Ooooo! New record! No word on official release date. But you can hear tracks here. At first listen, I Will/With You, Everything’s Gone, Losin’ You, likey. She’s sultry, she’s wicked. Dangerously lovely combination. If you haven’t heard any of her older stuff before, buy all of it. Seriously [...]

A Triple-A radio programming veteran, Kate has served as Music Director of the Loft at XM, Midday Host at WYEP, Evening Host at both WNCS and WUIN, as well as Content Supervisor for Pump Audio. Currently, she's the CEO of Outlandos Music, a new-music discovery service for grown-ups. Kate has been nationally recognized for her ardent presentation of music and her ability to champion talented, compelling artists.

As always, the idea is that what unites us is more than music, an axiology that extends from the music to our music-lover lifestyles: how we vote, what we drive, what we eat, what we wear, etc. The point is, we're a tribe connected by vibe... hence, this month's compendium: [...]

A Triple-A radio programming veteran, Kate has served as Music Director of the Loft at XM, Midday Host at WYEP, Evening Host at both WNCS and WUIN, as well as Content Supervisor for Pump Audio. Currently, she's the CEO of Outlandos Music, a new-music discovery service for grown-ups. Kate has been nationally recognized for her ardent presentation of music and her ability to champion talented, compelling artists.

So I'm going through all my books because times are hard, and I need the cash & maybe the local dumpster of a used bookstore will take whatever I don't want & give me a buck or two like the record stores used to do, when there actually were record stores & rock critics like yrz truly used to get record service from all the labels.  

And then I come across this book called (I'm not kidding), "Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film," the idea of which is that the female victim who gets all maimed & cut up in a slasher movie is not just being viewed by male viewers sadistically but is actually an example of something called "a climactic moment of female power."  The author, Ms. Carol Clover, states in her best academic voice that the modern horror movie possesses this positive subversive space where gender ambiguity can be explored and where the traditional boundaries of male & female identity are dissolved.  In other words, when the dame gets stabbed to death, the women like it too!

Well, you can imagine, even though it was published by Princeton University Press & therefore worth more than a buck at the university textbook store nearby, I almost threw this high&mighty gibberish in the trash.  I mean, I've seen "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" quite a few times, and not once did any girlfriend of mine cheer when the saw ripped through female flesh or when the hammer slowly beat the captured girl's skull during the dinner scene. In fact, most of the women I knew left the room & then never returned my calls!!

So I decided to see what the stupid book is worth on EBay.  I figure, despite the book's premise, slasher collector sickos might pay me $25 for the thing.  But before I get to EBay, as usual I check out my Facebook page (I'm hooked on FB, what can I say?), and lo & behold, there's some attractive blonde from the West Coast confirming friendship.  Well, to be truthful, ANY attractive female from the West Coast can be my friend, but this one struck a real memory bubble.  
Cherie Currie?  Cherie....currie?  I couldn't place the name, but I knew I knew it from way back when & had maybe met her at a party or....I just couldn't place the name, you know how it is.


Then I realized I gotta figure this out because right there in her info file was this amazing fact. (You know, life works like this sometimes & then it just seems like, well, there ain't a problem worth sniveling over....).....

CHERIE WORKED WITH CHAINSAWS!  I mean, that's what she did for a living!  Cherie carves stuff out of wood & does a damn good job at it, and even poses with the chainsaws so the guys will go buy her product.  She's like this total marketing genius!! Here it is, guys:   http://www.chainsawchick.com/  ---an unbelievable example of how great life can be if you just let it happen sometimes.  
And what was even stranger, I realized that this was some kind of sign...not only was that academic chick absolutely correct in her chainsaw/horror theory (I know, I know...it's not really proof because Cherie actually uses the chainsaw to create things pg beauty while in the slasher movies the guys use the chainsaw to destroy flesh...but that's the way my mind works, okay?), but now I had to read the f***g book just to solve the mystery of why women & chainsaws seem so culturally connected.

And then, as I read through Cherie's info even further, I almost lose it. .....Holy shit, where have I been?  Of course!  She's the pretty blonde from that punk band, the Runaways, & I actually liked that first album when it came out, even reviewed the damn thing, and played it over & over.  But I guess I lost track...never really heard Joan Jett or anymore Runaway albums...but then had to admit that the only reason I played that album in the first place when it came in the mail via aforementioned record service in the ‘70s was because I had an immediate crush on CHERIE CURRIE.  (Hey, come on, gimme a break...you can see why.)

