VOTD 07/21/2025

 The Brothers Johnson: Look Out For #1 (A&M)

Purchased for $5 at a supposed-flea market in Shred Shack, an indie space in the Allentown neighborhood of Pittsburgh

1976. Disco was breaking, in advance of the film Saturday Night Fever. I'm sure it was a major presence in Manhattan, but I was in Pleasant Valley PA, outside of Coopersburg, outside of Quakertown, outside of Allentown/Bethlehem, etc. 

I was thirteen. I was starting to transition from monster movie magazines (specifically Famous Monster of Filmland) to Creem, the hippest of music zines I knew. Possibly ever. Even then I didn't read it religiously. The local Quakertown newsstand sold issues at half price, old and out of date issues. Catch as catch can. 

I remember seeing an ad for this in Creem, and thinking, that's just disco. What do you expect from a young cracker from Pleasant Valley?

In my defense, by that age I knew by name the players in the Louis Armstrong Hot Five and had a Louis t-shirt. I was maybe listening to some Charles Mingus and Thelonious Monk, at least here and there. That's my father's influence, or perhaps guidance. I knew who Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, and Duke Ellington were, something that probably couldn't be said for my classmates. 

So what of this record nearly five decades later? It should be noted that it's produced by Quincy Jones. I assume they expected big things for this. 

I find it poppier than I prefer, but at moments pretty great. Surprisingly (or maybe not?): there's a cover of The Beatles' "Come Together". I know it's faint praise, but I didn't hate it. It's at least as good as the Aerosmith cover for the Sgt Peppers movie soundtrack. 

At moments this sounds like a Parliament record, which I guess is what I'm craving. "Dancin' and Prancin'", "Thunder Thumbs and Lightnin' Licks" and "Get the Funk out Ma Face" drawn on that Parliament energy. Perhaps most of all would be the final cut, "The Devil." I'm sure both Parliament/Funkadelic was in the air as well as their influences, such as 70s James Brown. The opening cut ("I'll Be Good to You") and the second song on the second side ("Land of Ladies") seem to be made for radio play, such as the old WAMO. "The Devil" hits deeper and darker, and I wanted more. 

What would this album have been in the digital age? Almost assuredly longer. The final cut in particular feels trimmed, truncated. They could have sat on that for ten minutes. Maybe twenty. Maybe longer. 

Looking at the cover, I want Louis Johnson's (the bassist) shirt. But nobody wants me to wear it as open as he does, least of all me. 

CDOTD 07/19/2025

Wolf Eyes and Anthony Braxton: Wolf Eyes x Anthony Braxton (ESP)

Purchased at Music Millennium, Portland OR

I've previously mentioned that I make an annual trip to Portland, OR. Both my parents (still together 63 years) and my three younger sisters all migrated there. Thank Yahweh or "Bob" or the Muses or any other higher power they all didn't settle in Florida or Texas. (Well, maybe Austin, but otherwise...) Portland is far from problem-free, but it's a fun place to visit.

Music Millennium on Burnside is a great record and CD store, new and used stock, big, great variety. A few visits back, I bought the Broken Shadows CD, a project of Tim Berne & Co playing Ornette Coleman, Julius Hemphill, Charlie Haden and Dewey Redman tunes. It's good. At times great, though having played some of the same pieces, we diverge in terms of interpretation.

Anyway....point being, I bought their CD at this store. Upon returning, my drummer David Throckmorton said, "You went to a store that actually sells CDs?"

That's an exaggeration, but I do see his point. There are stores, mostly The Exchange locally, that sell new CDs. But that CD new, a different story. You won't find it on any local shelf new, any time in the past ten years or more probably. What a shame. 

Any time I go into a store like that, I by default make sure I hit certain artist sections: Cage, Feldman, Xenakis, Nurse With Wound, Zappa, Messiaen, The Residents, Ornette, Monk, Morricone. I do not anticipate finding anything I should purchase, but you never know, right?

And naturally, Anthony Braxton. I knew there was an issue of a recent Wolf Eyes/Braxton session (they told me about it), and there it was. Had to get.

Something's occurred to me recently. The price of vinyl goes up up up, both new and second hand. CDs? The prices haven't significantly gone higher in many years. This cost me what it would have twenty years ago, more or less. In other words, the price of records has increased with inflation, while the price of CDs has effectively gone down. Nobody feels that romantic attachment to CDs the way they do about LPs (guilty here) but it's a highly economical medium. 

