Sic (sic) Alps and me

Details of my difficult, altogether too personal but ultimately rewarding relationship with the new Sic Alps record, courtesy of Your Flesh (sir).

Soldiers of Fortune, Zebulon, Wed Feb 9

The Voice asked about some heavy jams last night, so I went and, you know, told that.

Mike Bones, post-show, not his assigned seat

Kid Millions, post-show, his assigned smile

Jordi Wheeler, Spectacle Theater, Mon Feb 7

Third time's a charm (but then, so were the first and second). Another core member of Up Died Sound, a band itself not so very documented but modestly exploding with ideas, lit out on a solo hike. I wasn't even sure I'd be writing about Jordi Wheeler's set till partway through his somewhat troubled first song, when he realized what I was already thinking and killed an unnecessary percussion track, leaving just a song, a good one, and after that just songs (though not this splinter) — hermetic, whispered but not quiet by purpose, a few first on piano, stained-glass notes (and starry films behind him) illuminating the dark room, his percussive left hand the only rhythm needed. After a while he switched to acoustic guitar, still seated at his piano, for a few more songs, bedsit in nature but sophisticated, the señor even threading in a Spanish figure on — is guitar still his home instrument, can anybody tell? He returned to piano for another flourish, further smearing, really just banishing the question. Bent over his instruments he looked like a less mannered Peter Jefferies, though this night Jordi was clearly tithing in the parish of Syd Barrett (while John Cale hovered offscreen).

Don't blame the camera

As with a lot of veteran artists (Wheeler was in the Occasion, one of my favorite NYC bands of the early ’00s), this set seemed as much about corraling a wealth of ideas and impulses (like herding cats — and speaking of, the supportive crowd was filled with musicians) as showing off the songs. Which I'm looking forward to hearing again, even though the next time could be completely different.

Hiro Kone, Zebulon, Wed Feb 2

Felt good to get out after a week and half with the flu (or flus, you know, just lucky I guess), and I celebrated with electric holy water.


A short walk from work through the glazed donut that is Williamsburg (key difference: glazed donuts often filled with something) to Zebulon, where Hiro Kone (a.k.a. Nicky Mao of Up Died Sound, ex–Effi Briest) was making her maiden solo flight. Could that be true? I saw her accompany the 1923 silent Salomé in November, though that isn't quite solo. The few times I've seen UDS her ideas were prominent, so the night was not without measured anticipation (J agreed). Her set — five songs, six? All of some length and considerable presence — established a unique language and (not uncommon for a first gig) (if it was), with it, she had plenty to say. She started with a hand drum



before moving into steady frontierwork along the Korg/Nord axis, evoking Alice Coltrane's devotional music of the ’80s in tone and spirit, only less narrowly focused and in an open relationship with dance music. That last aspect might get her miscategorized (because what are you if you can't be categorized?), but this is psychedelic music at heart, a different state of mind its goal, or states, goals.

Man it's hard to get good photos at Zebulon

What kept me thinking of Coltrane mère was the way whole choruses flared out of already rich orbs of brightly opaque synth, a real instinct for contrast and shape, the way her music moves outward and sometimes diagonal, just always with some sense of further (like, small-p progressive).



The only song I recognized is the sublime "AION A" (which you can just have). One song pulsed with a 5/4 (or was it 4/5, what order do they go in again?) pillow-thump and one crisp clack to mark the darkness; a bit of Laika, or Richie Hawtin loosening up with a color or two, but mostly just like Hiro Kone. Kind of a long set for first of three, but that didn't matter, it was one of those sounds you just wanna let alone for a while, so despite what I'd heard about Pillars & Tongues, and knew about Highlife (Sleepy Doug Shaw), I headed out, happy, blissy.

Letha Melchior Rodman benefit: Capsul + the Mad Scene + Home Blitz + Tom Surgal, Cake Shop, Sat Jan 22

A bloody good time on Saturday night to raise money for veteran rocker and excellent human being Letha Melchior Rodman. The Voice asked me what happened.

