Author: DC (Page 1083 of 1133)

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Destroyer Girl in a Sling
‘Poison Season feels like the yacht rock of its predecessor has been moved just inland, within sight of the water, but planted in an urban environment — specifically a classic version of Manhattan, one rooted in Broadway glitter and Times Square grime in equal portions. The lux saxophone that ran through Kaputt is joined by a whole flock of glam orchestral pieces, with Bejar’s characters treading the boards as if scored by Van Dyke Parks. And, true to form, characters recur, popping up in different songs but without a clear narrative. Destroyer delivers all of the flourish and drama of a big-stage production, but can’t be contained by the audience expectations that would come with it. The languid “Girl in a Sling” sighs and swoons, strings barely trailing Bejar’s vocals. That song, like most on the album and much of Bejar’s catalog, feels like a close-spoken conversation. “Girl I know what you’re going through/ I’m going there too,” he coos in that nasal, sympathetic way that only Bejar can.’ — Consequence of Sound

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Dj Richard Nighthawk
‘His beat-oriented work benefits from richness and subtlety. “Nighthawk”, “Savage Coast”, and “Bane”, in particular, are examples of how to sculpt and layer relatively simple analog sounds so that they really sing. Richard’s taste in synthesizers leans towards soft pads that beg you to sink into them, and he has a knack for contrasting those airy patches with tough, cutting drum hits that leave welts where they land. On “Nighthawk”, a stretched and sandpapered wail in the background is both harsh and enveloping—a tactic that goes to the heart of the producer’s keen sense of balance. He favors stuttering drum programming that suggests a mechanical kind of funk, and he is skilled at arranging contrapuntal lines into complicated but elegant orbits. Despite the outward simplicity of his productions, there’s always something to tip their intensity levels subtly into the red. On “Screes of Gray Craig”, it’s the slight detuning of three or four separate synthesizer parts, so that they vibrate wildly in combination. And in the closing “Vampire Dub”, a relaxing cut suffused in dreamy chords, it’s the eerie, atonal bleating that burbles on like cosmic background radiation. Still, even at their most roiled, Grind’s waters invite extended immersion. It’s both one of the year’s most sumptuous techno long-players and a masterful example of an unusual, bare-knuckled strain of ambient music.’ — Philip Sherburne

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Endon Parricide Agent Service
‘Endon are one of the most intense and chaotic bands to come out of Japan – and this is the country that gave us the likes of Hanatarash, World and The Gerogerigegege. Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago and I finally stumbled across a download on slsk, and…. This is fucked. Absolutely, unashamedly fucked. It’s like twenty different bands were hired to soundtrack a day in the life of a paranoid schizophrenic, but they were all made to play at the same time. Sure enough there’s elements of conventional hardcore, grindcore and black metal but for the most part it’s buried under layers and layers of chaotic noise – which is not surprising given that Endon have two dedicated noise makers in addition to a vocalist, drummer and guitarist. The furious mish-mash of electronics squeals, blastbeats, screams and guitar noise are broken up on occasion by ambient noise and drone passages, but for the most part this is pure, unsettling chaos. With no traditional song structures to speak of, and an even more unconventional band structure – Endon revel in unpredictable, terrifying audio terrorism.’ — Fucked By Noise

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Emptyset Signal II
‘Signal is an album that has no audience. For sure, it will have listeners, unwitting individuals who press “play” in good faith and who sincerely expect some appreciable form of edification, yet these quixotic souls will be completely unprepared for the abstractly encoded information that Emptyset have prepared for them. Recorded live in February at this year’s CTM Festival in Berlin, the Bristol duo’s latest offering is the upshot of transmitting radio waves from Berlin to Nauen to Issoudun (France) and then back to Berlin, and even though we can all nominally appreciate that these waves and the audio they constituted were altered en route in various ways by physi
cal fluctuations in the ionosphere and solar radiation, it’s nigh-on impossible to decipher what exactly the resulting atmospheric shudderings mean on a specifically human level. Yet rather than divorce the album from all resonance or gravity, it’s precisely this illegibility that makes the pair’s ionic oscillations and solar drones so affecting.’ — Tiny Mix Tapes

