Category: Uncategorized (Page 1112 of 1133)

‘The year has begun with a lively debate regarding the direction and role of field recording. On sites such as The Field Reporter questions have been raised regarding several aspects of field-recording-based productions. Reading a number of posts there are three recurring concerns in the debate:

‘1st: the perception that there is an elitism in field-recording which fails to foster an audience beyond other field-recordists. My response: field-recording lacks a strong theoretical structure in which to interpret it – unlike other disciplines which have had centuries of trained thought to support them field-recording is still young and relatively unknown beyond its circle of practitioners. A stronger theoretical base might increase its profile beyond the majority of us whose work only exists on nebulous internet platforms.

‘2nd: the rise in cheaper technology has enabled less professional recordists to saturate the pool of field recordings with “second-rate” work. My response: expensive equipment does not guarantee a good ear or a good technique. Nor does it provide interesting ideas on what subject to record. Indeed, starting with low-end equipment can make the recordist much more resourceful and creative.

‘3rd: the perception that field recordists are increasingly focussing on sounds from exotic, or developing, locales in a way that reeks of neocolonialism. My response: for those without the financial means these recordings present us with a world we might never experience. Listening to such recordings has the potential to increase our sensitivity and wonder towards the world’s cultural and environmental diversity making us much more likely to respect our global heritage rather than devastate it.

‘The tone of some critics in the current debate seems quite harsh, especially when one of the primary aims of field-recording is to promote the experience of listening for everyone rather than a limited, exclusive, few. In any discipline there will always be a hierarchical structure which defines what is of value, a canon to instruct us as to what is “good” and what is “not”. As we have seen in art and literature the inherent danger of a canon is that it benefits some while disadvantaging others. Is this recent debate the beginning of such a process?

‘It is true that the time needed to listen to the work of field-recordists can be extensive. Just as there will always be too many books to read, too many galleries to visit, and too many movies to watch, there will also be too many field-recordings to listen to. Narrowing your focus of attention to either a few favourite field-recordists or areas of field-recording, as you would with any other discipline, will overcome this problem.

‘Every debate should forward some positive elements so this post will conclude with a promotion of some field-recordists whose work I listen to regularly. By following their work over the past few years I have listened to sounds from all corners of the earth, they have sharpened my ability to listen and broadened my sense of place in the world:

* ‘Sebastiane Hegarty: a British artist, writer and lecturer whose recordings have featured on radio and film.
* John Grzinich: an American sound and video artist now living in Estonia, he also co-ordinates the MoKS residency program.
* Des Coulam: a British ex-pat living in Paris, he documents the many sounds of Parisian streets, arcades and subways.
* Vladimir Kryutchev: a Russian reporter and field-recordist who documents the sounds of local village life.
* Magnus Bergsson: an Icelandic field-recordist whose recordings focus on the urban and natural spaces of Iceland.
* Ian Rawes: a reporter and field-recordist for the London Sound Survey.
* David Velez: a Colombian field-recordist whose recent essay “El Coyote” is an immensely insightful and sensitive reflection on why he chooses to record the subjects that he does.’ — Sounds Like Noise

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Toshiya Tsunoda Air Vibration Of Elevator Motor Room In Stairwell
‘For 15 years, the Yokohama based artist Toshiya Tsunoda has been releasing remarkable acoustic works into a world that he seems to hear like no one else. His CDs are the most idiosyncratic and rigorous to be found among the many field recording releases of recent years, though his work is just as easy to place in the sound art frame. Tsunoda has a background in visual art (he studied oil painting at university) and the idea of landscape permeates his practice. “The most important thing for my field work is the possibility of describing the experience of landscape,” he reports. “I want to know how to fix the experience of landscape. It’s a different method to using photography to fix it. We can see the outline of objects clearly in photographs. But when recording, things are not so clear and it is difficult to distinguish what vibrations travel in the place. It’s like a moving sculpture. I find many possibilities to connect with perception and recognition.”‘ — The Wire

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Aki Onda Bruise & Bite
‘The latest collection of Cassette Memories from Japanese field recording maverick Aki Onda comes spun along a grizzled cocktail of bewitched and alienating tape hiss. Cinematic by the project’s distinctive virtue, this warped and distorted concoction arranges spliced chunks of stock excerpts from the artist’s curious expeditions to Mexico: birds screeching, tires spinning, waves crashing, distant pop tunes wavering, and a slipshod assembly of marching street bands, all over a rickety tide of AM crackle and gorged, tumultuous static. This most recent installment is momentous, an exploit that commands one’s attention as a nostalgic journey is curated, across the border, via an assemblage of busted tape recorders and crackerjack manipulation techniques.’ — Tiny Mix Tapes