Those of you more up on rock history than me know that Cherie was the lead singer of the Runaways, and on the band's debut album on Mercury in 1976, the first track on the album was called "Cherry Bomb," which was indeed referring to our beloved Cherie. The track was actually created off the cuff because Cherie was told to prepare a song that sounded like Suzi Quatro, but she picked one the band didn't like.  And so, the other charming band members made the "Cherry Bomb" song up to make fun of Cherie.

Feeling a bit moved & nostalgic by all this synchronicity (and, believe me, I hate the Police, so I don't like when this kind of stuff happens), I pulled out the Runaways first album, and started playing it.  I actually even got the courage up to re-read words I had written in some old tattered issue of a long-forgotten magazine named after jizm:  "The Runaways' album can easily be earmarked right alongside the first Stooges record in its expression of teenage passions, its slurring of lyrics into pouting mono-syllables, and its final call to dance to that punk-rock vision." And lots more great stuff in the review, too...on & on about what a great band these young ladies were and how they'd change the world blah blah blah....

I felt kind of lost & alone in this weird experience, so I wrote a short but respectful email to Cherie via Facebook (she is, after all, supposedly a friend) asking her why she made the move to chainsaws after being a punker for so long.  But I ain't heard from her yet.  

On the surface, it makes sense to me that she's into chainsaws, but I wanted to hear her side of things.  Maybe it all has something to do with gender studies or something, but I don't think so.

REFERENCES:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-BZk_i203Q
http://www.cheriecurrie.com/
http://www.geocities.com/sunsetstrip/palms/6923/truth.html
http://www.therunaways.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShB4azq9WEk

Hawaii Punk
it was once a common assumption that there could be no real punk come out of SoCal.  now Raoul Vehill has moved the frontier of ignorance to hawaii.  his new book, Hawaii Punk, recounts his fictionalized lowlife improvisations in and around honolulu.  i knew Raoul as a productive no-budget filmmaker in chicago in the late 80s/early 90s (provisional released his "Horrorgirl" on vhs), but didn't know he'd experienced the late 70s/early 80s punk era from the middle of the pacific.  there were no shops nor records from there that i knew of while at systematic, then the clearing house for the american underground, but i think i remember joe pope talking about a hawaiian account soon after i left for sst in 81.  Raoul's book is a great lowlife chronicle... set in paradise!  Nicely printed too, in Wales apparently.  Raoul moved to denver to document his criminal uncle and wound up yet again a lowlife.  that book, Vato Maldito, is also coming, but no book tour for the parolee:
http://comrademotopu.com/hawaiirelatedtop.htm

***

its only february but the album of the year is no doubt out:
Scott Weinrich's new album, "Punctuated Equilibrium":
http://www.myspace.com/winoschopper

***

Chuck filled me in on the Stains-now vs the Stains-then of the sst lp, as well as of the pre-lp lineup that first got Chuck, Greg, Dez, Spot and all, excited about them.  a month before recording SST 010 (the last session at media art studio in hermosa beach) singer Jerry was fired for joyriding and destroying guitarist Robert's brother's truck.  Rudy replaced him and sang on the record.  original bassist Jesse and the first drummer also left the band to be replaced for the recording by longtime rhythm section Caesar and Gilbert (Jerry and Jesse, recently deceased).  in LA now you can see Robert-guitar/Caesar-bass/Rudy-vocals/Gilbert-drums; not many bands of that era are as intact.  the Stains were never included in the press canvassings of East LA's latino punk scene back then, probably because they were on their own non-ethnic tangent and could be intimidating to those merely looking for some mexicali new wave color.

The Stains / Carnage Asada.  
Liquid Kitty punk rock BBQ West L.A. Sun 2/22
Highland Park American Legion Hall - Friday 3/27
Doll Hut - Anaheim - Saturday 5/22
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=449502115
http://www.myspace.com/familiacarnageasada

***

sst free for all for now:
http://www.jambangmusic.com/#/music/4530828941
http://gonemusic.t83.net/#/music/4530844391
http://txcorrugators.t83.net/#/goofoffexperts/4530846823
http://www.txcorrugators.com/#/bentedge/4530846821
http://mojackmusic.t83.net/#/themetalyears/4530780019
http://mojackmusic.t83.net/#/underthewillowtree/4530780011