Wolf Eyes: they seem to benefit by not defining themselves strictly. Are they an industrial band? Experimental noisemakers? Yes, no? At heart they seem to be improvisors. Seeing them live, it was clear that they were largely improvising, but it was unclear if they went in with any sort of general plan or prepared material. 

What I've read about Wolf Eyes and Anthony is that they were on the same festival together, and Anthony said maybe he'd stop by and sit in. WE's collective reaction was, yeah, sure. But surely enough Braxton showed up for their set and sonically peeled some paint off the walls. 

So here they are again. Anthony sits on top when he's playing, but there's very clear back-and-forth between the players. Anthony must of recognized them for what they are: troublemaker improvisors working in their own little sub-genre. Game recognizes game.

WE has also played with Marshall Allen. Release, please!

Also, as I've stated previously, please let me sit in with you too. I think it'll be worth your time.

VOTD 07/17/2025

 Merzbow: Pulse Demon (Relapse)

Purchased new at Music Millennium in Portland, OR

I know myself well enough to know that if I'm flush with cash and go record shopping, it's more likely I'll buy something. I avoid using cards and apps unless necessary. Seeing my parents this past week or so, they stocked me with some hard currency. And you know, it was family visit/vacation, and I'm there at the great Music Millennium on Burnside, and feeling like I needed to make quick decisions. My nephew is currently on a major Beach Boys kick, and quickly made a decision for his CD purchase. I wasn't being rushed but I didn't want to keep him or his father waiting too long.

I've already written about one purchase, Ornette Coleman's Crisis on vinyl. There's another forthcoming. And this little monstrosity.

This has a vinyl release date of 2019, so there's a high likelihood I saw this on at least one prior visit to this store. I guess with money in hand, they made the sale this time. 

I mention vinyl release, because there's a copyright date of both 2019 and 1996. '96 would indicate that this was originally a CD issue, something which discogs.com confirms. Meaning, a short double-LP. (Though actually, standard length CDs and double LPs run about the same length of time. Around the region of eighty minutes.)

Maybe I like the title, Pulse Demon. "Pulse" suggests something musical. Pulse demon? Something musical, pulsing, rhythmic, but nasty and evil too. Maybe. 

Maybe the cover caught my eye, an op-art image with iridescent silver. And maybe I felt rushed and just wanted to make a decision. 

Side one lists four tracks but everything runs continuously, as do sides two and three with multiple tracks listed. Side three does feel like it lives up to the title more than record one. 

I wonder, are there obsessive Merzbow collectors? I imagine one or two at least. I ask the question because, even if you're a fan, do you really need more than one or two albums? There is some variety to be sure, but I think a lot of his output is similar to this: a wall of noise, with hard filter sweeps. Some pulses, some LFOs, flittering, details emerging and receding from/under the sheet of noise. It has more variety than some of the more recent hard-noise artists I've encountered, such as The Rita or a lot of Richard Ramirez' work. 

Yet, despite my more youthful enthusiasm for early industrial music, I do question why I'm listening to this. Anything can have its place to be certain. Sometimes I need to listen to something extreme (like, when Donald Trump gets elected president). Right now I have it on because I bought it earlier this week. 

If so many of Merzbow's albums sound like this, why release as many as he does? That answer's obvious: 1) they're relatively easy to perform; 2) someone wants to put them out.

I can't say for certain, but I don't know that I'll buy another Merzbow album unless I know there's something different that it offers. That's something I don't rule out. 

A friend told me about the Merzcar: you could buy an edition of one automobile from Merzbow that had a Merzbow CD playing on the stereo constantly, that you couldn't eject or stop. I hope it's true. 

A few more details: the vinyl is very attractive half black/half clear with colored streaks for each disc. Very attractive. the LP reissue was mastered by Jame Plotkin of Khanate. I'm certain he went for maximum confrontation without pinning the meters 100% of the time.

I'm sure I've written before that Merzbow + then wife Reiko + Ron Lessard/Emil Beaulieau/RRRecords stayed at my house. That's major industrial street cred in some circles. I know I've told this anecdote before: when introduced to Reiko she said, "He is like the oyster." I looked at her in complete confusion. "Oh, you don't have that saying. It means he is very quiet." The music was, and is, most definitely not.

