Belly - Slow Dog

 

 

It was hard to resist keeping Tanya Donelly on the phone for 12 hours straight. A founding member of Throwing Muses and the Breeders, as well as frontwoman for her own band, Belly, and a subsequent catalog of solo work, hers is a storied biography, full of flowers and not a few thorns. Now practicing as a post-partum doula, Donelly is still writing songs, in the past months releasing a series of collaborative EPs called Swan Song Series, marking an unofficially-official retirement from the industry. The last volume will be issued in December, though Donelly qualifies, “There will be songs trickling out after that.” Before the end comes, we look back to the beginning as part of our “Holy Hell!” series. It’s been 20 years since “this little squirrel I used to be slammed her bike down the stairs.” Join us as we contemplate the life cycle of Star.

Thinking back to 1993, what are some of the first flashes that come to your mind about that year?

Oh my goodness, I don’t know! It was such a crazy year. I mean, it just really felt surreal to me. Because there really weren’t – from either label and from myself and the band – any expectations of [Star] doing that well. We wanted it to do as well as I had previously done in my other bands, but we had no idea that not just that record, but alternative music in general would explode that year. A lot of the success of that album had to do with a lot of other things that were going on, just timing in general. For some reason that was a gate-opening year.

When we’re looking at what led up to the formation of Belly, obviously your work with Throwing Muses and the Breeders – two huge, revolutionary alt-rock bands – comes up. The narrative often is that you were in a deferring role to Kristin Hersh in the Muses and Kim Deal with the Breeders. Kind of like a John Oates phenomenon. And Belly was your liberation from that. How accurate is that? Or is that a misconception altogether?

It is a misconception because it had more to do with the logistics of everyone releasing their songs. We had our outlets for that. There was never a point where I ever expected to start releasing those kinds of songs with Throwing Muses specifically. The Breeders was a different story. The genesis of that band was going to be that Kim would have an album and then the next one would be my songs. And in fact all of the demos for Star say “The Breeders” on them. Like, on the reels and on the boxes. Because that was supposed to be the second Breeders album originally.

So Star was going to be the follow-up to Pod?

Yeah, it was unnamed at that point, it wasn’t called “Star,” but those songs were all demoed under the Breeders name and Kim actually played on a few of the songs.

How did that not come together then? Was there a crystallizing moment where you were like, “You know, I’m just doing this”

Yeah, it was in Dayton, Ohio with Kim, and we were trying to figure out how we were going to make it work, timing-wise. I had left the Muses and she was not at that point going to play with the Pixies, and they had a ginormous tour coming up [supporting U2’s Zoo TV Tour, in 1992]. At that point I said, I think it probably makes more sense if I just do this solo. And originally I was just going to start off on a solo gig but then I just really wanted another band. So I went home to Rhode Island and started Belly.

Getting back to the “secondary songwriter” idea, I had read that some of that had to do with your introversion?

Definitely. I think Belly somewhat cured me of a lot of shyness. But I was still terrified, too. There was something about having it be my name that felt wrong. And being very shy was part of that. And also just being very afraid of how things were gonna go, and what was gonna happen, and if I was making the right choice, and I wasn’t quite ready to take ownership of that by putting my name on it. And I really wanted to start that band with those people.

How did you manage your shyness? What were some of the coping strategies you used?

A lot of vomiting (laughs). And unfortunately, probably some drinking. There was definitely too much of that going on. Although I have to say, when [bassist] Gail [Greenwood] joined, she’s straight-edge and has been her whole life, and I didn’t stop completely but I was inspired by her honesty and bravery. She was a huge part of reeling me back from that.

At some point do you just become brave, or is it something – then and throughout your career – you continue to struggle with?

It was not so much gaining confidence as immunity.

In terms of publicity, in going back and reading reviews and interviews from that time, how in control of your image were you? With the ethereal quality of your voice, there was this sort of elfin, wood nymph thing you were getting. In the interviews it always seemed like you were having to push back against that, especially too because the riot grrrl scene was in full force. How did you deal with that?

That was very upsetting for me. I felt like no matter what I did, I couldn’t break that image. It’s certainly not the image I have of myself, I’m about as far from elfin as you can possibly be. I tried really hard not to engage in the attack posture [the riot grrrl scene] was taking against me, against Kristin, against at one point PJ Harvey. I mean, why???

Those “gender traitor” accusations were getting leveled at us. I really tried hard not to engage in that but it was difficult. And Melody Maker was constantly quoting these women who were SO angry at other women. It bummed me out. Because I came from a community and a mindset that everyone makes their own art and that that’s a journey everyone was doing individually and you held that as sacred. It was a sad time, it just really made me… bummed out.

It’s funny, because I’ve always thought Star had a lot in common with [Hole’s] Live Through This, at least in respect to its totems: dresses, dolls, witches, stolen children, mother/sister/daughter themes. Did you ever feel a sense of sisterhood with that album?

