24.9.10

Prog rock at the BBC: 1971

1971
EDITION

ATOMIC ROOSTER
Vincent Cranekeyboards
John Du Cannguitar, vocals
Paul Hammonddrums


CARAVAN
Dave Sinclairkeyboards
Richard Sinclairbass, vocals
Pye Hastingsguitar
Richard Coughlandrums


FAMILY
Roger Chapmanvocals
John "Charlie" Whitneydouble neck guitar
John "Poli" Palmerkeyboards
John Weiderbass
Rob Townsenddrums


GENESIS
Peter Gabrielvocals, flute, percussion
Steve Hackettguitar
Mike Rutherfordguitar
Tony Bankskeyboards, acoustic guitar
Phil Collinsdrums, bg vocals

23.9.10

Genesis - Foxtrot


I got into this album after I saw a video of Phish playing "Watchers of the Skies" at Genesis' induction to the Rock "n" Roll Hall. The song (and record itself) opens with a lengthy mellotron solo (which keyboardist Tony Banks claimed to have written by stringing together the best sounding chords on the touchy Mark 2 model). By the time Phish began singing, they had already panned over several shots of Phil Collins looking very angry that they opened with a Peter Gabriel era Genesis tune as well as Eddie Vedder, Meryl Streep, Bruce Springsteen, and other TOTALLY classy celebs looking bored and confused as shit. " Forward in the song, the band goes into a tight single-note staccato pattern in a 6/4 time signature (reminiscent of the 5/4 rhythmic pattern from "Mars" in Gustav Holst's The Planets suite) played over a pattern of sustained organ chords. Phish played it extra tangy and bouncy (they later played "No Reply At All") In the song Peter Gabriel eventually declares:

"Judge not this race by empty remains
Do you judge God by his creatures when they are dead?
For now, the lizards shed its tail
This is the end of mans long union with earth.

From life alone to life as one,
Think not now your journeys done
For though your ship be sturdy, no
Mercy has the sea,
Will you survive on the ocean of being?
Come ancient children hear what I say
This is my parting council for you on your way.

Sadly now your thoughts turn to the stars
Where we have gone you know you never can go.
Watcher of the skies watcher of all
This is your fate alone, this fate is your own."

The strength of early-Genesis as a band as far as this record tells is a tight jazz-fusion ensemble floating between Pink Floyd/Queen-esque progressive art rock and more fantastical Yes/Rush-esque runs and feels, though the ascetic is exclusive to the ensemble itself. Their songs are incredibly self contained, floating through a lot of drastically different music within a short span of a record. Peter Gabriel's bizarre cross of imaginative, science fiction lyrics are offset by his super-naturally erotic content; with a distinct folk-prog delivery, sometimes in character. Phil Collins sings tight backing vocals; not to mention phenomenal jazz-rock grooves, lefty; carry the whole sound to a second level. Not to be secondhand is the incredible guitar work ("Horizons" is a Satiesque 12-string guitar exhibition comparable to Yes' "The Clap"), never to take any superfluous licks or play lead lines that don't entirely support the tight dynamic. Genesis has an incredible talent for taking difficult leaps artistically, meshing long medleys with quick (if not instantaneous) transitions with far less pastiche or kistche then the likes of Yes or King Crimson; achieving a long cinematic line of imagery the listener can follow without any noticeable pretension.

The gem of the record is the epic "Supper's Ready," just short of twenty-three minutes long in seven parts). An extensive prog-workout with a variety of varying styles and dynamics, some nasty Steve Hackett guitar solos, lots of sweet keyboard work, and Gabriel proclaiming "The fights begun; they've been released! Killing foes for peace! Bang bang bang. Bang BANG bang. And they've given me a wonderful potion because I can not contain my emotion! But even though I'm feeling good, something tells me I better activate my prayer capsule." The narrative follows the story of a couple's bizarre erotic experience to a small town inhabited by a farmer and the head of a highly scientific new religion (The Guaranteed Eternal Sanctuary Man) all the way to Revelation from the bible. The liner notes describe the story as:

I
In which two lovers are lost in each other's eyes, and found again transformed in the bodies of another male and female.

II
The lovers come across a town dominated by two characters; one a benevolent farmer and the other the head of a highly disciplined scientific religion. The latter likes to be known as "The Guaranteed Eternal Sanctuary Man" and claims to contain a secret new ingredient capable of fighting fire. This is a falsehood, an untruth, a whopper and a taradiddle, or to put it in clearer terms; a lie.

