I got my copy of Lumpy Money earlier this week. Not a bad offering from the Evil Empire (aka the Zappa Family Trust).
The gems of this set are the orchestral Lumpy Money and "How did That Get in Here?", the extended piece which opens disc 3. I could do without Disc 2 however. It includes an unreleased mix of Lumpy Gravy from 1984 which includes the obligatory 80's drums and bass and the out of print but cheaply found remix of We're Only In It For the Money from the original Ryko issue of the CD. Maybe it will grow on me. The WOIIFTM does have better sound than the old disc so........we'll see. It's not horrible, it just isn't as good as the original. Also, included is a mono mix of WOIIFTM. I like it. Some people think mono sucks. I am not one of them.
The packaging is kind of cheap but unlike the Mofo Project set the package does not turn into a disc eater. I pray to Satan every time I try to remove a disc from the jaws of the Mofo set. Overall, I give the release a Pitchfork style rating of 8.2.
Can't embed this one so here's the link--->LS mf D!!!
Life Sex & Death. An early 90's metal band who's schtick was having a homeless person named Stanley as the lead singer. Sure, Stanley was a bogus gimmick but he was a good front man and the band could rock. We saw these guys at the Phantasy Theater in Cleveland. Stanley may not have been a real homeless dude but he was still pretty gross.
Finally back in the saddle after getting power cord number 3. Here is my belated playlist post.
Soundgarden-Ugly Truth Grand Funk-Got This Thing on the Move Bob Dylan-Isis Frank Zappa-Roland's Big Event/Strat Vindaloo Sleep-From Beyond Red Sparowes-Mechanical Sounds Cascaded Through the City Walls and Everyone Reveled in Their Ignorance Buckethead-Ed's Rhapsody/Midnight Dance/Jars Kim Doo Soo-Deja-entendu Axiom Funk-Pray My Soul The Cure-The Same Deep Water As You sunn O)))-Orthodox Caveman Neil Young-Powderfinger Magma-The Last Seven Minutes Lou Reed-Doin' the Thing That We Want To Jane's Addiction-I Would For You Noxagt-Soft Sugar Manowar-The Power of Thy Sword Mastodon-Pendulous Skin Kreator-Hordes of Chaos (A Necrologue For the Elite) Danzig-Blood and Tears Samael-Macabre Operetta Megadeth-Hangar 18 Metal Church-Gods of Wrath King Diamond-The Candle Melvins-Spread Eagle
Thanks to the guy who requested Metal Church. That song was a blast from the past to the old Z Rock days. To those who don't know, Z Rock was a syndicated metal station out of Dallas. We got it for a year or so in Cleveland in the mid-80's. It was tits. I don't know if I had heard that song more than one or two times since 1986 but I knew every word.
Heading out to Bozeman later to do the show. Probably going to play something off this....
One of the best rock albums of all time. Before they added the infernal "Railroad" to the name. Kicks ass all the way through.
If you are up for listening go to www.kglt.net and click on streaming audio. Soothing Soul Suckers will be on at 9 p.m. Mountain time until midnight. I'm digging through my personal vault so I've got a bunch of stuff I haven't heard in a while on tap.
Corpse Paint. Fucking ridiculous. This picture was taken by Peter Beste and is included in his coffee table book (ha ha ha wtf!) True Norwegian Black Metal. This picture cracks me up. The look on that woman's face is priceless. What an idiot that guy is. I think he is from the band Gorgoroth. They are cool and all but the schlock value is high with that stupid look.
If i'm going to be digging some corpse paint it's going to be this guy. King Motherfucking Diamond. I like black metal but blow me grim Norwegian douchebags.
"Eye of the Beholder" by Metallica has been in my head today. To me, the lyrics of the song not only refer to how governments limit free speech but also how internet message boards often turn into a dictatorship with an army of sycophants guarding the gates. Generally boards deteriorate over time because of ego and cowardice. The argument for harsh speech regulations is that a board is private therefore free speech does not apply. O.K., I don't argue the legality of the issue but anyone with a little self-respect should be able to handle the opinion of others. Popular or otherwise. The only instances I ever interfere with speech is removing spam or deleting personal info that is posted without consent. Anything else is fair game unless I am directed by law to remove it.