I do, and I did, and I doubt that she feels the same way. I think she’s a wonderful songwriter and singer and performer. I think that album is amazing. I love it. I don’t really come up on her radar much I’m sure these days, but there were a couple of times where she stuck up for me. She said, “Well, whatever you think of her, at least she’s writing her own songs and playing her own instrument.” That could be seen as damning by faint praise! (laughs) We actually had a funny moment the first time we met. She said, “You’re not so little and cute…” And I said, “Well… you’re not so big and scary!”

“Witch” is emblematic of these themes, the first line of what sounds like a lullaby is this cooing whisper of “You’re not safe/ In this house.” It’s like this angelic warning of dark, dark possibilities. Star almost feels like a concept record in this regard, with this nightmare secret fairy tale mythology and magic at the core of it. What inspired you to tap into the occult aspects of childhood?

That comes from my childhood, I felt all of those dark undercurrents very acutely. I think children can go there very quickly. Halloween has become really child-owned because of that. They’re so right there. It’s frightening, but I think as a child people see the beauty in it too, and the power and the mystery. Sometimes we’re afraid of things that are actually quite necessary to pull into your personal ecosystem.

You can hear that in the music of Star, the coexistence of opposites. The balance between safety and danger is always very emotionally close on that record. Is this something that you were intentionally going for?

Not intentionally. But that album was really me killing my childhood. I think that’s where I was able to process a lot that I hadn’t really up to that point – a little late at [age] 24 when I wrote those songs! But it was still an important thing for me to do. I don’t want to sound all Psych 101, but it was very much me as an adult taking care of that person.

Can we talk about “Slow Dog”? For years I was dying to find out the meaning behind that song – until I did.

That one’s almost an embarrassing story because it was one of my most manipulated lyrics ever. Usually they just come and I work with it a little bit to make it more listenable, but that one was a story I read about ancient Chinese culture. It was a piece of fiction about a woman who was an adulteress, and as punishment had a dead dog stuck to her back until it decomposed. That image – I couldn’t shake it. So I started to write it as a poem, and it took on this Southern Gothic character to it, so I framed it there, in the American South.

But it’s a jubilant song! How…?

Oddly, it ends up being about her liberation. Once the dog is gone – and I put it so that the dog was some sort of metaphor – she’s free.

“Maria, carry a rifle/ Maria, carry a dog on her back” – certainly “Maria” is not a name from a Chinese folktale…

I used to actually say “Mariah.” And it was the Pavement guy who pointed it out to me: “Did you write a song about Mariah Carey?!?!”

Stephen Malkmus?

No, it was Bob [Nastanovich]. It was when I had just done the demos and I gave him a copy. And I said, “Who’s Mariah Carey?” (laughs)

In the past week, I came across a few Belly references coincidentally – both from the AV Club. One was in a “Hatesong” interview in which Dean Ween rails against 4 Non Blondes, but agrees with the interviewer that “Feed the Tree” was an alt-rock single that worked. Another was a bit they did about songs about ghosts where they revisited Kristin Hersh’s duet with Michael Stipe, “Your Ghost.” Tangentially, Belly gets a lot of love in the comments, and those folks are tough customers. It seems to me that Belly has done well against the test of time, especially a band with a two LP discography, which is more than you can say for a lot of ‘90s alt bands. How do you view Star after everything else you’ve done in your career, these 20 years on?

I love that record and I loved making it and I loved touring it. The whole year was a halcyon year for us. We loved each other so much at that point! It was so fun and exciting and scary and nerve-wracking. But I am proud of that one. There was a chunk of time there when, if I was making a guest appearance somewhere or doing an interview, they would say “formerly of Throwing Muses” or “the Breeders” and stopped having Belly in there. There was some erasure that was happening. But recently I noticed it’s back in there! Apparently, we’re okay again. It’s okay to like us now! (laughs)

From: https://spectrumculture.com/2013/11/13/holy-hell-tanya-donelly-talks-about-belly-20-years-later/

 

Blvck Ceiling - Young

 

 

Music video for Blvck Ceiling created by Redrum Image: facebook.com/redrumimage. Written, directed, cinematography, edit, postproduction, vfx, graphic, set design, styling: Katarzyna Widmanska & Amadeusz Wróbel

 

 

