Saturday, March 9, 2024

Igorrr - Very Noise


 #Igorr #Gautier Serre #extreme metal #breakcore #experimental #industrial #baroque metal #trip-hop #death metal #electronic #Meat Dept #animated music video

We have a challenge for you: Watch Meat Dept’s latest video and try and keep a straight face. Chances are you probably can’t. A weird and wacky music video created to accompany French musician Igorrr's track,Very Noise, it may surprise you to hear that there is a quite a serious meaning behind it – amidst all the madness. “Very Noise is an attempt to transcribe on video the synthesis of numerous testimonies of stroke victims that we have collected over the past few years,” explains David Nicolas of Meat Dept. “About 3/4 of the stroke victims are heterosexual white males over 50 years old, and the visions that arise from these experiences are in common with the neuroses of this category of the population. Identity disorder, existential anxieties linked to erection problems, transfer phenomenon to a more sporty image of the father, a burning desire for extreme but playful activities such as motocross or solo rock climbing…”
What on the face of it seems to be impossible to link together, was actually created with a lot of consideration and much thought. “The notion of figurative abstraction is also very significant in the stories, it is a form of link between two ideas that challenge each other, one could speak of a remedy for cognitive dissonance generated by overlapping fantasies,” explains David.
Bearing in mind the serious subject matter underpinning the project, Meat Dept have approached it in a typically humorous and open manner. “We just opened our psychic channel and went fishing for ideas,” recalls Laurent Nicolas. “We basically took the ideas as they came and translated them instantly into images, without any filter or thinking, like the “cadavre exquis.” Then we connected the dots to create some kind of story and everything made sense.” The team behind Meat Dept are David Nicolas, Laurent Nicolas and Kevin Van Der Meiren, who's varied backgrounds across animation, design, art and film have proved quite a prolific combination. As a collective they have previously had a short film premiere at Sundance and produced idents for Adult Swim, alongside their own personal film and music video projects. They are currently working on their first series, entitled Black Holes, which has been signed by a US television network.
Looking through their portfolio, it is clear that the team has a unique way of looking at things, that manifests itself in such intriguing work. Their process that facilitates this seems to be one which snowballs from one idea: “The deal with Igorrr was total freedom. We started from a motion capture bug in a loop David was working on: the chewing gum character on the boxing ring. Then we improvised and built around it, with a lot of experiments,” explains Kevin. “Then what’s important in our approach is the attitude we have towards the variety of tools and techniques we’re using. Technology plays a very important part in our process. We are as excited about the technology as the art itself. We love to play around with new tools and push them to their limits. As we said, the starting point of the video was some weird bugs and distortions in motion capture movements. From this technical problems can sometimes arise interesting forms. You have to be open to that kind of discovery.”
When they were approached by Igorrr, the team were experimenting for an exhibition that focussed on loops. David explains that this was where the collaboration began: “At the time we were preparing an exhibition of living paintings, made of loops, basically an animation sequence that loops perfectly and can be watched endlessly,” he says. “Gautier loved the concept, but listening to the track, we were really disconcerted. It’s very violent and unpredictable.” The fast and varied nature of the track itself is obviously something that drives the visuals, and many of the scenes are directly synced to the beat - something that Meat Dept considered important. “Of course, especially for a track like Very Noise, it’s all about rhythm. Towards the end of the process, we adjusted the cuts together with Gautier and he tweaked the music a little bit and added some sound design to make it perfectly fit with the images,” says Laurent. “Some say he’s a genius but he’s just a maniac really! Jokes aside, it was great working with him. Great guy!”
The video has had an amazing reception so far, with millions of views on Youtube and the inevitable reaction videos alongside them. Famous fans of the piece also include Mike Judge, someone that Meat Dept hugely admires. Based on the success of Very Noise, attention turns to where they go next. We ask them if any of the characters may make an appearance again in the future, to which Kevin responds: “Haha! The Grandpa biker is definitely coming back…”  From: https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/meat-dept-digital-film-310120

Mrs. Piss - Self-Surgery


 #Mrs. Piss #Chelsea Wolfe #Jess Gowrie #noise rock #experimental rock #industrial #goth metal #sludge metal #alternative rock #music video

Chelsea Wolfe and Jess Gowrie have formed a new group called Mrs. Piss. Their debut LP Self-Surgery is due out May 29 via Sargent House. Today, they’ve shared two singles, “Downer Surrounded by Uppers” and “Knelt”. Wolfe and Gowrie started the project while touring around Wolfe’s Hiss Spun album in 2017. They recorded Self-Surgery at the Dock Studio in Sacramento, California and at Wolfe’s home studio the Canyon. Wolfe performs vocals and guitar, with Gowrie on drums, guitar, bass, and programming.

In a statement, Wolfe said:
Working on this project brought Jess and I so much closer as songwriters and production partners, after reuniting as friends and bandmates. It was freeing and fun to channel some wild energies that I don’t typically put into my own music. We tried not to overthink the songs as we were writing them, but at the same time we did consciously put a lot into crafting them into our own weird sonic vision. This project was a chance for us to do things our own way, on our own terms, and we plan to invite more women musicians along for future Mrs. Piss recordings.

Gowrie added:
To me, Mrs. Piss represents a musical chemistry cut short long ago that now gets a second chance. Creating with Chelsea has always been very liberating for me, and we both push each other to try new things: anything and everything. Both of us have grown so much as writers and musicians since our first band together (Red Host), and with the journeys we had to take separately to get there, we both have so much more to say; so much more pain and anger to express. That said, we also had a lot of fun doing it, not to mention how freeing it is to not give a fuck and to just create.

From: https://pitchfork.com/news/chelsea-wolfe-and-jess-gowrie-announce-new-album-as-mrs-piss-share-new-songs-listen/

Euringer - Fuck Everything


 #Euringer #Jimmy Urine #ex-Mindless Self Indulgence #Chantal Claret #alternative/indie rock #electro-industrial #avant-garde #electropunk #music video

Euringer is a counter-culture, surreal, psychedelic, art house, avant-garde, possibly posthumous concept project from Jimmy Urine of Mindless Self Indulgence fame. Featuring guest vocals from Grimes, Serj Tankian (System Of A Down), Gerard Way (My Chemical Romance) and Chantal Claret and also staring Jimmy’s Mom and Dad for good measure! “The record is one long song/musical/concerto, as if an underground movie was made for your ears. I wanted it to sound as if Depeche Mode hired J. Dilla and DJ Premier to drop loops while Frank Zappa produced, and then I came in and shit all over it,” said Jimmy.
Jimmy shares his innermost musical insights through sixteen songs, two covers (Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights and The Doobie Brother’s What A Fool Believes), four guest stars and one Jimmy. Damn, he is really hyping up this record - it better be good!
He continues, “I was having fun exploring my brain and I wanted to invite my friends to have fun with me immersing myself in another time and space, bit by bit, gaining its form from my daily life into a surreal stream of consciousness.”
From trigger warnings to Martin Niemöller quotes, from reading himself to boasting and testing, from touring the world to alcohol poisoning, from kissing your mother to dismissing his entire career, this two-year adventure is a mindfuck of Jimmy’s escapist reality.
“Mathematically speaking, I am breaking time into pieces of distance and moving through them diagonally at a rapid rate,” says Jimmy. “Naaaahh, I am just fucking with you. I just drank a whole bottle of Southern Comfort and wrote this album. A hallucination, a proclamation, a degradation? Or maybe its all just all a pile of bullshit I made up to stay relevant. Either way, I am right behind you.”
Jimmy Euringer is the frontman, songwriter and programmer for the cult favorite, critically-acclaimed band Mindless Self Indulgence. He has applied his talents as an innovative songwriter, arranger and producer in a variety of projects, including composing songs for and acting in film, television, video games and many remixes.  From: https://www.metropolis-records.com/artist/euringer


The Sugarcubes - Hit - Live 1991

 

#The Sugarcubes #Bjork #alternative/indie rock #post-punk #new wave #avant-pop #dream pop #1980s #1990s #music video