III
Who the lovers see clad in greys and purples, awaiting to be summoned out of the ground. At the G.E.S.M's command they put forth from the bowels of the earth, to attack all those without an up-to-date "Eternal Life Licence", which were obtainable at the head office of the G.E.S.M.'s religion.

IV
In which our intrepid heroes investigate the aftermath of the battle and discover a solitary figure, obsessed by his own image. They witness an unusual transmutation, and are pulled into their own reflections in the water.

V
Climbing out of the pool, they are once again in a different existence. They're right in the middle of a myriad of bright colours, filled with all manner of objects, plants, animals and humans. Life flows freely and everything is mindlessly busy. At random, a whistle blows and every single thing is instantly changed into another.

VI
I saw an angel standing in the sun. He cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in the sky, Come! Be gathered together to the great supper of God.

VII
Above all else an egg is an egg
'And did those feet ............' making ends meet.
Jerusalem = place of peace.


18.9.10

Roy Wood & Wizzard - Main Street



01 - Main Street
02 - Saxmaniax
03 - The Fire In His Guitar
04 - French Perfume
05 - Take My Hand
06 - Don't You Feel Better
07 - Indiana Rainbow
08 - I Should Have Known

Recorded in 1976 A.D. .... Well, that more or less sums it up really. The powers that be (at the time) decided in their infinite widom, that this album should not be released. (THEY KNOW WHO THEY ARE). In my opinion, this was nothing short of a crime. Now hopefully, the album is in the hands of a company who genuinely cares about music.

Until just recently, I had not even heard the album for around ten years, and had probably written it off. To be honest, I was not even sure whether I would still like it, but I must say that I was pleasantly surprised. My first reaction was that it needed a remix, but the original multi track tapes were not available anyway, so that was out of the question. Basically, if you can adjust your ears to the fact that this album was produced with the aid of studio equipment that is more than twenty years old, then it sounds okay. At the time of recording this album, Wizzard as a working band had really ceased to exist.

This was probably a last attempt to retain some sort of sanity, trying to grow up, and not carry on indefinitely being just another pop group. We had experimented previously with this style, on B sides of singles, but never really had the opportunity to express ourselves fully in the kind of music that we genuinely preferred to play. I would like to believe that, if this album had been released when it was first created, then my writing style would have taken a different curve, and we would have been performing the type of material that bands such as Jamiroquai are being successful with right now.

In my opinion, I would say that the years have not jarred the quality of the songs, or even the performance and arrangements, because this album cannot be restricted to a definite era or time span.

That is only my opinion...
What do you think??

- Roy Wood, Main Street 2000 liner notes


Main Street, credited to Roy Wood & Wizzard (whereas the group's first two albums had been credited simply to Wizzard), was initially planned to showcase the more jazz-rock, deliberately uncommercial, side of the group as part of a double album, along with the material that became the album Introducing Eddy & The Falcons in 1974. When they eventually recorded Main Street (or Wizzo as it was originally to be called) in 1975-6, the group had rather slipped out of the public eye and was on the point of disbanding. The single, also credited to Roy Wood’s Wizzard, "Indiana Rainbow" (backed by a non-album track "The Thing Is This (This Is The Thing)"), released in March 1976, stiffed completely, and did not even make the BBC Radio 1 playlist. As a result Jet Records, to whom Wood was signed at the time, cancelled the album's release. The tapes only came to light in 1999 and, with Wood's blessing, released by Edsel, a re-issue label which specialised largely in licensing long-deleted albums from major companies and had recently made Introducing Eddy & the Falcons, available on CD for the first time.
- Wikipedia


Roy Wood & Wizzard - Main Street [Mirrors: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