A common version of the internet dictatorship is opening a board with a famous person as the draw. Too many boards ride the jock of a famous person to build a private cult of personality. These places should be smashed.
Do You Want What I Want?
Desire Not a Thing
I Hunger after Independence Lengthen Freedom's Ring
Important Records will soon be issuing the first disc of Merzbow's 13 Japanese Birds. 13 Merzbow CD's in 13 months that will be housed in a neat bamboo box. So, move over Merzbox, Merzbow CD housed in a marble box, egg, wooden case, collaborations with Richard Pinhas, Boris, and hundreds of other releases.
Honestly, how many Merzbow albums does one person need? I have Merzbeat, and the Boris collaborations. I'm sure there some others I would enjoy but man, talk about overkill. I would love to meet the person who has all of them---probably only Masami Akita comes close.
Ice Cube and hip-hop in general suck right now. But there was a time long ago where the music and the man had importance in our society. Before "Are We There Yet?", Lil' Wayne blogs on ESPN and "Puff Daddy's" glammed up bullshit version of rap there was this classic.
No one is spared. Not Whitey, not the hood, not the U.S.A., not women.....nothing. Ice Cube lays it all to waste on this 70 minute rant against society. The song I picked out was singled out as racist (which it kind of is) and hateful. The man was pissed when he made this album and I don't blame him. I'll take a pissed off Black Panther attitude over the over-marketed bullshit that masquerades as hip-hop today any-fucking-day-of-the-week.
Let me tell you what a piece of shit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum is.............
I grew up in the Cleveland area. This building was promised to the city in the 1980's and they finally got it in the 90's. Cleveland is a hardcore rock and roll city. The radio is saturated with stuff like Creedence, Humble Pie, Alice Cooper and Pearl Jam. The clubs get good bands coming through and the bigger venues get all the dinosaurs. The city may be a decayed turd pile but a lot of great music comes through town. Which brings me to that glass pyramid of crap.
What kind of Rock and Roll wants to be enshrined in glass? Does Rock and Roll cost $22 just to look at a napkin Janis Joplin used to wipe a booger? 95% of the inductees are either dead or walking among us as musical zombies playing their classics robotically for $100 a seat. Sure, it's a tourist draw for a city that has little more to offer than crime and corruption. But at the same time Cleveland is killing the very music it is representing.
Rock and Roll does not live in a museum! It lives in a bar that reeks of smoke and stale beer. Where the band is playing for the gas money it took to get them to the gig and the crowd is ready to forget a shitty work week by drinking themselves into oblivion. Joints are passed around the crowd, the music is loud, some people get rowdy and get tossed but everyone has a good time. That is fucking Rock and Roll! Cleveland actually has that in abundance to offer. Yet they parade this bullshit, circle-jerk tribute to the days of yore around as legit. Rock and Roll lives and breathes in the city limits but the pyramid where the mummies are kept is the focal point.
I saw one of Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" shows where he goes to Cleveland. He went to the museum and felt the same way I do. Tony is a Ramones fan. Is there anything about that museum that screams "Motherfucking Ramones!!!!!"? Hell no! It's a sanitized, ball-less, facsimile of Rock and Roll. I saw the Ramones just outside of Cleveland in 1988. That crowd would have shit all over the museum.
My man E once said to me, "The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame isn't about Rock and Roll, it's about the suckers who bought Rock and Roll". Want that glass dump to be Rock and Roll? Burn it to the ground and piss on the ashes. THAT is Rock and Roll!
O.K., rant over. I actually enjoy several of the "inductees" to that shrine of the dead. One of the guys getting in this time is Cleveland's own Bobby Womack (or Bobby Wonton as we called him at the record store I used to work at outside Cleveland). The guy is honored to be inducted so I won't piss on his parade.
If I were to do a different type of radio show I would probably do a Soul show. My favorite type of Soul music is often ignored by Whitey. Sure, Whitey will listen to the upbeat stuff like Motown and Aretha Franklin's "Respect". I like the slow jam (as you might have noticed with my Zapp post). Bobby Womack made one of my favorite slow jams. It was remade surprisingly well by K-Ci and Jo Jo in the 90's but I'm going to the source. This is "If You Think You're Lonely Now".
