Chuck Brown and The Soul Searchers

Chuck Brown is to Go-Go music as the 4th duke of sandwich is to modern eating trends. What is Go-Go music you ask? Well Go-Go is a variation of Funk music developed in Washington DC by none other than Mr. Chuck Brown. The beats are typically laid back in a 4/4 signature with conga percussion beside a regular drum set. Sometimes it verges on a reggae-like or calypso percussion because of the syncopation. Also! The songs tend to bleed into one another so as to keep people shakin' they asses. Shows run very long because the artists work an element of jazz in there too, noodling around whatever foundation the song has laid down. Lyrics are sparse too, smidgeoned between keyboards and horns they are typically ad-libbed, call and response or just a repeated phrase.

Interestingly, because the music focuses on the live it seems like there are a lot of references to popular culture thrown in for almost no reason at all. For example when I saw Chuck Brown last night at Joe's Pub he worked in the Godfather theme as well as the Woody Woodpecker theme. and it was clear that the band and he had practiced it and worked it in beforehand because the three brass and two keyboardists all flowed through it perfectly. An intriguing bit of post-modern appropriation if you ask me. I would imagine theres a little bit of re-appropriation in the genre as well, but none of the songs last night "sampled", if you will, any tunes that could be poignantly deconstructed and I'm not familiar enough with live performances of Go-Go to say one way or the other.

Or this is just the last vestiges of my academic self, having crystallized into a kidney stone like obstruction, being pissed out onto this webpage. How many licks to the center of self-deprecation? one. Ah ta-hooo. Ah Three. The world may never know.

Brown basically just took his funk band in the 70s and completely and decisively created a new genre that people could dance to for a solid two hours straight. Thats right, fuck Pilates and swishy, neon track suits (okay, those can stay). Head to the 9:30 Club in DC which he apparently plays on a semi-regular basis and you'll see what I'm talking about.

He also has a new album coming out soon which apparently has some hip-hop influences on it. (he did have his daughter come on stage and do a little rappin' which sounded great) All in all imagine Go-Go as a kind of Funk paella that you can put anything delicious in and it'll taste just fine.

Heres Chuck Brown's big hit "bustin' Loose" from the album of the same title.



and another Go-Go band called Rare Essence for your listening pleasure



Also: get a load of Chuck Brown he is AMAZING!!!!

100th post!

Well, this is my 100th post. huzzah.

Anyhow lets get back to the crux of the music here. I recently found my old copies of Black Eyes self-titled and "Cough" Black Eyes were an awesome post-hardcore band on Dischord that Mother nature herself prevented me from seeing. Q And Not U was all like "we'll play at your school" and Black Eyes was touring with them and everyone got psyched because it had been a good year for music at University of Mary Washington (Rilo Kiley, Schatzi, Denali [actually they sucked]), but damn!!!!!!! it snowed. Of course I had many a time to see Q and Not U in the following years (as they became one of my fave bands) but Black Eyes eluded me and eventually essploded into a mess of instruments; the players shed from their musical coils and into record labels and perhaps even (shudder) retail jobs.

No matter. They made some yummy music in their time.

This is Pack of Wolves from their self titled debut on Dischord. Sometimes listening to it kind of feels like swallowing a full grown undeclawed cat, but you'll get over it once the digestive juices kick in. They've got two drum sets, two basses, two singers and they're joined at the hip by one guitar.



See what I mean? Pack of Wolves is a big fucking shrilly mess and its great.
I mean, they're not exactly Engelbert Humperdinck which is a crime. I mean it should be a crime that everybody is not Engelbert Humperdinck. Heh, Humperdinck.

Black Eyes, like I said, essploded into a gigantic mess right before their second and final album called "Cough" which is a combination of seventies no-wave, free-jazz, post-hardcore and noise. What a mess. I rushed out to buy this album at the local (and now essploded as well) independent record store in Fredericksburg,VA. I made sure to listen first and was so perturbed and disgusted by Black Eyes' new sound that I listened to the whole album. Sitting there amidst the Pavement, Bjork and Sonic Youth posters and kitschy seventies Humperdinck lamps I heard an album so distraught with a bands collapse that I consciously thought to myself "Self! this album is a level above you. You're not ready for it yet." (I wish I had that kind of foresight when I tried to read Chaucer again the other night).