Random Cutting (and other assassinations), Chashama, Fri Jan 21

Caught a set from Tyler Nolan (of Vaz and Up Died Sound), who plays solo as Random Cutting, last night at Chashama, the p-r artspace that's right where you'd never think it should be: E 42nd, right across the street from the Helmsley Hotel.

Living out of a suitcase

Last time I'd seen Nolan solo he accompanied an edited-down (to 30 minutes or so) Robocop, drawing laughs and whoops from a half-full but fully attentive Zebulon. And there is something intrinsically sci-fi to his bright and loud style — not à la Chrome, but formally somehow, visions of glassy spires crashing up out of the ground, like an Arthur C. Clarke paperback cover set on •>awe<•. One fleet five-note run that started a new passage (he plays straight through, with brief pauses) last night kind of suggested the light-tones at the end of Close Encounters. What's rare (in a solo electric-guitar set, at least) is there's no indulgence in his playing; he neither wastes a shred nor underplays, everything is hemmed and purposed without feeling tight or restrained. The cuts are anything but random. Check out two pieces named for tall black men at his site, linked at top.


Also on hand at Chashama were a bunch of hacked and rigged old video games, the most popular being JFK: Reloaded, which is exactly what it sounds like. It really was impressive and only a bit unnerving; while I don't think anyone old enough to remember the day is currently coding video games, I couldn't help but think of the function of history in severing emotional ties to traumatic events. The people (hmf, kids) clustered around the machine were laughing their asses off, and who am I to criticize? I wasn't born till ’67.

Top 10 inflation: apologies to Glass Rock

Every year I send in my Top 10 to the Village Voice's Pazz & Jop poll, and every year, starting about 20 minutes later, I go back and start fucking with it. Continue, I mean. Why? Because of all the really, really good records being made. And 10 is just not the round number it used to be back before the world got all blown-out and untrackable. Also because I'm an editor, i.e., bit of a mental case.

This year, I waited till just about the very literally very last moment to submit my P&J. Longer actually — that afternoon, seconds before it was nearly certain that I was about to do it, a couple of friends dragged me out and we got good and hammered (the holidays and all that, "just one beer" and all that). When I got back and tore off my list, confident in that drunkenly authoritative way that everything was in its place, I um…completely left off one of my real favorites of the year. … Sorry, Glass Rock. To quote Marc Masters, "Imagine if this mattered."

Anyway, these days you can go back and fix pretty much everything. You just can't go back and give everything the 10 or so points it deserved in Pazz & Jop.

And so, I moved stuff around (soberly) and here, now, below. It's got 24, but by the end it may be 25, cause I'm pretty sure I'm still forgetting something. Just about all of them at one point of the year felt like mortal locks for my Top 10. But I'm only fucking apologizing to Glass Rock.



1. Major Stars Return to Form (Drag City)
Yeah. Best yet by the best-yet sextet. Maximal psych-rawk splendor, featuring two of the Stahs' three ostensibly active singers; for proof of their discrete dopeness go back-to-back with "Low Grade" (Sandra Barrett) and "The Space You Know" (Amanda Bristow). Really though, no recording matter can contain what this band is about. You just haven't lived until you've been kicked in the back of the head during a Wayne Rogers guitar solo. By Wayne Rogers.


2. Sun City Girls Funeral Mariachi (Abduction)
Here.









3. Phantom Payn Days Phantom Payn Daze (De Stijl)
Tensely lazing electric shocks from this non-bastard offspring of Suicide, Peter Jefferies and the Velvets, which is impossible of course, how could three things have one baby, and yet, here he is, and in case you're wondering — he's not confined to that bedroom, just happier there. 39 Clocker Juergen Gleue made these dark and sexy (a.k.a. "never released") recordings in the mid-’90s, and they go deep with a South Island vibe, Germanically poised. We can know that "cool" still means something because of this album.