I wonder how many people that like Bjork’s solo albums followed her from as far back as when she was in The Sugarcubes. Actually, I’d even be curious to know how many people knew she was ever even in a band before her solo career at all. I’m willing to bet that the number of people that fall into either category is small, and probably growing smaller as The Sugarcubes fade farther into the past. That supposition is a shame because there are three albums here that show a totally different side of her; the best being this one, Stick Around For Joy. Even by this point back in 1991 Bjork’s unique vocal style was firmly solidified, and due to the music presented here, was even more outgoing and varied than on a lot of her solo albums. What’s more is that due to the amusing nature of the music and the interplay with the other vocalist, she sounds like she had a lot of fun and that feeling is easily translated to the listener. The other vocalist is a male vocalist who is used in mostly spoken word sections to contrast and accentuate Bjork’s vocal parts. His vocals are honestly a little amusing due to his cartoon-like delivery, but it fits within the context of the music fairly well.
Musically the band presents a very unique style that would make it hard to find an artist whose style is similar to this. Those that are only familiar with Bjork’s solo work will need to know that this is nothing like her current outputs; there aren’t any electronics or heavy world-music influences at all. What we do get is very upbeat and energetic music that pulls from everything from Jane’s Addiction to The B52’s and even a little bit of The Cure circa Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. Despite the name dropping of such diverse acts, the band manages to take those influences and combine them into one homogenous mixture instead of a hodge-podge of conflicting sounds. The vibe this creates is overwhelmingly happy and childlike in such a good way. Seriously, the only mood that is conveyed throughout this entire album is one of childlike happiness. It is close to impossible to not feel a little bounce and a little happier while listening to this album. Songs such as “Hit” take the groovy vibe of Jane’s Addiction’s “Been Caught Stealing” and adds synth-horns, Bjork’s vocals, and a ten-times dose of energetic fun. Much like, “Hit”, the rest of the songs are all built around the competent rhythm section which accounts for a lot of the groove factor. The bass player consistently lays down funky bass lines that are complimented by the distinctive and busy beats of the drummer. Over the top of the solid rhythms are keyboards, handclaps, cheers, chimes, guitar riffs, and a number of other sounds which the two vocalists use to their advantage while playfully singing over it all.
I honestly hadn’t listened to this album in years before repurchasing it on a whim (and for cheap) a few weeks back, but I’m so glad I did. I had forgotten about what a fun and easy experience it is while listening to this album. Admittedly, this could be a very hard album for some to get into, even for those that love Bjork’s solo albums, due to the bouncy, child-like nature of the entire output, but it is worth the initial effort. Just keep in mind that even those going from Bjork to this could find a very significant leap to be made, but it’s a leap that is worth attempting.  From: https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/25645/The-Sugarcubes-Stick-Around-for-Joy/

 

öOoOoOoOoOo - Chairleg Thesis


 #öOoOoOoOoOo #ex-Pin-Up Went Down #experimental #avant-garde #art rock #progressive metal #avant-garde metal #experimental metal #black metal #electronic
 
öOoOoOoOoOo - Samen (Apathia Records)
Fans of Pin-Up Went Down will find this debut record from France’s newest export Chenille (let’s just call them that for the sake of sanity) quite remarkable. That’s because what these two musicians have done (with help from Pryapisme skinsman Aymeric Thomas on session drumming) actually works to build upon the Pin-Up Went Down formula, and hey – it even has the same frontwoman, Asphodel. You might even call this act Pin-Up Went Down 2.0, even though this time around there is much more of an experimental factor, almost to the level of Unexpect and most certainly Carnival In Coal, as well as the obvious Diablo Swing Orchestra influence, not excluding Mr. Bungle (who inspired pretty much all of this stuff to be honest.)
When you listen to this one don’t expect one approach to continue for too long. There’s disco, death metal, pop music, freaky atmospheres, black metal blasts, electronic bits, Seussian horns and even Dahl-friendly Oompa Loompas. Yes, I said Oompa Loompas. You’ll actually hear them chiming in on this weird circus music around the mid-point of the album, particularly on the cut “No Guts = No Masters.” You may also hear some lounge, drum and bass and heavy bits of groove. The album even incorporates chiptunes. It’s not just an “everything but the kitchen sink” kind of album, because Samen also includes the kitchen sink, as well as the saxophone. At this point, we may as well call Chenille an avant-garde act, because there is just no other way to put it. I’m telling you right now listener, I had no idea what I was getting into with this one at first and was wondering what in the living hell I was listening to when opener “Rules Of The Show” came onto the scene. I said to myself, “Disco pop? Who in the hell sent me this?” Though as I kept listening, I suddenly realized that there was more to this than I ever could have imagined.
Samen is the kind of record where one will discover something new with each listen and must be absorbed thoroughly through repeated listens. You just won’t get it the first time, because there’s just too much to ascertain. It’s all going on at one time, in true experimental “paint on the wall” fashion. Some people don’t even see this as music, but that’s okay as it is literally marked as an exhibition, as if it was an entry in an art gallery. This classification fits, because Samen is literally abstract art in the form of music. Additionally, I can’t even discern as to what some of the songs might be about and feel that this is is one record where the experience will be enjoyed more with the actual booklet in hand. Asphodel’s lyrical matter is extremely difficult to understand, though I believe opener “Rules Of The Show” is intended to make a sort of strong feminist statement. As for grasping at straws, “Well-Oiled Machine” seems to have something to do with peer-to-peer file transferring and Who’s The Boss. I guess it is appropriate to mention that while I was born in the eighties, I never took interest in that show, nor The Wonder Years. Aside from the weird scientific excursions taken here, we also have a couple of catchier (yes, even in this style) numbers in the form of “Purple Tastes Like White” and “I Hope You Sleep Well” where the Oompa Loompas appear along with death metal vocals. Baptiste Bertrand comes into play as he manages the guitars, bass, programming and the vocals on “Well-Oiled Machine.”
Carnival In Coal was the literal birth of French experimental metal, so it makes sense that Pin-Up Went Down and this new incarnation in Chenille would only continue to expand on some of the greatest things in this genre. In all honesty, Pin-Up Went Down was a hard sell for me because it was too poppy and not experimental enough, nor did it have the amount of extremity that I remembered from Carnival in Coal or other works by Arno Strobl. Yet in this new, daring format I find Chenille to be one of the most interesting avant-garde acts of the last decade. This is what happens when the formula is done right, and if you don’t understand it or just don’t get it, that is entirely acceptable. After all, Chenille aren’t meant for everyone and not everyone will be able to get into them very easily. But I don’t think that Asphodel and Bertrand would have it any other way. Samen challenges the mind, but it also twists and distorts easily accessible pop music in a way that would make most American contemporary labels scratch their heads. I could see several executives now with confused looks on their faces, wondering how and to who they would actually market this record. Which is why those gentlemen aren’t working with this act and the fine folks over at Apathia Records are.
I am not sure about some of the other writers here at New Noise, but I have always been one more into experimental and overly weird approaches. So chances are that if you’re going to combine a shoehorn with a trombone and filter that through a bubble bath somehow, I’ll be game for the experience. That being noted, you need to open up your mind extravagantly wide for this one as it can go from depraved and ugly to rather pretty in a mere second. Chenille can offer a bite or they can be soft and fluffy. Sometimes they may just turn into a type of amorphous antimatter. It simply depends on the song. Although I’ve talked about a couple of the tracks here already, my intention is not to spoil such an interesting record for you. I haven’t even explained every style utilized on this record, particularly because I haven’t been able to catch them all. I will say that the most extreme moment on the disc is the French language cut, “Hemn Be Rho Die Samen” which also closes the disc, showing listeners right at the very end how demonic and hopeless this act can sound when they want to. I have a feeling that most of the more elite metalheads out there will probably just check out that one, but I recommend that the more open-minded of listeners give the entire album a chance. There’s simply nothing like it and hasn’t been any similar approaches for quite a while. Even when there were, nothing this over the top was ever attempted. I applaud Chenille and hope that this is only the beginning of something grand. As a minor side note, you might have noticed that the band’s moniker is a literal caterpillar which was intended. After all, that is what Chenille literally translates to in English. It’s quite clever. Just as clever as this album as a matter of fact.  From: https://newnoisemagazine.com/reviews/album-review-ooooooooooo-samen/
 

