are nearly 1000 petition signers. Our campaign has received coverage on the BBC, LA Business Journal, Brandweek, OC Weekly and KIRO radio Seattle.

ConocoPhillips refuses to talk with the media about this issue, so you can bet they won't respond when we ask them to confirm or deny the rumors that the removed 76 Balls are being SMASHED INTO TINY PIECES. Since they are so secretive, I feel it's up to the artists of the world to show what's happening through the magic of pen, ink, Photoshop, etc. This is your chance to show what the powers that be don't want us to see--just like Goya, Gericault and Picasso!

If you'd care to contribute an image to the campaign, I would love to share it with the world on our website, along with a bio and link to your website. We got 51,000 hits over the past month, and I'm continuing to alert the media, so this could be a cool way to show your work off to gearheads and design fiends.

Please pass this on to anyone you think might be interested. Any help or suggestions you can offer would be greatly appreciated.

best regards,
Kim Cooper
Editrix, Scram Magazine
and chief troublemaker, Save The 76 Ball
http://www.savethe76ball.com

L.A. Radio Wackiness

2006-02-25T11:38:00.000-08:00

Leaning over at the counter at the EZ Lube to read the costs on the screen, I saw the name of the other gal waiting for her car to be greased: Tina Delgado. My god, she really is alive!

Also: over on Franklin Avenue, Mike is sharing some vintage printed radio surveys for KFWB and KHJ.

Best Living Songwriters poll

2006-02-23T16:06:00.000-08:00

Paste Magazine is taking a reader poll of the greatest 100 living songwriters (and songwriting teams), and you can click over and pick your top 20 now (look for the link at the middle right of the page). Write-ins are encouraged, so be sure to correct the obvious oversight of leaving Scram faves Deniz Tek, Scott Miller, Brute Force and John Parker Compton off the list.

Here's my picks (and I am sure I'm forgetting someone I'll regret); if you vote, please list yours on the comments below:
1) Alex Chilton
2) Arthur Lee
3) Barry Mann/Cynthia Weil
4) Brian Wilson
5) Carole King/Gerry Coffin (sic!)
6) Colin Blunstone/Rod Argent (they forgot Chris White, but I ain't blowing a write-in on one Zombie!)
7) Ellie Greenwich/Jeff Barry
8) Jeff Mangum
9) Jimmy Webb
10) Joni Mitchell
11) Pete Townshed
12) Ray Davies
13) Roky Erickson
14) Steve Earle
15) Peter Perrett (Only Ones)
17) Scott Miller (Game Theory/Loud Family)
18) Brute Force
19) John Parker Compton (Appaloosa)
20) Deniz Tek (Radio Birdman)

Brute Force, Monday night in NYC

2006-02-22T19:22:00.000-08:00

Scram fave Brute Force in a rare (in all senses of the term) performance:

Gramercy Park South Brutegig!!
Monday, February 27, 8PM
at the famous Players Club
16 East 20th Street

http://www.brutesforce.com/

cult of the week - The Creepers

2006-02-20T00:41:00.000-08:00

artist: Creepers

title: Rock 'n' Roll Liquorice Flavour

year: 1987

label: Red Rhino Records

personnel: Marc Riley (vocals, guitar, drums), Eddie Fenn (drums, guitar, piano), Phil Roberts (bass, vocals), Mark Tilton (guitar), Simon Taylor (guitar), Mike Gallagher (saxes), Jon Langford (guitar), Dick Taylor (guitar), Eric (accordian)

tracklisting: liquorice flavour, sweet retreat, cheshire life, rosalyn, derbyshire, tearjerker, fillet face, 'cept for you, fan club, act your age, bastard hat, curl up and dye

further info: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/s.bending/creepers/index.html

cotw say…

guitarist Marc Riley had his very own music industry baptism of fire by managing to remain a member of The Fall for a whopping 4 years. his post-Fall outfit, The Creepers, gradually grew in confidence with each of their five albums before finally calling it a day on this, their final, but greatest effort.

comparisons with The Fall are inevitable, but - with the exception of 'Fan Club' - unfounded as The Creepers' sound(s) is far removed, if still resolutely 'Northern'. Riley & Co. explore a far wider palette of sights and sounds on 'Rock 'n' Roll Liqourice Flavour', all of which are very palatable. in between excellent, melodic punky (not punk) songs such as 'Cheshire Life' and 'Curl Up and Dye', you'll find the honky tonk drinking song piano of 'Sweet Retreat', eighties indie ('Tearjerker'), avant folk ('Bastard Hat'), something approaching goth ('Cept for You') and a neat cover of The Pretty Things' 'Rosalyn'. the cool metronomic drums, sinister riffs, distorted stylophone and bizarre spoken monologue of the album's standout 'Derbyshire' warrants a special mention. Riley's versatile voice adjusts perfectly to every setting on the album, with the band duly following suit. accordian is used to particularly great effect.

a fine album, with barely two tracks that are the same. liqourice allsorts indeed!

erik - http://www.cultwithnoname.com

LA event announcement: Report from the Ghost City, 2/24-25

2006-02-19T22:01:00.000-08:00

REPORT FROM THE GHOST CITY

The Disembodied Theater Corporation brings you an evening of dispatches, news, songs, and fragments from the Ghost City: the skeletal remains of industry, railways, and graveyards that stand as remnants of a lost society. Filmmaker Ross Lipman joins this odd assortment of media artists, musicians, and performers in presenting a haunting assemblage of ruins, rants, and shards of memory that paint a collective portrait of dystopia.

Featuring new works by:

Jewlia Eisenberg (of Charming Hostess)
Rebekah Greely (of WACO)
Steve Gregoropoulos (of WACO, Lavender Diamond)
poet Jen Hofer
Nora Keyes (of the Centimeters)
filmmaker Ross Lipman
Heather Lockie (of Listing Ship, Eels)
soprano Claire McKeown
filmmaker Lee Anne Schmitt
pianist Anna Simpson
Laura Steenberge (of Listing Ship)
Joe Tepperman (of Ego Plum Ebola Music Orchestra)

THE DISEMBODIED THEATER CORPORATION

is a newly created performance group founded by filmmaker Ross Lipman to realize temporary manifestations of non-filmic cinemas

THE VELASLAVASAY PANORAMA

is an exhibition rotunda and garden dedicated to the production and exhibition of the 360 degree panoramic landscape painting, widely popular some 150 years ago and nearly forgotten today, along with the presentation of other 19th Century inspired entertainments.

Friday Feb. 24th & Saturday Feb. 25, 8:30 p.m.
The Velaslavasay Panorama
1122 West 24th Street, Los Angeles
http://www.panoramaonview.org/upcomingevent.html
reservations: corpusfluxus@oblivio.com

featuring:

NO WAY OUT BUT ONWARD

An adventure in psychogeography through New York's High Line
PowerPoint performance written and narrated by Ross Lipman

Suite for Bass, Viola, and Trombone by Laura Steenberge

with Heather Lockie and Joe Tepperman

Photos by Leigh Evans, Ross Lipman, Nina Mankin

The High Line is the abandoned freight rail that runs through the west side of Manhattan. Recently designated the future site of an undetermined public space, it for the moment remains a haunted paradise above the city--a verdant wasteland inhabited only by occasional taggers, wanderers, and police. In October 2004 a ragtag group of us ventured up to explore. As we were to learn, it's a space with its own internal logic, interacting with its visitors in a way unique to each.

Terry Melcher - S/T CD (Collectors Choice)

2006-02-19T21:01:00.000-08:00

On this 1974 debut, the Byrds/Raiders producer spins his own web as a Beverly Hills country boy, soothed by strings, loping cadences and harmonies (including those of mom Doris Day), racked by the existential anxieties that fill Joan Didion’s west coast tomes. The darkness might be read as post-Manson stress (Melcher’s house on Cielo was the first creepycrawl target), or just post-paradise anomie. Either way, it’s a tense and provocative mix, and an interesting oddity to be filed between the Burritos and Jimmy Webb.

Mott the Hoople - Family Anthology double CD (Angel Air)

2006-02-19T20:19:00.000-08:00

Aptly titled 32-track sampling of rare, vintage Mottisms intermeshed with high quality pre- and post-band tracks from various associates, with the results unpredictable, but quite listenable. From tough live band performances to new wavey solo turns, sinister experiments to important demos, there’s a world to explore. Highlights include Mick Ralphs’ Gary Glitteresque 1970 demo for “Can’t Get Enough,” a mournful Mad Shadows outtake that presages Wildlife’s sound, Dale Griffin’s lecherous scat take on “Lady is a Tramp,” and a psychotic Joe Meek-inspired instro by The Paper Bags, a punk-era Morgan Fisher lark. With extensive liner note interviews and fannish passion tempered by connoisseurship, this is a terrific sampling and a strong tribute to an underrated band.

Tarantella - Esqueletos CD (Alternative Tentacles)

2006-02-16T17:43:00.000-08:00

Esqueletos is theme music for a surrealist carnival where the calliope plays all night long for an audience of inanimate objects. Picture a skeletal cowboy kicking an old tin can down the fairway and you've got the makings of a video. At first you might think Mazzy Star (and I also hear Adam Ant and the Feelies), but Siouxsie Sioux is clearly the chanteuse most absorbed into singer Kal Cahoone's repertoire. The band runs the gamut from sentimental waltzes to rocking alt country. Street cred dept.: features members of Slim Cessna's Auto Club and Blood Axis. (Margaret Griffis)

Lost Sounds S/T CD (In The Red)

2006-02-16T17:40:00.000-08:00

A few months ago, when a friend in Memphis mentioned that the Lost Sounds had disbanded, I was more than a little disappointed. Rarely do I like, let alone love, bands that wear their influences on their guitar straps, but these guys (and gal) were just too damn good at what they did to dismiss offhand. Like their other releases, this self-titled album is a curry filled with the most recognizable punk/new wave flavorings out there: Screamers, Missing Persons, Runaways, Devo and Gary Numan. Pick your spice, it’s here seamlessly blended into a fine, fine platter. Each listen is more enjoyable than the previous. (Margaret Griffis)

Angels of Light & Akron/Family CD (Young God)

2006-02-16T17:35:00.001-08:00

The last thing I'd ever expect to write about a Michael Gira record is "imagine a great Beatles record" and yet: imagine a great Beatles record! Okay, so the aforementioned Merseydelia might be heavier on the Akron/Family side of the split, but even taking that out, Gira is still left with the same backing band. (The first seven songs are theirs; the last five are A/F with Gira.) The Liverpudlians aren’t the only classic rockers to make an appearance. The Stones, Beach Boys, Amon Düül II, Japan and Lou Reed stumble through--there's even a Dylan cover--a collage of world, folk and skronk sounds presented in an acid-washed, often hillbilly groove. The lessons of the last forty years of rock have been learned, but don't make the mistake of believing this is easily-accessible radio fodder or a platter bereft of noisier elements. It's a mature offering with engaging soundscapes and lyrics that merit deeper investigation. Perhaps, Akron/Family are to blame or laud for what at first might seem incongruous to fans of the heavier Swans or lighter Angels of Light releases, but this unrelated foursome of noodly multi-instrumentalists provide an exquisite soapbox from which Gira can quietly scream his dreams. Imagine Gira as Dorothy reaching Oz to discover kooky chums wrapped in infinite colors, then realizing that Oz is home. The clean production does wonders, adding an immediacy and intimacy that previous albums never quite got. It’ll be interesting to see where the yellow brick road takes them from here. Wonderful! (Margaret Griffis)

Angels of Light & Akron/Family CD (Young God)

2006-02-16T17:35:00.000-08:00

Appaloosa S/T CD (Collectors’ Choice)

2006-02-15T21:15:00.000-08:00

Of all the albums celebrated in the Lost in the Grooves anthology, this is the one that drove our central thesis—your favorite album is in this book, and you’ve never even heard of it!—home to me. MVP essayist Brian Doherty picked this exquisite 1969 LP, and wrote so eloquently on its sophisticated charms that I knew I had to hear it. Happily, Edwin Letcher had bought it new, and sure enough, I fell in love. It’s neat to replace my poppy CDR with this official reissue (though the mix sounds a little sweeter and I suspect there were some uncredited shenanigans at the mixing board). John Parker Compton might just have been the most effortlessly upper crust songwriter of the sixties. His band sounds like the Left Banke filtered through the Social Register and smeared on a blini. These charming, arch, irresistible melodies, baroque, loping and very clever, will blow the mind of anyone who digs the Kinks and Zombies, and who longs for something that good that they’ve never heard. This is it, lost in the grooves and found anew.