4. Islaja Keraaminen Pää (Fonal)
Honestly, I still haven't sorted this album out exactly. Which is weird because it's Islaja's most accessible, for one. It could in fact be that very thing, the proximity of these elegant, stained-glass-future torch songs to "normal" pop that makes it so jarringly other. Why does a white Finnish lady make me think of Sun Ra without having anything to do with him in any way? Still haven't sorted it. [Just realized, days later, that it's also or perhaps instead Abbey Lincoln, early ’60s with Max Roach, her blues, just the powerful suggestion of being out, relaxed and regal in it where she was, commanding, stately but not stuffy. Analagous in some crucial unnameable way, Abbey and Merja, but otherwise unlike. Not sure I've sorted it though.]



5. Glass Rock Tall Firs Meet Soft Location (Ecstatic Peace)
Sorry, again, really. It's hard to believe I could've simply forgotten about this one, no matter how much whiskey, especially since it contains 2010's most unforgettable instant: the very first blow of the very first song, itself called "Glass Rock" — just this huge exhale, all the weight fallen off your shoulders as you slump into a chair. It's a life-up-to-this-point moment that's followed with Kathy Leisen declaring everything permanently okay by asking, "Whatchoo think about loosin' it up?" Only recently decided that line's not missing a syllable. Take care to note that I've talked only about the first half minute of this mind-blowing, tender-hearted, sinking-yacht-rock album, and also please notice that its title track is named for the band, and its title instead explains what's going on here. Everything else in history explained at the band's totally natty blog.


6. Sharon Van Etten Epic (Ba Da Bing!)
She sings at you from an angle with this almost lurid voice that swerves around forcefields, like she's emotionally drunk from her own lyrics. Dramatic results. Would've been only slightly the less if it were just "A Crime" and "Peace Signs," but I'm glad it isn't.





7. Fabulous Diamonds Fabulous Diamonds II (Siltbreeze)
Bliss of haunt, stately psych that ghost-patrols the darklands, where your nervous system lives low to the earth. Drums, synth, vocal incant; so simple, so right. Suddenly want to make sure these two have heard Phantom Payn Daze.




8. The Dead C Patience (Ba Da Bing!)
On returning to form and staying there.









9. Noveller Desert Fires and Bleached Valentine split (Saffron)
At the moment I'm not sure I can think of anything other than "Bleached Beach," one song from her recent split LP (with unFact) that soars high and heavy, like a jetstream of lava. At first I missed the noise guitarist; Desert Fires burned the thought clear out of me.



10. Rangda False Flag (Drag City)
Bishop, Corsano, Chasny, demons. If you think I need to say more, that's your problem.








11. Alastair Galbraith Mass (Siltbreeze)
A bookend to Morse, 18 years later, too perfect. A string theory in a feathered hat, the South Island dark horse gives truest meaning to the words "experimental pop."







12. Doug Paisley Constant Companion (No Quarter)
"Who could be so cruel to someone like you? No one but you. Who would make the rules for the things that you do? No one but yooouuu." Drop your weapons, the war is over.






13. Effi Briest Rhizomes (Sacred Bones)
Brooklyn's brightest darkness, an arcane notion dusted off and lured from the attic of 4AD's old manse out into the woods for an all-night session. You're surrounded by trees but you notice only the air. Like a lot of good psychedelic music its persuasion is its pacing, and since the valence is distinctly female, maybe this is one of those cases where it's okay that every single review mentioned it (even if no one talked about why it might matter). Singer but not songwriter Kelsey Barrett has left, so what's next is bound to be different, and worth waiting for (this one took years), even if what's most noticed then is still mainly that did you know the band members are all female.

14. Neil Young Le Noise (Reprise)
Neil, burning, overwhelming you in a sea of guitar flames. Neil Young is an all-male band.








15. Endless Boogie Full House Head (No Quarter)
When Top Dollar speaks his mind, everybody else shuts the fuck up. Quel jammage! Endless Boogie is all-male.






16. Tyvek Nothing Fits (In the Red)
They razored off everything but the snarl, which will razor everything off your bones. Punk as fuck for them outta luck.

