A year, really?

I can't believe this is the first post in a year. Now I for one have no room to talk but I'd really like to hear from you guys. What is everyone listening to? Seen any good shows lately? I guess we're all too busy being rock stars or bitter writers to post to our own blog.

The other night, my band was playing a gig with Saturday Looks Good to Me(who's new album is stellar by the way) and iji. Iji's a fantastic local band and their drummer let me know he really likes this blog. That was touching and surprising, cos I though that this many people read this blog.

So cool. I've been doing some writing for Tiny Mixtapes, so I've been busy with that, as has our boy Ed Irving (a few of his Tiny Mixtapes articles appeared here on Calling Planet Earth first). So expect most of my centered rock write to be directed over to those guys.

Not that I won't do all sorts of musical seed spilling here when I feel like it. And right now I kinda do.

The new Iron & Wine album is good. REALLY good. Not to get to bloody indie-tastic, but I really enjoy Sam Beam. I've actually had itty bitty breakdowns to some of his songs, crying in the car and such. Now I know that sounds impossibly yuppie, and really, with the "Garden State" and the M&M's and the constant adoration of the AOR rag Paste, I wouldn't blame you for writing Mr. Beam off.

But whatever man. Check out "the Shepherd's Dog" for some tasty West African dub folk mariachi goodness. And some serious Biblical metaphors. Oh yah, members of Calexico and Califone. Don't got much for this one, so just read the lyrics here to innocent bones and get on it:

Cain got a milk-eyed mule from the auction
Abel got a telephone
And even the last of the blue-eyed babies know
That the burning man is the color of the end of day
And how every tongue that gets bit always has another word to say

Cain bought a blade from some witch at the window
Abel bought a bag of weed
And the even the last of the brown-eyed babies see
That the cartoon king has a tattoo of a bleeding heart
There ain't a penthouse christian that wants the pain or the scab, but they all want the scar
How every mouth sings of what it's without so we all sing of love
And how it ain't one dog who's good at fucking and denying who he's thinking of

Cain heard the cat tumble limp off the rooftop
Abel had his papa pray
And even the last of the black-eyed babies say
That every saint has a chair you can borrow in a church to sell
That the wind blows cold across the back of a master and the kitchen help
There's a big pile of innocent bones still holding up the garden wall
And it was always the broken hand we learned to lean on after all
How God knows if Christ came back he'd find us in a poker game
After finding out the drinks were all free but they won't let you out the door again

"Tonal Ellipse of the One"

In one of their website photos, the three members Brooklyn’s La Otracina pose bad-ass style at the back of their van. Seems like a sturdy ride, non-descript white and sufficiently dinged up from serious time on the road. Visible just above the van’s New Jersey tags are two stickers, both classic and iconic: the Deadhead and Misfits skulls. Two boney images, both mythic and menacing. Another photo reveals the van’s dashboard: a cluttered mess of mini Buddha statues, resin shrooms and stuffed toy frogs. The caption labels this road worthy shrine “the magik dashboard.”

At this point you may be asking yourself why I am focusing so much on the inside and outside La Otracina’s van. I am doing so because La Otracina’s new album “Tonal Ellipse of the One” is the kind of record designed for people driving, living in and generally fond of vans. It’s kraut-rock via Sabbath riffage and freak-out blasts of post jazz psych noise conjure images of some cosmic traveler riding a splash painted “15 Passenger” down the endless highway and into the great void. Again, their MySpace page proves invaluable in describing their steez: “jazz- rock wizardry and hard-psych witchery.” The kind of stuff van tape decks are designed for.

Drummer and synth mangler Adam Kriney, known in addition for his Owl Xounds Exploding Galaxy/Owl Sounds project and Colour Sounds Recordings cd-r label has lead La Otracina and the bands rotating cast of musicians through no fewer than 7 records prior to being joined by Ninni Morgia on guitar, Tyler Nolan on guitar and bass, Jordon Schranz and Gene Janas, both on bass respectively, for “Tonal…”, the band’s first album for the Holy Mountain label.

