Year of Record

With a voice like Britt Ekland singing the Wicker Man’s “Willow’s Song”, and a mood like the end of an Argento film, Twin Sister puts out easy summer jams that make you more than  a bit uneasy. It’s the kind of discomfort that can be cured easily with a wine cooler and flipflops. It’s the kind of jams that work best on a Sunday afternoon in the park. It’s not yacht rock, but more canoe rock, designed for summertime broken hearts and sippin’ on the shore.

Since starting this blog, I’ve had a chance to speak with a lot of people in the neighborhood who happen to run record labels, putting out music I’d be buying anyways. Infinite Best’s Hunter came by to drop this off, along with a post-it note saying he was a fellow brooklynite; I wish I had been here to say hi.

This record’s getting heavy heavy rotation since this afternoon. Download the whole thing for free from their site, or just check out this jammin’ coolrunings remix of All Around and Away We Go.

Jimmy from Electric Cowbell records saw my post on the Superhuman Happiness / CSC 7″s below, and sent me a note saying hello– turns out he lives less than a block away, and plays percussion in CSC Funk Band, that pleasant surprise on the flip of the SHH split. He stopped by and hooked me up with a few of the other Electric Cowbell releases, including this CSC 45 Bad Banana Bread b/w Caneca.

Side A – Bad Banana Bread: Apart from the SHH track, the CSC Funk Band lives up to its name with a driving guitar groove, deep bass, and a constant sax hook that only gives way for a wild electricified Oboe solo, like Jim Morrison careening into a dance party, knocking everything off the bar and stumbling out, while the rest of the party keeps jammin’.

Side B – Caneca: Incessant congas and wailing guitar give this the feeling of a spy chase: something for quick cuts, red floodlights and shots of tequila. A brapping villain of a horn solo is vanquished by the power of the six string hero, who in the end, just wants to get back to the party.

CSC Racket aka Newtown Creek Playboyz aka Thrift Store Find aka Fuck the Funk Band aka CSC Funk Band’s 7″ is out now on Electric Cowbell records. I’m really stoked to not only discover new music, but find it’s in the neighborhood and be able to get a glimpse of the musical community up here. Turns out Jimmy lives in the awesome warehouse down the street, has killer rooftop parties.

CSC – Bad Banana Bread / Caneca

I also snagged another 7″ on Electric Cowbell, Greg Ginn (Black Flag) & the Taylor Texas Corrugators. I was never the hugest Black Flag fan, so I feel like I may be missing some context on these tracks but:

Greg Ginn & The Taylor Texas Corrugators – Freddie / Tea

Side A – Freddie: Organ, twang, and what sounds like a sitar, give this instrumental a Middle-East-Texas vibe. It’s what the Japancakes would sound like if they saw Dallas and kept driving,

Side B – Tea: At first listen, a bit of an aimless collection of sounds, the warmups of the instruments used on the A-side. On repeate, it’s a musical junk store lurching to life, meandering its way into the countryside, wide-eyed and demolishing everything in its path with a smile.

Can’t wait for more from this label, and this neighborhood. Discovering new music, and making new friends is what this whole thing is about.

Went to Union Pool last night to check out Nomo, who, as expected, totally killed it. But the real standout for me was Stuart Bogie’s project Superhuman Happiness. He’s currently the sax player in the Fela! musical, and a local Afropop band Antebalas, and SHH’s tracks end up sounding like a cross between classic Nigerian beats with some Zappa’s Yellow Shark mixed in for good measure. Can’t reccomend them enough. Here’s a vid of a portion of their standout track, Human Happiness, and links to both the 7″s I snagged last night. Be sure to pick up their full length over at cdbaby.

Super Human Happiness – GMYL

Super Human Happiness and CSC Funk Band Split

Some bands you stumble upon by chance, and some stumble upon you. How I met up with Harlem:

1. My ex-wife sends me a survey for some philips mp3 player coming out, with the possibility of getting invited to beta test the device and get to go to some free shows.
2. I get accepted, get a free mp3 player and go to weird rock shows of local bands in some pseudo-corporate-competition for our votes at a lot of silly fancy apartments in Austin.
3. At one, I notice my friend Christian, setting up. He has no idea what I’m talking about when I bring up this mp3 player.
4. It turns out he’s playing in Harlem, who proceed to rock all worlds in some east austin garage, a bunch of rogue-type drunks with a marching band kick drum, no showers, and 3 tons of energy.
5. They rule

Free Drugs was one of my favorite albums of the past few years, with stripped down, grungy garage pop. When you start out on Hippies, if it’s your first time listening, you’d think they were a twee group, like the Shaggs with their shit together. Three songs in, you feel their sloppy swagger creep out and understand: they’re just happy to be playing, totally in their characters of rock and roll kids living the dream.

