Sunday, December 19, 2010

Silence

Well that's a damn shame.

I'm observing a moment of silence for all the amplifiers that roar no more. I've been a member of this community for five years, and a fan of the music a lot longer than that. Fortunately, the distribution site, All That Is Heavy, and the label, Meteor City, are still around to soothe my troubled mind.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Academic

It's grad school application time. This is a paper I wrote about a year and a half ago that I am going to submit as a sample with my applications. My thesis proposal will be to perform academic study of popular music and its effect on historical events, particularly in the United States in the second half of the Twentieth Century.

It's more academic than what I would post here, and I may amend it yet. I just felt like I should put it up here at some point.

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It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleeding
American Music and the Vietnam War

The study of American music as a historical resource provides valuable insight into the American public’s reaction to the Vietnam War. The use of music enhances the historian’s understanding of the war as a social and cultural phenomenon, making it an extraordinary tool for the study of American youth culture during this time period. However, it is important to bear in mind the nature of the music industry as a whole, specifically the concerns and biases of the artists themselves and those of their audiences when utilizing music in this way. Musicians and songs must be subject to the same modes of critical thinking as other historical documents.
Taken as a whole, American music produced during the Vietnam War is an enormous body of historical information on musicians’ and fans’ opinions about the war and other contemporary political issues. Historian Jerome L. Rodnitzky argues that music is absolutely essential in order to fully understand the youth movement during the Vietnam War. Taking the years of Richard Nixon's first term as an example, he offers his opinion that popular music provides a better historical document for analysis of government policy than the official word of the American government. Briefly weighing the options against each other, he asks, "Would we learn more about the nature of American society and culture by listening to excerpts from that era's presidential speeches or by considering parts of a dozen popular songs? Having tried both sources, I would pin my hopes on the music.” While this is a rather obvious observation that popular criticism of the government is a more reliable measurement of its performance than the government’s own assessment, it certainly addresses the serious credibility gap suffered by the White House during the Vietnam years. Unfortunately, Rodnitzky fails to discuss the possibility of any disparity in quality between individual pop songs. Certainly they are not all equal in their usefulness to the historian. The nature of music and popular taste is such that some songs convey a great deal of information about an event or a space in time or a set of values, and some do not do any of these things. For this reason it is crucial to approach each song in the same manner that one would examine any other historical document; by critically analyzing it for biases and for its efficacy in communicating a point of view.
There are important limitations to the medium which must be acknowledged if one is to seriously consider music as a historical resource. The most important of these is that music, particularly pop music, is not suited for conveying the mass amounts of information necessary for the study of history. At least half of the impact of any given song is purely auditory. Therefore, to be completely effective, a song must be heard and not simply read. Analyzing popular music on the basis of lyrics alone completely ignores instrumental songs or passages in songs which can convey a certain mood or invoke an emotional response in the listener. This is important to consider in relation to the time period in which the Vietnam War took place. As rock ‘n’ roll became the dominant idiom of the anti-war movement in music during the later years of the war, it subverted that position from the traditional protest song in the style of the folk singer-songwriter. Meanwhile, the emphasis in the music itself likewise shifted to the rock and roll beat and sound, and away from the traditional focal point of the lyrics. Compounding the problems caused by the shift away from emphasis on lyrics is the difficulty inherent in forming an effective argument in the form of lyrics. The focus of lyrics according to the conventions of songwriting is on the overall sound of the song, rather than forming a coherent statement or providing evidence to support an idea. On the other hand, the power of music without any lyrics at all is purely emotional. This emotional impact is also ambiguous, and may be interpreted in any number of ways by the listener. Taking as an example Jimi Hendrix’s performance of his song “Machinegun” with the Band of Gypsys (sic) on New Years’ Eve 1969 at the Fillmore East in New York, we may demonstrate how the emotional impact of Hendrix’s guitar playing can convey any number of ideas to different listeners. In his introduction to the song, Hendrix makes clear that the song is a response to the war in Vietnam, as well as the turbulence and unrest in American cities. The song’s simplistic lyrics are sung, mantra-like, in a hypnotic fashion which emphasizes the sound of the lyrics and soulful wail of Hendrix’s voice, rather than the words themselves. It is the tone of his voice and the expressiveness of his guitar playing that convey to the listener the chaos of this turbulent period for a young black man in America. To a contemporary listener however, the music itself could mean something entirely different when divorced from its historical context. The power of the music remains the same regardless, but what it signifies is left to the individual listener’s imagination.
One must bear in mind at all times that musicians, like any historian, are subject to biases. The most crucial of these is the musician’s eternal struggle between their artistic desire to create something which will impact culture in a meaningful way, and the demands of an industry which requires from the artist a marketable commodity. For any musician to make a living off of their craft, a certain degree of popular taste must be taken into consideration. The more successful a musician becomes in an industry designed to make money off of an image, the more that musician becomes dependent upon their ability to exploit that image. There is also the distinct possibility that the musician’s attempt to ingratiate himself or herself into an already-converted audience by aligning with a certain fashionable trend or political cause is merely a cynical grab for mass appeal which may result in a backlash between the artist and former fans or “true believers” in the cause. Of course, it is imperative that the musician is never at any time seen to be acting in such a way, for to do so would mean a loss of legitimacy in the eyes of the public, which would then shatter the musician’s carefully cultivated image. Musicians must strike a precarious balance between mass appeal, uniqueness and credibility with their core audience. The ultimate consequence of this dilemma between commercial concerns and unfettered creativity is a paradox. To paraphrase rock historian Peter Doggett, when subversion becomes commercialized, how can it remain subversive?
According to some historians, the spirit of the rock ‘n' roll explosion during the mid to late 1960's was self-deluding in the lack of acknowledgement by its practitioners that the corporate behemoth that is the music industry was implicit in the dissemination of rock music to the masses. Commercial concerns drive every aspect of the music business. Quite simply, if there were no potential to make money off of artists, even those that were the most politically and musically radical, none of their recordings would have been financed by the record companies in the first place. David James, in his examination of the effect of commercial concerns within the context of an increasingly homogenized mainstream from the late 60's onward bluntly argued that, "only naively collusive journalism and advertising itself has been able to ignore what has become an increased, and increasingly overt, accommodation of rock to corporate priorities." Writing during the late 1980's, contemporary trends would bear James's opinion out. However, the luxury of hindsight allows musical scholars in the digital age to view the period in which James was writing as the peak of the mega-conglomeration of the record industry, followed by the implosion of the major labels in the post Mp3 age. Concerning the Vietnam era however, James' analysis applies to recorded music and its various channels only. What it ignores, however, is the proliferation in certain markets of non-playlisted, non-formatted FM radio during a time when mainstream music was dominated by rigidly formatted Top-40 AM radio. Clearly, in an area like San Francisco, which was already a hotbed of anti-war protest activity, musicians were being heard on their own terms, either on the radio or live at various nightclubs and “happenings” around town. James' analysis also does not acknowledge the oldest aspect of the music business - live performance. In the 1960's, as at any time in music history, musicians could perform material without regard to corporate entities, so long as there was an audience willing to show up and listen to a performance. Even artists and bands that did have record contracts made far more revenue from touring and gate receipts than any royalties earned from radio play. In this respect, commercial concerns are less important to a successful touring band, but the prospect of mass appeal remains a necessary component of a musician's career.
Contemporary historiography takes a more favourable view of the use of music as a historical resource. Music combines traditions of oral history with the artistic and cultural values of its creators and performers to form a unique and extremely useful historical resource. As is pointed out by Shirli Gilbert in her article on this subject, music, primarily the activity of singing, is a communicative and participatory activity which requires no training or instruments beyond the human voice. Although her article is primarily concerned with examining the songs sung by Nazi concentration camp victims as a source of historical information regarding their experiences, aspects of her discussion of the use of song as a historical resource are relevant to music produced about the Vietnam War as well. For instance, the creation and recording of original songs demonstrates an explicit urge to document opinions and experiences for future historians. Personal accounts such as memoirs or interviews which are recorded long after the events in question have taken place are frequently unreliable due to the malleability of personal recollections. A song written at the same time as a historical event can accurately convey the emotional reaction felt by the songwriter towards that event through a unique combination of lyrics and music, which may be preserved over time through the recording of the song. In an essay on the merits of utilizing music as a method of teaching in the classroom, Jarl A. Ahlkvist points out the usefulness of music as a way of connecting one with the values of another culture. Although Ahlkvist’s primary discipline is sociology, the historian may note the parallels. The use of music allows a historian to connect with the cultural values of people in the past in a way that resonates with contemporary society. Therefore, the analysis of music as a historical resource, in concert with thorough examination of the songwriter's biases, can offer insight and enhance the historian’s understanding of class, race or gender concerns as they pertain to the time period in question. Gilbert also reveals in her essay the potential difficulties involved with the use of music as a historical document, pointing out that the format provides little room for analysis of the main causes or overarching themes of major historical events, focusing instead on the immediate and limited experiences of the songwriter. By necessity, the historian must keep such limitations in mind when utilizing music in order to better understand a given time period or event.
The vast majority of music produced about the Vietnam War articulated a negative response towards American policy in Vietnam. During the height of the conflict between 1964 and 1973, American artists as diverse and popular as Arlo Guthrie, Buffalo Springfield, the Byrds, Bob Dylan, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Country Joe & The Fish, The Fugs, Grand Funk Railroad, Jimi Hendrix, Joan Baez, the MC5, Parliament Funkadelic, Phil Ochs, The Pink Fairies, Sly & The Family Stone, The Stooges, Ten Years After and other artists and bands produced music which was overtly critical of American policy in Vietnam. As public opposition to the war increased, so too did the number of artists and songs which were openly in opposition to the war. Though the correlation between the public outcry against the war and the preponderance of protest music on the charts may easily be established, it is more difficult to determine whether pop music was shaped by public opinion or vice-versa. What is clear is that contemporary rock and roll, being the most visible and important genre of American music during this period, reflects better than any other form of music the opposition towards the war which was felt by America’s youth during these years. Due to its position as the most powerful cultural force among youth during the 1960’s, rock ‘n’ roll became inextricably tied to the anti-war movement, in large part due to its fundamentally anti-authoritarian nature. Themes of rebellion, primarily sexual, are inherent within the music. In order to adequately assess the usefulness of this music as a historical resource, it is necessary to understand how the Vietnam War came to be addressed within the medium.
In the early 1960’s rock ‘n’ roll was still seen by the mainstream media either as a simplistic teenage fad or else a dangerous conduit through which messages of promiscuity and rebellion were transmitted to the nation’s youth. Soon after its explosion into the popular consciousness in the mid 1950’s, rock and roll eclipsed all other forms of music in popularity, including blues, classical, country, folk, gospel and jazz. There were a number of reasons for this. Rock ‘n’ roll was the first form of popular music to develop directly from the electrification of instruments and the amplification of sound that this allowed. As a result, music became louder, simpler, and more direct. The post-war economic boom also played a role, as the creation of a youth-oriented consumer culture created a greater market than ever before for popular entertainment targeted towards young people. New forms of media such as television and the transistor radio combined with the greater availability of records and record players to raise the level of exposure enjoyed by musicians to a much greater height than ever before. In contrast to the types of music that rock and roll grew out of, the musicians were generally white, making them more easily mass-marketed to the white middle-class consumer than black entertainers.
By the mid 1960’s, certain trends within music at large combined to fundamentally alter rock. Prominent folk and jazz musicians such as Bob Dylan in the former camp and Miles Davis in the latter began to incorporate rock instrumentation into their own styles, bringing them closer to rock musically and enhancing the style’s artistic credibility. At the same time, a generation of musicians who had grown up listening to early rock and roll began to expand upon the sonic possibilities of the basic rock song. Previously, pop music had been written by teams of professional songwriters who produced hits for groups of performers and kept the royalties. Under this model, the performer was merely a face used to sell the songs, nearly all of which were under three minutes long and dealt with the traditional pop song subjects of crushes, unrequited love or heartbreak. The impetus for change came with the arrival of the Beatles, whose insistence on writing and recording their own songs would trigger a paradigm shift within the music industry. The enormous success of the Beatles caused the major record labels to scramble to sign rock groups who wrote and performed their own songs. At the same time, rock musicians realized the creative possibilities that were available to them if they wrote their own songs, not to mention the royalties. Rather than focusing on traditional “pop” subjects and restricting themselves to writing conventional three-minute love songs, musicians began to address issues that had not previously been discussed in youth entertainment, and doing so in ways that drew upon other forms of music and broke with previous conventions of what rock could be. While other musical styles would continue to play an important role in the American music scene, rock basically swallowed everything whole and continued to mutate into new and diverse forms throughout the coming decade.
The rise of the rock festival during the late sixties exemplified the growing identification of rock and roll with the anti-war movement. Starting with impromptu anti-war demonstrations at which protest singers and rock bands provided entertainment, the scope and scale of such events began to grow to an enormous size by the late 1960’s. Reaching its nadir with the disastrous free show at Altamont in 1969, the rock festival offered the prospect of live music, usually accompanied by open drug use and promiscuity which attracted ever-larger crowds and antagonized the authorities. Such results quickly overshadowed whatever political overtones the events originally had. The question that bears consideration is how many of the fans and musicians themselves were actually committed to political causes such as civil rights or the anti-war movement, and how many were simply enjoying the hedonistic, utopian atmosphere common to rock festivals. It is important to consider this question when examining the role that music played within the anti-war movement.
Rock festivals were not the only scenes in which musicians and anti-war activists came together in song to help end the war. A number of classical composers did openly protest the war. On January 20, 1969, American composer Leonard Burnstein held a concert at the Washington Cathedral at which was performed Haydn's "Mass in time of War." The concert was attended by at least 12,000 people, four times as many as could fit inside the venue and forcing thousands of spectators to stand outside in the rain and listen. This was in stark contrast to what was happening across town at the Kennedy Centre, were Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture was performed as part of Richard Nixon's inauguration ceremony. Clearly, it would be a mistake to assume that rock ‘n' roll musicians were alone in creating music intended to have an impact on the war. The classical music world, not usually seen as a bastion of nonconformity by hippie radicals, became increasingly anti-war as American involvement began to escalate after 1965. According to American musical historian Ben Arnold, even modern classical composers were overwhelmingly opposed to the war. In previous wars, up until the early 20th century, composers had written classical pieces which glorified warfare. Even as recently as World War II, composers such as Aaron Copland and Roy Harris wrote music intended to bolster American war efforts. To illustrate the sea change which took place following the Second World War, consider that between 1945 and 1965, only 57 classical compositions specifically dealing with the subject of war were written and performed. However, between 1966 and 1974, a period less than half as long, 60 such pieces were composed. The composers of these pieces include Roger Hannay, Lou Harrison, Gail Kubik, William Mayer, Elie Siegmaster, Robert Fink, David Noon, Richard Wernick and John Downey, all of whom wrote compositions which were overtly critical of the war. Additionally, there was a massive increase in the number of pieces calling for peace during this period, at least 30, while only about 8 had been produced worldwide during World War II. Although most of these compositions were relatively unknown outside of classical music circles, the direct result of this common ground found between rock musicians and classical composers would eventually contribute to artists on both sides of the divide experimenting with each others' sounds in the coming decade, with experimental composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen and Glenn Branca serving as notable examples of rock’s ability to break down genre barriers and assimilate musical styles. What this flurry of activity within the arts community indicates to the historian is that musicians of disparate and even conflicting backgrounds and levels of training showed a consistent tendency to oppose the war.
Not all music produced during and about the Vietnam War was anti-American. Particularly early in the war a number of hit songs such as Pat Boone's "Wish You Were Here Buddy" and "The Ballad of the Green Berets" by Barry Sadler carried distinctly pro-American messages. Though there was a distinct decline in the number of songs featuring pro-American sentiments as public support for the war waned, there still were a number of songs written and recorded which maintained these messages throughout the war. Even as late as 1971 following the trial of Lt. Calley for the My Lai massacre, Terry Nelson's "The Ballad of Lt. Calley," set to the tune of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," gained popularity as a pro-American tune. In the world of country and western music especially, there was a relatively high percentage of conservative pro-American songs, with songs such as "Okie from Muskogee" and "The Fightin' Side of Me" by Merle Haggard providing notable examples. Another common theme among music which was not anti-American is the lament for the fallen soldier, in some cases referring to the dead on both sides. Pete Seeger's "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" was a popular elegy for the deceased performed by countless folk singers throughout the war. Likewise, American composers such as John Baell with "Lament For those Lost in War" and Donald Lybbert and his "Lines for the Fallen" used the mourning of American war dead as the theme for their respective pieces.
An often-overlooked facet of American music during the Vietnam War concerns music made and listened to by the troops themselves. Music was broadcast to the troops in Vietnam on the radio either on the American Forces Vietnam Network or on the “bullshit net,” illegal troop-operated stations broadcast via field radios. The listening preferences of troops largely broke down across age and racial lines, with young white troops listening predominantly to rock music and the older whites listening to more country and western, while most black troops preferred soul music and Motown. Many soldiers even wrote and performed music themselves. Some were experienced musicians before coming to Vietnam, and a number brought musical instruments with them and wrote and played covers as well as their own original songs. These songs could be sung for small groups in barracks, or performed by bands made up of members of a unit. Original songs could run the gamut from parodies of popular songs such as "Where Have All the Field Reps Gone," "I Fly the Line" or any number of parodies of "The Ballad of the Green Berets," to completely original compositions. Exactly how many of these existed cannot be known, as an enormous number were never recorded. Due to the rapidity of troop movements, popular troops’ folk songs could often spread quickly. Similar to the traditional folk and blues songs developed in America, the unique songs of the troops in Vietnam emerged as a response to the hardships of life in a combat zone. These could serve any number of purposes. Troops used songs as a way of coping with the stress of combat, to ease the longing for home, to build camaraderie with one another, to vent frustration with incompetent officers, or simply to have a laugh. Those songs that have been recorded and preserved provide a valuable historical document for those studying the experiences of American troops in the war.
American music provides the historian with a wealth of information concerning youth culture and the anti-war movement as a social phenomenon during the Vietnam War. The major cultural and political trends of the Vietnam years were indelibly linked to one another through the medium of music, which had a profound impact on the actions and attitudes of the youth. However, as with any historical document, it is crucial for the historian to consider the artist’s biases as well as those of the audience in order to obtain a better understanding of the role of music in relation to the war.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Standards

