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Women Be Shopping

In honor of the fact that im going to a benefit event thing at a comedy club (first time - omg).

this one's for the docta.









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The great Koonaklaster

The YSI group initiated a project where we're all supposed to make mixes, or greatest hits of different artists. I'm choosing Fahey. He was a gateway for me into a lot of great new discoveries, so I figured I'd give him his due. This isn't a greatest hits as much as it is a rough sketch of his career. I don't have everything he released, but I do have a fair amount, and I tried to find something to add from each of them. This mix is not in chronological order, instead I used the schedule of the tides. The Mix was too big to upload as one file with Mediafire, so its split into two zip files. Enjoy.

John Fahey Mix First Half (Mix split into 2 DL's)
John Fahey Mix Second Half

1. Fahey Blows His Nose ; The Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick
2. Sunflower River Blues ; Death Chants, Breakdowns and Military Waltzes
3. Jaya Shiva Shankarah ; Old Fashioned Love
4. Special Rider Blues ; America
5. Spanish Two-Step ; On Air
6. Red Cross, Disciple of Christ Today ; Red Cross
7. Requiem for Mississippi John Hurt ; The Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick
8. Dance of the Inhabitants of the Invisible City of Blandensburg ; The Yellow Princess
9. Christ is Born On Christmas Day ; The John Fahey Christmas Album
10. Night Train to Valhalla ; Days Have Gone By, Vol. 6
11. Bean Vine Blues # 2 ; The Voice of the Turtle
12. Go, I Will Send Thee ; New Possibility
13. Fahey Established Rapport With The Tasmanians: A Dissertation on Obsucrity / The Return of the Tasmanian Tiger / Funeral Song For Mississippi John Hurt ; Live in Tasmania
14. March! for Martin Luther King ; The Yellow Princess
15. Jesus Is A Dying Bedmaker 2 ; America
16. Poor Boy ; Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death
17. Worried Blues ; On Air
18. Days Have Gone By ; Days Have Gone By, Vol. 6
19. Amazing Grace ; America
20. Uncloudy Day ; The Legend of Blind Joe Death
21. Wine and Roses ; The Dance of Death and Other Plantation Favorites
22. Requiem For Russell Cooper ; Requia
23. Ghosts ; The Mill Pond
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What a week...

I know i havent posted in a little while. I just havent really felt the motivation to do that much lately. Besides, ive been wasting a lot of time with the apartment search. ALTHOUGH, on Thursday, while waiting for the landlord to meet us at a place in park slope, I noticed this guy, walking down the street holding his young child. Mr. Jack Rabid of The Big Takeover fame is pretty much a celebrity sighting in my eyes.


I also went to a show where I wanted to see the last of 5 bands slated to play. I dont want to go into details (too annoying), but after 8 bands played, and it was already 2:30am, and the band i wanted to see still wasnt up next, i said fuck it and left. ugh. dont ask.




ill resume some some shit this week. i promise.

Thee Oh Sees

Thee Oh Sees played in Brooklyn this past Saturday night, and I was highly considering going to the show. I actually spent the afternoon in BK apartment hunting, but was too burnt to stick it out for the show. I kinda regret it, cause I've been really digging their new record on In The Red, Help. Every time Thee Oh Sees get mentioned, the laundry list of bands that front man John Dwyer has played in always get discussed. Since I'm only really familiar with his most famous one, Coachwhips, I'll leave that for the more legit reviewers/blogs.

The whole album is pretty catchy, but I've had the first song stuck in my head the past few days, so we'll stick with that.

Here it is:
Thee Oh Sees - Enemy Destruct


P.S.
Is it just me, or has In The Red been on a fucking roll the past few months??
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WOW

Here's a clip from the Carson (fucking) Daly show that aired Friday night, April 3rd. The musical guests that evening were The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. Wow. Fuck. Seriously. The show airs way past my bedtime (10pm....) so I didn't get to see it when it aired. This band's ascension has been craziness T's, straight up. Alex = Born to rock. Here's the clip:


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I have seen the future of ROCK

and its name is DIEHARD.

