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.

---

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

---

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

Eric DolphyThe Copenhagen Concert - 1961

Today is the anniversary of Eric Dolphy's death in 1964. I didn't get to have an Eric Dolphy Memorial BBQ this year, so this post will have to do.

If you aren't familiar with Dolphy and you care at all about jazz or avant-garde music, you really should school yourself. His name get over looked on the surface of jazz because he gets lumped in with 'that weird noisy jazz'. Yes, he did play on Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz album, but he is so much more than that. It's easy to dismiss his melodies and lines as free-form but he really has some great melodies happening. Maybe they are atonal, but they are still melodies. I really feel his brand of jazz is steeped in tradition. He may not be creating conventional jazz, but deep down it's coming from the same place. He wasn't trying to break down what jazz should be, just play around with it a little bit. His tempos and chord changes are too structured to accurately be called free-jazz.

He definitely came out of the school of hard-bop. Playing with Mingus in the early 60s and The Coltrane on his legendary Africa/Brass sessions in '61 made him a household name. While his releases as bandleader for Prestige Records are easily overlooked, It's his 1964 Blue Note album, Out To Lunch!, that really seals the deal with jazz fans all over (myself included).

If you've never heard this album and you are into Coltrane, Davis, Mingus, Coleman or any hard-bop, post-bop, third stream or just modal music in general, go get it. Plus, It was recorded in New Jersey! It's always in print and usually very cheap. Blue Note will never let this go out of print because it's widely accepted as one of their best releases. So go buy it. If nothing else, buy it for the beautiful Reid Miles cover design.

But in the mean time download this little rarity. The record is a little beat up, but Dolphy is on fire! It seem that the band, other than bassist Chuck Israels, is a Danish house band but they sound like they have been playing together for a while. Maybe this was part of a whole European tour they were doing together. I don't know.

One last thing before I go drop the needle on my copy of Out To Lunch! I feel the story surrounding Dolphy's death needs to be told. In 1964, right after releasing his most acclaimed album, again Out To Lunch!, he embarked on a successful European tour with Charles Mingus' monster sextet (an amazing CD came out on Blue Note a few years ago featuring this band) and then settled in with his ballet-producer wife in Paris to live the good life. One night he was playing in (or just visiting, according to different accounts) Berlin when he suddenly collapsed. He was a long time diabetic and had gone into insulin shock. It was the 60s and the hospital he was taken to knew he was a jazz musician so the doctors assumed he was on some sort of drug and just left him alone to let the drugs run their course. He was dead by morning. It's such a shame that he could have easily been helped and continue recording. Who know what he would have done next.....

oh well. Enjoy!

---

Track listing:

Side A:
1. Hi-Fly
2. Glad To Be Unhappy

Side B:
1. God Bless The Child
2. Oleo

Side C:
1. Woody'n You
2. When Lights Are Low

Side D:
1. In The Blues (1-2-3)

---

Download Copenhagen Concert from DivShare (66.88 MB)

The Melvins The End

What can I say about The Melvins? They are perhaps best know for kick-starting the careers of over 9,863 shitty grunge and/or metal bands, including Nirvana, while still receiving little recognition themselves. Or maybe they are better known because King Buzz-O once tried to kill a rather famous roadie with a needle full of a black tar heroin and drain-o mixture the size of Avril Lavigne's arm. Or it could be because one of them most likely was The Green River Killer. What they should be known for is kicking so much ass that you should be blinded just for reading this sentence about how much ass they kick.

Seriously though. Enterruption records originally released this on January 1st, 2005 as only 100 cassette tapes and re-released the same recording again in March 2008 as a limited edition of 500 pink(ish) vinyls, although themelvins.net claims that the number pressed is actually 460 due to a printer's error.

Other than King Buzz-O sounding a little like Merlin The Magic Mouse on 'The Bloat', this live album recorded on May 1st, 2003 at The Henry Fonda Theater in Los Angeles, California isn't necessarily an exceptional live album. It's doesn't even have the distinction of being the best official live documentation of the band featuring Kevin Rutmanis playing his signature slide bass, that honor belongs to the most monstrous of all live albums, Colossus Of Destiny. It is, however, a typically solid live show featuring what may very well be my favorite Melvins line-up of Buzz Osborne (guitar), Dale Crover (drums) and Kevin Rutmanis (Bass). Download and behold the awesome rockingness that is The Melvins live.

---

Track listing:

Side A:
1. At A Crawl
2. Black Stooges
3. Night Goat
4. Revolve
5. Brain Center At Whipples

Side B:
1. Let It All Be
2. Hooch
3. Mobius Hibatchi
4. The Bloat
5. The Bit

---

Download The End from DivShare(45.7 MB)