Ogg make mission statement.
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Indie List Digest!
October 28, 1994
Volume 4 Number 8
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Bruce Lee box set
Slinkies... (show reviews from Dann)
JSBX - Orange
Music in the Hinterlands
ANNOUNCE: Smears Tour Dates
AD: Splashdown!
AD: Gapeseed CD
Welcome once again to another issue of the I-L. An administrivial
note - some of the ILIJ/Core are running around the country, so your
submissions/digests/subscription alterations may take a tiny bit
more over the next week or two.
And, on an allied note, if anyone knows the coolstuff (tm) in SF
over the weekend of 10-14 November, az and es wanna know, as we'll
be there then.
And on to the content!
-es
-------------------------------
From: davidb@amgen.com (David Bennison)
Bruce Lee 7" Box Set
Various - Bruce Lee, Heroin & The Punk Scene 3x7"
------------------------------------------------
Mine is No.83/800 and comes in a snazzy box set with photo of plastic
pink Brucies and Elvises, a mini-poster and some useful artist info.
The 3 7"s are yellow, black and minty green and identified as Bruce
Lee, Heroin and Punk Scene, so what's new. It's a neat-o looking
consumer good and the theme is San Francisco retards/wayward maveric
artistes.
The Sun City Girls [of Seattle, nee Phoenix -es] contribute 3 tracks,
'Kicking the Dragon' being the best by a merry mile - your typical
Cantonese raga with accordian and amazing old-man-moaning-about
-his-sore-joints-type Arabic vocals giving the impression that the
track is some sort of sad religious lament - similar to some of the
Eye Mohini 7". 'Harmful Little Armful (for Will Shatter)' is 40
seconds of lethargic chords over a heap of surface noise while 'Suck
Sun Town' documents their first ever live performance in 1982
supporting Black Flag, taunting the skinhead audience with macho
bravado, polite reasoning, a delay unit and an 'eat this shit'
message.
The Frogs give us another high point in 'Smack Goes The Dragon' which
starts and ends with druggy backwards guitar, moaning chants and
whispered 'Bruce Leeee's but leaps non-seamlessly into a rock opera
finale in the middle displaying more of the genuine Frog-writing
talents and ear for a catchy sing-along chorus with 'Needles in your
arms tonight. The Needle it's OK. The Needles in your arms tonight.
It's the American Way.' Another winner.
Dimebar Child gives us 4 pieces, 'Punk Is Dead' sounding like mid '80s
N.Zealand sung punk, 'Mr Skinhead' seeming to have the outro to
'Expressway To Your Skull' as background to a vocal spoken by a
storyteller type ('nothing is as pure as the swastika that beats
within my heart consequently or resultingly my nipples have become
steel'). Hmmm. Their best effort is the sinister 'Frere Nodda' with
kids singing the 'Frere Jacqua?' nursery rhyme over some random
recorder and flute noodling and someone singing a tuneless ditty very
quietly like some old pensioner trying to remember a war tune and half
getting there. Scary stuff which makes 'Heroin Fuk' all the stranger
as it's unbelievably catchy bubblegum pop that could genuinely become
a 'hit' if Dimebar Child looked cute and could dance in formation. 'I
don't know but I've been told. Music makes me lose control'.
I've been told that Bean Church were/are some Caroliner offshoot.
Well, their contribution is less interesting but not without merit,
'Choose Your Favourite President' boasting an inept 1-chord guitar
riff and little else except some well-disguised humour if you can
catch a bit of vocal in there - it's 1987 and is it live or is it
Memorex?
Everything is rounded up with the Zip Code Rapists efforts, both
similar in their chilling use of deep spoken narrative over
atmospheric kids organ mood music, 'The Suet Trees' informing us of
the perils of drugs found on Suet Trees and 'Why People Do Heroin'
incorporating banal, naive but reasonably reasonable reasons why they
do ('Cause they're not happy') spoken by your average Mr and Mrs USA
in the street. So golden laurels go to The Frogs and Sun City Girls,
a kick up the arse to Bean Church, a wary handshake and uneasy smile
to the Zip Code Rapists and a happy fingers salute and knowing wink to
Dimebar Child. Very entertaining and it looks good too. (Must stop
talking about myself.)