V/A Thai Beat A-Go-Go Volume 3 CD (Subliminal Sounds)

2006-02-14T11:43:00.000-08:00

This is the final volume of an archeological reckoning of Thailand’s neglected pop archives, which is some of the oddest stuff you can stick into your earholes. Kicking off with a greasy porn-funk celebration of kickboxing, the comp delivers sassy covers of familiar faves from the McCoys and Troggs, an Elvis impersonator, sub-Santana wanking, hyperactive disco, a Black Power testimonial, what sounds like a musical comedy routine, and a memorable tribute to Soul Dracula. It all suggests that the Thai scene was fertile and inventive, and while the results can be appreciated for their novelty value—see: Panatda’s Ramones-meets-outer-space-pony synth opus “Let’s Go!”—many of these tracks swing quite wildly on their own terms. Fun!

cult of the week - Smalts

2006-02-13T04:29:00.000-08:00

artist: Smalts

title: Werktitels

year: 1982

label: Plurex Records

personnel: KJ Boterbloem, W Dekker, F Van Manen, P Mulder, R Ootes, I Schalkx

tracklisting: werktitel 7, werktitel 5, werktitel 1, werktitel 8

cotw say…

jollyfied name to the contrary, Minny Pops were one Holland's premier synth/ wave gloom merchants. centered around the baritone of Wally van Middendorp, the Pops' Joy Division-esque sound was unmistakable, if occasionally an acquired taste. the sole EP from two-member side project Smalts, (almost) dropped the vocals altogether for a series of intriguing musical soundscapes.
rather than churn out a series of derivative, sub-par Eno experiments, 'Werktitels' contains some very interesting music indeed. drums and percussion are used to great effect throughout, with plaintive synths used to create semi-melodic drones that give the EP a fairly 'folky' feel that's most prevalent on 'Werktitel 5'. 'Werktitel 1', however, is undoubtedly the standout, perhaps because the remaining tracks are so criminally short. a seriously cool layered, live percussion loop fades in, synths soon following with a tongue-in-cheek melody that sounds like it's been lifted straight from a b-movie horror soundtrack. spacious production gives the EP an ethereal quality that keeps it in considerably lighter territory than one might imagine.
a neat series of pieces that remains as unclassifiable as it is interesting.

erik - http://www.cultwithnoname.com

Book Soup podcast

2006-02-11T18:45:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday night, the good folks at Book Soup in West Hollywood hosted a reading and q&a of my book Neutral Milk Hotel's In The Aeroplane Over The Sea. Thanks, Kelly and Louis, for such a warm welcome.

This was the first time I've taken this material on the road--albeit only ten miles from home--and I found that it was quite emotional to read these highly charged paragraphs out loud, and to connect with people who feel so passionately about the music. I felt energized at the time, exhausted next morning.

The bookstore annex was packed with a kind and attentive audience, including KXLU's Peter Choyce, Black Dahlia scholar Larry Harnisch, historic preservationist John Arroyo, This is Burning Man author Brian Doherty and Craig Ceravolo.

I read excerpts spanning the whole of the book, and finished by playing a recording of Jeff playing "Little Birds"--which I was surprised to discover almost no one in the room had heard before. I think everyone was pretty stunned by it. Then I took some questions and signed folks' books. The bookstore was happy, because 25 people bought 30 books. And I signed another couple dozen, in case you want to stop by Book Soup soon and get one for yourself.

My sweetheart Richard documented the evening with photographs and in this podcast, where members of the audience share their experiences with Aeroplane and what it continues to mean to them.

I hope we'll have another podcast to share from the Vroman's reading on March 25, but in the meantime, if anyone reading this would like to make their own MP3 podcast along this theme, please host it for free on ourmedia.org and email me (at amscray @ gmail . com) when it's live. I will put links to your podcasts up on the webpage dedicated to the book.

Real Kid Allen 'Alpo' Paulino, RIP

2006-02-09T07:31:00.000-08:00

Dave Laing writes:

Just heard that Allen 'Alpo' Paulino, founding member of the one of the
greatest rock'n'roll bands ever, the Real Kids (and an early member of
the mighty Cheater Slicks, co-leader of the Primitive Souls and an
on-again/off-again Nervous Eater), died today in Boston. Not sure of
what happened yet but Carl Biancucci of the Classic Ruins told me Alpo
went to bed with a cold and never woke up. Alpo was one of my heroes for
the past 25 years and releasing the Primitive Souls EP and meeting Alpo,
Billy Borgioli and John Felice in the mid-90s were two of the highlights
of my life. Alpo was a great guy - a smart-arse but charismatic and
charming as hell, and ly impossible not to like. I never saw the
original Real Kids play - never had the chance to see one of their
reunion shows even - and now I never will.

Anyway, let's hope Alpo's death does not go unnoticed by the rock world
at large (esp. Mojo, Uncut etc). If all he'd ever done was play bass on
that first Real Kids record he would've been one of the greats to be
sure... My favorite Alpo moment on record though is his b/vocals on the
live version of 'Bad To Worse' on the 'Grown Up Wrong' album - he sounds
like his hearts about to burst. That's about as thrilling as rock'n'roll
gets in my book.

Baffling Amazon.com pan for Lost in the Grooves

2006-02-08T09:44:00.000-08:00

I have no idea what book this Craven fellow got in the mail, but it doesn't sound like it was LITG! No, wait, I get it... he read the index and forgot to read the book. Of all the acts derided below, only Adam & the Ants have an entry in the text, and the others are just mentioned in passing as part of our grand accounting of a few hundred of the most amazing albums most people missed. (Our actual File under A section comprises The Action's Rolled Gold, Adam & the Ants' Kings of the Wild Frontier, Herb Alpert's Whipped Cream & Other Delights, Alvin & the Chipmunks' The Alvin Show, Appaloosa's Appaloosa and The Auteur's New Wave.)

Lost in Who's Grooves?, January 31, 2006

Reviewer:

Craven Moorehead (Key West) - See all my reviews

I suppose if you're a typical pop-junkie weened on boy bands and a steady diet of commercial T-40, you may have missed some of the music and musicians in this book. As an avid music fan, I never missed Christina Aguilera (though i wish i had), AC/DC, Tori Amos, Adam & the Ants, America, Paul Anka, the Archies and so many of the other artists mentioned in this book beyond the "A" section of the index. I don't necessarily blame the book, for the average American sheep plumping on a steady major label spoon-feeding of aural air biscuits this is probably much more interesting, and the teen dreamer dying to pick up the "lost" Aguilera material will be elated. For anyone who's looked beyond, followed and taken an interest in music, this will make a good coaster. Again, not the book's fault, mine for not reading more before I made the purchase.

Saint Etienne After-Party in NYC

2006-02-08T07:39:00.000-08:00

Hey boys + girls:

Le One Night Stand—New York's official international dance party—is throwing a very special pre-Valentine's celebration for British pop group Saint Etienne on Monday Feb 13th.

Come out and dance!

xo-Sheila

++++++++++++++++++

Le One Night Stand

presents

SAINT ETIENNE AFTER-PARTY

Monday February 13th

Joe's Pub, 425 Lafayette Street, NYC

11 pm - 4 am

FREE w/ flyer or print out

$5 w/ out flyer

Special Guest DJ:

Bob Stanley (Saint Etienne)

Resident DJs:

Melody Nelson (Calling All The Kids)

Sheila B. (BUST + Cha Cha Charming)

Josh Styles + Peppermintwist (Smashed! Blocked!)

Plus go-go girls: Anna Copacabanna + Kamila

http://www.chachacharming.com/events.php

http://www.myspace.com/leonenightstand

Judy Henske & Jerry Yester - Farewell Aldebaran CD (Radioactive)

2006-02-06T17:52:00.000-08:00

This is one of those legendary lost records that “everyone” talks about, where after you finally hear it, you have even less of an idea of what it is than before. Brutally aggressive when it’s not being elegantly folksy or bubblegummy, then in turns decadent, satirical, apocalyptic, histrionic and demonic, these young marrieds—a folk-blues goddess and an ace journeyman with ties to the Spoonful and TMFQ—created a truly unpredictable mélange of pop, antipop, subpop and artifice. With so many disparate facets, the whole of Farewell Aldebaran (1969, Straight Records) can only appeal to the openest of minds, but odds are at least one part of it will blow all of yours.

Lazy Farmer - S/T CD (Sunbeam Records)

2006-02-06T13:25:00.000-08:00

Ah, they had me at the first dulcet tones of the 1970s Britfolk flute. Here we have a recording issued in Germany in 1975 by English folkie guitarist Wizz Jones, his wife Sandy on banjo and vocals, Don Coging on banjo, COB’s John Bidwell on flute, flageolet, guitar and vocals, and Jake Walton on dulcimer, hurdy-gurdy, guitar and vocals. These folks were inspired by John Burke’s classic instruction book Fiddle Tunes for the Banjo as a jumping-off point for some great arrangements. On “Railroad Boy,” for example, they’ve used the hurdy-gurdy to give it a medieval edge. There’s a song by Ralph McTell as well as one by the influential American banjoman in London, Derroll Adams. (Brooke Alberts)

Lark Pien's art blog

2006-02-06T08:56:00.000-08:00

Scram 21 cover artiste Lark Pien has launched a new blog offering sneak peaks of works in progress. Her critters are cute but quite formidable. Have a look!

cult of the week - Duffo

2006-02-06T04:00:00.000-08:00

artist: Duffo

title: Bob the Birdman

year: 1981

label: PVK Records

personnel: Duffo (vocals), Rob Adams (drums), Sev Lewkowicz (keyboards, vocals), Dick Middleton (guitar), Tim Wheatley (bass guitar)

tracklisting: bob the birdman, slave of marakeesh, daddy is a mushroom, le posuer, walk on the wild side, elephant man, (i am) the fly, new york is the moon, crazee man

cotw say…

the post-punk era is of course littered with mysterious, unclassifiable individuals. so, what to make of someone who has made well in excess of a dozen albums, spent a period signed to Beggars Banquet, and yet remains a relative unknown - or least virtually forgotten?
'Bob the Birdman' was already Australian Jeff 'Duffo' Duff's fifth album. his fifth. musically, Duffo's album has a somewhat uncomfortable feel, largely due to the fact that it sits between genres. something like Bowie crossed with Andrew Lloyd-Webber, the album consistently leans towards musical theatre thanks to the use of strings and colourful, expansive production (synths are used to give the album a 'spacey' feel). usually it works, making songs like 'Bob the Birdman' and 'Le Posuer' genuinely affecting, and others such as 'Elephant Man' at least highly distinctive. however, some may find the album too Broadway to stomach. Duffo also dabbles in reggae ('Slave of Marakeesh') and disco on his utterly bizarre take on 'Walk on the Wild Side' - in equal parts hilarious and horrific. and before you ask, no, '(I am) The Fly' is not a cover of the The Wire classic, but a fine ballad in its own right.

generally more renowned for a series of publicity stunts and the occassional practical joke played on unsuspecting journalists, it's high time that Duffo's considerable body of work was reappraised.

erik - http://www.cultwithnoname.com

Bob Pfeifer popped in L.A. wiretap case

2006-02-05T11:00:00.000-08:00

Bob Pfeifer, right, late of swell ClevePop outfit The Human Switchboard and later prez of Hollywood Records, has been arrested in connection with the Anthony Pellicano surveillance case, the L.A. Times reports. He had apparently had a long personal and professional relationship with "The Pelican." Was AP alleged to be spying on artists or employees for the label head? Unclear, but more indictments are expected Monday.

