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.

VOTD 06/30/2025

 Ethel Merman: The Ethel Merman Disco Album (A&M)

Purchased through discogs.com

This time! A record I'm proud to admit that I'm embarrassed to own!

I enjoy the hunt with respect to records, used records in particular. I'm intentionally trying to limit my buying since I own so many of the things, but it doesn't stop me from looking. I try not to engage in vinyl envy when a friend makes a good score. Good for them. I can only think of a few things I'd be truly jealous that someone else found.

While I never actively sought out this vinyl oddity, it never seemed to cross my path either. I've been aware of it for many years. A few years back when I mentioned its very existence to my wife, her reaction was, find a copy!

Here's where discogs.com comes in. It's an immense resource. It also means everyone in the world can see what other people have paid for records on their site, thus generally pushing up the prices in the brick and mortar used record stores. It's increasingly difficult to make amazing scores, but then that's still the thrill of the hunt, isn't it?

So: Ethel Merman's disco LP, checkout, sent to my house in a few days. Done, easy peasy. Thankfully not expensive too, I didn't really want to spend $20 on this.

If I told my 16 year old self I'd be buying a disco album, let alone this piece of kitsch, I think he'd be surprised and disappointed. I was definitely in the "disco sucks" crowd, though I didn't hang with the metal crowd either. That said, "Disco Inferno" made for a good marching band arrangement which we played for two years. I can picture my band director harumphing at the very idea of having to pay for the arrangement. 

Some of my attitude was unquestionably the hubris of youth and inexperience. There was a significant amount of 70s African American dance music/funk (for as little of it as I heard) that I wrote off at the time as disco that I love now. (Parliament is most definitely not disco.) If you didn't live through that time, you'd have no idea how ubiquitous the disco craze was. Even straight forward rock stations would program tracks from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. It was inescapable for a few years. 

When I listen to these things now, it's a mixed reaction. For starters, I admire that these are full bands executing these arrangements to perfection. Not easy. I count twelve session players on this album, including the familiar names of Bud Shank and Ernie Watts*, in addition to an unnamed orchestra. One track uses an additional six background vocalists. That takes a budget of both time and money. Charts have to be written, though I'm sure there was very little rehearsal time. Everyone gets paid, and overtime costs extra. Execute or else. 

On the other hand, everything is the same tempo. Most disco songs are a uniform speed. Fine for dancing, especially there's a particular set of choreographed disco moves you've prepared. Less interesting for listening. Four to the floor kick drum, snare on two and four, period. 

The arrangements sound like most big disco productions you've heard and leaning towards what I suppose is corniness. They're working with Ethel Merman doing old show tunes, so you can imagine how the arranger treats "Alexander's Ragtime Band" disco-style.

Ethel soldiers through this and is constantly on mark. One can imagine what she thought of the entire project. It's a gig, right? My understanding is that the choice and order of songs was based on her show: she would do this program in this order as a standard presentation, so the arrangers had to work with that unyielding structure. Perhaps this is legend, but my understanding is that she came in and blew everything down in a single take. What a pro!

Apart from the general silliness of the project, some of the songs lend themselves less effectively to disco-ization than others. "Everything's Coming Up Roses" should have been 1/3 faster, but Ethel has to stretch the lines to accommodate the standard disco tempo. Some of the other songs similarly stretch the vocal line.

"I Got Rhythm" starts with a slower, quiet introduction before kicking into the beat. "I Will Survive" was released the year before and was a monster hit, so I wonder if the arrangers thought they'd catch some of that for Ethel?

Representing disco in our household is this, the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack (I held it back when I sold off my wife's small record collection), the Andrea True Connection's More More More**, and an all-Christmas disco LP. What better way to clear your family out of the house after a holiday dinner than play that?

* I find Ernie Watts' appearance on this at least amusing. There was hardly any public figure who was more anti-disco than Frank Zappa, seeing it as some sort of social control construct or something. Ernie appeared about seven years earlier on Frank's The Grand Wazoo, and played the "mystery horn" (a C melody saxophone?). I like that there's a single degree of separation between this and Zappa. 

Frank would complain about punk rock a few years later. I love much of his music but he could be such a downer. 

** This is one of three connections I know between 70s disco and hardcore porn films. Who knows, this could be a topic for a future posting. 

VOTD 06/23/2026

 NON: Pagan Muzak (Greybeat)

Purchased through eBay

This blog is something of a diversion, a trifle, a shade frivolous. I've been both intending to, and questioning, whether I should write about this and similar records. Here goes. 

There are some records that, if someone looked them over after I'm gone, I might have felt embarrassment. I don't mean The Ethel Merman Disco Album, which I freely admit I own. 

So what is there to be embarrassed by this record? Its appearance doesn't seem to be outrageous: a front image of some sort of tomb or temple lined with skulls, the back a single image of the artist, all in stark black and white.

And the record itself is novel: a 7" album housed in a 12" cover, with seventeen lock grooves one side one, repeated on side two. Playable at any speed. Standard 33+1/3 sounds right, the tracks largely like machine sounds. To be played loud. A hole drilled off center for off-axis playback. 

In other words, a very novel release, quite original in its presentation and performance, in ways that I've seen repeated since. The RRR-100 7" has fifty lock grooves on each side (I happen to be one of them), one hundred artists represented. RRRecords upped the ante with RRR-500, five hundred artists in toto on a 12" LP. RRR-1000 takes it even further, though I understand there are tracking issues with that one depending on your turntable. 

My friend tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE released an LP with an off-axis hole cut. I wouldn't accuse him of aping NON, just that it's a similar technique. He's also released an album with multiple lock grooves.

So why am I potentially embarrassed to own this record?

NON is one Boyd Rice. NON is the "band" name for his noise-oriented projects. There are many (and often conflicting) reports about Boyd: that he can be great company, engaging, funny. A well-documented prankster, lover of EZ listening records. He was also supposedly an absentee father to a special needs child, a "Men's Rights" advocate, priest in the Church of Satan. There's a video of him happily talking to American White Nationalist Tom Metzger about how you never see black people at his noise concerts. An asshole Fascist/White Nationalist.

Allegedly. Allegedly allegedly allegedly. I don't know any of these things first hand, though I have watched the Metzger video, easily found on Youtube. You have access to Google, look for yourself.

I first came to know about Boyd through the Re/Search Industrial Culture Handbook. In some ways I was most impressed with him, because (according to the text) he had the purest of intentions: he enjoyed noise music, and the sound of things like skipping records. None of the neo-paganism of Genesis P-Orridge, or the occultism of Z'ev, or systems paranoia of SPK. Someone who enjoyed creating and listening to noise. To me, that's a high calling; if you don't find music you want to hear, make it yourself. That in itself is honorable.

Since the time I bought this record (a prize in my eyes at the time), I've seen too much evidence of his fascist leanings. Is it all a joke to him? The fact of him recording with Death In June (known to be Nazi sympathizers) doesn't help his case. But what do I know?

