Twittering Machines

Julian Lynch
Mare

What do you need to know about Julian Lynch besides that he’s also in Ducktails and Real Estate, he worked for Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, he’s going for his PhD in ethnomusicology (with a focus on Indian music) and he’s from Ridgewood, NJ. I say roll all that up, let it steep and it’ll get you very nearly part of the way there. Mare is Lynch’s 2nd LP on Olde English Spelling Bee and it’s a hookah den-ful of relaxation and a retreat for the ears.

This is one-man-band layered worldly music with woozy guitars, synthesized melodies, electronic atmospheres, clarinet, percussion, eastern vibes and dreamy nearly indecipherable lyrics which act more like voice-sounds than vocals. It’s mostly blissed-out and beautiful but boring it ain’t. I get the feeling Lynch is trying to do nothing more than make music that makes his mind happy. At least that’s what mine is telling me as these songs drift by.

Keith Fullerton Whitman
Variations For Oud & Synthesizer

Beyond being a musician, Keith Fullerton Whitman is also one of two behind the excellent Mimaroglu Music Sales a treasure trove of experimental and ‘avante-garde’ music. Variations For Oud & Synthesizer is what the title says and I’d just add it is also a beautiful trippy swirling storm of sounds minimal in melodic movement, maximal in variation. Just when you think the oud has been completely synthesized into infinite Subotnick-space, pure acoustic notes ring out and ground us back to earth.

You can hear a sample of this music on Mimaroglu or Keith Fullerton Whitman’s website and I’d say give it a listen and if you like what you hear you’ll like this lovingly produced 7″ even more.

They want me send this back?

Important Notice: Heathen Child 12″ Vinyl (12MUTE441)

Due to a manufacturing problem, the 12″ vinyl of Heathen Child has been cut with the incorrect version of Super Heathen Child (featuring Robert Fripp) on the AA side.

It is essential to Grinderman that this 12″ single is presented as intended with the correct version of Super Heathen Child. We are therefore re-calling existing stock and are re-pressing the single – revised copies should be available from Tuesday 14th September.

Please return your copy to us using the below Freepost address and we will send you a replacement copy at no extra cost.

they look angry but I’m still keeping my evol copy

Update (later that same day): I compared the AA Super Heathen Child side from the 12″ and this copy and they are different mixes. Most notably the long closing Fripp-ripping-it-fest with Cave howling in the background varies from version to version and I actually prefer the online copy which I’m assuming is the ‘correct’ version. But I’m still not returning my evol copy.

And did I say what a strange, unexpected and delightful treat it is to hear Robert Fripp ripping it with Nick Cave holwing in the background?

Gábor Szabó
Jazz Raga

Jazz Raga is cool. Jazz Raga is sexy. Jazz Raga is all the rage. No, that’s not it either – Jazz Raga is…groovy, baby. Yea. The kind of groovy that makes you twinge with uneasiness like that nightmare about wearing pj’s to school. That Austin Powers dated groovy or better yet Jazz Raga would have been the perfect party music for the Peter Sellers film The Party.

C. S. Divot: Who do you think you are?
Hrundi V. Bakshi: In India, we don’t think who we are. We know who we are.

On August 4, 1966 Hungarian born guitarist Gábor Szabó waited in the studio for his touring band to show up for this recording session. They didn’t. So Gábor recruited Johnny Gregg on bass and Bernard “Pretty” Purdie on drums and they proceeded to lay down 5 of these tracks. Less than two weeks later, Bob Bushnell joined the boys on “fender guitar” and they wrapped up the remaining 6. Then after everyone went home Gábor overdubbed some subtle sitar on top. Like eastern icing.