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Annea Lockwood Tiger Balm
‘During the 1960s Annea Lockwood collaborated frequently with sound-poets, choreographers and visual artists, and created a number of works which she herself performed, such as the Glass Concert (1967), later published in Source: Music of the Avant-Garde, and recorded on Tangent Records, then on What Next CDs. In this work a variety of complex sounds were drawn from industrial glass shards and glass tubing, and presented as an audio-visual theater piece. In synchronous homage to Christian Barnard’s pioneering heart transplants, Lockwood created the Piano TranspIants (1969-72), in which old, defunct pianos were variously burned, “drowned” in a shallow pond in Amarillo, Texas, and partially buried in an English garden. During the 1970s and ’80s she turned her attention to performance works focused on environmental sounds, life-narratives and performance works using low-tech devices such as her Sound Ball (a foam-covered ball containing 6 small speakers and a radio receiver, originally designed to “put sound into the hands of” dancers).’ — collaged

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Yukitomo Hamasaki The Garden #3
‘The Garden is a work based on the methodology of field recording. However, the natural and urban sounds in this work were not recorded by the artist himself. Instead, all sound materials were recorded or downloaded from various websites in the Internet. Yukitomo considers the inside of the Internet as one of the new fields for “behaviors”. The field recording sound, both natural and social sound, can be regarded as traces of “behaviors.” In The Garden all sound materials were selected arbitrary from the online world, and there are no relationships between each sound. All natural sounds in this piece were recorded in various time and space, and all performed sound were created based on various thoughts, tastes, genres and cultural background. Then, all these sounds were edited to compose as one piece. The Garden is the work with removing personal ID and locality of sound files, then, reconstructing them in the new context.’ — matter recordings

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Peter Cusack The Horse Was Alive, The Cow Was Dead
‘Peter Cusack is particularly interested in environmental sound and acoustic ecology. He has examined the sound properties of areas such as Lake Baikal, Siberia, and the Azerbaijan oil fields, and is interested in how sounds change as people migrate and as technology changes. In 1998, Cusack started the “Your Favorite London Sound” project. The goal is to find out what London noises are found appealing by people who live in London. This was so popular that it has been repeated in Chicago, Beijing, and other cities. He is involved in the “Sound & The City” art project using sounds from Beijing in October, 2005. Cusack’s performances are a central part of the book Haunted Weather: Music, Silence, and Memory (Toop, 2004) by his old collaborator and respected music critic and author, David Toop.’ — collaged

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Jason Kavanagh [clm]
‘My compositions first begin with a concept. Not a sound, but an impression of what that sound is. This involves an interpretation that is filtered through me. I recognise the Self to be a key constituent of any sound and what I aim to produce are sound pieces that capture the subjective and inter-subjective activity and experiences which underpin the way in which a listener engages with their aural reality. This piece began with field recording, followed by a high level of sound design. The recordings were processed and manipulated into the sounds which you can hear. The sound files were then queued as samples and I recorded a one take arrangement, this arrangement was then gradually sculpted and moulded into the finished work by further alteration of volume, EQ and effects parameters.’ — JK

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Christina Kubisch The Magnetic City (excerpt)
‘Christina Kubisch belongs to the first generation of sound artists. Trained as a composer, she has artistically developed such techniques as the magnetic induction to realize her sound installations. Since 1986 the artist has added light as an artistic element to her work with sound. Christina Kubisch’s work displays an artistic development which is often described as the “synthesis of arts” – the discovery of acoustic space and the dimension of time in the visual arts on the one hand, and a new relationship between material and form in music on the other.’ — discogs

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Francisco López Seeds of Bird
‘Francisco López is internationally recognized as one of the major figures of the sound art and experimental music scene. For more than thirty years he has developed an astonishing sonic universe, absolutely personal and iconoclastic, based on a profound listening of the world. Destroying boundaries between industrial sounds and wilderness sound environments, shifting with passion from the limits of perception to the most dreadful abyss of sonic power, proposing a blind, profound and transcendental listening, freed from the imperatives of knowledge and open to sensory and spiritual expansion. He has realized hundreds of concerts, projects with field recordings, workshops and sound installations in over sixty countries of the five continents.’ — collaged

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Jana Winderen Heated (excerpt)
‘Heated is Jana Winderen’s blistering live set from her recent trip to Japan as part of ‘Norwegian Music Today’. This first CD follows her only other release to date, a 7″ vinyl limited edition, Surface Runoff, on Autofact [USA, 2008]. Improvising from recordings taken on field research trips, she forces the power of the hidden to the surface, making the unheard audible. Its a strange world down there; a world of which we know little, replete with its own instrumentation and orchestras. The audio topography of the oceans and the depth of glacier crevasses are brought to the surface. She is occupied with finding sound from its hidden source, like blind field recording.’ — touchshop

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Justin Bennett Ovipool
‘The widely ranging work of Justin Bennett is as rooted in the audiovisual and visual arts as it is in music. Central to his thinking and his work is a process-orientated approach and an interest in the elasticity of the concept of ’space’. Bennett produces (reworked) field recordings, drawings, performances, installations, photographs, videos and essays. He brings the characteristic potentials and capacities of each medium into every new work, paying no heed to the divisions between these media. Recently his work has focussed on urban development, technological progress and the relationship between architecture and sound.’ — Sounds of Europe