There aren’t as many standouts on Hippies; no “South of France,” “Caroline” or “Psychedelic Tits,” but there’s a consistency that’s both comforting and energizing. “Gay Human Bones” gets the rest of the record up and moving, and by the time you get to “Poolside,” you just want to hang out with these guys, you want them to play your birthday party, and you will need an extra keg.

Been a crazy month, back for more.

I got an email from Ryan, who runs 1928 Recordings, asking me if I was interested in the Golden Hour 7″ Box Set they put out recently. 1928 is the same label that put out the incredible bullet hole-ridden Muslims S/T, so that was a pretty dang easy decision.

Hand-made by Ryan (who runs the label, does the production and packaging and art and eeverything else), it came in a vintage cigar box with 3 awesome individually sleeved 7″s, a handwritten note, the whole thing wrapped in twine and accompanied by a custom-printed matchbox.

Plus, the songs kick ass. Check out this track from california surf-punkers Tijuana Panthers:

Stoked for whatever these guys have up next.

I literally took this out of the sleeve and yelled HOLY SHIT. So fun! Up there with the Animal Hospital white vinyl in the glorious surprises department.

One thing that has been really interesting about this whole experiment is how having a physical connection with an object means you have a connection with whoever is producing that object as well. Even little things like a record arriving with a chip in it, or getting a signed copy of a King Khan record instead of the regular one give me more memory than a download could.

I’ve had a few people contact me about sending me some physical stuff to listen to, record labels and artists alike. One of the first was a gentleman Ben Deily, of rock band Varsity Drag, who generously offered to send me their first album (a 10″ on colored vinyl) and their new album (CD only). He also threw in his previous band’s record, Where I’m Calling From by his self-decribed “way-too-earnest band” Pods on rockin’ cassette. Taking this out of the case and pressing play was such a flash back. Check it:

I’ll be writing up the Varsity Drag records in the future, but this was pretty dang awesome to get in my hands.

Max Tundra is my childhood idea of a rock star. A true musical genius, at both times chaotic and expansively ambitious, his sound is one of a bull in a music shop, if that bull was a virtuoso with every instrument. His seemingly improvised and random compositions come out like a Vic-20 off it’s Adderall, but have a precision and twisted logic to them that make them beautiful.

“If I need a trumpet or a violin sound I’ll try and learn the instruments so that I can perform the part I have written for it. If– and only if– a synthesized equivalent is appropriate, I shall use that instead. If a certain street at dawn is required to provide background ambience, I’ll go there at that time and record it.”

Which is why it’s years between his records, as he gets the  mess of what’s in his brain out onto tape.

Long ago I was friends with a boy I betrayed,
I was evil, how dare I end up with the one that he craved?
But it turned out alright, ’cause she’s been by my side for an age.

I first heard this record in my days of random shattershot soulseek downloading: find a user who has some album you love dearly, browse their collection, and grab what sounds like it might be interesting. And every track on here was interesting.  A frenetic love song comparing her eyes to the ones in his studio; a plea to Michel Gondry to direct a video for one of his songs; a track about the nutritional benefits of lysine (but no mention of the contingency).

More than anything, this album was and is an inspiration: do what you love, dedicate yourself, and you’ll do something beautiful. The LP also includes one of my favorite inner sleeves, with the track listing, and highlighting the six-letter limitation on song titles:

And yes, it was mastered by Guy at the Exchange.

While I know there’s a deluxe “experience” edition with a DVD, and an iTunes deluxe edition, and a Japanese deluxe edition, and probably more, the experience of opening up the new Gorillaz record was disappointing to say the least. It’s not even a digipak, but just a cardboard sleeve, but with a full width spine making the covers bow, limp and cheap. The insert is a single double-sided page, no lyrics, no artwork. The CD is just loose in the rear sleeve. The whole thing feels like a promotional CD, included in a late 90s computer gaming magazine.

I know the new record has a message of material waste, so it makes sense, but offer something in return, even if you are a cartoon.