Well I don't know what has happened to me since then. Perhaps I got bored of how music sounds and started expanding the borders of my musical country into uncharted territory. My compass has lost its magnetism, my maps tattered scrolls exhumed from the vaults of Wikipedia, my metaphorical supplies running low. Perhaps I've bathed my veynes in swich licour a little too much, because now I feel comfortable in territories I was uncomfortable in some time ago. Maybe I feel comfortable in a band clapping and screaming into a microphone, sliding their guitars up and around and down through the pits of aural heck, and calling that a song.

Regardless, here is "drums" arguably the most songy of the songs on "Cough" by Black Eyes.



Of course, I prefer Fathers of Daughters for its visceral slap to the face and samba whistles? Yes, it hurts so beautiful. but for some reason I can't get imeem to accept it so I'll just post Eternal Life instead. Another crushing blow to melody.



anyway, pick up a copy at Dischord

also make sure to check out the stycast for six degrees #6 which is going up on Wednesday around two or three.

The Point by Harry Nilsson part 3

This is the third installment for my Harry Nilsson shrine, bewreathed and candled as if I were the celebrant raising this cup of youtube above my head and offering it to you, my readers. This is the part of the service where the kids are getting antsy, the blessing is nearly done:

"Take. Eat. This is my youtube which is given for you, do this in remembrance of Nilsson."

Unfortunately! The videos are craptacular. Oh well, at least it gets the point across (seriously, no pun intended there. I'm not even that lame)

So, anyhow, this song is called Life Line and its probably the prettiest song on the album with descending harp plucks, a lilting melody that is echoed by a bunch of Nilssons and flutes that sound sampled but I'm not so sure about that one.

I'm particularly impressed with the simplicity of the vocal dynamics versus the harmonies, not so much in the album version but this alternate take from the 2002 remastered album. One can really appreciate the writing process when Nilsson plays the song solo on the piano with only a couple of backing vocalists and an organ in there too.



The video is strange and takes place in the narrative immediately before Oblio and Arrow (the boy and his dog) begin walking through a forest of not so subtle vaginal openings disguised to look like some kind of weird foliage. This is particularly interesting because the vaginal imagery begins when this song plays, and its pretty easy to spot. I wasn't entirely sold on the notion that the giant pit Oblio looks into is vaginal until I saw the two droplets of white "tears" fall into the pit. Am I insane? let me know if I'm insane, cause I don't really see the video in any other way now.

Criticals Metrics

Critical Metrics is a new website that I've been visiting. Check it out herre. You might as well add this to your bookmarks folder or sidebar on your blog because this shit is going to blow the fuck up (and if it doesn't I think there is something seriously wrong with the internet).

You'll figure it out as soon as you get there because the website design is impeccably um designed but I'll tell you what it does anyway. Essentially the site is a music review aggregator. They'll take small snips of articles from a bunch of important music websites (and unimportant ones [blender, eugghh]) that positively describe recent individual songs. One can listen to the songs themselves and put them on a playlist. So basically its like the hype machine except it doesn't completely remove all importance from the writing and actually supports the binary between positive and negative reviews (ew, I just used the word binary and was okay with it. it really has been a year since school ended) which is a good thing.

On another note everyone should check out the new Bright Eyes single (which I have embedded below, hee hee). And I'm serious about everyone because the single is fantastic, even if you're a naysayer from his past albums. Okay, maybe he is a teensy bit heavy handed, and okay maybe his voice is kinda shitty, and okay maybe he is really really really heavy handed sometimes. but goddamn the boy can write a song!

so check these bad boys out

Cassadaga - Four Winds



Lifted or the story is in the soil, so keep your ear to the groud - False Advertising



Lifted or the story is in the soil, so keep your ear to the groud - Lets Not Shit Ourselvs (To Love and be Loved)


I'm Wide Awake Its Morning - Poison Oak


I'm Wide Awake its Morning - At The Bottom Of Everything


Fevers And Mirrors - Something Vague


enjoy!

sucks

So Johnny Cash's house burned down. damn.

anyway-oh here is my new stycast: six degrees #5

NIN

I've never been a big NIN fan but the new album sounds pretty good. Stream all of it herre.

paucity of brains, overload of drones

Last night I went to studio B to catch Lesbians on Ecstasy. It was a pretty mediocre evening for music all around in my opinion, but then again, I'm not a tiny little hipster lesbian. For you see the lesbians arrived in droves, stepping from their handsomely designed hipster pads overlooking McCarren par, crawling from the slime and muck of the gutters, springing forth from the goddess Diana's hunting lodge in the sky.

