(Photo swiped from Washington City Paper.)
As previously reported here, John Staab of Government Issue was assaulted on July 17, sustaining three facial fractures, two broken bones, and a broken nose (read the City Paper’s story here).
A benefit has been set for Sunday, September 23rd in D.C., at the Rock and Roll Hotel (yeah it’s a Live Nation venue, but who cares? it’s more important to help Staab out anyway).
Stabb himself will perform, as part of Government Re-Issue, with Brian Baker, Tom Lyle, and William Knapp.
Other bands set to perform are 76% Uncertain, No Image, Alive At Last, Lion of Judah and Pup Tent.
Filed under: Record Review | Tags: Belgium, Dusted, Fear Falls Burning, Sunn0))
The following review appeared in the latest edition of Doug Mosurak’s Still Single column at Dusted Magazine:
Before I even sliced open the shrink-wrap with my thumbnail, the name of this one-man-electrical-line6-jam-band and its nausea-inducing title had me wincing. Like then I saw that the dude is Belgian and all, and no offense to our friends in Brussels, but it ain’t exactly a hotbed of exciting new sounds – even when the inevitable comparison to France is made (boy do Belgians hate being compared to the French!). And who knew the Belgians were so emo? Seriously the band name and titles had me expecting some whack job eyeliner five-piece from Passaic (a place more boring than Brussels, as far as I can tell) playing gear they bought at Guitar Center with mom’s credit card. What I got instead is, well, line6 and guitar rock not far afield from what everyone and their older not-into-emo brother’s been doing since they read about Sunn0))) in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. Aside from the kinda-nice album cover (a close-up photo of a guitar’s bridge), there’s really nothing here to distinguish this from about a million similar dudes. Gatefold sleeve, on really pukey-looking colored vinyl.
Buy it from Equation Records, if you like.
The next installment will include some more reviews by me, on records by Dog Faced Hermans, D. Charles Speer and more. That column should run in a couple weeks from now. Check out the rest of this week’s columns for great records, with reviews by Doug, Mike Crumsho and Matt Stern
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Crown Hate Ruin, Ground Zero, Nero, Nick Hennies, Telephone Man, The Weird Weeds
Nick Hennies, one of my oldest Louisville friends and a member of the Weird Weeds (and former member of Telephone Man and Nero), recently unearthed some old fliers, some of which I “designed,” so I thought I’d share them with you, all two of my readers. The one above was, as you can see, for a show at the long-gone Ground Zero Records (when Ed had a basement for impromptu shows) by Washington, D.C.’s excellent the Crownhate Ruin and Nero. Unfortunately, Crownhate (which featured Fred Erskine from Hoover and June of 44) had to cancel as they got a flat or something on the way there, so the False Start played instead. Who were the False Start? Well they were a fucking awesome band consisting of Jesse Lebus (my best friend from high school and also the man behind the Rattlesnake Kit and Imagineagents, two fantastic but basically unheard Louisville bands), his brother Morgan (now works at Domino Records here in NYC), their half-brother Jeffrey Treitz and Sebadoh member and man-about-town Jason Lowenstein. Somehow as audacious teenagers Jesse and I got to be friends with Jake because we’d give him tapes of our intentionally-horrible cover band Leafpile (our m.o. was to “cover” songs by playing along with them, taped to air using two boomboxes in my mom’s basement), and he’d give us his Sparkalepsy tapes (get in touch, Jason! I still have that one tape you wanted).
This next flier I made for a show that Nick put on, but I wasn’t able to go to as I was back at Bard, beginning the second semester of my junior year. The Sevens and The Sorts were both from D.C., again. I guess it wasn’t that far for bands to get to Louisville, though some of it is some rough driving through stretches of West Virginia. Anyway the D.C.-Louisville connection probably goes back to Minor Threat playing there, so I guess it makes sense. Anyway, too bad I couldn’t make this one.
This last flier is from a mega-show I booked during the fall semester of my senior year, with five bands. Of course, one of the bands was Julia Schagene, which consisted of Nick, Drew Wilson and Andrew Drummond who was visiting the US from Sheffield, UK. They drove all the way from Chicago through an ice storm (taking about 20 hours for what would otherwise be a 13-hour drive) to play, and I paid them $150 (loved that college money!). The other bands were fantastic, but hampered a bit by the early snowstorm that kept attendance pretty weak. Anyway, all those names you should know. I’d be worried if you didn’t. And it was a fun time.
Update 8/16/07: Here’s the first of a few related albums for you to check out – more on the way:
Nero, s/t (1997) – anybody who calls it “the Dune Concept album” gets a slap in the face.
The Crownhate Ruin, Until the Eagle Grins (1996)
Brother JT and Vibrolux, Music for the Other Head (1995)
Filed under: Activities, Photographs | Tags: Aaron Rosenblum, Blues Control, Brian Turner, Clockcleaner, Kidd Chris, Michael Berdan, Watersports
Blues Control with Brian Turner at the Rock Star Bar for Mark’s birthday party, 8/11/07
Isn’t “Most Hated Band in Philadelphia” something like “Most Useless Celeb in L.A.?” Clockcleaner’s John Sharkey III gets wild on the mic, something Kidd Chris would most certainly approve of.