There are many examples of bands/artists playing with fascist and even Nazi imagery. Sometimes ironically, sometimes not, and sometimes who knows? I'm thinking of a tape released by Ramleh on Broken Flag records, Rockwell Hate. It uses an audio letter sent by George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party, to his followers. The cassette is played while the band provides a backdrop of blistering power electronics. My sense is that it's a joke, that they're making fun of that racist moron by supplying a backdrop of the ultimate entartete musik. Hitler would have never approved.

That's just my intuition, but again, what do I really know? If I'm proven wrong I will happily rescind my comments. I face the fact that it might become necessary for me to remove this posting. 

I'm also thinking of Sid Vicious wearing a swastika t-shirt. I'm certain he just wanted to outrage people. 

So where am I left with Boyd Rice and NON records? Isn't the history of the arts filled with shitty people? Gesualdo murdered his wife in cold blood, as I've written here before. That happened four and a quarter centuries ago. At the time terrible; now, an interesting footnote? And what of Miles Davis' and Charles Mingus' know abuse of women?

Nonetheless, I just don't think I can abide by what could be Boyd's racist and fascist leanings. I hate to waffle on things like this; it's just that the facts are murky.

I should probably sell this. Too bad, I love weird lock groove records like this. 

CDOTD 06/18/2026

 James Crabb & Geir Daruagvoll: Duos for Classical Accordions (EMI Classics)

This was a promo copy I claimed when I worked at Borders

"Welcome to Heaven! Here's your harp! Welcome to Hell! Here's your accordion!"

Stupid old joke. Truth is both instruments are beautiful in each its own way. If anything I find the accordion more confounding. How does anyone play the damned thing, especially the non-twelve tone keyboard right hand, button box concert accordion?

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice practice practice. Another old joke. 

Furthermore, the accordion can be highly expressive, something that's not built into the harp. Oh, it's expressive in an ensemble when you need that run of plucked notes. But the harp has hardly any dynamic range, unlike the accordion which can be gentle or aggressive. 

When I worked at Borders in the mid-90s, interest in CDs was at its height, or just cresting. DVDs were just being introduced. The store was not allowed to sell the promotional copies of CDs we received, so as a worker you could claim discs for yourself when they had outlived their purpose. There are a few amazing discs I got this way: Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting an all-Bernard Herrmann recording, historic recordings of Dock Boggs, this, others I'm forgetting. We'd claim discs by putting a Post-It note with our name on the cover. Most of us were respectful; I didn't try to claim a Boyz II Men disc just because I knew I could sell it (a not-so-open secret among workers). 

And who besides me was going to claim a CD of classical duets of accordion music? Only someone who intended to sell it later, if they could. And, the program! Duo accordions Stravinsky's Petrushka, Tango, and top it off with Pictures at an Exhibition. Hella yeah! 

I chose this disc without resorting to my randomizer, because yesterday was Stravinsky's birthday. 

As Petrushka plays, I find myself missing Stravinsky's orchestral colors. He was a solid and interesting orchestrator. Inversely, the accordion does have a way of bringing out the clownishness. Some of the work sounds perfectly suited for this format. What it's not missing is content. Two accordions, four hands, that covers a lot of ground. And it's probably more engaging than a two piano arrangement of the same piece, which I think exists. 

In my mind, I'm imagining Stravinsky hearing this and writing something specifically for duo accordions. I'm sure he would have challenged them, and more likely than not it would have been great.

Tango in this orchestration is great too. Makes me wish I could see this, in a concert hall, in the front row. Feel those accordion bellows physically. 

My understanding of Pictures at an Exhibition is that Mussorgsky himself intended to orchestrate the work, but didn't live to see it through. Ravel's orchestration is the famous one but not the only; I once heard a radio performance of a Stokowski orchestration. It seemed like a pale version compared Ravel; if anything, a lesser response to Maurice's work. 

I miss the colors of Ravel's orchestration, this is still amazing in some parts. While I appreciate Ravel's use of alto saxophone on "The Old Castle", it sounds great on two accordions. Respect.

I'm hopeless as a keyboardist in any respect. Ten thumbs. I love the piano, and there's so much incredible music written for it. But I would give serious consideration to being an accordionist given the chance. 

VOTD 06/13/2025

 Frank Zappa: Jazz From Hell (Barking Pumpkin)

Purchased from Leechpit Records, Colorado Springs

I remember when this record arrived at WRCT, 1986. There's a listing for the musicians on the back cover. I don't think I understood then how sequenced this album sounds now. 

It's so tight, like a noose around a neck. (Hyperbole?) Frank always wanted absolute perfection in his musicians' performances. But what does that mean? What is perfection? And does the pursuit of perfection impede the possibility of expression?

In some ways, this album sounds dated to me. By sounding clean and "modern", he dates the LP to a certain time period. Early digital, transferred to analog playback.

I have really tried to appreciate and listen to Frank's Synclavier albums. Really. Are they a true reflection of Frank's vision? Or, just maybe, they're mechanized simulacrum of really good bands he's led? 

Jesus Christ. The second and third cuts on side one are...boring. And track four isn't much better. But I recognize that I'm hearing this after years of teaching MIDI sequencing techniques.

So what stands out? "Night School" and "G-Spot Tornado", the opening cuts on sides one and two, at least aren't boring. The latter sounds hyper-sequenced, but at least it's at the service of a lively composition. An arrangement played live appears on The Yellow Shark. I'd recommend that album over this one. 

I'm listening to side two of this album, and for crying out loud it can be annoying. There's some sonic and mental relief on side two, track three: "St. Etienne". Frank solos over a one-two chord as he often did. This is probably where the back cover credits enter into the picture.

I must say...for all of Frank's seeking of musical perfection at a micro-level, he probably understood the beauty of a flexible, in-tune, lean band. At least I hope. Personalities! Or was perfection too important to him? I guess we won't know. 

When I bought this at Leech Pit Records in Colorado Springs, I also bought the two-CD Civilzation Phase III. I generally don't like Frank's Synclavier-based albums, but...who knows?

CDOTD 06/01/2025

Sons of Ra: Standard Deviation (The Laser's Edge)

Purchased new from the band

I have to say, it takes some balls to call yourself Sons of Ra. Evokes you-know-who. 

I opened for them at Bantha Tea Bar in the Garfield neighborhood last week. It's a tiny space, never meant to contain a band that sounds this big. I did an opening duet set with Patrick Breiner. Patrick told Manny Theiner to give his fee to that headliner. I took my $15 and bought their current CD with it. Patrick's a mensch beyond mensch, does that make me a jerk?

Manny described them as being like Last Exit, the heavy hitting supergroup of Peter Brotzmann, Sonny Sharrock, Bill Laswell, and Ronald Shannon Jackson. I'd say...maybe not so much, but I'm interested in revisiting that group. I'd say closer to Sonny Sharrock's Ask the Ages, but that album's such a classic, that's not fair either. 

It's not exactly jazz, SOR are mostly a power trio with the bassist doubling on saxophone. I hope I don't sound cynical when I say, they get a lot of mileage out of their reverb effects, on a similar way to Killing Joke. But far more jazzy.

Opening the disc and the concert: a take on Coltrane's "Alabama". I say, be careful. That's a powerful work. 