John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats on working with former Morbid Angel and current Hate Eternal member Erik Rutan: "I'm a good indie rock guitarist, but there's hardly any guitarists in all of indie rock that are fit to carry the shoes of a second-string metal guitarist. Those people are the real deal..." (taken from pitchforkmedia.com)

RECOGNIZE!

When did it stop being cool to play your instrument really well? I've never thought that technical wizardry was a prerequisite for making good music (in some cases the opposite is true) but anyone that can achieve a high level of musical proficiency deserves respect in my book. Seems like very little attention is paid in modern rock to actually being able to play. I want to hear musicians challenging the limits of their abilities, whatever those limits may be. Too much of modern rock is content with tears in its music, minus the sweat and the blood. Metal is the exception.

In another note, if you ever want to REALLY freak someone out, throw on Side 4 of Can's Tago Mago. It's the sound of gifted musicians running wild and losing their minds.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Nomenclature

This post was inspired by a conversation yesterday about Vancouver thrash-metal stalwarts Excruciating Pain. Not be confused with the other bands that go by that name, these dudes have added the catchy prefix "The Almighty" to their name. The footage is a poorly recorded sprint-metal thrasher from one of their frequent shows at the hippest place in town, East Hastings' very own FUNKY WINKERBEAN, home of the $1.50 water-beer combo pint. Come soak up some local colour on the down town East Side. Bet they get a lot of Grindcore shows.

