Other People's Memories II

Sagittarius - Present Tense

Another gem I've just discovered. More relationships to The Byrds and The Beach Boys. I know I'm not really gettin to the best ex-Byrds records but I came across this last week and can't believe it hasn't been in my life till now. Gary Usher is the man behind this project. He is probably best known as a producer for The Byrds and for writing a couple of Beach Boys classics including 409 and In My Room. He'd also written tracks for Dick Dale, Frankie Avalon and Peanut Butter Conspiracy. Anyway Gary and Curt Boettcher got together in the studio and created this psych-pop masterpiece. They dragged in other friends Terry Melcher, Bruce Johnston and Glen Campbell to help make this magic. It's like psych with all the rock removed which is actually quite refreshing. I guess the closest thing I can compare this to is The Free Design but its way more psychedelic, freaky and haunting than them. This aint no rock record and it's all the better for it. I cannot stop playing this LP and can't quite figure out why. It's been called soft rock, sunshine pop but I think the best and most fitting term is Baroque Pop. There are a couple of other Usher studio projects, Super Stocks and The Hondells which  are more on the surf rock tip. Curt Boettcher was a just a name to me previous to hearing this, maybe someone Bob Stanley once wrote about or admired. He produced The Association and had his own groups The Ballroom and The Millenium. He even had something to do with Dennis Wilson's classic Pacific Ocean Blue I think. Boettcher died relatively young and has become a cult figure ever since. The Millennium's LP Begin is considered a cult classic, I'll mos def have to track that one down along with the 2nd Sagittarius LP.

Gary Usher

Baroque-pop genius?
Curt Boettcher

Terry Melcher - Terry Melcher LP

How did I end up here? Well a while ago a friend of mine told me he was gettin into The Byrds. I'd been tellin him for a while he should check out Gene Clark. So then I thought I'd do a post about the best Post-Byrds records. Then as I was thinking up some crap to write I remembered this song I'd heard about 7 years ago on the radio by sometime Beach Boy songwriter and Byrds producer Terry Melcher. It really struck me as quite edgy and unhinged and has stayed with me ever since. I've never been able to find a physical copy of the above LP but I finally tracked down an MP3 of said artifact. Anyway I can't figure out which of the tunes it was because there is quite an intense unhinged quality to a lot of the trax. There is something in his voice that is so real and slighly terrified. This is a man who was friends with Charlie Manson and was supposedly the real target for one of the Manson murders. I'm sure he did his fair share of coke and was quite paranoid. His mum was Doris Day talk about yin and yang! That was LA though wasn't it?!. The sweetest most innocent harmonies coming from some of the most mental people in town ie. The Beach Boys. Anyway did I miss the Mojo where they said this was a forgotten classic or am I one of only a few who think this is pure gold from LA in 1974. Doris even does backing vocals on Terry's version of These Days which makes it brilliantly haunting. When he says he's 'OK and so is LA' in a jaunty tone you don't really believe him particularly when it's a sentiment expressed to his shrink on Dr Horowitz. Particularly affecting is the booze hound lament The Bars Have Made A Prison Out of Me. His sense of desperation for something to believe in is palpable in songs like Beverly Hills, Halls Of Justice and The Old Hand Jive. His spirit though is broken but he keeps on going, just, and thankfully so because this is a fucking great record! Features such luminaries as Sneaky Pete, Hal Blaine and Chris Hillman. Terry's old buddy and sometime Beach Boy Bruce Johnston co-produces.

Other Peoples Memories

On The Hi-Fi Part 27

Crucify Your Love - Dylan Ettinger
Now this guy has moved on quite a bit. He made one of the landmark statements of Hynagogia, New Age Outlaws from 2010. Some even consider that record to be where H-Pop ended. So where do you go from there? Particularly if people are saying that's the end of the genre but you created one of its masterpieces. Perhaps that call was a little early but all the same, what do you do next? Should you stick with it till the revival comes around? How long would that leave you in the wilderness though? Stasis V progression. This new ep is somewhere in between. It's like the Cabs have hijacked the hynagogia party. There are vocals in in a deep dubbed fug/fog amongst the H-pop sounds. Is that progression or regression? It puts this work in a zone not that far from eMMplekz but more on an easier listening tip, if that makes any sense at all. It's pretty good/Odd!?

OFF/On - Forma (2012)
Finally getting around to hearing this release from very late last year due to SLX having it as their record of the year for 2012. I didn't hate that first LP but it just didn't surpass its influences Cluster, Harmonia et al. This is top notch electronics retaining some of that Kraut vibe but now including 80s drum soundz, soundtracky motifs and even delving into 90s electronica. Who knows in a couple of albums time they may be soundtracking the new future and not the retro-future.