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TodoTodo Completamente De Rollo
‘TODOTODO was a Technorchestra which emerged on the music stage at the beginning of the eighties, just when Techno movement was the dominant one in the European music framework. Although its influences were much wider, the three members in TT were absolutely committed to the contemporarity of Techno music language and its possibilities. Every third of the trio was, in itself, an open door towards creativity and each one was concerned with a different view of the same reality, to which, through different ways, they wanted to reach all together with every song they wrote. Francisco “Paco” García, in an impossible get-together with Truman Capote, Andy Warhol and Erik Satie, translated into numbers the stave graphology, almost in a cabalistic way. Pedro “Pequi” Vidal, between Nijinsky and Isadora Duncan learnt the discipline which gives pomp and circumstance to the mise-en-escène, the ‘live’. Carmelo Hernández, not far from Debussy, spied with his binaculars, from a terrace in Montmartre, to ‘The Queen Kelly’. Yes, they were three boys un peu compliqués.’ — Domestica

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Frog Eyes Rejoinders In a Storm
‘Pickpocket’s Locket, written on an inherited acoustic guitar following the death of Mercer’s father, is an album instrumentally unlike almost anything Mercer has done in Frog Eyes. It feels warm, with pedal steel, piano, saxophone, violins. Mercer sings with the same fire, his words are of the same kind as always — that is, ornate, replete with names, highly symbolic, biblical — but like the instruments behind his voice, he seems somehow warmer, less thorny, less ascetic. While this warmth (after a Cold Spring?) is obvious, fans of Mercer’s wordplay will miss nothing here: more than ever, he can wrap poetry into melody, fit too many syllables into a line as if they belong there, until they do.’ — Fenestrix

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Shampoo Boy Riss
‘The Vienna-based trio’s second LP to date, following 2013’s crushing BEB debut Licht, Crack finds Peter Rehberg (Editions Mego), Christina Nemec (comfortzone) and Christian Schachinger leaving behind the post-everything in search of their very own neo-something: a powerful alloy of extreme electroacoustic music, luminous ambience and the mineral fundaments of rock and black metal. As before, they’re staring down the void, but this time they’re looking beyond it, too, for the fissures and faultlines that might let some light in. ‘Riss’ considers what happens if you do get away, only to find your hiding-place isn’t quite as safe or secure as you had presumed it would be. A trap? Certainly you’re being watched. Slow, ceremonial downstrokes suggest a return to the vast and uncanny woodland landscape in which the events of Licht unfolded. This time, though, the city impinges and intrudes upon the scene of pastoral unease: Rehberg seems to be scanning the airwaves, picking up unintelligible snatches of conversation and machine noise. These mingle with nameless natural currents to create pernicious hybrid forms, which curl and ricochet about the stereo field. Subterranean bass tones, meanwhile, seem to reverberate from an ancient and appalling source. The accumulation of noise and energy across 12 minutes becomes unbearably suspenseful; a reckoning seems inevitable.’ — Blackest Ever Black

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Dialect Perfume Creek
‘Opening with the ominous sound of dog barks and sirens, Dialect progressively sets Gowanus Drifts apart with the introduction of free-jazz horns and synths that continually boil and churn. “Waterfront Epiphany” opens with a similar reference to the natural world in the sound of crashing water, before swelling with Reich-like synth arpeggios and vocal interjections that seemingly emanate from an otherworldly organism of pop music. Throughout the album, Dialect rejects dichotomies, as the analogue and the digital interact harmoniously. On “Wings,” for example, acoustic guitars rest side by side with sine tones, while organically evolving forms interplay with synthetic stutters elsewhere. Although no doubt galvanized by the toxic wasteland of South Brooklyn, Gowanus Drifts also represents the formation of utopian, inclusive public space — or at least an attempt to mirror a CGI artist impression of it.’ — Tiny Mix Tapes