Uncle Tupelo - Anodyne


 #Uncle Tupelo #pre-Wilco #pre-Son Volt #alt-country #roots rock #country rock #alternative rock #folk rock #blues #cowpunk #1990s

Before Wilco and Son Volt, Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar invented alt-country with the mercurial Uncle Tupelo. When Uncle Tupelo released their major-label debut, Anodyne in October 1993, it should have been the beginning of something big. In a way, it was. Led by Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy from tiny Belleville, Illinois, the alt-country movement’s promising breakout band was packing clubs in major cities across America and Europe, not just the college towns where they spent years building their fan base. They were following up their left-turn acoustic record, March 16-20, 1992, recorded with R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, with their best record yet — one that amplified the band’s strongest assets, the marriage of Jay Farrar’s yearning heartland spirit with Jeff Tweedy’s punk-rock soul. Anodyne smoothed the jarring, start-stop rhythms of the band’s first two records, No Depression and Still Feel Gone, into a straight-ahead steamroll behind new drummer Ken Coomer. Farrar’s barbed guitar riffs sear on “Chickamauga,” where he compares a crumbling relationship to a Civil War bloodbath. Quieter moments such as the title track flex the strength of new multi-instrumentalist Max Johnston, who played dobro, banjo and fiddle, and former guitar tech John Stirratt, who held down bass when Tweedy switched to guitar. Despite the buzz, Uncle Tupelo never had a hit. Their closest brush with fame was playing Late Night with Conan O’Brien on national TV, and they didn’t break the Billboard Top 200 until the compilation 83/93: An Anthology peaked at Number 173 in 2002. But following the band’s final show, a mere six months after releasing Anodyne, the band’s influence grew as Farrar and Tweedy found success with Son Volt and Wilco, respectively.
Eventually, the friction between lifelong friends Farrar and Tweedy brought down the band at their biggest moment. Tweedy rushed the remaining members of Uncle Tupelo into the studio to record Wilco’s 1995 debut A.M., while Farrar took the long cut and found success with the hit single “Drown” on Son Volt’s Trace a year later. Farrar has continued to wrestle with obscure, early country and folk music and his textured guitar wranglings over eight solid albums. Wilco has evolved from a Tupelo-twin to an engine of reinvention, from the deconstructionist country-rock of 1996’s Being There to the shimmering heartbreak of 1999’s Summerteeth and 2001’s experimental Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Although the two have apparently reconciled since the band’s final show in 1994, Anodyne is where the fissures in their friendship, and Uncle Tupelo, grew into a fault and spawned two of Americana music’s biggest bands.  From: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/uncle-tupelos-anodyne-at-25-oral-history-wilco-733327/

Birtha - My Pants Are Too Short

 
#Birtha #hard rock #blues rock #classic rock #boogie rock #heavy blues rock #1970s 

Hiding in a box under the frills and petticoats of a Victorian costume shop I spied “Spirit of Rock – The Probe Family Sampler”, It’s wild psychedelic cover featuring a naked green woman, adorned with strings of beads, throwing her head back in ectsasy had such an impact visually that I had to take her home. The opening track instantly blew me away. That was Birtha’s first single Free Spirit, female fueled rock like I never heard before, even my ovaries where banging along. Birtha pioneered the all female rock lineup, successfully breaking the mould of an almost exclusively male dominated genre. They paved the way for the likes of The Runaways and the Slits. These four ladies were highly accomplished musicians who totally kicked ass. Hailing from Los Angeles, Rosemary Butler (Bass) and Shele Pinnizotto (guitar) met at school where they formed their first band The Rapunzels. Rosemary went on to join the Ladybirds who opened for The Rolling Stones in 1965, whilst Shele got a job in a recording studio. In 1967 they came together again along with Sherry Hagler (Keyboard) and later joined by the extraordinary Liver Favela. Birtha had been gigging for four years playing on the west coast before they were signed. During their early performances they tested the water with their own material whilst throwing Motown and Rock covers into the mixture.
In November 1971, all-female blues rock act Fanny took off with their hit single Charity Ball. ABC Dunhill saw their chance and quickly signed up Birtha, taking up rank amongst label mates Three Dog Night and Steppenwolf. Birtha never earned the same commercial success as Fanny, though were both marketed as heavy rock. After two albums and a final single (a cover of Steely Dan’s Dirty Work) Birtha’s success waned and they were dropped by Dunhill before 1973 was out. For me, Birtha totally overshadow Fanny’s comparatively average blues sound. Birtha have huge rock appeal in a way that fanny just don’t, so Fanny, you can just get to the back of the queue and stay there!
Fanny’s label Reprise Records decided to brand their girls with the slogan “Get Behind Fanny.” Perhaps it was felt that rock audiences of the time would be put off by an all girl group. Whatever the reason, Dunhill would not be outdone and had to go one better with “Birtha Has Balls”. The slogan was a winner; especially when slapped onto their infamous T shirts. When they played the 1972 Rockingham Festival, members of Alice Cooper, Fleetwood Mac and the James Gang all chose to wear them for their own sets and revelers could clearly see the logo disappear from view as Alice left the arena hanging out of a helicopter still sporting his Birtha shirt. Oddly enough, Playboy magazine had a problem with the tastefulness of the Advert and refused to print the slogan on their matchboxes when they played at the Chicago club. Supporting the Kinks, Birtha hit the UK and even bagged an appearance in the British coffee table mag ‘Titbits’, posing topless on the front cover proclaiming “We want male groupies”. They were serious contenders who really lived up to their allocated metaphor, they are 100% women but there is no doubt that Birtha unquestionably has balls. I wish there were lots of all-female bands I could say cut it the same, but Birtha have to be my favorite all female band ever. They skillfully combine numbers which are gritty and heavy along side soulful blues numbers and ballads. They are seductive, solid, funky, from the heart sisters whose sound is unmistakably their own. Only Rosemary Butler went on to have a continuing career which disappointingly went in the totally opposite direction singing with the likes of Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, and Dolly Parton.
BILLBOARD MAGAZINE - 9/9/72:
There is no getting around it. Birtha has it! They're an all chick group and we all know that you've sort of got to make allowances . . . well forget it, they project more power and drive than most male groups with similar instrumentation. The intensity and proficiency they exhibit is total rapture excelling both instrumentally & vocally. Rock on with "Free Spirit," "Judgment Day" and "Feeling Lonely."
This first eponymous album was produced by Steppenwolf’s producer Gabriel Mekler whose high credentials definitely work to their advantage. Birtha is a mammoth stomper and has to be the most powerful and versatile record ever made by an all-girl band. They got the same kind of groove as Grand Funk, heavy funk and blues laden guitars with crystal clear vocals, great harmonies and that all American sound. They are always bass driven; Rosemary has that deep humming sound that really pounds some seriously exiting energy into the songs. These girls are serious rockers; they kick the shit out of loads of male rock bands of the time and all time for that matter. Out of the four, three of them take lead vocal. For the main part though it’s Liver Favela, who has all the guts and rasp of Janis Joplin. With an abundance of untamed fervor, she is by far the coolest, and she’s without doubt the wildest singing female drummer you ever heard.  From: https://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/review/1439/
 

Mr. Bungle - Sweet Charity


 #Mr. Bungle #Mike Patton #experimental rock #avant-garde metal #funk metal #thrash metal #avant-garde jazz #alternative rock #death metal