They performed well, but the pieces come off more effectively in studio versions. Less muddy, partly due to the space. My own experience recording is the opposite: it's very difficult to capture the live essence in the studio. When they need power chords, it comes through clearly on record. There's also a lot more saxophone here than I remember in concert. 

I can't help but turn this inwards. Is this better than the second CD by my old band Water Shed 5tet? In general, probably yes, but I think my album was more original. Give the kids a break though, they're working hard and more dedicated to touring and promotion than I'm capable. 

And I'll probably sound like a jerk but, listening to them, I felt like I could do something similar but better. Sons of Ra, should you read this, prove me wrong! I'm a battered-down old man clinging to relevancy. Nonetheless, you do have room to grow. 

CDOTD 05/27/2025

Ennio Morricone: Queimada OST (GDM)

Borrowed from the library

More Morricone. I've long claimed Bernard Herrmann to be my favorite film composer. So why all the Morricone? His stock has risen to me in more recent years, and there's certainly no lack of albums to buy. If he scored approximately 500 films, how many of those have never seen release? Surely at least a few, to speak nothing of out-of-print titles.

Queimada (released as Burn! in English, the title itself meaning "burned" in Portuguese) stars Marlon Brando. Interesting. Brando's so well know for particular films: On the Waterfront, Last Tango in Paris, The Godfather, Apocalypse Now!, even the disaster that is The Island of Dr. Moreau. But what about this? Or the awkwardly titled The Night of the Following Day? Or The Ugly American, Moritori, The Teahouse of the August Moon? 

I've never seen any of those. Maybe they're good, I don't know. When you star in several movies that make many people's short lists of greatest-of-all-time, there could be good work that goes less recognized. Or maybe not, maybe they're garbage. I have seen Candy in which he plays...an Indian guru I guess? It's pretty forgettable.

What do you expect from a Morricone soundtrack? Wordless vocals? Check. (It doesn't sound like Edda Del'Orsso in this case.) Some classical strains? In plentitude. Some tension-ratcheting harmonies? Yes definitely, an early track on the CD being a great example. There's also a piece here with figures looping in different meters, something I've heard in his work before too. The opening sounds, I don't know, very 1960s to me. Considering it was 1969, that comes as no surprise. 

Like many complete soundtrack albums, this is longer than it needs to be from a purely listening standpoint. But you know, it's the complete document, as it should be. 

Once again I am grateful for a good public library with an excellent music and media division. You can check out video games there! Not that I have ever owned a game console, besides our family Atari in 1980. I used to wipe out my Dad at Tank Battle. He thought maybe I had an advantage being left-handed. (Nope. The joystick was right-handed. I was just younger, better reflexes, and and knew how to shoot him down after recovering from the previous shot.)

VOTD 05/26/2025

 Revolutionary Ensemble: The Psyche (RE: Records)

Purchased used from Mike Shanley

Randomizer/limiter: R S, vinyl.

Mike can be a bit of a vinyl/CD hustler. I think I bought two different Ligeti CD boxes from him. On another occasion I came to his house to check over some vinyl he was looking to sell. He's bought several whole collections; in one case, the collection yielded a copy of The Five's first 7" "Napalm Beach". I'm determined not to feel jealousy over other peoples' finds, but that's a good one.

I was making a fast dig through some of his shelves (there was a LOT to look over) and this caught my attention. Yeah, I'd like to hear that. 

I bought this, two Stormy Six records, and one or two other things for $75. He mentioned something about the going price. (High price on discogs is currently $65, and this copy if very clean.) I shrugged my shoulders, just interested in the information contained in the grooves. I guess he figured cash in hand was better than waiting to sell it for more. Plus, you know, I actually have listened to the god damned thing haven't I?

I'm not immune or disassociated from the after market cost of these records. I knew I hadn't seen this before and didn't really have a sense of how much it might be worth, though I guess I knew it was rare. I wasn't looking to shaft Mike in any way, just listen to this piece of history I hadn't experienced before. 

And what a time. 1975, Nixon was freshly out of office, the Vietnam War was winding down, and there's still a lot of anger over racial injustice. The Revolutionary Ensemble lineup itself is somewhat pushing against conventions: violin/viola, bass, drums/piano. Leroy Jenkins and Jerome Cooper had previously worked together in a quartet with Anthony Braxton and Leo Smith, which took the idea of "energy music" into a different direction than Albert Ayler or Cecil Taylor (dissipation as opposed to concentration). 

This gets energetic, though. Maybe not the intensity of a Peter Brotzmann album, but they hammer it out towards the end of side one as well as a violin/bass/drums trio can.

The album has three compositions, one each from the members. Side one's "Invasion" by Jerome Cooper ends very abruptly. It's 26 minutes 15 seconds. It's like an engineer said, "I can give you 26:15 and not a second more!" and held to it. The sound quality in general is clear but on the raw side, rather like you're in the room with them. Good.

Sometimes I'd love to hear a saxophone in here, but that wouldn't be so revolutionary, would it?

What can I say, it's a worthy listen if you can find it. I think this is the only LP they self-released, with their mailing address on the back. 

VOTD 05/24/2025

 VA: Music for Tape/Band-Musik from Sweden/Aus Schweden/från Sverige (Caprice)

Purchased used at Jerry's, I think.

I ran my randomizer/limiter programming and came up with: KLM, vinyl. I decided it wasn't fair to leave out complications from the mix, therefor this qualifies as M. 

Anyway, for the 3-10 people who actually read this blog (hi Dave, hi Jason) and care, I've been taken out of commission by a virus for most of the past week. Tuesday afternoon I was standing in my living room and realized instantaneously, "I'm really sick." Tuesday night was among the most awful nights I can remember, never sleeping for more than 10 minutes at a time, alternating between fever sweats and teeth-chattering chills, and on the edge of hallucination. (At least I was spared nausea). And the music that kept returning to my mind? The most recent Brown Angel album that was the subject of a previous post. I had been listening to it in the gym the day before, and pieces of it stuck. Will that album now be the soundtrack of the memory of my illness? I don't know, but I was obsessing a bit on things I had written that didn't satisfy me, and I might return to it for a redux post in the near future.

Now that it's more than four days later, I'm mostly better. Walking the neighborhood earlier today, I found myself fatigued very easily, so step by step.

I came across this LP and remembered liking it. I'm inclined to collect LPs of old school electronic music. Even if the results aren't are polished as can be produced today, I like the "sweat" on them. 

I have not heard (or don't remember hearing) of any of these composers before: Sten Hanson, Leo Nilson, Arne Mellnäs, Bengt Emil Johnson, Lars-Gunnar Bodin, Jan W. Morthenson. In many ways that's exciting, at least if the work is good, which in this case I would say it is. It also seems poignant to hear these composers whose work stands toe-to-toe with many of the great RTF (France) and WDR (Germany, just to be clear) artists, and I know nothing about them at all besides this LP. At least we have this.

With one earlier exception, the works date from 1969-1971 (the LP was released in 1973). The emphasis tends to mostly on musique concrète techniques, sounds derived from acoustical sources and manipulated/assembled through recording techniques. Some of the pieces cross over into poetry and sound poetry.