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Stephen O’Malley live @ Freakout Club
‘Founder of Sunn O))), Khanate, Burning Witch, KTL, Gravetemple, Nazaronai and others; collaborator of musicians and bands such as Keiji Haino, Scott Walker, Jim O’Rourke, Boris, Ulver, Oren Ambarchi, Tim Hecker, coreographer Gisèle Vienne, sculptor Banks Violette and film director Alexis Destoop; was involved with the Southern Lord label and created Ideologic Organ – the list of his work goes on and on. Stephen O’Malley is one of experimental and exploratory music most respected father figures. A sound creator focused on detail, he has a unique way to become one with his guitar and his ominous wall of amplifiers; Stephen O’Malley delivers a solo performance that will flood the room with sub-bass sound pressure and hypnotic visuals.’ — Amplificasom

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RF x Visionist AW15 TRACK
‘London-based accessories designer ROXANNE FARAHMAND takes her inspiration from East London youth culture, meshing her heavy metallic jewelry designs with racer aesthetics. Following her last presentation at Fashion East, which featured a group of Fast & Furious-looking youths hanging out in an open-top Mazda, she continues into this hyper-stylized territory with her A/W collection. For her A/W 2015 collection, she’s teamed up with video artist Kevin Bray to create a shifting 2D-to-3D world soundtracked by grime producer Visionist.’ — 032c

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Years of Abuse The Social Order
‘Along with Will Drewry (guitar/vo
cals) and Blake Ford (bass/vocals), Kieran Brindley (ex-Bastions) is back with Years of Abuse. Drawing upon a wide palette of grind and metal, Y.O.A arrive at a blistering, modern sound that is relentlessly precise in its execution. From 50-second blast bombs such as ‘Avarice’ and ‘Birkenau’ to tightly-controlled mosh detonators like ‘Track Marks’, this is a band that sound psychotically focussed from the very first moment.’ –– Holy Roar Records

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Big Brave On The By – And – By And Thereon
‘Big Brave’s Au De La resists categorisation much more than it fits into one genre. The Montreal trio combines elements of Björk, Neurosis, The White Stripes, and Sunn O))) into a cohesive whole; but this whole is an ever evolving and challenging sonic mass. Although Au De La is far from an easy listen, it’s also endlessly rewarding. ‘On The By And By And Thereon’ provides a jarring introduction to the LP. It begins with grating call-and-response guitars (the band doesn’t have a bassist) that sound like two steel mills groaning to each other. As drummer Louis-Alexandre Beauregard joins with minimalistic tom abuse, Robin Wattie provides a juxtaposition to her atonal guitar work with melodically bounding vocals, which sound like a hybridisation between those of Kathleen Hanna and Björk. ‘On The By And By And Thereon’ makes a promise that Au De La fulfills ten times over.’ — The Quietus

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Lizzy Mercier Descloux Hard-boiled Babe
‘Want to feel like you’ve wasted your life? Start by reading Vivien Goldman’s Press Color liner-notes bio of Lizzy Mercier Descloux. At 22 years of age, Descloux moved to New York during those chaotic years of the late 70s when the death throes of punk’s first wave were giving birth to its deformed children. Before the decade was over, she had roomed with Patti Smith, had a star-crossed affair with Richard Hell, and pumped out several releases on her long-time partner Michel Esteban’s too-cool-for-school label ZE Records. Descloux cut a bright and dashing figure in a scene that, even at this early stage of development, was already settling into a kind of monochromatic conformity. By the time Descloux put out her solo debut single “Fire”/”Mission Impossible,” ZE was well on its way to solidifying its identity around its patented mutant discoTM sound, thanks to artists like Cristina, Don Armando’s Second Avenue Rhumba Band, and Sympho-State — acts that blurred the lines between earnest homage and outright parody. Descloux’s comparatively Spartan and angular sound put her closer to lablemate James Chance, but where Chance’s music embodied menace and a dystopian vacuity, Descloux’s was animated by a sense of playful absurdity: nonsense lyrics, left-field covers (not one, but two reworkings of compositions from Lalo Schifrin’s Mission Impossible soundtrack, and buoyant dancefloor-ready beats.’ — Joe Hemmerling

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Loren Connors & Kim Gordon live @ Issue Project Room
‘Ex–Sonic Youther Kim Gordon has staked out fresh creative territory following that band’s dissolution, gigging frequently with Body/Head and readying a new memoir, Girl in a Band, due out in February. Expect heady abstraction here, as Gordon matches wits with riveting avant-blues guitar visionary Loren Connors.’ — Time Out