Anyways, the point of this post: It exists. The Metal Band Name Generator. The bastards beat me to it! Just goes to show, if you've ever had an original idea, don't bother because someone has already done it.

But all is not lost. Because I'm a fan more specifically of the Thrash Metal genre, here are a few examples of made-up thrash bands I can think of off the top of my head. I could come up with these all day:

Eternal Agony
Ruthless Destruction
Endless Oblivion
Gruesome Slaughter
Paralyzing Terror
Mental Crucifixion
Terrible Violence
Satanic Possession
Repulsive Visage
Shocking Brutality
Nuclear Holocaust
Biological Genocide
Ritual Dismemberment
Horrifying Atrocity
Insane Bloodlust
Hellfire Overlord
Pagan Sacrifice
Chemical Immolation
Barbaric Torture

If you ever want to use any of these names, go ahead. I've got hundreds. If you already have a band using one of these name, fine, you thought of it first and you are smarter than me.

Think of your own. Go nuts. It's fun.

Addendum

As promised, I return! My girlfriend and I missed the start of the Black Angels' set, which started at the unreasonably early time of 9pm, so what follows is not a complete account. The show was also ear-shatteringly loud, so loud that we could hear the band playing as we walked down Granville street. We entered to the strains of a patented Black Angels' death song, which worked itself into a steamy lather as we visited the merch table and then found a suitable vantage point. The Commodore is a wonderful old room if you get there early enough to secure one, and a creaky death trap if you are forced to settle for a partial view from behind the ancient wooden pillars that hold the place up. Someday it's going to burn down and kill everyone inside, a la Great White. Ah, but I digress. The show.

The Angels quickly launched into a vicious rendition of Passover favourite "Hellhounds on my Trail," complete with slide guitar and culminating in an explosive noise freakout. The band was bathed in psychedelic light throughout the show, fluorescent greens and oranges often giving way to spirals of blue and deep red. Previously, the Black Angels have been known to project Vietnam-era stock footage on the stage during performances, but none was to be seen on this night. The warped 'summer of '68'-style jangle-pop of "Yellow Elevator #2" and the tribal pounding and arching feedback of "The Sniper At The Gates of Heaven" provided other early highlights to the set. The sound was punishingly loud, but the instruments were all clear and the band was powerful. Throughout the ensemble's playing was tight and varied, with members switching up instruments and songs frequently being stretched out to treat the audience to a particularly tasty groove or mind-expanding improvisational section. Depending on your opinion of jamming, this kind of thing can be anathema, but none of these digressions ever lasted too long, they were simply embellishments which re-interpreted old and new material in a free-form live context. The songs were all still very much recognizable as such, but it was not a rote recital of the recorded versions. Christian's voice was clear and powerful throughout, and his energetic hollers and whoops in mid-song lent a spontaneity and energy to the performances. Stage banter was almost non-existent, not really a bad thing for a band of the Angel's talents.

The set list was well-chosen and varied, hitting the necessary high points of all three of their albums without focusing too much on any of them. The band's second and weakest album, Directions To See a Ghost was represented by only a handful of its very best songs. Among these were "Mission District" which boasts a tasty buildup and a riff as crushing as anything in the catalog, and "Science Killer," a classic death march which rides a snaky groove through the murk and is spiced up with some maracas. At a psychedelic rock show, where the line between transcendent and monotonous can easily become blurred depending on your own preferences or even quantity of drugs taken, it is important to craft a set which maximizes the dynamics of the performance. This is especially crucial for a band like the Angels, whose mandate dictates that they play droning Velvet Underground-inspired trance rock which strips the listener's senses and scrubs the mind of all earthly perception through sheer volume and repetition. Although there was a bit of a lull mid-set, the band did pull off the difficult feat of balancing these conflicting ideals.

The band continued to go from strength to strength over the course of an almost 90 minute set, as excellent cuts from 2010's Phosphene Dream album such as "Entrance Song," "The Sniper" and the title track were given powerful and exciting live renditions. The album is easily the band's most dynamic and song-oriented to date, and the material was equally vibrant and hard-hitting from on stage. These poppier numbers were alternated with vintage Angels mind-melters like the propulsive anti-war anthem "The Second Vietnam War" and the corrosive fuzz-bass stomper "Black Grease."

The set was brought to a powerful conclusion by a hammering one-two punch. First, the garage pop of "Telephone" was stretched far longer than the album's 1 minute and 59 second runtime and turned the band's poppiest and most memorable song to date into a methanphetamine-laced White Light, White Heat jam far more in line with the band's murky aesthetic. That is a compliment. Finally, the band closed its set with their best ever song, the incredible "Young Man Dead." The first half of the song was a little bit more up-tempo than the recorded version, which did not particularly suit the song at all. Fortunately, it was a bait-and switch, because the song's tripped out false collapse halfway through soon exploded into an absolutely massive half-time riff which brought down the house. All in all a very good performance from a great rock band, and one that will hopefully win them some new fans from among the sea of hipsters and beardos which populate Vancouver's concert halls.

Black Mountain took the stage to a triumphant reception some time later, but since I didn't stay for the whole show I won't review it here. Suffice it to say, the Mountain is a titanic force live, but on this particular night they were merely ground-shaking instead of earth-shattering. A glut of mediocre material from the disappointing new album is to blame. Amber Webber's warbly vibratto-obsessed vocals, which have previously detracted from what have been some of the greatest rock shows I've ever been to, were slightly less irritating than they have been in the past.

Also, for what it's worth, I picked up my own copy of Passover on vinyl from the merch table. Now I own all three on wax, and I can tell you that the Black Angels and Light in The Attic records do a fantastic job with the packaging of their products, putting everything on extremely high-quality 180 gram vinyl and providing lyrics and artwork in all their albums. I feel this extra effort is worth mentioning, and I wish more record companies shared this commitment to superior quality.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Entertainment

Dropout Boogie tour tonight! Black Angels & Black Mountain at the Commodore. It's gonna be one dark evening. Setlist and analysis to follow.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Glance

Just checking in. I'm at the busiest time of year for school right now. A couple weeks and I'll be on vacation.

The new Kylesa album, Spiral Shadow is ruling my world right now, these guys have just gotten better with each release. It's their fifth platter, and my favourite. The title track just destroys. "Don't Look Back" is catchy like herpes. Crazy eastern guitar leads on "Crowded Road." Giant fucking riffs and huge hardcore shoutalongs. Anthemic, huge, awesome. Look for it on some year-end lists.

Gonna see some shows this week! Quest For Fire and Thee Oh Sees this week for some heavy psych and crazy rock n' roll, then see Bison and Kylesa melt some faces in a couple weeks. It's looking like a heavy winter.

THE BEARD IS BACK. By which I mean, my good friend Noah from Calgary says he's brought me a copy of former Blue Cheer guitarist Randy Holden's 1970 solo album, Population II. Have a taste.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Remembrance

Motörhead's "1916" is a simple, touching tribute to the fallen. I can think of no better song which captures the futility of war. Wear a poppy and hug a veteran today, if you can still find one.

16 years old when I went to war,
To fight for a land fit for heroes,
God on my side,and a gun in my hand,
Counting my days down to zero,
And I marched and I fought and I bled
And I died & I never did get any older,
But I knew at the time, That a year in the line,
Is a long enough life for a soldier,

We all volunteered,
And we wrote down our names,
And we added two years to our ages,
Eager for life and ahead of the game,
Ready for history's pages,
And we fought and we brawled
And we whored 'til we stood,
Ten thousand shoulder to shoulder,

A thirst for the Hun,
We were food for the gun,
And that's What you are when you're soldiers,
I heard my friend cry,
And he sank to his knees,coughing blood
As he screamed for his mother'

And I fell by his side,
And that's how we died,
Clinging like kids to each other,
And I lay in the mud
And the guts and the blood,
And I wept as his body grew colder,

And I called for my mother
And she never came,
Though it wasn't my fault
And I wasn't to blame,
The day not half over
And ten thousand slain,and now
There's nobody remembers our names
And that's how it is for a soldier.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Extraneous

Today is a happy day in British Columbia. Ladies and gentlemen, our Premier, mister Gordon Campbell, has resigned.



I promised myself I wouldn't cry when it happened. And I'm not.

I know this has nothing to do with music, but I'm so happy I just want to stand on the roof and shout out to the world. So... here's a song I guess.

Oh yeah, and Electric Wizard have a new album out, Black Masses, and it probably canes harder than anything since Dopethrone. Just so you know, they are the Heaviest Band in the Universe. I held a cage match once to find out. Anyways, I'm gonna go listen to it. See ya.

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Unholy

So I'm tearing myself away from Hammer horror films and homework to do a quick and dirty Hallowe'en playlist to share with y'all. Unsurprisingly, it's heavy (no pun intended) on the doom metal. When the Zombie apocalypse comes, we'll all be jammin' out to these tunes.

Music to creep to:
Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath
Mercyful Fate - Into The Coven
Witchfinder General - Burning Sinner
The Misfits - Mommy, Can I Go Out And Kill Tonight?
Bad Brains - Fearless Vampire Killers
Awesome Color - Zombie
Ramesses - Baptism Of The Walking Dead
KISS - Unholy
Candlemass - Under The Oak
Death - Zombie Ritual
Cathedral - Serpent Eve
Warlord - Mrs. Victoria
Saint Vitus - Zombie Hunter
Blue Öyster Cult - Tattoo Vampire
Mayhem - Funeral Fog
Warlock - Burning The Witches
The Ramones - I Don't Wanna Go Down Into The Basement
Iron Maiden - Dance Of Death
Morbid Angel - Chapel Of Ghouls
Ozzy Osbourne - Bark At The Moon
The Melvins - At The Stake
Possessed - The Exorcist
Judas Priest - Evil Fantasies
Exciter - Black Witch
Electric Wizard - We Live
Pentagram - When The Screams Come
AC/DC - Night Prowler
Trouble - The Skull
Angel Witch - White Witch
Venom - Witching Hour
Sunn 0))) - Big Church
Helloween - Halloween

Happy Halloween all you witches and warlocks!