The Garnet Toucan - Monopoly Child Searchers (2012)
Another release from late last year. This time it's the other Skater you know the one who is not James Ferraro. Talk bout becoming the Andrew Ridgley or the other guy from Style Council of Skaters. I have over 30 releases by Mr Ferraro and not one solo outing from Spencer Clark until this landed on my lap. There was the excellent Inner Tube release last year which was a collaboration with Mark McGuire of Emeralds. You could slap a Ferraro label on this and I would be none the wiser. It really could be an old tape from 2009. That's a good thing here. Plastic fourth into fifth world neon soundz makes this a quality LP that I can't stop playing.

Random Access Memories - Daft Punk
Do I really need to add to the discourse of this cd? For what it's worth I fell asleep the first 2 times I listened to this. On the 3rd listen I started to enjoy the tracks towards the end of RAM. I really think this is a bad case of track placement error.

The Elektrik Karousel - The Focus Group
The title says it all really. This is like an acid trip through an horrific fairground (aren't they all a little bit spooky?). The emphasis being on the trip. You get into the zone with this LP and you are on a sonic ghost ride. Dear Wire reviewer I don't need to be English to enjoy this and I don't need to be humming its tunes once the Voyage is over. If I wanted to hum some tunes all day long I'd listen to Abba. This is about listening in the moment and that's what The Focus Group are all about. Another GhostBox gem!

RocKwiz

So the advertisement for the new season of RocKwiz is all about staying in. This reminded me of that aforementioned article by Paul Morley on The Stones at Glastonbury. RocKwiz is a fantastic show. There are 2 teams in a panel of 3.  In each panel is a famous/semi-famous/working musician and two rock nerds picked from their audience due to their knowledge of rock trivia. At the opening of the show each of the musicians play one of their usually well known trax. A quiz then ensues with rock questions, some easy & some quite hard. At the closing of the show the two artists always do some kind of duet. The duet is usually terrific or total shite. This is all hosted by the charismatic and sometimes goofy Julia Zemiro with Brian Nankervis as the side-kick/adjudicator. The emphasis is definitely on rock, meaning trivia from the 60s, 70s, 80s and only sometimes from more recent times.

Julia Zemiro and at the back the fantastic RocKwiz Orchestra.

This most recent ad tells us to stay in on Saturday Nite to avoid the hipster zombie apocalypse. This is like the opposite idea of Rock n Roll. That being going out, drinking, taking drugs, being hip, prowling for promiscuous sex, lookin for kicks, pushin the boundaries etc. Now rock is in its old aged home where you stay in and avoid those young people and their silly hair. Sit back with a cup of tea and a biscuit and watch the telly. RocKwiz will give you a little trip down memory lane which will be nice. You might even like one of those nice new young artists. Then it's off to beddy byes nice and early.

Don't get me wrong I love the show. Some of my all time favourite artists have taken part - Ed Kuepper, Steve Kilbey (The Church), Mick Harvey, Hugo Race, Gareth Liddiard (The Drones), Steve Lucas (X), Chris Bailey (The Saints), Kim Salmon (The Scientists), Adrian Belew, Ron Peno (Died Pretty), Jim Keays (The Masters Apprentices), Russell Morris etc. They've even had some international rock royalty like Betty Harris, Suzi Quatro, Wanda Jackson, Judy Collins, Mary Wilson and the list goes on. There was even a memorable episode featuring the charming Tony Hadley of Spandau Ballet who turned out to be a right card and was in fine voice!?

The funny thing is it's filmed in one of Melbourne's most famous and long standing rock venues The Esplanade Hotel. According to the ad this is the type of place you are supposed to be avoiding as there may be funny haired, weirdly dressed, drunk and pilled up young folk. The ad I guess is tongue in cheek but that's a moot point as you can't really be among such unwashed folk on Saturday nite otherwise you'll miss the show.

Once at an Australian Rules Football match I ran into an old musician friend. He was in the company of someone who may or may not have been in the Australian underground supergroup The Beasts Of Bourbon. After already having had a few lemonades I asked their posse to join me in kicking on at the pub across the road from the MCG only to be told 'Thanks but nah. We're going home to watch RocKwiz.'

Rock & Roll!

RIP RAY MANZAREK

You know what I loved about Ray apart from his skills on the organ, piano, bass and even marimba was that he stayed enthusiastic about the Doors right through his life. He really believed in them and knew they were great. He never dismissed them as juvenalia like many artists would. He knew they were the best musical days of his life and they would never be repeated. He was still inspired in the sleeve notes of those last reissues from like 2007.