***

Lux Interior (1946-2008)
when we got systematic record distribution off the ground up in portland in 1978 (as renaissance records), we missed out on picking up most of the earliest independent record releases, but we were lucky to get in some of the last of the Cramps two vengeance records singles.  i forget who dealt with us but i didn't see the Cramps until we moved systematic to berkeley and they played the keystone in may 1980.  great of course but it was the most negative vibe i've ever felt coming off a band.  when i learned later that bryan gregory drove off with the bands' van and equipment and was never seen by them again i knew that vibe had been a real thing.  they seemed to pop up regularly over the years, never getting their due but never going away.  i was in chicago in july of 1981 and listening to larry lujack on wls and he took the initiative to break station policy and play "goo-goo muck," the Cramps new single.  it sounded perfect because of course they always belonged on top 40. they made early punk's tacit alliance with the fifties against the sixties overt to say the least:
http://blogs.laweekly.com/play/news/lux-interior-of-the-cramps-pas/
http://clubs.pathfinder.gr/ROCK_N_ROLL_MOTHERFUCKERS/391010 (#4)

***

Precious Blood is Amy Annelle & Ralph White.
Progress Coffee 500 San Marcos, Austin
saturday 2/7 with Shawn David McMillen
saturday 2/21 with Aaron Blount

***

Buddy Holly weren't it; the Crickets was it:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123363016857342371.html

***

Scarcity of Tanks, ONO
Feb. 27, Enemy 1550 N. Milwaukee, 3fl, Chicago
http://www.enemysound.com/

ONO creepy crawl the Soul Train reunion:
http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/hoekstra/1407388,CST-NWS-soultrain01.article

***

Dumb Records, sf, 1976-1983:
http://www.lastdaysofmanonearth.com/blog/?p=342

***

on Sylvia Juncosa, To Damascus, the Martyrs, and more:
http://disasteramnesiac.blogspot.com/2008/12/david-winogrond-interview.html

***

new issue with Television, an Andy Schwartz club history, Lester Bangs, etc:
http://www.perfectsoundforever.com

***

Arthur Magazine news:
"In the magazine publishing world, lots of who-needs-'em corporate magazines have already bit the big one, and the corrupt, wasteful, straight-up rotten newsstand periodical distribution system (which Arthur doesn't use -- we have our own, homegrown distro system) appears to be collapsing. Good riddance to bad rubbish. That said, Arthur Magazine is strategically dormant for the moment. Editor/publisher/owner Jay Babcock (now livin-and-lovin in Philly, for those keeping score) is in discussions with various potential partners to return to print immediately in a new format that, makes total sense,given the magazine's mission and the times we are living in. Parties with publishing experience and/or means are encouraged to get in touch with Mr. Babcock, who wants to get it happening, as Mugger and Dukowski were known to say in the Black Flag days. Well alrighty then. Arthur subscribers, we will not forsake you: your subscription will be fulfilled when we return to print. Which shouldn't be too long."
http://www.arthurmag.com

***

Guru Guru (1971); for days when one guru just isn't enough:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2u5T-iOYpI&feature=related

***


Michael Hurwitz & the Aimless Drifters
Tue Feb 17 at the Pickin Parlor in Arvada
Fri Feb 20 in Lyons
Sat Feb 21 in Saratoga at the new Platte Valley Center,
Sun Feb 22 in Centennial at the Beartree.
http://www.mikehurwitz.com

***

I wanted to make a doc called, 1974-The Year Prog Croaked; i guess i don't have to now:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8T904BrY_k&feature=PlayList&p=1EDC9C2EF8FE7A5F&index=0&playnext=1

Joe Carducci is a hell of a writer, record producer, and former A&R executive, formerly most closely associated with the influential LA-based record label SST Records. His most recent book Enter Naomi: SST, L.A. and All That, chronicles his time at the infamous label and the life and death of famed SST photographer Naomi Peterson--a supreme talent who I had the priveledge of working with on many occasions--and whose laugh I still miss. -Scott Crawford

Chuck Eddy dusts off his old vinyl and scratches his head. We all win.

Greetings, BLURT readers. This column's theme is fairly simple: Basically, I sort alphabetically through my shelves for dusty old 7-inch vinyl indie singles from acts that aren't household names, and try to figure out why I wound up keeping them in the first place. This is the 11^th installment (first two appeared at Idolator.)