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Reccomendation

If you are ever looking for a place to buy wax in Vancouver, Neptoon Records is the place to go. Their selection of early 70's rock n' roll is unsurpassed in the city. Props to Ben for ordering in all that crazy stuff, including plenty of obscure Japanese psych and long out of print British hard rock. Great used section too, everything is in good shape and reasonably-priced. Would that I had way more money to spend on records, I'd be in here every day.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Amalgamation

We all know that the first four Black Sabbath albums should be required listening for every man woman and child on earth. That's a self-evident truth. But what about the others? Mid-period Sabbath is often criminally overlooked due to the drug-fueled excess, legal wrangling and just plain bad ideas that plagued the band from 1973-1975. As much as the band's personal lives may have been falling apart at the time, there was still enough left in the tank to produce two great albums in Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath and Sabotage that are only disappointing if held to the impossibly high standard the band had already set for itself during the incomparable main sequence of Black Sabbath, Paranoid, Master Of Reality and Volume 4. Until 1976, it was never a lack of good material that hampered the band, but rather an abundance of half-baked ideas and poor decisions. The torrid pace with which the earlier material was cut compared to the 2 year layover between Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Sabaotage suggest not only that the ideas may have been slower in coming but also that they were more heavily laboured upon when they arrived. At that point in their career a very successful band, Sabbath was given access to studio time and equipment that had previously been unavailable, and the temptation to make use of it caused a shift in their sound towards something denser and more progressive. Not that this was necessarily a bad thing, as such studio flourishes like Geezer's nifty overdriven echo-wah bass on "The Writ" or the acoustic coda to "Symptom Of The Universe" make clear, but the case I'm making with this here riff sandwich is that Sabbath could still move mountains when they just locked in and did what they did best. Hey, no one's done torpid, doomy drug rock better than these guys before or since, so why not listen to some of their lesser-beloved material with a fresh set of ears?

Side A
Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath
Symptom Of The Universe
Killing Yourself To Live
Megalomania

Side B
Hole In The Sky
Sabba Cadabra
A National Acrobat
The Writ

How's that for a smokin' platter of rock n' roll? No "Fluff," "Who Are You," or "Superczar," just slow, heavy riffs and titanic drums with everyone's favorite acid-blasted hippy pleading for peace and love. And really, isn't that all you ever wanted?

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Canterbury

I was jamming on Caravan's In The Land Of Grey and Pink and couldn't help but notice that the side-long suite that formed one half of the album was much more interesting than the whimsical ditties on the other. I think the thing that turned me off early 70's prog, especially the less guitar-centric strains, was that when I was younger I couldn't get past the silliness of it all. To me, songs about having golf balls raining down on you just isn't as cool as summoning the fire witch to the court of the crimson king. Some of that stuff just strikes me as too precious. Rush might be something of a laughingstock, but those guys knew where their balls were until at least Signals. They've since found 'em again too, which is more than someone could say for Eric Clapton these days.

It's symptomatic of what was happening to rock music in the mid '70s. Too many bands got hung up on trying to make records with songs for radio when they should have been following their more otherworldly impulses. If anything, Pink Floyd proved this kind of thing could be profitable, but most others were not as lucky or as good. And Pink Floyd still had balls even when making commercially successful records. The result was a lot of partly-interesting records that are broken up by embarrassing radio tracks. This goes for lots of different kinds of rock, not just prog, and it was one of the reasons rock seemed to run dry by the late 70's. The exploratory spirit of the early psych, space, garage, prog, and protometal bands was strangled by the demands of the radio mafia. This is why punk, and more importantly heavy metal had to happen.

I these days, vintage sounding 70's prog rock is being made by bands like Astra, Diagonal, Litmus and Zombi to name a few. Most of them have latched on to the stylistic signifiers of their fore bearers while adding some much-needed muscle. This generation has grown up with hard rock as a part of its basic diet, unlike many early 70's musicians who came at things from a folk, blues, jazz, classical, experimental or psychedelic background. Heavy riff passages are alternated judiciously with spacey drones, off-time jamming and phasered up guitar solos. Its heartwarmingly authentic, but these bands are synthesizing the best of their influences into a sound that is powerful and exciting again. Prog rock may not really be progressive anymore, but that doesn't mean there isn't anything worthwhile to be gained from continuing to mine the style. Even more established acts like Black Mountain have allowed this style to influence their work. It seems that bulking up has done wonders for the musicians in these bands.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Commerce

Everyone who liked indie rock in high school grew up and got a job at a marketing firm.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Rekindle

Turns out university is actually a lot of work. But here's a little something for you: Julian Cope's Japrock sampler top 50. Read his book Japrocksampler and have your mind blown.

Thanks to J.P. for finding this.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Continuity

So I am back from my trip, good times were to be had. However, I've decided to focus my energies into something that is longer than the blog format will allow. I'm writing a retrospective of the decade in rock music. Also, school is starting once again, and I'm currently obsessed with playing the World War II campaign in Civilization II. Operation Sea Lion was a success! Anyways I'll probably post it on here when its done, but the more I do, the more I find that needs coverage. Anyways, I'll probably be updating about as often as I usually do, which is to say, not very.

Here's a few capsule reviews for ya...

Jesu - Jesu (2006)
Justin Broadrick's opus. The man has spent the better part of three decades redefining metal, as a member of Napalm Death, Godflesh and other shorter-lived projects, but this is my favourite record of his. All votes for Scum will be counted though. This record is absolutely colossal. Each titanic track marches at a snail's pace, like fog rolling inexorably across the horizon. Broadrick uses dense waves of distortion and syrupy atmospherics to craft music that is titanically heavy yet soothes the listener like a warm blanket. It's easy to get lost in the haze, but it's not really difficult listening. A bliss-out metal record.

Candlemass - Nightfall (1987)
I've always been a huge fan of Candlemass's debut, Epicus Doomicus Metallicus, but had never really spent much time with the later records featuring Messiah Marcolin on vocals until recently. While Nightfall does not top Epicus in terms of doomy ambience or quality material, fans of Marcolin's more operatic vocals may prefer this release, which combines the darkness and gloom of prime Sabbath with the grandeur of classic heavy metal. Bassist and main songwriter Leif Edling possesses an astounding supply of awesome riffs, and the advanced guitar heroics of Lars Johansson conjure majestic cathedral spires.

sHEAVY - Celestial Hi-Fi (2000)
These Canadians do a cool heavy rock thing better than most of their stoner-rock contemporaries. Singer Steve Hennessy is an absolute dead ringer for Ozzy, so the Sabbath comparison get's tossed around a lot, but this record is spacier than the masters themselves ever got. sHEAVY can write a song, so the best tracks allow the band to rise above mimicry, but we're never too far off from Sabbath Bloody Sabbath territory. If that's not a problem for you, then this is a fine hard rock album. When the band stretches out, as on album-closer "Tales From The Afterburner" their ensemble playing really shines. Most of the songs here are in the 5 to 6 minute range, so there is plenty of space for the songs to roam without ever losing the listener's attention. Other standout tracks are "What's Up Mr. Zero?" and a re-recorded version of "At The Mountains Of Madness" which was previously released on their 1996 album Blue Sky Mind.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Sabbatical

I'm fed up with working for the man, so I'm going to go explore the British Columbian wilderness for about 3 weeks. See you guys when I get back. I'll definitely have lots to discuss when I get back, because I'm pretty much going to be tuned in to some heavy frequencies the whole time. In the meantime, enjoy a completely unrelated video of wintertime driving to accompany Sun Araw's excellent "Heavy Deeds." Hell, I didn't even watch it, just dig the groove, maaaaaaan. Turn it up and let it wash over you while you do something else. Droney Psych -- it's the new sound.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Saint Vitus - Born Too Late




Band: Saint Vitus
Album: Born Too Late
Label: SST
Year: 1986
Rating: 93%

Saint Vitus
may have been the most important rock band in the world in 1986. Although their commercial prospects at the time were negligible, their moment, while it lasted, (About 1986 to 1990) had as lasting an influence and was as brilliantly powerful in its own way as any rock band's ever. Lasting from the amicable departure of original vocalist Scott Reagers (the band continued to use some of his lyrics on Born Too Late) until the more acrimonious defection of his replacement, Scott "Wino" Weinrich, Saint Vitus's classic lineup produced 3 albums, an EP and a live album. While the Replacements and Hüsker Dü charted the shark-infested waters of major label politics, Sonic Youth was busily marrying its avant garde noisescapes to the traditional rock song format and Metallica and its cronies were barreling ahead towards world domination, Saint Vitus presaged the aesthetic and ideological return of the riff to the rock form. No-wave's noise exploration and thrash metal's relentless grooves and rabid shredding may have been the most notable contributions of those bands and their respective associates to guitar music, but with the benefit of hindsight it is clear that neither of these stylistic innovations had nearly the same bearing on rock music as a whole that the return of the riff would. (As for the world of metal, which would continue to develop as a form of music distinct from rock, the re-emergence of the riff would have to wait until extreme metal bands in the early 90's had exhausted what interest there was in pushing the thresholds of speed and brutality.) Although collegiate critical darlings like the Pixies and Dinosaur Jr. would later receive much of the credit for the loud-quiet-loud dynamic that would come to swallow the rock song format whole in the coming decade, it was Vitus who most clearly predicted, by exaggerating and emphasizing the riff as an end unto itself, the shape that loudness would take. And nobody ever listened to rock because of the quiet parts.