Link

Edwin Letcher Goes Everly Crazy!

2006-02-03T10:20:00.000-08:00

The Everly Brothers Gone Gone Gone CD (Collectors’ Choice)… It’s a good thing the Everly Brothers didn’t let something as petty as a few years without hits deter them from putting out album after album of high quality material. This is one of the best records they did in the mid-sixties. Gone Gone Gone was a return to rock and roll after four years trying their hands at everything from Christmas and country music to adult contemporary fluff. The songwriting is superb throughout. Don and Phil struck paydirt many times with tunes by the Bryants, so it’s only natural that five of the twelve songs here are theirs. But someone should do a collection of Everly-penned tunes someday. Three of the twelve winners on this disc are theirs and they shine just as brightly. (Edwin Letcher)

The Everly Brothers It’s Everly Time CD (Collectors’ Choice)… This is a killer diller album, the first in a whole string Don and Phil recorded for Warner Brothers. They had a somewhat better track record on the independent label Cadence, but hit the ground running for the WB. And while their audience might have quit buying the records in the same gigantic quantities, the boys never slacked up any on their end. The songwriting team of Boudleaux and Felice Bryant were responsible for half the songs on this effort and their work stacks up well against past glories like “Wake Up Little Susie” and “Bye Bye Love.” All the material is strong, with Don’s “So Sad (to Watch Good Love Go Bad)” one of my faves on this set. (Edwin Letcher)

The Everly Brothers Roots CD (Collectors’ Choice)… This was the last studio album Don and Phil did with Warner Brothers. The boys and the label heads pulled out all the stops and put together a wonderful country-rock record. Unfortunately, there just weren’t very many folks clambering for such an animal, and this became yet another well-intentioned and executed project that went nowhere. The lads did a couple Merle Haggard songs, and covered Jimmie Rodgers, Glen Campbell, Ray Price and George Jones. Ron Elliott of the Beau Brummels was heading in the same neo-country direction and supplied a couple songs as well as some guitar and production work. There are some orchestral, almost psychedelic touches sprinkled throughout that add an otherworldly quality to the material and give it a nicely cohesive feel, even though the album mixed state-of-the-art ’68 rock with clips of the Everly Brothers’ act circa 1952. (Edwin Letcher)

Irving Fields Trio - Bagels and Bongos CD (Reboot Sterephonic)

2006-02-02T13:27:00.000-08:00

Inaugurating a label dedicated to spotlighting great Jewish contributions to avant-pop is this frisky, Latin-tinged set of Hebraic instros. While piano trills are more prominent than the titular hand drums, it’s a fun set of cocktail music sure to pique the interest of your inner Esther. Pick hit: “Havannah Negila.”

Petra Haden Sings: God Only Knows

2006-02-02T09:14:00.000-08:00

Not content with tranforming The Who Sell Out into an all-girl, all-sung mesh of magic, Ms. Haden has turned her pipes to one of Brian Wilson's most ethereal compostions, available for free download on her website.

And on the reinventing the Who tip, check out "My Generation" as an ASCII movie, by artist Yoshi Sodeoka. (thanks, Richard!)

Pazz & Jop Poll

2006-02-01T08:57:00.000-08:00

Each December, The Village Voice polls scads of music critics on their favorite releases of the previous year. I like to eschew the byzantine point-allocation system and the whole of the singles chart, and send some love to a mix of reissues and contemporary artists. Here are my picks for 2005. Visit the Voice to see what the other writers loved. (Metal Mike Saunders' selections are always worth a peek.)

Lori Burton -- Break Out (Rev-Ola)
buy the album

Bridget St. John - Songs for the gentle man (Cherry Red)
buy the album

Haden, Petra - Sings: The Who Sell Out (Bar/None)
buy the album

Dino Valente - S/T (RPM)
buy the album

The Moon's a Harsh Mistress: Jimmy Webb in the Seventies (Rhino Handmade
buy the box set (out of print, expensive)

see also:
Archive/ Live At the Albert Hall 1972
Letters, released April 2006
El Mirage, released April 2006
& So, On, released April 2006
Words & Music, released April 2006
Land's End, released April 2006

Paul Williams - Someday Man (Collectors' Choice)
buy the album

One Kiss Can Lead to Another: Girl Group Sounds, Lost & Found (Rhino)
buy the box set

Foster, Josephine - Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You (Locust)
buy the album

Barracudas - S/T (NDN)
buy the album

Appaloosa - S/T (Collectors' Choice)
buy the album

Nick Tosches at work

2006-01-31T21:53:00.000-08:00

According to Publishers Lunch, Nick Tosches has just signed a deal for an "impressionistic history of the past half-century of rock 'n' roll, centering on the life of record producer Phil Spector." Look for it in 2008.

4 Unknown Boys From Nowhere Tracks Surface!

2006-01-30T21:47:00.000-08:00

LITG Superspy Matthew Specktor has discovered a mysterious website which hosts five MP3s by eighties Ohio's masters of garage revivalism, the Boys From Nowhere. In addition to their celebrated namesake DMZ cover are fine takes on the Kinks, Wailers, Sparkles and Music Machine. Matthew called main Boy Mick Divvens to inquire as to the provenence of this goldmine, and learned that Mick doesn't even remember recording these songs, but reckons they must have been laid down circa "Beg." And "Beg," for them that don't know, is just about the rawest slice of teenpunk animosity ever captured... or why don't I just let Matthew tell you all about it, in his essay from Lost in the Grooves?

The Boys From Nowhere - The Young Lion 45s

The Highway to Hell is paved with bad imitations. Discarded tubes of lipstick and the sloughed-off leathers of Stooges-wannabes stand by to warn the hopefuls who stagger along the time-honored—and widely dishonored—passage. In the late eighties, the LIE and Mass Pike were crowded with bands who fancied themselves the new Stones, or Dolls (allegiance shifted around 1985 from Pebbles comps to MC5 reissues), but these outfits disappeared in the hair-apocalypse that was Guns N’ Roses. Which is a crooked way of approaching Boys From Nowhere, the greatest garage band you’ve never heard.

While Lyres and the Chesterfield Kings were trying to drag us back to sacred-mono, Mick Divvens was shaking his mane to Uriah Heep records. While Jeff Conolly was struggling to accept the world hadn’t ended in 1967, Mick was on about the merits of Ratt’s first 45. Yet brushing aside specious punk notions of purism, the fact remains that Divvens recorded some of the finest singles ever waxed by a guy named Mick. Vaulting over the usual obstacles— slack-jawed drummers with lucrative sidelines in armed-robbery, feckless sidemen too busy griping to show up for practice—Divvens did it the hard way, playing organ, guitar, duck-call and hair-on-fire screaming for a series of self-released singles that needed to be heard to be believed.

Combining the pant-pissing heaviness of the best Detroit thug-rock with prime sixties ‘tude, these were a far cry from the fey recidivism of bands I won’t name, unless I already have; “Beg,” “Jungle Boy,” and (especially) “I Don’t Bother” approach Stooges-like levels of intensity without sacrificing melodic interest, and—with that duck-call—nodding towards the retarded art-punk of fellow Ohioans Pere Ubu. These were subsequently reissued on a series of Spanish, German and Australian 12-inches that sounded as if they were mastered in a laughing-gas factory. Tinny, cruddy (the original pressings were both, in a good way) and sped-up, they led some to wonder what the fuss was about. An album on Skyclad followed. But the best are still those early singles, and it’s a crime against humanity Divvens still has boxes of ‘em in his garage. He ought to be sending children to college on their backs. Maybe then someone could come forward to show the Hives, White Stripes, etc. how it’s done. (Matthew Specktor)

One Kiss Can Lead To Another: Girls Group Sounds Lost & Found 4-CD box (Rhino)

2006-01-30T09:17:00.000-08:00

Melodrama gets a bad rap, but there are few emotional experiences that are as pure, as enervating. American teens in 1963 didn’t have opera (light or otherwise), pulp horror magazines or the Grand Guignol, and they couldn’t have cared less about their mother’s soaps, but they did have the radio. And in two minute increments, the radio fed out miniature urban operas packed with enough misery, longing, pain and conflict to satisfy their every vicarious desire.

Revisionist pop memory sometimes obscures just how ubiquitous Girl Group music was in the early sixties—the Beatles were even star struck over Ronnie Spector--but since many of the groups were interchangeable puppets fronting for producers and songwriters, albums were a rarity, and women’s voices get short shrift on oldies radio, relatively few of the acts are remembered by non-collectors. But as One Kiss makes immediately and forcefully clear, there was much more to the GG sounds than the Ronettes, Shangs and Supremes.

And what One Kiss is mostly is thrilling, pushing track after marvelous track of unknown, impassioned, instant teen pop into ears that too rarely find such a concentrated bounty. I’m personally most pleased to see the Goodees, the exquisitely tasteless Southern-fried Shangri-La’s, find a wider audience with their “Leader of the Pack” cop “Condition Red”—especially when the record sounds so great—but there are dozens of acts that deserve spotlight treatment. Like the mysterious Bitter Sweets, turning in a clinically hysterical Shangs’ routine penned by Brute Force… or the very fine (and finally gaining notice) Reparata and the Delrons… the Lovelites, authors of the most agonized “somebody ple-eeease” ever laid on tape… Dawn’s relentless, paranoid “I’m Afraid They’re All Talking About Me”… Toni Basil’s washed up lament “I’m 28”… and teen guitar goddess Char Vinnedge, whose Luv’d Ones were riot grrrls in 1966. Then there’s “Peanut Duck,” an utterly mad, irresistible slice of Philly Soul recorded by a nameless singer, discovered on an unlabeled acetate, and subject of a growing cult.

The set’s greatest strength is its lack of orthodoxy, so rather than a tour of the Brill Building and Spectorland (Phil’s ouput is conspicuously absent), the Girl Group definition is expanded out in distant ripples, not just to Memphis’ Goodees but to England for Andrew Oldham discovery P.P. Arnold’s lovely early recording of “The First Cut is the Deepest,” into the rockabilly raunch of Wanda Jackson, from soul to surf to and all around the pop bubble.

This is a gorgeous box, a worthy tribute to the women who are on it. The package’s conceit is that it’s a black and white striped, velvet-lined hat box with a cord handle. Inside, each CD mimics a different vintage compact, complete with a mirror and photo-realistic pat of powder. Each CD is a powder puff. But that’s where the soft and floppy metaphor ends, because these dolls are tough and artful, and they come bearing great gifts to all who have ears to hear. Essential.

cult of the week - Ted Milton

2006-01-30T00:58:00.000-08:00

artist: Ted Milton

title: Ode: O, to be seen through your eyes!

year: 1986

label: Toeblock Records

personnel: Ted Milton (sax, vocals), Hermann Martin (synthesizers)

tracklisting: ode: o, to be seen through your eyes!, slies are bruised, the porcine colonel's left over women

cotw say…

Ted Milton, better known as the visionary, if inimitable, leader of Blurt, remains one of post-punk's forgotten heroes. Blurt's combination of squawking sax, angular guitars and funk-influenced drumming still draws immediate comparisons with James Chance, an unsatisfactory tag when you consider that Blurt swam in more original and avant-garde waters.

