“It’s hard to believe all the attention being given these days to American Idol. Oh, granted a few of their contestants have achieved a little success, but where are the real show biz survivors (Jennifer Hudson excepted)? Here’s a clip from the greatest of all of these shows. I refer of course to The Gong Show and the first appearance of the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo. The guy on trombone is Danny Elfman. Danny has four Academy Award nominations, an Emmy for creating the Desperate Housewives theme and wrote the theme for The Simpsons. He also was the voice of Jack Skellington in The Nightmare Before Xmas.”
Let’s join Chuck Barris, Buddy Hackett, and other luminaries of the day as we set the Wayback Machine back to capture the spirit of ’76 :
The official launch date of Cosmic Primitive Records, a web-label run by Marc Cantlin and ’5′.
In the word’s of ’5′ ..
Marc has been my main musical co-conspirator for about 18 years. We felt we needed a label as a forum for the musics we’ve made together and separately, and also the music of our many talented friends.
So far the sounds are heavily on the side of improvised guitar skronk, but we’ve also got some acid-folk (my own “Backatcha, Pod People!!” and also “Acousticophilia” by The Wax Evolution), psychedelic rocknroll (the long-awaited “Lost Soul Island” by Glass Goblins) and there will be other things of diverse nature added to the catalog in the near future.
The site is already running if you’re curious >>>>>>>>
A year ago (longer?) I caught a performance of Radiohead on a TV show called From the Basement. Its an amazing performance (in HD and all) but, alas, my Tivo died and I lost the recording. Well, a portion is available on their website From the Basement
From the Basement an incredible show if its available in your area of the world. And on the website you will find some great recordings from Beck, Andrew Bird, Seasick Steve, and a host of others
From their web site: “The whole emphasis of the show is about being artist friendly and making our bands as comfortable as possible so that they can give great performances without the usual agony of TV promo which everyone has to do but no one seems to enjoy”
5 Track is actually some kind of distant cousin of mine – we never quite worked it out – but anyway – REALLY HAPPY to see this review on his work. He is an amazing musician. But not in what we might call the ‘mainstream’. Take a look – peruse – enjoy.
Being both an excellent composer of erudite back-porch guitar pieces AND in possession of the kind of fine guitar-picking style needed to pull off such feats, Seattle artist 5-Track has tended to underplay his songwriter skills. Instead, his official records are showcases for guitar whizzkidness. Yup, as if naming your solo act after some imaginary archaic piece of recording equipment was not non-career-moving enough, this mein hairy bastard shoots himself further in the foot by mainly bigging up his acoustic guitar whizzkidness and collaborating on record with such obscure acts as Abalone Sandwich and Glass Goblins thus giving the wider world the impression that he’s most likely to rave’n’sonically rummage like Derek Bailey, shred like Gary Smith or bludgeon like Takayanagi, when in truth 5-Track warbles sweeter than lost’n’lonely Neil Young during ON THE BEACH, almost as self-satirizing as the very Reverend Roger Kynard Erickson and even challenges the New Lou Reeds’ Lord Stephe DK for delivering up to us a most necessary and much needed – and in genuine broadcast quality too – (in)articulate speech-of-the-heart whilst simultaneously providing spectacular lonely pickèd accompaniment.
Reposting now around two fronts. New friend, music aficionado and DJ Mat Dryhurst provided me with some sample music around the genres of metal, black metal, doom, modern composition, techno, electronic, dubstep – I mean I didn’t even know the genres – much less the bands.
Anyway – took the samples, dropped them into iTunes and tried using Gracenote to identify the tracks …. FAIL.
BUT – then I switch into TuneUp – and this track listing is identified.
Two were not identified – Mat – if you can help – I will manually enter them – and also would be interested if the rest have been correctly identified.
However – to my mind a pretty amazing identifier – IF the cataloguing is right. More to come – post confirmation.
The one I can confirm is right is ‘Farmer in The City’ by Scott Walker.
Scott – being a personal favorite – I checked out, seemed an odd one in the middle of all this doom, metal and thrash.
The track comes from an early 1990s album called Tilt. It could have been lifted from the Jacques Brel cover album he did 10 years before in terms of voice meets art meets meets dark. This one is even more depressing than the Brel covers – so now I get the inclusion.
BobbyG – point of note – Mat knows Mikael Åkerfeldt.
I am working through the music to see what’s what. So far – interesting.
