Nathan Hubbard - Blue Orchid (lala) - This slab of post-everything digitized and diced drum-and-voice convulsion came about from looking for music from dearly departed experimental percussionist and sound artist Max Neuhaus (Alex Ross' obit; Neuhaus' website). I use the word experimental in a less cavalier manner than I used to, for now I know that most art thus dubbed is actually crafted with a precise final product in mind. An album by Neuhaus I had back in the day, one where he applied John Cage's playful systems of vibration in the service of rattling a drumkit across the room, made me rethink the term experimental. Neuhaus was running the systems in that album with a dearth of romantic zeal, which at first I found off-putting - I was even more of a cheerleader for this distant corner of art than I am now - but in reflection, I see he was right. These are the things we are doing and here is what they are. I suspect, from listening to Blue Orchid, Hubbard had a copy of that same record, perhaps sitting next to his copy of the Minutemen Double Nickles on the Dime.
Here is "Circle Within a Circle", his tribute to Neuhaus.
I contend the best networking tool you can have is a gregarious child. She is at indirectly responsible for most of the good friends I have here, all my local writing gigs, and my current university job, just by either playing with the right kids at the playground or even just having the same name as a kid around the corner. I'll give myself credit for picking up the ball and running with it, but she hiked it to me.
It happened once again this past week when she made a new friend at the playground, and it turned out they live right around the corner from us on our regular dog walking route, so we popped in for an impromptu playdate. After talking to the dad, I was shocked to hear that he checked out my book from the library on a whim when he moved to town. He used to be in an alt-country band in Athens, OH called Hank McCoy & the Dead Ringers, which I vaguely remember from my college radio years. When he said it was on Okra records, that struck a bell as being the home of The Schramms and the Ass Ponys, both bands I dig now.
Given the nature of cosmic connection, I suspect there will be a link to one of this site's frequent Ohio readers who I believe spent some college years in the Athens, OH music scene.
Above is the HM&DR album which I am determined to track down and listen to before I meet up with him again, my book, and my little networker in her Clone Trooper helmet, holding up a tray of Anakin Apple Crisp from the Star Wars Cookbook II that won second place at a Super Bowl Cassarole Cook-Off, which would have won first if not for some possibly over-zealous campaigning on the part of her old man.
Parliament - Gloryhallastupid(lala) Earth, Wind & Fire - Last Days and Time (lala) - I understand the periodic table came about becase this album revealed the mysteries of All Things to those who heard it. Our innate need to categorize what we "discover" led to the pigeonholing of the separate elements as we know them now and thus, the periodic table. This compartmentalization of existence is, of course, a fallacy of the intellect, unable to grasp the Greater Mysteries which are comprised of only three Mystic elements: earth, wind & fire. Little Beaver - Black Rhapsody Instrumental (lala) - When the "albums you might like" recommends you listen to something with "beaver" in the name, heed that recommendation. Little Beaver - Party Down (lala) Evidently, the party doesn't start until Little Beaver starts singing! Adolescent beaver jokes aside, I am officially the newest fan of this Forrest City, AR born Wes Montgomery-meets-booty-jam master Willie Hale aka Little Beaver, a name he acquired, according to Wikipedia, as a child because of his prominent teeth.
The Chrome Cranks - Diabolical Boogie (lala) I like these guys a lot - a friend made "Eight-Track Mind" his official theme song for a while - and while they have their idiom of speedball-wind down garage insouciance down to a science, it's not The Cramps. Not that they are trying to be or anything, but still. The Cramps took rockabilly/garage and gave it a sly pop star twist. Lux Interior was as pop star and any ingenue grinding away in the name of delivering a moment, except he did it in higher heels and a tiara. I am imagining Britney in one of her career suicide moves doing a lark raunchy rave-up duet with Lux of , say, a Tony Joe White song the Cramps, just for the cornpone sleaze video.
And yet, the Cramps kept it feral throughout most of their career. And was 62! The last time I saw The Cramps was at a House of Blues show where he must have been close to his fifties, skinny as a scarecrow in a leopard-skin bodysuit, grabbing a burly stage invader by the face and throwing him off-stage. Boredoms - Super Roots 10 (OngakuBaka) I think the Boredoms are a little analagous to the Cramps in that they take their root document (Japanese trash noise) and imbibe it with a subtle but undeniable pop sheen. Boredoms evolved more than The Cramps ever did (the Cramps are much more about regress than progress) but there seems to be a connection right now in my mind. Maybe it is just death casting its shadow on the living that just happen to be in the way. King Tubby - Majestic Dub (lala) I won't even try to connect this to the already loose threads, instead, like dub itself, I'll just move on.
Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears - s/t (lala) Four quick blasts of R&B reverse-engineered through the Rolling Stones, run though the conduit of Imagined Memphis and Mississippi associations and it still comes out wild and greasy on the other end. "Cousin Randy" is blues ramble parody-yet-sincere at its finest. I dig it.
Bukka White - Sky Songs (lala) Now this is as close to the root of the blues ramble as I have found on record. These songs run from 7-14 minutes of mesmerizing rattle and jabber. I wish there were more recordings like this where a blues performer is let off the chain and allowed to go as far as they want to go. Sure, it might result in a 2xCD version of T-Model Ford drilling a hole to the center of the earth with "Mannish Boy" like he does when he plays it live for 40+ minutes, but I might be into that too. I fell asleep at 3am while Ford did that very thing at the Maple Leaf in New Orleans a year or so ago, but my stamina is better in a computer/headphones setting. La Monte Young & The Forever Bad Blues Band - Just Stompin' Live at the Kitchen (AuralNightmare) After all, somewhere I do have a copy of this and have listened to the whole thing at least once, and thanks to the folks at AuralNightmare, will likely do so again today. It is basically one long blues riff, just over two hours long, centered around Young's extended blues raga piano infinitude. As a blues record, its success is dubious - the result is similar to a bar band stuck in a groove out of which they cannot extract themselves to get back to the song. Plus, fretless electric bass (likely necessary to achieve Young's precise tonality requirements) takes me right out of the blues moment. But if you look at it as a pedestrian application of high art ideas, I think it works rather well. La Monte Young's drone pieces are daunting listening but to many people, so is the blues. It's just the same thing over and over again. Yes. Yes it is. But you can say that about everything, and I think that is the common point of both blues and minimalism - very simple frameworks where the expression of life's relentlessness can be worked out.
This would have made interesting listening on my long drive up to Clarksdale last month, putting the Delta itself into a revisionist perspective via minimalist-mutated versions of the music the region produced. OK, maybe just interesting to me. Perhaps if La Monte Young would hook up with T-Model Ford, then it would all make perfect sense. La Monte Young - Just Charles & Cello in The Romantic Chord (Rootstrata) This is one of the endurance tests of which I spoke - nearly two hours of slowly bowed cello over recordings of itself creating subtle rippling waves of sound. Young not only makes his music sometimes difficult to listen to unless you are willing to submit to its demands, it can also be difficult to obtain as he has very exacting professional and sonic standards (who can blame him though) that unfortunately for us interested listeners, keeping much of it out of print. Scouring around for it on the web reminds me a lot of stories about record collectors going door to door in the 60s, asking older residents of downtrodden neighborhoods if they had any old 78s to sell, and in the age of access, there is a little bit of the musk of the hunt on this music for me.