17. v/a Angola Soundtrack (Analog Africa)
One of the best comps of ’60s/’70s Africa ever, a spectrum of sounds whose ranginess will blow your mind. Angola's on the southwest coast of Africa but judging from this record it's the dead center of the world.

18. Wounded Lion Wounded Lion (In the Red)
Number one in punk-rock fun, raw and elemental pop with its pants pulled down. I did not jump around to any record more this past year.

19. Digital Mystikz Return II Space and Urban Ethics (DMZ)
Dubstep didn't leave them behind — very much the other way around. Both albums in here even though they're different — Return is Mala, Ethics is Coki — because the DMZ continuum is just that strong. It's no slight on their mid-decade singles — some of the best sounds of the ’00s, any genre — to wonder if this is the better straight-up listening music, thoughtful and deep darkness that's madly in love with your ribcage.

20. Rikki Ililonga and Musi-O-Tunya Dark Sunrise (Now Again)
Sansa kuwa, sansa kuwa, sansa kuwa… More African brilliance from the past, this time from Zambia. Find Zambia on a map and erase the borders, now it could contain all of what is Rikki Ililonga.

21. The Fresh & Onlys Play It Strange (In the Red)
This year's achingly wistful Bay Area pop record. Took a while to get past the mysterious power of opener "Summer of Love," which feels so much more like the end of summer, the end of love.

22. Gunn-Truscinski Duo Sand City (Three Lobed)
Steve Gunn is one of NYC's best guitarists, and definitely our most distinct — immediately identifiable the way he bends and frays notes, and conjures resolve out of shadows. Hushed and heavy, Sand City is the first duo record from him and percussionist John Truscinski, though they've played together plenty on the intrastellar earthways.

23. Thee Oh Sees Warm Slime (In the Red)
Sort of a lifetime (so far) achievement award. Warm Slime might not be any better than the last four hundred Oh Sees records, but since they're all so damn good…

24. Rene Hell Porcelain Opera (Type)
Jeff Witscher, man of a thousand aliases and one heavy dot of a record. I think of Coil, I think of Cluster, I think of Porter Ricks, I think of high-tension cables, I think of synthetic concrète, I think I need to track this fucker down on vinyl.

25. Dum Dum Girls I Will Be (Sub Pop)
I gave it short shrift when it came out cause it wasn't as good as the singles and EPs. But lately I've been listening to it constantly and coming to terms with being wrong.

Ege Bamyeezy

I like Kanye's Dark Beautiful Miasma, but it's his second straight album that won't be on my year-end list. Graduation, from 2007, was on that year's.

I was lucky to be invited to the advance-listening session for press for it (and for the two that came before). For this one, which was at a movie theater in Midtown, he stood onstage and took questions afterward. I was totally floored when this song had come on, to hear the booted melody line (from Can's "Sing Swan Song"). Against form, I strenuously raised my hand in an effort to get his attention in a theater of possibly a thousand people. He pointed to me and I realized I didn't really have a question; it was more that I somehow had to acknowledge that he used a Can song. I blurted out, "Where did you first hear the Can song you used as a basis for 'Drunk and Hot Girls'? People sitting around me turned to look (and afterward, a bunch of them descended on me, notebooks and pens in hand, to ask who Can was), but Kanye either didn't fully hear me or he was just rolling so hard on his cocktail of adrenaline and pride that he heard only what he wanted. "Yeah, that was a Can song," was all he said, before launching into a long and weird and somewhat caddish explanation of what the song is about. Which is summarized well by its title.

On the passage of time

You'd think by now that any real music fan has got to be pretty fucking sick of the Pixies.