Dead Blogs

Norm Chambers AKA Panabrite once ran one of my favourite blogs Lunar Atrium. This was a great place to find the weird and wonderful. I got to listen to many library and obscure electronic records that will never see a re-release. I don't know what happened but he started blogging less frequently and then bang all his files and critical comments were gone. Now it's like a ghost town blog with just it's header and zero content. Thanks Norm for the heads up on a lot of records I would never have known if it wasn't for your old/dead blog. Where else was I gonna hear Claudio Rocchi's classic Suoni Di Frontiera along with many others?

Another excellent blog on the more funky tip of library records, Funky Frolic, has called it quits too. This could possibly be the source of where I first heard Alan Hawkshaw's legendary Oddball! Another one bites the dust.

I could go on about many others who are disappearing by the minute. Then there's others who have slowed to a crawl like Pontone & Exp Etc. and the great Mutant Sounds. Many file sharing blogs are still online but in spectral form with most links no longer alive. Is the well drying up? Or are the authorities taking control? A golden era of obscure record sharing seems to be coming to an end and that's a shame.

eggheads

Barry enjoys Adolescent Sex

CJ used to be my favourite egghead. Man of many great shirts. He admitted though the other day that he doesn't listen to or buy music thus becoming the villain egghead. Some of the other dudes know their stuff though. Pat got a question about Black Flag the other night and Barry answered correctly a question on Japan and even named an LP Adolescent Sex as one his particular favourites. There was even a question about who was the lead singer/songwriter/guitarist behind The Mighty Wah! & Wah! Heat. The answer of Pete Wylie however was not forthcoming. Once a question was asked "What Beatles LP is actually called The Beatles?" The challengers were given 3 choices of which they replied Sgt. Pepper & not you know, the right answer. There's obviously a music freak in the question research department. It definitely keeps me watching to see what weird music question is next and leaves me slightly disappointed when the music category does not appear in an episode.

Pat gets the Hardcore questions.

This parallels Gilmore Girls which I used to watch. The writers must have been big music fans and in the end I think I was just watching to see what kind of music esoterica they could smuggle into such a mainstream show. Slint once got a mention and I thought wow how are they gonna top that? One of the main 2 characters was named Lorelei. This would always put me in mind of the great Cocteau Twins track from the classic Treasure LP.  Surely she was named after that.

One More Time

Beaches - Granite Snake

I is Ignoramus!

"You know Mick one day you will play on an LP by an Aussie
band called Beaches and even you will shine amongst these
Godesses!"

Michael Rother of Neu fame actually plays on, aforementioned in previous post, song by Beaches Granite Snake. I is not up withe me Pitchforks and Mess & Noises.

NEU - NEGATIVLAND

The embryo for just about everything that followed in rock that was good!

The Greatest Track Ever?

I'm confused!

Doris Hays

I know the Internet is full of bullshit but I  was always under the impression Doris Hays was a pseudonym for Delia Derbyshire. It turns out this is not true! Is that true? Who should I trust?

Is this the above lady's LP or is it Derbyshire's?

Robin Crutchfield

Here's a great podcast from Minimal Wave featuring Robin Crutchield of DNA and Dark Day fame discussing his history and playing tracks of his and his influences with Veronica Vasicka from East Village Radio. So this is for all you No Wave/Post-punk/electro and acid folk...Fans. I can't find the track list but whatever.

Research Rock

*Research Rock I guess is the new Record Collection Rock. A continuation if you like. This time time though it's not based so much on music weeklies, magazines, fanzines, fusty second hand shops, eighth generation tapes, word of mouth, cool record collections and knowing taste makers but on your ability to connect threads from blogs, Web magazines, music history books/magazines (these aren't totally necessary as all research can be done online) and knowing the coolest virtual places to go for your info. Then collecting the correct files through your expertise of cool web navigation. Later you pick and choose from your downloads/files in your virtual record collection. Now you can do it overnight instead of years of gathering tid bits of esoterica to build the perfect record collection which your band can cut & paste into an amalgam of seemingly new soundz etc. (er...still thinking this through. I'll expand this another day when my brain is functioning in a less tired manner)

**This is a work/thought in progress.

Beaches - She Beats

When I write about an artist I usually try to evoke the sounds, ideas and feelings through words and not list influences. This is getting harder by the second particularly as we are now very late in the (rock) epoch.  I'm only a couple of listens in but I'm really diggin' She Beats. It's a guitar record. It's not really breaking any new ground but who is? My ears just love hearing those guitars and the melodies. They've definitely done stellar research*. Beaches belong the lineage of The Velvets/Stooges/Kraut/Hawkwind axis, the Paisley Underground, 80s Sydney Rock (The Church, Died Pretty) 80s into early 90s Flying Nun, Proto-Shoegaze (ie. Loop et al.) Shoegaze, 90s Kranky and  instrumental groups from the USA like Pell Mell & Cul-De-Sac and the more recent Yawning Man/Ten East. I have to say though with Beaches It feels more organic than that. This musical melting pot  has been brewing in their DNA for some time and can't help but ooze out of them when they plug in and play. As opposed to a group like Savages who seem to be mixing and matching influences like trying on clothes. IE. 'Does my Wire match my Siouxsie? Does my Banshee look big in this?'