***

MELTED MEN - Smoke Alarm Limbo (Pink Sock, 2004)

The front of the EP sleeve - revolving around a hideously deformed blue-skinned mermaid princess seated on her throne deep in the coral reef -- looks more or less like some half-awake stoner knocked over a few candles worth of hot wax all over it. And when you get down to it, so does the music, and surprisingly, this is not a completely horrible thing. Back cover also offers a conceptual clue: A middle-aged black couple, possibly with car broken down, occupying the stoop of an apparent gas station in the middle of nowhere, though clearly along Highway 321. Insert shows six subsequent shots of a highway patrolman in short pants detaining a tinfoil-masked transvestite in a hula skirt, not to mention a necklace comprising several primitive woodwinds. Actual vinyl is translucent, a sort of sea-green color. Band is a "collective" (what else?) from Athens, Georgia, and they include the Sun City Girls and To Live And Shave In L.A. among their closest MySpace friends. Songs include "Thumbs Like A Human" (a rapper spits about escargot while splitting the difference between the Residents and Red Hot Chili Peppers over electronic blippery almost managing to sound funky); "After All The Smoke Clears" (sproinging Jew's harp underlies helpful good ol' boy running down the sandwich menu over the phone - hot wings, chicken fingers, deli meat); "Pain Gel" (more blippy electro-funk, this time with twang attached, plus self-consciously annoying babble about being "sick and tired of being sick and tired");  "Sticky Frog" (missing amphibian link betwixt Clarence "Frog Man" Henry and Crazy Frog wherein some backwoods codger growls like Dr. John and/or Captain Beefheart -- but also occasionally Adam Sandler -- about a frog in a hollow log, and the art-funk hops around in an appropriately rubbery and squishy manner);  "Block Of Ice" (beat suggesting soldiers marching in cadence serves as foundation for yet another stoned rebel drawler, this one repeatedly expectorating a borderline quasi-racist "boogie boogie boogie boo/that's what I'm tellin' you" rhyme). During "Pain Gel," I accidentally knocked my phone out of the cradle, and I erroneously assumed that the busy signal - which fit right in - was part of the song.  Neat!

(http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=74171248)

MONDO TOPLESS - "Amazon Queen"/"Leave Me Alone"/"Just What I Need" (G.I. Productions, 1997)

More white boys playing fast and loose with dangerous and thankfully long-discarded stereotypes; the drummer even gets credited with "jungle wooops" in the A-side, which wooops sound a lot like the "monkey see, monkey do" chants in "African Man" off Iggy Pop's undervalued 1979 New Values LP. Numerous other racially insensitive rock'n'roll precedents - Warren Smith's "Ubangi Stomp," the Lime Spiders' "Slave Girl," like that - come to mind as well. Though it should be noted that the actual (and pleasantly buxom, though tragically not topless) grass-skirted cartoon Amazon queen on the 45 sleeve is unmistakably Caucasian, not to mention not particularly tall. And speaking of buxom, the band - a couple members of which I should confess here that I partied with on occasion in mid ‘90s Philadelphia, where they're from - took their name from an old Russ Meyer movie, just like Faster Pussycat and Mudhoney and Vixen before them. As umpteenth-generation Nuggets revivalists go, their live sets could be fun to frug to, too, I recall; the bar scene depicted on the rear side of the single sleeve even makes me a wee bit nostalgic. And "Amazon Queen" itself starts off pretty well, with a hardy riff and rolling Tarzan tom-toms and those aforementioned war wooops. But the vocal feels fairly weak and unassertive beyond the chorus, and the "yeah yeah yeah"s sound too rushed to hang loose, and the trash organ more suggests some shag-haired TV approximation of ‘60s garage-punk than the real thing. (Not that ‘60s garage-punk particularly cared about being "real," I don't think, but you get the idea, right?) The guitar leading "Leave Me Alone" has some life to it, too (momentarily reminds me of Mellencamp's "R.O.C.K. In The U.S.A."), and you can feel the band shooting for Seeds/Music Machine/Shadows Of Knight sleaze from some dank back alley. But they seem scared to rock too hard, so it's impossible to shake the feeling that they're just more follow-the-rulebook post-Fleshtones camp followers instead. "Just What I Need" is faster, with a bit of bop to it, but ultimately even more sub-generic. Word is the foursome's still around, though with a couple different guys now.

