Umberto - Confrontations

What's lost is now found. This is the 4th Album (well I've got 4) for one of my favourite groups of the last few years Umberto. I was gonna try and write about them without mentioning Dario Argento, John Carpenter or Goblin but hey that's absurd. On this record though I could probably chuck in Giorgio Morroder. The cover says it all really: Nite driving with an alien invasion. Italo-Disco meets Italo-exploitation with added hand claps. This could be my favourite of their releases so far. I could listen to this all day and all nite, er.... that's what I've been doing. Something tells me these aliens aren't gonna be that nice and might be wearing hockey masks but you kinda want them to land anyway.

Faust, Bono & Benedict Cumberbatch

Wake me when all the bad nows have turned to good nows. Listening to Faust's Faust on my ipod reminded me 'Did I need to get that Can triple cd I think it was called the lost tapes maybe....It's probably awesome....must get that tomorrow I think...That'll have some good nows and some good thens.

'We've arrived in the 70s again man.'

Reading about Scratch Acid yesterday on the interweb on a man without shame reminded me that The Drones sometimes remind me of them along with a band I barely recall The Laughing Hyenas, am I right? Who the fuck knows? Tried to watch 2001 the other day on the digital telly thinkin yeah this'll be great. Half an hour in I wanted to smash in the screen. Watched the new HBO show VEEP and thought it was just tryin to be an American The Thick Of It. Watched The Newsroom as well. It was so cheesie i almost liked it. Jack whitehall does Bono have to apologise to you personally for tryin to make the world a better place? It's a fucked up world that belittles people trying to abolish poverty! Am I like CJ from Eggheads? He likes all the same stuff as me. Five shirts arrived from London yesterday and I haven't even opened them all.....CJ would probably like them. I've lost the new Umberto album. 2013 seems like the least yeary year in my life. Are the 2010s the 2010s or the tens or has everyone given up on decades. I loved decades but they must have been a 20th century thing. What about female popes? When are we gonna have one of them? Can I become an Ecclesiastical Tailor? That's an impressive job title! Dug out Just Keep Eating pretty funny....Hey man without shame! Rapeman were a top band.... Is Game of Thrones good or a pile o shite? I like the sex and violence but I'm not so sure about the supernatural stuff and well c'mon dragons... I'm not 5.  Do I need to be more of a geek? Hey I've watched the first two seasons though. Where is dvd of season 5 part 1 of Breaking Bad mofos?? m b v turned up on my doorstep tonight. What shall I do with it? It's just sittin there mocking me saying "Gee that's $42 well spent." I was nearly over it and it turns up on a Friday nite! Benedict Cumberbatch ....

Saigon Rock And Soul

Dug out this classic compilation the other day after watching Apocalypse Now Redux. This LP was only released in 2010 and contains Vietnamese trax from 1968-1974. Sublime Frequencies is the excellent excavation label it was released on. This label is run by American Alan Bishop and some other dude. Bishop would be known to underground music lovers as a founding member of Sun City Girls. SCG played warped exotic avant rock and existed from the 80s right up until around 2010.  This treasure trove has got the lot! (like pretty much all the releases on said label). Who knew previous to this release that there was such a happening scene in Vietnam during this era? While watching Apocalypse Now the other day I was struck by the lack of any non-western music in the film. Imagine  if some of this shit was used. This archival package features Asian fuzz rock, sultry divas with slinky rhythms,  psychedelic jazzy soul with horns, forays into acid rock, female pop singers swathed in twang and wah wah and incredibly funky beats all lovingly compiled by Mark Gergis. Some of this music puts me in mind of French style beat pop of the era and other Asian styles of the time like Thailand's Luk Thung and Molam genres. Perhaps the Vietnamese style here is a bit more western influenced than those Thai genres, probably due to the presence of the American army and French colonials during this compilations timeframe.  Like the Thai music of the time though, this was a fleeting and ephemeral pop culture that has taken a long time to be collected and showcased to a Western audience. On this LP is some of the most vital, tantalising and far out pop/rock from any time and place.

*Here's an ABC radio documentary Saigon's Wartime Beat which features interviews with some of this compilation's musicians and its compiler that I discovered after writing this.

This guy was on my bus today

Did he fake his own death only to
wind up living in Box Hill?