Lost in the Jane's Addiction, Sisters of Mercy, Cult, Love & Rockets era of the 1980's was Atlanta, Georgia's Mary My Hope. These guys didn't make it big although I have no reason why. I saw them in 1988 or '89 open for the Godfathers at the Ritz in NYC. They killed it. I had their CD "Museum" for a while and lost it to the sands of time. A few years back I found it on a budget rack for 99 cents at Hastings in Bozeman. It's still a damn fine rock album and it's held up well over the years. I checked on Amazon and apparently the album has gained a little value over the years. So maybe there are people out there discovering them. Here's a track from Museum called "Communion".
Posted on youtube by Shakey's people. A goofy video to go with a goofy song. Unlike the one on his website, this time it's the whole song. Check out Neil's sweet Ipod in the vid.
I'm giving up one of my secrets today. For those of you who buy music in forms other than 0's and 1's there is a great place online to buy some truly bizarre and often great shit.
Weirdo records is great. Angela, who owns the shop, comes up with some really cool stuff to post online. From the way it sounds she has many, many more items laying around as well. Her service is top notch. Check it out.
Remember Happy Flowers? I never forgot them. I still love them to this day. Mr. Anus and Mr. Horribly Charred Infant helped get me through the 80's. They were horribly great and played wonderful tunes such as "Angry Meal", "My Frisbee Went Under a Lawnmower" and "My Name is Pudge". I got their 20th anniversary DVD-R a few years back and got number 1 of 100! Woo hoo! I rule! That DVD is in a second printing of 50 copies currently so I guess there are only 100 plus fans of the band these days. Oh well, fuck everyone else!
They have a myspace page with a band history and some songs. The page hasn't been logged into since 2007. Looks like they are still my kind of guys.
Coming soon. The 40th Anniversary set of Zappa's "Lumpy Gravy" and "We're Only in it For the Money". A 3-disc set that includes the original orchestral score for Lumpy Gravy that was only released on 8 track. These two albums are the first two parts of a trilogy that ends in Frank's last finished work "Civilization Phase III". I'm pretty jazzed for it.
Thin Lizzy-Angel From the Coast LSD March-Moeru Pyramid Boris-Mass Mercury Dengue Fever-One Thousand Tears of a Tarantula Kawabata Makoto & The Mothers of Invasion-Fripian Flipped Over Niffy Their King Of Frippery Pink Floyd-Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun Bob Dylan-Man in the Long Black Coat Mark Kozelek-If You Want Blood Boris with Michio Kurihara-Cloud Chamber Pt 1 Birchville Cat Motel-Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret Magma-Africa Anteria Frank Zappa/The Mothers of Invention-Brown Shoes Don't Make It Neil Young-Don't Take Your Love Away From Me Manowar-Die For Metal SSS-I'm a Man Bathory-Valhalla Built To Spill-Hazy Lou Reed-Men of Good Fortune Metallica-The Shortest Straw Electric Wizard-Return Trip Les Rallizes Denudes-夜の収穫者たち
Tonight I'm on the air starting at 9 p.m. MST. Click the link under my profile to listen if you are up for it. When I organize my set list I usually bounce around my LP's, pull some stuff there, go into my room and stare at the CD wall for a bit, gravitate towards the stacks of CDR's laying around, and then possibly bring my Ipod or my laptop. When I'm on the air I usually have a sketch in my head how I want to show to flow and I piece the music together like a painter. Laying down track after track but sometimes making adjustments if it isn't working out and sometimes even doing a 180 when I'm not happy with the show. So I never really know exactly how it's going to turn out.
One thing that does not vary is my pick for the top of the 11 o'clock hour. I call it the "Manowar minute", which is not accurate really since, "No one tells a man how to play, it just ain't that way". So Manowar takes as long as necessary. I know some of the wimps and posers out there are weeping on their pillows when Manowar starts blasting through the speakers. No one will hear their cries. Hail to the Metal Kings!
There's a new Neil Young song up on his website called "Fork in the Road". Not sure if it's the whole thing since it seems to fade out early. He's been playing a lot of new material on the road lately so maybe a new album is coming soon.