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Olivia Block live @ the Goethe Institut
‘How exactly Olivia Block can signify an absence while presenting a continual stream of fuzz, hiss, echo, and pulsation is still something of an unexplained mystery, yet it nonetheless must have something to do with the blurriness and dimness of the tones she uses, their embodiment in soft edges and diluted borders. Throughout the 30 minutes of Aberration of Light, these borders remain permanently dissolved and faded, preventing the listener from ever outlining a clear image of their referent. Uncertain as to what they portray, this listener doesn’t experience anything definite in any definite way. Instead, she merely experiences her own inability to experience.’ — Simon Chandler

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Venetian Snares Beside The Past By A Lake
‘For about a decade beginning in the late ’90s, Aaron Funk, better known as the producer Venetian Snares, was a restless creative force—dropping album after album of breakcore beats in a deluge that resulted in some of the decade’s most arresting electronic music. At his creative peak—arguably 2005’s ambitious, classically-inspired Rossz Csillag Alatt Született—it wasn’t uncommon for Funk to issue several releases a year. But eventually, his output slowed to more human levels. Four years passed between 2010’s My So-Called Life and 2014’s My Love Is a Bulldozer and, in that time, Funk himself seemed to cede momentum to artists whose own sounds softened or refined parts of the one he helped create (Death Grips, Gobby, the Range, and the Vaporwave aesthetic all owe much to the road he paved).’ — Nathan Reese

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p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. I think so too. ** Damien Ark, Hi, Damien. Have a blast doing so, and please tell all about it. ** Steevee, Hi. Yeah, understood. I guess when I think of war movies, I immediately think of exceptions like ‘The Thin Red Line’, ‘The Fog of War’, etc., but I guess it takes more than the war itself to get me to see a war movie. I think the chems probably make getting slaughtered more fun or at least trippier? And, yes, there could be a big Weeknd influence going on there too. Well, I hope the hurricane is the usual overhyped not-much thing that hurricanes which reach New York seem to almost always be. ** Gary gray, HIYA to you too! Mm, don’t know about Chicago. We only have until early next year to get the film shown in the US before the DVD comes out, so I’m not sure how much we can arrange before then. Would be great if we can, obviously. I’ll ask the people who are trying to set that stuff up. Thanks about ‘Zac’s Control Panel’, if that’s what you mean. It’s not a novel, though. So, if you mean ‘ZCP’, it would have to a trance short works collection? If so, no, it’s not offensive in the slightest. Thank you, in fact. Thanks for all that love. I’ll send you as much love as I can back. Wait, that’ll take some concentration. Not to love, but to try to send it. Hold on. There, sent. ** Étienne, Hey, man! Oh, shit, you leave today? Time is way too speedy. That’s funny, I stayed at some little hotel in Roissy-en-France when my flight got cancelled once. I don’t remember it. Sle
epy? Dude, I hope you’ll keep commenting here while you’re away from Paris. It was so awesome to meet you and get to know you. I’ll keep Paris as comfy as one person can until you can get yourself ensconced here. Safe flight! Excellent in-flight movies and food! Love, me. ** Sypha, Hi, James. Thanks for pointing that out to Liquoredgoat. I’m virtually positive that the Penguin books will make a huge difference for Ligotti. Amazing, that. ** Jamie McMorrow, Hi, Jamie! Oh, I’m just very happy to see you! The door is always open and always flexible. Holy shit, no, I didn’t know about that 1000 year-long gif project. Wow! As you must have already imagined, that’s immensely exciting and interesting to me. I’ll go read everything there is about that. Thank you so much! How are you? What’s going on in the world in which you are situated? ** Thomas Moronic, Ahhhhh! Some total stunners in there, man. Thank you. My wowed-ness is inexpressible. Well, you know, nothing to be done about the silence. My philosophy about this place is that it will be what it will be, and I will observe and react mostly privately in accordance, or something. Thank you, dear T. ** Omar, Hey, Omar! Man, it’s a very nice thing to get to see you and read your wordage. I hope you’re having fun with Bill, and I can only assume so. Sweet, great, about the Eileen Myles stuff. Yep, you bet, totally. How the heck are you, sir? ** Misanthrope, Well, we know they can talk the talk, but can they walk the walk? So, they could technically be shy. There are really good non-blockbusters all the time, dude. Check your local listings or read Steevee’s reviews. I just found out about a new, great-seeming pastry place yesterday. I’m going to sample its theoretically amazing wares today. And it’s only two blocks from my apartment. And, yes, you should come back to Paris. ** Right. Today I am proposing a gig, a concert, an eclectic line-up of music makers, all for you. Consider it a boon, a head-scratcher, a nuisance, a golden opportunity, … it’s entirely up to you and only you. See you tomorrow.