I got to see their first show ever last night at Union Hall in Brooklyn, and when they're rich and famous, I got the bragging rights sonnnn. Killer indie rock/pop reminiscent of the best bands from the early-mid '90s. Close your eyes, and your at a show in Chapel Hill circa 1994 (that is intended to be a compliment - hopefully it means what i think it means...). Loud, fast, nice guitar work by my man ezRock, and spot on male/female vocals.
I polled the audience completely at random, and asked someone else what they thought:
"The problem with starting is a new awesome band is you can't come back to say your old awesome band is alright" - Shrimp Cracker

The whole set was filled with songs that get the official HBBB stamp of approval, but one stood out to me as totally awesome. Unfortunately, a full band recording of it doesn't exist yet, so I only have a VERY ROUGH DEMO. But either way, the song rocks. This demo sounds cool, but with the band it really kicked ass. They switched off vocals, and it really tied the room together.

Cool Kids (DEMO)

Check out their myspace page for a bunch of songs they've done together. These guys are going places (and im not talking about midnight runs to Scottys....), I think there must be something in the water in Teeneck, NJ (??????????)
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Hendo Bendo Podcast # 11

Despite the fact that I was listening to John Fahey for a while this afternoon, I was inspired by Shrimp Cracker to make a podcast featuring some catchy loud fast rocknroll/punk/garage/power pop.
Enjoy

Hendo Bendo Podcast # 11
Tracklist:
Scared of Chaka - Why are you Weird?
Cheap Time - Falling Down
The Shitty Limits - Leave Me Alone
Mind Controls - Trap Door
Reruns - So Alone
The Jet Boys - High Tension Love
Carbonas - Journey to the End
The Marked Men - Ditch
The Bananas - Peanut Butter Cups
Nobunny - Boneyard
The Fliptops - Beat You Up
Hunx and his Punx - You Don't Like Rock n Roll
Nodzzz - Is She There
Supercharger - Gum Flappin' Baby
The Fallouts - Here I Come
The Pets - No Way
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Little Steven

Sorry for the long post, but here is the speech made by Little Steven at a convention center during SXSW last week. I thought it was worthwhile.

*Steven Van Zandt, Austin Convention Center
SXSW. March 20, 2009.
*
Good morning how are we? I see all my people.

Interesting time in our business, is it not?
Now you wish you listened to your parents and went to college, huh?
We are experiencing the biggest changes in 40 years as the main
revenue-producing medium switches from the album to, we don' t know what
yet.
Keep in mind that until the Beatles and the rest of the British Invasion
landed in 1964, the vinyl single ruled what was called the business. it
wasn't exactly the business in truth, it was more like the Wild West with a
bunch of freaks, misfits, outcasts, outlaws, entrepreneurs, renegades and
hooligans running around making it all up as they went along.

Finally in 1967 the Beatles made an album called Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts
Club Band -- you can ask your grandfather to borrow his copy -- and with
that record the album became undeniably king. The difference between 79
cents for a single and $4.95 for an album created a music business.

As I'm sure you've noticed we've now come full circle back to singles and if
you're wondering what 1962 was like, well you're looking at it. And if that
wasn't enough to deal with, just to make it interesting, let's throw in a
little worldwide economic holocaust, shall we?

You thought you were having problems a year ago? Heh, those were the good
old days.

The truth is it might take a year or two but those things will literally
sort themselves out. There will be some revenue model, be it the 360 thing,
subscriptions or whatever, and frankly there have been enough boring
discussions about the mechanics of our business, already enough to last a
lifetime. And as far as the economy, well, Obama's gonna fix the economy so
don't worry about that.

It's the third topic I want to look at today. All we ever talk about is the
delivery systems for the product, the mechanics, the technology, the
infrastructure. I wanna spend just a minute on the topic that never gets
discussed in the music business, and that's the music.

The reason why nobody wants to talk about it, it's understandable because
it mostly sucks. I mean it blows, it's terrible. It's sucking major moose
cock. Who are we kidding here? Nobody's buying records. No shit, they suck.

And I know why. Nobody wants to deal with this but, we have to.
Yeah we are expriencing big changes in the business but more impotrantly,
over the last 60 years or so, we have been witnesses to a crisis of craft.