Now now now, my knowledge of little tiny lesbians is not simply tugboated along by The L Word or any other such nonsense. Nay I was tugboated along by an entourage of tiny little lesbians myself to catch a show and wait for more tiny little lesbians. All in all I'd call the evening "gay." and it was a very fun evening filled with laughter, emotions, danger, and too much dancing (and you thought that was impossible).

Unfortunately the first two acts seemed to have a hard time imagining the audience in their underwear. The first act was called Telepathe from the big BK, they were actually pretty cool deriving a lot of beat oriented material from, of all places, Liars. Check out Sinister Militia on their myspace and you'll see what I mean.

Now I love me some liars and what Liars makes up for in just-okay melodies they make up for in some really interesting sounds and song construction. Seemed to be the same case for Telepathe. Unfortunately for Telepathe it looked like their music was a little too underperformed by last night to have really won me over. Not that they have no shot in hell, at least I know about them now. And their drummer is cute (but alas, she didn't appear to like the boys). and their guitarist asked me for some "blow" in the bathroom. That's charisma that could win any erstwhile music critic over in a second.


The second act was a woman from England called No Bra. A tall skinny lady with, um, no brazierre on and, um, no shirt. Pretty good. She was petrified to be in New York for the first time and you could see the fear in the backs of her eyes. Some crazy electro shit.

once Lesbians on Ecstacy got on I probably wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between them and Girls on Crack, or from freakin' Celine Dion. Yes, I had a couple pairs of beer goggles on last night. I woke up this morning and my head felt like the screams of thousands of forlorn lottery losers crying out at once. My mouth tasted like a fifth grade Cafetorium floor. My stomach, a geyser.

but thank god for The Field and their amazing new album "From Here We Go Sublime." Imagine listening to drum'n'bass from inside of your mother's womb, thats what this album sounds like. Beautiful.

The Point by Harry Nilsson: part 2

Here is a bit more of Nilsson's "The Point."

now now. Bear with me. Indulge Me. Turn your brain off. You see, I must expunge this psychadelia my parents left simmering in the crock pot of my soul. Think of this as a potluck of my body (its kinda like an acid doused Eucharist). Put your keys in the bowl (that part comes later, Mary Magdalene). We ain't going nowheres till I burn these images into your mind. Also! don't worry, there's only one more installment.

And hey it might do you some good to actually read what I'm saying once in a while.

So this is my favorite song on the album. Its called "Think About Your Troubles"<-- thats the mp3 - Unfortunately the recording of this song on youtube looks and sounds like a snuff film. A bad one at that. (I know my snuff films)

Anyhow, it starts with a delicious beat, beaten on a cowbell. Nilsson floats in with an orchestra of Andrew Birdesque pizzicato strings, a piccolo, and a clone who moans and adds pseudo-commentary over his shoulder. (Nilsson: "and soon this salty water" Nilsson's Clone: "not too good for drinkin" uh, thanks?)

The song is beautiful, but more important here is the imagery that accompanies it. Its about as strange as the imagery gets in the movie (and that includes the pointed village/castle, the purple and orange triangular citizens of the city, the pointed forest's blatant use of sexual imagery, the three flying fat ladies, the list goes on) Watch for the Uncle Sam reference, the Phallic reference, the Lite Brite reference. (props to Kitsch and Emily for the idears)

Perhaps because I'm in a house of scholars we decided that it would be a great idea to deconstruct the movie's imagery/themes etc. while we were watching it. Turns out that the movie is pretty fascinating when one considers all of the intersections of race/gender/class going on here. This movie has it all: the "magical negro," the intersexed child, the bourgeoisie elite. Its obvious that the boys club surrounding The Beatles was a bit misogynist, but watching this video makes it all too apparent that the early seventies were - lets put it this way - a period of transition.

Six Degrees #4

one month! This one is about American soul/gospel/spirituals in the 20th century.

Six Degrees #4 on www.Stylusmagazine.com

give me a shout in the comments if you like it!