Jooklo Duo + Barker/Carter

Zebulon the other night after a frustrating/fulfilling ba gua, looking for a flight off this stone. Found it. Andrew Barker and Daniel Carter went first (well, first as of my arrival; woulda liked to have seen Nate Wooley's duo), and if I tell you they were "regular," promise you won't read that as an insult. I found a table — joint was only half full! Or rather, all the way full, but only half with people — behind a cute hippie couple making goo-goo eyes and whispering cheek-kisses to each other, she a slight figure in a stripey shirt (not an uncommon sight at Zebulon) and he a slight figure with hair obscuring a tye-dyed T-shirt. Barker/Carter were "regular" only because NYers have seen them do this a lot, together and elsewhere — Barker hitting two drums, three notes and four directions at once, Carter the consummate inside-outsider, swirling melodies around pillars of sound driven down to Earth's core. At one point Andrew announced the set's end by way of thanking everybody, except — Carter wasn't done. This led to a pretty glorious passage, ten or so minutes of bonus time (or in my case, injury time).

Jooklo, Jooklo, Jooklo Duo were next. Knew nothing about them other than their Italian base of operations and Conklin's effusive praise (not to mention his having booked them), proof of which was proved further when my favorite new hippie couple took to the floor and made it the stage. It was them! What the hell. Stripey shirt is Virginia Genta, and she is an earthy intergalactic badass of effectively limitless power. She wasted no time and went right at the fabric, tearing huge swaths of truth from the sky with her tenor, ripping, rending, turning gold into wine and wine into bread and roses. Incredible power — pierced, pinched tones blasting forth in a spectrum of color tones so far above where we live and work and wrestle the daily pain. She was tearing down sky-castles and replacing them with affordable sky-housing for the people. He is David Vanzan on drums, and he is right there with his pal, driving hard, more linear than we often get in Fire Music and refreshing at that; S remarked wisely (as is her wont) that he probably came to this freedom from a rock background, and also that she couldn't remember ever seeing these two so unfettered. After a spell, Virginia went for a melodica — to my chagrin for a moment, as she started tentatively in a space David had cleared out. Then I realized she wasn't tentative, only her part was, and Jooklo sense quickly came back in. Soon she went to tin whistles, two of them in a V formation, before returning to reeds and docking us all back in safely, happy to be home and much the better for the trip. Pretty fuggin' rewarding, and at 28 minutes, their set could not have been more fit. Dropped a few dimes at their merché table and have listened to nothing but for the past two days.

Promoter-mook Conklin (left) with Jooklo Duo: David Vanzan, Virginia Genta

And I will go back expecting the same or even better: Jooklo Duo hits Cake Shop Saturday night (the 17th) and Public Assembly I think the next night (deets and more here), but I don't care cause I'll be behind bars that night and I'm feeling selfish these days. You can get your own freedom.

Lookit me, off to the Notekillers now — whose next record may or may not or definitely will not be called Expired Links. More to come, more than likely.

Amy Annelle, atop the East Village

Amy Annelle brought the nurture of nature to my East Village roof last night, reprising a low-key appearance from last summer (or was it the summer before?). This time, I endeavored to actually tell people about it, and a coded message during her WFMU live set the day before also helped gather a crowd of about 20, which was just right for the space we had.


In fact, pretty much everything was just right: The sky, glowing and bruised; the breezes on full breeze; and Amy, who played for about 75 minutes at a volume that dueted (not dueled) with the city ambience that drifted up seven stories.




Folks spread out across the roof on throw rugs, blankets, dirty jeans. A batch of declared fans, a few old friends (Amy's and mine), a handful of curious neighbors who stuck around, a trio of effusive Oklahomans converted into believers on the spot, a couple who just moved from SF and felt like they'd won the lottery in learning of the show, and one sweetly hyperactive puppy. The natural tremble in Amy's voice reminded us all of the infinite. Time didn't stop, but it did seem a little less indifferent to everyone for a while.

Shut and open

I'm sure she's quite good

She's just got the wrong last name. Which is no more her fault than the fact that I'm in the wrong hemisphere twice over for the eclipse, but hey. Who wouldn't rather know what the person below has been up to?