I like to imagine that Mike Patton and the rest of Mr. Bungle got the idea for California by going on a vacation together to sunny Malibu, only to be greeted with an eccentric, disturbed cartoon version of the city. Shells of spent bombs litter the beaches, mutated and irradiated people walk the piers, and the ocean is an off-putting soylent green tint. A malignant, beating sun hangs over everything, threatening to scorch the earth with a solar flare tentacle at any given moment before burning out in a fit of spite.
Then it all turned out to be a shared fever dream that everyone remembers differently, but dedicates to tape in a sort-of Mad Libs version of artistic vomit, hence the absolute whiplash-inducing stylistic melting pot the album became.
Seriously, it would take a whole book to really delve into and take proper attendance of the myriad of influences and sounds heard here. One thing is certain though – it’s weird as hell; uncanny even for Mr. Bungle’s standards, whose previous album was an experimental rush of blood in the mid-90s.
Two years removed from what would be Faith No More’s final album until 2015, Patton just seemed to eurostep right into Mr. Bungle’s high-flying capers with California, an album that had no proper precursor and no successor since. Surf rock, doo-wop, space electronica, psychobilly; it’s incomprehensibly dense, risking haphazard levels of structure. At any given time, it always seems like a hop, skip, and a jump away from being the first album to be charged with disorderly conduct.
California is rife with themes of death, heaven, or an ‘end’ of some sort, as if implying The Golden State – or at least Mr. Bungle’s version – is where a lot of aspects of humans go to die. “Retrovertigo” is the death or severe repression of empathy in favor of profit and image as the instrumentation staggers drunkenly through sunburnt rock. “Ars Moriendi”, one of my favorite songs, translates from Latin to ‘the art of dying’, and is a surreal romp incorporating West Asian tones and instruments. An accordion tears through much of the track in a bid to keep up with Patton’s wild vocalizations and Latin chants – or perhaps it’s Patton trying to keep up. Like many other points on California, it’s hard to know which direction is the correct one – when asked, the album only responds with a cryptic ‘yes.’
“Sweet Charity” expertly riffs on lounge music, “Golem II: The Bionic Vapour Boy” is a trippy and plucky electronic monolith, much like the eponymous golem, and “Vanity Fair” is a doo-wop pop (doo-pop?) nightmare of self-flagellation with much too positive a mood for the lyrical content (this isn’t a complaint, as I love that kind of tonal disparity in music). The album seems to touch on almost all forms of contemporary music, both then-current and old.
Hell, there’s even flecks of metal if you’re desperately searching for the heavier side of Mr. Bungle. “Goodbye Sober Day” becomes rapidly unraveled as it goes from soft rock lightly coated in tropical themes and becomes devoted to Kecak chants and harder instrumentation. In this manner, the album chooses a ceremonial death – one not adherent to any perceivable culture or religion – though less of the body and more of the ego or hubris that could be found throughout California. One where the end of the rainbow was only concerned with self and not much else. Either that, or I’m wildly overthinking it.
That’s kind of the beauty of Mr. Bungle and much of Patton’s work – in search for a possible tongue buried in cheek, there’s genuine criticism and a fashioned theme to track as you listen to the enigmas they call songs. It’s like your brain needs a decoder to unlock the knowledge that the band may or may not have buried far, far below the substrate of quirky, but talented musicianship and a desire to dizzy anyone brave or unknowing enough to give their records a spin.
This all makes it weird, though also maybe prophetic, that this album also fueled a big feud between Mr. Bungle (chiefly Patton though) and Red Hot Chili Peppers (chiefly the band’s frontman, Anthony Kiedis). RHCP were kind of mad that Mr. Bungle named their album California when they had an album called Californication. Because, you know, RHCP invented California or some shit. The two albums were actually going to release on the same day, but Warner Bros. (the label for both releases) delayed California by a month and some change. Kiedis took things a step further by using his stardom and pull to get Mr. Bungle kicked off a handful of summer festival shows that RHCP were also playing.
Mr. Bungle fired back by ‘dressing up’ as the members of RHCP at a Halloween show in 1999 where they learned songs from Californication backstage at the set, drew on crude interpretations of the tattoos each RHCP member had, and went out there to do a full-on mock of them, complete with purposefully bad cover songs, and mimicking heroin injections on stage as an obvious dig at Kiedis’ drug problem. They were obviously pissed at the loss of income and huge exposure potential for the better part of a year, but this was juvenile and tasteless at best – don’t make fun of someone’s drug addiction, people. Then again, so too were Kiedis’ moves, so everyone took an L. This all likely stemmed originally from Kiedis thinking that Patton was stealing his style in their Faith No More’s “Epic” music video from 1990. You can read more about it complete with quotes from both parties over at the Bungle Fever fansite or on Mr. Bungle’s Wikipedia. In closing; Anthony Kiedis used Ego Trip. It’s super effective!
Anyway, yes, music. California being the swan song for Mr. Bungle is fitting given its themes. The album sounds like the sun not only setting on the band, but the world itself with its apocalyptic tropic wasteland interpretation of West Coast (really, American) idealism and isolationism. So many weird bands are indebted to this clown prince group for being so outlandish in their expressions, both artistically and performance-wise. Even with only three albums, they’ve proven to have more influence than other offbeat bands with double or even triple the discography. If none of it works for you, don’t worry – there’s a Mike Patton project for just about everyone. Good luck out there!  From: https://everythingisnoise.net/features/a-scene-in-retrospect-mr-bungle-california/

Amy Winehouse - Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow

 
 
 #Amy Winehouse #R&B #jazz #soul #blues #pop rock #1960s-retro #neo-soul #singer-songwriter
 
Amy Winehouse, the British singer who almost single-handedly revived a mass appreciation of soul and R&B, was found dead in her Camden home in London on July 23. Media in every form – blogs, magazines, newspapers – often scrutinized her abuse of drugs and alcohol instead of focusing on her unmistakable talent as a singer and songwriter. While the idea of a young person rising all too quickly to fame and crashing is alarmingly expected, the loss of Winehouse is still incredibly tragic. Fans and fellow musicians have posted their tributes, and here at Cover Me, we look back at a few of her stand-out covers in memoriam.
Winehouse’s career started at an early age after she dropped out of school at the age of 15 and she started performing her own songs at jazz clubs. By 2002 she was signed to EMI and in 2003 her jazz and hip-hop infused debut, Frank, was released in the U.K. The album contained two jazz covers:  Isham Jones’ “There Is No Greater Love” and James Moody’s “Moody’s Mood For Love.” Tracks like this garnered countless Billie Holiday comparisons for the young singer. The album itself did not gather much commercial attention with its initial release, but earned critical accolades and proved a fantastic start to what anyone who heard it was sure would be a long and successful career.
Shortly after Frank’s release, she covered The Shirelles’ “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” for the film Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. As if the two aforementioned covers did not already paint Winehouse as a painstakingly talented soul singer, this stripped-down version gave us a glimpse of the self-deprecating, honest, and lovesick traits that would make Winehouse’s next album. 2006’s Back to Black solidified her budding star status. The album earned six Grammy nominations and won five, including Best Pop Vocal Album and Best New Artist. She also won a slew of other accolades for the album, making it on nearly every major music publications’ “Best Of” list at year’s end. The first single, “Rehab,” gained massive attention not only for its undeniable catchiness, but also because of what in retrospect seems an early sign of her downfall. Oddly enough, one of the top songs Winehouse is known for is her rendition of The Zutons’ Valerie. The song appeared on Back to Black producer Mark Ronson’s covers album, Version. Rolling Stone called the track the only “notable recording” of Winehouse’s since Back to Black.
In 2008, a deluxe version of Back in Black was released, trying to maintain the hype while the world waited on a new record. Various editions included several covers, including Phil Spector’s “To Know Him Is To Love Him,” performed with his first group the Teddy Bears, and The Specials’ “Hey Little Rich Girl.” Unfortunately for fans, Winehouse’s addictions prevented her from completing another studio album. One of her final projects was a cover of Lesley Gore’s “It’s My Party” for the Quincy Jones tribute album Q Soul Bossa Nostra, which was released last November. The track epitomizes Winehouse’s media-hounded private life and her couldn’t-care-less-attitude about what others thought about her destructive lifestyle choices.
Now, in July 2011, Winehouse joins other musicians who died too soon in the 27 Club. It is easy to ridicule her seemingly-cliched and drug-infused life, but it should be remembered that it was her music that made her a star in the first place, not the addictions. Her songs were steeped with an inherent and genuine ache and punchy self-criticism that few others have been able to emulate.  From: https://www.covermesongs.com/2011/07/remembering-amy-winehouse-through-her-covers.html

Monday, February 26, 2024

Black Sabbath - Live Brussels 1970

 Part 1

Part 2

#Black Sabbath #Ozzy Osbourne #heavy metal #hard rock #classic rock #heavy blues rock #British blues rock #doom metal #1970s #live music video