The Point by Harry Nilsson part 1

Harry Nilsson, protege of Los Beatles and John Lennon's carousing partner while in LA, was a little bit of an acid tripping crazy pants. But, hey, who gives a care right?

The Point! was a record that he created in 1971 and later a movie narrated by Dustin Hoffman for ABC. Interesting though, later on the recorded version something legal happened and Ringo Starr added his voice as the narrator instead.

"I was on acid and I looked at the trees and I realized that they all came to points, and the little branches came to points, and the houses came to point. I thought, 'Oh! Everything has a point, and if it doesn't, then there's a point to it.'" -- Harry Nilsson

I mean, this quote pretty much explains the album as well as the movie. Trippy, awesome and out of it's mind. Of course everyone remembers the song "Me and My Arrow" if not directly then from Blackalicious' sampling of it in their song Blazing Arrow.

I'm amazed because nobody seems to have ever heard this album, and thats a crime, I love this album. Particularly because the movie was such a huge part of my childhood (I don't understand why, it must have been the closest thing to acid one could ever give to one's kids)

The songs are all fantastic, unfortunately the narrative of the album kind of gets annoying after a while. I can't imagine that I'd have the patience to listen to this on record when it first came out, which is most likely why this album wasn't very popular. But good god, its such a damn good album! The arrangements for a full string section, the beautiful arrangements for vocals surpass everything I've heard from Nilsson frankly and the songwriting doesn't really involve in a dialog with the plot at all and are simply love songs or break up songs ("and if we wake up just to break up/I'll carry on, oh yes I will" about his dog? I think not.)

six degrees #3

This episode of six degrees traces Avant Garde composition all the way from Luigi Russolo, the Futurist noise composer in the early twentieth century, through Spacemen 3 in the late eighties and ninties.

Want to see the most amazing and terrifying thing ever?

Just follow your mouse!

Its fun for the whole family! And also proof that we've gone so far as a society to bring back the centuries old art of the Paper doll to mock people who probably don't need any more mocking (or gawking in this case).

But this is also awesome, and I made one.

Six degrees #002

So Stylus has just added my second edition to my podcast, Six Degrees. Huzzah!

Now go listen please or I'll start trying to lean over you and complain about The Family Circus when you're doing Sudoku.

If you haven't already

seen the crayola commercial using Animal Collective's "Sweet Road" from Sung Tongs check it here

Avey Tare aparently responded to questions on the animal collective message board which I'm completely ripping from Shameless Complacency blog instead of the message board cause my pants are over-sodden with memberships to useless message boards anyway.

hey…

yes noah and i ok’d our song being in that commercial. They sent us a version so we could see it before hand and found it really funny and i checked up some on crayola just to make sure they werent that bad of a company which from the info i gathered seems like they are ok.

I wouldnt expect to be seeing our songs in too many other commercials. We are pretty careful about it. We turn down mostly everything (alot of beer commercials actually…always asking for sweet road…go figure) and dont feel the need to expose our music that way. This particualr instance seemed cool cause it invovled somthing for kids and somthing which had a big impact atleast on me when i was young, that being crayola markers and crayons.

cute guys. cute.

Spreadin' them wings

I really have nothing today. I suppose I can talk about the shows I've been seeing recently such as LAURIE ANDERSON AND LOU REED at Joe's Pub. I was a very happy camper. Laurie Anderson is as lovely as ever and a really nice lady and Lou, well, he was old.

The show itself was pretty good. Laurie Anderson played mostly new material from her forthcoming album, it was surprisingly more ambient than her typical stuff. It retained her humorous spoken observations, though.

Kitsch, my hetero life partner, noted that much of the material sounded dated a sentiment I concur with, although I'm not sure what to do with that. I'm not sure how to go about criticizing two living legends on stage together. Saying they sound "dated" is like saying the Empire state building looks dated, its true but you can't really argue either way. Now if the Empire State Building stopped doing what it does best, which is to be tall, then we'd have a problem.

Its always good to see living legends.

We All Have Hooks For Hands

I'm a sucker for catchy. I've been known to say that Creed is catchy. (ith ahhwmms wahd ohhpeaghn) I'm also a sucker for twee.

I'm a moderate fan of The Boy Least Likely To, I like their birthday cake aesthetic, their Gramma's music trunk in the attic aesthetic.