-----------------------------
From: dann medin <DLM94001@UConnVM.UConn.Edu>
slinkies & their defiance of gravity
shanananananananana! hi. all of my mail disappeared earlier this week
beacuse i am such a genius with working on computers & i lost all of
my (actually, "your") addresses. if you've written me in th past, in
general, @ all, pleze send me a note so that i can punch you back in &
keep in touch. thanks.
kicking giant, team dresch, pirate jenny @ bowlers/worchester...
nice venue. very spacy, though it somewhat interferes w/th sound, &
large, w/out being too big. whatever. i liked pirate jenny, mixed
genders from northampton mixing up instruments & playing nice, though
sometimes repetitive toons. plus they put their name up in
litebrites. team dresch was totally amazing. i loved th 7" & tunes
on th kill rock stars & yo-yo comps, but was really unprepared fr this
kind of simultaneous aggresiveness, heaviness, fun, & sheer
butchpower. t.d. is kaia,(adickdid) jody,(hazel) i forgot her name,
(calamity jane) & of course, donna.(5th column,dino jr...much more)
see them in yr town & be blown away. kicking giant was nice. not @
all as tight as last year's show @ th middle east, but loose &
aggressive. i don't think that i've ever heard them play a song th
same way twice. mostly new material off of their excellent new cd on
k, "alien i-d". a great 8-10 minute noise jam after one of th songs
was my highlight. rachel carnes is th coolest drummer.
team dresch, cheesecake @ th red barn/amherst...
yes, we followed to see them again, & not surprisingly enough,
recognized a lot of familiar faces. they were that good. tonight
took th cake tho. mary lou lord was supposed to open up, but her car
broke down. th good news is that she has already recorded a new e.p.
that comes out in january on k.r.s. th bad is that she's moving back
to seattle next week. bad fr me that is. i'd seen cheese cake a lot
before anyways, but they were th best i'd ever seen them @ this show.
th sound was nice. as usual, lots of fun. before t.d. started,
(they did this th night before too) they did a short self-defense fr
women demonstration, which is pretty commendable. just a point of
interest. their set was unbelievable. they played, w/th help of
encore demand, every song they've written as a band. there's not much
more to say. one of my new favorite bands.
samiam, toadies @ el n'gees/new london...
i'm getting lazier. th toadies were great, it's just that th drummer
really bored me, so i only found them ok. i dunno, i suck. they
sound like helmet on speed, but not really. i think that they're from
texas. samiam was lots of fun, played all of my favorites off of th
new one as well as "soar" & "billy". a great live band. th question
is, whether touring w/bands like green day & bad religion is going to
make them big & burn out their songs. i hope not.
jawbox; built to spill, kicking giant @ middle east/cambridge...
this was weird. we got a ride to boston @ th last second and didn't
get up there until th 10:15ish. we missed milk money, who i really
wanted to see. went back & forth between built to spill (upstairs) &
jawbox,(down) which kind of stunk because they are both such excellent
bands. jawbox was so full of energy- played lots of new stuff & had a
lot of fun. built to spill is pure not-quite "pop" (i don't know what
it is) genius. they don't really tour either, so th 4 or 5 songs i
caught were a special treat. their new album on up is fabulous as
well as their well-known side project w/calvin k, th halo benders.
great. kicking giant was even messier/slower this night than th week
before. like i said, i luv their music, & rachel and tae always go
off, so it's no loss fr myself. my friend, on th other hand, liked
them a lot more last year.
ok. thanks fr getting in touch w/me about studio 158. to be brief,
158 is a non-profit all ages alcohol/drug free club. totally d.i.y.
door prices usually $5, not more than $7. it is 15 minutes away from
th uconn campus...that's w/in 90 minutes of providence, boston,
northampton, new haven, & worchester. a little room that fits 200 in
a plaza. my 1st show is on friday th 28th; picasso trigger, bracket,
bunnygrunt, big heffer, & steadfast. if you want directions, email
me, or call 203.427.4793 or 427.4286 fr upcoming dates. among them-
bikini kill, big mistake, nevergreen, bimbo shrineheads on th 29th, 7
seconds, shades apart, mi6 november 11th, & just booked, huggy bear
w/special guests to be announced on th 19th. these are just th bigger
names, tho, so call or email fr more info.
i'm tired. grumpy grumpy grump grump. (not you, silly, th mood) new
stuff i dig that comes to mind right now...raooul/skinned teen split
on lookout, th new candy machine on skene! is fabulous, & sun ra may
not be new, but always lives up to expectations. rock n' roll. gimme
caffeine. smooches...
dann medin///dlm94001@uconnvm.uconn.edu
------------------------------
From: Jay Babcock <jay@DrMemory.nuc.ucla.edu>
jsbx
JON SPENCER BLUES EXPLOSION
"Orange" LP, Matador Records
Everyone knows that the best way to experience the Jon Spencer Blues
Explosion is live. But since it's unlikely that the Explosion will be
playing my living room on a nightly basis anytime soon, I settled on
simply purchasing the band's brand spanking new shiny silver cover
ell-pee.
Oh SHIT. Like Samuel L. Jackson in the new Tarantino, this album is
one bad motherfucker. This is IT. When a band makes an album this
good, usually the only thing they should do next is retire while
they're on top.
