Author Archives: othersideoflife

Ones/Hands, 1997-2005 (White Tapes) CD

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So my friend Russ Waterhouse has been running the high-quality, low-quantity White Tapes label off and on for years through various mysterious Brooklyn-located apartments, and 2005 has seen a re-birth of this ongoing concern. One of this year’s new ones is the collaboration CD by Ones and Hands, two American noisy units obscure by even most obscurists’ standards. Having only seen Ones in action, I feel confident in describing their modus operandi as officially awesomely weird: two dudes, crouching low over tables full of tiny objects, make atonal rattly creaky drony soft and oddly compelling noises. I’m assuming they’re responsible for most of those-type sounds on the disc, whereas I assume Hands provides the sweetly melodic guitar and drones that drift in and out, like the sounds of the street outside an open window. The combination of disparate elements makes this CD a fun time for fans of inscrutability, audio-style. Highly recommended.

More entries on White Tapes stuff forthcoming.

CORRECTION MAY 12: Ok, thanks to the benevolent stranger in the comments box, I learned that Hands is actually Hands To, aka Jeph Jerman. I think maybe Russ told me this but I forgot it. Whoops. And Nick from Ones plays the sweet guitar, so that’s good to know.

Wooden Wand & the Vanishing Voice, Supplication Jam (Chrondritic Sound) 3″CD

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WWVV as they are known for brevity’s sake are a part-Brooklyn, part-Knoxville jam unit who bring the psychedelic cosmic debris for ya dome in a heavy way here. Supplication Jam (For Greh) is made up of some serious noises, starting with some straight-outta-Tangiers flute action and going all the way to liquid guitar bonk and bullhorn vocal scrape-age. Don’t look for longevity, though Chrondritic Sound‘s 3″CD is made with shorty playing times in mind. But that’s fine; the petite length in time is perfect for a taste of WWVV’s head medicine.

FULL DISCLOSURE: James and Jessica from WWVV are real nice folx, and I booked a Hive Mind (Greh) show once.

FULL DISCLOSURE

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If you’ve been alive in the United States and anything but slightly comatose these past few years, you’ve probably noticed how the state of corporate governance in this country is, to put it mildly, fucked. We all know the buzzwords, the proper nouns and names that now stand in for large, dizzyingly complex (to the average schmuck) and nefarious schemes that transformed overnight into heinous scandals: ENRON, WORLDCOM, TYCO, HEALTHSOUTH, AIG, etc., etc. The figures — both “good” and “bad” — that have played roles in the schemes, scandals, and their eventual (I hope) censures and convictions are all-too-familiar as well: Ken Lay, Andy Fastow, Sherri Watkins, Richard Scrushy, Eliot Spitzer, Harvey Pitt, George W. Bush, Bernie Ebbers, Dennis Kozlowski, etc. ad nauseum (I’m not counting Martha Stewart because 1. what she did was personal impropriety that really didn’t have any bearing on her company and 2. who cares anyway? insider trading isn’t nearly as bad a crime (tho still a crime) as defrauding billions of dollars from investors)).

If you follow the twisted, self-serving logic of the market-boosters, privatization-jingoists, and our current “administration,” these scandals are all mere aberrations, tiny harmless pimples on the overall white pasty ass that is the American body business. It’ll pass, they say. Trust us, they say. The stock market gives consistent returns over time, they say. The markets are rational, they say. And so on and so forth.

Like many Americans, I am simultaneously fascinated and repulsed by what passes for ethical “business” these days. I find myself watching a hell of a lot of CNBC — almost in equal doses with whatever baseball’s on and the occasional VH1 clip show (that I’ve seen a million times), the Weather Channel, and any policy briefing or committee hearing on C-SPANs 1 and 2. I suspect that unlike a lot of CNBC viewers, I don’t have that much of a personal stake in what’s being broadcast because, hey, I’m broke, but still there’s something oddly compelling in whatever’s roiling the markets on whichever minute I tune in. The business of America being business, after all, as one of our more notably dumb presidents once proclaimed.

