Swans Public Castration Is a Good Idea - 1986

I've heard Swans described as sounding like a Brontosaurus fucking a cement truck. I, personally, have described them as sounding like a bunch of cave men threatening to rape someone. No matter what kind of metaphors you want to apply to the band, everyone can agree that it is heavy, crushing, violent, and angry.

Swans frequently get lumped in with no wave bands but really don't belong there. Swans makes Mars sound like 30 Seconds To Mars. Okay, maybe Filth sounds a little no wave but by the next album, Cop, Swans had spiraled so far down that it can no longer be labeled as no wave. Maybe I would call it simply "no" music.

By 1986 Jarbo was in the band but her influence wasn't really there, yet. I love her creepy background vocals, but there is no denying that the band mellows out once she joins (compare Cop to Holy Money or Children Of God). I'm not commenting on whether or not she is responsible for the change of Swans' sound, rather stating that the change happened shortly after she joined the band. That's what makes this live album such an anomaly. With Holy Money Swans were loosening up a bit, but none of that is present on this record. Children Of God must have been quite a shock after witnessing this album live. Instruments??!! Melodies?!?! A woman singing?!?! I wonder if Gira and Co. figured they couldn't go any further with this sound after this album.

I really love how this is a metal album without sounding at all like heavy metal music. I have no idea why metal didn't progress more toward this. Why metal is huge and glossy is a mystery to me. No other band can move this much air with such few instruments.

I generally think live albums are sub-par. They usually sound horrible and just end up being the artists greatest hits played faster. I do, however, think there are a few stand outs. I'd say this album, (the) Melvins' Colussus Of Destiny, Throbbing Gristle's Heathen Earth, The Blue Meanies' A Sonic Documentation Of Exhibition And Banter, Mayhem's Live In Leipzig and Sam Cooke's Live At The Harlem Square Club are pretty much the only live albums I think are better or equal to the artist's studio work.

Download and play this as loudly as you can stand it.....

Note: There is a silent gap at the end of Fool. This is on both copies of the CD that I have heard. Also, this CD sounds like it's just recorded from a vinyl copy. Again, both copies of this CD that I have heard sound this way. This is the version on Thirsty Ear that came out in 1999.

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Track listing:

from CD:
1. Money Is Flesh
2. Fool
3. A Screw
4. Anything For You
5. Coward
6. A Hanging
7. Stupid Child
8. Another You

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Download Public Castration Is a Good Idea from DivShare (151.2 MB)

Spyder TurnerStand Be Me - 1967

It's no secret that I like old soul music. So here is Spyder Turner's debut LP Stand By Me. The title track has a really cool gimick to it. He starts singing the song like other soul singers; Jackie Wilson, James Brown, Eddie Kendricks, Otis Redding, etc. I heard him doing this live on WFMU about a year or so ago and it worked so much better live. His Al Green impression was spot-the-fuck-on.

The rest of the record is very good as well. Nothing too amazing, honestly, but an all around solid soul record. Usually these things were based around one hot single with the rest just being kinda filler stuff. This one really isn't. Yeah, 'Stand By Me' is obviously the single but the rest of it really holds up, too. Turner's got a good voice and some fire in his bones.

He's still going at it, too. He put out a record in '09 to benefit a Haiti Relief Fund.

I've tacked on the live version of Stand By Me from Fool's Paradise on WFMU 'cause it's awesome. Click here to listen to it.

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Track listing:

Side A:
1. Stand By Me
2. Hold On, I'm Coming
3. I Can't Make It Anymore
4. Moon River
5. I'm Alive With A Lovin' Feeling

Side B:
1. I Can't Wait To See My Baby's Face
2. Dream Lover
3. Morning, Morning
4. Don't Hold Back
5. I Don't Want To Cry
6. Your Precious Love

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Download Stand By Me from DivShare (68.24 MB)

WFMU

WFMU's annual fund drive is up and running right now. Go pledge money to them to make sure they can keep operating for at least another year. It really is amazing that in 2011 something like this can exist. In a world where everything is owned and operated by one of four companies, It's nice to know there is a media outlet that doesn't answer to anybody and has no political agenda. Even NPR is concerned with program content to get the maximum amount listerns and therefore the maximum government grants. WFMU isn't tied to anything except the listeners! That's it. No snarky liberal car talk or stupid british not-funny game shows. WAIT, WAIT, I DON'T CARE!!! No matter how much you pledge, it's worth it. Check out the full list of DJ premiums here. These are some of my favorites:

Dave Emory's Tea Party Fascism, 2011
Ever in stride, Dave presents the threads what lead to where we're at. (Data CD and new anti-fascist snack-food item/brain implant kit.)