Sidebar: pure forms of musique concrète still are being created, but the idea of dogmatically creating in this style is old fashioned. Still, it was one of the things I felt necessary to teach to my university students because almost none of them knew what the term meant. All this access to information but so little intellectual curiosity sometimes. I know it was my job to help fill in those gaps and inspire creativity, but it felt like talking to a brick wall sometimes.

Interestingly, both sides close with entirely electronically-generated works. The album concludes with Jan Morthenson's "Ultra". The notes state that he was the first Swedish composer to realized a computer generated work (in conjunction with the engineer), and that this piec  is a further development of that material. I take that to mean this is also a very early computer generated work. The effort behind this must have been immense. 

I have enough of these old electronic music collections, I need to make a mental note of trying to remember these names. Who were these guys? (No women I'm sorry to say.) Only one of them might still be alive. Did they have national reputations? What is it to be known as a composer in Sweden?

VOTD 05/13/2025

 宮内庁楽部* = Music Department, Imperial Household* – Gagaku (Court Music) (Columbia) 10" LP

Purchased used at Jerry's Records

I was for quite a few years associated with WRCT. First as student, then summer fill in, hanging when I still had friends working there. There were two great things about WRCT, apart from the hang: access to the best record/music library in Pittsburgh (to the best of my knowledge), and being able to hear new releases as they came in. Sometimes, such as my recent post about Tom Waits' Swordfishtrombones, being able to score a duplicate promo copy. 

I was at the station (I'm finding it was 1990) during an unboxing of promo CDs. One package came from a new label of traditional Japanese music. One of the discs absolutely transfixed me: it was an album entirely of Gagaku. (This was it: https://www.discogs.com/release/1427070-Kunaich%C5%8D-Gakubu-Gagaku-Etenraku-Azumaasobi-Kishunraku-Seigaiha) 

I'd never heard it, or anything like it before. It felt like a dreamscape. Gagaku is imperial court music, and considered to be the oldest extant orchestral music in the world. The Gagaku "orchestra" comprises of several percussion, some plectrum instruments (biwa being one), a strident double reed, transverse flutes, and most significantly, the mouth organ (sho). It is the latter, playing cluster voicings, that gives Gagaku music its otherworldly quality to these Western ears. It's "dissonant" (by Western standards) but I also find it pleasant, and yes, dreamy. 

Just goes to show you, consider whatever supposed avant-garde techniques European and American composers might devise, there's a chance so-called "ethnic" musicians have topped it. 

(Sidebar: I'm thinking of an LP of Indian music that had a track of someone playing two conch shells simultaneously, tuned about a half step apart. He could control the beating patterns by way of lip pressure, and I think he was circular breathing. Take that, Alvin Lucier!)

I'd bought a couple of Gagaku CDs over the years. I love them all, but it's all pretty similar. I even learned to recognize one particular piece, "Etenraku", which I've dubbed the "Stairway to Heaven" of Gagaku. As in, everyone plays it. (Maybe "Free Bird" would be a better comparison.) It's not that I permanently called off buying any more Gagaku recordings, but I wasn't going to seek them out. 

And then, as Jerry's Records sometimes does (especially under Jerry himself), a surprise came along. 

It was hard to believe: four beautifully packaged Gagaku 10" LPs, the earliest (this) dating to 1957. The vinyl looked clean, and sounds good. I think I paid no more than $8 apiece, which I knew was a bargain. This was also around the time I found two 10" LPs of Maoist-era Chinese opera records in the same section of the store.

It's Gagaku. It's beautiful. I have three other 10"ers to go with it, two of which have renditions of "Etenraku".

I have a special section in my record shelves for valuable records. Things I know are worth money, like original Sun Ra on Saturn, the first Picchio Dal Pozzo record, some of my United Dairies vinyl, among other things. This isn't in that section. 

But I'd like to think, once I'm gone, someone looks through my collection and says, "Wow, check out these Gagaku 10"s!"

Which reminds me of a Jerry Weber story. Indulge me if I've written this before. 

Jerry told me about a young couple buying an old album in his store. He looked at it and said, "You know, this is a fifty year old record. You're young, you'll live another fifty years. If you keep this, you'll have a hundred year old record, and it'll sound as good then as it does now." I cynically replied, "Yeah, it'll sound as scratched up then as it does now."

But now more than ever I appreciate Jerry's optimism. We are transient, but (hopefully) some of the things we leave endure. 

VOTD 05/12/2025

 Brown Angel: Promisemaker (Sleeping Giant Glossolalia)

Purchased new, mail order direct from label

Some disclosures: I've played with this band. I'm even thanked in the liner notes. And now that I'm reading more closely, it seems that I appear on this album. How about that. Explanation to come. 

I will also point out that on a few occasions, the person or band I'm writing about reads my comments. Thankfully I don't think I've written anything especially dumb or trite on those occasions. 

It came as a surprise when my Facebook feed informed me there was a new Brown Angel album. Bandleader Adam MacGregor has been in and out of the US for some years now; his wife is in the State Department. I think he's back in Mumbai now. During his most US stay, Brown Angel played a few gigs with a new bassist. 

Well, it seems as though most of the recording dates to 2018-2019. My contribution came a later, but I can't recall exactly how long ago. I'm credited as playing contrabass clarinet, but actually it was bass clarinet. Honestly, I had to relisten to the track ("Who Wants a Dreamer?", the opener) to even detect my contribution. I think I'm heard briefly towards the end of the cut, but I would have never known it without being told. Adam had gotten in touch with me about recording some noisy bass clarinet, which I was happy to do. He never told me for what purpose, so now I guess I know.

Mark this down as another single contribution to an album project, something I seem to be doing recently. Greg Hoy, Spotlights, Microwaves (on a previous record, and the upcoming one as well), and Brown Angel previously. I could get used to that. Several of those were recorded at home using my own equipment. 

Brown Angel got some mileage out of being dubbed "Pittsburgh's Most Depressing Band" (well earned, I would add). There's no speed metal to be sure, but not everything on this is a slow grinder. What I guess is the second half of "It Was Hard (Piteous Trench)" is more driving, but not necessarily any less bleak. 

You have to have real dedication to maintain such a dark vision. (Though as I wrote that I thought, you need to have dedication to be a musician period.) And it might not come as a surprise that Adam and drummer John Roman are perfectly lovely, (as far as I can tell) well-adjusted people. (I don't know original bassist Mike Rensland as well, though I did say hello to him at John's recent wedding.) Adam is a great hang, funny, smart, enjoys spinning a good story. I look forward to those times he's stateside. 

I recalled, when writing about an earlier MacGregor band Creation Is Crucifixion, that Adam had said their intention was to be completely unlistenable. Well, how do you critically react to a band has that intention? Brown Angel is a dark, menacing band, and they succeed in that respect. Production sounds good here, though as you might expect, the guitars are pretty much up front. James Plotkin (Khanate0 mastered the sessions, which I'm sure added to the clarity. 