Every alternative, grunge, hard rock and nu metal band of the 90's would come to embrace both the loud-quiet-loud songwriting philosophy as well as the focus on riff construction that Vitus had rescued. To be sure, Vitus's dirges have their antecedents, the most obvious being early Black Sabbath and other `70s proto-doom hard rock bands like Pentagram, Necromandus, Lucifer's Friend, Warhorse and Jerusalem. There were also like-minded revivalists during the 80's. Witchfinder General made overtly doomy records heavily indebted to this era a decade later during the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, and Chicago's Trouble and Sweden's Candlemass were contemporaries of Vitus who, though distinctly more metallic in their embrace of neo-classical composition and histrionic vocals, were just as heavily indebted to the grooves of Master Of Reality. Even Wino's own trio The Obsessed had been hinting at a similar sound before he disbanded the group to join Vitus. Meanwhile, members of the punk/hardecore axis were slowing down their hectic tempos and letting their music breathe. Black Flag, Flipper, Across The River, The Melvins and Soundgarden are all notable in this regard. What made Vitus unique is that they were the first band to move beyond the realm of Sabbath copycats and create something wholly new. Most importantly, they played slower, and more heavily, than any band before them.

Originally flung upon unfriendly punk audiences while opening for Black Flag in the early 80's, Saint Vitus were as punk rock in attitude as a band could be. (It should be noted that these same audiences were just as hostile to Black Flag's sludgy makeover on their My War album as well.) Authentic throwbacks to an era that for most punks was a happily forgotten childhood memory, Saint Vitus were as uncool a group of guys as could be in the punker-than-thou American underground of the mid-`80s. Thier long, greasy biker hair and demim jackets drew the scorn of the nose ring and shaved head set, to say nothing of the teased hair and makeup of MTV hair metal. The truth is, they never had a chance.


Born Too Late
is the purest distillation of the Vitus aesthetic. The band's attitude can best be summed up by the album's opener, the 7-minute title track. To this day, nothing matches its defiant power as a doom anthem. It is an avalanche of sound, suffocating the listener at a glacial pace. Throughout, crushing, insurmountable walls of heavily distorted guitar are tuned so low that they are subsumed into Mark Adams' bass frequencies. The song never speeds up, not even a little. Instead, it agonizingly crawls along in slow motion as Wino intones his tales of isolation with a knowing bellow that is instantly recognizable and impossible to replace.

Every time I'm on the street,
people laugh and point at me.
They talk about my length of hair,
and the out of date clothes I wear.

They say I look like the living dead,
they say I can't have much in my head.
They say my songs are much too slow,
but they don't know the things I know!

I know I don't belong,
and there's nothing that I can do.
I was born, too late,
and I'll never be like you....

Then, the band unleashes its secret weapon; lead guitarist Dave Chandler takes off on a long, highly melodic solo extrapolated from somewhere between Ron Asheton's primitive wah-fuzz freakouts and Tonny Iommi's slightly more nuanced appropriation of heavily overdriven and detuned Hendix licks. Though not particularly advanced as a technical player, Chandler possesses an extraordinarily musical sense of melody and counterpoint. As the principle songwriter of Saint Vitus, Chandler never forgot to keep his playing a component of the overall band voice, only playing the notes that needed to be played, and squeezing the maximum amount of emotional resonance out of them. His tone and sustain are masterful throughout, and frequently his playing dissolves into howling noise and feedback only to rise once again like a phoenix from the ashes with a beautiful melody line emerging from the sonic destruction surrounding it. After the final verse, Chandler again takes off on a solo, only this time it sounds like he's actually attacking his amplifiers, so jarring and physical is the effect he gets out of his battered SG.

If the rest of the album was only mediocre but for the title track, Born Too Late would still be an important record. Thankfully it is not. Although none of the other songs quite reach that level, there are gems throughout. "Clear Windowpane" ups the tempo a little and provides the band with one of their most hummable numbers and was also a frequent live favourite. Elsewhere the album is much more ominious. "Dying Inside" moves like a funeral march as Wino revels in the misery of the bottle, while "The War Starter" sports visions of global holocaust. "The Lost Feeling" alternates a groovy bassline with palls of overdriven guitar and spinechilling tales of addiction and depression straight out of Sabbath's "Hand of Doom." However, unlike Sabbath and other more indulgent hard rock bands, the ensemble playing here does not make room for any but the most minimal embellishments on the part of the players. Mark Adams keeps his playing steady and streamlined throughout while Armando Acosta's timekeeping and fills are precise and powerful. One may be tempted to dismiss the musicianship as amateurish, but to these ears it sounds highly disciplined, every player filling his role in service of the band.

Saint Vitus at their best typify the band ideal. In any rock band, the more the players' egos are subsumed into the overall voice of the band, the heavier that band may become. Saint Vitus were the heaviest band in the world for a time, and through them a direct line can be drawn through The Melvins, Cathedral, Sleep, Earth, Boris, Burning Witch, Khanate, Sunn O))) and any other purveyors of monolithic sonic destruction that have come since. Their next two albums, 1988's Mournful Cries and 1990's V continued to explore this dynamic and are almost as impressive demonstrations of power and craft, although they lack the overall level of quality songwriting and the original creative spark that made Born Too Late a truly classic album. This belongs in the collection of any music fan who has even a vague interest in heavy music.

*Note* The SST CD reissue that I own came with the 3-song 1987 Thirsty & Miserable EP also on the CD as bonus tracks. The songs here are equally as impressive as anything on Born Too Late, though maybe somewhat more sprightly in tone, and the quarter-time Black Flag cover alone is worth the price of the admission.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Proverb

Rock n' roll is a dish best served baked - and generously sauced.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Annoyance

I saw Tool the other night. Good show, but I couldn't believe how many douchebags there were in the crowd. You know, juice monkeys in muscle shirts who throw up the middle finger when the chorus hits. What the hell is up with that? Additionally annoying to me was the number of times I had to let some drunk morons stumble out of the isle to go get more 8 dollar beers. Have these people never been to a concert before? get drunk BEFORE the main act's set. It's not a hockey game. Why did you spend 70 bucks to see a band only to spend half the set waiting in line for beer? And another thing, your seat numbers are printed on your tickets. There's no reason why 7 people should be arguing about 4 seats in the middle of the row 20 minutes into the set. You can count, right? SORT IT OUT, FUCKERS!

It must be amusing to the band, who by all accounts are an extremely intelligent group of men. I mean, for the band to invest so much into their art, both in the studio and onstage (the advanced musicianship, the complex interlocking layers that form their music, the multimedia presentation that accompanies it, etc.) only to have some drunks lose their shit every time a light gets shined at them might be kind of frustrating. Then again, I guess they are doing alright for themselves.

Anyways, here's the setlist:

Third Eye
Jambi
Stinkfist
The Patient
Intolerance
Vicarious
Schism
46 & 2

-interlude-

Lateralus
Ænema

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Patriotic

Happy Canada Day one and all! For those of you who aren't from the land of hockey and maple syrup, it might come as a surprise that we actually count rock as one of our foremost imports. Particularly in the last decade I am proud to say that a number of first rate bands and artists have made a name for themselves, although plenty of high volume rock n' roll has been emanating from the great white north for decades now. Anyways, here's a little something I threw together... my Top 10 Canadian albums of all time!

1. Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere(1969)
2. Black Mountain - Black Mountain (2005)
3. Godspeed You Black Emperor! - Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven (2000)
4. Fucked Up - The Chemisty Of Common Life (2008)
5. Rush - 2112 (1976)
6. Voivod - Killing Technology (1987)
7. Jerk With A Bomb - Pyrokinesis (2002)
8. Bison - Quiet Earth (2008)
9. Exciter - Heavy Metal Maniac (1983)
10. Anvil - Metal On Metal (1982)



Former Philadelphia Flyers captain Bobby Clarke got his teeth knocked out in the mosh pit at a D.O.A. show in 1981. He still thinks Joey Shithead totally sold out and that the Subhumans were way better.

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Semiannual

It's the half way point of the year, so here's a little overview of some of my favorite albums so far for 2010.


Bison BC
- Dark Ages
A French horn? METAL!!!! Opener "Stressed Elephant" blew my mind when I first heard it. The rest of the album comes close to matching it for pure awesomeness. This is powerful, sludgy thrash from one of the best metal bands in the world


Caribou
- Swim
A gorgeously layered and disorienting headphone record from a guy who is good at making headphone records.

Cathedral - The Guessing Game
After 2005's The Garden of Unearthly Delights, I had pretty much given up hope of hearing a new Cathedral album ever again. I only discovered that a new one was coming out by chance actually. Anyways, this is a solid Cathedral album which continues and even expands on Garden's overt prog leanings. It is a double album after all. That said, there's still enough heavy riffage and cock-eyed Lee Dorrian cackling here to satisfy most fans, unless you are the kind that are still pining for a return to Forests Of Equilibrium.

Dead Meadow - Three Kings
Dead Meadow have a pretty good handle on their sound. Over the last decade their heady, heavy and hazy sound has not really changed a whole lot. This live multimedia album/Song Remains The Same homage serves two purposes: It acts as a sort-of greatest hits compilation, and also lets the acolytes know that Dead Meadow have a better sense of humor than they might have imagined. Anyways, the performances are good, and die hards will enjoy hearing how they vary from the originials. A side of new studio material is here as well, and these 5 songs are no more and no more than what you would expect- Fuzzy, shoegazy stompers with plenty of Jason Simon wah-guitar solos all over them.