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Jez riley French Evening Chorus, Blue Mountains
‘My work involves elements of intuitive composition, field recording (using conventional & extended methods), photographic images/ photographic scores and improvisation. In recent years I have been working closely with specific spaces (natural and man-made), capturing moments that connect with a personal sense of place. I am fascinated and passionate about the infinite detail and expanding vistas of life around us, its sights and sounds, often overlooked or hidden, and their ability to help us experience anew the environments in which we spend our time. My creative output focuses on this never ending, joyous exploration and has increasingly involved a closer relationship with audible silence, active listening, stillness & the empathy of compositional lines. These evolved from my need to always remain open to my emotive, intuitive response to situations & environments’ — JrF

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Roel Meelkop Live at kuS
‘Roel Meelkop (1963) studied visual arts and art theory at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. His musical activities date back to the early eighties when he started THU20, together with Jac van Bussel, Peter Duimelinks, Jos Smolders and Guido Doesborg. THU20 have released several tapes and CDs and performed regularly in Europe. The working method of THU20 included many discussions about how to compose and why. This period was crucial in forming his ideas and concepts about sound and how to organise it, but it was not until the mid nineties that he was able to fully realise these ideas. The purchase of a sampler and later a computer radically changed his possibilities of working with sound, offering infinitely more control and freedom. Since then he has worked steadily on a body of work, most of which was recieved enthusiastically in the small but dedicated world of sound art.’ — kOAN

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Hiroki Sasajima In A Crowd
‘I’ve long been fascinated by the detail of sound, whether in a dense audible field or in the quietest environment. Indeed, it is locations we think of as ‘still’ that draw me in most. The actual spaces that we human beings inhabit in everyday life, of course, are always closely connected to theirs. From a bush in our yard, a park at a city street corner, to areas that are rural, a myriad of communities exist in various places. In Japanese culture, appreciating the sounds of insects is a tradition that goes back to olden times, their sounds enjoyed as songs, a voice or a message from another creature. Many such sounds exist in the changing of the seasons and in a delicate natural environment, certain to keep stimulating our own sensibility.’ — Hiroki Sasajima

*

p.s. Hey. ** David Saä V. Estornell, Well, hi there, David! Lovely to see you! I don’t think the concept of late applies around here, so no worries. ** Un Cœur Blanc, Hi! Very, very excellent and beautiful words about Blanchot’s ‘désoeuvrement’! What a pleasure and a great clarifier. Thank you so much! ** Misanthrope, Haven’t hitchhiked since I was maybe 16. No fucking way. Yeah, re: Self, to each his own, etc., always.  ** S., Hey. I don’t get MC being beautiful. I just think he’s a cool seeming guy. In love, worse, yeah, that perception of oneself when in love happens, but it always seem like defensiveness or something? Everyone, S. made a blond Emo boy stack on his blog called ‘Butterscotch Nuts’, if you like. My fave is Send Swedish Fish. ** Wolf, Wolf! The nearly here Wolf! I don’t think MC’s trajectory has had overt tragedy in it. I think that’s all media overlay. So, you’re coming tomorrow now? The snow thing is really that bad? Strange. I think trains, etc. are back to mostly working order over here. Anyway, give the alert when you hit this soil. Can’t wait! ** David Ehrenstein, Hey. Well, like I said, I haven’t followed every minutiae of the trial, but I have followed it, and, based on what I know, I don’t agree at all. Back when I was researching sex murder, serial killers, etc. for my work when I was younger, I let myself go pretty far in trying to experience what such things would be like, and how one could accomplish them, choosing ‘victims’, etc., never with any remote idea of doing anything in the real world, and it seems to me that the guy was at least quite possibly or quite likely just getting into his fantasy, and scaring/exciting himself by edging towards ‘doing it’. I’m going to read further, but, right now, I’m of the opinion that he was largely convicted because the jury were freaked out by the detailing of his fantasies that were presented in court, and that they were incapable of understanding the difference between imaginative indulgence and actual real world crime planning. So far, that makes the most sense to me. ** James, Ha ha, I was going to say. Glad you liked it, man. ** Cobaltfram, Hi, John. No, I didn’t read it yet ‘cos I was busy and out all day/evening, but I will today. The occasional long book still calls. But I always preferred the shorties. European-style. Most of the French novels that I think are great are at least relatively short. If I can help it, I’ll never read another Henry James novel as long as I live, and I can’t imagine ever actually reading Proust. Just don’t care enough. Thanks for the ‘Pli Selon Pli’ excerpt/vid. I’ll do that today too. No, didn’t do the ‘Atomic’ thing either yet. Yesterday got eaten. I have a feeling that the Boulez will be the more immediately enjoyable to me. The stranger and more dissonant or whatever, the more comfy I become. But we’ll see. No, I can’t tell about the translation, but my friend Zac looked over it yesterday and pointed out a bunch of problems, and he’s going to fiddle a bit and see if he can right it. I’m mostly working on the novel in my head right now. I need to conceptualize how to make what I’m thinking about work, and some possibly workable forms and shapes and structures are starting to come to me. I’m going on a trip in about a week and a half with a friend that’s specifically intended for us to hold up in the ‘middle of nowhere’ and work on our respective works and some collaborative stuff, so I’m mostly organizing and planning ahead for that. I never met MC. I ate in the same restaurant with him once. Catty Will Self story? No. I’m not very catty or into dishing, really. I saw your email. Thanks! I’ll open it today! ** Paul Curran, Hi, Paul! Really, really great to see you! I’m back here for about a week and a half. Yeah, much traveling lately and for the foreseeable future too. Speaking of, I’m finally going to Japan! For about three weeks or so with a friend in June! If it’s okay, I would love to hit you up for tips and etc. when the time gets closer. When do you move there? Wow, that’s a very harsh series of life blows. I’m so very sorry about your friend — I don’t need to tell you about my sympathies re: that — and, God, all the best wishes in the world for the mums, and, yeah, let’s talk/Skype when you’re ready. That would be good. You’re in the next Cityscapes? Awesome! What a good mag! Love to you too, P. ** Chris Dankland, Hi, Chris. No, I haven’t read MC’s book, but, after reading/posting that intro, I actually really want to. I thought that was terrific. The 1000th post! Congratulations, man, and such a ‘job’ so extraordinarily well done! Everyone, the mighty Chris Dankland celebrates the 1000th post on his seminal THE NEATO MOSQUITO ALT LIT FIREWORKS SHOW site featuring, in his words, ‘a long list of [and related linkage to] the 240 or so people I’ve featured on there since starting it…’ This is momentous, folks! Head over there! ** Will C., Hi, Will. No, no click with Self. More click with Burroughs. That Ohio shooting got strangely lowkey coverage. I think some proximate, more theatrical high school shooting pulled the headlines out from under it or something. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. ** Steevee, Hi. I’m still not enthusiastic about the Bowie, and I’m still putting my finger on why. I would certainly imagine that MC has done drugs, yeah, and so what, but the ‘heroin addict, near-death’ stuff seems completely fabricated. He gets skinny, grows out his facial hair, and the crap starts flying. He’s been extremely pale forever. Like I said, I ate across a restaurant from him once when he was maybe 14 or so, and he looks like a ghost at the best of times. Anyway, drugs, sure, why not, but self-destructive drug spiral seems like bull. ** MANCY, Hey, man! I’m good. Well, I think I’m fighting off a chest cold today, or rather trying very hard to, so, generally great, and not sure today. And you? ** Sypha, Yeah, get that done and sorted and nailed. Wow, lotsa books, and all of a high character, etc. Nice. ** Alan, Yeah, I agree totally about the cop thing. No, I’ve never read ‘Rameau’s Nephew’. I’m not sure I’ve actually ever read more than excerpts and quotes by Diderot, actually. Is it proving fruitful? ** Stephen, Hey! How ultra-great to have you here again, my pal. And with such a beautiful, very ‘you’ comment. You good? I hope you’re getting lots and lots of love for your incredible novel. Big love to you! ** Bollo, Hi, J. Cool, me too, re: MC love. I’m doing really well, thanks. Anne Sexton, wow. I haven’t read her since I was a faux-suicidal young poet looking for ways to articulate the misery. Interesting. Was ‘Transformations’ part of your research? I know, yes, about the Xenakis Mego thing, no? ** Okay. There’s a gig up there for you which I hope you will attend between now and tomorrow. Thank you! See you post-that.

