Twittering Machines

Best Coast
Crazy For You

I’ve always had a soft spot for the classic girl-group and their brokenhearted longing for lost boyfriends love songs. They are at once uplifting and sad. Stephen Mejias gets at this and I agree that Best Coast nails it perfectly on Crazy For You. This is updated girl-group sound with just enough noise, grime and overdriven amps (or if you prefer there’s enough of Bethany Cosentino’s Pocahaunted sound remaining) to remind us its the 21st C not c.1960.

Best Coast is Bethany Cosentino on guitar and vocals and Bobb Bruno on guitar, bass and drums and together they make a big girl-group splash with their new release Crazy For You. Released on Mexican Summer in a limited run of 4,000.

These are classic song-form songs and Best Coast followed the age-old classic song-form tradition of pre-releasing an enticing string of 45rpm singles prior to the LP to whet our appetites. And the whet was worth the wait. I just wish I had time to make a CD so I could sing-along on my way to the other coast.

You know, the one that the sun rises over. Hmm. I wonder if seeing the sun rise or set over the ocean makes people happier or sadder?

Glenn Branca
Symphony No. 6 (Devil Choirs At The Gates of Heaven)

Thinking about Cristian Marclay and Lee Ranaldo and guitars and performances makes me think of, among other things, Glenn Branca. Symphony No. 6 (Devil Choirs At The Gates of Heaven) is from 1989 and it’s the first Glenn Branca album I owned and it remains a favorite. While Lee Ranaldo doesn’t play on this one, he did play on a bunch of Branca’s earlier records including Lesson No. 1, The Ascension, and Symphony No.3 (Gloria) along with Thurston Moore and Michael Gira.

The appeal of No. 6 is twofold and personal (isn’t that usually the case?) – I was fortunate enough to overlap with Jonathan Bepler, one of the guitarists on this record, at Bennington College, and the sound of this record, which I love, reminds me of NYC in the later 1980s which I loved.

There’s certainly that Sonic Youth massed guitar noise appeal and then some with 10 guitarists, bass, keyboards and drums but there’s more – namely beauty. The Second Movement (8:07) may be some of the most intensely lovely massed guitar ever put to vinyl – a sustained sonic climb toward the heavens. And the idea that a bunch of over-driven guitars can get us there is, well, just plain lovely. And then there’s the fury.

Thurston Moore described his first experience seeing Branca’s guitar ensemble (which included Lee Ranaldo) as “the most ferocious guitar band that I had ever seen in my life”. Ferocious is so good sounding.

Glenn Branca Band, early ’80s: Glenn Branca, Lee Raynaldo, Thurston Moore, David Rosenbloom, Jeffrey Glenn, Ned Sublette (offscreen)
photo credit: S. Chernikowski

Here’s Glenn Branca on the Harmonic Series from an interview in EST Magazine:

“You see, it’s a non-linear system, and because this system is also the vibration of a string, within the vibration of a string is the entire harmonic series. A string vibrates in at least 256 modes all at the same time. These modes, all vibrating at the same time, are inter-penetrating in a way that creates the sound that we hear. It’s all of those sounds, ringing at the same time, that give what we perceive as a single sound, but we don’t hear a single sound, we’re hearing a resonance that is the result of multiple sounds, an interpenetration of non-linear vibration. It’s fabulous stuff.”

Christian Marclay, Record Without a Cover (1985)

The Whitney Museum strikes again – Christian Marclay: Festival, July 1–September 26, 2010.

From the press release: Artist/composer Christian Marclay (b. 1955) is known for his distinctive fusion of image and sound. Celebrated as a pioneer of turntablism, Marclay transforms sound and music into visual and physical forms through performance, collage, sculpture, large-scale installations, photography, and video. This groundbreaking Whitney exhibition—activated by daily concerts and continually evolving—explores Marclay’s approach to the world around him with a particular focus on his “graphic scores” for performance by musicians and vocalists.