Beaches still haven't captured the immensity of their live sound on tape and one wonders if they ever will. Someone should give them hundreds of thousands of dollars so they can create their very own Tusk or Starfish. They must be special if I'm willing to let a track like Granite Snake get past me as I swore a couple of years ago that if I heard another band being influenced by Neu (Neu are one of my all time favourite bands but does that mean every 2nd band should rip em off) I would smash the radio in. But Granite Snake blows my fucking mind, it's incredible  Who'd have thought we'd be listening to a band in 2013 that reminded us of Opal, The Pale Saints or the 3Ds? Possibly the best record of its ilk since Yawning Man's excellent Vista Point from 2007 (yeah yeah I know Vista Point is a compilation of records made in 2005, whatever).

Now I don't think this is real.

These guys seem to have taken the blogosphere by storm. Everywhere I look people are pointing me in their direction. More art man.

The Dadacomputer

Loving this cover.

I thought this was some kind of made up/prank reissue type of deal but no this is an obscure tape from Britain in 1981. The track I heard was not bad either sub-Cabaret Voltaire electronics. That cover is art man. That should be in a gallery and going for 3.4 million pounds at a Southerby's auction.

eMMplekz

I'm in 2012 now

Whilst waiting for the new Boards Of Canada & The focus Group LPs I find my self still engaged in 2012. It's nearly bloody May. What's going on? I missed the eMMplekz LP IZOD Days when it came out, not getting it till after Xmas. This could possibly have been my record of the year had I heard it before the festive season. I don't recall it in any end of year lists at all. IZOD Days is my most played record of 2013 by far. This album has given me a renewed interest in Mordant Music. I loved Dead Air which I see as the key wake for rave album. Dead Air is an endlessly listenable record. When Symptoms (the follow up to Dead Air) came out though I was Perplexed and thought they'd gone all rock, you know, with vocals and shit. On Dead Air there was a track Fallen Faces which was quite incongruous as it had vocals and rock like sounds. I thought why did they put that track on? When Symptoms was released I saw that that's where Mordant was heading. Symptoms was quickly turfed but now I want to hear it again along with any other Mordant Music releases that followed.

Ekoplekz, who can keep up with this guy? It's similar to James Ferraro 3 or 4 years ago when every time you'd turn around he would release a new tape or cdr. All the Ekoplekz material I've managed to track down is quality. Nick Edwards aka Ekoplekz is definitely an artist going through an unstoppable purple patch.

This collaboration between Baron Mordant & Nick Edwards is totally inspired! A musical match made (I was about to say heaven, but that's not quite right) in late capitalist dystopia. It's the perfect blend of both artists. They both shine equally. Usually in these projects one artist has more influence over the other or both collaborators sleepwalk through the recording. There's a track that I think might be a love song to an Automatic Teller Machine. Some of the language I don't quite understand. Is some of it made up? What the fuck is an IZOD Day? I hope this is not a one off performance but a continuing entity.

Beaches, Ooga Boogas...

Nothing much has been happening in 2013 and then all of a sudden there's an avalanche of releases. The new record She Beats from Beaches, the best live band in Melbourne, has been released today on Chapter Music. 3 guitarists no less. Hope they've captured their onstage magic in the studio on this their 2nd platter.

Then there's Ooga Boogas who I believe are a bunch of old Melbourne creeps. Don't let that cover fool you. Their Scuzzy debut Romance & Adventure from 2008 would be my favourite Australian rock record of The 21st century.

Both of these bands have not released new LPs since 2008 and both of those records were in my top 5 of that year. So here's hoping these are the shit! Is 2013 gonna happen after all? We'll see.

Paul Morley

We Can Only Aspire!

Reynolds at Blissblog hipped me to this article on The Stones at Glastonbury. Morley talks festivals, rebellion, baby boomers and the future. I loved this quote: 'Festivals are the rock generation's equivalent of cruises.' Read the best article written this year here at The Guardian website. Actually I've heard that there are real rock n roll cruises, you know for senior citizens with too much money, where they do their jiving or twists or whatever these foggies do. There has even been an indy one somewhere around Melbourne or Sydney I do believe.