"Orange" is the sound of the Blues Explosion swallowing practically
all of American music's booty-shakin' genres whole and coming up with
something that's, well... damn! We're talking cinemascope- stylie
production with Isaac Hayes Hot Buttered Soul-strings and some wild
horn antics, freak-out harmonica nastiness and King Curtis Memphis
soul stew guitars, northern-fried funk and southern- smoked country r
& b, massed female choruses ("blues explosion MAN!") and Parliamentary
keyboard squawks and squiggles. Lyrics are mostly about how bad-ass
the Blues Explosion is, plus some talk about the grooviness of bell
bottoms (well...) and the particularly bad timing of a Jehovah's
Witness's visit to Mr. Spencer's home.
The Explosion proper -- Jon Spencer on guitar, vocals and theramin,
Judah Bauer on some very riff-heavy guitar (remember, kids, there's
no need for bass in the Blues Explosion!), and Russell Simins on drums
-- is a lean, mean unit that doesn't hit any grooves... it SMACKS em,
on a regular basis. Of course there's also a good deal of just cold
kickin it -- after all, one can't just be exploding ALL of the time
(that would be bad for you).
Yes, there's still some of the Crampsophiliac rockabilly of last
year's "Extra Width" LP, and yes, there's still a bit of the Pussy
Galore lo-fi franticism that marked the early Blues Explosion
recordings. But now there's even more of the really good, dirty stuff
that makes you put on yr dancin shoes and get ridiculous... and
that's a beautiful thing.
Jay Babcock
jay@DrMemory.nuc.ucla.edu
------------------------------
From: Michael Fragassi <mfragass@nickel.ucs.indiana.edu>
Music in the hinterlands
Some reviews of bands from Chicago
or, Wicker Park came to Indiana and all I got was this crappy 7"
Show #1: Quintron/Snaggletooth/Anthropod Vector/TBW! Jazz Posse (aka
The Belgian Waffles!), Rhino's all ages club, Bloomington, Indiana,
9/16.
This show featured Quintron and Anthropod Vector, both from Chicago,
and local jazzbo Monsters of Noise The Belgian Waffles!. It was one
of those shows where most of the crowd are in the bands. I missed
Quintron, which is basically Rob from Math, but I got one of his
tapes. For those of you who know about Math, where it had that
gamelan-goes-klezmer sound to it, this stuff is rougher, "rockier",
without that jouncy circus organ and clarinet thing going. For those
of you who don't know about Math, Quintron is one guy pounding on an
assortment of drums, bongos, pipes, cowbells, and the metal drum from
a Maytag washer, sometimes singing-shouting, sometimes with feedback
going in the background. I guess you'd file it under "experimental"
except that it's got a better beat and a harder edge than most things
that get lumped (and dismissed) under that name.
Snaggletooth was a Cincinnati four-piece with female vocals, added to
the roster by the club manager at the last minute. A bit of
Sugarcubes, a bit of thrash, a bit of funk -- PhishBjork! No, that
makes it sound too interesting. They were very earnest, capable, and
played with a decent amount of energy, but failed to float this
audience's boat. Blurb from the peanut gallery: "They're very cute.
They'll go far."
Anthropod Vector was mis-billed as "Bacchus D," a defunct band some of
the members came from. I had never heard of either band, but they
were a very pleasant surprise. The bass had that Big Black Lizard
sound to it, there were two guitars, one of which was playing with a
kind of ringing, bell-like tone to the sounds. The drummer was
intense and fast, and the vocalist, wearing a lab coat and what looked
like either new wave sunglasses or on-the-job fashion wear for welders
sometimes played a synth. The synth sound was Residentsy (as opposed
to, say, Flock of Seagullsy), and allegedly the vocals were funny,
although the sound man must not have liked them very much. A friend
said that they reminded him a little of 8-Eyed Spy.
Last were The Belgian Waffles!. These guys are presently a 7 piece;
drums, bass, guitar, vocalist/guitarist/trumpeter/shortwaver, and alto
and tenor sax. Post-punk free jazz, with the guitar going sonic while
the horns Ayler out to hard, catchy rhythms. Silly vocals and a
loose, non-pretentious approach to the whole jazz/rock/noise thing.
If you know and like the Flying Luttenbachers, these guys are a little
more raucous then they are, and a little more freer in their free
jazz. If this sounds interesting, you should go and catch them in
their current incarnation while you can; two of them are leaving for
the east coast soon to study under Anthony Braxton. (If you're in
Chicago you can catch them on Saturday, Oct. 29 at the Fireside Bowl
with Stamen and possibly Jack Wacker.)
Show #2: Pencil/Mule, Second Story, Bloomington, Indiana, 9/24.