A good scandal has always drawn more viewers throughout history than any success story: just ask Shakespeare, whose tragedies are far better known than his comedies (c’mon, don’t disagree — more people quote Hamlet than As You Like It). The late 1990s are behind us, and the talking heads that once cheered on the markets with such rah-rah notions as “the new economy” and “just-in-time” and “synergies” are now gleefully delighting in watching their once-touted captains fall into “early retirement,” as they’re replaced by (fingers crossed) more “capable” stewards of industry. And that’s fine, that’s only human, after all.

One of the things that I find so funny, or maybe so poignant, or maybe just finally a good idea, is now the talking heads — when chatting up some investment bank analyst or some fund portfolio manager about the investment du jour — disclose the stakes. So yeah, I can really find out whether Richard Pinstripes III of Morgan Stanley’s wife and kids have holdings in SleazeCo., as if that’s gonna change much of his analysis (“BUY!” “SELL!” “HOLD!” — oh wait, they’re using more neutral language now, and not yelling any more).

So what the fuck does this have to do with your dumb music blog and the ridiculously-insular musiccrit world in general, you say? Admittedly, not a whole lot. The stakes are low. Perhaps you could call it defrauding if a bunch of people buy whatever crappy album some blog is peddling, but at most we’re only talking a few thousand bucks, not trillions of dollars erased overnight.

And yet, there’s something about the unbridled enthusiasm in “our” tiny little insignificant fiefdom that still rankles. Even with the advent of downloading (full disclosure: this “analyst” could give a fuck about listening to music on a computer, just about the worst mediums possible for listening aside from the interiors of steam plant turbines), do we really need to hear and endorse everything we’re hearing and endorsing? Is all of it really so “great?” What happens when the next big thing turns out to not, say, deliver in a different setting (ie. album vs. live)?

Ultimately, there’s not a whole lot you can do. In the 1990s, there were a few voices in the wilderness, on the sidelines (Gretchen Morgenstern and Thomas Frank come to mind) pointing out that the referees had fallen asleep, the coaches were moving the chains, the players were helping each other cheat, and the crowd was still cheering wildly. And those few voices — the ones with, hey! a sense of fairness and propriety, maybe — were just dismissed as humbugs. Like I said, the stakes are much smaller for what this particular unread and dusty corner of the internet touches on, and I’ve been pegged as a humbug long long ago anyway, but I can’t dismiss the nagging feeling that today’s music bloggers are yesterday’s Henry Blodgets.

So here it is, full disclosure: I only write about shit I like. I hardly, if ever, receive promos from anybody, unless I ask for them, which is also rare. I don’t post mp3s — nothing against people who do, but I don’t see much point, plus if what I write really compels you to hear something (yeah, right), you can spend the bucks on it yourself. What I write about is made by people (yes, people) who may or may not need your help/money/time/attention/whatever. I dunno. I’m not sure that I do, myself, but I’m still writing anyways. I have never taken, nor asked, nor been offered any cash in exchange for a review (though many of the few crappy promos I’ve received over time have been exchanged for minimal amounts of cash or records I’m more interested in hearing). Don’t get me wrong, though: it’s not some uncompromising ethical stand I’m shooting for here. I’d be willing to sell out, if only there was anybody buying.

LOUISVILLE, LOUISVILLE, LOUISVILLE

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So I’ve been meaning to write this since like Christmas. 2005 is the year of Louisville, in many odd and yet pleasing ways. So back around Christmas, again, I was on this plane hurtling through a massive snowstorm on my way south from Chicago (layover, natch), and this wave sorta came over me. It wasn’t giddiness per se, nor anxiety, but possibly some combination of both. Hell I’m not even really sure what it was. But it was something.

So yeah, I’ve always been a homer. Y’know, the guy who always roots for his home team no matter how many bonehead plays they make (Francisco Garcia, why do you foul three-point attempts with no time left?). So it’s not surprising that I would feel something strangely happy and crazed on returning. But I’ve gone home lots of times; mostly it’s no big deal. No, it had already started, this 2005-year-of-Louisville nonsense. So like a soon-to-be-jilted suitor, I’ve been learning to savor the moment before the inevitable. Actually, strike jilted, even when things go right they can be inevitable. Anyway, so I’m gonna try to roll it out, what it is I’m thinking about, if I can.