‘The hooky yet hard-edged, guitar-driven musical style known as power pop didn’t generate spontaneously. There were threads and uprisings—disconnected sounds that later combined into something like a movement—as early as the late ’60s, when some young rock-‘n’-roll fans were already starting to rebel against rock’s increasing pretensions and ponderousness. The impulse that led to power pop was already alive in the network of collectors of obscure ’60s garage-rock singles, and in the creators of the disreputable pop hits classified as “bubblegum.” Some key songs by Badfinger and The Move were power pop before the genre really existed, and once the sound became more viable and widely imitated, it was easier to trace the roots of the genre back to rockabilly, doo-wop, girl groups, and the early records of The Beatles, The Byrds, The Beach Boys, The Kinks, and The Who.

‘Power pop evolved throughout the ’70s and early ’80s, running parallel and sometimes absorbing other trends like glam rock, pub rock, punk, new wave, college rock, and neo-psychedelia. But for the core power-pop sound—the one that came closest to breaking through to the mainstream and challenging ’70s rock radio’s preference for grandiosity—the best place to start is with The Raspberries. The Cleveland band’s 1972 single “Go All The Way” (written by lead singer Eric Carmen) is practically a template for everything the genre could be, from the heavy arena-rock hook to the cooing, teenybopper-friendly verses and chorus. The body of the song was The Who; the soul was The Beach Boys. The Raspberries only lasted five years, breaking up in 1975; and they only recorded four albums, of which only the twin 1972 releases Raspberries and Fresh really fulfill the promise of “Go All The Way.” Still, The Raspberries’ initial fusion of fist-pumping guitars and sugary melodicism—and the chart success they had at the start—inspired young rockers across the Midwest.