Me – big fan of Spiritualized – ever since Mark M put me on to the in the days of Ladies and Gentlemen …
So imagine this that I have just found :
”
Harmony 1 (Mellotron)” – 0:24
“Sweet Talk” – 4:05
“Death Take Your Fiddle” – 3:14
“I Gotta Fire” – 2:28
“Soul on Fire” – 4:08
“Harmony 2 (Piano)” – 0:43
“Sitting on Fire” – 4:38
“Yeah Yeah” – 2:28
“You Lie You Cheat” – 3:04
“Harmony 3 (Voice)” – 0:18
“Baby I’m Just a Fool” – 7:07
“Don’t Hold Me Close” – 3:08
“Harmony 4 (The Old Man…)” – 1:33
“The Waves Crash In” – 4:08
“Harmony 5 (Accordion)” – 1:04
“Borrowed Your Gun” – 3:48
“Harmony 6 (Glockenspiel)” – 0:51
“Goodnight Goodnight” – 4:38This is the track listing for their Album A and EAccording to Wiki :
…. Jason was hesitant to finish the album, but a meeting with cult film director Harmony Korine inspired him to complete it. He also released a solo experimental record, Guitar Loops, and recorded the soundtrack to Korine’s 2008 film Mister Lonely, with the Sun City Girls. The six Harmony tracks on the album are named after the director.
Not only that – but the track ‘don’t hold me close’ is a duet with Harmony’s wife.
How do i know that – wiki of course. why did i look it up – i didn’t.
Odd I thought – that’s the first track of Insurgentes. Wonder if there is a connection. There is. On the HK Wiki page :
“Harmony Korine” is the lead track on the solo album Insurgentes by Porcupine Tree lead singer Steven Wilson.”
But who is this Harmony Korine I ask myself ? Since I hadn’t connected the track to a real person before.
So started reading about him – and that’s where I discovered the really deep connection to Spiritualized.
I guess it is time for me to go see some of his movies.
So – when can I see his next one ? Turns out that his next film, ‘Trash Humpers’, has premiered at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. [Wikipedia]
And so the connections continue – Trash Humping was also a term I did not know until the end of last week (note to self – get out more) – when I was listening to NPR – turns out – well – I’ll let you check it out -
Guess what – according to Wikipedia – Harmony Korine – the Insurgentes track by Wilson was NPR’s song of the day – March 4th 2009 ……
Wheels within Wheels my friends.
Lasse works with The Tree, Blackfield, Opeth and The Pineaplle Thief – all very good in their own way ,,,, the lad obviously has an ear for good music !
Until last night – when I saw Porcupine Tree for the 4th time – and Steven Wilson for the 5th (Blackfield) – I had never heard of That 1 Guy.
Needless to say – friend Bobby G pointed out that he has supported The Tree in the past.
So extraordinary – that I had to buy the DVD – don’t ask – currently jammed in a player – so I haven’t heard it … so have been perusing ‘the tube’ – this one is the best I have found
It isn’t his best – but gives an indication of what he does,
Start listening.
Get bored – move on past 3 minutes.
As I texted to Bobby last night …. “Jack White – eat your hear out” – this dude is drum and bass on steroids – and doesn’t need a side kick.
I have a disconnected relation that travel under the name of ‘FIVE‘. He is a guitarist that explores the boundaries of music. Been tracking him for a few years now – for your delectation – I present his recent newsletter:
Three weeks til the summer solstice, and I can feel it coming already. On that day I will be driving back to Los Angeles from San Francisco while Seattle fills up with nude bicyclists… But that is another story.
I’ve just posted the first in a series of three videos from the GLASS GOBLINS show at Where on May 23rd. For that show we had Evan Strauss on bass, Scott Keil on drums, and an array of excellent guests including, for this first 37-minute excerpt, Jym “The Snake” Fahey on harmonica…
It was SO MUCH FUN to play with Evan for a full night – I got spoiled living down the street from him in Seattle and I miss having him around. We played for three and a half hours, the music got very deep, and this first video is of the last four songs we played.
This month there’s a couple of very cool things happening, first of which is that MARC CANTLIN (from the band called BRUCE) will be visiting Los Angeles. We’ll be playing a secret BRUCE show as 5-TRACK & GLASS GOBLINS at the San Pedro Brewing Company in San Pedro, CA, on Saturday June 6. I can’t wait…!!
I will make an effort to record the San Pedro show in some form, most likely to minidisc and then to archive.org
While Marc is in town we will also be playing on the debut recording by The Jasper Dickson Revue (at the auspiciously named CATASONIC studio) and performing a live show with Jasper on Friday, June 5th, at Where in Silverlake.
Later this month I’ll be playing some shows with CRICKET & THE 2:19 …and also a couple of SOLO ACOUSTIC 5-TRACK shows at very cool venues. One acoustic night will be taking place at the Southwest Museum Of The American Indian! I’ll be playing all night so hopefully that will yield some depth. The other solo acoustic show will be at one of my favorite venues, Viento Y Agua in Long Beach, CA. Dates and times are posted at
http://www.5-Track.com
I think that’s all for now… If you haven’t checked out the video page in a while, there’s a very cool one up there (2nd from the top?) from the Santa Fe Cafe at the Fullerton, CA Train Station: http://www.5-Track.com/5/video.php
…And, I’ll be in Vermont at the beginning of July, playing with the band called BRUCE in Charlestown, NH on Saturday the 4th!!! That’s very cool, cos that band only plays together every few years at most. If you’re in the northeast I suggest you check that show out… And tell your friends!
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