No compromise in defense of Mother Earth (photo: Dennis Keeley)

But as the saying goes, one door that wasn't really there is just a wall, and another swings open on the L to Brooklyn. Nobody's consolation prize, Sophia Knapp played a solo set at Bruar Falls on the night her band Lights' new record, Rites, came out. Rites, which was recorded, will be getting a lot of proper attention this summer; no album in memory has taken an arrow for your psychedelic disco love quite like this one. But Sophia played an entire set of her own pointedly direct songs, which I hadn't heard before. They were great—or, well, maybe they'd seem less so in anyone else's hands, but Sophia has a way of snatching back near and total clichés of beauty and romance from the Hallmarxists, blowing away the dust and replacing it with…different dust. I might not stand or even sit for anyone else singing of golden mountains and love that goes by "love," but Sophia's a guilelessly pure spirit; she isn't getting away with anything. And she'll probably never get her due as a guitarist—one of those seemingly simple yet calmly precise players who doesn't strike, stroke or strum a note without purpose.

Sophia Knapp, in rainbows

Black Monk Time: Akitsa + Bone Awl + Ashdautas

Naeth (enrobed) with Ashdautas [photo: gravemusic.com, swiped from Nuclear War Now]

A bit delayed on this (and everything), but the Long Malaise hangs heavily at the moment, compounded by the fact that NYC seems to have swapped springs with Seattle.

Friday night brought a killer underground black-metal show to the unlikely Fontana's, a site chosen by the promoter for its lack of associations. Success there -- the upstairs, a nice and roomy but nondescript, kinda rocker-yuppie-vibed space, was generally empty except for the metal kids between sets downstairs, where the misanthropic chaos unfurled in dungeony comfort.

I was too late to catch Volahn's set but hey, three bands of any sort is a full meal at my age. When I arrived, he and his bandmates in Ashdautas were in the demonic throes of…lots of tuning and tweaking. The youngish crowd was antsy. Finally, vocalist Naeth ringwraiths his way onto the stage and—harwhoosh!—they commence with a brutal blackened attack. As in the photo above (not from Friday), Naeth's's hood hung several inches over his face; his throaty shrieks came beamed up from some satanic sub-basement, and with the moonbursts of spikes on each wrist, the total effect was thorough and intense and without any extraneous theatrics. The drummer had a weathered face of corpse-paint that looked like it had been applied three days ago, and it was all the more convincing for it. These fuckers walk through the valley of the shadow of death like they own the place. I was so taken that I bought both the CD they had, 2007's Where the Sun Is Silent…, and a shirt—the deciding factor there being that they'd ingeniously used bleach, rather than ink, for the design, which grimly replicates that record's cover, which is rather awesome.


Bone Awl I had heard on record (one awesomely titled offering: Meaningless Leaning Mess) before—the sort of metallic fury that any old punk or hardcore fan would appreciate, but too monochromatic to hold interest over the length of an album. I expected to like them better live and was right: They spat out a super-raw, primal thrash onslaught with black-metal vocals and zero frills whatsoever, musically or look-wise—these three guys could've been gone-nowhere skater burn-outs (they are from Cali, like the placeless Ashdautas) rather than angrily ambitious cult-favorites with a long discography, much of it released on their own label. A handful of their songs were overly plain, like on record, but they're all hardcore-short and Bone Awl just kept barging forward with mercilessly single-minded purpose. (Opinions, photo and links to more on Hank Shteamer's blog.)

Headliners Akitsa I had heard on a couple of Hospital releases, so I thought I had an idea what was coming. Not exactly. Instead of the tortured bleakness I recalled from the records, the Quebecois quartet (as with many black-metal bands, their touring lineup likely augmented the core group on record) came hard and businesslike, a classic black-metal blitz with another top-shelf throat-ripper, O.T., whose static, sneering stance between vocals brazenly projected both "I am here to inflict pain" and "I am here to receive my punishment." The two really surprising things were the almost standard rock & roll backbeat—Akitsa will never outspeed anybody and it hardly matters—and the band's uniform appearance: tightly clipped haircuts plus short-sleeved black shirts with collars. It was enough to give you pause, but that's probably the intent. That or—who doesn't like to look snappy as the end of the world approaches? (Besides most of the audience.)