"Ode" is not only noteworthy because it saw Milton record under his own name, it also marked an interesting departure from Blurt, whose organic sound was temporarily replaced by Herman Martin's synths. the results are mixed. the title track comprises a Milton monologue over dated programmed drums, which detract slightly from the power of Milton's highly animated voice. 'Skies are Bruised' (great title) is much better. Martin's synth stabs and textures are suitably ominous and combine excellently with a superb sax riff that hints strongly at the Blurt classic 'Bullets for You'. undoubtedly the EP's standout. meanwhile, 'The porcine colonel's left-over women' buries Milton's rant and sax in the mix somewhat, giving the track a cool, meditative feel thanks to some sparse, repetitive synth programming.

not for the fainthearted, but who cares. let it blurt!

erik - http://www.cultwithnoname.com

Sugarlumps: A Psychedelic Selection of Groovy Movers and Sweet Freakbeat (Hard Soul/Acid Jazz)

2006-01-26T14:16:00.000-08:00

An unexpected but homogenous mix of new and vintage sounds from the guys who had those great shirts custom made in the first place, and the guys young enough to be their grandkids who paid too much for them in 2003. Highlights include Andys Lewis and Ellison’s sneery minimalist psych collaboration, a trashy Barry Tashian-produced frat raver by the Argonauts, Groovy Ruben’s shaggy hepcat tale and a lost and luscious proto-Faces jam. Pan-generational grooviness and a cool party disc.

Buy direct from the label (where you can sample tracks) or from Amazon.

1947project in the L.A. Times

2006-01-26T11:35:00.000-08:00

When not chasing musical phantoms down rabbit holes, I blog historic L.A. true crime at 1947project. Earlier this month, my blog colleagues rented a couple of tour busses and took our readers out for a wild day's ramble over crime scenes notorious (SLA safe house, Dahlia dump site) and forgotten (Ghost in the Garret, The Fox). We had a ball!

It was our pleasure to host the Times' intrepid Cindy Chang on our Dahlia Day Crime Bus tour to sites macabre and fascinating. Her story is a terrific snapshot of the mood of the tour and our aims in writing the blog and dragging folks around the city.

We were thrilled to discover we could sell out two full sized tour busses with only minimal publicity on this and other blogs, and in the L.A. Alternative, and are already planning future Crime Bus and Crime Walk outings to introduce more retro gore hounds to the forgotten weirdness of our city. So sign up for the mailing list* if you'd like to be informed when reservations open for the next tour, and check out this podcast, a sampling of the Dahlia Day route. But be warned: there's a lot of humor, but it is not for the squeamish.

yours in darkest noir (with a cherry on top),
Kim

*AOL's browser does not recognize the sign up page. Please use another browser to join.

Two More Lost In The Groovers go 33 1/3!

2006-01-26T08:31:00.000-08:00

First Andrew Hultkrans wrote the book of Love. Elisabeth Vincentelli gave ABBA the nod. Then I went to Athens and discovered what made Neutral Milk Hotel tick.

And today, with David Barker's announcement of the next 21 books in the 33 1/3 series, two more Lost in the Grooves anthology contributors are slated to join the gang. Among them, my longtime editorial partner (and perhaps the most provocative pop thinker the series has yet to host) David Smay, with a book on Tom Waits' swordfishtrombones, and Hayden Childs diving into Richard and Linda Thompson's Shoot Out The Lights.

Congratulations to David and Hayden, and the other happy pitchers. And to the pop freaks who can look forward to books on Beefheart, Patti, Nick Drake, Television, the Minutemen, Throbbing Gristle and... well, visit the 33 1/3 blog for the full list.

Neutral Milk Hotel reading, 2/8 in Los Angeles

2006-01-23T23:14:00.000-08:00

I'd like to extend an invitation to SoCal readers to join me at Book Soup on the Sunset Strip on Weds., February 8, at 7pm for a reading, book signing and q&a for my 33 1/3 book "Neutral Milk Hotel's 'In The Aeroplane Over The Sea.'" If you have any questions about how the book was researched or organized, or would like to pick up an autographed copy for yourself or a friend, or would just like to meet fellow fans and visit a great indie bookstore with an excellent bargain room, I hope you'll stop by.

WHAT: Kim Cooper reads from Neutral Milk Hotel band bio
WHERE: Book Soup, 8818 Sunset Blvd., WeHo CA 90069. Free lot parking.
WHEN: Weds., February 8, 2006, 7:00pm

More info.

thanks,
Kim

cult of the week - Whirlywirld

2006-01-23T00:46:00.000-08:00

artist: Whirlywirld

title: Whirlywirld

year: 1980

label: Missing Link Records

personnel: Ian Olsen (vocals, tapes, piano, synthesizer), John Murphy (drums, electronics, kitchenware), Greg Sun (bass, percussion), Arnie Hanna (electric guitar)

tracklisting: big gun action, boys of the badlands, red river, win/lose

cotw say…

over to Melbourne this week for one of Australia's must legendary alternative synth bands, Whirlywirld. a band who somehow still manage to be overlooked by successive generations of music writers and record collectors.

lead by Ian 'Ollie' Olsen - who's eclectic career includes the Max Q collaboration with Michael Hutchene ('Win/Lose' was also reworked for the soundtrack to Dogs in Space) - and future Associates' member John Murphy, Whirlywirld were synthpunk perfection. 'Big Gun Action' sets the tone, with its barrage of shrill guitars, electronic effects and angst-ridden vocals. what remains particularly interesting is not only the breathtaking and relentless use of studio effects throughout the EP, but also John Murphy's subtle percussion work, which frequently leans in the direction of reggae and ska. nevertheless, Whirlywirld's nearest musical cousin is no doubt early (pre 'Half-Mute') Tuxedomoon, thanks to a fairly unpunky pace ('Red River', although an exception, even has a spot of saxophone) and the fact that Ollie Olsen's voice bears more than a passing resemblance to TM's Blaine L. Reininger in places. as if to prove a point, 'Win/Lose' closes the album in fine style, a straight, but no less engaging, dance track that remains one of synth's greatest lost anthems.

every loser wins.

erik - http://www.cultwithnoname.com

Blowfly robbed!

2006-01-22T11:10:00.000-08:00

What kind of idjit would steal equipment and costumes from a man/bug whose response is this?

"Hey freaks, our van got broken into last night in charlotte by pros with tools who took out the driver side lock. so if you live around there -- please keep an eye out for this shit. and if you have this stuff, motherfucker im putting a curse on your dick! until you return it, you wont be able to get hard unless you're looking at micheal jackson!"

Link from WFMU's Beware of the Blog (see also Mike Lucas' interview with the incomparable Mr. Fly in Scram #21.)

Interesting Radio Birdman video

2006-01-20T22:57:00.000-08:00

Someone's compiled quite a stylish video for "Aloha Steve & Danno" using historic live footage, stills, text and in-jokes. Those kids dancing in sillhouette really capture the raw power of the band. This is kind of a test, to see if a YouTube video actually shows in Blogger. Click play and see...

Fan Tan by Marlon Brando and Donald Cammell

2006-01-20T14:35:00.000-08:00

Fan-Tan by Marlon Brando and Donald Cammell (Alfred A. Knopf)… This fast-paced adventure takes place in 1927, and features bloodthirsty Asian pirates led by an inscrutable femme fatale, along with a seafaring anti-heroic protagonist who appears to be based on Marlon Brando as he appeared in Mutiny on the Bounty. Originally conceived by Brando and director Donald Cammell as a screenplay for the greatest (then) actor alive, it languished for a good twenty years before being resurrected and published as a novel. It has a pithy plot, replete with brutal homicides and methodical character development, and it reflects the authors' mutual infatuation with Asian women. The denoumental sex scene is surely one of the most unique in modern literature. And editor David Thompson, in an Afterword, has much to say about the mysterious Cammell (director of the drug-drenched film Performance, among other singularities), which adds greatly to the book's mystique. Good stuff, and here's hoping someone films it someday. (Dennis P.Eichhorn)

Loud Family album/tour news

2006-01-20T14:15:00.000-08:00

Sue Trowbridge, that dedicated label head who just won't let Scott Miller hide his genius, no matter how he tries, writes to announce the upcoming release of a NEW Loud Family disc, with a sample track online:

After many delays, the new album, "What If It Works?," *should* be out sometime in the spring of '06. Right now the big hold-up is the art. The album has been mastered. Once the graphic design is completed, it will be off to the manufacturer's. I'm planning to make copies available hot off the presses to the loyal subscribers of [the loudfans mailing] list, before they are for sale in record stores or online outlets, so stay tuned for pre-order info.

If you would like to hear a sample of the album, there's an MP3 of "Rocks Off" (yes, a cover of the Rolling Stones song) at the newly revamped 125 Records site. Click on Sounds. You can also click on News to read my blog, which I set up to document the day-to-day process of running the record company. I hope to get around to making some changes to the loudfamily.com site sometime in the next few months as well.

Tour news: I know Anton & Scott are hoping to do several dates on the West Coast... beyond that, I'm not sure, it probably depends on how well the album does!

A long interview about the Neutral Milk Hotel book

2006-01-20T09:18:00.000-08:00

In yesterday's Athens Flagpole, Chris Hassiotis asked me a lot of good questions about how I happened to write a book about In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, and if it's a good or a bad thing that Jeff Mangum declined to be interviewed.

Steve Wynn memorializes Bryan Harvey and family

2006-01-20T08:49:00.000-08:00

Sometimes being a true crime buff just breaks your heart. Among all the silly people who play rough and end up hurt, there are pointless, awful stories like the New Years Day slaughter of Bryan Harvey (late of House of Freaks and Gutterball), his cool kid's store owning wife Kathy and young daughters Stella and Ruby, apparently during a home invasion robbery. Longtime Scram pal Steve Wynn was a bandmate and friend to Bryan, and penned this poignant memorial for the Rhino website:

Music, Friends, and Good Times
Remembering Bryan Harvey
by Steve Wynn

I first met Bryan Harvey when he and Johnny Hott moved to LA and played an amazing show at Raji's. They were amazing. I couldn't believe all of the sound and energy and fury that came from just two people. I was instantly a fan and would not have imagined that I would eventually be in a band with them.

I didn't really spend that much time with Bryan when he and Johnny lived in LA. Both of our bands toured all of the time and even though we had friends, a manager and a record label in common, we didn't have that much time to hang out.

But after Bryan moved back to Richmond, I went to a House Of Freaks show when they came through town on the "Cakewalk" tour. We ended up talking for a long time after the show and sharing stories and gripes, mostly about the frustrations of dealing with the music business and still keeping some kind of artistic integrity and sanity. He told me to come out to Richmond sometime so we could write some songs together.

I think I surprised him a few months later when I was in Nashville and asked if I could drop by, as though Nashville was just down the street rather than an 18-hour bus ride away. As always, he was gracious and generous with his time and told me to come on out.

I spent the next week, I stayed at Bryan and Kathy's house. We kept warm by a wood-burning stove, drank red wine, ate homemade pizzas, played with their cats, told stories and had a great time. Oh, and we wrote a bunch of songs and then impulsively rounded up the extended House Of Freaks lineup and in one night made what became the first Gutterball record.

That time that I spent with Bryan and Kathy was so enjoyable, so easy, so warm, and it reminded me that music is an extension of life. It is not a chore or a task or a burden but rather a reflection of good people, kindred spirits, conversation, good times and friendship. Bryan had gone back to Richmond and found these things and I was grateful to be able to be clued into the life they were living. It was invigorating and it led to three years of touring, another record and so many good times.

Bryan loved being in Gutterball and we had a lot of fun together but he also loved being home with Kathy in Richmond. "I've seen the most incredible cities and have had the most incredible experiences... with a bunch of guys," he would often say, and by 1996 it was apparent that the Gutterball experience was over. I would regularly call and write and nag and cajole, trying to get the band going again, but he was content and happy to be at home, off the road, and enjoying his life. He would always say, "Come on down, hang out with us, let's eat some good food and drink some wine. But I don't have time to make a record or go on the road." I wish I had gone down there more often.

Bryan was incredibly talented. He was a great singer, an unbelievable guitarist, and the best co-writer you could ever want. I loved being one of the "bunch of guys" who got to see the world with him, always through his perspective of the priority being the music and friends and good times, rather than the career aspect. Kathy was such a good friend and always loved to hear the songs we would write, and she created the World of Mirth store, a place that reflected her spirit of fun and community. Stella and Ruby were great kids, and I wish I had had more time to know them. This was a family that got it right, that knew how to live life. They were my friends. I miss them so much.