16.9.10

Jorge Reyes - Live videos

Live @ UNAM, 1988


"Sacrificio" live on television

8.9.10

Miles Davis - Get Up With It

A1He Loved Him MadlyRecorded Columbia Studio E, New York City
June 19
or 20, 1974
  • Miles Davis ► electric trumpet w/ wah wah
  • Dave Liebman ► alto flute
  • Pete Cosey ► electric guitar
  • Reggie Lucas ► electric guitar
  • Dominique Gaumont ► electric guitar
  • Michael Henderson ► bass guitar
  • Al Foster ► drums
  • James Mtume ► percussion
B1MaiyshaRecorded Columbia Studio E, New York City
October 7, 1974
  • Miles Davis ► electric trumpet w/ wah wah, organ
  • Sonny Fortune ► flute
  • Pete Cosey ► electric guitar
  • Reggie Lucas ► electric guitar
  • Dominique Gaumont ► electric guitar
  • Michael Henderson ► bass guitar
  • Al Foster ► drums
  • James Mtume ► percussion
B2Honky TonkRecorded Columbia Studio E, New York City
May 19, 1970
  • Miles Davis ► trumpet
  • Steve Grossman ► soprano saxophone
  • John McLaughlin ► electric guitar
  • Keith Jarrett ► electric piano
  • Herbie Hancock ► clavinet
  • Michael Henderson ► bass guitar
  • Billy Cobham ► drums
  • Airto Moreira ► percussion
B3Rated XRecorded Columbia Studio E, New York City
September 6, 1972
  • Miles Davis ► organ
  • Cedric Lawson ► electric piano
  • Reggie Lucas ► electric guitar
  • Khalil Balakrishna ► electric sitar
  • Michael Henderson ► bass guitar
  • Al Foster ► drums
  • James Mtume ► percussion
  • Badal Roy ► tabla
C1Calypso FrelimoRecorded Columbia Studio E, New York City
September 17, 1973
  • Miles Davis ► electric trumpet w/ wah wah, electric piano, organ
  • Dave Liebman ► flute
  • John Stubblefield ► soprano saxophone
  • Pete Cosey ► electric guitar
  • Reggie Lucas ► electric guitar
  • Michael Henderson ► bass guitar
  • Al Foster ► drums
  • James Mtume ► percussion
D1Red China BluesRecorded Columbia Studio E, New York City March 9, 1972
  • Miles Davis ► Electric trumpet w/ wah wah
  • Wally Chambers ► harmonica
  • Cornell Dupree ► electric guitar
  • Michael Henderson ► bass guitar
  • Al Foster ► drums
  • Bernard Purdie ► drums
  • James Mtume ► percussion
  • Wade Marcus ► brass arrangement
  • Billy Jackson ► rhythm arrangement
D2MtumeRecorded Columbia Studio E, New York City October 7, 1974
  • Miles Davis ► electric trumpet w/ wah wah, organ
  • Pete Cosey ► electric guitar
  • Reggie Lucas ► electric guitar
  • Michael Henderson ► bass guitar
  • Al Foster ► drums
  • James Mtume ► percussion
  • Sonny Fortune ► flute
D3Billy PrestonRecorded Columbia Studio E, New York City December 8, 1972
  • Miles Davis ► electric trumpet w/ wah wah
  • Carlos Garnett ► soprano saxophone
  • Cedric Lawson ► Fender Rhodes electric piano
  • Reggie Lucas ► electric guitar
  • Khalil Balakrishna ► electric sitar
  • Michael Henderson ► bass guitar
  • Al Foster ► drums
  • James Mtume ► percussion
  • Badal Roy ► tabla


Get Up With It is an album collecting tracks recorded between 1970 and 1974 by Miles Davis. Released on November 22, 1974 as a double LP, it was Davis' last studio album before five years of retirement from music.

"He Loved Him Madly" is a track recorded in tribute to Duke Ellington, who had died one month before; Brian Eno cited it as a lasting influence on his own work.

 - Wikipedia


We had [a] machine invented when we were doing a record called Get Up With It by Miles. We were dedicating a number to Duke Ellington ("He Loved Him Madly"). And I put this track through this piece of equipment. I called Miles up and I says, "Look, something unusual happened here. I can't figure it out. I don't know what it is, but I hear the Duke Ellington band. Not your band, the Duke Ellington band, coming through the speakers." Holy Christ, mean it was traumatic and exciting at the same time. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

The instruments, whatever they were, it sounded like the rhythm section. I mean the soloists and the brass and saxophones came right straight through. The next day we tried to duplicate it, but couldn't do it. We didn't touch the machines. It's like somebody had pushed a button, and out came Duke. Because, it was a tribute to Duke Ellington. I mean that sounds kind of scary to me but that's what happened. I've used it since and it hasn't created the same kind of illusion. But I think Duke was there in that room that day.