(http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=4406834)

THE MOONEY SUZUKI - "Oh Sweet Susanna"/"Say Man, What Time Is It?" (Gammon, 2002)

New York, five years later, with garage revival stuff in the form of the Hives and Strokes and White Stripes starting to reap profits that Mondo Topless certainly never imagined, and I WAS THERE, too - never partied per sé with the black-clad sunglasses-at-night schticksters in the Mooney Suzuki, but I did witness them on stage a bunch. They recorded these songs in Detroit, and put a black chick whose Afro harks back to the heyday of Angela Davis and Cleopatra Jones on the hard cardboard cover - so yeah, yet more radical chic and mau-mauing the flak-catchers. But I'm pretty sure "Oh Sweet Susanna" was the Mooney Suzuki's best song regardless, not so much for its bittersweet reminiscence of last summer's crush (which was fine, don't get me wrong) as for its guitar riff, which for all the world sounds stolen outright from Eddie Money's not exactly garage-purist "Two Tickets To Paradise." Boogie-woogie piano at the start resembles "Long Tall Glasses (I Can Dance)" by Leo Sayer to boot, and I have no complaints about the toasty and casually manly vocalization, which pulls off its ‘70s commercial meatball rock in much the way, say, Urge Overkill's "Sister Havana" had a few years earlier. The B-side's MC5 attempt is more along the lines of this band's usual doings, and also isn't really much of a song - just a couple of dorks shouting back and forth: "Say man, what time is it?" "I tell you, it's showtime!" Nothing but a vamp, trying to come off funky, as ineptly at it as anybody from the Spin Doctors to Jon Spencer Blues Explosion (both of whom it brings to mind) might have at the time. As a tossed-off B-side though, taken out of the context of its era and its habitat and it's makers' delusions of souldom, it almost passes muster. When last heard from two years ago, the Suzukis were succumbing to coming hard times in the biz, watching their V2 label fold just in time to keep the world from hearing an album that sounded like they'd experienced a Deadhead conversion.

(http://www.myspace.com/themooneysuzuki)

Chuck Eddy is the former music editor of the Village Voice and the author of several books, including the greatest book on heavy metal ever written, Stairway To Hell. He won't admit it, but he knows more about rock ‘n' roll than the entire accumulated BLURT brain trust.

Hell, the Grammys prove that year after year. Obviously, you don't have to make very good music and people will buy it. It can even be downright terrible. Here's why: Sure, the Internet leveled the playing ground for a lot of us but it also muddied the waters; now, everyone's an off-the-couch artist, writer, photographer, musician. Hence, content, i.e. music, is everywhere [...]

A Triple-A radio programming veteran, Kate has served as Music Director of the Loft at XM, Midday Host at WYEP, Evening Host at both WNCS and WUIN, as well as Content Supervisor for Pump Audio. Currently, she's the CEO of Outlandos Music, a new-music discovery service for grown-ups. Kate has been nationally recognized for her ardent presentation of music and her ability to champion talented, compelling artists.

Taylor Swift and Myley Cyrus together for the first time! Wait, where are those guitar fills coming from? Oh wait, now I see the band behind them.  Myley needs to dial down the dramatic gestures. Swift is playing it perfectly. Great poise.

Best Pop Collaboration: Plant and Krauss win it--no surprise here.  Krauss looks smashing. Plant looks like Plant-meaning he wins hands down for rock's Dick Clark Award for still looking amazing even in his sixties (80s perm and all). Krauss remains silent while Plant accept the award.

Jennifer Hudson performs. What a voice. What a choir.

Joe Carducci

Word is i'm one of the special guests on this publishing panel april  
18 in LA at USC:
http://web-app.usc.edu/ecal/custom/113/index.php?category=Item&item=0.866426&active_category=Search

***

In other newses, both the nytimes (sam tanenhaus) and washpost   
(david broder) wrote pieces on family dynasties in politics that   
managed to avoid a mention of the daleys, who among other recent   
coups have managed for awhile to place a defense counsel, ed genson,  
to rep their enemy machine-apostate now ex-gov. blagojevich (his   
advice: keep quiet), not to mention placing a white sox fan in the   
white house - look next for a chicago olympics, and then daley's son  
patrick is about 33 now, a vet of afghanistan...  that's how to run  
a dynasty!  for political effect, not headlines.  and that's all   
richard m., his brother bill moved from fannie mae to jp morgan   
chase's corporate responsibility operating board position, so he's   
naturally laying low.  but what does this say about the news media?   
tanenhaus and broder may be masthead kings, but on sinking ships   
that just gives them a few extra breaths of air.
http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/theworks/090129/

***

Dude's even wronger than foege or browne:
http://www.16miles.com/2009/01/top-10-of-2008-2-triple-candie-thank.html

***

Assuming a touch above zero visibility this saturday david   
lightbourne & birgit burke will again bring their acoustic guitar &   
mandolin blues and rags songbook from laramie's buckhorn to   
centennial's trading post apres ski music series.  they'll go from   
4pm to 6pm or thereabouts.  free.