Scarling - Band Aid Covers The Bullet Hole

Once upon a time, in a dirty, dingy, nefariously owned Los Angeles club that no one hardly ever goes to anymore, singer Jessicka (ex-Jack Off Jill) met guitar player and future writing partner Christian Hejnal. Their relationship was combustible from the beginning, and although they had no interest in playing music together, they exchanged numbers anyway on the off chance that one day they might see eye-to-eye. That day finally came to pass during an impulsive get together at a rehearsal space in the dismal San Fernando Valley during one of the hottest summers L.A. can remember. Says Jessicka, "It was amazing - so amazing that we almost forgot how disgustingly hot it was in the valley that day - almost. I think that's where the seed was planted to start a band together, though neither of us let the other one know."
Two months later, after Jessicka sang on a track Christian had written, they were ready to acknowledge the musical chemistry that had blossomed between them and began writing. After collecting enough songs, the time was ripe to recruit a band. But like a caterpillar in its chrysalis, Scarling still needed time to evolve. After several line-up changes, the band's current - and best and most beautiful - incarnation was solidified. The boys, Garey Snider (drums) and Kyle Lime (bass), are pretty enough to pass for girls; and guitar player Rickey Lime (formerly of all-girl Olympia-based Shotgun Won) brings a tougher meaning to the term "'40s pin-up queen".
But lest you think this is the story of a band that is all about style over substance, beauty over musical brawn - think again. Influenced by everyone from My Bloody Valentine, Loop, Lush, Daisy Chainsaw,The Pixies and Sonic Youth to the Cure, The Velvet Underground, to The Melvins, Scarling is an amalgam of sound and texture, perversely experimental and sonically assuming. But unlike a few of those aforementioned bands, Scarling's talent lies in their ability to create actual song structures from noise and chaos. Try to listen to Scarling's first single "Band Aid Covers The Bullet Hole" (produced by Chris Vrenna and released on Sympathy For the Record Industry on March 19th, coincidentally the same day as cover artist Mark Ryden's "Blood" show and Bush's declaration of war - how's that for combustible?) without the inability to eradicate the chorus from your head.
The Scarling story is nowhere near close to being completed. This is only the first chapter, so put on your reading glasses, pour yourself a glass of something strong , and settle in for a long, hard ride. And don't get too comfortable - dark and menacing, Scarling will always be ready to creep up on you from behind and invite you to a one-on-one game of spin the bottle so they can French-kiss you with a mouth full of razorblades. Days later you'll wake up to find that you've been infected with something that, while it makes you anxious and uncomfortable, is also warm and seductive.  From: https://morbidangle.tripod.com/id51.html

 

Mandrill - Fat City Strut

 

 

Mandrill was formed in Brooklyn in 1968 by three multi-instrumentalist brothers, Louis, Richard and Carlos Wilson, all of whom originally hailed from Panama. After running an ad in the Village Voice they were soon joined by Omar Mesa, Claude Cave, Charlie Padro and Bundie Cenac. Between them this seven man group could play over 20 instruments. Although often labeled a funk or R&B band, Mandrill is much more than just that. Their music combines those two genres with jazz, rock, classic Latin music, and styles of their own creation, often mixing all this together in the same song. Their albums are often composed of multi-movement songs that blend together to make a long running urban tone poem. In concert, their songs are often taken to great lengths with creative improvisations. Although different band members have come and gone over the years, the three original brothers still remain, and they are often joined onstage by their musically talented children. Mandrill continues to tour and record to this day, inspiring many with their complex rhythms, arrangements and lyrics about spirituality, peace, love and brotherhood.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=4142

According to the liner notes of this CD, Mandrill were considered far too complex for the standard funk listening audience. And their compositional style was not at all conducive to trimming for radio airplay. While I doubt anyone will confuse the band with Semiramis or Museo Rosenbach, there are plenty of tricky grooves here to engage even the most finicky progressive rock head. Especially when one considers that Mandrill were a seven-piece unit that played close to 20 different instruments!
The album itself, Mandrill's fourth, is a mixture of hard funk, soul, hard rock, jazz, and (gasp) progressive rock. Mango Meat and Fat City Strut are classic funk tunes with great horn charts, complex groovy meters and, on the latter, some good time Caribbean party music. Never Die is a cross between The Temptations catchy chorus lines and soft psychedelia meets soul music. Love Song would fit comfortably on classic soul romancer albums such as those by Isaac Hayes or Barry White. But the best is saved for Side 2. Two Sisters of Mystery features a monster fuzz bass riff that would make Hugh Hopper blush. This is one hard rocking track with a gritty horn section and rollicking guitar licks. Best of all is Afrikus Retrospectus, an eight minute instrumental beauty carried by a gorgeous running organ melody and some nice Burt Bacharachian sax (i.e. The Look of Love). The mid section has some fantastic piano, flute and trumpet jams. The closing track Aspiration Flame is another slow instrumental track with some great flute and an inspiring, energetic ending. Overall, Mandrill are just the sort of band to introduce funk to those who enjoy listening to music rather than dancing to it.  From: https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/mandrill/just-outside-of-town/

 

Rickie Lee Jones - We Belong Together

 

 