Other things stood out: Very good sound in the room. Rougly nine-to-one male-to-female ratio, which honestly was less tilted than I thought it would be. Even during the whirlpit that formed during Bone Awl's set, all the young misanthropes treated the club and each other with respect (try getting a roomful of drunken fratboys to behave so well), and it was returned: a couple of kids were semidiscreetly smoking a joint during Ashdautas when security approached and…simply told them to put it out. Also, the three bands looked and sounded completely different, yet all existed within the prescripts of black metal, a super-arcane underground niche that cares a lot about authenticity but which is clearly more open-minded than it might seem from the outside. All three vocalists were world-class. And none of them uttered a single word before, between or after songs.

Cranked

The long malaise ebbs and flows. Did April even happen? More on that when I feel like it. Though there is this—me on a particularly welcome and unexpected reunion, New York's Chrome Cranks, in a brief, cause-we-can rip through a few dates. Look alive there, Lyonnaise. And dig this for a whiff of the vibe.

Yo La Tengo: still killin' em with the requests

Friday turned out to be a good night to re-create what your ancestors might have done for yuks 60-70 years ago: Stay in and huddle around the radio! What a rip! Also, madly text and e-mail friends while Yo La Tengo, in an annual rite of prespring, play your requests on WFMU, or ones close to them.

SWIPED FROM WFMU'S BEWARE OF THE BLOG

The band played on. A ripping version of the Clean's "Getting Older," so many Beach Boys and related that they had to put the kaibosh on it, talk of the Saints, classic ’80s pop and, at the end, comic bits to replace songs they didn't want to-- well:

Ira: "M.I.A., 'Paper Planes'? That's a head-scratcher people."
James: "M.I.A. -- izzat a hardcore band?"
Ira: "The Pixies? Draw'n a blank!"

The band played on. They played everything loose and tight and joyful and right, and what came through is that in these particular six hands, there are no old songs or new songs. In Yo La Tengo's world, there are just songs. The good ones are to be revered, played fast and sloppy or slow and sacred; the lesser ones can still have their 1.5 minutes. The chasm between how Yo La Tengo sees music and how the anxious uncurious indie world they were once lumped in with sees music has never been broader. That world of fake-exciting tour-announcements and predictable dress-alike Forkcast picks and iPod campaigns and cornball Stereogum writing boringly about what's boringly already known. Echo-echo-echo-echoooo. Listening to Yo La Tengo on WFMU didn't make you feel like this soul-murdering winter was drawing to a close; it made it feel as if it hadn't happened at all.

Lux Interior R.I.P.

"The Cramps don't pummel and you won't pogo. They ooze, you'll throb." --from the back of Gravest Hits.

(Photo swiped from Stephanie Chernikowski's site.)

Blagojevich and Madoff hate my dj'ing, but Obama likes it

That subject line just quadrupled this blog's numbers. Awesome.

But it is true, which is good news for you (and the President I guess), because of the below superdope notifications you may read now:
---------------

Friday Jan 30

Mats Gustafsson with Thurston and Gene Moore 9pm

Whiteout and Samara Lubelski 8pm

DJ Mike Wolf

Club Rehab 25 Ave B (btwn 2nd and 3rd st) NYC

Early show set will start on time.....

Saturday Jan 31

Magik Markers

Sightings

Eskimo King

DJ's Chris Freeman and Mike Wolf

Glasslands 289 Kent Ave (btwn S 1 and S 2 st) BKLYN

Doors 10pm

Ten from the bottom

Forgot to tell you -- my Pazz + Jop list is up, for those who dare to care about the air up dere. Uh, down here. Just like every year, the overall list is pretty predictable, as these things inevitably are. And just like every year, exactly one of my top ten made the big list. For the first time in a while it wasn't Kanye West though. Like my pal the Dilettante there are a handful of records that only got votes from me -- which, while I generally maintain a "What is wrong with everyone?" mindset (more fun that way), probably only means it's an awfully big world. Or I'm a complete mental defective. (We didn't vote for anything in common, but a couple of hers could've appeared on mine.)