The dudes start things off with “Yellow Mellow Magic”, easing the listener into their world with fuzzy bass swells, ethereal guitars and free jazz drum bashing. The crew wastes little time settling to a stoner prog jam, Morgia’s guitar’s bouncing off rhythmic wall Kriney and Sobel have erected.

“Beyond the Dusty Hills (Cowboy in the Desert Part Two) shuffles along a focused boogie before launching into International Harvester realms of phased and slap back echoed psychedelia, only to bring the Crimson King back to the court as they segue into
“Nine Times the Color Red Explodes Like Heated Blood” and “Sailor of the Salvian Seas”.

“Ode to Amalthea” closes the album. Recalling the opening beauty of the album, the track moves effortlessly from beauty to triumphant riffing, escalating to breaking point, when the noise cracks and the band let’s dubby echoes of guitar and melodic bass work color the end of the album.

In a time where Dirty Projectors are doing Black Flag “re-imaginings” and sad folkies like Ryan Adams are bouncing from toss-away punk to jamming with Phil Lesh, the one time barrier between noisy miscreants and granola hungry hippies seems all but torn down, to the point where such musical open-mindedness is hardly shocking, and even borders on trite. But La Otracina seem genuinely inspired by both realms, never letting their proggy tendencies get Wakeman-like showy, instead utilizing their technical skill to create complex and driving, but never soulless apocalyptic rock and roll. The punk rockers aren’t just taking acid; they’re coming up with ridiculously epic song titles and playing that shit barefoot. Get in the van.

Seriously, just check out "Colony of Birchman".

I'll probably loose all my "hip points" for making my return post about the Foo Fighters "Fantasy Suite" at the MTV VMA's, but holy shee-ite, shit actually rocked. I've never been a big Foo Fighters fan, but I'll readily admit that Dave Grohl and Co. are pretty much all you need in a RAWK band, you know?

Even if you hate the Fighters, this stuff is worth checking out solely for appearances by Cee Lo, Lemmy from Motorhead, Mastodon, Serj from System of a Down (who I don't like but who works very well here), Queens of the Stone Age and Nirvana/Foo guitarist Pat Smear (remember the Germs?) and cover versions of Prince and Dead Kennedys tunes.

I dunno. It's pretty kick ass.

Check it out.

The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth When People Start Listenin’

A small piece of me dies whenever I read or hear the words Rock Icon–partially because rock-stars already have more than their share of cash, bennies, and pussy that givin’ em’ godhood on top of everything else goes against every shred of common sense that I got.

What’s more is that those words, rock icon, were undoubtedly conceived by mega-conglomerations to dupe us into buying records on the merit of hype and heresy, which is about as insulting as the idea of taking popular albums, adding a couple of bonus tracks or alternate takes, then printing the words Special Edition along the seam so that no-nuthin’ null-nodes will actually re-buy these records because they gotta have those throwaway songs which are rarely worth the plastic they’re recorded ll at least) are products of some lunatic brain who also happens to be endowed with a dangerous amount of creative brilliance and/or ineptitude (typically the latter) to back his/her monkeyshines.

Like most rock pioneers, Meek never got the credit owed to him. Despite being England’s first independent producer, Meek’s legacy goes largely ignored by the general public and he was never suave nor popular enough to get inducted into The Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame. But so what? Clearly, this is nothing new. The bigwigs run everything, and a small fish like Joe Meek (whose name hardly generates a buzz in this day and age) doesn’t stand a fighting chance when there isn’t a buck to be made by exploiting his name. But Meek was an anomaly–as an artist and human being–and despite the general indifference his name provokes now, he had heavy acts like the Beatles, Bowie, and Rod Stewart beggin’ to work with him–what’s more is he turned em’ all down cold.