In late 1979, Rickie Lee Jones’ life was going in all sorts of directions. After her European tour and a triumphant homecoming show at Los Angeles’ Perkins Palace, Jones and boyfriend Tom Waits settled into a bungalow in Echo Park. Over the previous year, Jones had also settled into a heroin habit. After an argument with Waits one night, which involved a plate of spaghetti becoming acquainted with their kitchen wall, Jones confessed her addiction. She had resolved to get clean a few days prior, but that night, as Jones was withdrawing from heroin, Waits withdrew from her. On hearing the news, he became distant and inconsolable; the next morning, he drove away.
After trying to reconcile with Waits later that afternoon, Jones returned home and wrote “Skeletons”, which became the third track on the album Pirates. The song is based on a real-life incident where a Black man was pulled over while driving his pregnant wife to the hospital. As he reached for his driver’s license, the cops, believing he was going for a gun, shot him dead. Though the song was not borne from Jones’ and Waits’ breakup, the tragic incident resonated with her in its wake. As she writes in her 2021 memoir, Last Chance Texaco, “The desolate afterlife of tragedy is what I grew up with.” The song, which recounts real-life events, also imagines the future that never was for the new father and his family. In six simple verses, Jones renders the senseless tragedy with a sensitivity that is as devastating as it’s beautiful.
After her split from Waits, Jones retreated to her mother’s house in Olympia, Washington. An old high school friend procured the keys to the music room at a nearby college for her to use after hours. There, in nights alone with a piano and a healing heart, she composed “We Belong Together”, “Pirates”, and “Living It Up”.  Given the circumstances of its creation, it’s safe to assume “We Belong Together” is about the breakup. Jones name-checks Natalie Wood in a nod to Waits, who recorded “Somewhere” (from West Side Story) for his 1978 album Blue Valentine. (Jones was photographed with Waits on the back cover of his LP, completing the circle.) The song transcends the usual breakup lament by referring to the protagonist (Jones herself) in the third person. With references to Marlon Brando and James Dean, Jones inserts her story into a universal narrative written on the big screen. After two minutes of hypnotic piano, Steve Gadd’s drums kick in and take the song from a maudlin plea to a jubilant assertion. It’s as if Jones has found strength by embracing her feelings and making them known: “Are the signs you hid deep in your heart /All left on neon for them?”
As Pirates is a product of the album era, it gives careful consideration to track listing and pacing. The result is a self-contained record whose eight songs fit together like the numbers in a Broadway musical. Indeed each track, through mercurial changes in tempo and mood, feels like a complete story unto itself. “Living It Up” starts straightforwardly enough but its carefree shuffle conceals darker themes of domestic violence. The lyrics are populated by Jones’ usual cast of colorful characters, sung with her trademark elision. Midway through, however, the title refrain appears as a desperate interlude, suggesting “living it up” isn’t always a good time.
Hardly anyone on the pop charts at the time was recording such complex, multi-dimensional songs. Joni Mitchell’s mid-1970s albums favored sleek SoCal jazz fusion, with lyrics that retained the confessional tone of her earlier work. By 1981, however, Mitchell had veered away from jazz (after the Mingus album) toward a more 1980s pop sensibility. Steely Dan shared an affinity for studio mastery, but their technical proficiency could sound cold. Moreover, Donald Fagen’s voice had a narrow range compared to Jones’ idiosyncratic dynamics. Jones fused jazz, soul, and be-bop overlaid with impressionistic imagery, creating a sound that was impossible to pigeonhole.
Fagen plays on the album, as do a roster of studio all-stars such as Steve Gadd, trumpeter Randy Brecker, and percussionist Victor Feldman. Legendary Broadway and film arranger Ralph Burns rounds out the ensemble. Lenny Waronker & Russ Titelman’s sterling production is lauded by audiophiles for its three-dimensional quality. The listening experience is that of being on the soundstage, surrounded by all of the instruments distinct in their timbre and weight.
To think of Pirates as a breakup album does it a great disservice. While several songs were written in the relationship’s immediate aftermath, many predate it. Another was written with Jones’ new lover Sal Bernardi in their apartment in Manhattan (the haunting “Traces of the Western Slopes”). Bernardi, by the way, is the “Sal” referred to in “Weasel and the White Boys Cool” on Jones’ first LP. As she writes about her time with him, “We stayed up all night and slept until 4:00 pm and rose half-dead to get high and feel half-alive again. We lived in the strange twilight, the slow motion of fluid that fed our memories. We were junkies.”
Looking back, Jones refuses hackneyed assessments of her addiction. As she tells the Guardian, “… with heroin, people just want you to say, ‘Oh, it’s so terrible’ and condemn it outright, but I think it’s wrong somehow to do that. There’s a reason why people get addicted to heroin. There is something there that they like, some kind of solace, some kind of numbing.” In her book, Jones speaks to the double standard afforded to men in rock, particularly when it comes to drug use. She cites Keith Richards and Ginger Baker, whose self-destruction was a “badge of manliness”.
Similarly, Jones’ reputation for being difficult in the studio is patently sexist. Any man with the same dedication Jones had to her vision would be called “exacting” and demanding of excellence. That Jones was referred to as “the female Tom Waits” is also laughable, considering the opposite was true. The two will always be entwined in musical history, but in reality, Waits’ persona was a character named Tom Waits. Jones lived the lives he only wrote about.
Pirates’ creation was fueled by drug use as much as by heartbreak. Both Waits and heroin are spectral presences on the album. Even without the twin love affairs—with a man and a drug—Jones would have crafted a masterpiece. Reducing the album to a narrative shorthand misses its richness. The songs on Pirates are worlds unto themselves, drawing upon myriad experiences and impulses, all resisting a single, simple interpretation.
Jones could have cut two minutes from “We Belong Together”, kept the tempo steady, and thrown in a few lines of “baby please come back”. It would have been a mainstream radio smash. She could have just as easily filled her second album with ten more variations on “Chuck E.’s in Love”. Instead, she went one better and made “Woody and Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking”, expanding on the sound and the characters from her first hit. “Woody and Dutch” was so widely copied that, as Jones writes, “when people heard it, they thought I was imitating the imitators”.
Like its forebear, Pirates stands out among its contemporaries for being a formidable creation of a singular talent. Without an obvious single, the album takes longer to walk into than her first release, but the more you wander, the greater the reward. Jones resisted the easy musical path in favor of one as meandering and complicated as her own life. The only direction she followed was her own while making it look effortlessly cool.  From: https://www.popmatters.com/rickie-lee-jones-pirates-atr