'Mayday! a hipster has messed up his hair! Oh hang on
"is it meant to look like that? Oh."
False alarm crisis averted!'

Tommy Ugh!!!!

Tommy's gotta be the worst fucking shite I've ever seen (I'd never watched it till tonight)! Academy Award nominations?? Ken fuckin Russell! I know with his name attached I should have seen it coming. It makes me hate The Who. It makes me hate the 70s. It makes me wish Video/DVD had never been invented. Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide gives it 3 stars out of a possible 4, That's 7.5 out of ten, 75 %! More like minus 75% and that's being generous. It's so bad it's just fucking bad. More fuel for my argument that film is ultimately a failed art form. Ugh!!!

Boards Of Canada

This is comin out in June so maybe there will be two good records from 2013. Then again the big guns this year haven't really inspired ie. MBV, Broadcast, Jimmy Ferraro etc.

Loving that cover already. I could go on about BOC forever but so can most people and most people have and it is all on the interweb. A bit like the Triffids in the 80s people just love to bang on about them. So much so that it becomes cliche. Both groups are very evocative I guess. If I were Boards of Canada I'd almost be tempted to make the cover with the most digital and crass image I could find. Perhaps they're lulling us into a false sense of security with the art work and inside is the most angry hateful impenetrable shite you've ever heard. I'm tying to think, what is the opposite of Boards of Canada?

This could be their vaguest music to date.

The Focus Group New LP

Looking forward to this being released tomorrow. 2013 has got to have at least one good record!

Lexicon Devil: The Fast Times & Short Life of Darby Crash & The Germs

I don't really know what prompted me to finally pull this off the shelf and start reading it. Perhaps I was in need of a dose of punk after reading about dinosaurs Led Zeppelin. I must confess I'm not really into rock Biographies. I think the only two I got through ever were the Mike Barnes Beefheart book and Heroes & Villains: The True Story Of The Beach Boys by Steven Gaines like 17 years ago. The Gaines book particularly shitted me because I don't even think he liked their music. I got halfway through Patti Smith's book Just Kids and hey that was beautifully written..... I guess I'm more into music analysis, cultural/social impact and just the magic of music without all the blah blah. All my friends tell me to read you know the bio on Neil Young, Motley Crue, Keef, James Freud, various Guns & Roses folk etc. etc. I'm more into documentaries like the Classic Albums series one on The Mac's Rumours, 30 Century Man on Scott Walker, Made In Sheffield: The Birth of Electronic Pop,  End of The Century on The Ramones, It's A Long Way To The Top, the 6 part ABC series on the history of Australian Rock and The Story Of Anvil. I even avoid most of those. I never watched the one on The Pixies or The Minutemen. Mainly I like it when the focus is on the music not the gossip or the hangers on/groupies/business people. I like the mystery. I don't wanna know if Black Francis is a cunt or not.

Then there are the movies where they supposedly dramatise real life events of scenes and groups. I loathed 24 Hour Party People despite being a a massive Factory Records head with Peter Hook being one of my all time cult heroes. Even the great Steve Coogan couldn't save that shite. I've steered totally clear of Control, the movie based on Joy Division. I don't want these fake images in my head ruining what my imagination has come up with. After watching the Joan Jett movie I now picture Joan as the girl from Twilight. Ray Manzarek became Coop in a wig once I'd watched Oliver Stone's The Doors. IE. Kyle Maclachlan who was currently playing Agent Cooper in the Twin Peaks tv series put on an absurd wig and came across as nothing like the Manzarek we encounter more often than you might think.

Anyway I'd thought I'd get about 30 pages into Lexicon Devil and then give up. About 15 years ago someone made me a copy of The Germs GI record and I was massively surprised that they weren't total shite. I was never big on X and about 94% of the LA hardcore that followed in The Germs Wake. The only other thing from that era in LA that I liked was The Screamers who had this mental bootleg around that same time (as when I got GI) called In A Better World. As far as US proto-punk/punk/post-punk was concerned Detroit, San Fransisco, New York and Ohio were where it was at.

The Screamers

I pretty much knew nothing about this LA scene except for some of the main bands music - The aforementioned X and The Screamers as well as The Weirdos, The Urinals & The Go Gos. From the get go this book had me hooked. It was written oral history stylee. The stories of Darby's fucked up LA alternative schooling were totally bizarre. This was the 70s, this was LA, this was very experimental schooling and education. These school experiences along with Darby's studies of Scientology and brainwashing informed the rest of his short life. Who knew he was a budding cult leader in the making? So there were lots of drugs, booze, squalor, violence and oh yeah punk rock! Mainly though most of the people/hangers on/groupies in this book were total fucking arseholes. Lexicon Devil is an expose on repression, perversion, violence, manipulation, murder, mental Illness, depravity, suicide and wasted youth.