Flying Lotus
- Cosmogramma
As a general rule I try not to talk about stuff like this too much in this blog, because a) I'm worried about revealing my ignorance of the intricacies of the very wide world of electronic music, and b) if you're reading my thoughts about obscure hard rock bands like Budgie and Stray, there's a good chance you've already made up your mind about what you think of electronic music, and nothing I say will change your mind. Suffice it to say, COSMOGRAMMA IS FUCKING CRAZY! I've never heard so many styles of electronic colliding and conflicting with one another, but somehow, instead of a tangled mess, it's an impeccably produced masterpiece. The stylistic schizophrenia can be off-putting, but there's no question that the music here is a serious accomplishment.


Harvey Milk
- A Small Turn Of Human Kindness
Apparently, some long time Milk fans were disappointed with Life... The Best Game In Town
's supposed accessability, and it appears the band took the criticism to heart. This album features none of the uptempo sludge-sprints to the finish line or thrashy, blown-out Motörhead-style barnburners that made up most of that album. Instead, this is album composed entirely of crawlingly slow Melvins-inspired agony. Torture-victim vocals neck-shackled to a wall of feedback and suffocatingly heavy doom-riffs. Lift with your knees.

High On Fire - Snakes For The Divine
No need to rehash the review I wrote when this came out, suffice it to say that it's awesome.

LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening
Okay, so here's the thing. I don't like dance music. I don't like dancing. I didn't ever really like LCD Soundsystem very much before I listened to the first song on this album. But when that fat, gnarly synth bassline in "Dance Yrself Clean" hits, it'll wipe your memory clean of any preconceived notions. Just awesome. The rest of the album is an exercise in arty electro-pop in the vein of Bowie's late 70's Berlin trilogy or like-minded art-rock and post-punk experimentalists like Robert Fripp, David Byrne and Brian Eno. Worth the time if that sounds like something you'd be into.

The Liars - Sisterworld
Experimental rock band adds another winner to its vastly interesting discography. Full review is in the archives somewhere.

Pontiak - Living
Nothin' fancy here, just good heavy rock with a pile of great riffs and ferocious power-trio ensemble playing and a handful of really good songs too.

Sleepy Sun - Fever
Everything that makes a rock n' roll album great is here. Fantastic and memorable songs, melodically informed vocals, ferocious guitar playing and an incendiary production job courtesy of Vancouver's own Colin Stewart. The album is supremely well-paced, as calm, psychedelic passages melt into pyrotechnic guitar eruptions, and the whole thing seems much shorter than its 42 minute run time. If that isn't the mark of a truly awesome collection of rock n' roll music, I don't know what is.

Tame Impala - Innerspeaker
The indie-blog world is going nuts for these psych-pop revivalists from down under, but with good reason. Beatles comparisons are inevitable, but to these singed eardrums, the lineage of Sweden's Dungen is immediately apparent, not to mention crimson-hued 90's indie psych experimentalists like Apples In Stereo, Olivia Tremor Control and Mercury Rev. Tame Impala up the accessibility factor over these bands by actually singing in English and displaying a greater ratio of song-craft to sound manipulation.

Ufomammut - Eve
Cosmic Doom titans Ufomammut have returned from their journeys beyond the Kuiper Belt with their mightiest slab of space metal yet. Eve is a 5-part musical odyssey which delivers exactly what you would expect from the band. Nothing new for them, but they have certainly raised the bar once again. The riff in the third section is about as heavy as anything EVER.

UNKLE - Where Did The Night Fall?
Trip-Hop iconoclasts UNKLE wheel in a few friends to help them make another album, this time shooting for a woozy psych feel. The end result is closer to kraut-pop dreamers like Stereolab and Deerhunter than Pink Floyd however. Plenty of chilled, elongated grooves and wet, subdued beats. Works for me. Various guest vocalists including members of The Black Angels and Sleepy Sun show up and pitch in, but the highlight for me is Mark Lanegan's turn on the mic on the closing number, "Another Night Out."

Vex'd - Cloud Seed
Master producer brings another album of HEAVY dubstep for the ladies. They'll dance the night away for sure.

Woods - At Echo Lake
Although I preferred the somewhat darker Songs Of Shame from last year, this band has again crafted a set of superb Crazy Horse inflected lo-fi roots rock. As I am not generally a fan of that kind of stuff, it speaks volume of the quality of their music that I can so thoroughly enjoy it.

Outrage

Pitchfork is full of shit. Sleepy Sun's new album is fucking awesome.

Musing

Time Machine: The Stray Anthology 1970-1977 is heavy listening. The RAWK-ASS self-titled debut, Stray, fits squarely in the middle of heavy rock's first creative boom in 1970, while the next year's Suicide features some seriously heavy lead(LED?)guitar to back up the lyrics' Bloodrock-worthy morbidity. These two were both cut when the band were teenagers. Apparently they released ten albums before breaking up in 1977, so as you can imagine there were a few rushed efforts there. The later half of Stray's career slackens somewhat into boogie territory, but the group is capable of some serious fireworks and a few fine tunes when inspired. These guys could play and showed it best when they stretched out. I'm working my way though this thing still, I have a pile of stuff that I haven't even got to yet. Most of these records are out of print anyways, but chances are that 2 and a half hours of Stray will be more than enough for most heavy rock fans to get inside unabashedly bar-rockin' trip.

As when discovering any long lost band of the golden age of experimentation and excitement in rock, (roughly 1968-1973 and referred to as the Cosmic Portal by some) always consider the cardinal facets of rock excavation:

1. ALWAYS start with the first album. Work your way forward from there.

2. The longest songs are ALWAYS the best.

Anyways, like most good rock n' roll bands ever formed, Stray have a melodic voice, and ultimately the desire to let that voice speak grows stronger over time as the rewards to do so increase and as the players' proximity to their own teen years shrinks. As they age, rockers develop as musicians and become more skilled in the manipulation of the music's form, but in doing so they inevitably lose the spontaneity and enthusiasm that characterizes their most vital work. The technical know-how of equipment/songwriting/performance/ experience gradually subsumes the primal urge to create a racket in the first place. Greatness lies in balancing the conflicting impulses.

Some groups reach the optimal point in their career early on, while some need a few albums to get there. A few special ones can sustain creativity at a high level for a number of years, but this is uncommon. More groups only occasionally rise above mediocrity, but create a small amount of sonically beneficial music for a short time, maybe an album or two, maybe less. Hell, some of those garage bands which the NUGGETS series has done wonders for unearthing peaked with their first 45s! Come to think of it, it's not too different from how the hype-driven world of indie-blogs seems to react to some bands today, but I digress. The point is no matter how important or talented or just flat out incredible any musician or band is, the quality of that work will decline after the artist's peak period. For some, the drop is precipitous, while a few may decline very slowly and have a long and productive career, possibly experiencing a few reversals in this trend once in a while. The decline varies in intensity, but is as irreversible as time.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Stopgap

Just stopping in to let you know I haven't given up on this thing. I haven't felt much like writing lately. I've been reading a lot actually, about music and other things. Being that this is a music blog, I guess I should let you know that Joe Carducci's Rock And The Pop Narcotic: Testament For The Electric Church and Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes From The American Indie Underground 1981-1991 are both on my bedside table right now. The former is probably the best book I've ever read about rock itself, despite the fact that I find Carducci's many extraneous digressions pointless and am bothered by his readily apparent homophobic, racist, xenophobic, sexist and ethnocentric prejudices. No one's perfect though, and the guy has still done a better job writing seriously about rock theory than anyone else, so until I publish a rebuttal, it'll have to do. Not to mention the fact that I've discovered dozens of obscure bands, many of them of excellent quality (I'll get to those in a minute). The Azerrad book is not quite so dense, it's a more straightforward chronicle of the life and crimes of a number of seminal bands (Black Flag, The Minutemen, Dinosuar Jr. and so on... you know, the classics) The best thing about it is that it introduced me to Mission of Burma, a band I had heard of but never investigated. Their 1982 album Vs. is fantastic noisy garage pop on par with contemporary Hüsker Dü or Sonic Youth. If anything, MOB was far more advanced in their songcraft at the time, but they broke up before the underground support network built by those other bands was fully functioning. They've since reformed however and are successfully touring and putting out new records, so hey, good on them. Anyways, it just strikes me how innocent it all seems, the DIY aesthetic I mean. That these kids were able to run labels, promote scenes, start bands, tour the continent and make records all on a shoestring budget and no fall-back alternatives and without even the luxury of the internet that we sonic travelers take for granted now... it's quite remarkable.

Anyways, enough preamble. Here's what's been curling my toes recently... I've been on a major 70's hard rock kick lately. Of course, there's been other stuff, but this what I feel like telling you about. Nothing fancy, we're going with a list today!

Bedlam - Bedlam (1973)
A forgotten British hard rock band that knew where it was at. And they did it pretty heavy to boot.

Blackfeather - At The Mountains Of Madness (1970)
Australian heavy prog. This album is an absolute treat. They balance the dramatic voice-overs and Canterbury-esque pastoral reveries with plenty of sabbathy riffage.

Bloodrock (1970)
Out of Fort Worth, they were the most rockin' band in America short of the Stooges in the early 70's but they fizzled out quick. I think Terry Knight of Grand Funk fame had something to do with them too. Thier hit, 'D.O.A.' appears on the second album, but their debut is where the REAL goods are. Melvin Laid An Egg indeed!

Budgie - Bandolier (1975)
Take your pick which is the best Budgie album. I've never settled on just one myself, although this one has been getting plenty of play lately. "I 'Aint No Mountain" is probably the catchiest song the band ever wrote, while "Breaking All The House Rules" and "Napolean Bona-Parts 1 & 2" were some of the heaviest and most flat out awesome.

Coloured Balls - Ball Power (1973)
Australian heavy blues jams. For Canned Heat (or Blues Hammer) fans.

Euclid - Heavy Equipment (1970)
Really, the name says it all. Skull-crushing power trio from Maine lays it down.