I started to notice this crisis right around the time MTV appeared, not that
it's their fault. One must assume the video was as inevitable as the
combustion engine, food preservative, the digital format and all those other
horrors of commerce disguised as progress. You could fight it, but you're
better off just adjusting and dealing with it. Save your energy because
you're gonna need it.
And MTV may come back around and save us yet. But more about them later.
Rock n roll is the working class art form. Real rock n roll, traditional
rock n roll. The music you hear every week on the Underground Garage and
every day on Sirius 25 and XM 59, is equal opportunity, regardless of race,
education or how much money you got, since the working class don't think too
much about what is art and what is not. Mostly because they're too busy
working. They spend their time on their craft, the practical useful stuff.
So let's get back to basics for a moment, what is our craft?

Rock n roll had always been a two-part craft, performance and record-making,
and that turned into a three-part craft for bands, when songwriting was
added after the Beatles changed the world.
That self-contained archetype may have been a temporary blip in the big
picture. Recent history started to suggest that the Beatles in that short
little period may turn out to be the exception, rather than the new rule.

It was, after all, our renaissance. That approximate 20-year era, from 1951
to 1971, will be studied for hundreds of years to come and still informs
everything that today is popular music.

So as to our craft -- performance, record-making, songwriting -- what
happened exactly?

The crisis in performance is, I believe, based on one simple fact. When it
started, rock n roll was dance music. One day we stopped dancing to it and
started listening to it and it's been downhill ever since.

We had a purpose, had a specific goal, an intention, a mandate, we made
people dance or we did not work, we didn't not get paid, we were fired, we
were homeless. That requires a very different energy. To compel people to
get out of their chairs and dance, it's a working-class energy, not an
artistic, intellectual, waiting-around-for-inspiration energy. It's a
get-up, go-to-work-and-kill energy.
Rip it up, or die trying.

The advent of the video was just the final nail in the performance coffin, a
coffin that had already been constructed by years of excessive immersion in
ganja, hashish and all forms of water-cooled bong therapy. You didn't have
to make people dance anymore, they were too stoned to dance.
Now you didn't even have to play your instrument anymore. All you had to do
was act like a rock star and bada-bing you were a rock star.

Well now, there's a new trend that's even more dangerous, and this affects
songwriting as well as performance. Bands are starting to skip the bar-band
phase of their development
and I'm seeing it all over the world. The club stage, where ideally you're
still a dance band.
But equally important, you get the opportunity to play other people's songs,
your favorite songs. Analyze them, understand them. All of a sudden, I'm
hearing it's not cool to play other people's songs. That's for the less
gifted, you know, the losers. That thinking has been extended now to include
anybody's songs, you know any songs that didn't come from your personal
musical genius.

This is a major problem. Performance-wise, the energy you discover,
manufacture and harness as a dance band stays with you for the rest of your
life. You never lose that. And the analysis you must do while learning to
play classic songs is how you learn how to write. The melody, this melody
with that chord change, produces this effect. It's how you learn to arrange.
The verses go here, the bridge there, it's how you learn the specific job of
each instrument.

You learn greatness from greatness. Nobody is a born great performer, nobody
is born a great songwriter. The Beatles were a club and bar band for five
years, and then continued playing covers for five albums, the Stones did
about three years and their first five albums. All of a sudden, we think
we're better than them?

Another nefarious infection regarding modern songwriting is the auteur
theory, which means the person singing has to be the person writing or else
it's irrelevant. This became dominant as rock n roll became the art form of
rock. Beginning in 1965, it was the year the Beatles, the Stones, the Byrds
and Bob Dylan influenced each other right into a new art form. Suddenly rock
was personal.

It was important, and an industry of journalists sprang up to explain it to
us. And that was, and is, great, except an inaccurate balance was created
between the post-art-form rock and the pre-art-form rock, keeping in mind
that the art-form rock was only the last quarter of the renaissance.

It was born in the folk-rock era, continued through psychedelic,
country-rock, and into hard rock and the singer-songwriter era, where an
inaccurate emphasis on the importance of the self-contained artist has led
to the ocean of mediocrity we're drowning in today.

Journalists work in words, they love words, they are words, so it's
perfectly understandable they labor under the misconception that lyrics are
the most important part of the song. They are not and let's keep in mind,
there are of course, major journalist exceptions. The two best rock n roll
books are after all Nick Tosches' "Hellfire," the Jerry Lee Lewis story, and
Dave Marsh's "Louie Louie," both about pre-art-form rock and, don't get me
wrong, great lyrics make a song better. I made five political albums and
spent months on the lyrics. Just don't think that's why people are coming to
see your band. Because that is not enough reason. Bob Dylan is the greatest
lyric writer that will ever live, but if he wasn't a great singer and wasn't
able to write, or in the early days steal, great melodies, he'd still be in
the Village at Cafe Wha.