This is that Mule show that Anne reviewed a few digests ago. And
basically my opinion on this show is more or less What Anne Said.
(Synopsis: fairly uninteresting rock in a Touch'n'Go-y style.) On the
positive side, Pencil was surprisingly good when I showed up at the
club; they were playing with a lot more vigor than I was expecting,
and the songs were more interesting than what I was used to. However,
by the second half of the show, their energy faded some as they
cranked into their "hits" and a friend and I sat in a back room and
sang Big Black lyrics to the songs. It turned out that the first half
was mostly new material, which is a good sign.
While I didn't have high hopes for Pencil, I did for Mule, and I was
disappointed. It wasn't that they sucked, it was that most of the
songs seemed to have very little variation to them. Even though their
overall sound was okay, I was deadened to it by the end of the show.
Show #3: Dis/Tar/Shellac, C.O.C., Muncie, Indiana, 9/25
The next day, myself and a few others hopped in a car piloted by I-L
Junta Generalissimo Sinclair for a trip down the
giant-bowling-pin-lined road to Muncie. Dis, a three-piece from the
land of Laverne and Shirley, were another disappointment. They played
well, with a broader range of styles than Mule, but it was
very...uninspiring, I guess. They were fairly earnest about the
songs, but it didn't carry over to get me interested. It might have
been the relatively slow rhythms, it might have been something about
the singer's voice.
For Tar, we left to get dinner. Most of us had seen Tar play a year
and half ago with Jawbox, and were in agreement that we had all the
Tar we wanted the first time. They came off at the time as a very
uninteresting, repetitive take on "Chicago style" hardcore. I don't
remember much of this from that show, but the others were struck by a
tendency they had to move in synchrony at certain key Hard Rock
moments, and I suggested that maybe they should wear suits to really
get that Four Tops thing down. When we got back, they still had four
songs left, and much to our surprise, they sounded much, much better
than they did previously. More interesting and more dynamic. They
still had some of that synchronized slamming going (someone shouted
"nice choreography" during a break) but it wasn't detracting from the
music; or rather, the music was good enough that they could've worn
suits and it might not have mattered. (Maybe.)
I was unsure about what to expect from Shellac. I hadn't had the
chance to listen to any of their recordings, and though I'd heard good
things over the net, I couldn't tell whether these reports were coming
from people who'd pay to hear Albini flushing his toilet. However, my
fears proved unfounded, and they were excellent. Less derivative than
many of the bands influenced by Big Black; just comparing them to Big
Black must be tiring and insulting to Todd Trainer and Rob Weston,
since it implies that Shellac is really "Albini + 2", which it isn't.
Trainer was particularly impressive, pounding away hard, hunched over,
with his mouth sometimes open and grinning. In contrast, Weston was
deadpan, much to his chagrin when most of the audience didn't catch on
to his jokes during the breaks. Weston's playing didn't seem to call
much attention to itself, either; I'd call it the "weakest" part of
the band, but that would imply that it was somehow bad. Albini was
playing a lot more creatively than I was hoping for.
Show #4: Ut Haus/Squash Blossom String Pullers/Coctails, Second Story,
Bloomington, Indiana.
Ut Haus is a side project of some local jazz musicians that wants to
be silly in a woozy, Spike Jones/Frank Zappa kind of way with free
jazz. They're winking a little too much at the audience while they're
playing, and don't succeed at being especially funny or interesting
musically.
Squash Blossom String Pullers (no relation to the band Squash
Blossom), for lack of a better label is a punk bluegrass band.
Banjo/mandolin, harmonica, guitar, spoons, and washboard. Singing
with gusto, often wandering off-key. They could be a total joke band
-- "hey, we'll act like hillbillies, and it'll be hilarious! They'll
dig it!" -- but they maintain a non-serious attitude without it
disintegrating into parody. This night, the soundman was hassling the
band over the band's hand-held harmonica mike, so they came off the
stage and played without mikes in the audience. This created a nice
party ambience, but only if you were within 10 feet of the band --
spoons don't carry so well in a club.
Rounding out this night of genre whiplash were the Coctails. They
started with the vibes and bass clarinets, with some smooth lounge-y
jazz number, followed up by a swinging version of Raymond Scott's
"Powerhouse." (Classic Warner Bros. toon music, if you haven't heard
of this.) They really revved up the audience with that one but didn't
play many more songs in their jazz mode. After a few instrument
switches (each member played three instruments, well), they migrated
to the sound of their current album, which is a kind of gentle,
college-rock jangle-ballad style. It reminds me of the Vulgar Boatmen
or the Feelies. Almost immediately, about half of the audience in
front of the stage left to get beer, myself included. Their
ballad-rock just wasn't that energetic and interesting, even if it's
technically skilled, in comparison