VOTD 07/16/2025 #2

 Various artists: The Best of David F. Friedman (Modern Harmonic)

Purchased at Jackpot Records in Portland, OR

"Sell the sizzle, not the steak!"

Whatever inaccuracies I've posted on this on blog, I know that to be a direct quote from David F. Friedman. A huckster's huckster, David's place in cinema is well established. That is, he (in)famously produced Herschel Gordon Lewis' gore trilogy (Blood Feast, 2000 Maniacs, and most offensively of all Color Me Blood Red). If I'm correct about this LP, it's the movies after those but before he (pseudonymously) produced several XXX hardcore features. Hey, it's a living. 

Collected here: mostly the audio from his movie trailers, with a few music cues. Some of the titles: The Acid Eaters!; A Sweet Sickness; The Ramrodder; The Notorious Daughter of Fanny Hill; Thar She Blows; and best of all, A Smell of Honey, A Swallow of Brine. (What does that mean? I don't know but it sounds great.) 

It's amazing that these films even existed, and played in actual (disreputable) theaters. Theaters, nonetheless. 

There are so many quote passing by quickly: eight reels of sewage! This is a film that literally assaults the sensual senses! Sell, sell, sell!

It all seems quaint now, considering the easy online access to porn. Men needed to work to watch something to get aroused then, and it was just brief shots of a bare breast or buttock. 

The LP comes with a DVD, presumably a disc of trailers from which these audio clips were pulled. I'll get to it. 

Sell! Sell! Sell!

VOTD 07/16/2025

 Ornette Coleman: Crisis (Endless Happiness)

Purchased Music Millennium, Portland OR

I assume there's some repetition in my posts on this blog, but I'll go ahead anyway: I do not post pictures or social media notices when I am away from home on vacation or visiting family. My immediate family, both parents and all three younger sisters, have migrated to to Portland OR. My mother is now 90 (she's clearly old but you probably wouldn't guess that old) and my father turns 89 in December. It's great to not only see the family in one fell swoop, but they're in a location where there are things to do. This happens to include record shopping.

One of my favorite spots to visit is Music Millennium on Burnside St. It's a big store, solid if not comprehensive selections, and they still sell new CDs. (I bought one in addition to the vinyl, which I'll write about soon.) My 25 year old nephew is on a huge Beach Boys kick, and happily bought a triple CD live set of theirs on our mutual visit to the store. 

I was in a buying mood I guess. I really don't know if this is a bootleg, there's a good chance it is. There's some Cyrillic text on the back. I don't remember the original on Impulse! sounding any less distant than this issue. I know that Mike Shanley was searching for an original copy for years, to finally land one. I'm lazier, less diligent, and maybe I don't largely care if it's on the original label.

Quite the interesting band, drawing from older and newer groupings: Ornette, Don Cherry, Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden, and Denardo on drums. Recorded in 1969, Denardo would have been twelve years old at the time. I don't know how feel about that. Ornette was definitely short-circuiting conventions including conventional swing. But, what does a pre-teen offer to the music?

There are five pieces on the program, and I've played three of them already, a big reason for buying this. "Broken Shadows", "Comme Il Faut", and Charlie Haden's "Song for Che". I particularly like the melody for the latter. It's one of the few pieces played by Ornette that he himself did not compose. 

Ornette's playing dominates the concert. He's very fluid. If any jazz musician thinks it's easy to play, free, well, go ahead. I'm certain you'll run out of ideas quickly. It's happened to me. Ornette goes and goes and goes. His soloing is highly cohesive. He starts an idea and follows it. 

If I had to pick a second MVP, it would probably be Charlie Haden. He's a constant presence in this concert, probably more than Denardo. He's limber, and has a particular particular sort of sound when he pizzicatos his walking bass. Ornette was extraordinarily lucky to have found such a solid collaborator, but I suppose the same could be said for Haden. 

The over image: the Bill of Rights being burned. It's Nixon era. I don't want to diminish that fact, but holy hell they had no idea what we were in for with Trump. Or did they? No, I think not, considering Nixon was willing to resign when the Republican numbers were against him. You know, in the days of conscience and ethics. I hate the idea of reflecting on the "good ol' days" but dammit, if you go against party policy you're done. I could never abide by that. But then, I've never wanted to head a school department, and don't feel comfortable having run bands. 