There isn't much talk about the importance (for want of a better term) or the cultural affect of some of the seminal records being released by bands included in this scene and book. As you can probably guess by it's title Darby's life begins to escalate into a drug and alcohol fuelled mess and finally tragedy. Legendary rock writer Richard Meltzer was quoted thus "Lexicon Devil is pure and Simple, the finest volume on punk to see the light of print."

Belinda Carlisle, Genesis P Orridge, Lee Ving, Kid Congo Powers, Jack Nitzsche, Kim Fowley, Gary Panter, Joan Jett, Tomato Du Plenty, Matt Groening, Jello Biafra, Phranc, The Quick, Mike Watt, Greg Shaw and many others make cameos in the book. Mainly though it's The Germs, Weirdos, Go Gos and X members along with the little gangs and cliques that congregated around wannabe cult leader Darby Crash that make up the story.

The Germs - Forming

What's missing though is the fact that The Germs Forming 7" is one of the greatest debut singles by any band ever (in all its lo-fi glory) and their GI LP is a fine record that still stands up to this day. Maybe it's even still influential today? Hello UV Race. You could do worse than having The Germs as an Influence.

Lexicon Devil

Darby Crash Punk Rock Poet. Hey!, Pat Smear, Don Bolles & Lorna Doom were pretty darn good too.

**Further listening Black Hole: California Punk 1977-80 released in 2010 on Domino.
**This features all the previously mentioned groups plus The Dils, Black Randy & The Metro Squad and The Flesh Eaters. There's even some bands from San Fran like Crime, The Dead Kennedys and The Sleepers.

Laughing Clowns - New Bully In The Town

Drummage: A Reprise

New Bully In Town

Laughing Clowns

The drums on this track are the hook, the...fuck let's face it they are the whole song. How did I miss the post-punk drummer of all post-punk drummers in the original Drummage blog conference/party started by Mr Simon Reynolds at the end of last year? Listening to the Ghost Of An Ideal Wife LP from 1985 the other other day New Bully In The Town stopped me in my tracks while I was doing the er... dishes. The drummage swings like mad and blew my mind and not for the first time. You could put more than half of the Clowns catalogue on here but this'll do for now. According to Ed Kuepper this is a humorous song influenced by 2 old songs. One was an old hillbilly instrumental and the other a 1920s blues track. Laughing Clowns 2 main players were Ed on guitar & vox and the incredible Jeffery Wegener on the drums with a revolving line up of other instrumentalists. Wegener even once played in a later/near the end line up of The Birthday Party, after Phil Calvert was no longer required, for some final live dates in Europe. Wegener even played in an early version of The Saints. If I recall this correctly early on at Laughing Clowns shows Wegener and his Kit would be front and centre of the stage. That's how important/integral Jeffery was to the band.

*Writing about drumming is really hard particularly if you're not a drummer. I had a few lessons at school in grades 5 & 6. I even once had to fill in at a rehearsal for my brothers band. I was in year 7 and they were all  form 6ers doing their HSC (year 12). Eventually though they got fed up as I really couldn't keep time. 

Broadcast

Broadcast In Shindig Magazine Shock

On a rare pop in to a newsagent I checked out the music magazines like I used to when I was a teenager (I thought this would pass eventually but er...no). Pink Floyd were on the cover of Mojo again, some other old cats on the cover of Uncut and I think it was Led Zeppelin on the cover of Rolling Stone. I didn't bother flicking through any of those. Even Wolf Eyes on the cover of The Wire struck me as a bit retro. Then I glanced over and saw Broadcast on a magazine cover. I thought 'great there must someone finally giving The Wire a bit of competition.' But no they were fronting the cover of would you beleive Shindig. Shindig caught my eye about 5 or 6 years ago. I thought it was like a cross between Mojo and Ugly Things. I thought that perhaps they were now going down the path that I thought Mojo might have taken by now after they'd surely run out of stories (Mojo that is) on The Beatles, Stones, Hendrix, The Who, Eric Clapton, Beach Boys, Pink Floyd, Bowie, Sex Pistols, The Smiths, Nirvana etc. etc. Sadly this was not to be. I thought by now Mojo would perhaps be havin Black Widow, Heldon, Simply Saucer, The Electric Eels, Cabaret Voltaire, The Homosexuals, The Minutemen, The Cocteau Twins, LFO or even Omni Trio on the cover. Hey that's not gonna sell large quantities is it?