Owed T'Alex

2006-01-19T13:02:00.000-08:00

R.I.P. Alex Snouffer - original Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band guitarist. Played on 'Diddy Wah Diddy' as well as 'Safe As Milk.'

1941 - 2006

The Strawberry Alarm Clock - Wake Up… It’s Tomorrow CD (Collectors Choice)

2006-01-16T16:28:00.000-08:00

This is my favorite Strawberry Alarm Clock album. My favorite song--everyone’s fave, “Incense and Peppermints”--is on their first album, I haven’t heard their third album and their fourth album is basic blues-rock instead of psychedelia. All of those qualifiers aside, though, this sophomoric effort is the ticket for me. It’s good enough that I will give their third album a listen at my earliest convenience to see how it stacks up. The music here is playful, upbeat, inventive and catchy. I saw the film Psych-Out recently and dug the scenes with these flower power poppers. Thankfully, this set has “Pretty Song from Psych-Out” on it, so I can revisit with my mind’s eye the image of a young Jack Nicholson clumsily trying to look like he knows which end of a guitar is which whenever I want. Surprisingly good musicianship from a group of teenagers and strong songs makes for an enjoyable trip back to the wild and wacky sixties. Love beads are optional. (Edwin Letcher)

The Strawberry Alarm Clock - Good Morning Starshine CD (Collectors Choice)

2006-01-16T16:24:00.000-08:00

This was the band’s last effort at returning to the charts and it failed to yield any hits. The personnel had changed considerably and the new members helped bring about a shift to a hard-edged blues-rock sound. There are some trippy, almost psychedelic moments and the title track is just about as cutesy poppy as the version of this Hair staple that Oliver scored with, but the rest of the album sounds more like Iron Butterfly. For fans of late sixties/ early seventies, this set offers up some tight musicianship, especially that of founding member Mark Weitz on keyboards, and very manly vocals. (Edwin Letcher)

H.P. Lovecraft - Dreams in the Witch House CD (Rev-ola)

2006-01-16T16:12:00.000-08:00

The subtitle of this disc is “The Complete Philips Recordings.” It is comprised of the albums H.P. Lovecraft and H.P. Lovecraft II, plus four songs taken from singles. I have owned the group’s second album since the mid-seventies. I picked it up during a frenzy of sixties music collecting, but it never grew on me like all the Chocolate Watch Band, Thirteenth Floor Elevators-type stuff I was so gaga over. For some reason it sounds a whole lot better now, and I quite enjoy the other material as well. Taking their name from the horror/fantasy author, the band blended elements of folk, rock and various other musical strains to come up with a sound that is moody and atmospheric without being macabre. The vocals shine brightly and the production is spot on. (Edwin Letcher)

The Everly Brothers - The New Album CD (Collectors’ Choice)

2006-01-16T15:59:00.000-08:00

Collectors Choice has released a whole bunch of albums that this hit-making duo released after the majority of their audience had shifted their attentions to more modern acts. It’s a great thing that Don and Phil continued to record, because all of the albums I’ve heard so far--six I believe--are top notch. This one is a bit of a misnomer, because the music was not “new” when it was released in 1977; it had just never been made available yet. The recordings span the decade the brothers were at Warner Brothers, ’60 to ’70, and represent a solid peek at the changes music underwent during that turbulent time as filtered through a truly great folk, rock and pop act. Whether it’s Brill Building leftovers, a smattering of Everly originals or examples of songwriting by young upstarts the boys met through the years, all of the material here is first rate. (Edwin Letcher)

cult of the week - Social climbers

2006-01-16T01:07:00.000-08:00

artist: Social Climbers

title: Social Climbers

year: 1980

label: Hoboken Records

personnel: Jean Seton Shaw (bass, vocals), A. Leroy (farfisa organ, korg machine), Mark Bingham (guitar, vocals)

tracklisting: domestic, chicken 80, western world, chris & debbie, palm springs, that's why, ernie k, hello texas, taipei

cotw say…

Mark Bingham flirted with a number of projects prior to compiling the works of Social Climbers, including production work for MX-80 Sound and collaborations with New York's Glenn Branca. their only album was indeed a compilation of three excellent, but poorly pressed 7" flexis put out by the band.

armed with just a couple of guitars, a rhythm box and an organ, you'd be forgiven for thinking that this album may not offer anything special, or that Social Climbers would simply mirror the b-movie aspirations of their New York peers, Comateens (which they do here there, particularly on 'Western World'). however, Bingham & Co. conjure up a highly original mix of quietly neurotic post-punk restraint. both the organ and rhythm boxes are used highly effectively, thanks to subtle production trickery and clever programming, neatly offset by the geeky garageband vocals. tracks like 'Chicken 80', 'Chris & Debbie' and 'That's Why' are shining examples of the very best of post-punk DIY, thanks to both memorable tunes and a cool, if insular, atmosphere of moderate despair. as the album wanders comfortably over the stylistic map, each track in some way hits the spot, and most hit more than one.

every lo-fi collector should get to hear this. and what a tragedy that it was never followed up.

erik - http://www.cultwithnoname.com

Liverpool Echo or Rev-Ola is the new black

2006-01-10T07:01:00.000-08:00

Yesterday at work when I saw news of this reissue , I brightened up and got excited as hell, thinking, 'Wow, Rev-Ola delivering the goods, again - scratch another notch on their already battle-scarred bed-post!' But then I paused, re-thought, reflected: 'Jeez, when isn't Rev-Ola delivering!' Why they're busier than a free-clinic doctor in a developing country with an exploding birth-rate...to make a sloppy and boring analogy. And you know what's coming next! That's right, the predictable, facile segue about what's neither sloppy nor boring is this happy, hoppin' little disc that just begs to be your own! This album was made to order - why shouldn't my writing be likewise?

Actually, this record is much too good for such a phone-it-in review. For as far as 'Beatles-in-the-'70s' records go, the Liverpool Echo LP easily sits on par with the likes of Rockin' Horse, the Liverpool Express and Utopia's 'Deface The Music.' And unlike these LP's, whose main goals seemed to be to recreate the sonic verisimilitude of the early Beatles, the Liverpool Echo does this while simultaneously not skimping on the Cavern Club vigor and dynamism that made the pre-fame Fabs so compelling.

THE BACK STORY: Vet'rin psych rockers, Martin Briley and Brian Engel, late of Mandrake Paddle Steamer ('Strange Walking Man'), making ends meet in the early '70s with session work. Offer comes in from London to cut an entire album of rocking Mersey Pop Beatles-sound-a-likes of the sacred '63 vintage, to foist on the young-ins and make a little off the ten-year cycle of Liverpuddlian nostalgia. From such admittedly low expectations, the end-result could easily have been some rose-tinted horror worthy of starring David Essex or Alvin Stardust (or for that matter, Peter Frampton or Elton), with an authenticity factor just south of Flash Cadillac & The Continental Kids. Thankfully, and not a little miraculously, the Liverpool Echo players took obvious, loving care in crafting what was, for all intents and purposes, a cheap cash-in collection. Still, perhaps cognizant of the prevailing tat and pomp-rock winds and the little hope a Mersybeat sound stood in penetrating the carapace of a mass consciousness dominated by the colossi of Rod, Marc and Tull, the songs created by the Liverpool Echo were imbued with an intense personalism and lyrical directness, as if Briley, Engel and Co. were employing the disposable premise and intent of the album to document important events in their lives - writing as much for themselves as they were for an audience (now that's what I call a run-on sentence!).

...and you can pretty much write the coroner's report yourself - no autopsy required. A true lost treasure, plucked from the ash-can. Thanks, as usual to Rev-Ola. What can possibly be next in their great, lost '70s pop restoration campaign? Hackamore Brick? Sleepy Hollow? I, for one, can't wait to see and take great comfort that this album may finally reach the audience it so richly deserves.

cult of the week - The Walker Brothers

2006-01-09T02:59:00.000-08:00

artist: The Walker Brothers

title: Nite Flites

year: 1978

label: Epic Records

personnel: Scott Walker (vocals, bass, keyboards), John Walker (vocals), Gary Leeds (vocals, percussion), Les Davidson (guitar), Jim Sullivan (guitar), Peter van Hook (drums), Frank Gibson (druns), Dave Macrae (keyboards), Dill Katz (drums), Mo Foster (bass), Ronnie Ross (sax), Chris Mercer (sax), Joy Yates, (backging vocals), Katie Kissoon (backing vocals), Denis Weinreich (backing vocals), Morris Pert (percussion), Alan Skidmore (sax)

tracklisting: shutout, fat mama kick, nite flights, the electrician, death of romance, den haague, rhythms of vision, disciples of death, fury and the fire, child of flames

cotw say…

cult of the week kick off 2006 with something that could hardly be accused of being obscure. nevertheless, The Walker Brothers' bizarre swansong remains one of post-punk's most defining influences, cited by Bowie as the primary inspiration for 'Lodger' and standout 'The Electrician' revealed as the blueprint for Ultravox's 'Vienna' to highlight but two examples.

with songwriting duties split reasonably evenly between Scott Walker, JJ Maus (John Walker) and Gary Leeds, attention immediately focuses on Scott Walker's quartet of stunning, at times indescribable, suite of songs that open the album. 'Shutout' and 'Fat Mama Kick' reveal a kind of decidedly dark, fractured funk that sits somewhere between Gang of Four and Beefheart, with quite remarkable vocal production to boot. the gorgeous 'Nite Flights', with its swooping bass, strings and synths, was later covered but unmatached by Bowie and the soaring psychodrama of 'The Electrician' is perhaps best experienced first hand. suffice it to say, it hosts one of the greatest string arrangements of any contemporary song. unsurprisingly, these four cannot be matched. whilst John Walker's suite veers dangerously close to The Eagles (albeit a darker version), Gary Leeds' 'Den Haague' and 'Death of Romance' are engaging, if somewhat plodding, slices of pop noir. but neither singer's voice holds anywhere near the emotional gravitas of Scott Walker's unmistakable, despondent quiver.

nothing short of absolutely essential listening.

erik - http://www.cultwithnoname.com

Barry Cowsill, R.I.P.

2006-01-05T19:42:00.000-08:00

He disappeared in the chaos post-Katrina, and has finally been found. So sad.

(more)

Rock & Roll Archaeologist by Peter Blecha

2006-01-02T22:03:00.000-08:00

Rock & Roll Archaeologist: How I Chased Down Kurt's Stratocaster, the "Layla" Guitar, and Janis's Boa by Peter Blecha (Sasquatch Books)… Seattle's best-known collector tells all in this entertaining memoir, which chronicles his journey from childish coin and postage-stamp collector up to the mega-bucks Experience Music Project's boss curator and primary purchaser of rock 'n' roll's high-priced esoterica. Early on, Blecha fell in love with the Northwest's rock music scene, and began amassing a personal collection of every record ever recorded in the region, as well as pertinent sheet music, posters, band photos, publications, interviews, and other mementos. The collection took over his life, as collections often do, and luckily he was in the right place at the right time when billionaire Paul Allen decided to honor Jimi Hendrix's memory by devoting a museum to housing the late guitar god's artifacts. Blecha was brought on board, and as the scope of the project expanded to include other aspects of rock music's history and accomplishments, he was there every step of the way, representing Allen at high-falutin' auctions, and seeking out obscure treasures all over the globe. This book covers the highlights of Blecha's odyssey, and it'll ring the chimes of any reader who has squirreled away life's musical reminders. For once, obsession was rewarded with completion! (Dennis P. Eichhorn)

Comet Gain - City Fallen Leaves CD (Kill Rock Stars)

2006-01-02T15:43:00.000-08:00

So much of contemporary indie rock has the sound, but there’s no heart or thought inside. But Comet Gain always come across like smart, cool, complicated friends you can’t wait to meet again. Their marzipan harmonies feed lovely washes of organic chaos building off of fine melodies, and really, you’d have to be pretty greedy to ask for more.