One complaint: guys, if I'm on this, maybe tell me it was coming out?

VOTD 05/06/2025

Tom Waits: Swordfishtrombones (Island)

This was a duplicate promo copy I scored from WRCT at the time of its release

One of the many reasons I started writing to this blog was to give purpose to my listening. Listen, and write my thoughts. I've amassed a substantial collection of CDs and vinyl LPs; nowhere nearly as large some I know, but large nonetheless. So given this field of possible choices, what do I choose?

To help myself in this respect, I created a Max (Max/MSP/Jitter) file to limit my choices. Max is the closest I've come to programming. I mean, it's programming of a sort. As my friend and world-renowned computer scientist Roger Dannenberg once said, "Max is audio programming for people who don't want to learn how to program." Sold! What might have been intended as a put-down is a selling point. In addition to to creating practical effects and instruments for use in Ableton Live, I created a patch (the word for the file) to calculate my grading for one of my classes. 

I set up a system to randomize a letter choice and format. Single letters didn't fair; T shouldn't have as much of chance as V. Letters are grouped together. For format, I chose CD (X2), vinyl (X2) and "other". I'd also give myself leniency with respect to first and last names, and new purchases take precedence. 

It's not a total Cage indeterminate action, just limiting my choices. 

First roll: W X Y Z, vinyl. I had meant to put on this Tom Waits record recently, so easy choice.

I remember when this LP rolled into WRCT in 1983. It was surprising. I've liked Tom Waits for as long as I've been aware of him, but it was clear this album was a shift in direction for him. Immediately on track one ("Underground") it sounded like he was shifting away from his more cabaret-ish roots towards something more Captain Beefheart-like. The bass marimba, the spiky guitar, the space, suggested Ed Marimba and Zoot Horn Rollo from the Magic Band.

Listening to it now, maybe I don't think it's as radical a departure as I once did. But the Beefheart influence is definitely present, and I think Tom has said so himself. In subsequent albums, he'd increase the emphasis on atmosphere. If he wanted the drums to sound like cardboard boxes, well, play cardboard boxes. The closing track briefly uses glass harmonica(!). More, I say!

The songs are compact, seven on side one, eight on side two. Some are particularly memorable: the aforementioned opening cut, the lovely "Johnsburg, Illinois" followed by the hard hitting "16 Shells From a Thirty-Ought Six". I'm not generally one to react to lyrics, but I laughed out loud at a lyric in "Frank's Wild Years": "...he hung his wild years on a nail that he drove through his wife's forehead." 

A couple of my friends have recorded with Tom, some years after this record. One of them told me that the strange thing meeting Tom was how normal everything was. His home is (or was, I don't know) in Sausalito. Kids were playing in the yard. Everything was very matter-of-fact. 

I recently bought Tom's Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards. His album of leftovers is great, better than most people's first run material. 

VOTD 05/05/2025

 Sorcery: Stunt Rock OST (Moving Image Entertainment)

Purchased used at Rosie's Records

I know I've written about my use of this forum before: music commentary, a small amount of analysis and musicology, and autobiography. Well, I'm going the latter for a few paragraphs, so indulge me. 

I turned in my notice at Carnegie Mellon last Friday. I'd been working there for twenty years. A few people, most notably my wife, knew in advance, but mostly I've stayed quiet about it. It's not a secret now, but I haven't been oversharing on something like Facebook. (Yet.)

The fundamental truth has been: I've been unhappy in the job. Some of is the nature of the position. The majority of my job was teaching a 101-level music technology to anyone: majors, non-majors, even staff. A graduate music major could be sitting next to a sophomore engineering student with no musical experience at all. And it was a mini-course, half a semester in length, fourteen sections in an academic year. I was simply weary of it. 

There are other factors, but little else I care to write publicly. I did start to feel frustrated that I wasn't teaching to my particular skills and experience, at least directly. Being part time adjunct faculty, there wasn't the opportunity to create new courses as I wished. Early after I was hired I had an idea for a course/ensemble/seminar in which we'd study and rehearse various existing repertoire involving improvisation, aleatoric and indeterminate techniques; discuss the similarities and differences; develop new works based on those experiences; ultimately perform publicly. An expansion of some of the things I did with my high school avant-garde ensemble, CAPA Antithesis. It didn't take long for me to figure out there wasn't much of a lane for me to create new ensembles and courses as I wished. Just adding a second section of an in-demand course was a laborious task that took nearly a month of convincing the right people.

None of this is intended as a criticism of the institution. It's just the nature of the job. I feel like I was a workhorse for the school, that they got value for the buck from me. I would be shocked if the next person lasts twenty years. They'll probably hire a recent graduate with a shiny new PHD who will last five years.

Okay, that's starting to sound cynical. I don't really know that.

My wife has been calling it my retirement; I've called it quitting my job. I'm not retired, the real work continues. With luck and determination, maybe more than before. But whatever you call it, yes, I'm now retired from CMU. And looking for musical opportunities.

Thank for indulging me that.

This record...

I'd never heard of the movie Stunt Rock before seeing a trailer collection on Tubi assembled by Alamo Drafthouse. I haven't seen the complete film yet, but the trash film fan in me definitely wants to view it. From what I'm reading online, it's part fiction/mockumentary (1978, years before Spinal Tap), part stunt demonstration, part concert film. I guess Sorcery was a real LA band, kind of a predecessor to the Van Halen and later hair metal scene. You can hear their influences pretty directly: some Deep Purple, a bit of Blue Öyster Cult and Judas Priest, and definitely some Black Sabbath. The latter is pretty obvious with songs like "Wizard's Council", "Mark of the Beast" and "Talking to the Devil". 

They're not bad. A little silly maybe, they're not that far from Spinal Tap. But you can hear some pre-Van Halen in here too. The vocals seem to be mixed a bit high, though maybe the convention of burying the voice under the guitar sound became more conventional later. I find the singer to be just okay, but then most singers irritate me. 

I think I need to see the film!

The reissue from 2000 comes weirdly as a two LP set: standard black vinyl edition, and a second version of the same as a picture disc. Considering the cover is pretty bad looking (and the same on front and back), this seems like a silly move. I listened to the black edition, which was clear and well pressed. I've found picture discs to often be very noisy in the past. 

I don't know that I'm going to keep at this blog as regularly as when I started, but I do intend to keep at it more regularly than I have been. 

VOTD 04/25/2025

 Pere Ubu: Terminal Tower, An Archival Collection (Twin Tone)

Given to me by my friend Mark

I once read that Pere Ubu's David Thomas made (or tried to make) a bet with DEVO who would hit the top 40 first.

It's ridiculous that either of the two bands would ever chart, but of course DEVO had a surprise hit with "Whip It". While outwardly more weird than Pere Ubu, DEVO was more theatrical and obviously tongue-in-cheek. And well, catchier, more of a pop sensibility. Plus they managed to get themselves onto Saturday Night Live. And they were savvy with respect to early music videos. They were naturally the more multimedia of the two groups. 

But what was Pere Ubu by comparison? Darker, more of a garage band but with the strange, warbly vocals of Thomas, and by their second 7" pushed into stranger territory by Allen Ravenstine's homemade modular synthesizers. 