 

Dirty Honey - When I'm Gone

 

 

Dirty Honey is an American rock band from Los Angeles, formed in 2017. It consists of singer Marc Labelle, guitarist John Notto, bassist Justin Smolian, and drummer Corey Coverstone. Their self-titled extended play was self-released in March 2019.
History: When vocalist Marc Labelle moved to Los Angeles he met guitarist John Notto. After performing a gig of cover songs together at a bar, they then played on the sidewalk of Sunset Boulevard in front of about 100 people. It was after this second performance that they decided to officially form a band in 2017. Notto recruited bassist Justin Smolian, and the trio had trouble finding a drummer until Smolian brought in Corey Coverstone, who enthusiastically asked to join. Labelle came up with the name Dirty Honey after hearing Robert Plant mention his band The Honeydrippers in a Howard Stern interview and thought it sounded like such a "dirty" rock and roll name.
After hearing their song "When I'm Gone", the band's longtime friend Mark DiDia, a music industry veteran from Columbia Records, became their manager and quickly got them gigs opening for Slash in fall 2018. The band traveled to Australia to record their self-titled extended play with producer Nick DiDia. It was self-released on March 22, 2019. Eight hours later, friends contacted the members and family telling them their music was being played on the radio.
Dirty Honey toured in 2019 as the opening act for Red Sun Rising on their Peel Tour. On May 7, the band opened for The Who at the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan as part of The Who's Moving On! Tour. Dirty Honey opened for Skillet and Alter Bridge on their Victorious Sky Tour from September 22 to October 25. They also supported Guns N' Roses on their Not in This Lifetime Tour on November 1 and 2 in Las Vegas.
Dirty Honey, now consisting of frontman Marc LaBelle, guitarist John Notto and bassist Justin Smolian and new drummer Jaydon Bean have unveiled the title track from their upcoming studio album Can’t Find The Brakes, which will be released via Dirt Records on November 3, 2023.  From: https://www.last.fm/music/Dirty+Honey/+wiki

 

Jill Sobule - When My Ship Comes In

 

 