The problem with this imbalance is that singers who don't write or write
about the correct subjects,
aren't taken seriously. And it's true, in spite of Elvis and Sinatra.

The 15 years of pre-art-form lyrics may not seem as important or meaningful
in a social and political way, but as a 13-year-old hearing the super sexy
Judy Craig and the Chiffons sing Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry's "I Have a
Boyfriend," don't tell me that wasn't important. More than anything else in
the world, I wanted to be that boyfriend. I still do. That was my "Blowing
in the Wind," my "Day in the Life," or "Sympathy for the Devil," absolutely.
If you wanna write, then learn how to do it.

As one of the great song publishers, like Lance Freed, who were always
encouraging young songwriters to co-write with older ones, said, just like
it's important to perform with a purpose, it is equally important to write
with a purpose. Whether that purpose is to express your most personal
anguish or to simply have a hit record, if you're gonna do it, do it right.

The third part of our craft is record-making and that discipline has almost
completely disappeared.
A record is four things: composition, arrangement, performance and sound.
Four different crafts, overseen by a producer, who understands, to some
degree, all four elements, plus the big picture of the industry, plus the
psychological stuff, being the artist's psychiatrist, plus the liaison with
the business people etc., etc.

Where are they? Where are the real producers, the arrangers, the point
being, once upon a time it took an army of very talented people to make
records: writers, singers, musicians producers, arrangers, engineers. Now
you have to do it all yourself? No wonder everything sucks.

Well, when the major record companies abandoned development, DIY was born,
do it yourself. And the auteur theory works well with DIY anyway, so why
not?

Well there is one reason why not. Everybody isn't a star. Everybody isn't a
songwriter, isn't a singer, isn't a performer, isn't a record producer. But
who is there to tell them these days, who's there to help, who's there to
suggest a different direction, to teach, to impose discipline?

Even the majors are starting to adjust, and I hope they succeed because
right now in this new paradigm they are useless to us as banks. There's
nowhere to spend their money anymore.
It's very encouraging and impressive that they stuck with MGMT for 18 months
for instance, before it broke. Maybe they look back and learn from Steve
Popovich, who stuck with Meat Loaf for over a year, when no one was
interested. You know a little bit of this long-term patience is nice to see.
But mostly the majors have passed the creative stuff off to the production
companies. There's nobody home artistically. You know, they can still find a
record, and occasionally break one, but they're gonna have trouble with the
second one, because nobody in the company knows how they made the first one.

There's no development, there's no long-term thinking, so, as usual, it's up
to the indies, right?
But indies, whoever it is, better establish a new work ethic, better find
some new patience, better get back to the basics, and better be qualified to
go the distance.

Standards have been set. The standards have been set by Sam Phillips,
Leonard Chess, Ahmet Ertegun, Jerry Wexler, Berry Gordy. You wanna be in the
record business, those are the standards we must live up to. We must
introduce, re-introduce, a new dedication to the craft. And worry about the
new technology and the art later.

Thank you.

Song of the Day - The Beets

The Beets (not Doug's fave band...) bring new meaning to lo-fi. Their album from last year, Spit on the Face of People Who Don't Want to be Cool, may be one of the lowest quality recordings I've heard in a long time, but it makes up for it with the tunes. They write very catchy mid tempo rocknroll/trash kinda songs that put a smile on your face. The gang-shout vocals are always a plus for me, and they do it well. All this, and I only heard them for the first time 24 hours ago.

Here's a song:
The Beets - What Did I Do

The Strange Boys

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In India You

The other night, I was having trouble falling asleep. This is worth noting because despite the fact that I never get a good night's sleep, and rarely feel rested in the morning, I fall asleep within 10 minutes of lying down, every night, without fail. After a while, I got out of bed and went to go listen to music on the computer. I decided on the Brian Jonestown Massacre (who incidentally, are playing in NY in like a week) album, Their Satanic Majesties Second Request, and turned on the itunes visualizer. When the lights are off, and that is all you can see, it is pretty easy to get mesmerized. When track 4 came on, something really clicked, and I was bobbing my head to the beat while staring intently at the computer screen. When it ended, I played it again, then again, then a fourth time. The whole time, just sitting there with my eyes fixed on the swirls and shifting shapes and colors. No drugs were involved, just boredom. But its rare these days that I want to listen to an almost 4 minute song over and over and over again.