Black Sabbath - Live in Paris 1970 Directed by Jacques Bourton. This footage was originally shot at Théatre 140 in Brussels, Belgium on October 3rd, 1970 for Yorkshire Television. Bootleggers have long repeated a fictional claim that done in Paris, but that has long since been debunked. In any case, this is the earliest footage of a complete concert of Black Sabbath in existence. Here they perform many songs from their most recent album at the time, Paranoid, as well as several from their debut. Interestingly, many of the songs from Paranoid feature their original pre-album lyrics - or Ozzy had simply forgotten the new ones! The original show was split into two halves and includes some behind-the scenes clips of the band before the show.  From: https://letterboxd.com/film/black-sabbath-live-in-paris/

In Finland, it is customary to yell "Soittakaa Paranoid" ("Play Paranoid") at a live band. It's a riff on the bizarre American tradition of yelling "Play Freebird" (a heckling practice the late comedian Bill Hicks referred to as "the mantra of the moron") at a live band. And this is merely one of many stories related to Black Sabbath's 2:48 second metal masterpiece "Paranoid." The band's biggest hit of their entire career which, according to members of Sabbath, only came to be because they needed to make the album a bit longer. According to drummer Bill Ward, whipping the head-pounding jam together took less than 30 minutes. Other members of Sabbath have varied recollections. When listening to the recording, Geezer Butler (who wrote the lyrics), along with Ozzy were both unsure about "Paranoid," as it sounded very similar to Led Zeppelin's "Communication Breakdown." In a 2018 interview, Ozzy reiterated he wasn't even entirely sure what the word "paranoid" even meant at the time. Eventually, Ozzy asked Butler (much to the bassist's surprise) to explain the definition of the word to him in 1971. Oh, how the mythology and legend of Ozzy Osbourne never, ever disappoints – much like the history that went into making "Paranoid" and its enduring influence in metal, popular culture, and beyond. So, in no real particular order, let's get to the time Frank Zappa almost joined the band on stage in 1976 to perform three songs with Sabbath that he had previously learned to play. One of the songs was allegedly "Paranoid," a jam the band saved for their encores.
Frank Zappa was on team Black Sabbath early on, praising the band and specifically the song "Supernaut" from the group's 1972 powered-by-cocaine album Vol 4. As far as Sabbath goes, Geezer Butler was a Frank Zappa superfan whose life was "changed" after hearing Frank Zappa and The Mothers Of Invention when he was still a teenager. Tony Iommi spoke about Zappa's love for Sabbath's "Snowblind" (also Vol. 4), and detailed the events of the show at Madison Square Garden in December of 1976 – the night Zappa was set to take the stage with Sabbath (after learning three of their songs). The plan was devised during Zappa's annual Thanksgiving dinner which was quite the rock and roll shindig. Frank had invited Geezer and Ozzy to his special Thanksgiving dinner in 1976 during which conversation turned to Zappa joining Sabbath on stage to perform two songs, "Iron Man" and "Paranoid" during the band's encore.
Unfortunately, Sabbath wasn't at the top of their game that night. In addition, Zappa hadn't been summoned for the show's soundcheck. Zappa told his version of the night's events to Sounds journalist Hugh Fielder saying when he showed up, Tony Iommi was having issues with his guitar strings and, at the last minute, changed them out. At this point, the crowd of 20K had been milling around for over an hour waiting for Sabbath to get going. And though there was a stack of sweet Marshalls waiting for Zappa on stage, he would only end up introducing Sabbath that night. Iommi recalled things a bit differently, echoing the notion Sabbath was not in top form and advised Zappa that joining them would've been "disastrous." Recordings of the show exist and at least one unofficial release, where you can hear Zappa's banter including describing Sabbath as the "rockin' teenage combo known to the universe as Black Sabbath." Understandably, the crowd went fucking bananas. Later, Iommi would take in Zappa's show in Birmingham, during which Zappa and The Mothers launched into a cover of another of Frank's favorite Sabbath songs, "Iron Man."  From: https://metalinjection.net/editorials/back-in-the-day/black-sabbaths-paranoid-almost-didnt-make-the-record-the-compelling-history-behind-their-biggest-single

 

Queen Adreena - Taxidermy


 #Queen Adrena #Katie Jane Garside #alternative rock #noise rock #indie rock #art rock #punk metal #gothic rock #music video

Where once she shallowly proclaimed to love your money, Katie Jane Garside now wants more intangible things. These days she wants to haunt your dreams too. It’s been a torrid affair getting from there to here. After Daisy Chainsaw ripped apart, Garside was left close to breakdown and retreated to the hills as far away as possible from musical partner Crispin Gray. Reunited, and based on that frisson, Queen Adreena were always going to be a little out of the ordinary. Their return heralds a subtle, but fundamental, change in dynamics. Now writing her own lyrics instead of being Gray‘s mouthpiece, this time it’s personal. Sometimes disturbingly so. Because ‘Taxidermy’ is an apt title – this is about stuffing and mounting the psychological monsters that lurk under the bed. So, while carrying on Daisy Chainsaw‘s predilection for rock as infantile nightmare, here the scope is much wider than a one-track take on banshee pop. There are some obvious precedents, notably Bjork and PJ Harvey, but much more than either of those two reference points, this debut album is frequently akin to eavesdropping on psychotherapy. Veering between absolutes like love/hate, black/white, logic/madness, these songs walk a tightrope between serrated guitar lines and moments of twinkling repose. So ‘Yesterday’s Hymn’ is a genuinely beautiful, barely-there twist into trip-hop minimalism, while ‘I Adore You’ and ‘X-ing Off The Days’ grate with pain and churning guitars. With everything else straddled somewhere between these extremes, it’s uncomfortable listening, but raises ‘Taxidermy’ far above the simple world of sub-goth moves and ripped-up antique dresses of their past. ‘Are The Songs My Disease?’ inquires one title. Not on this showing – they might just turn out to be Garside‘s saviours from the footnotes of indie infamy.  From: https://www.nme.com/reviews/reviews-nme-2087-340874

 

Los Lobos - Kiko And The Lavender Moon


 #Los Lobos #roots rock #tex-mex #country rock #Americana #cowpunk #blues rock #folk rock #Mexican #1990s #music video