The Flow - The Flow's Greatest Hits (1972)
Like these guys had hits. It's heavy psych through and through, with plenty of fuzz-wah guitar freakouts.

Grand Funk Railroad - Live (1971)
Capturing the top American concert draw of the early 70's at their lunk-headed live peak. Plenty of songs here outshine the studio versions, and there is some particularly tasty bong-rattling bass from Mr. Mel Shacher throughout. Bonus points for Mark Farner's unintentionally hilarious stage banter and Don Brewer's always competent drum work.

Jerusalem - Jerusalem (1972)
The song "Primitive Man" is sluggish boneheaded riffage at its finest. The rest is very good non-classic rock.

Leaf Hound - Growers Of Mushroom (1971)
'Freelance Fiend' is officially one of my favourite songs ever. The rest is all excellent hard rock from this unfortunately short-lived band.

Luv Machine - Whatever Turns You On (1971)
Recently re-issued with some killer bonus tracks on double vinyl. Props to Ben at Neptoon Records for the hot tip on this one. It's all good, though I'd pick "Reminiscing" as the standout.

The Master's Apprentices - Masterpiece (1970)
An Australian garage band that started out worshipping the Stones in the late 60's then graduated to heavier prog-influenced material at the turn of the decade. Both phases are worth checking out.

Mystic Siva - Under The Influence (1971)
A Great long-lost heavy psych artifact. Trippy, groovy fuzzed out acid rock.

Shiver - San Fransisco's Shiver (1972)
These guys played heavy biker rock spiked with Blue Cheer's acid around San Francisco just as the good vibes were turning heavy in the late 60's. The Hell's Angels were frequent and vocal supporters of the band.

Sir Lord Baltimore - Kingdom Come (1970)
This just might be the ultimate rock 'n' roll album, with all the good and the bad of what that implies rolled up in one heavy, fuzzy ball of testosterone, leather jackets, tight jeans and long hair.

Stray - Anthology (1970-1977)
By far all that anyone would ever need from this band. 35(!) Tracks of heavy, boozy boogie from these long lost longhairs. Crack a beer and let those grooves roll.

Speed, Glue & Shinki - Eve (1971) Much heavier on their feet than countrymen the Flower Travellin' Band, these Japanese maniacs made HEAVY power-trio rock with plenty of overt drug references.

Spooky Tooth - Spooky Two (1969)
Ignore the one ballad here, and the rest of the album is a winner. Judas Priest even covered the infamous "Better By You, Better Than Me."

Tin House - Tin House (1971)
Michigan rockers released this one album of catchy heaviness. 100% Rock. 0% Bullshit.

Vanilla Fudge - Vanilla Fudge (1967)
The band that invented 70's arena rock. Oh yeah, they did it in the mid 60's too. This album is all covers, but they are all given a suitably heavy treatment by the mighty rhythm section of Carmine Appice and Tim Bogert.

Warhorse - Warhorse (1970) Apparently one of these guys was the original bass player for Deep Purple. This record stands on its own merit though. This single heavy blast was all that this band released, but few bands directly influenced by Sabbath were as close to the masters as these guys were. Wonder what happened to 'em?

West, Bruce & Laing - Why Dontcha (1972)
THESE GUYS LOOK LIKE THE MELVINS!!! - Noah's priceless reaction to seeing this album at Scratch. Mountain may have broken up, but two thirds of the band returned with Jack Bruce and kept right on rocking through the early `70s.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Conclusion

Isis have broken up.



Although this is undeniably sad news, there is something to be said for quitting while you are ahead. In a society that invariably bleeds profitable forms of artistic expression white, it's good to see a great (even decade-defining) band bow out on a creative high. Last year's Wavering Radiant was yet another leap forward, expanding the band's palette with some subtle keyboard work, colouring their sound with textures and nuances that would have been unthinkable for the band that made 2000's earth-shattering but Neurosis-aping debut, Celestial. Kudos to the boys for having the good judgement to recognize when their creative vision for the band had run its course, and the courage to lay the project gracefully to rest before stagnation could set in. This is a rare and beautiful thing in rock n' roll.

The career arc of Isis showed a definite progression, an evolution from one state of being to another over the course of decade plus of innovation. Their transformation from post-sludge godheads to an elusive band of aquatic shaman was gradual and deliberate, and with each heavily laboured statement of an album they never ceased to be as powerful or exciting as their original identity as purveyors of glacial walls of deconstructed post-metal heaviness. They were eqally impressive as a live act. I had the pleasure of seeing them on both the Panopticon and In The Absence Of Truth tours and was extremely impressed both times by their dedication to crafting powerful suites of noise and distortion, the triumphant peaks and valleys of their compositions and their use of dynamics and sheer volume to physically overwhelm the senses of the listener. Truly, Isis were one of the greatest and most creative metal bands of the 00's and their relentless drive to innovate and create new works of art will be sadly missed and continually appreciated by adventurous post-rock fans, avante garde hardcore champions, roving cosmic travellers, bearded riff enthusiasts and blunted out metal heads. Best of luck to the members of Isis in all their future endeavors.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Ode

R.I.P. Ronnie James Dio July 10, 1942-May 16, 2010



Though the Sacred Heart of the Master of the Moon no longer beats, my he rule his kingdom of Rainbows in the Dark forever. Farewell Dio, we shall ride the cosmos together when next we meet again. 'Till then, I've got Holy Diver to remember you by.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Knuckleduster

If I could have been worked with any musical act at any point in history, I would have been a roadie for Goatsnake circa the turn of the millennium. No band in history has ever quite so vividly described through sound the godlike feeling of power that comes from riding a sizzling hot Harley across a desert highway. You can bet some good times were had on those tours.

Greg Anderson's biker doom titans are finally releasing their long out of print 2000 CE album Flower Of Disease on Southern Lord, not to mention re-forming for a few dates sometime soon if we're lucky. You know what? I'm gonna say it. Goatsnake were fuckin' awesome. And if you happen to be unacquainted with these monsters, let me just say that you can't argue with a group of rock n' rollers whose credentials include stints in the Obsessed, Sunn O))), Thorr's Hammer, Scream, Asva and Burning Witch. A solid cross section of sludgecore, punk, stoner rock, black metal and doom you think? Nah, Goatsnake don't go in for your obscure genre categorizations. It's just heavy rock, and who can't get behind that? Surely we've all spent enough time rocking out in smoky rec rooms and basements to set aside our differences and enjoy some mammoth riffs, hedonistic manly rock god vocals, massive sing along hooks and a seriously heavy-duty mix courtesy of Nick Raskulinecz.

Here's footage from the first Goatsnake show in 5 years at this year's Roadburn festival at Tillburg in the Netherlands. Enjoy, and pick up this stone classic of a rock n' roll album when it comes out if you know what's good for ya. Maybe if you're really lucky these gunslingers will be rollin' into your town soon.

Friday, April 23, 2010

The Liars - Sisterworld



Band: The Liars
Album: Sisterworld
Label: Mute
Year: 2010
Rating: 84%

The Liars have been one of the past decade's most inscrutable practitioners of experimental rock. Like former tour-mates Radiohead, they've demonstrated a steadfast determination to follow their muse, including left-field stylistic departures and frequently relocating to other continents to write and record. Texture and rhythm have remained at the forefront of the band's sound throughout, with front man Angus Andrew's heavily processed vocals (bearing more than a passing resemblance to those of Thom Yorke) lending the band an unearthly quality. Most importantly, Liars remain stubbornly committed to exploring new sonic turf and topping themselves with each byzantine, heavily-laboured record. Such creative restlessness makes for a body of work which is unpredictable, frequently baffling and consistently rewarding for adventurous listeners.

'Scissors' kicks off the band's fifth album with narcotic chants and the mournful strains of a cello before exploding into a spastic distorto-rock tantrum. The bait-and-switch is nothing new to this band, but this first full band kick is still fantastically exciting. The song alternates placid with punishing without overstaying its welcome, then quickly slides into the pulsing bass and rickety percussion of 'No Barrier Fun.' "I wanna make it up" moans Andrew over music box and violin backing that wouldn't sound out of place on one of A Silver Mt. Zion's records. The atmosphere is unsettling, with the band crafting moody sounds capes over heavily looped and treated instruments and vocals, drawing out the tension over several tracks. Unlike the fantastical sense of child-like wonder that permeates previous records like 2006's awe-inspiring Drum's Not Dead, Sisterworld is sonically ominous and almost uniformly bleak in tone. The band hasn't sounded so dark since 2004's universally misunderstood sophomore effort They Were Wrong So We Drowned, but this time the attack is more focused and married to some excellent songs. The motorik groove of 'Proud Evolution' shows off an astute understanding of krautrock rhythm and the power of sonic minimalism, while penultimate slow-burner 'Goodnight Everything' uses deep brass horns to amplify the grandeur of its droning chords and triumphantly announce the album's climactic final explosion before settling into the dreamy epilogue, "Too Much, Too Much."

Sisterworld is more about dynamic tension than release, but also offers some of the Liars' most pile-driving rockers yet. Few moments in the Liars' schizophrenic catalog can match the vicious animosity of 'Scarecrows On A Killer Slant.' Over a heavily distorted grinding synth, Andrew screams, "Why'd you shoot the mayor with a gun? 'CAUSE HE BOTHERED YOU!!!" before going on to yell some more about standing in the street and killing everyone. Equally enjoyable, 'The Overachievers' sports a mechanized slaughterhouse tumble of a riff that is helped by Andrew's off-kilter yelps and bilesome diatribes.