Spoiler Alert

Two movies in 2 days featured the tunage of Led Zeppelin. Firstly there was When The Levee Breaks in a scene in Argo. This film was set in 1980 and once you got past most of the characters giant spectacles, it was quite convincingly set in its time. It looked like an American film from the late 70s/80. I wonder if this was a vibe they were going for. It's a pretty good idea to put people in mind of the greatest era of American film making (late 60s through to 80) in your 2010s film. This may have subconsciously put it into the minds of the awards voters. Also it's an incredible story. The producers were given a gift with this true story about the CIA getting American citizens out of Iran during the hostage crisis. Well they may have paid a lot of money for this story but the script would have virtually written itself. It would have been pretty hard to fuck up this tale. To make this heroic story more palatable and not make it look like American propaganda they've made the USA look pretty bad in the context of the Iran-USA conflict. This in turn almost makes Ben Affleck's character an anti-hero but not quite. He still saves the day and gets the girl. Anyway Ben Affleck turns in one of the most minimal acting performances ever put to screen. You can feel the fear and tension of the 6 embassy officials who need to be rescued. This is superb film making. My only gripe was at the end where they seem unable to resist a dash of cheese. Affleck's character reunites with his wife who he's been separated from. This appears to be for no reason as I doubt she would have been allowed to know the case he was involved in and what had transpired. The truth was not released to the public about this event until many years later. You get the feeling the studio execs put Affleck, director of the film, up to this saying "Hey this will double your audience. All you need to do is put this minutes worth of footage in your film otherwise we wont bankroll you."

Led Zeppelin's What Is & What Never Should Be features in a chaotic scene in the film Silver Linings Playbook. This is a love story about 2 people who have had a rough time and experienced varying amounts of mental illness. There is no doubting Jennifer Lawrence's magnetic star power. The camera absolutely loves her like no one I've seen in recent memory. For Lawrence to be the standout, in a film with Robert De Nero in career best form, is a testament to her presence and talent. She looks set to dominate the movies and their awards ceremonies for the foreseeable future. Bradley Cooper is also convincing and compelling as Jennifer's love interest and fellow fuck up in this romantic comedy. De Nero is getting better, Jackie Weaver's late blooming continues and the rest of the ensemble rises to the task. My favourite scene is when Cooper's character throws a Hemmingway book out of a closed window in the middle of the night.  I thought: It's about time someone took a stand against tedious literature that is forced upon us. Fuck the cannon! It's a curious thing that now for me (and many others I presume) to accept a love story it has to come from a very twisted, fairly sad and dark place. This was also a very funny film though.

Ex Cops

Barry Divolla from Australia's Who Magazine(Aussie equivalent to USA's People) writes this week about Ex Cops. Ex Cops are some new band probably from Brooklyn. Barry says if The Chills, early REM, Velvet Underground, The Feelies, The Smiths and Galaxy 500 mean everything to you then check out Ex Cops' LP True Hallucinations. All those bands I love (the first 3 REM LPs are gold and so are their 5th & 6th) so I wont be checking out this new record. Why the fuck would I? I'll just listen to those old records. The late 60s and the 80s are a long time ago. I can't really imagine this band being anywhere near that league of bands. That league is the highest water mark in underground guitar pop/rock ever. At this late stage it's hard to imagine anyone coming close to those epochal legends.

I wanted the Murmur version of Pilgrimage but couldn't 

find it. This is just as good anyway!

Yay!

More Yay!

Jesus they were really cookin' with Craig Gannon

on 2nd guitar. This fucking rocks!

How good?

Gotta have another!

'Listen to the Byrds sing on the tape recorder.'

The Zoo Is Cool

Couch Flambeau

The Zoo Is Cool

Great stuff from Nowheresville USA in 1985. Pretty unique I guess and a little bit funny. Saw this on the interweb about 5 years ago when I'd never heard of em.  Like J Mascis's  funny dork of a cousin  who was into MX80.

Peter Shapiro and Philip Brophy contribute to this months Wire. Shapiro does a primer on US Hardcore. It's one of those scenes that's got a lot of naffness and Shapiro isn't shy in pointing that out. It's the stuff with a bit of wit that really stands out. I mean Black Flag embody the scenes good/bad qualities. On the same record they would have something funny in a trashy yob rock stylee like TV Party then a woefully whingey track like Depression or Damaged II. Shapiro is one of my favourite music writers of all time but I have to pull him up on one sentence where he claims Husker Du didn't "devolve into emo's woe is me whining." Hmmm.... I'm not so sure about that. No Angry Samoans in the feature either, were they a little too homophobic? Not hardcore enough?

That previously mentioned Nuts & Co. LP from France in 1982 has been getting a fair airing around these parts. Kangourou is a lost treasure of post-punk. Young Marble Giants minimalism crossed with The Residents warp factor and you're about half way. Towards the end it goes into an almost communal demented exotica zone that you wouldn't have expected at the start. This record has had me going back to post-punk and experimental stuff like the label M Squared's a Selection and the Innocent Label compilation New music 1978/79 which have definite parallels as well as Der Plan's Geri Reig, Minny Pops' Drastic Measures, Drastic Movement,  2+2=5's Into The Future and Duck Stab & Eskimo by The Residents.