Jazz Raga is a great record (and dig that crazy cover! with Gábor’s painting). It’s a perfect party record. I’d buy it for the opener “Walking On Nails” alone where Szabó, at producer Bob Thiele’s suggestion and Rudy Van Gelder’s magic, adds some far-out spoken-word jazz raga rap. And Gábor Szabó was a smooth player like early George Benson smooth with an eastern flair and passion, baby, and the mix of guitars, sitar, bass and some rock-steady R&B “Pretty” Purdie beat is intoxicating. And I’m not sure if their cover of “Paint It Black” complete with twangy sitar standing in for Mick is the best or worst idea I’ve ever heard which makes it kinda great.

From the liner notes by Nat Hentoff:

Paint It Black, one of the Rolloing Stones’s more ominously evocative songs, takes on not only more darkly visceral colors in this version but is also given a rhythmic, whirlpool-like force that again approaches the condition of a trance.

Yea, baby. Repeat after me – Birdie num nums!

Marva Whitney
It’s My Thing

It’s My Thing came out in 1969 directly following Whitney’s 3-year stint as “Soul Sister #1″ in the James Brown Revue. JB produced this record, wrote a bunch of the songs, he sings on it, screams on it (I bet he danced on it too) and the JBs are the backing band so it’s easy to say this record sounds like a James Brown record with a bad-ass female singer. Because it does and she is.

If you like funk, if you like fiery funky female singers that can keep up with James Brown and the JBs and stretch out in upper registers JB could only scream into, you’ll love Marva Whitney. It’s My Thing was originally released on King Records (their James Brown catalog was bought by Polydor in ’71) and this is a Polydor reissue. There’s also an expanded double LP version from 2000 with the same title that adds more of Marva’s 45s on the Soul Brothers (UK) label .

For some music, like this music, a 45 is the perfect bit-sized funky chunk.

Sonic Youth
Evol

1986. I don’t know about you, but for me favorite things get that way for personal reasons as much as some ideal genre-specific merit, i.e. The Best bugs me. It irks and irritates me nearly to no end. Part of the reason is things, especially Art, are about experiencing. About us, you and me, experiencing and our experience is informed by circumstance as well as knowledge and experience. A potentially viscous circle where we could end up chasing our tail while admiring our exquisite taste.

Evol came out in 1986 the year I graduated from college which is the end of something and the beginning of something. A strange and exciting time. I also found this inter what-the-fuck-am-I-going-to-do-with-my-life period strenuous. It just took some time to find new shoes to fit my new feet but those barefoot months spent looking for a beginning were like dancing on broken glass. Naked.

On June 26, 1986 Sonic Youth played The Kennel Club in Philly for their Evol tour. My friend Joe hooked us up so I drove down to Joe’s place in Wilmington Delaware after attending a friend’s wedding. I believe I made that drive from northern NJ to Delaware in 10 minutes teeth clenched, chattering. Joe and I arrived at The Kennel Club just as Sonic Youth pulled up in their van ( I remember it being old and blue but it may have been new and red and not a van at all) and what I recall most clearly was the dog-eared copy of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man stuffed between the dash and windshield.

The next thing I remember is Joe pushing me through the crowd (it wasn’t a big crowd) and he didn’t stop until I stood with nothing in between me and Kim Gordon but a big grin and a microphone. I think I swayed, I know I smiled and I left The Kennel Club with big boots ready to kick the world’s ass.

It’s funny – here I sit some twenty odd years later listening to Evol barefoot. Time for new boots.

Mississippi John Hurt
Worried Blues

Worried Blues was John Smith Hurt’s 2nd LP released on Piedmont Records in 1964 (his first LP was from 1963 titled Folk Songs and Blues). This is a live recording (on an Ampeg reel-to-reel deck) from The Ontario Place Cafe Gallerie in Washington D.C. where John Hurt was the resident musician earning $200/week. He and his family moved to D.C. in 1963 after being ‘rediscovered’ by Dick Waterman who eventually became Hurt’s manager and blues record collector Tom Hoskins who tracked John Hurt down near Avalon, Mississippi based on his song “Avalon Blues” which contained the line ‘my home town’.