Here's that song, and turn on the visualizer....

The Brian Jonestown Massacre - In India You
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Song of the Day - Sun Araw

I'm getting ready to go out for the night, so I needed some good shoe tying music. I found it with Sun Araw, which is a side project for one of the guys in Magic Lantern. The album I was listening to, The Phynx, has two 16 minute drone/noise tracks, and two shorter ones that are more song oriented.
Here is one of them. It's a keeper:

Sun Araw - Harken Sawshine
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Lovvers

I find it astonishing that almost every day recently, I'm finding out about bands that are new to me that are just kicking my ass. In a good way that is. Today, that band is Lovvers. These guys are British (!) and play lofi rocknroll/punk thats just off kilter enough that it still makes me wanna stomp the ground like the DC5. Even the more straight forward catchy as hell punk songs have kinda crazy "middle 8's" if you will.
Such as: Talk Cheap

Go punch the wall to this one: No Romantics

Song of the Day - The Greenhornes

I hate my current musical set up. I have most of my CDs in my bedroom at my parents' house (a lot of good that does me here...), and have to rely on my computer, hard drive, and the assortment of CDs i've picked up the past few months. a HUGE downside to this situation is that I don't have immediate access to some of my favorite albums. Among my personal favorites are the first two Greenhornes albums. Fucking perfect in practically every way. They are both the kind of albums that make you feel like an ass for not listening to more often. I've been listening to them the past few days for the first time in what feels like 6 months - Way too long. Its too bad that Jack White hijacked the rhythm section for unbridled wankery. And even though I still dig Dual Mono, the first two are where its at. Crank that organ.

Here's a cover of the Spencer Davis Group from the self titled album:

The Greenhornes - High Time Baby
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Hendo Bendo Podcast # 10

i felt a need to stretch out a little bit.

Hendo Bendo Podcast # 10
Townes Van Zandt - Rex's Blues
Skip James - Jesus Is A Mighty Good Leader
Bardo Pond - Wank
Loren Connors - Airs No. 18
Pelt - Deep Sunny South
First Independent Holy Church of God and Unity - Don't Let His Name Go Down
Ghost - Grisaille
Cheer - Rain In The Wind
Stag Hare - Holy Quinn
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Quote of the Day

This is the best out of a nice selection of quotes from today

"My hatred for mankind burns with such a furious vengeance that permeates my entire body"

WHAT do you even say to that?? either right on, or go to the calm down cafeteria.

i had to spend the evening at an event for work that took place in the nicest, biggest apartment i have ever seen. Here's the view from the living room over looking central park. fucking elitist scum.






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Song of the Day - Yussuf Jerusalem

Sorry for the lack of posting this weekend. I had important matters to attend to......oh well. One of THOSE NAMES (you know what i mean) that kept popping up on the blogs/sites I go to was Yussuf Jerusalem. The latest album, from last year, is "A Heart Full of Sorrow" has been described as death metal / garage / lofi / folk / pop which seems rather absurd, but its realy not that far off. I don't know much about metal let alone death metal, but all I can tell is the first song on the record scared me. The rest of the album is more straight forward lo fi rock. Pretty cool stuff, check it out:

Greetings from Novi Sad
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The Strange Boys

Every once in a while, a band/album comes by that just knocks me on my ass. that band right now is The Strange Boys. I was made aware of these TX killers a while ago by everyone's favorite bassist, doorknobs, but I had nothing of theirs until recently. Their debut album just got released on In The Red, and it is more or less amazing (of the BSE variety). It's like a combination of everything that I currently like about rocknroll - Garage, psych, twang (shitfi). HIGHLY reccomended to fans of this kinda stuff. Again, a tip of the hat to this guy for making us awares.

Here are a few songs:
Who Needs Who More
Probation Blues

Honestly, there's too many good songs on this album to just pick 2. The myspace page has a bunch too. GO check it out!

Skip James

I've been listening to a bunch of blues stuff this morning. I just saw this on youtube and wanted to share it:



Skip James - Crow Jane


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