So while browsing through Chicago's Afternoon Records website I stumbled upon a magical little band called "We All Have Hooks For Hands" a very new band that has yet to release its debut album but put up an awesome song called "Hold On, Come On" that drinks from the same tap as The Arcade Fire and the icing-balloons of The Boy Least Likely To.

I want to see these guys live, be the jumping singing-along drunk in the corner and then go have really cute make out session with a girl in a cat sweater.

We All Have Hooks For Hands - "Hold On, C'mon"

L. Diamond

The New Yorker called Becky Stark a "Less florid Tori Amos" Sure. I call her a cutie pie and so is her music. Actually sometimes its a little bit too cutie pie and sounds like an Eastertime marshmallow Peep that got burped out by a bunny on a Broadway stage.

here's more from the New Yorker "Her words and topics are neither obscure nor figurative: the heart, and love, are the main subjects of the upcoming Lavender Diamond album imagine our love..."

but she sounds like she's having such a darn good time, kind of like John K. Samson of the weakerthans always sounds like he's got a smile on his face and that makes me feel warm.

The real draw behind Lavender Diamond is that their music doesn't really fall into a category at all. I mean, its indie pop, but its not like you'd take this onto a dancefloor, unless you're as into prancing in flowy pastel dresses as I am.

Truly, though, everything about this music should make me angry and vomitous. If I wanted to listen to pretty acoustic sing-alongs I'd grow a Youth group leader goatee and work at a summer camp.

check out the best track on the EPhere

and here's one for all the stupid babies:

Six degrees #001

Yes friends, I have officially written a podcast for Stylusmagazine.com

Its pretty hott. I think I'm going to continue to do them because, well, why wouldn't I?

Its kind of a pain in the ass but its not all bad thanks to Wikipedia and Allmusic.

Stypod!!!

Unfortunately for this one I merely wrote the script and the mix. In the future I hope to do it myself. Give me feedback.

Sami Sänpäkkilä

Alex brought home a li'l Finnish comp by Fonal records the other day. Once upon a time I may have said something to the degree of "this sounds like the faint played slow and backwards" These days, these days I've taken on that squall of sonic experimentation that Alex once represented to me and I've sailed straight through it leaving a Cap'n Guthrie shaped hole behind. I've been dubbed "the new Alex" by Ms. Sarah Appleby, musically at least. I hardly have a Masters in some useless ka-ka. Nay. I have a Masters of the Universe.

I'll take that Sarah. I'll take that.

So! Here we we we are. In Finland. Um. Theres lots of hot blonde people, lots of beard, lots of reeds. I feel like there are a lot of reeds in Finland.

The music is great for the most part. Trekking between dark laptop psych-folk and distinct eastern European gypsy sounds Fonal records seems to have itself a nice li'l package here.

And you thought the only good thing to come out of Northeast Europe was Black Metal and genocide. HA!

Es is the name Sami Sänpäkkilä (ow, my tongue) has given himself and his dark, ambient looping project. Les Fleurs Sont Des Bonnes Auditrices is so simple it could beat up Nancy Reagan's anti-drug slogan team and have room left over for a "book it" pizza party afterwards.

The rubato piano loop over crackling, creepy sing-songing voices and the occasional thunderclouds made of zeros and ones in the distance will brand themselves on your brain. I can't stop listening to it, its so very subtle.

Es - Les Fleurs Sont Des Bonnes Auditrices

Sami also does a little bit of video work (most of his music is designed for his videos) but he also works with other fonal records people including Risto, a pretty decent indie pop band with nonchalant singer and everything. but theres more cred here because they're singing in a different language!

check the Rakkauden Rock vid:

A certain someone

A certain someone dear to my heart (and internship) has directed me to this video because, and I quote, I am "a panda bear." cute. I wish I was some days, then I wouldnt have to blog.

yes yes, it is most certainly panda in his most strangeness of being and I think that dude in the shower works at other music. no idea about that cat though. mr twinkles? thats what I've dubbed him.

Anyhow I don't really think this fits the mood of the song, but its ok, music videos are old hat anyway. Also, the song is shortened, clearly 12 minutes of song is too long for the youtube elite. I mean, 12 minutes is too long for me too, unless I'm listning to Bros.

anyhow, enjoy it.