Gary Higgins - Red Hash CD (Drag City)

2006-01-02T14:53:00.000-08:00

This pastoral, hypnotic self-released stoner folk disk from ’73 gets the deluxe reish treatment with lyrics, photos, mastering from the original tapes and bonus tracks—but no liner notes. Still, the facts of the dope-related prison term Higgins served right after his album was released add and subtract little to the whole. He has a lovely, boyish voice, warm and whispery, complementing the low key arrangements swelling with cello, flute and mandolin. He also had a more aggressive and humorous side, as shown in the Beefheart-voxed “Down on the Farm.” The songs have that rare mix of quietness and great force that demand attention, and while they become a bit monochromatic over the course of the whole album, the best are simply much too good to stay lost.

Hayden Childs reviews "Neutral Milk Hotel's 'In The Aeroplane Over The Sea'"

2005-12-31T14:25:00.000-08:00

Over at From Here To Obscurity, Hayden Childs, esteemed contributor to the recent anthology Lost in the Grooves: Scram's Capricious Guide to the Music You Missed, has some very kind things to say about my new book on Neutral Milk Hotel:

What a beautiful dream
That could flash on the screen
In a blink of an eye and be gone from me
Soft and sweet
Let me hold it close and keep it here with me

If you're like me, you love Neutral Milk Hotel's In The Aeroplane Over The Sea with a passion that few other albums achieve, and you have been looking forward to the 33 1/3 book for as long as you've known about it. Well, ok, there's probably only 1000 or so people in the country who fall into that category, but MAN, what a great album and what a great book about it.

Kim Cooper (the editrix of Lost In The Grooves, Bubblegum Music Is The Naked Truth, and Scram Magazine) gets to the heart of the story about this album. As NMH fans know, Jeff Mangum produced only one prior NMH album, On Avery Island (released in 1996), which was pretty much created without a band, then brought in a group that became the NMH that we all knew and loved. NMH put out the amazing In The Aeroplane Over The Sea in 1998, went on a short tour to support the album, then more or less disappeared. I remember when they came to Chapel Hill on that tour, but I didn't go see them because I thought I'd have plenty of options to see them again. I was wrong.

Cooper spent some time with Jeff Mangum while researching the book, and it shows, despite his unwillingness to be directly quoted, in her insight into his elusive genius. She also spoke with the other major members and friends of the band, who provided her with the in-stories that show exactly how this band bottled the lightning in 1998. Cooper's depth of research and sympathy for her subject are wonderful to read.

I pitched Richard and Linda Thompson's Shoot Out The Lights to 33 1/3, and I can say with confidence that this is exactly the sort of book I'd attempt to write about that album if the editors give me the go-ahead. Some of the other 33 1/3 books have been too much about the ego of the author; Cooper disappears into her narrative, and her book is infinitely better for it.

Mike Furber & the Bowery Boys Just A Poor Boy CD (Radioactive)

2005-12-29T11:38:00.000-08:00

London-born and finely-coiffed, Furber was just what Brisbane garage band the Bowery Boys wanted in a singer… well, aside from not having a great voice. On their sole LP, the band displays a fine hand with the jangly and punky stuff, which is unfortunately interspersed with some pretty dopey blues covers. Highlights are the deliciously messy, Easybeatsy take on “That’s When Happiness Began” and a snotty “Diddy Wah Diddy,” both better suited to Furber’s range. Later in his brief career, Furber was a Barry Gibb protégé, again to no great notice.

Two vintage Gene Sculatti Scram articles are online

2005-12-29T08:24:00.000-08:00

Newly added to the Scram back issues archives, our man Sculatti on the top ten fake Dylans and on the confounding, delicious Beauty of Bruno.

Chesapeake Juke Box Band S/T CD (Rev-Ola)

2005-12-26T12:13:00.000-08:00

In 1971, NY songwriters Steve Sawyer and Freddie McFinn sequestered themselves in the Record Plant with Archies keyboard whiz Ron Frangipane and engaged in arcane alchemical rituals focusing on the letter B. The Beach Boys, the Beatles, the sensibilities of Broadway and the British are just the most blatant elements blended into the sole release by the CJBB, a lush and schizoid demonstration of studio wizardry featuring a scattering of Wings sidemen. From the name-dropping opening track, it’s obvious that we’re in meta-territory, where pop eats it own tail. There aren’t many records that leap about so frenetically (or comfortably), a little Doo Wop here, five seconds in Nashville, or is that the Hollies’ Manchester, and whoops! now we’re in a radio drama. It’s pop as Disney ride, speedy as reading Burroughs on a train, also glib and ridiculous and elegant and finely-honed. Of course it sank like a juke box, but thanks to this reish, new generations of tail-tasters can unpeel its layers.

Beyond the Valley of Carol Kaye

2005-12-25T21:05:00.000-08:00

L.A. session bass queen Carol Kaye has a message board... and an attitude. Over on the Smiley Smile list, banned posters are chiming in with how they got bounced from her kingdom. Insist the Beach Boys or Doors played their own instruments? Think Motown's hits were recorded in Detroit? Dare to promote a Jan Berry tribute album? Buh-bye!

Q: Are We Not Men?

2005-12-22T21:43:00.000-08:00

Mike Appelstein meets Mark Mothersbaugh at an art show in St. Louis and remembers how seeing DEVO turned him into a teenage badass:

I had my official Devo energy dome with me. I bought it for $6.00 at their Rutgers University show in November 1981. That was the first real concert I ever saw, and perhaps still the best. I'll never forget it. I was 15 years old and a sophomore in high school. In 1981, it was still dangerous to be a known punk (or new wave) sympathizer. High school jocks and burnouts would call you "Devo" as an insult, or they'd sing "Turning Japanese" to you sarcastically. When word got out that I attended an actual Devo show, the abuse only increased until I finally told the burnouts to, and I quote, "fuck off." I got the crap beaten out of me that afternoon. I didn't care. I felt righteous. So to be in a room with hundreds of people who actually liked Devo, and who weren't going to make fun or hit me for my musical taste, was like nothing I experienced in my own daily life. Of course the band was great as well; They opened with videos (still a novel concept at that point) and played songs from all their albums. They were still riding a wave of fame from "Whip It" and Freedom of Choice the year before, and apparently used the money on their stage show: the set resembled a futuristic jungle gym, complete with treadmills. For the encore, Booji Boy came out and sang "Beautiful World."

To Devo it was probably just another unremarkable night on tour. But to me, this concert was a life-changing event. By 1981 I was already a hardcore music nut: I'd been buying new wave albums since 1979 and had discovered college radio and Young Marble Giants earlier that year. But actually attending a concert, being surrounded by other Devo fans, pushed me over the edge. For the first time, I knew for sure that I wasn't alone in my interests and obsessions. It was a revelation. Nothing would ever be quite the same.

Neutral Milk Hotel book limited numbered copy auction

2005-12-20T16:37:00.000-08:00

The first auction for one of the numbered copies of my NMH book ended at just over $100 and a went to a nice fellow who is surprising his wife with it for Xmas. I've just listed book #28/30 on eBay, and would be happy to entertain offers for the few remaining books in the series, via email at scram@scrammagazine.com.

The auction URL for #28 is
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6590522530

Nervous Norvus Stone Age Woo: The Zorch Sounds of… CD (Norton)

2005-12-20T12:22:00.000-08:00

Jimmy Drake was a self-trained musician who loved Red Blanchard’s kid’s radio show and started composing original novelty tunes in tribute to the DJ. Blanchard liked what he heard, and transformed Drake—who just thought he was a demo man--into the wild Nervous Norvus performing character. This daffy comp includes Norv’s sole hit, the 1956 auto-crash ballet “Transfusion,” and scads of unheard primitive oddities that flesh out Drake’s uniquely unsettling take on the American pop songbook. From the leering “I Like Girls” to the hysterical “Does A Chinese Chicken Have A Pigtail?” to the first person tale of a sexy space alien called The Fang, Drake’s lo-fi rockabilly paints a picture of a deranged, yet strangely gentle, hillbilly maniac. You just want to hug the nut.

cult of the week - Hybrid Kids

2005-12-19T06:05:00.000-08:00

artist: Hybrid Kids

title: Claws

year: 1980

label: Cherry Red Records

personnel: Morgan Fisher (all instruments except...) Maggie Nicols (voice), Lol Coxhill (sax), Joel Cutrara (xmas appeal), Iain McNay (speech), Chris & Valerie Ross (voices)

tracklisting: we three kings, o come all ye faithful, deck the halls, coventry, holly and ivy, no st. bernard, listen the snow is flling, dead ducks, good king wenceslas, happy xmas (war is over)

cotw say…

this week, what could be more appropriate than to review a Christmas album? however, i doubt that 'Claws' (geddit?) will be played at many Christmas parties.

hatched from the warped universe of former Mott the Hoople keyboardist (!) Morgan Fisher - with a notable guest slot from saxophonist and friend Lol Coxhill - the basic premise of 'Claws' is to take traditional Xmas fare such as 'O Come All Ye Faithful', and seriously mash it through a Flying Lizards' filter. the results are, at times, truly bizarre. by keeping the songs moving at a frantic pace and almost exclusively using a pitch harmoniser to raise his voice, Fisher's efforts hurtle headlong towards the realms of other high octane kitchen sink experimenters like Renaldo and the Loaf. as you would expect, much of it is meticulously pieced together, particularly the percussion loops and mandolin (?) of opener 'We Three Kings'. side two is thankfully more sedate. 'No St. Bernard' features label boss Iain McNay providing an amusing 'I hate Christmas' monologue over gentle synths and samples of old Xmas hits drifting in and out of the mix. meanwhile, Maggie Nichols' a capella folk song 'Dead Ducks' remains genuinely affecting. concluding with Pinky and Perky's very own version of 'War is Over', tongues are firmly returned to cheeks.

guaranteed to excite the child in you at Christmas, 'Claws' is a cracker!

erik - www.cultwithnoname.com

Brian Heater reviews the Neutral Milk Hotel book, NY Press

2005-12-14T23:43:00.000-08:00

In the final chapter of Kim Cooper’s meditation on Neutral Milk Hotel’s album In the Aeroplane over the Sea (Continuum Press, 104 pages, $9.95), the author tells of visibly fatigued frontman Jeff Mangum getting up in front of a crowd, apologizing for the “sick parts” and introducing a new composition, then launching in to what, to date, is the only post-Aeroplane song he’s performed in public, ending with the couplet “Knowing God in Heaven never could forgive him / So I took a hammer and nearly beat his brains.” The words, coupled with Mangum’s physical state and his subsequent retreat from the public eye may not help in a defense of Mangum’s much-debated sanity. They are, though, the stuff of rock legend, and Aeroplane is lousy with the stuff. Issued in 1998, its cult following has grown ever since. Neutral Milk Hotel’s sophomore record means an awful lot of things to an awful lot of people. This may not be Let it Be, but it certainly warrants the in-depth treatment that is the 33 1/3 series’ forte.

The book’s opening chapters relate the history of the Elephant 6 Collective, beginning with Mangum’s humble beginnings in the tiny college town of Ruston, La., as told through interviews with fellow Collective members including The Apples in Stereo’s Robert Schneider and Scott Spillane of The Gerbils and NMH. (Noticeably absent are any quotes from the notoriously reclusive Mangum.) While the back story is thin, Cooper works with what she has, telling some nice stories about musicians sharing boom box recordings.

A later chapter finds Cooper analyzing the record track-by-track, offering some compelling readings of the album’s often impenetrable imagery. The book concludes with an account of Mangum’s suspected psychosis, using quotes from his close friend (and longtime Elf Power bandmember) Laura Carter to refute them. When it’s all over, there seem to be more unanswered questions than we started with. Still, the ride is certainly worth the price of admission.