1. Past where the river bends, past where the silos stand, past where they paint the houses

Everybody thinks they know the story of Slint. I mean, everybody thinks the mythology is the thing, y’know? I’m not saying I’m better than everybody (I ain’t), but I think I might be one of the few — even with a so-called “insider’s perspective” (ha!) — to admit that I don’t have a fucking clue.

When the rumors of a Slint reunited first swirled like tumbleweeds in the digital desert of the internet, I was more than a little skeptical. Hell, those old rumors have been around since I was in high school — and that was a long time ago (missed my ten year last fall). Shit, I even saw Britt at a Jack Rose show in September, and the only music thing he mentioned was playing with Miighty Flashlight (well neither of us wanted to talk music, I think). But then it came true. For one time only, Slint is back, on tour.

Many have commented on the irony of this tour by a band that hardly played their hometown, much less an extended jaunt elsewhere. I never got to see ’em, either. Sometimes I’m not entirely sure that’s a bad thing, either: my friend Steve told me that the reason he thought they were brilliant when he saw them back then was because it was like “four r*****s playing the most godlike music” (apologies, no offense intended). But still, I missed Cafe Dog (well did they even play? y’know, the big riot show!), I missed the Kentucky Theater, I missed the VFW Hall and on and on. So I couldn’t miss this.

It’s kind of hard to explain, I admit. And I’ve told the story many times before (and it really isn’t a story but barely an anecdote): bought the lone, lonely copy of Tweez sitting in ear X-tacy for ages because of the sticker that said “Members of Solution Unknown.” Took it home, had adolescent mind blown. You’re thinking great, big deal, so what? and that’s understandable. I think that if I knew exactly how to articulate how I felt this music was a conscious part of me before I even heard it, well, I’d probably sound less arrogant and silly. But I don’t know how to articulate it (obviously). And it doesn’t even matter. I’ll see them this Friday and Saturday, and I’ll be that 13 year-old hearing this ageless, primeval Kentucky music for the first time.

2. Orders rescinded, and no pie

Bastro was headier. Now I know that’s just about the most obvious thing to say about a band with David Grubbs in it, but that’s not exactly what I mean. There’s something more to his music than just advanced degrees at elite institutions or arcane cultural studies, though that’s all anybody’s talked about since Gastr. There’s a sense of place, just like Slint. Well, not just like Slint. Not to get all Freudian, but Tweez is like the ur-, the id. And though Spiderland is a more “literary” album (bear with me here, people), musically it’s still this uncontrollable urge, this force of nature.

Bastro’s sorta like the ego and the superego put together. Okay, maybe I should quit with the Psych 101 bullshit. But you’ve got this intensely loud, raging music that’s tight, controlled. Dave’s lyrics are just as full of seemingly abstract imagery as the later Gastr stuff, but there is a text, and a lot of it is about Kentucky simpletons living in the modern world: “Shoot Me a Deer,” “Flesh Colored House.” So it’s complicated, ‘kay? Anybody who thinks Grubbs “got sophisticated” should hear this stuff, and Squirrel Bait too. It’s always been there, just in a hard-coated shell.

So hearing there’d finally be a two-for reissue of Diablo Guapo and Sing the Troubled Beast, the two long-gone Homestead albums, I was psyched, despite knowing them like the back of your mother’s hand. Then, hearing there’d be an additional live disc of stuff that would later be reworked into the early Gastr stuff, I was amazed. I mean, like, I knew Dave, Bundy and John were playing that stuff, but I never heard it then. Hell, like Slint, I never got to see Bastro live then, either.

But then, intrigue. Apparently there’s still some remnant of Homestead or Dutch East India left with enough gumption to threaten legal action (I’m no lawyer, but I’d think for contracts to be valid the record company has to hold up their end too, ie. PAY THE FUCKING BANDS), and now they’re “temporarily unavailable.” But never fear, the fine folks at Drag City will sort it out.