666

As stated previously I've just discovered this late psych rock gem from 1978. I know nothing about Marcus but I'm loving this LP From The House Of Trax. Ween and Ariel Pink must be fans.

Got a theme going here. I was first introduced to Black Widow about 10 years ago whilst getting my hair cut at a hipster's barber shop. This was being pumped full volume throughout the shop while the barbers sang all the words. I couldn't believe I'd never heard this fabulous record before. The entire Sacrifice LP is classic. Funky progressive satanic rock!

What's Goin On?

These are the main reasons I've not been posting much this year. I have a computer that's busted. I have 2 cd players that aren't working and a turntable that needs a new stylus. I can play tapes and my i-pod through the stereo but that's about it. I'm not in the zone for writing about music and culture. It doesn't feel right doing it on another computer where all my files aren't. I have the new Umberto album but I can't find it so no comment there. I've been listening to Trick Or Treat, the LP Ariel Pink did with VDO (some Mutant Sounds folk) under the name Shits & Giggles pre 4AD signing. Also just discovered Marcus's 1978 LP From The House Of Trax. Another new discovery is Nuts & Co's Kangouruo LP from like 1984. I have to thank the awesome Mutant Sounds once again for alerting me to these last 2. They do have their problems over there though with Rapidshare and stuff which I hope gets all sorted. I tried to download 6 things but I only got 2. They're still the best! I even started reading David Toop's Ocean Of Sound which has been on my shelf for years and I've never been in the mood to read it!  Hopefully Cardrossmaniac2 (ab)normality will be resumed soon.

Sonic Youth - Smart Bar Chicago 1985

This Smart Bar Chicago 1985 cd takes you right to the heart of the beginning of Sonic Youth's reign as the premier American underground band. This is where the noise meets the rock and the rock is introduced to the pop. I dig Confusion Is Sex and Bad Moon Rising and even though most of the material for this live date comes from Bad Moon Rising, it's different. I always thought Sonic Youth progressed quite naturally but upon hearing this I started to think that perhaps Steve Shelley was the catalyst for a more accessible, fluid and rock Sonic Youth. He was not long in the band when this concert was recorded. He injects new life into these tracks (that were played on Bad Moon Rising by Bob Bert) and you can hear the future Sonic Youth starting to come together.  Songs take on a (Can-esque) flow motion that was previously non existent. This is where the No Wave noise and post hardcore sounds begin to be sculptured into something more beautiful and sensual. This is exemplified here on an early version of Expressway To Yr Skull.  1985 was the first time I read about Sonic Youth in Juke magazine. In that article they were discussing Bad Moon Rising, the 60s, Charlie Manson and John Fogerty's comeback. The band were photographed with a scarecrow. This article/image stuck in my brain but it would have been 2 years at least until I first heard their music with Schizophrenia on the airwaves of RRR whilst visiting the big smoke.

Maybe it was the disappointment of m b v that made me buy Smart Bar Chicago 1985 and go back to MBV's original influences. Just before I dug out Dinosaur Jr's You're Living All Over Me, I listened to Isn't Anything. This LP immediately transported me back to the late 80s. Glory days I suppose. My Bloody Valentine were once raw and incredibly melodic. Their other unsung triumph was their wicked rhythm section that was sometimes at the forefront of a tune. There was light, shade, claustrophobia, ecstasy and surrealism. What happened? More to the point do I really care now? The mourning was done some time ago. We've got the old records and they're brilliant as are those of their contemporaneous influences. The aforementioned Dinosaur LP has been cranked up real loud over this last week and its blistering blissful vistas have had me ecstatic. What can I say? Wow! Geez I would love to have been writing at that time. It was so exciting and fertile. The great thing is that, that excitement is contained within some of those records still.

The live Sonic Youth cd has of course had me listening back to their Evol and Sister LPs. Is their anything left to say about those records? Except they still sound fucking awesome in 2013. I don't know where First Born Is Dead by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds fits in to all this but I've been giving that a spin too. That was a fabulous and strange record! They were just a weird little four piece band then. Blixa, Barry, Mick (on drums) and Nick. It's such a sparse LP and so powerful!

All these groups were influences on the young My Bloody Valentine.

So if you ever wondered (I haven't until now) what Bad Moon Rising would have sounded like with Steve Shelley on the skins check out Smart Bar Chicago 1985.

Retromania moves in mysterious ways. I'm in the mid to late 80s now.