—Brian Heater, NY Press

Neutral Milk Hotel book reviewed by Rob Harvilla

2005-12-14T23:26:00.000-08:00

The Aeroplane Flies High
The devout, ever-multiplying cult of Neutral Milk Hotel should perhaps prepare for a second coming. By Rob Harvilla

The most influential indie-rock record of the past decade reverently declares I love you Jesus Christ, features the songs "Two-Headed Boy" (parts one and two) and "The King of Carrot Flowers" (part one, then parts two and three combined), uses semen as a lyrical motif, crushes heavily on Anne Frank, lists a zanzithophone player in its liner notes, and whips up an unholy racket like several punk rockers and a Bulgarian wedding band trapped in an elevator together, desperately screaming for help. Stranger things will never happen.

Fortunately, Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, a carefully guarded secret upon its release in 1998, has been happening ever since. The record's vibrant, chaotic Salvation Army Marching Band sound and surrealist wordplay has inspired current big-shots from the Decemberists to the Arcade Fire to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Mysterious NMH mastermind Jeff Mangum -- who all but disappeared shortly after Aeroplane's release -- became a full-fledged reclusive genius deity, a beloved Salinger for the Pitchfork set. Pitchfork itself, meanwhile, recently deep-sixed the tepid Aeroplane review the online rock-crit site had originally run and replaced it with a fawning, triumphant 10.0 coronation.

Seven years later, the record's influence and capacity to fascinate have swelled to gargantuan proportions. Now, Los Angeles-based writer and critic Kim Cooper -- a devout lover of bubblegum pop and so-called "unpopular culture" via her zine Scram -- has taken the first real crack at unraveling Aeroplane's mystique, penning a tome for Continuum Books' immensely popular 331/3 series. Each selection is a pocket-sized hundred-or-so-pager devoted to the genesis, construction, and aftermath of one record, and although the series has enjoyed success with paeans to classics like the Smiths' Meat Is Murder and Prince's Sign 'O' the Times, Cooper's Aeroplane volume might be its biggest hit yet.

The record's ongoing critical revisionism has helped, of course, but Kim insists that word of mouth has slowly turned Neutral Milk Hotel from near-unknown to near-mythic. "I think it's just based on how many people love it," she explains. "People get very evangelical about this album. A record review can't do that. Who really cares if the record's got a 10.0, compared to sitting down with a friend who plays a song for you and it blows your mind?"

Kim's book is a fairly straightforward rise-and-fall narrative, beginning with a gang of Louisiana college radio rats who migrate on a whim to Athens, Georgia, while slowly coalescing into the Elephant 6 collective, a loose-knit crew of psychedelic-pop artistes who've found success with bands like Olivia Tremor Control and Of Montreal, but undoubtedly peaked with Neutral Milk Hotel. In-depth interviews with friends and collaborators -- including pop aficionado Robert Schneider, who produced Aeroplane at Pet Sounds, his Denver studio -- fill it out, but the famously distant Mangum transcends and haunts it all. He doesn't talk to Kim on the record -- "He didn't immediately say no, and ultimately he didn't say yes," she explains -- but you get just enough of a sense of the guy, from his affinity for rehearsing in the bathroom to his night terrors to his apparent obsession with Anne Frank's harrowing WWII artifact, The Diary of a Young Girl.

Aeroplane perfected a psychotic carnival sound (from expertly fuzzed-out barnburners like "Holland 1945" to sweet, cryptic ballads like the title track), but Mangum's surrealist lyrics still dominate, filled with lovesick two-headed freaks floating in jars, semen-stained mountaintops, and flaming pianos, apartment buildings, and human heads. Cryptic Anne Frank references abound, but on the chilling "Oh Comely" -- a showcase for Mangum's mournfully strummed acoustic guitar and braying, famously polarizing voice -- he careens though verses of fantastically twisted imagery before settling on the shockingly direct:

And I know they buried her body with others

Her sister and mother and five hundred families

And will she remember me fifty years later

I wish I could save her in some sort of time machine

The Jeff/Anne love affair is a strange and sometimes uncomfortable pairing. "Picture the Franks in their Dutch hidey-hole, 1944," Cooper writes. "Picture the Elephant 6 gang fifty years later, rock 'n' roll and road trips and DIY. Incongruous worlds, but the sets collide, and somehow fit perfectly together." Maybe not perfectly -- though plenty of critics hate E6 and Neutral Milk in particular, it's doubtful they've ever seriously considered genocide.

Over the phone, Kim explains it a bit more convincingly. "I think it was a personal connection with her as a writer and as a person, this really lovely adolescent who was just kind of flowering and becoming an adult and an intellectual, and it was all just wiped away by forces so much more powerful than her," she explains. "Some people think that he was in love with her."

Does she think so? "I think he loved her the way that you love anyone whose story really touches you. You want the best for them, and you can't help them, and that's where you get I wish I could save her in some sort of time machine."

At first it's off-putting that Kim largely avoids probing the meaning or backstory behind Aeroplane's beguiling lyrics -- she tacked on a track-by-track analysis at her editor's request -- but ultimately it makes sense to leave all that to your own inclination and imagination. Mangum's seclusion is also a fuzzy affair, but though his refusal to record, perform, or submit to interviews shortly after the album's release was partly due to private, personal issues, Kim's book heavily implies that much of it was showbiz, borne of Mangum's desire to go out with a bang, slowly work his devotees into a deifying lather, and then descend from the mountain years later with a spectacular follow-up. Urban legend insists he's gone completely bonkers, but the facts suggest he knows exactly what he's doing -- in her text, Kim makes the point of noting that Mangum is alive, lucid, and sane.

"If you listen to the music, it's obvious that there's a lot of thought that goes into everything," Cooper says. "It's not very random. ... There's a certain elegance to just walking away and leaving this kind of resounding note in the air."

And lo, just as Kim's book comes out, new Neutral Milk Hotel demos surface online, capping a year that also saw Mangum show up onstage with old E6 buddies such as the Circulatory System and Olivia Tremor Control. The Aeroplane revival has reached critical mass, and the Great Comeback may in fact be upon us.

"That's certainly what [paramour and, coincidentally, zanzithophonist] Laura Carter thought he was doing," Kim concludes. "That he was echoing artists from the past he liked who disappear for periods, and then come back when nobody's expecting something, and really blowing people's minds. I hope he does." Whether you know it or not, so do you.

This review appeared in the East Bay Express, December 14, 2005

The Secret History of the Whippets, a NYC girl group

2005-12-12T21:47:00.000-08:00

A few nights ago--the anniversary of John Lennon's death, actually--my friend Sean Carrillo sent me a link to a deliciously goofy MP3. It was a novelty single his wife Bibbe Hansen recorded with two girlfriends in 1964 as The Whippets, "Let's Go Go Go With Ringo." This primitive girl group 45 would be a hoot in its own right, but it becomes all the neater when you reflect that Bibbe Whippet was the littlest Warhol superstar, daughter of happenings artist Al Hansen and later mother of Beck, while Janet Whippet (link includes audio) was the only child of Jack Kerouac. Charlotte Rosenthal, meanwhile, had interesting taste in friends.

So before posting a link to "Let's Go Go Go With Ringo" so you, too, can get this thing stuck like goo in your noggin, I had to ask, how did three New York City girls end up faking British accents in an aural love note to the schnozziest Beatle?

Bibbe replied with the inside scoop:

"Charlotte Rosenthal, Janet Kerouac and I were all downtown street kids in 1964 New York City. While panhandling, we three met songwriter Neil Levinson ("Oh, Denise") and hustled busfare from him. On the bus ride we fell to chatting. The Beatles had just come out big in the US and Neil had written a girl-song response to “I Want To Hold Your Hand.” Would we be interested in hearing it? We met him later that day at Steinway Studios on 57th Street and together finished the lyrics and music for “I Want To Talk With You.” It was a classic girl group riff and we dug it. That same day we went to a half dozen record companies auditioning the song without any takers. As a last resort, Neil called Colpix label’s Don Rubin from a payphone. When Don said he would see us we ran all the way over to the audition. We sang the song and within the next couple days we were signed to Colpix and to DuLev Productions. DuLev was Levinson’s company with his partner, Steve Duboff. For the B-side Neil brought in pal Jean Murray (Jean Kauffman) who had co-written the Darin hit “Splish Splash” with Darin and her son, DJ Murray the K. Oh, that she only wrote us another “Splish Splash!” Instead it was the rather silly and insipid “Go Go Go With Ringo.” We loved the A-side but weren’t too wild about the Ringo song. Over the next few weeks we rehearsed daily, shopped for matching outfits and had 8x10 glossy promo pictures taken. At one point we were introduced to the group The Tokens who apparently were now 1/3 owners of our act along with Dulev (1/3) and Jean Murray (1/3). Our percentage was apparently not accounted for under this bookkeeping arrangement. Similarly, I have no idea how Don Rubin and Colpix were supposed to get their cut.

Within a few weeks we were recording. The record was pressed—at least dj copies. We got a box of these records to split between us. I believe it was released however briefly but nothing much happened with it. I heard our masters were sold to Laurie Records at one point. Later I heard we’d charted somewhere in Canada. Shortly before she died, Janet Kerouac told me her Rhino Records lawyers were looking into that and had found that we were owed a little bit of money. Apparently not enough to bother collecting from what I can tell.

I ran into Steve Duboff once around ten years ago in LA. We talked on the phone. He’d been living in Hancock Park and was just then packing to move out to the beach. He thought he had some copies of the record somewhere and said he would look for it as he would love to give me a copy. We lost touch and I never saw him again. I heard only last week, he’d died of cancer in LA, February 2004. Janet Kerouac came to visit Sean and I in California a couple times in the early 1990’s. It was great fun to reconnect. I haven’t seen Charlotte Rosenthal since 1965."

Ladies, gentlemen and little children, click to hear The Whippets Sing.

Dirty Angels - Sealed With A Bosstown Kiss

2005-12-12T16:35:00.000-08:00

I don’t have a problem: punk does. That there remain writers and enthusiasts, catechism-ically (cataclysmically?) convinced that the sole bearing which determines a music’s quality lies within its influence on or relationship to that great bondage-trouser renaissance of ‘76/‘77, should surprise no one - P.T. Barnum gave us the logarithm, NME made it orthodoxy, Greil Marcus carved it in pseudo-intellectual stone (the majority is nearly always wrong about everything else anyway - why then should ‘hip’ music be exempt…but I digress).

What is certainly surprising and ultimately dismaying is the sheer volume of music that - much like the title of this blog - becomes lost; that this exclusionary interpretation passes over. To these ’77-told-the-truth’ cretins and their Q‘ed-in coterie, the whole of the 60’s can be pared down to approximately five groups (Stones, Stooges, Velvets, Silver Apples, MC-5) while the cupboard of the early-to-mid 70’s echoes back even barer (Eno, Bowie, Mod Lovers, New York Dolls).

...And the fate of a band like the Dirty Angels - non-Marxist, American, all male with one member sporting a mustache and no members playing the electric lathe? ‘Well…they just ain’t ideologically groovy enough, mate, sorry, have you heard Flux of Pink Indians yet?’ All groan.