Two records that were going to place highly with me were essentially disqualified when I was later hired by the label that had the great good taste to put them out: Palms and Lia Ices. If you want to know what I think of them both, this was written before I even met the shadowy figure (read: doesn't get enough sunlight) behind the label.

Thinking now about the ten or so other albums that could have made my list, and another ten that got regular play, I have to say it was a pretty good year for music.

Can't believe I haven't even told you about last Friday night yet -- saw one band I already liked bring it to the subsequent plane and picked up a totally new band to dig. Maybe tell you about it all tomorrow…let's just say I'm actively working against this lunatic notion that everything has to go really fast these days. Slow and steady finishes the race, or something.

Total fucking fandom

Well, you know, onward we all go, however we do. What helped lead me out of the deep blues (if not quite into the sky-blues) was a recent trip to the Academy on E 12th, where I've been unloading piles of old vinyl (for both space and money) lately. As the dude behind the counter started going through my stuff, something (like, instinct) tugged my eyes lazily toward the New Arrivals rack. My first thought was honestly to tell one of the staffers, "Hey, you guys shouldn't just leave New Order bootlegs laying around in that bin." Like something was really wrong with this picture.

Though not this one

It got worsebetter when I noticed that both were priced at $15 (only a bit more than you'd pay for a brand-new LP anyway), and the set lists spoke of an early-mid-’80s provenance—in other words, the period of life on Earth during which New Order was flawlessly perfect. One was called Blue Mondays and its spine cared not for mystery: "Tokyo May 2, 1985." My first call on all matters New Order is top photographer Tim Soter, who upon hearing the track-listing surmised that I had found a vinyl copy predating the official release of the well-traveled boot Pumped Full of Drugs. The other record is called (hmm) blueMONDAY, and I like its tracklist better: "Blue Monday," "Leave Me Alone," "When I'm With You," "5. 8. 6.," "Temptation," "Everything's Gone Green," "We All Stand." Someone went to the trouble of making an inner label that looked like it could be a Factory promo.




I don't think it is; Factory would never even have given away something pressed this weakly. I wondered about the date and place of this show while enjoying the flatly pristine sound, especially on "Leave Me Alone" (a personal favorite, to the point where I've made its title my motto) and when an ecstatic "Temptation" spills right into "Everything's Gone Green." But it was a cover, a(n) hysterically indulgent version of Sparks' "When I'm With You," that provided a clue. (Footnote: During the masturbatory ending, Hooky briefly tears into the bassline of "Ceremony"; people there must have wigged out). A quick peek at New Order Online, something I don't look at often (preferring the music itself), revealed that the band played that cover exactly once, in Milan on June 22, 1982. Except the set list they print is not the same as what's on this record (though there is a fair bit of crossover). And so...it's probably from somewhere or other sometime in 1982. Cool.

Return to Los Llamarada + Hank IV Mountain

We can assume it's at least partly down to a better p.a., but Los Llamarada and Hank "Eye-Vee" IV were both noticeably sharper, meaner and just plain louder at Cake Shop last night. (Local promoter Tom "Dot Dash" Hyland's band, Imaginary Icons, whipped together a handful of punk and garage styles in between the out-of-townees.) Hank IV's brick-to-the-head wallop came through much more, um, impactfully, as did Bob McDonald's wild-eyed "You're coming home with me right now young man" routine. The setting and sound benefitted Los Llamarada even more: Fucked as their reflection of rock music is, these four are no mere amateurish hyperactives—they are on point and tight as jeans (not their own, they all seemed quite comfortable). When vocaler Sagan and syntherist Estrella traded places toward the end of their set, things got even more intense, like the Velvets falling through a hole in the flag (can't say whose though). Also: better photographic evidence.

I can see Hank IV at Cake Shop! Raise your hands and take some pictures!

Sweaty and crazed: The IV's have it

Los Llamarada: Sagan gets air

Estrella rips it up