Doug Schulkind's Love Your Motherlode, Volume 2
The mind-blowingest rarities Doug's downloaded for his "Mining the Audio Motherlode" blog posts: Soul, Samba, Psych, Salsa, Jazz, Afrobeat, Funk, Bollywood. Massive!

The Best Show On WFMU with Tom Scharpling Presents Don't Stop Me Now 2011 Best Show Fantasy Pack
A T-shirt! A poster! And a vinyl 7" with exclusive tracks by big acts recorded just for this premium! Our best yet! (Sizes available: M, LG, XL, XX)

Irwin's Let's Get Plastered and Raid Circus World - The Amanda Tapes, Vol. 2
The chaos continues as Irwin presents another set of juvenile growls, Indian hoots & monster beats from the Alabama power child. Compiled from newly discovered tapes.

Seven Second Delay T-shirt
(Sizes available: S, M, LG, XL, XX)

Nardwuar's Video Vault Chapter 2
A DVD compilation of some of Nardwuar's favourite interviews from the past couple months. Everything from Drizzy Drake to Black Flag to Florence and the Machine and much much more! Doot doola doot doo ... doot doo !

Underwater Theme Park presents 20 Degrees of Separation, Part 2
A set of songs where each new song is a cover of a song by the artist who covered the preceding song.

Sinner's Crossroads' Can I Get A Witness?
140 plus minute 2-CD collection of ecstatic preaching culled from radio broadcasts, homemade cassettes, and long lost commercial discs.

William Berger's Demo Hell
The renderings of tortured souls, sourced from cassettes, CD-Rs, obscure downloads and gifts. Vintage black metal demos in a dance with some newer noise electronics. Contributions from Physical Demon, Bob Bellerue, Husere Grav, Demon Sword, Explosive Improvised Device, and several others who dared scam a ride with Charon. Original drawing insert by Sarah Zahn.

Rare and Collectible Fine Wine - 25 Soulful Ultra-Obscurities from the Vaults
There's rare and there's rare. These are the one-offs, the un-Google-ables, the soul 45s that barely exist outside Mr. Fine Wine's living room.

Reggae Schoolroom's Reggae Dancing
Jeff Sarge presents a collection of reggae dance music that will get your body moving.

The Glen Jones Radio Programme featuring X. Ray Burns presents
The yearly collectible CD featuring Jonesey and X Ray.

Gaylord Fields' All the Lady Singles
An epochal collection of the most glorious original 1960s girl-group 45s ever pressed, with every song brimming with hope, heartache and castanets.

So many awesome shows and awesome premiums to choose from. Go pledge here. Pick me up some of these 'cause I can't afford to get all the ones I want (obviously).

No TrendTeen Love [EP] - 1983

"I WAS BORN READY, MUTHAFUCKA!!!!!"

Here is more from DC's No Trend. Did you like the last one I posted? If so, you'll like this. If not you'll think it's really annoying punk rock music. Even for punk rock music.

Man these guys really hate everything, huh? Good. That's where punk rock music should come from, right? It's very easy to see why these guys were ostracized from every scene. Just read this account from the NY Press website.

"We’d play ‘Mindless Little Insects’ and I’d walk around with a mirror and put it in people’s faces. We came out with a big drop cloth that had wet paint running down it at Danceteria. For some reason, I had my body wrapped in aluminum foil and covered with shaving cream. We had the strobe light going and I was just this giant, reflective white blob running around behind this clouded plastic with dripping paint. Of course, as I crashed into that, the whole thing came down on all these people in their best little new-wave outfits."

NOW THAT'S PUNK! All those Dischord Records band got nuthin' on No Trend.

Thanks to Brainpang for hookin' me up with this one.....