‘While The Raspberries didn’t last long enough or stay true enough to popularize power-pop, the genre’s next big band had a stronger impact. Cheap Trick, formed in Rockford, Illinois in 1973, were pegged by critics early as one of the great hopes for the survival of meat-and-potatoes American rock ’n’ roll. Less cutesy and more muscular than The Raspberries, Cheap Trick really picked up the post-Beatles mantle of Badfinger, and gave it some middle-American blue-collar beef. Cheap Trick spent the next decade as solid sellers, while scoring the occasional chart breakout, but the band warred with its own sound throughout the ’80s, sometimes embracing pop, and sometimes rebranding as a mainstream hard-rock group, complete with power ballads and glammy videos. The reasons for Cheap Trick’s identity crisis may have had something to do with the trouble power pop had catching on—not just with the public, but with the top rock critics of the era, who were frequently distrustful of the genre’s elements of sweetness and simplicity. Even the acts that the critics did embrace often languished in obscurity, as Cheap Trick did in the early going.’ — A.V. Club

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Shoes
‘The brilliant quintessence of American power pop hails from Zion, Illinois and began by recording at home on a 4-track, which resulted in a self-released LP that attracted national attention and (eventually) a major-label contract. Bassist John Murphy, guitarists Jeff Murphy and Gary Klebe and drummer Skip Meyer blend electric guitar — loud, distorted and multi-tracked, yet sweet — with breathy, winsome vocals to create melodic rock made most impressive by the strength of three equally talented singer/songwriters.’ — Trouser Press

‘Too Late’

‘Now and Then’

‘Cruel You’

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Pezband
‘Formed in the late seventies, Pezband combined Beatles-esque melodies with a gritty rock ‘n roll edge. The band released three studio albums from 1977 till 1979, all of which were critically acclaimed. Rolling Stone cited their 1978 sophomore release, Laughing In The Dark as one of the best albums of the year, and Billboard and Trouser Press sang their praises as well. However, Pezband’s adoring reviews didn’t translate into album sales, and the band broke up shortly after they released their third studio album in 1979, Cover to Cover.’ — Chicagoist

‘Love Goes Underground’

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The Bongos
‘The Bongos emerged from Hoboken, and Manhattan’s New Wave and No Wave venues such as Tier 3 and the Mudd Club, with a guitar-driven pop that belied a strong influence of the avant-garde. What set them apart from other such groups of the era were their sudden guitar outbursts or saxophone improvisations that echoed the work of Lou Reed, Ornette Coleman, or Captain Beefheart within the context of a pure, melodic pop song. In addition, unlike many of their peers, the group explored unabashedly sensuous dance rhythms that made their recordings dancefloor favorites.’ — collaged

‘In the Congo’

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Great Buildings
‘Great Buildings was one of a series of bands that were part of Columbia Records “Developing Artists” series in the early 80’s. (Paul Collins’ Beat, The Laughing Dogs, 20/20, Tommy Tutone and others) Danny Wilde and Ian Ainsworth (former singer/guitarist and bassist with Los Angeles Sparks-loving glam/bubblegum band The Quick) went on to form Great Buildings. They recorded the Apart From The Crowd album for Columbia in 1981 before breaking up a short time later. Danny Wilde went on to release several solo albums for Geffen before teaming up again with Solem to form the Rembrandts.’ — Powerpop Presents

‘Another Day in My Life’

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Phil Seymour
‘Born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Phil Seymour is probably best remembered for his time with the Dwight Twilley Band, who turned out some of the finest pop songs of their era, including the classic “I’m on Fire.” After two albums (1976’s Sincerely and 1978’s Twilley Don’t Mind), Seymour left to pursue a solo career. While waiting for a recording deal, he began recording solo sessions, as well as contributing session work for Tom Petty, 20/20, and Moon Martin. His self-titled debut was well received at the time (the single “Precious to Me” made it to number 22 on the pop charts) and has become highly revered in power pop circles as one of the landmark albums of the era. In 1984, Seymour was diagnosed with lymphoma. He returned to Oklahoma, carrying on at a diminished pace and recording infrequently, until the disease took his life on August 17, 1993 in Tulsa.’ — allmusic

‘Love Receiver’

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The Three O’Clock
‘The Three O’Clock were the quintessential L.A. Paisley Underground band. Lead singer and bassist Michael Quercio in fact coined the term to describe the set of bands, including the Dream Syndicate, Rain Parade, Green On Red and the Bangles, who incorporated the chiming guitars of the Byrds and the Beatles into their pop songs with a psychedelic bent, and the clothes to match. Their final album and first for Warner Brothers/Paisley Park (Prince was a fan), proved to be their undoing, as they never really fulfilled the label’s expectations and Quercio refused to be pigeonholed as a pretty-boy pop star or spokesperson for the premature retro revival.’ — collaged

‘With a Cantaloupe Girlfriend’

‘Fall to the Ground’

‘Jet Fighter’

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Off Broadway
‘The year is 1980, and Chicago based power pop outfit Off Broadway has just released their first album, ON. The critically acclaimed debut album includes the singles “Stay in Time” (which reached #51 on the Billboard Hot 100) and “Full Moon Turn Your Head Around,” and goes on to sell nearly 300,000 copies in Chicago alone (more than most modern bands sell on a national level). The music industry is buzzing over this young Midwestern power pop band, and a bidding war amongst over a dozen major record labels begins. In the end, Off Broadway signs with Atlantic, but the glitz and glamour of being on a major label never come into fruition for Off Broadway.’ — Chicagoist