The first thing you should know about Meek is how technically incompetent he was. Cuz in addition to being tone deaf and dyslexic, Meek couldn’t sing, play, or write a single phrase of musical notation to save his life–but Meek’s career is a testament to the idea that vision counts for more than conventional talent, cuz being completely inept never stopped Meek from producing a seminal body of work. Furthermore, Meek’s level of ineptitude is exactly the degree of ignorance it takes to stamp out the blase three chord blues-driven rigamarole of traditional rock and really start RAWKIN’ with some truly original noise. I suppose, in this respect, that Meek is sorta the granddaddy of all those untrained albeit great and original rock n’ roll acts that have emerged out of the noise-chaos every now and then. The seminal groups I speak of are DNA, the Fugs, the Godz, Half-Japanese, the Sex Pistols, the Shaggs, Suicide, etc.–that ain’t much on technical guitar shreddin’ but have so much raw spirit in the marrow of their bones that even when they played a succession of wrong notes it still somehow had the total effect of sounding straight and true.

However, unlike all those mentioned groups desperately hanging on the fringes of obscurity, Meek’s music was actually being heard and dug by juvenile masses from sea to shining sea. Little did the kiddies back then know (nor care) that the Meek tunes they were shakin’ and sweatin’ to were in effect the early rumblings of experimental music (if not complete ineptitude running amok on popular radio). Because before Meek ambled on the scene, most of the songs that peaked on the pop charts were so lame and inconsequential that they practically resembled commercial jingles. Now I’m not implying that all the pre-Beatles radio blather of days past was dogshit. Cuz there were plenty of heavy-hitters too, a few of em’ even created some of the best noise mankind ever created. In fact, the best wailin’ back then (and perhaps even now) was a sonic eruption so wild and raw and seething with uncompromising sexual energy that some folks even took to callin’ this noise-germ the devil’s music–which, if you ask me, is a pretty righteous moniker (and always will be).

Anyway, Meek’s music didn’t have the sheer blinding energy and audacity of say, Chuck Berry’s or Little Richard’s–but what his music did possess were anomalous idiosyncrasies unlike anything heard on radio before. Moreover, Meek delivered these tunes in 50's/60's-styled sock hop jams, which were/are largely considered by and none to be the lowest form of mindless, predicable trash that only a generation of clueless teenyboppers could get off on. Nevertheless, Meek (at least in the beginning of his career) was proud that his brand of noise was of the bubble-gum pop variety, and from his perspective, he was merely fulfilling his part in the supply and demand scheme that the music industry has operated on since it’s inception. Plus, Meek was damn good at what he did. Back then, the state of music was one where the youth culture only expected two things outta their rock n’ roll: that it be fast and fun–and rarely did people utter the words rock and art in the same sentence unless there was a rollicking punch-line behind it. This, I think, certainly accounts for the ridiculously meager outpour of serious rock songs during that time period. The majority of clatter that materialized out of those salad days of rock was little more than vanilla anthems and adolescent howlin’. Be that as it may, Meek knew that the inherent pulse and soul that drove the youth outta their heads ultimately resided in it’s back-beat. His catchphrase was: “If it sounds right. It is right.” And clearly, Meek had the right sound pegged from the onset via catchy melodies and memorable choruses about whatever was in vogue at the time re Love, lust, milkshakes, muscle cars, etc. And despite the adolescent meanderings rife in Meek’s music, his production possessed some of the most advanced noise of it’s era–if only on the basis that he had the unprecedented foresight to incorporate the deliberate use of reverb which he coupled with Plan 9 from Outer Space special effects on the order of quasi-cosmic fuzztones and compressed caterwauling unlike anything else on the pop charts before or since.

Meek had seventy-plus acts in his stable. Arguably one of the biggest of these groups were the Tornados, force of nature, dig?, who had all the appearances of six pimply-faced limey geeks but when they hooted and hollered, suddenly came across like greaser punks hell-bent on devastatin’ everything in short order. Their claim to fame lives on as being the first British rock n’ roll act in history to make number one on American pop charts with their hit “Telstar” (named after America’s first satellite). This tune, incidentally, is also reputed to be Margaret Thatcher’s favorite pop song. Ironically true their namesake, however, the Tornados disappeared almost as quickly as they peaked. In fact, most of the groups on Meek’s label–Triumph Records–were fly-by-nighters, unable or incapable of generating more than one solid hit. There were a few exceptions that managed to garner some semblance of long-term notoriety, most notably Gene Vincent, Petula Clark, Screaming Lord Sutch, and Tom Jones, but most of Meek’s acts would dissipate as was the industry standard at the time. Which is just as well because Meek’s vision would eventually outgrow the monotonous jowls of traditional rock.