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Track listing:

Side A:
1. Mass Sterilization Caused By Venereal Disease
2. Cancer
3. Die

Side B:
1. Teen Love
2. (untitled)

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Download Teen Love from DivShare (64.82 MB)

The Joe Harriott Double QuintetIndo-Jazz Suite - 1966

I was listening to the show Give The Drummer Some on WFMU this morning and heard a cut from Joe Harriott and Amancio D'Silva's sublime Hum-Dono album. Unfortunately I don't own it so I can't post it, but I can offer an equally awesome album until someone gets me a copy.

This is Joe Harriott's Quintet playing Indian Ragas with John Mayer's Quartet (plus a flutist; hence the double quintet moniker). These aren't your average Raga's though. Yeah, you have a Sitar droning the tonic and tablas playing their groups of 2's and 3's, but you also have free form drums, piano and bass pounding out a 4 beat along with it. It's really something special. At times it sounds a little derivative but you have to keep in mind that this is where it was all figured out. This isn't what's derivative, it's where everything is derived from.

Download and get yer Raga going.....

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Track listing:

Side A:
1. Overture
2. Contrasts

Side B:
1. Raga Megha
2. Raga Gaud-Saranga

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Download Indo-Jazz Suite from DivShare (69.46 MB)

No TrendToo Many Humans... - 1984

So I really don't know much about these guys. My good friend, Brainpang, gave me this and another No Trend album to digitize for him. Pretty much anything he's ever handed to me has been awesome so, of course, this is too.

This is what Flipper would sound like if they were involved in the DC punk scene. Awesome, right? The only difference is that Flipper comes off as trying to be annoying while No Trend is just tough. Flipper was having a good time; these guys are pissed off. But i guess there was a lot to be angry about in DC in the early 80s.

If you want more info check out this page over at NY Press. There is quite a bit more over there than I could ever say about this band.

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Track listing:

Side A:
1. Family Style
2. Blow Dry
3. Kiss Ass To Your Peer Group
4. Fashion Tips For The 80's
5. Do As You're Told

Side B:
1. Too Many Humans
2. For The Fun Of It All
3. Mindless Little insects
4. Happiness Is...

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Download Too Many Humans from DivShare (64.82 MB)

Best of 2010

I promise I'll be back to posting soon but in the meantime here is my list of favorite albums of the last year, in alphabetical order.:


Albert Beger Electroacoustic Band - Peacemaker [Skronky post-bop/free-form jazz from Turkey-born Israel-based saxophonist]

Budos Band - III [Hummable tunes and brooding horn lines from the best of the Brooklyn based Afrobeat revivalists]

Burzum - Belus [The most infamous man in Norwegian black metal returns to form after serving out his prison sentence for MURDER! Don't give him any money. Steal this from the internet.]

Deathspell Omega - Paracletus [Brütal, soaring and noisy French avant-garde black metal]

Ebo Taylor - Love and Death [Legendary 74 year old hi-life guitarist from Ghana is back to show the kids how it's done]

Ghostface Killah - Apollo Kids [Former Wu-Tang Clan member and critic's favorite turns out a record that's actually worth the hype. Featuring the best Spongebob reference in all of hip-hop]

Mugison - Ítrekun - Tekið Upp í Sundlauginni Janúar [Rockin' live album from Icelandic singer/songwriter's full band]

Sade - Soldier Of Love [Gorgeous and haunting UK R&B/Trip-Hop]

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - I Learned The Hard Way [Sassy soul with big band orchestration from the most well-known group on Brooklyn's Daptone label]

Shibusa-Shirazu Orchestra and Kuricorder Quartet - Namashibukuri/Wareshibukuri [Over sized psychedelic Japanese 3rd stream orchestra and a recorder quartet taking turns playing Yoshiyuki Kawaguchi's songbook]

Sigh - Scenes From Hell [Seminal Japanese black metalers create their most ambitious album yet. Orchestral gypsy jazz rock metal]


honorable mentions:

Manorexia - The Mesopelagic Waters [NYC No-Waver, JG Thirlwell's neo-classical, minimalistic chamber music]

Huun Huur Tu - Ancestors Call [Tuva's traditionalist lose the electronics and bring back folk sounds. Lots of overtone/throat-singing]

Daft Punk - TRON Legacy Soundtrack [Helmeted French dudes' soundtrack was way better than the movie. Lots of driving synths with a cool exploitation/horror feeling to it.]

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And the lifetime achievement award go to The Melvins for consistently putting out good or great albums for over 25 years.