‘Bad Indication’

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20/20
‘One of the key bands in the Los Angeles power pop explosion of the late 1970s and early ‘80s, 20/20 never quite scored a hit single, but they were a powerful draw on the West Coast in their heyday, and their signature song, “Yellow Pills,” became a cult favorite, covered by a number of later power pop acts and providing a noted pop fanzine with its name. In 1978, the group came to the attention of Greg Shaw, who was documenting the new L.A. pop scene with his label Bomp Records. Bomp released 20/20’s debut single, “Giving It All” b/w “Under the Freeway,” which earned enthusiastic reviews as the group worked the L.A. club circuit. Portrait Records, a subsidiary of CBS, signed the group, and 20/20 went into the studio with producer Earle Mankey (formerly of Sparks) to cut their first full-length album. The LP, simply titled 20/20, received rave reviews, but while “Yellow Pills” received scattered airplay on progressive outlets around the country, radio didn’t embrace the single as they had with the Knack’s “My Sharona” (doubtless due to the song’s oblique drug references).’ — collaged

‘Yellow Pills’

‘Nuclear Boy’

‘Remember the Lightning’

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The Boys
‘Although the Boys never achieved massive commercial success, their music legacy has been carried on by influence. German punk band Die Toten Hosen championed their music for more than a decade, covering several songs and introducing new fans to the Boys. They also recorded cover versions of some songs, namely “First Time” and “New Guitar in Town” for their album Auf dem Kreuzzug ins Glück – 125 Jahre die Toten Hosen and “Brickfield Nights” for the cover album Learning English, Lesson One. In the late 1990s, Japanese band Thee Michelle Gun Elephant had a hit with a Boys cover. This prompted the re-release of several Boys albums with encouraging international sales (more than 30,000 albums being sold in Japan alone).’ — collaged

‘Brickfield Nights’

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The Records
‘Like the Motors, the Records were reborn pub-rockers, who made a giant leap into the present by leaving their history behind and starting afresh with finely honed pop craftsmanship and the full-scale record company support they had never previously enjoyed. While the Motors went for grandiose production numbers, the Records — led by ex-Kursaal Flyer drummer/songwriter Will Birch — made sharp, tuneful confections that offered maximum hooks-per-groove in a classic Anglo-pop style not unlike the Hollies, with similarly brilliant harmonies and ringing guitars.’ — Trouser Press

‘Starry Eyes’

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The Plimsouls
‘From inception, the Plimsouls, formed by singer, guitarist and songwriter Peter Case (who had previously fronted power pop band The Nerves), quickly became a crowd favorite in the Los Angeles club scene. Long Beach promoter Stephen Zepeda signed the group to his Beat Records label for a five-song EP called Zero Hour. Guitarist Eddie Muñoz joined the group during the recording of the EP. The band achieved national popularity in 1983 when the single release “A Million Miles Away” was included on Valley Girl’s motion picture soundtrack and became a minor hit. The band, which also appeared on camera in the film performing the song and parts of two others, quickly re-recorded the song for inclusion on a second album, Everywhere At Once, produced by Jeff Eyrich, but broke up shortly after.’ — collaged

‘A Million Miles Away’

‘Now’

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The Pop
‘The Pop recorded two albums for Arista in the late ’70s, but could never shake the impression that they were little more than an attempt to build the ideal power-pop band from scratch. The Pop believed in the new DIY values of the punk ethic and their first LP shows it. It is an eclectic powerful combination of Punk meets Pop and two of the album’s songs, “Down On The Boulevard” and “Animal Eyes” soon became authentic anthems on the Southern California music scene, mostly through air-play on The Rodney Binginheimer radio show on KROQ and the bands extensive clubs dates up and down the coast. The Pop called it quits on July 4, 1981.’ — collaged

‘Go!’

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The dBs
‘The dBs released their first album, Stands for Decibels, in 1981, to critical acclaim but negligible sales. Their sound was a modernized version of earlier power pop, with precise arrangements and highly accomplished instrumental work. Chris Stamey and Peter Holsapple were the band’s songwriters, and while Holsapple was skilled in the composing of fairly straightforward tunes such as “Big Brown Eyes” and “Bad Reputation,” Stamey’s songs, which include “Espionage” and “Tearjerkin’,” tended to be somewhat more experimental. They released a second album in 1982, Repercussion, which built upon the strengths of the first album, and also released singles such as “Judy.” These two albums, recorded on the British label Albion, have since been reissued on one compact disc.’ — collaged

‘Black and White’

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Cheap Trick
‘Combining a love for British guitar pop songcraft with crunching power chords and a flair for the absurd, Cheap Trick provided the necessary links between ’60s pop, heavy metal, and punk. Led by guitarist Rick Nielsen, the band’s early albums were filled with highly melodic, well-written songs that drew equally from the crafted pop of the Beatles, the sonic assault of the Who, and the tongue-in-cheek musical eclecticism and humor of the Move. Their sound provided a blueprint for both power pop and arena rock; it also had a surprisingly long-lived effect on both alternative and heavy metal bands of the ’80s and ’90s, who often relied on the same combination of loud riffs and catchy melodies.’ — allmusic