As a producer and student of muzik, Meek understood better than most the innate limitations inherent in gutter-bucket rock n’ roll, and opted instead to record instrumental blitzkriegs with his own band the Moontrekkers. The music that came out of this noise-experiment was Meek at his creative peak insofar that some of it resembled a stripped-down cosmic hybrid of Ventures meet Sun Ra Arkestra form of atonal freak out-noise. This was during a time when the only other group that dared to explore the extensive possibilities of sound for the sake of art or what have you, except the free jazz musicians of the time, were the Dream Syndicate crowd, whose members–a pre-Velvets John Cale, Tony Conrad, Angus Maclise, La Monte Young, and Marian Zazeela–were so ahead of their time that the general public immediately wrote off their white noise rumblings as music for shut-in’s and drug-addled beatniks.

Ultimately, however, Meek’s mark on history resides in the fact that he was one of the first producers to fully conceptualize and utilize the abundant possibilities in modern recording. In effect, Meek heralded a new age in studio production, which resulted in putting some of the spotlight in the producer’s corner for once. His innovations–which are still used today–takes root in outside the box type o’ thinkin’. By this point, it was becoming evident that the studio equipment used back then was hopelessly outdated, a fact which led to Meek’s own inventions, the most significant of which was a compression unit which he’d run music through to get otherworldly effects, and would later become known as his signature trademark. Beyond his inventions, however, Meek was a studio whiz, as was apparent by the use of the following innovations:

-multi-tracking
-sampling
-distorting/synthesizing vocals and instruments with reverb
- rearranging and combining musical segments a la Billy Burroughs’ cut-up composite method
-use of reversed tapes (Meek even recorded a toilet flushing and played the tape backwards on a record).

The significance of these breakthroughs are pivotal, particularly the use of multi-tracking, and the prime effect completely changed the dynamics of studio recording forever. Prior to multi-tracking, performers were recorded live and collectively in real time, which didn’t leave much room for mistakes if any given band had a sliver of a chance of capturing the magic and promise in one inspired take. On one hand, this standard of mono-recording resulted in dividing the absolute cream from the rest; but once multi-tracking caught on, any hack band off the street could slip into a studio and play/sing their part of a melody as many times as they dreamed until they got it right; furthermore, producers could edit, splice, retool the takes afterwards until they arrived at the best possible version. Although this development led to an open door policy and over-saturation of talentless pretty-boys, it also immediately improved the quality of records everywhere.

For all his brilliance, it should come to no surprise that Meek’s craziness was tantamount to all of the so-called madmen in the annuls of rock n’ roll. Moreover, I believe the key to Meek’s work and modernizations had more to do with his chemical imbalance than his drive, talent, and amphetamine binges combined. As for his barbiturate habit, this should come as a surprise to nobody. It was the early sixties in swingin’ London, and back then, the hippest play you could make was load up on bennies and follow Brando’s lead. Plus, the pressure of the music biz was one where Meek felt that pill-consumption was the only reasonable avenue to keep his schedule, success, and secret lives intact. And though the drugs would eventually take it’s toll on him, not to mention heighten his pre-existing paranoia, Meek was in fact clinically insane, narcotics notwithstanding. He has confessed on numerous occasions to have had regular contact with the Other Side–Buddy Holly’s ghost, as well as a Native American Chief’s and Egyptian Pharaoh Rameses’–and his obsession with the occult went so far that Meek periodically hauled his recording equipment to various grave sites in an attempt to capture the howls of paranormal phenomena. The intent of these late-night excursions was to fuse pop music with the spirit world, which admittedly is a brilliant idea but bonkers nonetheless. In addition to being a grade A nutjob, Meek was also gay. In those days, homosexuality was not only taboo but also illegal in England. And the culmination of all these factors, particularly when compiled with the fact that Meek by the year 67' was in-debt, manically depressed, and by all accounts washed up–unable to produce a hit in what was by then the first notable flowering of the psychedelic movement–ultimately led to Meek’s untimely demise.