Condemned to trample the outer court of paradise forever though they are - as well as surely destined to never grace the jacket-backside of any self-respecting Vice Squad fan or receive an invite from Thurston Moore to play at All Tomorrow’s Parties - Boston’s Dirty Angels were a truly marvelous Stonesy guitar band who played upbeat, driving pop to the obvious delight of very few. No one remembers these guys it seems, which is odd because to me the Boston ‘indie/punk’ scene was always one of the more forgettable - notable exceptions (Reddy Teddy, Real Kids, Nervous Eaters, DMZ) aside. For those that care though, the core of the Dirty Angels grew out of a funky, soul and blues group called White Chocolate (one LP, ’73 on RCA - don’t stop reading yet!) which had actually begun its life as Arthur Lee’s backing/touring band in the early 70’s (they don‘t sound anything like ‘Vindicator,’ I assure you). Adjusting the name of the band to something less distasteful, the DA’s became one of the first signings to Seymour Stein’s newly reorganized and nascent ’new wave’-friendly Sire label in late 1975. Nevertheless, the relationship between Sire and the Angels did not last long, the band remaining on the label just long enough to issue its debut single: a competent airing of Tim Moore's ‘Rock ‘N‘ Roll Love Letter’ (yes, the same one the Rollers did - how’s that for ideological commitment!) which, with no label support, unsurprisingly failed. Still, it appeared that at least someone had taken notice of the band; for as quickly as the band had been dropped, New York’s Private Stock label scooped them up, pairing them perfectly with early Blondie producer and ex-Strangelove, Richard Gottehrer.

Now, here’s the part where I am supposed to succumb to the predictable string of Bangs-ian hyperbole. About how not since Icarus has one band of believers soared so high amongst the vaulted heavens. About how the Dirty Angels struggled like Solzhenitsyn in a Stalinist gulag of merciless mediocrity and universal downer-despair. And how the LP produced by Gottehrer and the Angels cries out for reissue like that child in the burning rubble of Nanjing.

Well…uhhh, it’s pretty darn good actually. Amazing even, in light of the amount of cachet spewed over even the most middling of New York or Boston 'punk' acts, that has somehow - for whatever reason - managed to leave this stone undisturbed.

Sounding as if the poppiest tendencies of Richard Llloyd and Tom Verlaine mated with the classic girl-centric themes of very-proper-Bostonians Piper and the Sidewinders, the Dirty Angels first LP, ‘Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye,’ is every bit as seductive as the Cagney film from whence it takes its name. The production is patent ’Instant Record’ Gottehrer - sparkling and pristine - while the lead-off track and first single, ’Tell Me’ - with its ascending chorus and Telecaster riffing, seemingly tailor-made for a Greg Shaw end-of-year list - is every bit as good, if not better, than the Sidewinders’ ’Rendezvous’ or Piper’s ’Who’s Your Boyfriend.’ Though nothing else on the record quite equals it, the remaining eleven tracks on the album are all above-average pop - offerings stacked high with ample licks of spry, non-groin-grinding guitar.

Former New York Dolls champion Marty Thau is also thanked on the record’s reverse sleeve, leading me to believe that - contrary to the utter lack of information - the group were at least somewhat well-regarded amongst the New York/Boston cognoscenti. Be that as it may or may not, the Dirty Angels would no doubt have done better to engage the services of the mighty Thau on a more official, business basis; for despite a captivating LP’s worth of music of a consistently high quality and extreme hum-ability, ‘Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye’ failed to make a commercial or lasting critical impact. Following the LP’s almost pre-ordained death, Private Stock and the DA’s soon parted ways and no one wept.

The most common pit-fall of groups playing pop in the mid-to-late 70’s could best be summarized in a borrowed lyric from Howard Devoto - ‘shot by both sides.’ Spurned by the heavies, ignored by the teens, bands like the Dirty Angels were left to wither on the vine. And though the group did manage another LP on A&M two years later, it’s nothing on the strength or promise of their debut. As earlier stated, there is a dearth of available information on the Dirty Angels; seemingly, their only legacy was to groom the future bassist for the Joe Perry Project (!!!) - a fate I would not wish upon my worst enemy. ’Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye’ is an amazing and important record and not simply because it predates much of Boston or New York punk. It’s a record that should have succeeded in making the band stars…but, for whatever reason, did not. Still, if you come across ‘Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye’ in the mass graves of the cut-out bin or have ever wished for a more poppified Television in love with Tommy James instead of Rimbaud, the Dirty Angels are your band.

Alastair Riddell - Space Waltz CD (RPM)

2005-12-12T14:31:00.000-08:00

In 1974, far from the gritty urban Glam strongholds of London and NYC, New Zealand birthed its own Ziggyesque character in the form of A. Riddell, a corpse-white, hollow-eyed jeepster whose clever, robotic pop provided an excellent balm for local kids jonesing for David. While extremely dramatic and silly in spots, packed with zero-gravity battle sounds and arch prose declamation, Space Waltz does that most essential Glam thing: it rocks. The band shattered not long after these tracks were recorded, with a couple members joining Split Enz.

The Misteriosos - S/T CD (Triptone)

2005-12-12T13:59:00.000-08:00

The debut from this tuff little Philly-by-way-of-Boston trio kicks off in impressive ticked-off fuzz garage traditionalist mode, but quickly slips into psychedelic experimentation highlighted by Tula Storm’s dreamy singing and some very nasty acid guitar by one “Jelly Roll,” who also handles the snotty male vocals. Trippy and unpredictable, if all over the map.

2005-12-12T12:58:00.000-08:00

Chicago blues legend Nick Gravenites, who appears in a previously unpublished, extremely candid 1985 Denny Eichhorn interview in the forthcoming Scram #22, is just one of the celebrated blues players using the internet to connect with fans and young musicians in a new open forum. According to the press release from the ever-hip Bob Merlis:

Chicago Blues Reunion is the house rocking collective of six legends of the blues behind Buried Alive In The Blues, the critically acclaimed DVD/CD package from Out The Box. Just awarded a four star review in the current issue of Rolling Stone, Buried Alive In The Blues documents their history, music, inspiration and legacy and now the band members are making a direct connection the cyber world on www.CBRband.com (click on “Online Forum” in spinning wheel).

Barry Goldberg (Hammond B-3), Nick “The Greek” Gravenites (vocals/guitar), Harvey “The Snake” Mandel (guitar), Tracy Nelson (vocals), Sam Lay (drums/vocals) and Corky Siegel (harmonica/vocals -- each one, individually, an icon of the genre -- have come together, not only in the band but online, as well. Each is now manning an interactive discussion board on cbr.com where fans can get their questions answered and discuss aspects of their respective careers. Mentoring younger musicians is another facet of the new feature that has just been launched on the band’s site.

The Echo Park Germs reunion (minus Darby) reviewed

2005-12-11T12:05:00.000-08:00

WE MUST BLEED
The Germs reunion
at the Echo, Los Angeles, Tuesday, October 25, 2005
by Falling James

Death has been good to Darby Crash; the paradox, of course, is that he hasn’t been around to enjoy it. Though there used to be a certain finality to his foolish suicide overdose in December 1980 – precluding the possibility of his ever selling out and becoming a stadium-level rock star -- it’s since become somewhat acceptable when the Doors, INXS, Human Hands, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and even Pat Smear’s faves, Queen, carry on without their presumably irreplaceable leaders. (Or when bands like the Misfits, Dead Kennedys and “Creedence Clearwater Revived” continue without their still-breathing former singers.) So why not the Germs? Punk’s not dead, even if Darby Crash is. If nothing else, these reunion séances are a clever promotion for the upcoming Germs movie. The crush of nostalgia trumps authenticity.

The twist here is that the three surviving Germs are joined by actor Shane West, who portrays Darby Crash in the biopic. West doesn’t look or act much like Darby (he’s physically more suited for the lead in The Metal Mike Story), but at this what-we-do-is-secret show he did a decent job of mimicking Darby’s surly singing growl. The problem, however, was his incessantly annoying chatter between songs, saying obvious things Darby never would have said. His tuff-guy bravado was punk enough, but just the narcissist macho rambling of any generic singer. West loved himself too much, it was clear, to channel the suicidal despair and complexities & contradictions of the real Darby Crash.

West tried too hard, when more mystery would have sufficed. Of course, he had the thankless job of replacing a legend, much less trying to communicate Darby’s poetic acuity or the irony that such a wasted punk rocker, who garbled incoherently, often away from the mike, was actually singing such refined poetry as “Let me brush the tips of inculcated desire.” Perhaps West will settle down given time. He kept throwing beer bottles into the packed crowd; he's lucky no one was hurt. The rest of the band should seriously consider giving West a shorter leash . . . or a script.

Didn’t Darby realize they’d just get some actor to replace him after the proper 25 years of mourning had passed? If only he'd realized that the simultaneous John Lennon assassination would crowd his performance-art rock & roll suicide out of the newspapers . . . Oh, Darby Stardust, you just needed a vacation, maybe some sunlight and vitamins. You shoulda stuck around.

When I arrived at The Echo, poet/belly dancer/singer Pleasant Gehman was stalking around outside with some lucky boyfriend. She looked like a vintage movie star/garishly glamorous goddess. After a set by the Adolescents and several delays, Donnie Popejoy introduced the Germs, while Don Bolles made smart-ass wisecracks about Donnie’s rambling remarks. Guitarist Pat Smear stood smiling impassively by his amp; reclusive bassist Lorna Doom showed up last onstage, out of nowhere. It was genuinely thrilling when Bolles kicked into the extra-splashy cymbals intro of “Circle One,” which skittered madly out of control once Pat and Lorna locked down into those flapping, slapping quick chords. “Lexicon Devil” followed with stomping exhilaration. “American Leather” was crushingly powerful, while Smear’s searing arpeggios lit up the slower-pulsed “Our Way” with sinister beauty. Lorna played those classic, simply doomy bass lines in between Don’s snare-spanking and cymbal-hectoring. Smear chopped up compactly crunchy, fuzzed-out-wacky riffs, dotted with occasional short-&-woozy solos among the fat power-chord punches.

The crowd was a weird mixture of surly young punk types, old scenesters like me, and a bunch of indifferent beautiful people who didn’t seem to be fans -- perhaps they were crew from the film or in the Industry or there to be cool. A couple of guys were filming, with big, expensive cameras, and were bumped around occasionally by the folks who’d taken over the dance floor with their crazy sideways dancing. The pit stirred fitfully, especially on “We Must Bleed” and “No God,” but the moshers, whoever they were and why ever they were there, were lethargic much of the time, slamming showily then getting tired halfway into a two-minute blast. How punk. Don’t dance if you can’t finish the song.

The Germs didn’t whip out rarities like “Golden Boys” or do any covers; they mostly ran through songs from G.I. (though not “Shut Down”) and the first E.P. Not that I’m complaining: Even at this strange and partial theatrical re-enactment, I enjoyed hearing the classics live, including “What We Do Is Secret,” “Media Blitz” and “Manimal” -- the stuff that rearranged my teenage life patterns. On “Strange Notes,” Pat Smear didn’t play the album version’s overdubbed bleary, sliding lead, which sounds so mesmerizing in the midst of this fast pre-hardcore song, but he filled the spaces live with his trademark harmonic shuffle-strum accents. He’d muffle his strings but still play with power and attack and get some great, ominous chunka-chunkas without having to thrash all six strings blindly like most guitarists.

An unexpectedly extended version of “Let’s Pretend” tripped out with Lorna’s primal bass throb and Don’s tom-tom rumble, as Pat’s psychedelic solo soared up the neck like a supersonic (youth) jet. Astonishing. That alone made the concert worthwhile. (Bolles pointed out that everybody got their money’s worth – it was a free show.) The set closed savagely with “Lion’s Share” and the Sisyphean patterns of “My Tunnel.” Darby once sang, “We don’t care how you get your kicks/We just care about Lorna’s trip,” so we tried to revel in this rare visit by the enigmatic Ms. Doom, and the chance to be to get torn up again by Smear’s flurry of rabid chords, instead of lamenting that Elvis -- and the ghosts -- had already left the building.

Maybe we shouldn’t have been there. Maybe this reunion without Darby was wrong and should never have happened. Maybe we were breaking into a haunted house, but it was inspiring to hear those Pandora’s-boxy chords and lyrics again, the manically thrashed and rushing drums, the coolly nonchalant bass plucking . . . these echoes at The Echo of the late or maybe just too early Darby Crash, echoes of his scabrous help-me-hurt-you baby wailing and sky-clawing nihilist poetry. “Gather up the broken chairs . . .” It could have been worse, and soon it all will be.