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Past, Present And Future
‘In April 1964, when the members of The Shangri-Las were still minors, their parents signed with Red Bird Records; Mary was 15, Betty was 17, and the Ganser twins 16. Having been hired by record producer George “Shadow” Morton, they had their first success with the summer hit, “Remember (Walking in the Sand)” (U.S. #5, UK #14). Billy Joel, a then-unknown working as a session musician, played on the demo of “Remember (Walkin’ In The Sand)”.[7] The demo was nearly seven minutes long, too long for Top 40 radio. Morton had hired the group to perform on the demo, but Red Bird released a re-recorded version. Morton faded the new version out around 2:16. The recordings for Morton featured lavish production with heavy orchestration and sound effects, and their next and biggest hit, “Leader of the Pack” (U.S. #1, UK #11), climaxes with roaring motorcycles and breaking glass. UK re-issues peaked at #3 in 1972 and #7 in 1976. The song epitomized the “death disc”.’ — collaged

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Leader Of The Pack
‘The streetwise image of The Shangri-Las—initially a promotional device for “Leader of the Pack” — contrasted with other “girl groups” of the 1960s, and they were cited as an influence by 1970s punk rock-era acts such as the New York Dolls and Blondie, who twice covered “Out in the Streets”, and Aerosmith, who covered “Remember (Walking in the Sand)”. The Go-Go’s, since their early punk rock days in Los Angeles clubs, have been performing live “Remember (Walking in the Sand)”. In 1972, “Leader of the Pack” was performed by Bette Midler on her debut album The Divine Miss M. The opening from “Leader of the Pack”—”Is she really going out with him?”—was recycled both as the opening lines of 1976’s “New Rose” by the Damned, the first British punk rock single, and of “Kill” by the parody punk group Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias, as well as the title of the 1979 hit song by Joe Jackson.’ — collaged

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I Can Never Go Home Anymore
‘Scottish alternative rock band The Jesus and Mary Chain cited The Shangri-Las as an early influence. In 1985, the band’s guitarist William Reid stated: “We all love The Shangri-Las, and one day we’re going to make Shangri-Las records.” Twisted Sister covered, “Leader of the Pack” on their 1985 album, Come Out and Play, that went Gold. The Shangri-Las’ “Past, Present and Future” was covered in 2004 by ex-ABBA singer Agnetha Fältskog on her album, My Colouring Book. The Johnny Thunders / Patti Palladin album Copy Cats (1988) features a strong version of “He Cried”. Australian artist Rowland S. Howard recorded “He Cried” as “She Cried”.’ — collaged

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Give Him a Great Big Kiss
‘The line from “Give Him a Great Big Kiss”—”When I say I’m in love, you best believe I’m in love, L-U-V”—was used by the New York Dolls on their 1973 recording “Looking for a Kiss”. It is also used by the English pop trio SOHO in the beginning of their song “Nuthin On My Mind” from their album, Goddess. The New York Dolls’ guitarist Johnny Thunders included a cover of “…Great Big Kiss” on his first solo album So Alone. Ian Svenonius also used the line at the beginning of “Today I Met the Girl I’m Going to Marry” by his band Nation of Ulysses on the album 13-Point Program to Destroy America. More recently, Ryan Adams (and the Cardinals) paid homage to that line in their song “Beautiful Sorta” off the album Cold Roses, but they changed it to “When I say L-U-V, you better believe me L-U-V. Give me a beer!” In 2005, Julian Cope parodied the famous line in “Dying to Meet You” from his album Citizen Cain’d. He’s heard to say “When I say I’m dead you best believe I’m dead, D-E-A-D” during the outro. In an outtake of “Careless” from their album Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash, The Replacements opened with the line “When I say I’m in debt, you best believe I’m in debt, D-E-T!”‘ — collaged