He really did. The bastard. It was the summer of 99'. Some freak who was into Whitehouse and shit like that asked me if I wanted to go. At the time I had no idea about "noise" music but I was familiar with K.K. Null's kick ass band Zenigeva. Although the dude was a bit of a creep I had nothing better to do so I went along. I'm drinking a 40 driving to the show in this guys beater and right as I finish he goes, "Get rid of that bottle". We're driving on the freeway so I tell him I'll pitch it when we get to the show. He grabs the bottle and tosses it out the window. Where it lands or who it hits I have no idea. Right then I'm thinking to myself, "What the fuck did I just get myself into?".
We get to the show in some desolate area near downtown Columbus, Ohio. The venue is some fucked up art gallery and the admission at the door is $6.66. We go into this room where there are some chairs set up and I look at the 15 or so people there to see the show. One dude looks like he might nod off and die right there. There is a couple who look like they might kidnap and molest children for fun. I sit down with dude and wait. The opener is some laptop noise fuckery outfit in which a guy plays something made out of pvc pipe. It sucked. K.K. Null comes on with some old-ass analog contraption with a stick attached to the thing that he wiggled around and made sounds. The tones that came out of this machine were brutal and loud. I'm thinking to myself, "This little guy wants me to kick his ass, doesn't he?". I'm watching him to see if he is doing this to piss me off but he is sincere and totally into the fucked up sounds. So I decide that it is a test of wills. This fucker is not going to break me. I'm gritting my teeth and staring him down. It's a stalemate for about 40 minutes and then *POP*! Something in my right ear gives up. It was like when the devil laid that golden fiddle on the ground at Johnny's feet. I had lost. I left and sat in the parking lot waiting for the show to end. My right ear has never been the same since. Years ago I had a professor in a studio engineering class that described the same thing happening to him during a harmonica solo by Magic Dick at a J. Geils show. I guess hearing protection wasn't rock and roll enough for me then.
Here's a bit of Null for you. A different noise set-up but pretty harsh nonetheless:
I've gained an appreciation for the genre over the years but had I known what I was in for back then I would have brought a set of ear plugs. "Noise" wasn't a big enough clue for my dumb ass.
After a long streak of great albums Boris has finally hit a speed bump. Cloud Chamber, limited to 1500 copies, is the latest album from Boris with Michio Kurihara. The album that comes to mind that seems closest to this one is "Sun Baked Snow Cave", an album that I would not rank among the best of the Boris catalog but also one that I enjoy. Cloud Chamber is instrumental and uses the loud/soft dynamic that Boris and many other bands have experimented with in the past. Sometimes it works, in this case it doesn't. I'm a guy who will happily throw on any of the "The Thing Solomon Overlooked" albums or one of the "Vein" records so experimentation is often a good thing for me. Maybe it's the guitar tones, maybe it's the song structures but something did not click for me this time. Maybe it's a grower.
On the other hand, Smile-Live at Wolf Creek rips. A live set from 2008 released on CD in November, it features the U.S. running order of the album with a few other cuts mixed in. Disc 2 completely slays with a continuous run of some of the longer tracks on Smile that cranks the guitar riffage up to 11. Set this one on max and kick back. Highly recommended.
Thanks to Kill Ugly Radio for bringing this one back around in my brain....
I hadn't watched this in a long time. It was surprising how antiquated the show seemed. The set up was two old dudes moderating a battle between Frank and a square. It's basically a 2.5 vs 1 battle with the main moderator taking a semi-impartial stand. The odd thing was that when the two old dudes gave the summary they kind of took Zappa's side in the debate. Whereas Zappa was arguing against government censorship and the square was a proto-Hannity. The two old dudes, who obviously hated rock and roll, settled on letting the music industry regulate itself with the half-assed hope that rock and roll would clean itself up. Zappa's 4th album "We're Only In It For The Money" was heavily censored on some editions, including in the U.S.. Zappa may not have liked it then but he went along with it and even reissued the heavily censored version in 1995.
Zappa seemed to detest being on the show and wouldn't even look any of the guys in the eye. The exchange the title of this post is taken from is the gem of the piece though. If you have the time to burn I recommend the clip.