On their sixth album, 1992’s Kiko, Los Lobos alternately distilled and deconstructed their music by embracing studio experimentation. After two decades together, the East Los Angeles band’s multicultural influences remained audible, crossing state lines and national borders to draw from regional Mexican and American styles: mariachi, ranchera, and Norteño music, Chicano rock ’n’ roll and R&B, Tex-Mex and zydeco, electric blues and country percolated through their playing. New to the equation were raw sonic textures, layered overdubs and outboard studio effects that reflected their sound in funhouse mirrors. Mood and musical color brought wonder as well as menace to fables, dreams and visions evoking the magical realism of 20th century Latin-American literature with a hallucinatory glow.
Up to that point, their records had hewed to the scale of their live performances, documenting an ensemble honed since high school garage band adventures. For David Hidalgo and Louie Peréz, later to emerge as the band’s primary songwriters, the gateway into traditional Mexican folk styles came not from the neighborhood but from American and British folk-rock records by Ry Cooder, the Band, and Fairport Convention. Just as the Band had inspired Fairport to explore traditional British music, Hidalgo and Peréz immersed themselves in traditional regional styles and Mexican stringed instruments.
Together with guitarist Cesar Rosas, bassist Conrad Lozano, and mandolinist Frank Gonzaléz, multi-instrumentalist Hidalgo and percussionist Peréz launched Los Lobos del Este de Los Angeles in 1973, winning eastside audiences with their authentic mix of Mexican styles. Following Gonzaléz’s departure, the surviving quartet built a home turf audience before turning their sights to Los Angeles’ burgeoning punk and roots rock scene, culminating in their triumphant debut at the Whisky a Go Go in January 1982, opening for the Blasters, who quickly became crucial allies, sharing stages and lobbying their label, Slash Records, to sign Los Lobos.
Blasters saxophonist Steve Berlin then teamed with T Bone Burnett to co-produce the quartet’s label debut EP and the full-length that followed in 1984 before leaving the Blasters to join Los Lobos full-time. By 1987, the band seemed at a commercial tipping point, thanks to their faithful covers of Chicano rock ’n’ roll pioneer Ritchie Valens’ hits for the soundtrack to La Bamba, the Valens biopic that scored at the box office as well as on album charts where the soundtrack album reached #1.
By 1991, however, Los Lobos was grappling with frustration over disappointing album sales and an ambitious tour’s cost overruns. Refocusing their creative process, Hidalgo and Peréz rented an office for songwriting sessions, with the band demoing new songs at a small studio near downtown Los Angeles’ Skid Row. When Lenny Waronker, president of Slash’s distributor, Warner Bros. Records, heard the new songs, he recommended they reunite with Mitchell Froom, who had produced their hit single of “La Bamba” as well as a standout
In Froom and engineer Tchad Blake the band found hands-on partners whose recent clients included Crowded House, Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello and Richard Thompson. The duo was at a turning point in using the studio to actively shape the music rather than merely document it. Waronker’s instinct that they would push the envelope was on target.
That the band and Froom were unlocking a new sonic palette was apparent from the opening track, “Dream in Blue.” Rattling percussion, terse bass pulses, handclaps and jangling guitar bob and weave beneath Hidalgo’s giddy vocal as he recounts a dream where “I flew around with shiny things, when I spoke I seemed to sing, high above, floating far away…” Steve Berlin overdubs octave choruses and single lines on multiple reeds while electric guitars respond to Hidalgo’s playful command to “sock it to me one time” with blasts of distortion. The track’s raw edges and hurtling momentum are part of a conscious design that Froom and Los Lobos, sharing production credit, devised to preserve the gritty, abstracted feel of their demos, five of which would be kept for the finished album. Leaning into studio manipulation, they elevated noise and distortion from sonic taboos to creative tools.
Thematically, dreams and visions generate moments of mood-altering surrealism. “Wake Up Dolores” is a brooding lament for travelers on a stony, endless trail, haunted by ancient Aztec images of “quetzal plums, of dying suns, and purple moons,” set to a nervous, syncopated arrangement in which guitars and voices answer the lead vocal like chanting supplicants as Hidalgo lapses into the pre-colonial Nahuatl tongue. (The album’s focus on percussion is bootstrapped by a strong cohort of guest percussionists to buttress an already full court press by all five members of the band.)
“Angels With Dirty Faces” slows to a methodical pace, suspending Hidalgo’s voice in a percussive clockwork haze as he bears witness to homelessness: As biographer Chris Morris would later report, the song was inspired by the band’s experiences during its demo sessions near Skid Row, translating to images of the “broken window smile, weeds for hair” of one lost soul and a brief elegy for a brother lost “to the howling wind.”
The atmospheric sound treatments and off-centered meter of these tracks give Kiko a mesmerizing impact without entirely eclipsing Los Lobos’ earlier instincts. Cesar Rosas animates an easy blues shuffle in “That Train Don’t Stop Here,” handily working a time-honored erotic metaphor in a lament for a lover who’s abandoned him for another, delivered with sly humor and a simmering arrangement warmed by soulful organ accents, darting rhythm guitar and Rosas’ taut, blues-drenched electric guitar. Rosas’ spry vocal and two lively instrumental breaks reinforce the suspicion that however heartbroken he is, he’s having a good time.
Mitchell Froom’s role in enabling Los Lobos to shift sonic shape isn’t confined to the control room and the toy box of technical effects at hand. He augments Steve Berlin and David Hidalgo’s keyboards and accordion with his own array of vintage keyboards, including Chamberlin and Optigon, both distant, pre-digital cousins of the Mellotron. Credit him with the distinctive “horn chorus” that serves the album’s most enchanted piece, “Kiko and the Lavender Moon,” a dream that creeps into view against a three-chord vamp that suggests an Ellingtonian riff on “Three Blind Mice,” easily mistaken for a cluster of Berlin sax overdubs—a Froom emulation on Chamberlin conjuring the retro glow of an old radio. In its title character, a dreaming child, the song achieves a bewitched, playful gleam cast by its fanciful imagery and a spare, circular conversation between “horns,” Hidalgo’s button accordion and a doubled guitar and piano phrase.
Los Lobos taps into traditional folk textures and a spirit realm tagged in Catholic imagery on “Saint Behind the Glass,” a rare solo vocal by Louie Peréz set against a lacy backdrop of guitarron, acoustic guitars and Veracruz harp that brings a religious relic to life, if only in the singer’s mind. Elsewhere among the set’s generous 16 songs, they echo early heroes: “Arizona Skies” is a lush acoustic border serenade on stringed instruments underpinned by rippling, treated percussion and slide guitar figures worthy of Ry Cooder, while “When the Circus Comes” is a rustic ballad that evokes the Band.
Kiko, released on May 26, 1992, was rightly acclaimed as the band’s studio pinnacle for its thematic breadth and sonic innovation, but commercially it fared no better than its predecessors. However discouraged they might have been, the five veterans in Los Lobos would persevere to survive intact as one of the longest-running American rock band sextant as of May 2022, touring constantly and releasing 18 more albums and compilations to date.  From: https://bestclassicbands.com/los-lobos-kiko-review-11-1-21/

Jane's Addiction - Been Caught Stealing


 #Jane's Addiction #Perry Farrell #Dave Navarro #alternative rock #hard rock #heavy metal #alternative metal #funk metal #neo-psychedelia #psychedelic rock #1990s #music video

A Deep Dive Into Jane’s Addiction’s Video For Been Caught Stealing

Heroin is a hell of a drug, and Jane’s Addiction really, really liked heroin. Not all of them – the drummer stayed off it – but three out of four of them really got heavily into heroin. Miraculously, considering how many of their contemporaries in the early '90s alternative music world ended up dead, they all made it, but the band didn’t. At their peak, in 1991, they split up – drugs, madness, egos and partying took their toll and they called it a day. If they hadn’t, the '90s rock world could have looked very different – so many bands were influenced by Jane’s Addiction that it’s hard to wonder what might have happened if they’d stuck around. That’s all in the future though. Right now it’s 1990 and an LA supermarket doesn’t know what’s about to hit it… Let’s dive on in.

0.02
Dave Navarro has looked extremely different over the course of his career. These days he’s the impeccably-groomed host of a tattoo show, with millimetre-perfect facial hair and flawless eyeliner, but in the early Jane’s Addiction days it was all scruffy dreadlocks and loads of drugs.

0.07
A shot of the band sat unenthusiastically on these rides was on the front of the single.


0.13
Here’s the star of the video, whose identity has sadly been lost to time (or would take more research than we have been able to do).

0.14
That barking is Farrell’s dog Annie. "I'd got her from a dog shelter and she was quite needy, so I brought her down to the studio that day rather than leave her at home,” Farrell later recalled. “I'm singing in the booth with the headphones on and Annie gets all excited and starts going, 'Ruff! Ruff! Ruff!' The fact that she ended up on the track was just pure coincidence."  

0.21
Perry Farrell with a bank robber-esque stocking on his head, there. Farrell has also had a lot of looks over his career – this is the pre-neckerchief days, the pre-three-piece-suit days, the pre-looking-a-bit-like-Dot-Cotton-off-EastEnders days.

0.24
This was filmed on location in Royal Market, a supermarket on Washington Boulevard in LA. Not long after this video came out, it was demolished and replaced by a 99-cent store.

0.32
Security cameras were still fairly newly common in 1990 – the price of them had dropped dramatically in the late ‘80s – which must have been a real buzzkill for shoplifters. Farrell claims the song is autobiographical, and that stealing is just one of the many vices he enjoys.

0.42
That’s drummer Stephen Perkins on the rob. The only member of the original line-up to evade hard drug addiction, Perkins has played with everyone from Infectious Grooves to Rage Against The Machine to Nine Inch Nails, as well as on Perry Farrell’s solo project and side-band Porno For Pyros.

0.46
Eric Avery doing some half-inching. The bassist was the only member of the original lineup not to rejoin Jane’s Addiction when they reformed, with a drunken incident involving one of Farrell’s ex-girlfriends thought to be part of why.