You see, John Hurt cut 12 sides (plus 1 unissued track “Big Leg Blues”) for Okeh Records in 1928  but they never caught on with the public even though someone at Okeh decided to stick “Mississippi” in front of John Hurt’s name to sell records. So Mississippi John Hurt went back home to Mississippi and labored. For 35 years.

In 1952 American Folkways released a few of Hurt’s ’28 tracks as part of their LP series Anthology Of American Folk Music but it wasn’t until 1963 that Mississippi John Hurt recorded again. John Hurt was born on July 3, 1892 which makes him over 70 when he recorded Worried Blues and he’s in fine form. Compared to his studio recordings this live version is rougher around the edges. According this excellent bio by Jas Obrecht, Hurt plays his inexpensive Guild guitar as opposed to Stefan Grossman’s Martin OM-45 which Hurt borrowed for his Vanguard studio recordings. But I like this sound and the idea that I’m listening to John Hurt play as if I was listening to John Hurt play.

I like hearing one of the gentlest masters of the guitar and song tell his stories and make people laugh. You can hear him smile in return. When asked by Dick Waterman what he wanted from life more than anything else John Hurt answered – “If I was to have just one wish and I knew that wish was to come true, . . . I would wish that everyone in this world would love me just like I love everyone in this world.“

For a complete discography, check out this excellent site by Stefan Wirtz and this site by Dennis H. Tesreau which includes recommended recordings.

Cheers!

Patty Waters
Sings

Released on ESP Disk in 1966, Patty Waters Sings is her debut record and she sounds like no one else. Sure, you can reference hints of Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Cathy Berberian, Chet Baker (something about his phrasing but with teeth) and Dee Dee Bridgewater (c.Brains On Fire Vol.2) but ultimately when you first play Side A you’ll wonder for a moment what the hell she’s doing until you realize she’s pouring out pure unbridled emotion turning her voice into something that seeps into your body and forces a stripping away of preconception. Like water poured over sugar into absinthe, her voice is pure and clear and sweet until it mixes with your clouded (sub)conscious(ness).

Side A is seven short (all under 3:00 most under 2:00) songs with just Waters accompanying herself on piano that are so searingly hauntingly beautiful and forlorn you want to melt. The sidelong Side B song descends into a primal-scream therapy-like exorcism using the word “black” as vehicle relentlessly and repeatedly until Water’s is screeching indecipherable splotches of pained and at times ecstatic sounds (Diamanda Galás, Yoko Ono, Patti Smith, Thurston Moore and Lydia Lunch are fans) only to come to a final quivering rest. The band behind – Burton Greene piano and piano harp, Steve Tintweiss bass and Tom Price percussion – remain unflustered and equally brilliant but its Patty Waters who steals the show and stomps any preconceivers or passive listeners to bloody smithereens.

Albert Ayler saw Waters perform and was so impressed (that should tell you something) he recommended her to Bernard Stollman of ESP. Waters cut this and one other record for Stollman in 1966, the live College Tour. She also appeared on the Marzette Watts Ensemble’s self-titled LP for ESP (1966) and then disappeared until 1996 when she released Love Songs.

“People ask me (about) my influences, I would have to say Patty Waters. They say other people and I say, Nahh, Patty Waters, listen to Patty Waters. I listened to her twice. That’s all it took for some grain of inextricable influence.” – Diamanda Galás, 1998

Listen to Patty Waters.

John Prine
S/T

The singer songwriter. Country, folk music. American storyteller blues. John Prine’s 1971 debut LP was due in part to Kris Kristofferson and Paul Anka who were told they had to hear Prine by friend/musician Steve Goodman. So they drove, sat and listened after hours as Prine sang and played his 24-year-old wisdom to an otherwise empty closed bar. From Kristofferson’s liner notes:

“Twenty-four years old and writes like he’s two hundred and twenty. I don’t know where he comes from, but I’ve got a good idea where he’s going. We went away believers, reminded how goddamned good it feels to be turned on by a real Creative Imagination.“

I have Stephen to thank for turning me on to this music which makes me feel goddamned good and goddamned bad. John Prine weaves his words and melodies into intricate patterns of interdependence so when he delivers a warp before a weave you get to chuckle or choke up when they finally mesh. And he does this in a deceptively simple, easy going manner so these tunes slip around you like a comfy blanket before they bore into your conscience and make you feel goddamned good and goddamned bad. About life.