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Out In The Streets
‘Atlanta, Georgia band Black Lips called their 2007 album Good Bad Not Evil, after the line in “Give Him a Great Big Kiss”. Sonic Youth referenced the “very, very close” lyric of “Give Him a Great Big Kiss” on the Kim Gordon/Kim Deal duet “Little Trouble Girl” in 1995. Early punk band The Slits also refe
rence the song in “Love Und Romance” on the 1979 album Cut. The Bat for Lashes song “What’s a Girl to Do?” has been widely acknowledged as a Shangri Las pastiche.’ — collaged

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Heaven Only Knows
‘The Shangri-Las appeared as a quartet to promote “Remember” starting with their stint on the 1964 Labor Day Murray The K show in September. Shortly before the Shangri-Las went to the UK for the aforementioned promotional tour in Oct. 1964, Betty Weiss dropped out temporarily, leaving the group as a trio. She still is featured on the recording for “Leader Of The Pack” which was recorded prior to the release of “Remember”. The remaining trio went on to tour the US and also appeared on many TV shows including Hullabaloo, Shindig!, Hollywood A-Go-Go, and Lloyd Thaxton. Many TV clips and photos of the group taken at this time (just Mary Weiss and the twins) circulated at the group’s peak in popularity and beyond, which led many to recall the group being only a trio. Betty then rejoined the group in mid-1965 (her first return appearance with the Shangri-las was listed as a June 1965 Hollywood A-Go-Go Show episode hosted by Cousin Brucie in NYC), and the group appeared as a quartet once again until the start of 1966 when they permanently became a trio again (MaryAnn and Margie left at different times replacing each other until the demise of the group).’ — collaged

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Dressed in Black
‘Kathleen Hanna of the electropunk group Le Tigre has mentioned that the “one girl calling another” motif and the opening sound of seagulls on the track “What’s Yr Take on Cassavetes?” were inspired by The Shangri-Las. The Detergents had hits with “Leader of the Laundromat” and “I Can Never Eat Home Any More”, both of which parodied The Shangri-Las. Giddle Partridge and Boyd Rice recently covered “Past, Present, and Future”. Alex Chilton often played it in concert. Brooklyn band Vivian Girls cite The Shangri-Las as one of their influences. Finnish rock band HIM is using “Dressed in Black” as an intro song for their current tour promoting their latest album Screamworks: Love in Theory and Practice. Marianne Faithfull released a cover of “Past, Present and Future” on her 2011 album Horses and High Heels.’ — collaged

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Paradise
‘The Shangri-Las alternated between touring with their own band and local bands. Among the latter were the Sonics, as well as the Iguanas, featuring a young Iggy Pop. They also appeared as headliners on package tours such as Dick Clark’s Caravan Of Stars and as stated previously, tours with R & B acts like the Orlons and Joe Tex. Later in their career, the Shangri-Las did lots of college dates with bands like The Young Rascals, The Animals, and Vanilla Fudge. The group appeared on several TV shows and continued to tour the US, but in 1966 two of three releases on Red Bird failed to crack the U.S. top 50, although the group remained popular in England and Japan. Mary Ann Ganser left, but returned early in 1967 when Marge — the most outspoken member, sometimes considered the leader — left. Red Bird Records had folded. The group recorded more tracks with Shadow Morton producing (some of which remain unreleased) and signed with Mercury Records. However, Morton had begun working with Janis Ian and Vanilla Fudge, and Mercury had little enthusiasm for the group. During their Mercury stint the Shangri-Las had no further hits, and in 1968 they disbanded, amid litigation.’ — collaged