The Liars have proven themselves once again to be one of the most consistently inventive and original bands in rock. Examined with the benefit of hindsight, the Liars' career arc no longer looks so jarring when viewed through Sisterworld's damaged lens. Much like the band's 2007 eponymous record, Sisterworld forgoes some of the band's earlier experimental dalliances and rewards listeners with some of the most accessible songwriting of the Liars' career. Don't get me wrong, this is a Liars album, and that means you will hear plenty of noises you may be uncomfortable with the first time through. It might not fit your definition of rock or even music at all. That's normal, and no one ever said these guys were all that easy to listen to. But now that the band has learned how to wrap their sound-manipulation experiments around songs that are at least recognizable as such, more new fans should be on board than ever before. The band's charming conviction and dogged determination to sculpt noise and formless texture into integral components of a unified work of art are admirable traits that win bands fans of the rabid variety. With that in mind, the album works as both a consolidation and a continuation of the band's strengths to date, and will appeal to fans new and old.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Elevator - Light Is To Life As Dark Is To Death

This is a fake compilation intended as a primer to this criminally overlooked Canadian psychedelic group, Elevator. The song 'Wink' which kicks off this compilation, can be heard as the second of the three songs performed in the video. The video itself is actually part 2 of a 1998 3-part short film to which Elevator provided the soundtrack. About 4 minutes in, you will witness this band at the peak of their powers. The tracklist below is that of an imaginary compilation/retrospective record that I intend to curate, should I ever be asked to do so.

Side A
1. Wink (3:07)
2. The Change (2:28)
3. Thick Wall (9:54)
4. You're In A Deep Dark Hole (4:11)

Side B
5. Wait For Tomorrow (3:47)
6. Backteeth (4:06)
7. Rain (3:50)
8. I Wonder What Is Sane (2:12)
9. The Grip On Me (4:30)
10. Hurricane (1:49)

Side C
11. Every Channel (2:15)
12. Black (3:23)
13. Darkness --> Light (15:55)

Side D
14. August (4:31)
15. No Good Trying (2:51)
16. The Only See To Thought (2:19)
17. Deep Underground (2:21)
18. Where Does It End? (7:28)

Known to go under the names of Elevator Through and Elevator to Hell at various points, this band is the main spiritual organ of Halifax's Rick White. White was a member of Moncton, New Brunswick's indie noiseniks Eric's Trip in the mid-90's. Since then he's released an assortment of albums under various versions of the name Elevator, exploring his unique take on lo-fi psychedelic music. With some distribution with Sub Pop, ELevator was a near miss who never broke through in a major way due to being out of time. Truth is, they pre-dated the new weird America scene by about seven years, and whatever clout Sub Pop had was nullified by the fact that no one in independent rock music in 1999 was playing fuzzy lo-fi garage psych the way these guys were.

There is great range in White's songwriting. He conjures up droning walls of noise, clears rooms with fractious feedback onslaughts, intones sonic premonitions from beyond the galaxy, scales the heavens with acid-spiked guitar jams, and soothes the soul with enchanting astral minstrel's tales. Sadly, the band is no longer with us, apparently having called it quits some time after the last release I am aware of by these guys, 2004's August. (Rick White did release a similar album called Memoreaper under his own name in 2007 and has been playing with a re-formed Eric's Trip in the last few years) But because the Elevator discograpgy is so user-unfriendly, I've decided to assemble this imaginary compilation culled from the 4 Elevator full-lengths and 1 soundtrack EP I've found to act as a sampler for the uninitiated.

"Wink" kicks off the proceedings with a growling, overdriven bass line straight out of the 90's hard rock playbook and White's soon-to-be familiar self-hating lyrics, before exploding into a massive psychedelic guitar wrestling session that includes mammoth Bonhamn drum fills and unhealthy amounts of fuzz. The whole thing clocks in at just a hair over 3 minutes, making it a worthy counterpart to the Stooges "I Wanna Be Your Dog," Alice Cooper's "I'm Eighteen," Sab's "Paranoid," Led Zep's "Communication Breakdown," Mountain's "Mississippi Queen" and the MC5's "Kick Out The Jams," or just about any other heavy psych/proto-metal classic one-off you wish to name. The next track "The Change" is a curveball, a psychedelic rave-up with jangly guitar and White's sleepy vocals providing an apt comparison to the Brian Jonestown Massacre. These two tracks give an interesting account of the dichotomy inherent in Elevator's sound. When moved, White can make his band sound like anything he wants.

The 10-minute "Thick Wall" begins as droning, druggy wall of pounding toms and chords repeated ad nauseum before all drops out, revealing simply a pulsating bassline and strummed accoustic guitar. Feedback and what could possibly be a 12-string guitar rise and fall in volume and intensity as White gradually beings to intone his astral notions over a krautrock groove. Eventually all that remains is droning fuzz and some distant moans from White, who then simply brings the song to a conclusion with a gorgeous clean guitar passage which provides the song's only melody. Quickly subsumed by a pounding snare and bouncing bassline, "You're A Deep Dark Hole" is a song which displays all that Elevator do well, including White's soul-searching lyrics and ear for melody, combined with suitably wandering guitar leads bathed in atmospheric reverb over eternally droning Komische grooves.

"Wait For Tomorrow," another one of my favourites from the "Such" soundtrack, opens Side B with possibly the band's most memorable chorus and some deliciously sludgy bass and thunderous toms. "Backteeth" is a slow-moving crusher complete with lumbering riffs and fuzzed-out stoner rock leads. The delicate acoustic passage which opens "Rain" is quickly obliterated by a ragged garage rock stomp that eventually degenerates into a floating sea of cosmic nebulae reminiscent of A Saucerful Of Secrets-era Pink Floyd. " I Wonder What Is Sane" is a fast driving rave-up featuring vortex shifting studio panning and unhealthy amounts of distortion. If you've made it this far without being bothered at all by the muddy recording quality, kudos to you. Very few do. "The Grip On Me" brings the volume down a bit, but not the intensity. A muted Hammond organ and White's skyscraping electro-fuzz guitar provide the song's highlights as it oozes dread and darkness before exploding into a stately march across the finish line. Side B ends with Hurricane, a gorgeous and almost sadly brief acid-folk ditty from the Eeireconciliation album. This beautiful tune blossoms and then whithers into atonal noise in under 2 minutes, its brevity a knowing nod to the transience of life.

"Every Channel," a classic Elevator rocker, opens side C with wild biker rock solos and riffs, and burns full throttle for just a shade over two minutes before fading into the bleak darkness which announces the arrival of "Black." The suffocating dead air hiss of the track soon explodes into a vicious psych thrash freakout similar to a paint-huffing Acid Mothers Temple. White's ethereal vocals pan all across the speakers and then abruptly cut out to reveal the monster title track to 2002's Darkness-->Light album. Probably Elevator's most momentous (and certainly their most monolithic) achievement, this 16 minute behemoth comes on first like Confusion Is Sex-era Sonic Youth's aggro-noise punk before eventually sinking everything into its unspeakably driving bassline. Frantic drumming keeps the pace up while White's galactic intonations about life, love and death are run through all manner of sonic manipulators and effects pedals. By the 4 minute mark, all pretense of a structure has left the song, as only a muddy blend of white noise and crossing sine waves remains. Eventually the rhythm section returns to the fore, delivering an "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida"-esque tour de force that eventually dovetails into feedback strains and snatches of musique concrete mixology. Voices, chimes, strings, found sounds and various other instruments and noises are treated and manipulated, running riot across the soundscape. Eventually, after an urgent bass and drums pummeling, the track finally returns to earth with a return to the speed freak garage burner that opened the album. One final burst of atonal noise concludes the tracks before being sucked back up into the heavens. The listener's third eye has been squeegeed of all perception save that of the cosmic persuasion.

Finally, side D opens with the title track from 2004's August probably the band's most accessible record, due to it's (relatively) well produced and clean sound. The track is a raging slab of hallucinogenic acid-spiked garage rock which later gives way to backmasked vocals and tape loops. Followig it are a trio of songs from 1999's Vague Premonitions. "No Good Trying" is a grungy midtempo rocker that sports some nifty sound effects in addition to its ferocious Bonham-esque drum barrage. "The Only See To Thought" is another fuzzy banburner which storms through a jumble of drum fills and fuzzed out power chords (notice a theme here?) before crashing and burning. "Deep Undergroud" emerges from a fog of formless noise to groove on a solid bass vamp and display more of White's sonic shamanisms and guitar worship. Even if you can understand what he is trying to say, just ignore the lyrics, as they are mostly spacey and metaphysical imagery or strident exultations to drugged states of expanded consciousness. More important here is the sound, which in this case invokes waves churning, thunder crashing and supernovas erupting. "Where Is The End?", the aptly-named finale, does not so much end the record as bring it full circle, remaking the Ouroboros whole and stretching onward into sonic infinity as an infinite loop of propulsive drumming, flesh-searing lava-bass and chiming feedback. Rather than bothering to write an ending to the song and finishing up, White simply lets the tape run out on the track. For all I know, these guys could still be in there jamming on this thing.

So there you have it. This thing will probably never be a reality, and if you are going to the trouble of listening to all these songs in the order I prescribe, you should probably just listen to the full albums, starting with any one of the ones I took this material from. Incidentally, I got started with Elevator when a friend played me Darkness-->Light a couple years back, but really any one will give you a good indication of what they are about. Enjoy this wonderful set of Canadian music, and happy travels!

Note:
Tracks 1 & 5 are taken from the 1998 EP, Soundtrack To The Film, "The Such."
Tracks 2, 3, 7, 14 & 18 are taken from the 2004 LP, August.
Tracks 4, 12 & 13 are taken from the 2002 LP, Darkness --> Light.
Tracks 6, 10 & 11 are taken from the 1997 LP, Eeireconciliation.
Tracks 7, 9, 15, 16 & 17 are taken from the 1999 LP, Vague Premonitions.

At last count their discography includes nearly two dozen releases, including 7" singles, EP's, Mini-LP's, cassettes and live bootlegs, as well as a self-titled LP which I have been unable to locate. Factor in at least a dozen or so soundtrack and compilation appearances, and you can rest assured that what you see here is just a small sliver of what the band has produced.