'Cor blimeyI can't believe we us haven't been on the cover of Mojo!'
The Homosexuals

Anyway I once bought a copy of Shindig with articles on The Pink Fairies, Dennis Wilson, Mad River, Love and The West Coast Experimental Band adorning the cover. I dug it. Sure they didn't have the name writters of Uncut, Mojo etc. but they had enthusiasts/lovers of music, not paycheck journos.

So it was a surprise to see Broadcast there on the cover. Is this Shindig broadening its horizons and entering a new bold age? They always have current music reviews but usually of the most retro groups. Lee Gamble or Raime aren't gettin a review here. Of course Broadcast do have that Retro-Futurism thing going on but at the same time they always struck me as a very modern band. I must say it was slightly haunting (no pun intended) seeing Trish Keenan on the News stands, God rest her soul. Contained within this latest issue of Shindig are ye olde types such as Sweet, Donovan, Mike Herron and Gene Clark but there's even an article on the Ghost Box label. Sure it's ten years or so after their inception but that's nowhere near the 40+ years since Donovan did records. Hopefully this isn't just a one off flirtation with modern music. Maybe Ekoplekz will be on next months cover! Here's hoping.

Stephen Malkmus does Can's Ege Bamyasi?

What the fuck? What's the point? Can you improve on perfection? Is this further proof that the ideas well in music has dried up? Does this prove Stephen was never that original in the first place? This is like some kind of joke to add to Simon Reynolds Retromania book, particularly the retroscape section. Will we file this alongside Jo Mitchell's re-enactment of the infamous Concerto For Voice and Machinery at the ICA in London, where they re-enacted the gig/riot that included Einsturzende Neubauten, Throbbing Gristle and Fad Gadget members originally? IE. how fucking pointless considering how spontaneous that riot was. Can were the same on Ege Bamyasi. Can's records were improv/jam sessions where usually the editing would retain the telepathic magic and dump whatever was not so happening. That's a big part of the feel and attraction of Ege Bamyasi as well as the incredible chemistry between the 5 members. I doubt they ever played a song the same way twice. This was music summoned out of the air. How the fuck are you gonna replicate that vibe when your vibe is the total opposite. You get the feeling Malkmus has missed a very important point here. Maybe he's not as cluey as he/we thought.

Anyhow any excuse to get into a bit of Can and dig out the old 1989 reissue cd of Ege Bamyasi which perhaps wasn't the best remaster ever to see light of day. It's like someone leaned on the volume levels during the process leaving a very quiet cd that really has to be pumped twice as high on the volume switch as anything else I own. There have been several reissues since so maybe it's time to reinvest in one of the greatest LPs of all time.

3 of Can's tunes that really could have made them international pop stars.

Spoon

Can's best attempt at pop fo shizzle!
This was actually a top 10 hit in Germany and a theme tune to a German TV crime show.

Vitamin C

Could be my fave pop Can Song.
This was used in another TV crime series.

I'm So Green
Can at their most pop again albeit idiosyncratic can pop!

Is anyone actually gonna buy that Malkmus LP?

'Which Was Nice' Shots I

Led Zeppelin IV - Eric Davis

I finally read this book in the 33 1/3 series after hearing those Zep trax in the films Argo and Silver Linings Playbook. Surprisingly I got through a book of 170 pages written about 1 LP. Surprising as my favourite template for LP reviews is Greil Marcus's appendix to Stranded. The appendix is basically 2 sentence reviews of hundreds of records that didn't make into the main body of the text. He once noted he loved doing that but perhaps prior knowledge was required to fully understand them. Considering we're in the age of info-overload this seems like a perfectly valid way to analyse Albums today. The kind of information in a normal media review is usually padded out with this type of background/prior knowledge anyway, so who needs another one. Every time Nick Cave puts out a record I have to wade through his immense history, usually in the Sunday supplements, before we get to the few words about his new LP. This has got to the point where I just scan to the new info or sometimes I just give up all together. So Eric Davis you've done well to get me through your 170 pages. Admittedly I didn't know that much about Led Zeppelin, their history and what they were on about.

I don't need to say anything about Led Zeppelin IV except I cant believe how much I enjoy it. For a large part of my life they were the enemy, everything worth hating about rock. This stance of course was residue from the punk/post-punk/new pop eras. I guess this all started to erode in the late 80s. I was very confused when Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth in a Juke magazine (Aussie equivalent of NME, MM & Sounds) article said he was re buying old Led Zep LPs. I think though I started to cross the line when I could no longer deny how fucking great Jane's Addiction were and bought their classic Ritual De Lo habitual. Some how I could put it down to their mix of Zep rock and post-punk/hardcore/pop flavas. I was yet to be convinced that you could listen to a Zeppelin LP in all seriousness though.