0.52
The pineapple-up-the-dress moment is what this video is all about really, so let’s talk about the director. This video was directed by Casey Niccoli, an extremely important figure in the Jane’s Addiction story. Born in Bakersfield, California and named after Yankee skipper Casey Stengel, she was the girlfriend and muse of Perry Farrell for a while, and appears in sculpted form on the cover of Nothing’s Shocking (as an on-fire pair of nude Siamese twins) and Ritual De La Habitual (as part of a threesome also involving Farrell). Niccoli has also been credited with nailing the band’s early onstage visual aesthetic and use of Santerian and Catholic imagery. She also appears in the documentary Soul Kiss and the video for Classic Girl (a song inspired by Farrell’s nickname for her), in footage from the docudrama Gift that Niccoli and Farrell co-directed.

1.10
It’s all making sense now. The dude has a fake pregnant tummy and uses it to shoplift. Fun!

1.16
Even at their peak, Jane’s Addiction were a polarizing band. Rolling Stone put it this way: “The band is great and full of shit - often at the same time.”

1.22
We can’t find this performer’s name anywhere online. Jane’s Addiction continue to feature pole dancers in their live shows though.

1.31
Textbook “shocked bystanders” there. Excellent. Niccoli all but vanished from the music industry when her relationship with Farrell dissolved. According to a YouTube comment thread – so it might be complete nonsense – she is now living happily in the Mojave desert, drug-free and raising a family. Her daughter Poppy Jean Crawford is a musician.

1.51
No idea who this is either. People in the '90s just didn’t put enough material online, you know? The blame lies somewhere between the rudimentary nature of early internet technology and the fact everyone was out of their nuts on smack.  

2.31
In these joyous-sounding moments, it’s odd to think that when Jane’s Addiction were recording this album, they pretty much hated one another. Only on one song were the whole band in the studio at the same time: Three Days, a sprawling track about the 72-hour heroin sex binge Farrell and Niccoli had with an ex of Farrell’s, Xiola Blue. This was immortalized in the cover art after Blue died of a heroin overdose shortly afterwards.

2.48
The band hanging out shirtless, something they were all reasonably keen on – three of the four of them have at least one bare-torsoed image on their Wikipedia pages. Farrell and Navarro in particular seemed to go for decades at a time between shirts.

2.56
During these bits of band choreography, it’s fun to think how many goes it probably took. Remember how much heroin was going around? If there’s one thing heroin fucks with, it’s the ability to perform choreographed routines.

3.16
Farrell does a great job of mustering his ridiculous rock star charisma even through a stocking. His voice is reverbed to hell on the album, something they replicated live as well.

3.31
What a joyous ending, a big celebration of disguising yourself as a pregnant woman in order to shoplift. Massive laugh. When this won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Alternative Video, unimpressed awards presenter Billy Idol announced it as “Been Caught Wanking”, pretending the spaceman statue was his penis for a while. Only Niccoli and Navarro were there – Farrell was smoking crack – and both were extremely un-sober, and during Niccoli’s speech, Navarro tried clumsily to kiss her. Three months after receiving the VMA, the band split up. Their farewell tour was Lollapalooza, founded by Farrell and still going as an annual event.  So, madly, are the band – they reformed first from 2001-4, and again in 2008, after which, despite a few problems and line-up changes they’ve never definitively split up. Nearly thirty years after pratting about in a supermarket.

From: https://www.kerrang.com/a-deep-dive-into-janes-addictions-video-for-been-caught-stealing

DakhaBrakha - Little Hare/Mermaids


 #DakhaBrakha #folk #Ukrainian folk #world music #Eastern European folk #folk rock #music video

Until you hear the music, the most striking thing about funky Ukrainian folk band DakhaBrakha is the headgear. Made of coarse, black lamb’s wool, the group’s towering hats evoke a faraway world of Cossacks and shepherds, dramatically complementing the traditional lace wedding dresses, thickly draped beaded necklaces and embroidered tunics that make up their costumes. The band’s music is just as captivating. DakhaBrakha’s sound, which the group calls “ethno-chaos,” is an anarchistic reinterpretation of traditional Ukrainian folk songs blended with eclectic influences like Middle Eastern sounds and a touch of R&B. “There’s nothing like it out there,” says Bill Smith of Riot Artists, DakhaBrakha’s North American agent. (The group’s members speak very little English.)
The four musicians — Nina Garenetska, Olena Tsibulska, Iryna Kovalenko and Marko Halanevych — play a variety of instruments, including cello, piano, bass drums and darbuka, accordions, jew’s harp and the didgeridoo. Even more impressive are the vocals: harmonies layered with riotous birdcalls, eerie whistles and wails, and Halanevych’s falsetto, Smith says. The quartet came together in 2004 as the house band for Kiev’s experimental theater company DAKH, but has only recently made inroads on this side of the Atlantic. After its North American debut at Toronto’s Luminato Festival in 2013, the group gave rousing performances last year at New York’s globalFEST and at Bonnaroo, with Rolling Stone singling out the band as the Tennessee festival’s “best breakout.”
DakhaBrakha, which means “give/take” in Old Ukrainian, draws on a repertoire of songs that the band’s three female performers — all of whom trained in folklore and ethnomusicology — have spent years researching in rural Ukrainian villages. Yet DakhaBrakha’s thoroughly contemporary compositions represent such a departure from the original Eastern European melodies and styles that their sound can seem as unfamiliar (and intriguing) to native Ukrainians as it can for American listeners. “It’s difficult to describe what they do; you’ve got to see it,” Smith says. “And then people just get hooked. It’s mesmerizing.”  From: https://www.washingtonpost.com/express/wp/2015/04/02/get-to-know-funky-ukrainian-folk-band-dakhabrakha/


Black Moth Super Rainbow - Windshield Smasher


 #Black Moth Super Rainbow #Tom Fec #psychedelic rock #electronic #indie/alternative rock #experimental #folktronica #synthpop #music video

Tom Fec is quietly building a tiny, twisted religion. Like the KISS Army and Misfits Fiend Club before him, the mastermind behind the psychedelic synth projects Black Moth Super Rainbow [often shortened to “BMSR”] and Tobacco has started his own “Rad Cult.” This past summer, Fec used a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for the release and distribution of his latest album, Cobra Juicy. He named the hypothetical record label that would carry it “Rad Cult.” The money pledged by fans also funded the ancillary packaging and artwork Fec wanted to produce. Most notable among the BMSR accoutrement was a specially designed full-head latex mask of a terrifyingly mutated orange face. The Kickstarter was a roaring success, so there’s now a small army of BMSR-devotees running around with identical orange head masks. Ominously, the first music video from the album, “Windshield Smasher,” depicts a group of similarly orange-masked hoodlums accosting a young couple with baseball bats, ultimately forcing frosting-covered cake down their mouths and chopping off their hair while pinning them to the hood of a car. Beneath all this scruffy bravado, however, there’s an artist who truly believes giving his unvarnished id free reign is the best way to satisfy his fans. Before BMSR head out on a nationwide tour this spring, Fec talked with us about the making of Cobra Juicy and where his brand of lovably leering weirdness comes from.

I’d like to talk about the “Windshield Smasher” video. It’s such a fun but weirdly disturbing clip. Where did all that come from?

It started off being a bigger-budget idea, and we kind of had to compromise to it being what it is. It’s the first video from the new album, so I wanted to come out baseball bats swinging [laughs]. I thought it was the perfect visual idea for that.

For me, this video typifies the vibe you’ve got in a lot of your work wherein there’s this sinister or leering feeling. There’s the offbeat violence of this video, song titles like, “I think I’m Evil,” etc.

I think mainly what I’m going for is, I don’t like music that’s all one thing, because I think it’s corny no matter what you’re doing. Like a dark metal band: “Everything is evil.” To me that comes off as corny, and a lot of other music that’s just happy, whether it’s indie stuff or pop music or just happy or whatever, it just comes off as corny. It just needs to be more complicated than that. We’re not that simple, especially now in 2013, and we shouldn’t be listening to stuff that’s so straightforward and simple.