This LP collects their early singles, which amazingly date back to 1975(!), essentially pre-punk rock. From Ohio. Ohio! What the hell was going on in Ohio in that era? Maybe it was the chemicals dumped into the Cuyahoga. Or more likely...the Kent State shooting. People who were attending Kent State during the shooting, if not present at the shooting itself: Mark and Gerald from DEVO, Joe Walsh, Chrissie Hynde, and Chris Butler from Tin Huey/The Waitresses. Did this add a sense of urgency to the region? Or am I attaching meaning to an ultimately meaningless incident? 

I recommend you seek out Derf Backderf's graphic novel Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio. Be warned: you're either going to wind up in tears or hair-tearingly angry at the government, or both. Derf himself was a kid (about my age) when it happened near his home. Oh, AND he attended high school with Jeffrey Dahmer, which he depicts in his graphic novel My Friend Dahmer.

Ohio now is considered the the central moderate/conservative heartland of America. When you start to consider the above, Ohio seems like a far more bizarre place in general, though maybe that's the US in general.

I was born in Akron. Read into that as you will. My father was from Sandusky and attended Kent State.

The record. It traces the development of Ubu as a kind of pre-punk, proto-metal Peter Laughner-led ensemble to a lighter, more surreal sound. Fewer power chords, more space, more vocals, more modular synth. Pre-LP, to The Modern Dance, onto Dub Housing, onto New Picnic Time and Songs of the Bailing Man. Dub Housing is my favorite. It's memorable, but also a straight-forward rock band pulled into alien territory. 

I went to see whoever Pere Ubu was at the Club Cafe, I don't know, 7-8 years ago? David was the only original member.* They were touring on the repertoire of the original Ubu recordings, the Hearthen Records singles (the original singles here) and the first two LPs. David sat the entire time, bottle of wine nearby. He walked offstage at one point, frustrated, but returned. People loved it. The band sounded great, by the way. 

I talked with Tom Moran while I was there. Tom was the guitarist for The Five, arguably the best band from Pittsburgh to emerge from the punk scene.** I'd had little interaction with Tom previously, but we knew who each other was, and we live in the same neighborhood. He told me how Larence Goodby played him Pere Ubu's The Modern Dance and that they declared, "We want to be this band!" and The Five was initiated. I can see the influence, once he mentioned it. 

Ubu didn't play everything off this album, most significantly lacking "Final Solution". In retrospect it's an unfortunate title for a song about teen angst, was Thomas himself would note. Too bad, it's a good song.

This album works as a document of the development of Pere Ubu in its initial years.  As such, you hear how the sound changes with the changes in personnel. In other words, it's a great document but not a cohesive album statement. 

My friend Mark saw David Thomas perform in the late 80s, bought this LP from him, and had him sign it. David asked, "What do you want? A dog, a dinosaur?" Mark asked for a dinosaur. David's scribbling image looks like just that, a scribble. He gave it to me later. 

David Thomas died this week at 71. I would have guessed older. I was once mistaken for David, the account of which you can read on my Facebook page. Sorry you're gone David; if there's an afterlife, I hope you're happy. "It's just a joke, man!"

* It has occurred to me that I've seen at least three bands with only a single original member: Pere Ubu, Yes, and most recently Kraftwerk. If I think of others, I'll write about it

** Tom said to me, "We heard Pere Ubu and we wanted to be that band. Then we moved to Boston and we wanted to be Aerosmith!"

VOTD 04/18/2025

 Maury Coles: Maury Coles' Solo Saxophone Record (Onari)

Purchased at Jerry's Records

Who's Maury Coles? No clue! (And no intention at the moment of Wikipediaizing him.) But a solo saxophone record, used at Jerry's, on a Canadian label, from the 1970s, sounds like a win/win/win/win to me. 

I've considered releasing a solo saxophone album myself, which I guess I should just do and stop thinking about. Something limited run, maybe a custom lathe-cut printing in a small number. Just do it already, Ben.

As Mike Shanley has pointed out, solo saxophone albums are often a catalog of so-called extended techniques, all the "other" sounds the saxophone can produce besides standard notes and pitches. There's a hazard to that: is it just showing off the weird sounds you can make? At the same time, you can say it's all part of the vocabulary of the instrument: every whine, wheeze, fart, squeak, squeal, split tone, is part of the instrument as much as the "notes." Of all the solo saxophone recordings I have, it's Roscoe Mitchell's that is curiously the most traditionally "notey", blowing solo on melodies of his creation. 

Maury finds a place in the middle: sometimes melodic, sometimes playing on the sonic potential of the alto saxophone. Notably, this was recorded Nov. 5 1977 at the Music Gallery than none other than John Oswald himself. I still have a cassette of John's solo saxophone playing, which is some of the most extreme that I've heard. 

This is the only alum that comes up under Maury's name, with just four other credits on other people's sessions. Seems like a shame, the solo album is worthy of a listen. 

VOTD 04/17/2025

 Andrew Lloyd Webber: Requiem (Angel)

Purchased (sealed) at the Jerry's Records dollar sale

Steve Lacy once said: never listen to bad music. If you're at a concert and it's bad, walk out. 

So why the hell am I listening to an Andrew Lloyd Webber record?

Partially it's been my interest in requiems (requia?) in past couple of years, and curiosity about how he would do it. I think it's also healthy to sometimes try to analyze why you don't like something. It's not enough to say "it sucks" but to understand what is it that you don't like. Maybe it's the inherent educator in me. I always wrote off Wendy Carlos' Switched On Bach as being kitsch; in some ways I still do. But I started to study the album more closely, and found characteristics to appreciate. The Moog patch development is pretty amazing at times. The performances are all pre-MIDI overdubbed tracks, which makes the playing impressive. It's not as simple as, "this is silly." 

So we find ALW in a serious mood here, his "serious" music. Can't fault a guy for trying. I'm listening to this without reading up on it, what circumstances led to this work. I assume it was a commission, but if it wasn't? Good for him to working on it. There's an all-star cast: Placido Domingo (whose name is conspicuously top billing), Sarah Brightman (I guess she was married to ALW at the time) and Lorin Maazel (from Pittsburgh!). 

What of the music? I find moments that I enjoy, when ALW goes briefly polychordal or major 9ths (but never full-out atonal). It's generally quite conservative major/minor composing, but I expected nothing else. I'd say it's no less daring than your average Broadway musical really. 

There's an organist credited, James Lancelot. I don't know, it seems too...obvious? Churchy music involving an organ?

Maybe I'm saying, the music offers few surprises except for a few unexpected harmonies. It's darker at the start, uplifting at the end, much as you'd expect. It's impeccably performed, but that's what money will get you. 

This cost me a dollar, so curiosity satisfied, cheap. 

VOTD 04/15/2025

 Goblin: The Other Hell soundtrack (Cinevox)

Purchased at Eides, new

I've written in the past that I know this blog is some degree of music commentary and sometimes analysis, some history, but also there's an autobiographical component too. I suppose if you should happen to find me interesting, that's fine. 