Jill Sobule doesn’t plan, onstage or off. As a musician on the road, she loves to riff between songs, most of which she calls “story songs.” “They’re narrative. I talk about people. I was influenced by storyteller-songwriters… Dylan. John Prine. Leonard Cohen.” So, it wasn’t that difficult for the singer to turn her catalog into a theatrical piece that rocked New York City in October and November of 2022. Sobule’s F*ck7thGrade at Manhattan performance space the wild project was extended, and beloved by critics for its warmth and honesty. I sat down with her recently to ask about her process, her influences, and her background.
Sobule might be best known for the song “I Kissed A Girl.” No, not the 2008 Katy Perry song. Sobule created her version in the nineties: “I was about to record for Atlantic, and I was goofing around… there were no queer songs in 1995 on the charts. It was kinda based on queer pulp fiction from the 1950s.” Unlike the straightforward flirting of Perry’s record, Sobule’s is wry. She describes it as “two unhappy housewives who get it on after their Tupperware party.” And the irony was intentional and double-edged. “We knew that the only way to get that song on the radio was to make it light and funny, so we could get away with the ‘insidious gay agenda’,” Sobule jokes.
By the time Sobule was recording in the early ’90s, she’d learned to forge her own path. She didn’t want to just be the singer in the band: “I wanted to be a little rocker, but there were no female role models for me…” When she was coming of age in the ‘80s, female musicians in a Guitar Center were “asked if that’s their boyfriend’s guitar,” and one label even felt comfortable explaining to Sobule that they’d love to sign her, but “we already have a female artist.” 
Sobule managed to acquire not only a guitar but also a strong identity and sense of self growing up as a “Denver Jew, third generation from the Old Country.” She describes her family’s secular Judaism with humor and self-awareness: “We were to Judaism what Olive Garden was to Italian restaurants.” In fact, as the sole and self-described “token Jew” at St. Mary’s Academy, an all-girls Catholic high school, she was excused from theology class but elected to attend, and even played guitar at mass. “I’ve always been, and still am, interested in everything from world religions to weirdo cults.”
Growing up, she mined music, religion, and words wherever she could find them. She recalls asking her mother for Ms. Magazine, devouring her mother’s copy of The Women’s Room, and frequenting a bookstore in Denver called Women To Women. “I remember going in there like going into a speakeasy for books. I remember having this huge crush on Gloria Steinem,” she laughs. “I was a little political girl, a little radical left-winger. I don’t know where I got that. Maybe knowing that inside there was a little queer identity waiting to burst out.” In Denver, she had no one to share that with. “It was my own thing.” So when Sobule decided to put together F*ck7thGrade, she knew the story had to take place in that particular moment. “I realized I had a lot of songs about that period in my life. Freud said, the first week or month or year in your development is the most important. He was full of shit. It was seventh grade that made you who you are today.”
This isn’t her first theatrical piece—this summer she played “a rabbi’s wife who gets murdered” in A Wicked Soul In Cherry Hill at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. That role marked her first time back on stage in a scripted piece since playing “Miss Hanukkah and Queen Esther” in first grade. “It’s a whole different world than what I do in concerts—having to memorize! I have a whole new respect for actors.” Now that the run is over, Sobule is in familiar territory, the unscripted. “I’m a rolling stone. My stuff is still in a storage locker. I have to figure out where I want to be.” And whatever the next story song brings.  From: https://lilith.org/2023/02/jill-sobule-is-still-laughing-at-the-world/

 

Blood, Sweat & Tears - I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know

 

This song was written by Blood, Sweat & Tears founder Al Kooper and is the second track from the group's debut - and only album recorded with that lineup - Child Is Father to the Man. While the song itself didn't see single release, it did see some substantial play on progressive rock stations.
From Al Kooper's biography Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards: "'I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know' was a split tribute to Otis Redding and James Brown. (The lyrics were a nod to Otis' song 'I Love You More Than Words Can Say,' and the melody was 'reminiscent' of James Brown's 'It's a Man's World.') On December 6 1967, Otis died in a plane crash and it really fucked me up. The next night we began recording the album. I insisted we record 'I Love You' first. Nobody objected. We put down a blistering track, and it looked like this was gonna be an easy album to make. We overdubbed Freddie [Lipsius]'s solo and Steve [Katz]'s fills, and then it was time to put a vocal on it." Kooper goes on to say that the band was so nervous about his vocal skills, that he prepared a practical joke to ease the tension. On the first recording take, he started singing the lyrics in French, having memorized them that way beforehand. Everybody stopped in shock and he innocently smirked "Oh, you wanted me to sing it in English?" Then there was take two... Going on from BB&BB: "Now my eyes were screwed shut, and I was thinkin' about Otis and this sounds clichéd as hell, but it's true. I was saying to myself, "This is for you." And I was singing. One take. They called me into the booth for playback, and everyone was smiling."
In spite of this song's success, the band eventually did kick Al Kooper out. It was a cross between wanting a different lead vocalist, and creative differences with the rest of the band objecting to Kooper's tight control. For one thing, Kooper insisted on including one song, "The Modern Adventures of Plato, Diogenes, and Freud," which he wrote, and the rest of the band hated. He got his way by the grace of producer John Simon's mediation, and Kooper points to that moment as the beginning of the breakup of the band. The chief rivals here are Kooper and Colomby; these two continue bitter feuds to this very day over whose idea was what and who gets the money from Child Is Father to the Man.
The album cover art is famous for being a funny/creepy photo trick, showing each of the band members sitting and standing with child-sized versions of themselves. We all know that. But did you know about the popular blog meme using Photoshop (although Gimp can do it, too) to swap heads between a baby and an adult? It's called a "manbaby" and there's a page about it at Know Your Meme which seems at a loss to explain exactly whence this meme originated... but we know, don't we?  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/blood-sweat-tears/i-love-you-more-than-youll-ever-know

Nina Simone - Live Holland 1965

 Part 1

 

Part 2

#Nina Simone #folk #gospel #blues #jazz #R&B #soul #1950s #1960s #live music video