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Give Us Your Blessing
‘With “Remember” riding high on the charts, a strong follow-up was needed. Now employed at Red Bird Records, Shadow Morton enlisted the help of Greenwich and Barry and the end result was “Leader of the Pack.” Social mores change with the times and looking back from today’s vantage point, a song like this seems rather tame to us now. Yet 1964 wasn’t that far removed from the McCarthy Era. Take the ’50s fears of juvenile delinquency and teen violence, add in the conservative family values of Donna Reed, Father Knows Best, and Leave It to Beaver, shake well and the result is a cultural stalemate and, inevitably, a virtually unrecordable song. Yet, Shadow Morton would not be dissuaded and “Leader of the Pack” was finally released after much tinkering and hand wringing. Though many radio stations eventually refused to play it and parts of the UK banned it, the kids loved it and the song exceeded everyone’s wildest expectations, rocketing to number 1, beating out The Beatles for a time. The Shangri-Las were getting a reputation for the teenage “soap opera” type of song and the public just ate it up.’ — collaged

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Long Live Our Love
‘Peering down from the apex of the Archival Age – an era in which untold highway-lengths of tape have been unleashed from long-locked crypts; in which trunkloads of unexamined demos have been battled over as if they were pirate booty; in which theme restaurants and halls of fame have been erected to enshrine industry-anointed artistes; in which seemingly every concert and recording session that has ever taken place in the history of humankind has been identified, catalogued and scrutinized as if it were an Article of the Faith – it is becoming clear that, in spite of all such intensity of investigation, there yet remain some conspicuous imbalances in the otherwise increasingly stable architecture of Pop History. So it is despite such productions of documentary evidence that the four holy Shangri-Las – St. Mary, St. Mary Ann, St. Marguerite and St. Elizabeth, of Queens – have remained the most underexamined major act of rock’s adolescent years.’ — Phil Milstein

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I’ll Never Learn
‘Over the years articles written on music and groups of the 1960s easily number in the thousands, but it is puzzling how The Shangri-Las place in that era have been overlooked so many times for so many years. Most articles written about this time period always gravitate to the usual buzzwords, spitting out names such as; Hendrix, Beatles, Doors, Joplin, Dylan, Supremes and the like. Taking nothing away from these artists’ accomplishments, and going outside the extremely narrow tunnel vision of many music historians, we must recognize that among those top artists who helped shape music were the Shangri-Las. With 99 percent of the girls’ tracks cut between 1964 to 1967, all done in multi-track, it is also very puzzling why collections on the girls in the now re-mastering, re-packaging conscious industry, no one has taken the time to re-master ALL of these previously released tracks in STEREO–34 tracks including the non-live s
tudio tracks from their first LP, excluding the Spokane and Smash tracks. If ever that were done, it would truly be an essential collection.’ — collaged

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Train From Kansas City
‘Although most covers and remakes of The Shangri-Las material focus on the hit singles, some express the group’s influence on them by recording songs from The Shangri-Las which were never released as singles by the group. Among these, the Los Angeles rock group Redd Kross covered “Heaven Only Knows,” an album cut from The Shangri-Las second album Shangri-Las ’65, and Superchunk, Belle and Sebastian, The Shop Assistants and Neko Case recorded versions of “The Train from Kansas City”, which was a b-side, and an album cut from The Shangri-Las debut album, Leader of the Pack. British singer Amy Winehouse cited The Shangri-Las as an influence and occasionally integrated the hook lyrics from “Remember (Walkin’ in the Sand)” into the bridge of her song “Back to Black” during live performances.’ — collaged

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He Cried
‘Faris Badwan of The Horrors has listed The Shangri-Las as an influence in The Horrors’ sound and lyrics, and had added a reworked version of “He Cried” to “She Cried” into The Horrors’ song, “Who Can Say,” using the lines, “And when I told her I didn’t love her anymore, she cried/and when I told her, her kisses were not like before, she cried/and when I told her another girl had caught my eye, she cried/and I kissed her, with a kiss that could only mean goodbye,” in spoken-word with a drum beat similar to that The Shangri-Las used. The song is also originally, “She Cried” by Jay and the Americans, another (if slight) influence over The Horrors.’ — collaged