I stumbled on an article from Time Magazine in 1972 which contained this story:

“It was an ordinary Chicago mailbox, the kind mailmen use for stashing their extra loads while making rounds. But what were those shuffling and humming sounds coming from within? Curious or startled passers-by probably never found out, but they were made by Mailman John Prine, scrunched up inside the empty box to escape the icy wind, eating his lunch and composing his mournful songs.”

This ex-postman always rings true.

Bob Dylan
The Brazil Series

The Statens Museum for Kunst /National Gallery of Denmark is home to the exhibit Bob Dylan: The Brazil Series running from September 4, 2010 through January 30, 2011. Who knew? I suppose a lot of people since Bob Dylan has been painting since the 1960s or as he says “I have always painted.”

Music From Big Pink

Of course there’s Dylan’s cover art for Planet Waves and Self Portrait as well as his painting for The Band’s Music From Big Pink.

“In a strange way I noticed that it purified the experience of my eye…” Bob Dylan on drawing

Bahia, 2010 © Bob Dylan. Acrylic on canvas, 121,9 x 91,4 cm

These new paintings are based on Dylan’s many visits to Brazil and were created specifically for this exhibit, about 40 paintings in all.

Favela Villa Broncos, 2010 © Bob Dylan. Acrylic on canvas, 106,7 x 142,2 cm

But few artists are afforded respect in more than one area of expression. Why is that? Are you your own toughest act to follow?

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various
The Great Blues Men

I don’t remember exactly when I first bought this record but it was some time in the mid-1970s. What I do remember is being captivated, completely and totally taken with the sounds of Homesick James, Sleepy John Estes, Rev. Gary Davis, Son House, Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt, Fred McDowell, Robert Pete Williams, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Big Bill Broonzy, Otis Span, Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry, Lightnin Hopkins, Johnny Young, James Cotton, Jimmy Rushing, JB Hutto, Ida Cox, Joe Turner & Pete Johnson, Johnny Shines, Junior Wells, Jesse Fuller, Mance Lipscomb and Otis Rush. Every single track of this double LP was like a trip to some other time and place and no two destinations were alike.

The Blues. More than any other, this record helped me hear how inept that one word is at capturing all of these people and their music. Hell, even if you narrow it down to Delta Blues you’re still talking about trying to stick Son House, Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt, Fred McDowell, Johnny Shines, James Cotton, John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters into the same stylistic pot that wouldn’t fit any two. Just compare the brute force of Son House to the gentleness of John Hurt or the falsetto moans of Skip James to the baritone bluster of Muddy Waters and you’ll see how futile it is to cull and call these men by anything but their names. But for the purposes of this record, I’m glad they generalized.

Put out by Vanguard in 1972, The Great Blues Men is a stunning compilation that still leaves me awestruck and inspired. Even if you own LPs by all or most of these blues men (and woman), I’d still recommend this collection because its just so much damn fun to listen through. And it’s easy to get, inexpensive, includes brief bios and that cover collage by Eric Von Schmidt (yes, that Eric Von Schmidt who hung with Dylan and whose LP cover appears at the top of the pile on Dylan’s Bringing it All Back Home) is a visual treat.

A number of these tracks are live recordings taken from John Hammond’s 1938 Spirituals to Swing concert at Carnegie Hall (available on Vanguard) and the Newport Folk Festivals from 1959 – ’65. I’d also recommend the LPs titled The Blues at Newport from 1963 and 1964. Come to think of it I suppose I’d recommend getting at least 1 LP by every player on this record and I realize as I type this I’m not done.

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