Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Back from Jasper, Bunch of new music: Impressions (part 1)

John Cale and Chris Spedding(?) Ocean Club 76.
Greetings blog readers of the universe!!!

After a great visit to Jasper, Alberta and soaking in the beauty of mother nature I am back to the blog.

In the past couple of weeks I have accumulated more music and will do the old sharing of first impressions
re-impressions
pre-impressions.
***

The Heads: Under the Streets of a Headlong Drive (2006)
I'm not sure if putting this on first thing in the morning at work was the most brilliant idea I've ever had (especially when trying to learn sql server 2005!), but hey...
I would call it heavy space rock with a bit of an edge. The singer sounds like some lost ghost of Ian Curtis or Virgin Prunes [aside: I haven't heard these guys for 24 years so have no idea what I'm talking about...I should get some Joy Division!]
First Impressions: Interesting...Heavy [aside: as it's playing I'm starting to wish I was on the right kind of drugs, but I'm at work! Damn!]
Last 2 songs definitely fit into the Boredoms, Acid Mothers camp...best stuff on the cd.

John Cale: Ocean Club 1976 (1976) bootleg
This is great! Cale is in awesome voice and the contrast of Cale and Patti Smith singing "Abilene" cracks me up. The Guru chuckled as well.
You could tell Patti was trying so hard to be significant in front of her heroes (Lou was there too). I don't blame her...fuck, who wouldn't be! Link to info on great Cale site.

(while listening to) Sun Ra: The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra Vol. 1 (1965)
From the very first notes of this album I knew I was going to absolutely love it...man...
it's mind blowing stuff for blown minds.
It's going crazy man.
"Other Worlds" is definitely an appropriates title! Awesome!
Why do I love the sound of bells in w a y o u t h e r e jazz? Coltrane does the same thing and I love it.

Flying Island: Flying Island (1975)
Never heard of this one until someone passed it along...cool jazz-rock fusion...lots of violin work so if you're a fusion fan...go for it! Pretty obscure shit.

Pink Floyd: A Saucerful of Secrets (1968)
I've always been a fan of Floyd yet never had this one.
Early Floyd is more where my head is at these days than later Floyd. Very spacey...
"Let There Be More Light"
starts off the album on a space journey
floating into stratospheres
melting the atmosphere...great beginning
"Remember a Day"
I have this one on Relics and always liked it.
dreaming
soaking up energy
in a field of poppies
sleepy and languid
i dream i dream
"Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun"
is absolutely awesome...
"Corporal Clegg"
had a wooden leg
drugs rhyme with bugs
rhymes rhyme with times
line by line
i drink wine
feeling fine...
yes, obvious rhymes here
that's neither here nor there
...um...ok...
"A Saucerful of Secrets"
i am scared that
the secret is here
the secret is nowhere
no it's now here
what the hell is in that saucer anyway?
"See-Saw"
ok...i guess it's a rest from the intensity of the rest of the album...so so
"Jugband Blues"
syd is not here
syd is not there...boy, syd sure has personality in his singing...great stuff.
Great album.

Gong: Time is the Key (1979)
This is really Pierre Morlen's Gong and it's certainly not as
o u t t h e r e
as Gong is with that crazy guy Daevid Allen.
It's nice, but I would go back to the wilder Gong or Acid Motherhood with the Acid Mothers first. Visit Planet Gong.
***
The vicious Poobah.
Jasper was beautiful by the way...the weather was great, the hiking was great.
felt at peace
at ease
saw elks (dozens)
bears - 2 (1 dead, 1 alive crossing the highway)
coyotes (also crossing the highway)
...and the vicious Poobah!!
In our car!!!!!
***

7 comments:

steven edward streight said...

Bells, accordians, steel drums, and jaw harps are under-used in rock music.

Sun Ra has been a favorite since I was in Junior High School, 13 years old.

All that ESP Disk stuff blew our minds, Octopus, MIJ, Patty Waters, Randy Burns, Cro Magnon, The Godz, Ed Askew, The Fugs, The Couch with the 6 Insides, Pearls Before Swine, etc.

Harvey Dog said...

I love the use of "found" instruments. In the right hands, anything can be used as a musical instrument.

I got into the mighty Sun Ra only recently. No excuse, but I'm making up for lost time!

Dammit Vaspers! You've given me more music to explore! Octopus, Patty Waters and The Couch with the 6 Insides need to be explored. I love it!!

steven edward streight said...

ESP Disk has a web site, Google it. Me and Bennett Theissen discovered this label in high school and it turned our minds inside out.

Pearls Before Swine is one of the best bands ever, the singer Thom Rapp sings with a lisp or hairlip or some kinda speech impediment, which is really cool.

CroMagnon was the first band we ever heard to use "whisper shouting" as a vocal technique, and jaw's harp and bagpipes and ... go

steven edward streight said...

Found instruments?

I used to find them or make them, but now I use Audacity, sampling, and a plastic musical snowman made by Hilco Corporation, it has 7 tone buttons on it, under its chin. I use it on most of my CompuMusik compositions, noise concertos.

You must like Harry Partch, who made instruments out of nuclear bomb shells, radar shields, odd bits of military waste in Nevada desert.

Harvey Dog said...

I remember getting The Fugs on ESP. Those lps (way back when...20-25 years ago!) were incredibly hard to come by, and I had to special order them. Back then, even early Mothers of Invention lps were impossible to find! At least in Hamilton, Ontario.

I have Pearls Before Swine "One Nation Underground" and it's awesome. I love his voice! Very human, very real....CroMagnon is a new one. Sounds interesting.

I'm actually surprised that ESP have a web site! I thought they had shut down a long time ago. A very pleasant surprise!

I'm stoked to hear your CompuMusik compositions!

Harry Partch is great! You've reminded me that I need some of his music in the ol' collecton.

So much music! So many new discoveries and re-discoveries!

steven edward streight said...

I made a cassette album a few years ago, using Harry Partch's instruments. You can too. Just go to NPR's American Mavericks web page, search for Harry Partch, and there they are: virtual online musical instruments you can actually play!

The music exists, but the instruments don't.

Harvey Dog said...

This is wickedly awesome!

I'll be going back to this site to delve deeper into it. Too bad I'm at work...it gets in the way of my music obsession.

Seems like there's another link to put in the next post! Thanks Vaspers!