I've been putting a lot of things on hold until the university semester ends. It's felt like a weight on me but my teaching schedule is done at the end of next week, unusually early. Despite this, I've found time to at least accept gigs, do a couple of at-home punch-in recordings for other people, and occasionally check in here. And of course do things I generally enjoys such as dropping by the library and various record stores.

I didn't make a big rush for Record Story Day, even if I bought three things released that day. I've previously written the other two. I had the highest hope for this one, while at the same time wondering about the nature of it. Goblin was responsible for some exceptional soundtrack work: Suspiria, Deep Red, the European cut of Dawn of the Dead. So why hadn't this soundtrack turned up before? I don't profess to be a Goblin expert but a solid work from the early 80s would be in demand for release, seemed to me. 

Reading into it now, I see this is made up of cues and outtakes from other films: Buio Omega, Patrick, and  Il Fantastico Viaggio del Bagarozzo Mark. Thankfully I have none of those on vinyl (I've seen the first two around) so all the music is new to me. I noticed while watching the laughable Contamination that the soundtrack credited to Goblin was at least in part lifted from Dawn of the Dead. I can't point a finger at the Italians for cost-cutting moves, since it's thoroughly part of the American tradition of exploitation filmmaking as well. 

What sets Suspiria apart from the others is its intensity and atmosphere. It's bigger, louder, creepier, noisier. Dawn has a real drive to it to be sure, but Suspiria feels like an experience. The music here is solid late 70s instrumental prog rock veering slightly into fusion territory, sometimes sounding a little like the Bruford band circa One of a Kind (sans Allan Holdsworth).

I don't often comment on this, but the pressing (at least on side one) is terrible. There's a general noise to the vinyl which isn't so noticeable when the music is turned up, but takes over on fade outs and between cuts. Ugh. Do better! Maybe it didn't need to be fuchsia-colored vinyl. And with such great examples of original cover art on Mondo/Death Waltz and Waxworks soundtrack labels, the cover here looks slapdash. Sounds like trying to earn that RSD coin to me, even if the music itself is pretty good.

VOTD 04/14/2025

 Mitch & Ira Yuseph: 7 Doors of Death soundtrack (Grindhouse Releasing)

Purchased new at Eide's

I guess I get a little sucked into to Record Store Day myself, but there's a good chance I might have bought this even without the hype sticker calling out, "2025 RSD Exclusive/BLOOD SHOT RED VINYL/Limited to 1000 copies". 

7 Doors of Death is an American video release of Lucio Fulci's The Beyond. Some consider it Fulci's best work. His horror films are graphically brutal, even if some of the effects look fake. Even his more Giallo-ish titles such as The Psychic and Don't Torture a Duckling each have one brutal effect, such as a man's face getting ripped off after jumping from a cliff. Fulci reveled in showing nasty, graphic details. 

It's not a plot-driven film, to be sure. A woman inherits an old New Orleans hotel, which we discover (not a big spoiler here) sits on one of the seven doors to the gates of Hell. Weird and deadly occurrences ensue: eye gouging! Throat ripping! Tarantulas, um, tarantulaing! And possibly most shocking of all, a teen girl's head gets blown open with a shotgun. The last one might have been a problem for some regions and countries, and I can't guarantee it's in the American cut given its R rating. 

I didn't always say I engaged in good taste, though I definitely have my limits. Italian cannibal films are not my thing (just too cruel and ugly), I have no interest in The Human Centipede, and I know enough to not see A Serbian Film. Despite all the grossness of The Beyond, I have an issue with it that's almost laughable. There's a really nasty basement that a plumber has to enter to unclog some pipes. (It doesn't end well for him.) Having lived in Baton Rouge, I thought, there are no basements in New Orleans!

Roger Ebert gave the movie a 1/2 star review out of four, ranking it higher than Freddy Got Fingered or Rob Reiner's North. Or for that matter Caligula or I Spit on Your Grave. He was notoriously unsympathetic to most horror films, but far less than even Gene Siskel, who found The Silence of the Lambs to be too much. 

So what of the 7 Doors score? It has moments but Fabio Frizzi's original score is markedly better: more interesting, more eerie. (I have a copy of that too, it's possible I've even blogged about it before.) The Yusephs rework ideas over a little too much for my taste. It's very keyboard-oriented, synths, acoustic piano, snare drum (sampled?). There's atmosphere at times, but I just don't understand why the Frizzi score had to be replaced.

I'm seeing on imdb.com that the American theatrical release had its own composer, Walter E. Spear. It really begs of the question of why? I know...surely it has to come down to money. Probably licensing. Not paying for the original score. But then why commission a new score? I don't get it. We'll probably see Spear's score released on vinyl at some point too. 

VOTD 04/13/2025

 The Residents: Leftovers Again?! Again!?! (Again) (New Ralph Too)

Purchased new at The Attic

Back for one more feeding, I suppose. I can't complain about what's left of The Residents for picking through their archives and releasing more demos and unused material. I seem to shell out for at least some of it. I can't say any of has exactly blown me away, though there have been a few nice surprises. While rough and incomplete, a pre-version of Not Available was included in the pREServed 2CD edition that was worth a listen.

This series is various odds and ends that were supposedly rediscovered. I mean, with all thing Residents, we have only their word about these things. But it makes sense: Homer Flynn has just turned 80 this past week, and my guess is he's cleaning house. And I don't question that for a long time it was a struggle, so he deserves to earn from that.

This edition, the third in a supposed trilogy, mines material from the mid to late1980s. I've probably previously gone on about this, but it's the time when I start to lose interest in their music. I missed the awful saxophone playing, the out of tune piano, and unusual atmospheres and production. Replaced was a reliance on new sampling technology. That's not necessarily bad in itself. Their EP Intermission, the first to make extensive use of the E-mu Emulator,  makes some of the most interesting use of sampling on their records in my opinion. One can even hear the improvement in the quality of the technology over the course of this LP. That is to say, unless you like the sound of early samplers because they do sound old and cheap, or at lest antiquated. 

In particular, this LP opens with four track by The Big Bubble, The Residents' fictitious band from their Mole Trilogy narrative. It's demos of Homer and Hardy, sounding like works in development for the 13th Anniversary Tour, sans Snakefinger.

Odder is "Jazz Album Experiment", which of course sounds not a bit like jazz in the least. And I'm fine with fake jazz, that's what John Lurie called Lounge Lizards (even though it wasn't necessarily accurate). Their American Composers series, having reworked Gershwin, Sousa, Hank Williams and James Brown, supposedly was going to move on to Sun Ra next. Maybe it could have been great, who can say?

Well, leftovers aren't so bad really.

VOTD 04/04/2025

 H.N.A.S: Küttel Im Frost (Dom)

Purchased new at Eides, back in the day

There are several categories I have for filing my LPs. There's a general section, jazz/rock/pop artists (I know that labels don't always work, but I know what's what), another section for "classical" artists with a subsection for LPs on the Mainstream label produced by Earle Brown, a separate section for electronic specific artists, a bin for compilations, a section for soundtrack music, another for evangelical preacher LPs and other weirdness.