It’s interesting you say that because I noticed Cobra Juicy has some of the most structured and pleasant pop songs you’ve ever written, but the “Windshield Smasher” video is probably the most directly threatening and unsettling visual piece you’ve put out.

I always like having fun with what I do and what I put out there because, from the second people started listening, like when Dandelion Gum came out, they had expectations for what the video should be. Everyone figured it would be this sunny valley trip with people in fields with weird colors. That shit is so predictable and so stupid and it’s been done so many time. I remember when the “Sun Lips” video came out, so many people were so upset, like, “This isn’t what we expected! This isn’t what we wanted!” But that’s just how it is, that’s what entertains me, and that’s why I make this stuff. “Windshield Smasher” was violent, but it wasn’t too mean. I still think it was kinda good spirited, but it was a lot of things at the end of the day.

From: https://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/tom-fec-black-moth-super-rainbow-tobacco


The Honey Pot - Light Splinters


 #The Honey Pot #psychedelic rock #classic rock #neo-psychedelia #psychedelic folk rock #retro-1960s

The Honey Pot are a psychedelic/pop 5-piece band, steeped in a musical fantasy time-warp where they groove among their most revered bands, Jefferson Airplane, The Doors and The Small Faces to name a few, but totally modern in every other way. Had they been around back then, they would be riding high with the rest. They are happy, though, to be playing to the crowd who 'were there' and those who groove anew whenever they can.
What is the connection between talented Theremin player and founder member of the Buggles Bruce Woolley and psychedelic pop band The Honey Pot? Well, in the autumn of 2008 Bruce kindly listened to Icarus Peel's newly-completed album "Tea At My Gaffe" and suggested that he should stay on the psychedelic journey. Soon after, Icarus met DJ Marrs Benfire of Bay FM, who featured the album on one of his "Smart Set" shows. The challenge from Marrs was for Icarus to write a "Revolver" style album with shorter songs, and thus "To The Edge" was composed and produced with Wayne Fraquet on drums and Jacqueline Bourne and Iain Crawford on vocals. The album was so well received that a performing band needed to be formed to play the songs live, at which point Tom Brown was welcomed in to play bass. Their first gig was a local festival in 2013. Since then they've played at many groovy festivals and venues with different line-ups, and are looking forward to many more live performances in the future.  From: https://www.thehoneypotcollective.com/newpage

 

Nil Lara - Baby


 #Nil Lara #indie/alternative rock #singer-songwriter #Latin rock #rock en Español #world music #1990s

Nil Lara accomplishes an innovative lyricism rooted in traditional, Latin rhythms in this self-titled follow-up to his debut album My First Child. His Cuban heritage serving as catalyst, Lara weaves English and Spanish lyrics to communicate universal themes. From the first song, "Money Makes the Monkey Dance," which reflects upon the struggles and suffering of selling out, to the celebratory last, "Mama's Chant," the track titles consistently allude to the passion embedded in the melodies and words. The album's highlights -- "Baby," "Fighting for My Love," and "Vida Mas Simple" -- each distinctly explore love and liberation. Lara's incorporation of the Cuban three-toned tres guitar, the cuatro (a small, Venezuelan four-stringed instrument), the electric guitar, and various percussion instruments -- congas, chants, beads, and a pandeiro -- enhances his music's originality and eclecticism sprung from Cuban roots. Whether or not listeners comprehend Spanish is irrelevant; Lara's style is compelling and understandable in any language.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/nil-lara-mw0000183498

Nil Lara (born 1964) is an American musician from Miami, Florida who is a singer, guitarist and songwriter, playing the tres, the six-stringed Cuban guitar, and the cuatro, a Venezuelan guitar. Lara was born in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Cuban immigrants, but much of his childhood was spent in Venezuela, moving to Caracas at the age of 7. At 8, he had mastered cuatro - a four-string Venezuelan instrument from which he graduated to the guitar. He moved with his family to Miami when he was in junior high. While studying electrical engineering at the University of Miami in Florida, he rediscovered his Cuban roots in guajiro, the Cuban equivalent of country, and "Son" - Cuban music's answer to the blues. This led him to the tres, a Cuban instrument with a unique sound and with the status of a grassroots instrument in Cuba.
Lara's music is based on Cuban and Venezuelan folklore, with inspiration from Western musicians like Stevie Wonder and Pink Floyd. He formed a group called K.R.U. while at the University of Miami, with whom he released two albums before they disbanded, after which he became a teacher at New World School of the Arts. In December 1993 Lara released My First Child with his new band, Beluga Blue. He signed to Metro Blue/Capitol Records in 1995, releasing Nil Lara in 1996, produced by Susan Rodgers. He wrote little new material for the next few years,[4] finally releasing Testimony and Da in 2004.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nil_Lara

Kitchen Witch - Slip Stream


 #Kitchen Witch #stoner rock #heavy blues rock #hard rock #desert rock #Australian

Australian red-dust desert rock outfit, Kitchen Witch liken themselves to the alcoholic baby if John Lee Hooker, Kyuss and Janis Joplin had hooked-up and had a kid. The quartet of Georgie Cosson (vox), Ed Noble (drums), Simon Elliott (bass), and Conor Kinsella (guitar) have been selected, alongside 21 other SA bands, to perform as part of the inaugural One12 Festival in Adelaide, a five concert series supporting local and emerging talent. Georgie was lovely enough to answer a few of our questions.

Firstly, let's start with the cracking band name; how'd you settle on Kitchen Witch?

Kitchen Witch is kind of self-titled, but a band.

Those new to the music stylings of the band, what's your elevator pitch of what people can expect to hear?

Guitar heavy, bubbling grooves, banshee wails, hip-swinging basslines to a heavy, heart-palpitating beat.

We're already in winter; the year has flown by, but what have been a couple of feel-good moments for the band so far?

Playing in the Cranker band room again! We had some great jams where we challenged ourselves to write a song in a night, with one idiot in the band being the boss and getting the rest of us to bring their idea to life. It's been great to be writing new tunes. New tunes feels is like a brand new day. A good one.

What does it mean to be selected to perform as part of the inaugural One12 Festival?

Wow, well we are stoked as a band and are really looking forward to playing with such an amazing line-up of bands.

Part of the gig includes the band's performance being filmed, recorded and streamed – that must be a super-dope opportunity to access?

Yes. It is super-dope. My Dad can watch. He is 1,500kms from Adelaide and hopefully people all over the world.

You're playing alongside Dirty Pagans, Sons Of Zoku and Rocky's Pride & Joy; can we expect you in the mosh for these bands?

I cannot stress how much awe I feel for these three bands. They are all different and top quality musicians. What a line-up!

Adelaide's local, indie music scene; who else has caught your attention lately; who's playing on Kitchen Witch’s local playlist?

We would have some Smoke No Fire, Hiatus Coyote, Planet Of The 8s, All Them Witches, C.W. Stoneking, Emergency Rule, Athletic Teenage Joggers, King Gizz of course, Indian classical, Bessie Smith.

The band released an album ('Earth And Ether') last year; when can fans expect more new tunes from Kitchen Witch?

Kitchen Witch are conjuring tunes from the ether as we speak. Keep your hats on; hopefully we get into the studio in a few months time.

What sort of skills does each band member have in the kitchen? And who takes responsibility for the BBQ tongs when you're all together for a backyard party?

You know what? We mostly just jam together and stay in shitty hotels eating baked goods. I do love to make festival-related treats on the sabbaths for the group. If you call a band a 'group' it makes it sound like you are in the '70s.

What else is on the cards for the band in 2021 (interstate tours)?

Yep, Kitchen Witch a taking this show on the road at the end of the year. Stay tuned to the socials and stuff for more info.

Best local takeaway joint for a 2am feed that will leave you with a food coma?

My house.

Which fictional character best describes your personality?

Tiabeanie from 'Disenchantment'. A princess who likes beer.

Last show you binge-watched?

I watch too much TV. Okay, 'Letter Kenny'.

Crows or Power (and no sitting on the fence!)?

What?

From: https://scenestr.com.au/music/kitchen-witch-purveyors-of-bubbling-grooves-banshee-wails-20210604