‘Way of the World’

‘Come On Come On’

‘She’s Tight’

*

p.s. Hey. So, tomorrow I’m going to Amsterdam for the weekend. As far as you’re concerned, this means that the p.s. tomorrow is likely to be a bit rushed as I try to get it done pre-departure time. On Saturday, you will get a hopefully lovely rerun post and no p.s. per say. On Monday, everything will be back to normal with a new post, full p.s., etc., at which point I will catch up with the comments from both Friday and Saturday ** Scunnard, Hi. Certain things (age, location, general profession, etc.) about the seeming brother of George match, and others (for instance: wow, does he look different, if that’s him, etc.) make me wonder. Mm, I just want him to be the right guy, I guess. I don’t like the uncertainty. A friend of mine is going to make the initial contact with him for me to see if he’s the guy and if he will be willing to talk to me ‘cos I’m scared a bit shitless. Oh, thanks about the DG-F post, man. ** Misanthrope, Who ever knows with those motherfuckers. It just always seems like these really hyped up crises always get ‘solved’ albeit in some disappointing, heavily compromised way. Rallo?! Rallo is still alive? You’re kidding me. Weird, cool. ** xTx, Extie! My pal! Err, no, ‘Billie’ has not arrived. Hm. It is getting a little long. I’ll go down to the office today and make sure they don’t have some package for me that they forgot to tell me about because that has happened. Yikes, want! Very, very top notch news about your progress on the novel! Mega-whoopie! Mine, err, is crapped out right now, so, bleah, yeah, but I’m a stubborn motherfucker, so it’s not over yet. I miss you too! All love to you! ** Cobaltfram, Hi, John. Sorry about the non-Skyping last evening. Yesterday got away from me. New Park Chan-Wook definitely has potential, I agree. I’m curious. It would be nice if Glass did something interesting again. I’ll use that link, thanks. I’m not giving up on the George novel yet, but I think it’s good to be realistic so I won’t crash and burn inside if/when it gives up my ghost. Art, yeah, but it and love are kind of all we’ve got or something. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi, D. That thing Bill is doing sounds fun. If I were nearby, I would go and learn a lot. Give him a big ‘merde’ for me. ** Billy Lloyd, Balls plus great instincts and inherent talent. In your case, you’ll nail it, in other words. Assembling a team to make it happen, that sounds really logical to me. And it seems like angling for a label is the obvious and right thing to do, at least to start with. Let me know how your talk is received. Snow, awesome. We’re still without. Word is that it might rain-snow today, which is the worst. With my luck, we’ll get a massive, gorgeous blizzard while I’m in Amsterdam, where it never snows, which will have turned into a chilly swamp by the time I get back. Fully and heavily enjoy your London/ Oxford trips. Anything particularly exciting pre-planned? We can compare our respective trip notes upon our respective returns. ** Steevee, Hi, Steve. Thank you for the sympathy. No, I’ve never gotten this far into a novel and still felt this deeply negative about it, but I’ve never written a novel like this one before, so it’s hard to compare its status to the other ones. I don’t know. I’m going to trying to fix it, at least for now. Yeah, thanks, man. ** _Black_Acrylic, You got snow. Hunh. Usually, when you get it, we get it, but not this time unless today holds a big surprise. Thanks for the tip/link re: the AN website. That does look useful, and it’s a swell review, man. A real pleasure. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff. I hope so too re: the novel. I’m not giving up yet. Thank you. I’ve listened to the MBV twice, and it’s really gorgeous, and I can tell it’s going to unfold and unfold in an amazing way. I actually really like the later Celine novels. ‘Normance’, ‘Castle to Castle’, ‘North’, all pretty fantastic, I think. I haven’t read the posthumous one, ‘Rigadoon’, but I want to. ** Statictick, Hi, N! Dude, spooning vs. commenting, no contest. Hope it was a soup spoon. Hope it was a ladle. Awesome re: possible guest-post, man. Really sweet of you. ** Trees, Hi, Ted. Thanks about my novel problems. I tried stepping away from it for a few months, and that didn’t work, so I’m trying fiddling with and chiseling what I’ve already written rather than trying to generate more prose. We’ll see if that helps. Cutting back could be plenty. I hope whichever route you go does the trick. All your upcoming book stuff is really exciting. Remember that I’d love to celebrate any of them on the blog, if you like. It is weird how multi-tasking just happens so naturally and easily sometimes, yeah. Weird stuff: the brain, I guess. ** Sypha, My sympathies to you re: the Gaga cancellations. Your worrying about her feelings on the matter is very odd and sweet. ** Un Cœur Blanc, Hi. Oh, thanks. Saki is mysterious and kind of magical to me for some reason. It could partly be the little bottle and cup. It would be nice to drink it while not in a restaurant. I think that’s the only place I’ve ever tasted it. Nice pic of Bacon. He looks very tender. ** Grant maierhofer, Hi, Grant. Really interesting about the sigil thing. That whole novel, ‘Guide’, is a sigil. Novel as sigil, or vice versa. I can’t say whether it worked or not because I think that would fuck something up, as I understand the principle. I am excited to read ‘Rontel’. I have to get on ordering it. My opinion on ‘Cremaster’ has changed towards the more positive