And finally, a section to expensive records. Records that could at least be sold for $75 each and often for far more. 

If you collect something, don't you thrill at the idea of scoring something that is valuable that nobody else knows about? I definitely have something of a hoarder gene, which I've tried to quell in more recent years. Nonetheless, I am always sniffing out vinyl treasures if nothing else. This has become exceedingly difficult in this age of discogs.com and other online resources.

I knew about H.N.A.S (Hirsche Nicht Aufs Sofa) because they released an LP on United Dairies, the Steven Stapleton/Nurse With Wound label. I was an active collector in those days. Anything UD or UD-tangential, I bought it up. Eide's Entertainment, in their old location on the Northshore of Pittsburgh was a primary source. (The cite, an old house, is around where the Roberto Clemente sculpture now stands). Later it was along Penn Avenue between 9th Street and the now convention center. Later, further up Penn Avenue past the bus station, and then two door over from that. It's a long long story, beyond what I've written.

Back in the old Northshore/Northside days. Gregg Kostelich was the record buyer. He knew if he filled his stock with the most bizarre and obscure titles, one person (usually me or about two or three others) would be excited to buy those things. 

And that's how I came to buy this LP. I remember parts of it, particularly the first ten minutes, so I'm certain I played it more than once on WRCT. The general edition is 400 copies and of some value, hence its inclusion in my "valuable LP" section. 

In general it has clicks and pops, so it must have received some play in general in my house. How to describe it? Wacky sound experiments, half-songs with half-musique concrete studies, and lots of "let's see what happens." Does this represent a by-gone age? A time when you could release an LP of sound experiments and be taken seriously by Op Magazine, or its offspring Option of Sound Choice? (The former lasted much longer than the latter, but basically went commercial. Sellouts.) 

This was all stirred because Christoph Heemann, half of H.N.A.S, is booked to play the Rock Room in Pittsburgh in a few weeks. The Rock Room is scuzziest space I can imagine. Yes I've played there. I'm not proud. 

If I make it (good likelihood) I have one or two LPs I want him to sign. 

CDOTD 03/30/2025

 MB & Nisi Quiernis: Phetalnuthrit (Red Light Sound)

Purchased through mail order

Besides my own work, am I on a personal crusade promoting certain people? I certainly can't be as obsessive out MB as some must be, considering how many releases he continues to make. MB/Maurizio Bianchi was early in on the cassette-trading scene. He started as Sacher Pelz, creating turntable abuses direct to tape. He later went by his initials, continuing his turntable manglings before his initial synth experiments and later running through his recordings through a haze of Echoplex. 

The early turntable abuses don't interest me much, apart his obsessiveness. His early synth experiments sometimes hold interest, with left and right channels creating separate performances. 

It's the echo-saturated albums that caught me. Endometrio/Carcinosi were the first I bought, at Eide's, reading the name in Op or some similar fanzine. The workers there filed it under E, which is why I beat Manny Theiner to that pair of LPs.

MB/Maurizio went from sub-underground superhero to retiree (becoming a Jehovah's Witness, no kidding) to returning to record-making. And now I think even he doesn't have every recording he's released.

This one's back in the dark ambient mold, noisy but underplayed sounds. Nisi Quiernis is a Maurizio nom de plum for spoken word performance. It's all in Italian, so every word escapes me. Mostly it's so-called dark ambient, soft-edged noise performances. 

I out this on a stream a few days ago, lay down on the couch and drifted off. An hour later at the end, I woke up. I suppose MB has served his purpose. 

VOTD 03/27/2025

 Charles Ives: The World of Charles Ives (Columbia)

(Three Places in New England, Washington's Birthday, Robert Browning overture)

It's a shame that I don't listen to local radio nearly as much as I used to. Generally when I do it's the NPR news outlet, but there's only so much of that I can take too and very little of its content is locally based. I just don't think most of the programming is worthwhile. I'll occasionally put on a local jazz station, and sometimes my old digs WRCT, but I just don't find it exciting like I once did. Sometimes I'm proven wrong, but not often enough. Maybe I'm just old and jaded.

I also don't listen to CDs in the car as much as I used to either. I have a cheap disc player, and had to hot glue the power supply to it, fed from that opening that used to hold the cigarette lighter. It's a nuisance, but still worthwhile on longer drives.

All of which is to say, it's easy for me to Bluetooth podcasts to my car stereo and that makes up a lot of my listening when I'm driving. Podcasts are another vast ocean of garbage to wade through, so it's not wonder I tend to focus on just a few, and even then nobody consistently. Marc Maron, Dana Carvey and David Spade, Al Franken, Joe Dante's "The Movies That Made Me", some others, and none of them consistently. 

Among the podcasts I intermittently catch is "Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast". I probably found it hunting for someone talking about Messiaen. That particular episode gave a nice summation of Messiaen's work, though the host (whose name I can't recall) didn't go into Turangalîla because he though another orchestral piece demonstrated Messiaen wanderlust more effectively. Meh. But then, being a big fan of that particular work, I guess it colors my opinion.

I've recently listened to his episode about Charles Ives' Three Places in New England, described with great enthusiasm. While I knew Ives blatantly and almost shamelessly quoted other peoples' melodies, even I wasn't aware to what extent. In the three movements, there's really only one significant original theme, the opening to "Putnam's Camp, Redding, Connecticut", itself an adaptation of Ives' own "Country Band March". 

Indeed, the host pointed out a particular spot where four distinct melodies, all quotes, are playing at the same time. It's not even the densest section of the movement. 

The work itself wouldn't be performed for almost two decades after its composition and orchestration. What exactly did Ives have in mind for this music that he wrote mostly for himself? Surely he did intend this to be performed at some point, but outside of possibly living room reading sessions, it wouldn't have been heard by anyone until long after its completion. By pushing through this collage of melodic materials, what is he asking of an audience (if he is indeed asking anything)?

Perhaps he wouldn't put it in these words, but I think Ives was playing at perception. What are you able to pick out? What do you recognize, what do you think you recognize? If four melodies play simultaneously, what if anything will you pick out from the combination? Will you heard different things with each subsequent listening?

Ives seems to have a gift for polychordal and polymodal composing; inside of a denser chord, it sounds as though there's a major or minor chord lurking. Or, he often places a tonal melody superimposed over a chord with which it has no clear relationship. If you were to pick apart the elements they'd all seem perfectly sweet sounding. It's his way of combining them that sound unsettled and unsettling. 

I have a copy of the score for Three Places, thanks to a certain guitarist's yard sale. The podcast host mentioned that there are several different edits of the work. And indeed, there are distinct differences between my copy of the score and the version heard here, conducted by Eugene Ormandy.

I enjoy Three Places and consider it the strongest work of this collection. But looking at the score, it's clearly not an easy piece to perform. I can picture many schooled orchestral players bristling over some of the demands and sounds of the work. I also suspect the general American classical music concertgoer probably doesn't go to the symphony hall of have their perception challenged. I on the other hand might actually attend more often if this was the sort of work they'd program, but I guess I'm not where the money is.