“My skin is black,” the first woman’s story begins, “my arms are long.” And, to a slow and steady beat, “my hair is woolly, my back is strong.” Singing in a club in Holland, in 1965, Nina Simone introduced a song she had written about what she called “four Negro women” to a young, homogeneously white, and transfixed crowd. “And one of the women’s hair,” she instructed, brushing her hand lightly across her own woolly Afro, “is like mine.” Every performance of “Four Women” caught on film (as here) or disk is different. Sometimes Simone coolly chants the first three women’s parts—the effect is of resigned weariness—and at other times, as on this particular night, she gives each woman an individual, sharply dramatized voice. All four have names. Aunt Sarah is old, and her strong back has allowed her only “to take the pain inflicted again and again.” Sephronia’s yellow skin and long hair are the result of her rich white father having raped her mother—“Between two worlds I do belong”—and Sweet Thing, a prostitute, has tan skin and a smiling bravado that seduced at least some of the eager Dutch listeners into the mistake of smiling, too. And then Simone hit them with the last and most resolutely up to date of the women, improbably named Peaches. “My skin is brown,” she growled ferociously, “my manner is tough. I’ll kill the first mother I see. ’Cause my life has been rough.” (One has to wonder what the Dutch made of killing that “mother.”) If Simone’s song suggests a history of black women in America, it is also a history of long-suppressed and finally uncontainable anger.
A lot of black women have been openly angry these days over a new movie about Simone’s life, and it hasn’t even been released. The issue is color, and what it meant to Simone to be not only categorically African-American but specifically African in her features and her very dark skin. Is it possible to separate Simone’s physical characteristics, and what they cost her in this country, from the woman she became? Can she be played by an actress with less distinctively African features, or a lighter skin tone? Should she be played by such an actress? The casting of Zoe Saldana, a movie star of Dominican descent and a light-skinned beauty along European lines, has caused these questions—rarely phrased as questions—to dog the production of “Nina,” from the moment Saldana’s casting was announced to the completed film’s début, at Cannes, in May, at a screening confined to possible distributors. No reviewers have seen it. The film’s director, Cynthia Mort, has been stalwart in her defense of Saldana’s rightness for the role, citing not only the obvious relevance of acting skills but Simone’s inclusion of a range of colors among her own “Four Women”—which is a fair point. None of the women in Simone’s most personal and searing song escape the damage and degradation accorded to their race.
Ironically, “Four Women” was charged with being insulting to black women and was banned on a couple of radio stations in New York and Philadelphia soon after the recording was released, in 1966. The ban was lifted, however, when it produced more outrage than the song. Simone’s husband, Andrew Stroud, who was also her manager, worried about the dangers that the controversy might have for her career, although this was hardly a new problem. Simone had been singing out loud and clear about civil rights since 1963—well after the heroic stand of figures like Harry Belafonte and Sammy Davis, Jr., but still at a time when many black performers felt trapped between the rules of commercial success and the increasing pressure for racial confrontation. At Motown, in the early sixties, the wildly popular performers of a stream of crossover hits became models of black achievement but had virtually no contact with the movement at all.
Simone herself had been hesitant at first. Known for her sophisticated pianism, her imperious attitude, and her velvety rendition of “I Loves You, Porgy” (which, like Billie Holiday before her, she sang without the demeaningly ungrammatical “s” on “loves”), she had arrived in New York in late 1958, establishing her reputation not in Harlem but in the clubs of hip and relatively interracial Greenwich Village. Her repertoire of jazz and folk and show tunes, often played with a classical touch, made her impossible to classify. In these early years, she performed African songs but also Hebrew songs, and wove a Bach fugue through a rapid-fire version of “Love Me or Leave Me.” She tossed off the thirties bauble “My Baby Just Cares for Me” with airy insouciance, and wrung the heart out of the lullaby “Brown Baby”—newly written by Oscar Brown, Jr., about a family’s hopes for a child born into a better racial order—erupting in a hair-raising wail on the word “freedom,” as though registering all the pain over all the years during which it was denied. For a while, “Brown Baby” was as close to a protest song as Simone got. She believed it was enough.
And then her friend Lorraine Hansberry set her straight. It speaks to Simone’s intelligence and restless force that, in her twenties, she attracted some of African-American culture’s finest minds. Both Langston Hughes and James Baldwin elected themselves mentors: Simone, appearing on the scene just as Holiday died, seemed to evoke their most exuberant hopes and most protective instincts. But Hansberry offered her a special bond. A young woman also dealing with a startling early success—Hansberry was twenty-eight when “A Raisin in the Sun” won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, in 1959—she had a strongly cultivated black pride and a pedagogical bent. “We never talked about men or clothes,” Simone wrote in her memoir, decades later. “It was always Marx, Lenin and revolution—real girls’ talk.” A milestone in Simone’s career was a solo concert at Carnegie Hall—a happy chance to show off her pianism—on April 12, 1963, which happened also to be the day that Martin Luther King, Jr., was arrested with other protesters in Birmingham, Alabama, and locked up in the local jail. The discrepancy between the events was pointed out by Hansberry, who telephoned Simone after the concert, although not to offer praise.