as time has gone on. Partly for the reasons you mention, I mean for the reasons that you say you’re taken with it. The hype around it at the same was very off-putting, or it was to me. Thanks for being into Little Caesar. It was cool, and it was great to do, but, man, it was so much work to put together entirely on my own. I don’t miss typesetting machines and laying-out and the physical pasting and the endless trips to the post office whatsoever. But, yeah. My agent has been trying off and on for years to get Grove to put out a single volume version of the Cycle, but they’re just not interested at all. They think that would cause them to earn even less money on the books for whatever reason, and those kinds of decisions always drive everything, I guess. Good day to you! ** Chris Dankland, Hi, Chris. The very first blog post, which was on my old, dead blog, happened on May 15, 2005. My first blog didn’t get hacked in the usual sense of the word. Back in those days, Blogger had this annoying set-up where people could flag a blog as offensive, and, if it got flagged a certain number of times within 24 hours, the blog would be automatically shut down, and, when that happened, all of the images in blog would be deleted. Basically, someone who hated the blog, or, more likely, hated me, hit the ‘flag’ button a ton of times one day, knowing that would kill the blog. When I managed to get Blogger to finally restore the blog, it was empty, and I just gave up on it because refilling it with the images would have taken an insane amount of work. Anyway, it got ‘hacked’ and died on November 20, 2006. Zac’s piece in ‘Userlands’ was his first published work, yeah. The online writing scene in those days was nothing at all like it is now, to the point where the premise of the ‘Userlands’ anthology seemed very fresh and novel, which is pretty funny to think about now, and which shows you how fast the online writing scene grew. Thanks for saying ‘Userlands’ was ahead of the curve. I think it was, yeah, if only by accident. It was well received and did pretty well, but I had hoped that there would be more concentration on the importance of the blog context and how that affected the work and the community in which the writers interacted, but there wasn’t a lot of thought put into that, or not to the degree that I thought was important to the project. Mm, I can’t remember exactly when HTMLG started, or exactly when Tao’s online movement/ sites/ self-branding outreach started. I guess the main difference between then and now is the obvious one, i.e. that back then it was still about posting fiction and poetry online whereas now the forms dictated by the internet’s shape and dimensions and possibilities are very central to so much of the forms being used by current writers in Alt Lit and otherwise. So, I think it’s significantly different now. Re: underrated sites and blogs, mm, I’ll need to think about that and get back to you ‘cos I think there are a bunch, and I would really collect my thoughts and check my bookmarks and stuff. Yeah, online writing is a huge and completely fascinating area/topic, for sure. I know I think about it and what it means and the innovations and things happening because of it a lot. Anyway, there are my initials answers, and I’m very happy to talk a lot more about that and about my experiences, if you like. It’s inspiring. My word overuses are legion. Like ‘yeah’, which I type at the drop of a hat. And also starting sentences with the word’ oh’. Bad habit, but whatever, I guess. Thank you a lot about the red lightbulb pieces, man. They’re from that book ‘The Weaklings (XL)’ that’s coming out. Great day to you, sir. ** Grant Scicluna, Howdy, Grant. Thanks a lot re: the novel struggles. I mean, it makes sense that this one would be the extremely hardest one and the most likely to fail. I’m trying to tackle the biggest thing of all, and it could be way too big for me. Still trying, though. I really hope the meeting goes incredibly well today, and, yeah, try not to worry, and that’s the spirit, and … how did it go? Hm, I don’t remember there being a film outlined from ‘A Herd’. Maybe I’m just forgetting, or maybe I never knew about it? So, as far as I know or can remember, I don’t know anything about that possible project. Hunh. Best of the best to you, man. ** Adrienne White, Whoa, hey, pal! How utterly sweet to see you here! Wowzer! I hope you’re doing really, really great! Are you? Much love to you! ** Bollo, Hey, J! No problem, man, just very happy to see you. Very cool score on the books and stuff. So fucking wish I could see/go to that show of yours that you noted on FB. Are those pix from that show? Wait, hold on, … oh, yes, they are. Seeing them is way better than nothing. They look fantastic! I’ll pore over them heavily a little later, and have a huge blast at the opening! Everyone, the ultra-great visual artist Jonathan Mayhew who hangs around under the guise Bollo has an exhibition opening imminently called ‘Envelope’ at the Ballina Art Center where his work will be shown alongside works by the artist Alan James Burns, and you can see some beautiful photos of Mr. Mayhew’s work in the show here, and, if you’re in Ireland, you can find out more about the show and how to see it here. Awesome! Happy V Day to you too! ** Right. Today I present some awesome past music makers who were into creating very precise, self-reflexive and/or subversive perfect pop songs in hopes of spreading brainy joy, and, if you would like some brainy joy in your life, I recommend give the post your attention. See you tomorrow.