Natalia Perez drawing in “Christian Marclay: Festival.”
photo credit: Marcus Yam/The New York Times

Turntablism? Yes turntablism. While the term ‘turntablist’ was coined in 1985 by DJ Babu, Marclay used a skipping LP as live percussion to stand in for his drummer-less band way back in 1979. The Whitney exhibit includes daily live performances and a chalk board on which visitors can make words or marks that the performers use as their evolving score.

Lee Ranaldo, left, and Ulrich Krieger performed Mr. Marclay’s “Screen Play”
photo credit: Marcus Yam/The New York Times

Performers include Lee Ranaldo (yes, we missed him), Ikue Mori (of DNA fame – today!), Marilyn Crispell, Elliot Sharp, and Zeena Parkins. And check out the NY Times coverage for an in-depth discussion of Marclay’s work.

Interactive music-as-performance-art to help raise our awareness of the importance of music and art in our lives. What more can you ask for?

The plain white 100% cotton crew neck t shirt. The tee, the undershirt as shirt proper. The perfect summertime partner for your Levi’s. No’s: no pockets, no spandex, no silk, no ‘body sculpting’, no spanx, no v neck, no logos, no nothing – just a plain white 100% cotton crew neck t shirt. Simple. No?

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too cool

too warm

just right

I joked about the ubiquity of the Dodge Dart in California in my introduction, but it seems to be just as true over here in The Hood. Today, three nice coupes from a couple of generations, the first a sweet, plum, third generation 1966 GT.

Put a 270 V8 in a cute little googley-eyed A-Body coupe and things can get fun.

And note the severe DART font and the groovy swirl of the GT logo:

Then along comes the 70′s, out goes the euro GT tag and in comes the Swinger.

This 1970 example is the buttoned-down, forest green corporate player with the black-vinyl top that you might bump into at a key party.

While not the finest example of the breed, I like it for the use of the then new Dodge logo, swoopy capital D and all.

Which brings us to a lovely, powder-blue Swinger:

This 73 is the same basic fifth generation Dart as the 70, with a facelift. Last year to sport the trademark rear-bumper with taillights inside, the front gets a heavy bumper and a bit of what as to come with the K-body Volare in the grille treatment.

Ornette Coleman | Charlie Haden
Soapsuds, Soapsuds

Just the two of ‘em with Ornette on tenor sax and trumpet and Charlie Haden on bass recorded January 1977 in NYC for the Artists House label. Twenty years of playing together went by before this record was made and for Charlie Haden “it fulfills a dream.” I’d like to think most listeners will agree before, during and after listening.

Have you ever read things that Ornette Coleman has written? It’s just like his playing covering more ground in two sentences than most do in two pages. Which necessarily means you have some filling in the blanks to do. Exhibit A (from the liner notes):

“We all know that a grave yard millions of years old is the study of archaeology, not city planning. To save and give all information concerning all subjects one wishes to study would free all races from information genocide. What one does not wish to be known about them, only love and death remind them of what that is. Music tells these stories to all persons of age…

…Those who someday find their own musical voice in sound remember: music like all expressions in art removes us from watching the doing.”

Listening to this record is like eavesdropping on two old friends sharing intimacies in a beautiful foreign yet familiar  language. Gatefold cover also includes an 8-page booklet.

Fucked Up
Year of the Ox

The fourth installment in Fucked Up’s Chinese Zodiac series, Year of the Ox will be released in North America on September 28th in a limited 12″  from Merge Records. Did I mention Year of the Ox features Toronto’s string quartet, New Strings Old Puppets and Nika Rosa Danilova, aka Zola Jesus? You can give it a listen on Pitchfork (Nika comes in around the 9 minute mark of this 13 minute monster A-Side anthem). Tasty.

Antonio Carlos & Jocafi
Mudei de Idéia

1971 groovy Brazilian psych samba acid funk. The first track, “Você Abusou” was a hit in Brazil and France where Michel Fugain came out with his own version called “Fais comme l’oiseau” in 1972. Carlos & Jocafi sued him and won. Beyond that I don’t know much about these guys or this record except that it was Carlos & Jocafi’s debut and it sounded great in Tropicalia in Furs after many beers at Great Jones and it sounds even better now. Beautifully recorded, stylistically schizophrenic (think The 5th Dimension meets Cream) but tied together with that beautiful Brazilian hotness. And please, feel free to judge this record by its cover.