3. I think your brain likes it, your brain has a flaw

Now here’s where we get personal. Just kidding. Unlike Slint or Bastro, I saw Crain a whole mess of times, even booked ’em once. The running joke among the “oldsters” (no offense again!) was that Crain was like Bastro trying to play Slint. But fuck that, from where I’m standing, they’re just as essential, if you’re still hanging with me long enough to read about this Louisville stuff. Plus they were the first band that I really felt like, wow, these guys are only a little bit older than me, they’re doing it (yeah Squirrel Bait were preppy teens playing shows with G.G. Allin but I never saw them either).

So Speed. Record release show, one Sunday night sometime in the haze that is 1991, at Another Place Sandwich Shop on Frankfort Avenue. Hula Hoop and Sebadoh, two great bands in their own right, are also playing. I’d seen Crain a bunch, mind blown repeatedly, but this was it. Bought my copy with the special glow-in-the-dark cover (like only 200 made, eBayers!), complete with palindrome on record sleeve. Have listened repeatedly ever since.

I don’t think anybody could’ve predicted on that Sunday night the troubles Crain would succumb to over the coming years, and I’m not the one to catalog them. Suffice to say, if you experienced it, you know. Maybe that’s a cop-out, I dunno, but fuck it. Somehow, the master tapes survived years in a storage unit — and yielded 4 more songs to boot! How typically Louisville, in its way.

4. Godfuckingdammit

Yeah, there’s been some bumps on the road since January. Hunter S. Thompson’s dead. You can’t get those Bastro CDs yet. Uptight Britweenies have been dissing Slint’s live shows through the anonymous comfort of the internet. But it doesn’t matter. It’s here. It’s 2005.

FROG EYES, THE FOLDED PALM (ABSOLUTELY KOSHER) CD

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The Victoria, B.C. band Frog Eyes presents listeners with a pretty heavy proposition: can you deal with lead singer Carey Mercer’s absolutely histrionic vocal style long enough to hear the music as a whole, and to grasp what he’s singing? It’s probably a tough job for the average joe, which is not to say it’s not somewhat rewarding. I’m not a huge fan of the narrative, or the meta, or even that much elliptical stuff in rock lyrics anymore. These days I think I just want simplicity. But there’s something about this record by Frog Eyes that makes me re-think my position, even though I’m not poring over the lyric sheet. Carey Mercer’s vocals make this stuff seem pretty damn urgent so maybe he’s not Iggy, but that’s all right. But like any band with their own distinct sense of style, it’s not going to be for everybody.

GOODBYE, RAOUL DUKE

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Aside from the pure anger and sadness i’m feeling about Hunter S. Thompson’s death, what gets to me is the manner. And I do not mean suicide per se, but the idea that all we as readers, as fans, etc. can do now is speculate. I certainly understand his son’s statement about respecting his family’s privacy, but at the same time it displays a naivete that bothers me — half of anything I’ve said to anyone else about this in the past 24 hours is speculation, which ultimately of course doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter whether it was Dubya or mental illness or drugs or an accident or terminal illness or whatever that prompted HST to kill himself. What matters is yet another of our heroes is gone. We need to get used to it, but speaking for myself I find that a difficult concept to grasp. It’s hard to want to continue living when you know that everyone you ever looked up to is ready to shuffle off.

Speaking from a point that has little to do with his impact as a writer (though i think that cannot be overstated), and I hate to become a parody myself (too late!), but again, Louisville (blah blah). My hometown, the place that defined me as much as i defined it, was such a place of inspiration and exasperation. I knew that even before I read HST. And he was just an inspiration for getting out (though not to belittle those that stayed), much less changing the world in his way (so he didn’t crumble all the towers, but that’s a pretty tall order for anyone). HST, Muhammed Ali, Slint (ha!), anyway, yeah you get the drift.

Someday, some of HST’s Louisville contemporaries — friend and foe alike — will put together the true early portrait of the man (one of his best friends was the real estate mogul Paul Semonin) (one of his worst enemies was David Grubbs’s dad) (he was known even in high school for snaking gasoline for his motorcycle if you left your car in your driveway). I only know some bits and pieces. and I never met him, nor even got to see him speak, nor even got to see him just ramble drunkenly onstage, like at his last appearance in his hometown (Depp in tow). I just knew his writing, and an awful lot of it I knew before I even got to read it.

