A curmudgeon writes.
Forty-five minutes of Paul Stanley’s onstage banter because it’s always Friday night in KISS-land. And they said Doctor Rockzo wasn’t real, eh?
It’s worth listening to the end purely so you don’t miss the whole ‘uzi of ooze’ thing. File that one away for your next pick-up session.
I recently went to a shakuhachi ‘blow’ – a group playing event. I’d not played my shakuhachi – and trust me, I’m not very good – for almost a year, and so it was a little intimidating, especially as the only other attendees were accomplished players, including the first non-Japanese grandmaster, Riley Lee. We weren’t playing this piece, but playing with others reminded me how good it feels to share a musical experience with people, even if you’re not on the same level.
This video features the legendary Katsuya Yokayama playing ‘Tsuru no Sugomori’ or ‘Nesting of Cranes’, a sort of sound-portrait. Another performance of this piece (played by Goro Yamaguchi) was included on the golden disc that went into the universe on the Voyager probe. (You can hear that version here, should you wish to.)
I include this video today because it’s been a day of stress, and though I find it difficult (sometimes) to maintain focus through a shakuhachi piece, I really like this one. It’s a pretty popular piece, or at least there’s a lot of different takes on it.
The different versions show how much scope there is for interpretation, and give me the hope that someday I’d be able to play a version, however flawed, of it. Or, let’s face it, of any honkyoku.
The original psychedelic speed freaks. High-volume, icepick-in-ear insanity. Everything good about Japanese rock in one tasty package. A caveat: this track is much less restrained than their usual stuff.
Just the thing I need after dropping an ungodly amount on two tyres for my roadbeast.
I’m pretty braindead at this point, so read some of Julian Cope’s fanatical ramblings on the dudes. It’s worth clocking.
All right, some more. Because you deserve it.
This is an older interview of mine, presented here for archival purposes. The writing is undoubtedly different to the present, and the review style may differ between publications. Enjoy, if that’s the right word.
Some days, rock requires a hearty constitution. You have to be in your prime to handle the mammoth toll of The Road and The Rock, and all the debauchery and seat-of-the-pants flying that that entails, to be ready to belt out screams, high kicks and overdriven, amped-gig freneticism.
On other days, you sit on your porch and comfort your cat during a thunderstorm. That’s what The Immortal Lee County Killers III’s vocalist and guitarist Chetley Weise was doing on the day that I caught up with him. Continue reading “…And Then There Were III – The Immortal Lee County Killers”
This is an older review of mine, presented here for archival purposes. The writing is undoubtedly different to the present, and the review style may differ between publications. Enjoy, if that’s the right word.
Lee County, Alabama, USA. Home to a smooth-talking drummer who looks like he’s taking a brief break from carjacking and a lanky, snap-kicking guitarist who plays a horned axe that looks like it’s got the body of a redback spider. Put ‘em together and you’ve got The Immortal Lee County Killers II. Love Is A Charm Of Powerful Trouble is the band’s second album (discounting an odds-and-sods collection), and it’s also home to the second iteration of the band, too: original drummer Doug “the Boss” Sherrard upped-sticks after the band’s debut disc. The gap – a big one, given the two-man setup of ILCK – was filled by guitarist Chetley “El Cheetah” Yz’s former bandmate J.R.R. Token… and what they’ve created is telepathic blues of the best type: fucked-up and angry.
Oh, and drunk. Continue reading “The Immortal Lee County Killers II: Love Is A Charm Of Powerful Trouble”
A playlist which gathers together Honkworm’s early-internet animation series Fishbar. If you ever wondered what yokel fish and maniacal French spy-fish (hidden inside a cow) sounded like, this is probably your thing.
For your consideration: a pipe organ improvisation performed by John Zorn. Drones, throbs and horrific stabs. Good stuff. Zorn’s claimed that the pipe organ was his first instrument, and the soundtrack to Lon Chaney’s silent films was deeply influential. Easy to see that here, though there is a form of weird meditation amongst the clusters.
Fun fact I discovered this morning: from the 1700s, the pipe organ was the most complex human creation until the invention of the telephone exchange. From singular communication to conversation.
Zorn speaks about the performance here:
My review of the debut from Arche has been published on Cyclic Defrost.
Aside from the pads which flow over the track like bioluminescent waves, there’s a lot in opener ‘Elevate’ that would sit nicely on Coil’s Time Machines. The same late-period Coil approach to roiling, unfurling sounds is present, adding mystery to a soundscape that has distinct physical/inner-ear effects if played through headphones. It’s as if the listener is zapped with a ray gun of restful unease.
It’s been a busy afternoon with on-again-off-again rain. There’s a feeling of nothingness around, so it’s perfect weather to be listening to Gaslight Radio and wishing they were still touring and releasing stuff.
I’m not certain what they’re up to – I assume not much as their Facebook page hasn’t updated since 2008 – but I deeply hope that this is just a period of hibernation as they were one of the bands of the 1990s for me, up there with the magisterial Crow and The Paradise Motel for me in terms of heart-on-sleeve, depressed Arts-grad music.
This is one of the only songs of theirs I could find on YouTube. It’s from one of the two early EPs of theirs I absolutely flogged to death. So pull on a beanie and listen to the sound of endless days.
If you’re a Dirty Three or Hungry Ghosts kind of fan, this is going to be right up your alley. Doom-influenced acoustic guitar and violin with no vocals. From Canada. A description?
These are instrumental songs about our bodies, our brains, our nightmares & our failures.
We have buried our most sincere & terrible fears into these melodies & hope you can find the same catharsis by listening that we have achieved through writing them.
GLOOMY TRANS QUEERS FOREVER.
-s. & r.
Sounds good enough to me.
Yeah nah. 