Brought to my attention by Kris @ Listen Records.

www.uncrate.com

Here’s the skinny …
“And what a fitting name it is. The End of History Beer ($650-$900) is an ultra-limited — as in, it might already be sold out — 55% alcohol blond Belgian ale, brewed using crazy freezing techniques, and featuring hints of juniper berries, mead, and nettles. Of course, being the world’s strongest and most expensive beer wasn’t enough for these restless brewmasters, so they took things one step further, and packaged the beer inside taxidermied roadkill, creating the end game of premium beer.”

Bauhaus
In The Flat Field

In The Flat Field is Bauhaus’ debut LP released on 4AD in 1980 and it sounds, to me at least, like greatest hits with nary a dud in the lot. But when this came out almost every critic panned it completely – NME said “nine meaningless moans and flails bereft of even the most cursory contour of interest, a record which deserves all the damning adjectives usually leveled at grim-faced ‘modernists’.” Grim-faced modernists. I love that! Here’s another from Sounds “Coldly catatonic.” Excellent!

Regardless of the critical pan, In The Flat Field topped the UK indie charts and even peaked at 72 on the UK Album Chart. But damn! The UK must have been one gloomy place as the ’70s gave way to the ’80s – Joy Division’s debut LP Unknown Pleasures was released in ’79, Closer came out in 1980 and The Birthday Party and their eponymous LP hit the shores of un-jolly ‘ol England the same year. Was the UK all black and white back then? Did the Hammer Films production team take over the music scene?

Bauhaus had a great sound that matched their lyrics and look. Glamorously depraved? Mausoleum  rock? It was actually the package deal, simply a great band – Peter Murphy (vocals), Daniel Ash (guitar), Kevin Haskins (drums) and David J (bass). While Bauhaus are credited as the fathers of “goth rock”, labels tend to oversimplify and obscure the experience so let’s just say Bauhaus is deliciously dark and let the pounding, grit and manic vocals over echoed atmospheric emptiness take us wherever we’re so inclined.

Dandy in the underworld?

…to our feet?

DECADENCE Velvet Loafer, £ 155.00

Designer Jeffery-West goes goth with these black velvet loafers – “Features Red Embroidered Dandy in the Underworld Motif, and the Black and Red Decadence, Sleaze and Excess Sole.”  That ‘Dandy in the Underworld’ bears a striking resemblance to Bauhaus’ underlit Peter Murphy from their Bela Lugosi’s Dead / The Hunger days…

“Our shoes are for hell-raisers and the fiercely individual,” says West. Really? I think the fiercely individual individual is the one pictured on the shoe. Be your own shoe! Or how about – Don’t leave your soul up to your shoe! Anyway, rumor has it David Bowie is a customer although I’m certain there are no pictures of Peter Murphy on his. Also comes in a dandy Chelsea boot.

A decadent sole?

Ray Charles
Yes Indeed!!

Yes Indeed!! is Ray Charles’ third LP released on Atlantic in 1958 and yes indeed, it’s worthy of at least two!!. When I hear this music, I don’t think “blues” (even though the liner notes call Ray a blues singer) or gospel or rock n roll or R&B, I think – “Ray Charles” – infectious, joyful, pounding rhythm,  jaunty dance-hall blues with boatloads of soul to save yours.

No matter what Ray Charles sings about, I feel good. Like a James Brown I feel good but with more swing and swagger. “Yes indeed yes indeed I’ve got that feeling in me yes indeed”.

Includes tons of hits like Doc Pomus’ “Lonely Avenue“, Sy Oliver’s “Yes Indeed!” and the dizzying Ray Charles tune  “Leave My Woman Alone” where Ray asks you to climb aboard as he, the band and The Cookies go from 0 to 60 in three words “If you don’t…” One of the most joyful ‘I’m going to kick your ass’ songs, ever!!

that’s the alternate Ray Charles invasion cover with only one !