Am I going too autobiographical?

VOTD 07/08/2025

 Paul Bley/John Gilmore/Paul Motian/Gary Peacock: Turning Point (Improvising Artists Inc.)

Ugh. This weather really grinds on me, the heat and humidity. I've just woken from a deep afternoon nap after several nights of intermittent sleep. To think, my earliest memories are of living in West Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

I decided I'd put something on the turntable and write again, my choice. I didn't feel like the challenge of a monster hour long Xenakis noise epic this time though. 

Last week I went to see the Sun Ra Arkestra for the sixth time, in Cleveland. The first was in DC in 1988. To my disappointment, it's the first time I saw the Arkestra without Marshall Allen. I guess he's only leading the group onstage when it's in NYC or Philadelphia, or nearby. At 101 years ago, I shouldn't have been surprised. At least I got to see them with Vincent Chancey one more time, the French horn player. The group was led on stage by Knoell Scott.* The biggest surprise of the night was a great arrangement of "Stranger in Paradise", in a Galacto-Afro-Cuban arrangement.

In thinking of the Arkestra, I thought of this album. What an interesting and odd supergroup of sorts: Paul Bley on piano, Paul Motian on drums, Gary Peacock on bass, and the Arkestra's John Gilmore on tenor saxophone. The core of the Arkestra was a pretty tight knit group, but John was the one who would leave on occasions to play with other groups. He did a stint in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, for example. 

John was always on the boppish side, though willing to loosen up and rip some noise with the best of them (more Marshall's speciality, really). At times he plays lines that come off as more swinging, others he sounds like a more dyed-in-the-wool free jazz player. Bley's tendency is to lay out when the tenor is soloing, giving portions of this session almost a saxophone/bass/drums trio sound. Motian and Peacock never break into a locked groove, always freely interplaying with one another and the soloist. 

Five of the seven tracks date from 1964 with this listed quartet. Strangely, there are two tracks on side two with a different drummer (Billy Elgart) and without tenor, both Annette Peacock works. I don't want to say they're more "conservative" but those performances don't have the free flowing looseness of the Gilmore session. 

Of the five 1964 works, four are by Paul's then wife Carla. They would divorce some time that year; I don't know the circumstances. Carla's maiden name was Borg, which personally I think should have kept. Paul seemed to play a lot of Carla's music during those years, including with this trio with Jimmy Giuffre. Did he continue to do so? I want to say yes but I don't have the data in front of me.

I have another LP under Paul's name, same quartet. I've just noticed it's the same session date. So either: this is alternate takes, or (the more likely answer) it's a repackaging of the same performance. I might have to side-by-side. John Gilmore was a star in the Arkestra universe, but I want to hear more of what he did outside the group too. 

*I saw Knoell being interviewed in advance of the show. The interviewer, a local Cleveland jazz DJ, was talking about Sun Ra's Afrofuturism. Knoell objected, saying it's not how Sun Ra would have thought of his band. When asked for a description of the Arkestra, Knoell described it as a "fraternal order of Black heterosexual men." Many of us in the audience looked at each other as if to say, "Wha?"

CDOTD 07/06/2025

 Iannis Xenakis: Alpha and Omega (disc three) (Accord)

Purchased through mail order

I have a lot of Xenakis around here. I've previously recounted how I first heard Xenakis' music as a college student; it was really the first I'd heard any so-called avant-garde new music. More labels. With Xenakis' first mature works dating to 1953-4, you can't really call this new music.

Why do I even listen to things like this? There's a part of me that likes Xenakis' music, particularly the orchestral works, because they're kind of ridiculous. How can someone make a symphony orchestra sound so strident? He eschewed serialism, a style of composition that seems mathematical, to rely on math processes of a far more complex nature for generating compositions, or at least material for compositions. The pieces certainly don't sound like serialism, especially his frequent reliance on string glissandi. (I read that Boulez disliked string glissandi. It may or may not be true, I'm starting to question the accuracy of many of my half-remembered "facts" that I write here.)