Two months later, Simone played a benefit for the N.A.A.C.P. In early August, she sang “Brown Baby” before a crowd gathered in the football stadium of a black college outside Birmingham—the first integrated concert ever given in the area—while guards with guns and dogs prowled the field. But Hansberry only started a process that events in America quickly accelerated. Simone watched the March on Washington, later that August, on television, while she was preparing for a club date. She was still rehearsing when, on September 15th, news came of the bombing of Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, killing four young African-American girls who had just got out of Bible class. Simone’s first impulsive act, she recalled, was to try to make a zip gun with tools from her garage. “I had it in my mind to go out and kill someone,” she wrote. “I didn’t yet know who, but someone I could identify as being in the way of my people.”
This urge to violence was not a wholly aberrant impulse but something that had been brewing on a national scale, however tamped down by cooler heads and political pragmatists. At the Washington march, John Lewis, then a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was forced to cut the word “revolution” from his speech and to omit the threat that, absent immediate progress, the marchers would go through the South “the way Sherman did” and “burn Jim Crow to the ground.” James Baldwin, in a televised discussion after the bombing, noted that, throughout American history, “the only time that nonviolence has been admired is when the Negroes practice it.” But the center held. Simone’s husband, a smart businessman, told her to forget the gun and put her rage into her music.
It took her an hour to write “Mississippi Goddam.” A freewheeling cri de coeur based on the place names of oppression, the song has a jaunty tune that makes an ironic contrast with words—“Alabama’s got me so upset, Tennessee made me lose my rest”—that arose from injustices so familiar they hardly needed to be stated: “And everybody knows about Mississippi, goddam!” Still, Simone spelled them out. She mocked stereotypical insults (“Too damn lazy!”), government promises (“Desegregation / Mass participation”), and, above all, the continuing admonition of public leaders to “Go slow,” a line that prompted her backup musicians to call out repeatedly, as punctuation, “Too slow!” It wasn’t “We Shall Overcome” or “Blowin’ in the Wind”: Simone had little feeling for the Biblically inflected uplift that defined the anthems of the era. It’s a song about a movement nearly out of patience by a woman who never had very much to begin with, and who had little hope for the American future: “Oh but this whole country is full of lies,” she sang. “You’re all gonna die and die like flies.”
She introduced the song in a set at the Village Gate a few days later. And she sang it at a very different concert at Carnegie Hall, in March, 1964—brazenly flinging “You’re all gonna die” at a mostly white audience—along with other protest songs she had taken a hand in writing, including the defiantly jazzy ditty “Old Jim Crow.” She also performed a quietly haunting song titled “Images,” about a black woman’s inability to see her own beauty (“She thinks her brown body has no glory”)—a wistful predecessor to “Four Women” that she had composed to words by the Harlem Renaissance poet Waring Cuney. At the time, Simone herself was still wearing her hair in a harshly straightened fifties-style bob—sometimes the small personal freedoms are harder to speak up for than the larger political ones—and, clearly, it wasn’t time yet for such specifically female injuries to take their place in the racial picture. “Mississippi Goddam” was the song of the moment: bold and urgent and easy to sing, it was adopted by embattled protesters in the cursed state itself just months after Simone’s concert, during what they called the Mississippi Summer Project, or Freedom Summer, and what President Johnson called “the summer of our discontent.”
There was no looking back by the time she performed the song outside Montgomery, Alabama, in March, 1965, when some three thousand marchers were making their way along the fifty-four-mile route from Selma; two weeks earlier, protesters making the same attempt had been driven back by state troopers with clubs, whips, and tear gas. The triumphant concert, on the fourth night of the march, was organized by the indefatigable Belafonte, at the request of King, and took place on a makeshift stage built atop stacks of empty coffins lent by local funeral homes, and in front of an audience that had swelled with twenty-five thousand additional people, drawn either by the cause or by a lineup of stars that ranged from Tony Bennett and Johnny Mathis to Joan Baez. Simone, accompanied only by her longtime guitarist, Al Schackman, drew cheers on the interpolated line “Selma made me lose my rest.” In the course of events that night, she was introduced to King, and Schackman remembered that she stuck her hand out and warned him, “I’m not nonviolent!” It was only when King replied, gently, “Not to worry, sister,” that she calmed down.
Simone’s explosiveness was well known. In concert, she was quick to call out anyone she noticed talking, to stop and glare or hurl a few insults or even leave the stage. Yet her performances, richly improvised, were also confidingly intimate—she needed the connection with her audience—and often riveting. Even in her best years, Simone never put many records on the charts, but people flocked to her shows. In 1966, the critic for the Philadelphia Tribune, an African-American newspaper, explained that to hear Simone sing “is to be brought into abrasive contact with the black heart and to feel the power and beauty which for centuries have beat there.” She was proclaimed the voice of the movement not by Martin Luther King but by Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown, whose Black Power philosophy answered to her own experience and inclinations. As the sixties progressed, the feelings she displayed—pain, lacerating anger, the desire to burn down whole cities in revenge—made her seem at times emotionally disturbed and at other times simply the most honest black woman in America.  From: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/11/raised-voice

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/