In the end, at the precious age of 37, Meek ended up turning his brain matter into a Pollack painting with a borrowed shotgun, but not before letting loose on his landlady first. The motive behind the homicide are speculative and inconclusive. In any case, perhaps if Meek lived a little longer, the public would’ve gotten hip to his distinctive sound, but somehow I doubt it. Meek set a pretty mean lead in his day, even expired a rock n’ roll suicide, and if these circumstances couldn’t drum up some attention/curiosity from the masses, much less the Hall of Fame, then nothing short of a highly publicized mass homicide would snap the public out of their general malaise towards Joe Meek.

And with all the facts and ruminations before us, perhaps Joe Meek isn’t a rock n’ roll icon after all. He certainly fits in more in the mold of the Syd Barrett’s and Kool Keith’s of the world than the Mick Jagger’s. Which for some reason reminds me of a George Carlin line: “The caterpillar does all the work but the butterfly gets all the publicity.” In a sense, I suppose Joe Meek was emblematic of all the proverbial caterpillars in the world. So for that reason and the most obvious–his tunes are interesting and fun–it’s probably worth putting on his records every now and then, and maybe, just maybe, we can make up for the heap of shit that life fed him while he was alive.



-Ed Irving

Fresh Preserves

OK, join the fun and hear the new animal collective!

"Papa Owned a Business sellin' fruits and VEGA-TA-AA-ABLES!"

I’ll admit it, I love “lost” records. I love the feeling of hearing something amazing, and knowing that I’m part of an elite club, a small band of folks who really know how to dig for those precious hidden treasures. Obscured from the history books by record biz bool, ignorant public or artistic idiosyncrasy, out of print and difficult albums like Dennis Wilson’s “Pacific Ocean Blue”, Emitt Rhodes’ “Mirror”, or Kevin Ayers’ “Shooting at the Moon” are some of my favorite listens (and Lord knows they’ll all end up here on the blog sooner or later).

Yet, at the same time, I really despise that kind of elitism. I’m not one of those “boy who cried Major Label” types. You know, the uppity indie snob who turns his/her back on an artist they’ve loved once other, less “in” folks find their way to them via big time promotion. If you believe something is legitimately good, you should want to share it, right?

I love the internet for that reason. I love that someone, somewhere, is dying to turn you on to some new thing, or in the case of these records, some oft overlooked gem. It’s made finding those lost treasures much, much easier. And while that may take away from some of the fun, it hasn’t robbed the music of its beauty or worthiness.

Hackamore Brick’s “One Kiss Leads to Another” is often cited as one of the great lost records of the late sixties, early seventies. It’s also maligned, quite unfairly in my opinion, as basically a Velvet Underground jacking rip-off of an album. Even those who dig on it state that sort of thing. But it’s not that simple. The album is far more varied and complete than critics usually credit it.

That’s not to say that singer/songwriters Chick Newman doesn’t owe much to Lou Reed and the VU. His voice does often recall Reed’s just shy of flat tone, and the band does indeed sometimes tap into that streetwise jangle of the “Loaded” era, albeit with a slightly more organic, hippy vibe. The album features a nice cross section of jams, with member Tommy Moonlight contributing rustic, woodsy pop numbers like loving homage to the late night dial “Radio” (hard to imagine that it would only be a few years till Costello was decrying that same device) and a veiled Flintstones reference with the upbeat “Got a Gal Named Wilma”. Newman’s tunes are no sub-par, either. The band predates the Modern Lovers with synth infused, Doors inspired key work, and their b-side Coasters cover, “Searchin” flies along.

It's worth noting that this is a great album that time forgot, and not some toss-away VU artifact that time forgot. Worth digging up if you can.

-Jason P. Woodbury

(For successful digging, start here: Mr. Nobody Records!)

Jam it:

"Oh! Those Sweet Bananas": http://www.mediafire.com/?5qmx5yrbgtw

"I Won't Be Around": http://www.mediafire.com/?9emtmm1mdml

"And I Wonder": http://www.mediafire.com/?fd5emu4xtmg