From Canadian Dan Hill. Probably best known for his tender ballad ""Sometimes When We Touch"" or his duet with Vonda Shepard ""Can't We Try". Nothing quite touches the soul of a man who can't find his place in society like "It's a Long Road".
Tattoo this song on your heart when you take your quest with John J.
Not sure if they would ever make it on my show but one of my favorite slow jams comes courtesy of Zapp and Roger (or just Zapp). Roger Troutman made a career out of using the vocoder, a machine that manipulates speech into electronic signals, as a vocal instrument. Supposedly, the first use of the vocoder was Kraftwerk's "Autobahn". Other easily recognizable songs with the vocoder include ELO's "Mr. Blue Sky" and "Mr. Roboto" by Styx. Neil Young infamously made an album loaded with vocoder songs called "Trans". Roger Troutman started the band Zapp with his four brothers. Bootsy Collins produced the first Zapp album which spawned the classic "More Bounce to the Ounce". Roger eventually became the face of the band with his brother Larry quitting Zapp to become Roger's manager. Zapp had several R&B hits including "Computer Love", "I Want to Be Your Man", and a cover of Marvin Gaye's "I Heard it Through the Grapevine". Roger went solo in 1991 with little success but by then Zapp songs were being heavily sampled in rap music. Roger Troutman's last big song was with 2Pac on "California Love". Sadly, in 1999 Roger was murdered over a business dispute by his brother Larry who then committed suicide.
One of the last songs recorded by Roger Troutman under the Zapp and Roger name from the "All the Greatest Hits" album--with help from Shirley Murdock on vocals-- "Slow and Easy".
Yep. You read it right. Bozeman, Montana has a prayer rug carrying black metal messiah. Zebulon Kosted (or Rachid Abdel Ghafour as he is known these days).
Check out Zeb's music at the ol' myspace---->Zebulon Kosted
The Magma box set. It contains all the Magma studio albums and a 2 CD set of rarities and alternate versions of released songs. For the uninitiated, Magma is the band led by drummer, singer and keyboard player Christian Vander. Magma music falls under a sub-genre category called "Zeuhl". Zeuhl music generally incorporates elements of jazz, rock and classical. Zeuhl is also sung in a made-up language. Magma lyrics are mostly in "Kobaian", an extraterrestrial language. One of the bands I think that sometimes has a comparable sound is Weather Report but even then there is not a strong resemblance. Christian Vander's great influence in music is John Coltrane and there are elements of Coltrane's music found in Magma as well.
Here is a live version of "The Last Seven Minutes" off the 1977 album "Attahk". This version is taken from the Mythes & Légendes vol.3 DVD which was recorded in 2005.
The intention of this blog is to talk about, listen to and obey the subliminal messages in music. I hope those of you you stumble upon this blog enjoy the never ending quest for music as much as I do.
I do a radio show on KGLT located in Bozeman, MT. KGLT is an independent station that serves Bozeman, Helena and Livingston in southwest Montana. Independent means that I can play whatever the hell I want within FCC regulations. You can tune in to my show online at www.kglt.net every other Friday from 9 p.m. to 12 a.m. MST. There is also a link to previous playlists available for you to view for my show as well as all the other shows.
I specialize in music that acts as the soundtrack to the residue LSD that still floats around my brain. I imagine my audience as acid casualties, captive second shift workers and pissed off bluegrass fans. Judging from the calls I get I'm probably not too far off.
I will be posting music and videos of my favorite tunes as soon as I figure out how the hell this blog shit works.
Here is my initial shot across the bow.
Boris-Flower Sun Rain
From the Japanese version of Smile. Not quite as good as the one on the U.S. version but still good enough.
A music fiend. From an orange, plastic Fischer Price turntable up through crappy mp3's--I absorb it all.
Listen to Soothing Soul Suckers online at www.kglt.net every other Friday night at 9 p.m.-12 a.m. MST. Or, if you are in Southwest Montana tune in the old fashioned way on the FM at...
91.9 Bozeman/
89.5 Livingston/
98.1 Helena
Check out the SSS radio blog at www.soothingsoulsuckers.com
I got my copy of Lumpy Money earlier this week. Not a bad offering from the Evil Empire (aka the Zappa Family Trust). 
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