The strobe lights make it hard to take a crappy cellphone shot, yet Karen looks good here.
Noted super-bro Michael Berdan looks on as Clockcleaner winds up.
Watersports and Aaron Rosenblum give Gavin Bryars a run for his money at Goodbye Blue Monday, 8/10/07.
Lots more to come, shortly.
Filed under: Download, Obituary | Tags: Globe Unity Orchestra, Iskra 1903, London Jazz Composer's Orchestra, Paul Rutherford
(Photos of Paul Rutherford and Iskra 1903 swiped from http://www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk/mrutherf.html, which contains a discography and short biography.)
More bad music news, this time from the world of British free improvisation as Paul Rutherford, trombonist and founding member of Iskra 1903, has apparently passed on. Rutherford also played in the Globe Unity Orchestra and the London Jazz Composer’s Orchestra, as well as in many smaller groups. Additionally, his solo recording The Gentle Harm of the Bourgeoisie is considered to be ground-breaking, though I’ve never heard it.
In memoriam, all three discs of Iskra 1903’s Chapter One are available for downloading, starting with disc one, available here; disc two, available here; and disc three, available here.
Additionally, please take a gander at this interesting interview my good friend Cliff conducted with him last year.
His Myspace page is reporting that Lee Hazlewood passed on August 4, 2007 from cancer.
He will be greatly missed.
Update: As a tribute of sorts, I’ve uploaded Hazlewood’s 1963 solo debut Trouble Is A Lonesome Town, which you can download here. Enjoy.
Update 8/9/07: My roommate Joe has added an interview with Lee Hazlewood from his 2001 Loser’s Lounge appearance here.
Filed under: Download, Recidivist | Tags: Bitch Magnet, Codeine, Crain Slint, Kentucky, Louisville, Rodan, Sub-Pop
(Codeine promo photo and other images swiped from http://pry.com/codeine)
I doubt they were the first band I “connected” with in the figurative sense — after all I’ve been nuts about music as long as I can remember. Yet I first heard Codeine at a pretty important time, when I was a teenager in Louisville, Kentucky, and they were one of the first out-of-town bands that I got to meet, champion, and really feel, well, connected to.
See the Louisville scene, great as it was at the time, was pretty insular. Not a lot of touring acts came through town at the beginning my formative punk/hardcore show-going years (though this changed as active bands like Rodan and Crain — as well as the legend of Slint — brought more bands interested in playing Louisville). Though despite being from New York City, the band already had some ties to Louisville: in 1990, Stephen Immerwahr (vocals, bass) recorded “Pea” with Bitch Magnet at Sound on Sound in Louisville with Howie Gano (who practically engineered every local punk/hardcore band at some point):
Somehow, I bought this single and got into it, sparking a life-long obsession with not only the awesome Bitch Magnet (more about them at a later date), but with this mysterious and nihilistic yet (unlike most hardcore I knew at the time) totally slow and sludgy song “Pea” on the flipside (sorry I don’t have it available for download). At some point I figured it out, and when I spotted Frigid Stars LP in some Sub-Pop print catalog (yes, kids, aside from going to what was called a “record store” to buy records, some of us actually ordered music out of mail-order catalogs too), I snapped it up. Immediately enthralled by the slow, yet melodic and heart-breaking sounds (the catalog described them as “a cross between Galaxie 500 and the Melvins“), I rushed off a letter to the P.O. box in the credits. Not too long after, I received a super-nice reply from Stephen (who am friends with to this day; oddly we first met at a Rodan/Palace Brothers show at the long-gone Highland House one Derby Day). Probably then I became Louisville’s biggest (and to my knowledge, only — until Scott Richter told me he too was a fan), and tried to spread the word on how great they were to all my friends.
Years later, I still listen to Codeine, and still maintain that they’re one of the greatest bands of their era. Despite what could be considered a major influence on quite a few bands (probably would put Low and Mogwai in there, among others), I still kinda think they didn’t quite get their due. Not enough people know, but then again I could be wrong. While goofing around, looking for Codeine info, I found this fantastic site filled with all kinds of great images and information. Although it doesn’t seem to have been updated since 2005, there’s pretty much everything you could want on there, including 6 songs recorded by Codeine for Peel Sessions (download here) and a live set from the Vermonstress Fest in 1992 (download here).
The Peel Sessions contain some excellent performances of four Codeine classics, plus two songs I’d never heard before: “Median” and “Sure Looks That Way.” It’s a shame neither of those saw a proper release. The live show (originally posted on Bradley’s Almanac) starts off a little shaky, but eventually gathers a head of steam. It also documents an interesting period when Codeine was in-between main drummers Chris Brokaw and Doug Scharin, with Josh Madell of Antietam and Other Music filling in on the throne.
BONUS TRIVIA: If you can name the Minneapolis band and their record on which Immerwahr worked as assistant engineer, you’ll win… something.