I have a short piece in the works here about how excited I was again for Louisville, for 2005 being a good rediscovery year. I’ll still post it, and it will still be exuberant, but I think now it will have to be tinged with some sort of sadness to reflect on HST’s passing.

RIP.

EFTERKLANG, TRIPPER (LEAF) CD

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Is it me, or is just about everything outta Europe some sorta twee stuff these days? I mean, even the grime stuff I’ve heard had an unbearable Paddington Bear quality to it, underneath a thin veneer of tough. What happened? Isn’t this the same continent that basically brought us two world wars, not to mention Scandinavian death metal? Where’s the frenzy, the brutality, the stupidity?

Efterklang’s this ten-piece band from Denmark, home of the l’il mermaid and some of the twee-est shit in Europe. Then again, they also got Lars Von Trier so I’ll give ’em a break (The Idiots ain’t twee, at least not all the way through). And really, there isn’t anything wrong with attempting to attain the beautiful, if it’s well done. Which this record is, if anything.

To these ears Efterklang definitely falls on Satie’s conception of “sonic wallpaper,” which ain’t an insult (even though I don’t think that’s what they’re shooting for). Which is to stay, this stuff, with its strings and choruses and gentle electronics and whatnot, is either easily ignorable or strikingly beautiful. Since I’m not a curmudgeon all of the time, I’ll give Tripper a pass.

PANICSVILLE, PERVERSE (LIQUID DEATH/HELLO PUSSY) CD

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Panicsville’s Andy Ortmann has been doing his thing for quite some time now, and he doesn’t care if you like it or not. No matter whether “noise” gets heralded in some dumb mainstream magazine by some clueless chump, no matter whether Panicsville gets a mention or a photo, I take solace in the fact that Ortmann will do what he wants regardless of what others think.

And the cool thing is it’s not easy to know what to think about Perverse, with its varied electronics and other instrumentation, water and cash register sounds, and sinister drones. I’d seen Panicsville a bunch of times when I lived in Chicago, in different incarnations, and the only real constant thread through all of the performances (other than them usually consisting of Ortmann and one or more co-conspirators) is that there’s no constant thread, no easy way to categorize what’s going on. This recording is similar, we’ve got a range of styles (though all sort of classifiable as challenging, in a sense), and a bunch of ways to interpret what we’re hearing. A cast of notables such as Kevin Drumm, MV Carbon (Metalux), Thymme Jones (Cheer-Accident), Weasel Walter (Flying Luttenbachers) and others add to the bewildering texture of sounds, but it’s clearly Ortmann who runs the show. And that’s fine with me.

ARIEL PINK, HAUNTED GRAFFITI 2: THE DOLDRUMS (PAW TRACKS) CD

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I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t get it. I’m not gonna play some high-and-mighty critic role and try to come up with some lame way to pretend that I figured out some lame way to interpret Ariel Pink, ’cause I haven’t. This record is immediately weird. It’s up to you, dear listeners, to figure it out.

Now I’m no stranger to strange probably most of the music I would list as my favorite shit ever would be frowned on by the general populace as “weird.” And that’s fine. But I think there’s a distinction between weird weird and “funny haha” weird. And I can’t quite tell where Ariel Pink fits in there. My inclination is to say towards the latter.

First impressions being what they are, I get the sense that Ariel Pink one guy who does everything on his records isn’t necessarily trying to be “funny haha” weird. Unfortunately, a lot of the tunes come across that way. What’s the most telling factor? Well the helium voices, definitely. I’m not sure if sounding like Ween is something he’s consciously shooting for, but he’s not far off. Additionally, the lo-fi-ness low-finesse of the recordings adds to the Beck outtake factor. Buried under the hissing sizzle and falsetto overloads is an occasional pop hook, sometimes even reminiscent (to me, anyway) of prime Scott Walker. Except you can’t tell what the fuck he’s singing. Put him in a studio with a decent engineer; clean him up a bit, maybe you got something. Then again, maybe not.