Twittering Machines

Manufactured by Western Electric beginning in 1928. Originally used as a full range speaker system utilizing the 555W compression driver covering 100hz-5500hz. Later, the 597A tweeter and Western Electric TA4151 13.5″ woofers were added to make the “Widerange” system. This covered roughly 60hz to 12khz+/-. The 15A is 14′ long and has a mouth of roughly 56″ x 57″. The cut off frequency is 57hz. Sensitivity is 111db and efficiency is around 25%. The first film to use th W.E. 15A or the concurrent horns 12A and 13A was Don Juan starring John Barrymore.

The Beacon Theater is renovated to its full 1929 glory…. almost full 1929 glory. Somehow I doubt they reinstalled the Western Electric 15A’s. Must visit, it looks outstanding. 1000 workers and seven months.

Larkin Grimm
Parplar

The Larkin Grimm LP is out and it’s exactly what I’d hoped it would be — twisted and introspectively strange. This is music as catharsis exemplified by “Blond and Golden Johns” where among other great lines Larkin sings along with a metronomic beat:

“I’ve been penetrated | So I’m welcome everywhere I go” and “This mouth has wrapped around some things | More delicious than the songs I sing” doo dadum da da dumm…

My only criticism is the cover art which seems remiss in not including Larkin Grimm. OK maybe I’m being crass and commercial but if you look like this and write, play and sing like that why not?

Muzak files for bankruptcy

(CNN) — Muzak, the company that put pop, string-filled arrangements of rock songs in your elevator, filed bankruptcy papers Tuesday after it missed a $105 million payment to creditors.

Just arrived:

A friend and I took our older daughters to The Secret Valentine Tour at The Chance Theater in Poughkeepsie last night (2 hour+ drive). The show featured We The Kings with sets from The Main, The Cab, Versa Emerge and There for Tomorrow. I learned a few things:

1. Everything is ” sexy”
2. Young rock bands drink water on stage, dump at least half of it onto the audience, jump up and down with their legs together and curse like a motherfucker
3. It’s OK, maybe even sexy, to constantly play with your hair especially if you’re the lead singer of an all-male band
4. Even if you don’t relate to the music, a live show is still fun when the venue has a bar (OK I already knew this one)
5. We The Kings are actually not bad
6. Our daughters were thrilled to see these bands in a relatively small, good sounding (well they didn’t really comment on the sound) place and get really close and I completely relate
7. The band asked people to wave their cell phones in the air in lieu of lighters
8. There are hundreds of really poor quality cell phone videos of that show being played for friends all over schools in NY and NJ today
9. I’d like to see a band at The Chance Theater that I want to see
10. Poughkeepsie has seen better days
11. Young rockers love everyone

For those enamored with all things Mississippi, here’s one that will more than likely titillate in much the same way.

This is the third volume of what is supposed to be a ten volume collection.  If this and the other two (Give Me Love and Living Is Hard) are anything to go by, this promises to be fantastic reissue project.

Tommy James & The Shondells
Crimson and Clover

Sometimes music reaches out and grabs you. At unexpected times in unexpected places and unexpected ways. And sometimes it just whacks you over the head and makes you go all mushy. Yesterday listening to John’s Silverbacks being driven by his 845 amp, Komuro was sucker-punched by “Crimson and Clover”. I can only imagine that it was a combination of memories and present-tense presence but whatever else it was it was a most excellent moment.

Cover overload to be sure. Modern jazz-rock-prog served up by the kindly folks at Rune Grammofon. Plenty for acolytes of Zawinul and Soft Machine.

Oddly enough, the vinyl is white ….

Have we talked about this already?  I don’t know, but it goes along with our ice-melting, summery theme.  Alegranza! is a cacophonic, clammering off-kilter carnival.  It sounds like summer; feels like summer; tastes, looks, smells like summer:

There are fireworks in the sky and you’ve got a beer in your hand.  There are dancers in the street waving enormous flags and color is exploding everywhere and all the women are impossibly beautiful and wearing next to nothing and looking your way.

Alegranza!

Since we’re all in a summery frame of mind (or at least trying to be), I thought I’d throw this one out there. Lovely Tropicalia-influenced project by Cloudland Canyon member Kip Uhlhorn along with his wife Kelly and John David Lovelace.

“Pour yourself and a friend some cocktails, sit by the pool and try to become lucid as your bare tanned forearms grow beyond 17 feet long.”

It’s really too bad it’s February.

Sun Araw
Beach Head

Skanky stoner surf sounds. Sun Araw, Cameron Stallone’s (of Magic Lantern) side project, is all tropical jungle haze with birds, buzz wah grind and chimes in a gentle drone that washes up against your ears like a warm tongue. If you read the reviews, this record seems to beg for that kind of overly drippy language. In any case, a nice tasty rainbow break from the icy grayness of February.

Looky here! A book about one of my favourite labels ever.  Pretty lavish production considering the subject.  Lake and Griffiths do a swell job touching base with ECM artists past, present and future.  Many of my heroes are present; John Surman, Steve Tibbetts and Steve Kuhn to name but a few.  Without overstating the case, Manfred Eicher (ECM label boss) managed to create a sonic road map for my adult life.

Let Manfred be your guide!

NB.  Rumour has it the first two ECMs of 2009 will be available on vinyl!

Daniel A.I.U. Higgs
Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot

If it isn’t painfully clear, I’m fascinated by the weirder shit. And Daniel Arcus Incus Ululat Higgs appears to be the purveyor of some wonderfully weird (whacky) shit. Raga drone, over-driven banjo, guitar, piano or Jew’s harp all with ringing harmonics, occasional bird sounds and more fuzz than your stinkiest weed-soaked mohair sweater. Recorded in Mr. Higgs home, the LP is limited to 1,000 copies and comes with a wonderfully weird as shit book.

Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot is a 48-page art book of paintings and acrotics named after the tree of life in Norse mythology and the tarot-like experience of flipping through the books pages while listening to Daniel’s recording. 

Mr. Higgs is also a member of Lungfish a band I’ve never heard (they’ve only been around for 18 years) but I plan to remedy that in short order.