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p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. Lucky you to have seen S&R.; As a Halloween fanatic and diehard, I think the WeHo stuff doesn’t even qualify as Halloween. That’s just Halloween used as an excuse to do the same-old in more garb than usual. ** Conan Tobias, Hi. Oh, thank you and apologies for my neglect and/or ignorance. I’ll add the credits to the post straight away. ** Weaklings Project, Hi, Chris! I was out all afternoon and evening yesterday, and I only saw your email this morning when half-awake, but I’ll read it and you’ll hear from me pronto post-this. I did read Maddy Costa’s reports this morning through my heavy lids. Fascinating. And funny how scared she is of my blog. To me, I mean. I feel like this place is a ton more about amusement parks and other nerdy shit than it is about scary and/or sexy stuff. But it’s been said before that I tend to underestimate my output’s creepiness. Anyway, it’s really great to read what’s going on. Everyone, should you be curious about how the making of Chris Goode’s in-progress and soon to premiere theater work ‘Weaklings’, which is inspired by this very blog, as I imagine you know, is going, construction- and other-wise, one member of the ‘Weaklings’ team is posting dispatches from the rehearsals, and they’re very, very interesting, and you can read them right here. Happy countdown to you! Oh, no, no chance of early peaking for me, although Halloween hasn’t been about the 31st itself since the sad day that I outgrew my chance at the spoils that night has to offer. By the 31st. I’ve usually hit every spooky house there is, and I’m ready to … well, start all over again, to be honest. Christmas ain’t bad, it’s true. Email soon and love until then and, of course, afterwards and eternally. ** Steevee, Hi. Yeah, like I said to David, the West Village and WeHo parades are just an encroachment on Halloween’s generous bounty and an overly predictable sideshow as far as I’m concerned. Oh, good, I get to read your thoughts on that Gere homeless movie in full. Everyone, Steevee and his well-established, high critical mind have weighed in on ‘Time Out of Mind’, that new movie about homelessness starring Richard Gere. Intrigued as to his take? Go here. Weird about the fucked up test, but good news. Obviously interested to hear what ‘Stonewall’ actually is in reality through your fine mind and wordage. I’m curious about the De Palma doc. Huh, interesting. That makes total sense. ** James, Yay indeed! I quadruple your yay! No, I infinitize it! ** Thomas Moronic, Hi. Oh, sure, no doubt. Thomas, sir, buddy, you must know that I would be ‘over the moon’, as my grandma used to say, if you wanted to do a Halloween-timed EIF! I mean … consider that a plaintive plea from me even. Thank you! Ooh, intriguing about your novel. Please say when you can say! ** Juan molina, Hi, Juanfer! Really nice to see you again, my newish friend! If you keep an eye on this blog for the next six or whatever weeks, you will be allowed only rare chances to forget it’s Halloween season, I’m afraid, ha ha. Oh, yeah, I was massively in love with Halloween as a kid and teen. I grew up in this big house that had a giant basement, and almost every year my friends and I would turn the basement into an elaborate haunted house, and we would charge people in the neighborhood to go through it. We would take turns leaving ‘work’ long enough to go out trick-or-treating. It’s been my dream time of the year ever since. ‘LCTG’ has gotten a really good response so far. We’re really happy. It’ll come out on DVD early-ish next year sometime, although the actual date hasn’t been set yet. Cool, I’m really glad you came inside. I hope everything is great with you! ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi Ben. Ah, you’re one of those. Yeah, you know, I fully expect that I’ll get the Verhoeven thing one of these days. I’ll check out that music list. The favorite band of the guy who was the Obama administration’s official spokesperson for most of his tenure is Guided by Voices, which always made me very surprised and happy. To the point where, when he have his final press conference at the White House before leaving the job, they played GbV’s ‘Motor Away’ as his entrance music. ** Derek McCormack, Yay, Derek! I got to celebrate you twice this week! It’s been such a good week! Mega-love, me. ** Keaton, Whoa, you’re Keaton again! I feel like I’m on acid! What a spectacular story! What a spectacular boy and presumably lay! Boo, ha ha! ** Misanthrope, G-ster. I wonder why too. Fear of some sort, I guess? Well, soon-to-be headless slave, at least. ** H, Hi. Glad you liked Derek’s alphabet. I get the Xmas love. I think it’s more like a crush on Xmas for me. ** Okay. Let’s see … oh, right. When I first heard the incredible music concocted by auteur/producer Shadow Morton and The Shangri-Las back in the early 70s, I thought it was one of the most genius bodies of pop music ever, and I still think so to this very day. And I went on a listening jag re: them the other afternoon and thought I’d foist my love of their sublime stuff on you, and I have. See you tomorrow.