I didn't really like the more trad Zep influenced bands like Soundgarden etc so it was ok. My Phobia & denial continued despite kinda digging the Dazed & Confused film clip which was frequently played on Rage from the late 80s onward. 6 or 7 years ago I thought 'if i can be massively into the first 4 Black Sabbath albums surely I can let go of my Led Zeppelin prejudice. They must be bloody good'. In a record shop I found II, III, IV and Houses of the Holy for 5 bucks each. II was the one for a couple of years. Then III & IV took my fancy then the levee broke and it was all over. I was finally emancipated from the narrow minded anti dinosaur dogma.

Buffalo - Freedom

One More For ANZAC Day

Buffalo

Freedom

9 minutes of slow burning hard rocking boogie oz rock stylee from 1971. I can smell the booze, smoke & exhaust from here. Taken from the classic LP Volcanic Rock. Rock on Sydney!

JPS Experience

ANZAC DAY

JPS Experience Inside Out

Absofuckinglutely gorgeous tune from an underrated Flying Nun band. Recorded in 1988.

JPS Experience Get My Point

From one my favourite Flying Nun records of all time The Size of Food. This is a fucking incredible intense psychedelic track. I love how he's losin his mind at the end. More gold.

The Eastern Dark

ANZAC Day

The Eastern Dark

Julie Is a Junkie

Wow I cant believe how great this is every time I hear it. I can't put my finger on what it is about this tune. From 1985 this is their only 7" before singer/guitarist James Darroch died in a car crash en route from Sydney to Melbourne for a tour. There was an EP recorded prior to his untimely death released posthumously. What could have been? More mid 80s gold from when Sydney was the place to be.

La Femme - Chelsea Kids

ANZAC DAY

La Femme

Chelsea Kids

Glitter punk into New Wave from 1979. I love this song.  Can't deny classic status for this track. The godfathers of Eddy Current doncha reckon? Frankston area scuzz.

On The Hi-Fi Part 22

Forest Of Evil II - Frank Reidy & Eric Allen (De Wolfe)
This would have to be in my top 5 library LPs of all time. Splendid Haunted Arrangements from 1981. Strings and electronics. Perfect for days like these. The title says it all. Class and quality all the way. This shit should get a reissue, can't recall where I found this though. I've been tryin' to track down Volume 1 for years now but to no avail.

Cold Nose - Franco Falsini
For fans of mellow kosmiche. Laconic atmospheric guitar and electronics from this Italian chap recorded in 1975. Reissued last year on the fine Spectrum Spools label

Tellus #13 Power Electronics - Various Artists
Downloaded this from UbuWeb and wow what a revelation. Only a couple of familiar names here for me Merzbow, f/i and Rhys Chatham. The rest ?? But the rest are fucking great. Who'd heard of Merzbow in 1985? The guys at Tellus were certainly documenting the cutting edge. I'm loving the track excerpt from between Space by Psyclones which is prime space rock electronics with radio and turntable manipulation by the sounds. The Heaviest from Master/Slave Relationship is a gas that sounds like it could come from the current cassette underground. Joseph Nechvatal's track How To Kill is an Oswaldian deconstruction of Janet Jackson's Nasty Boys. There's even a Christian Industrial band, Blackhouse, amidst these nihilistic fiends. Anyway that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's plenty more. Controlled Bleeding are here who once did a split LP with Maybe Mental who also feature with 2 tracks.  A lot of these bands recorded for the Ladd-Frith cassette label which was run by Brian Ladd of Blackhouse & Julie Frith of Psyclones. Other labels connected to these groups include Sub Rosa, Subterranean, Staalplat, RRRrecords etc so you know it's quality. F/i finish the set with the most er... rock (if you can call it that) track which sent me on this mission of rediscovery....

Space Mantra - F/i
This is classic space rock from 1988. Space Mantra is possibly the greatest scuzz psych/space rock LP of the 80s. Who else was doing anything remotely like this in the mid to late 80s? These are sonic transmissions from amongst the space debris. Occasionally stopping off in clangorous ethnic tribal colonies. This deep space rock drifts into black corridors then blasts itself out of the vortex. This is all driven by these Galaxian rockers F/i from er... Milwaukee. Then there are the rest of their 80s records The Split LP,  Why Not Now?.... Alan,  Paradise Out Here and The Past Darkly compilation which are all gold (More on those another time).