***

SAT., 31JAN09 Curated by MARVIN TATE
ONO PERFORMING: Love Letters/The Night Time
"The diva releases what we are constrained to suppress;
she gives vent to our nameless furies; in her, our madness reigns.
We sin, she suffers." - Annie J. Randall
Elastic Arts Foundation
2830 N. Milwaukee Ave. (2nd FL), Chicago
http://www.travistravis.com/UPCOMING.html
http://www.roctober.com/roctober/ono.html

***

Michael Fournier reads from his book on Minutemen - Double Nickels   
on the Dime:
Quimby's, Chicago, Sat. Feb. 14, 7pm, free.

***

Check out pre-chicago wax trax founder jim nash at his denver wax   
trax in 77 with LA's the nerves on tour behind counter.
http://www.pattyheffley.com/

***

Ron Asheton copy:
http://www.metrotimes.com/music/story.asp?id=13608
http://blurt-online.com/features/view/260/
http://blogs.westword.com/backbeat/2009/01/vintage_qa_with_the_late_stoog.php

***

Blog archeology paydirt:
http://grimhorror.blogspot.com/2009/01/overkill-la-triumph-of-will.html

***

The Stains / Carnage Asada.
The Stains lineup is Rudy on vocals, Robert on Guitar, Caesar on Bass
and Gilbert on drums which sounds like the original pre-LP lineup.

Liquid Kitty punk rock BBQ West L.A. Sun 2/22
Highland Park American Legion Hall - Friday 3/27
Doll Hut - Anaheim - Saturday - 5/22
http://www.myspace.com/familiacarnageasada

***

Chuck Dukowski Sextet, Ketman
Friday, Jan. 30, 14 Below, Santa Monica.
CD6, Carnage Asada, Love Canal, Plain Wrap, Master Cylinder
Saturday, Jan. 31, Club Travesty/the Legion, 227 Ave 55, Highland Park.

***

Latest bopst show:
http://rvanews.com/2009/01/the-bopst-show-and-with-anybody-episode-39/

***

Lawsuit bait, two per shirt:
http://www.cinefilevideo.com/products-page/

Joe Carducci is a hell of a writer, record producer, and former A&R executive, formerly most closely associated with the influential LA-based record label SST Records. His most recent book Enter Naomi: SST, L.A. and All That, chronicles his time at the infamous label and the life and death of famed SST photographer Naomi Peterson--a supreme talent who I had the priveledge of working with on many occasions--and whose laugh I still miss. -Scott Crawford

Cut-ups
Carl Hanni

Since sometime back in the 1980s, sonic provocateurs NEGATIVLAND have
been releasing their own records and records by like-minded acts on
their SEELAND RECORDS imprint. They have contributed mightily to both
the spreading out and subversion of audio culture, and in doing so
ended up in the litigious middle of the on-going debate (legal and
ethical both) about copyright laws, "fair use," sampling and found and
appropriated culture. They have also released a slew of irreverent and
genre busting records by fellow travelers Bob Ostertag, Realistic,
John Oswald, Eddie The Rat, Porest, Xerophonics, the incomparable
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and many more.