So as I wrote, I have a lot of Xenakis around here. I doubt I have everything he composed, but it surely must be most of it. This particular collection is four discs, more-or-less divided into early, middle, and later era works. There's enough on here that I didn't have otherwise that I thought it was worth ordering. 

Disc three features only two works from 1971: Antikhthon for "86 or 60" players, for the purpose of ballet. It has the hallmarks of Xenakis orchestral music without seeming to focus on a particular direction for the work: glissandi, harsh high string clusters, tossing around a single pitch among players, "clouds" of sounds among various instrumental families. Maybe the point of it is the collage-liked feeling of the work? I would have loved to have seen whatever ballet was choreographed for this. 

Then there's Persepolis, a work for tape. It hits pretty hard from the start, a sort of indescribable mass of sound that barely lets up for several minutes. At the time, Xenakis was disinterested in purely electronic sounds in favor of his own brand of musique concrète, the collection and manipulation of sound samples. There surely must be some gong/tam tam in there, perhaps bowed; it was a source for an earlier tape work of his. Persepolis ebbs and flows in its first half, then suddenly stops. Part two begins far more low-key, less dense, but no less continuous. Sitting on top of the mix is something bow: string? Maybe. It's nasty, probably intentionally confrontational. 

The was commissioned for and presented in Persepolis in Iran, well before the revolution. It was outside with people carrying torches. It must have an intense experience; it's pretty intense on just my modest home stereo system. My understanding is that retired composition teacher from Carnegie Mellon, Reza Vali, was in attendance. 

Could this be Xenakis' most famous work? There's an issue of it with a second disc of remixes, including those by Merzbow, Zbigniew Karkowski, and Otomo Yishihide. There's little question that it's a precedent to more recent college/noise works, Merzbow definitely coming to mind.

When I was teaching electronic music, I'd have occasional listening assignments. Only one (Stockhausen) clocked in at over ten minutes. For one particular section I made an open-ended assignment: find something in the library collection and listen to it, right about it to the class blog. One student told me he had listened to this. "The entire piece?" I asked. Oh yes he insisted, he wanted to know about it. That's the sort of patience and intellectual curiosity I'd been missing in the past several years, but then this was an exceptional student. But I can't complain too much, I think this is the first time I've made a point of sitting and listening to it in its entirety too. 

VOTD 07/01/2025

 Evangelist Jimmy Swaggart: The Ring of Fire (Jim Records)

Purchased at the old Strip District flea market

Jimmy Swaggart just died. What, you mean he was still alive?

Yes, until just yesterday. Do I wish he was getting sodomized in Hell in perpetuity? No. It's a nice thought, but that would mean I would believe in such things. 

No, my fantasy is that in his final moments he looked up and said, "It was all bullshit! I'm nothing more than worm food now!" But I know that's just fantasy. He's dead and he doesn't know any better.

Jimmy was as conservative an evangelist as they came. You know, until he was caught coming out of a motel room with a prostitute. I don't necessarily approve of seeing a hooker, but I don't necessarily disapprove either.

I remember the image so well, Jimmy in front of his congregation with tears in his eyes: "I...HAVE...SINNED!" Yeah, no shit. 

I do enjoy my vinyl oddities, as I have referred to them here multiple times. Some time in the 1990s when there was a flea market in the Strip District, I came across a box of Jimmy Swaggart LPs for maybe $1 apiece. I should have probably bought more, but with his scandal having broken recently before, an LP raging against the evils of extramarital sex seemed like exactly the right one to buy. 

Jimmy rants and raves and falls into a rhythm, and who knows half of what he says in the moment? He somehow weaves from homosexuality and lesbianism to coolers full of beer to modern acid rock music to nuclear holocaust. What? Wha wha what?

This would seem like great sampling material. But Jimmy barely takes a breath, there's hardly a break anywhere. 

I can to some extent see how someone in a crowd get caught up in the rhythm of Jimmy's delivery. Any time I watch a cable/streaming documentary about some cult or cult-like organization, I wonder: could I be caught up in such things? I'd like to think I'm enough of a cynic that I'd never fall for such things. I have enough friends and a relationship and work that I'd never fall for Children of God or the Pentecostal Church or any such nonsense.

Am I fooling myself? It's occurred to me, is there a benignly cult-like quality to Sun Ra's band? I say that as a fan. It's just a question.