Two of their juicer label releases are /Music For The Odd Occasion/
(1997) by the Aussie crew ANTEDILUVIAN ROCKING HORSE, and /In Your
Dreams/ (1995) by the Boston-area duo HEAD AND LEG. ARH members DJ2
(Paul Wain) and DJ3 (Susan King) and 3rd member/collaborator Ollie
Olsen have crafted an unruly mutt of a record that could be filed
either under "experimental" or "techno/electronic" in your local
record store, if there are any of those left. The techno/dance side is
nervous, jittery and probably too-high strung and full of deviously
annoying voices, lurid samples and dissonance for anyone not seriously
chemically whacked to do a lot of raving to. On the
conceptional/experimental side, they show much affinity for Dada (Hugo
Ball is quoted twice in the liner notes) and its Surrealist cousin,
along with a splatter-palate of samples, appropriations, cut-ups and
studio chicanery, all with the drum machine poking at it like some
meth-head fingering a head-wound. They seem to have equal amounts of
fun with their synths and drum machines as they do with their samplers
and found material. Needless to say they are cheeky, irreverent and
full of mirth. Really, why would they be on Seeland otherwise? You
don't have to be a nerd, DJ, sample rat or fair use activist to dig
their pastiche, but it certainly doesn't hurt, either. Song-titles
like "Rigorous Doughnut," "Lost Sky Daffodil," "The Third Ore Bit" and
"A Perry Mason Moment" tell you exactly nothing, thankfully. ARH have
put their time and their face where their beliefs are, meeting the
opposition head-on and sticking their neck out in a variety of
above-ground moves dedicated to their belief in the Freedom to Sample
and Use at will. Along the way they have collaborated with Damo Suzuki
of Can, The Boredoms, David Thrussell of Snog and jumped into
Negativland's fight with the RIAA, and released two more records,
Music for Transportation and Forward Into The Furniture. All in the
name of fun and freedom, bless them.

Head and Leg are Robert Pierce and Ken Lacouture, a pair of cards
playing with a deck of sonic and conceptual mischief. On /In Your
Dreams/ these cut-ups and a dozen of their pals compose, conjure, dice
and splice together 18 tracks loosely arranged around a dream theme.
In addition to the usual guitars, keyboards, etc. the credits include
slapping, murmuring, spitting, bagel, grapefruit, metal cart, bathtub
and wind-up fish. Although the record is dedicated to Jorge Luis
Borges, these guys pretty obviously worship The Firesign Theater, and
that works well for them. These are basically sample and studio/tape
manipulated comedy skits woven together with five "dreamscapes."  They
take venomous aim at commercial radio with the stupendously sarcastic
classic "The Hits Keep Coming," which appropriates enough hard-rock
samples (Who, Stones, Zeppelin, etc) to keep them tied up in Copyright
Hell for a lifetime. "Poke You In The Eye" is charming silliness,
"Hey, Fat Lady" disconcerting carnival-barking surrealism, a skit
waiting for a David Lynch movie. They take time out for commercials
("The All Pain Network") and a tour of "The Womb Room." Naturally some
of these pieces work better than others; comedy is tough. But they
have a sure grasp of their studio craft and the record has a
conceptual consistency that's admirable. Like The Firesign Theater,
this is a sit and listen record, and virtually useless as any kind of
background ambiance. Do people sit and listen anymore in our
fractured, micro-byte time? Head and Leg have more in common with an
old-time radio serial than anything you would hear on the radio today,
low-power FM or pirate radio notwithstanding. If you can find the CD
and find the time, /In Your Dreams/ opens a door into a
time/place/head-space where taking the time to compose something isn't
dedicated to U2ish bombast, gangsta or singer/songwriter narcissism or
prog-rock wankiness, but something else entirely: actual
entertainment, backed up by concept, produced with great charm, humor
and perhaps even humility. What a concept.

Carl Hanni is a music writer, music publicist, disc jockey and vinyl archivist living in Tucson, AZ. He  hosts the vinyl-only Scratchy Record Show every Tuesday night at the Red Room in downtown Tucson, and spins records wherever and whenever he can. He believes that in a better (all analog) world all records would be released on vinyl, but takes good music from wherever he finds it--even on CD. His feature piece on legendary bass player/record producer Harvey Brooks was recently published in Goldmine.

Guest post this week from a new fave artist (who I can't shut up about) Chris Velan. AND... he's Canadian :-):

Dear Frozen Winter Lake (a.k.a. Lac Mercier),

While you’re out there in the dark, crusted over with ice and snow, I’m in this warm lake chalet, cheered on by the requisite crackly fireplace. In this part of the world [...]

A Triple-A radio programming veteran, Kate has served as Music Director of the Loft at XM, Midday Host at WYEP, Evening Host at both WNCS and WUIN, as well as Content Supervisor for Pump Audio. Currently, she's the CEO of Outlandos Music, a new-music discovery service for grown-ups. Kate has been nationally recognized for her ardent presentation of music and her ability to champion talented, compelling artists.