 - Teo Macero, "Interview by Iara Lee," Perfect Sound Forever (September 1997)


1973 saw more touring, and the occasional bit of studio recording by Miles’ band. In 1974 a unit of Davis, Henderson, Foster, Mtume, Lucas, and Gaumont, plus new feedback-freakout-oriented guitarist Pete Cosey, with Dave Liebman and/or Sonny Fortune on sax and flute, cut the majority of tracks to be released on Get Up With It. (Some sessions from preceding years were used as well). This record could be seen as the culmination of Miles’ career; it’s some serious business. The key to the album is Henderson’s bass - his playing is perfect and huge. Foster’s drumming provides the perfect foil to him, and you’ve got a thoroughly grounded musical maze starting already. Then add Mtume’s shifting, inventive percussion to that, and stack two rhythmic guitar players on along with one feedback-oriented player (who does some nice soloing on this album) - now you’ve got some great shifting funk going on. Then put Miles on in a surly mood, playing some serious, no-frills trumpet and raising some hell on organ too. It’s quite a trip. I shouldn’t forget Dave Liebman’s contributions - there are some who say that he was partially responsible for "Mayishia", a thoroughly perfect musical act in two parts on here. And Sonny Fortune plays well, and some other names pop up on the recordings as well. Side 1 of this record is a bit strange, a tone-poem dedicated to Duke Ellington who had recently passed away. Side 2 contains "Mayishia" and the strong, deeply funky "Honky Tonk" (actually recorded years previously with a whole host of famous musicians), as well as the bizarre "Rated X". Side 3 is an out-of-control madhouse piece called "Calypso Frelimo" which shows this band at their most anarchic, but clears way for another killer bassline after a while. Side 4 features the dense, energetic "Mtume" (an amazing cut which typifies this band’s sound) and the funky "Billy Preston", along with a relatively traditional piece, "Red China Blues". Each side is about 30 minutes long. If I had to describe this record with one word, the word I would choose would be "massive". This is one that you’ll be taking the measure of for years and years.
 - Scott McFarland, "Miles Davis : The 'Electric' Years", Perfect Sound Forever (August 1997)


What qualified a piece for inclusion on [Ambient 4: On Land] was that it took me somewhere, but this might be somewhere that I'd never been before, or somewhere I'd only imagined going to. […] We feel affinities not only with the past, but also with the futures that didn't materialize, and with the other variations of the present that we suspect run parallel to the one we have agreed to live in.

The choice of sonic elements in these places arose less from listening to music than from listening to the world in a musical way. When I was in Ghana, for instance, I took with me a stereo microphone and a cassette recorder, ostensibly to record indigenous music and speech patterns. What I sometimes found myself doing instead was sitting out on the patio in the evenings with the microphone placed to pick up the widest possible catchment of ambient sounds from all directions, and listening to the result on my headphones. The effect of this simple technological system was to cluster all the disparate sounds into one aural frame; they became music.

Listening this way, I realised I had been moving towards a music that had this feeling; as the listener, I wanted to be situated inside a large field of loosely-knit sound, rather than placed before a tightly organised monolith (or stereolith, for that matter). I wanted to open out the aural field, to put much of the sound a considerable distance from the listener (even locating some of it "out of earshot"), and to allow the sounds to live their lives separately from one another, clustering occasionally but not "musically" bound together. This gave rise to an interesting technical difficulty. Because recording studio technology and practice developed in relation to performed music, the trend of that development has been towards greater proximity, tighter and more coherent meshing of sounds with one another. Shortly after I returned from Ghana, Robert Quine gave me a copy of Miles Davis' "He Loved Him Madly". Teo Macero's revolutionary production on that piece seemed to me to have the "spacious" quality I was after, and like [Federico Fellini's] "Amarcord", it too became a touchstone to which I returned frequently.

 - Brian Eno, Ambient 4: On Land 1986 liner notes



Miles Davis - Get Up With It 1/2 [Mirrors: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Miles Davis - Get Up With It 2/2 [Mirrors: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]


2.9.10

Disney TV - Publicity packet 1989 excerpt

Rummaging through some old paperwork, animator Mike Kazaleh recently came across a Disney TV publicity packet he obtained in 1989 while working on Tiny Toon Adventures. This was material sent to TV stations around the country to prepare them for the coming syndicated package The Disney Afternoon. What surprised him (and I) was that the material is page-after-page of anti-Bugs Bunny, anti-Warner cartoon information, with charts and graphs and misinformation. I always knew television syndication sales was a cut-throat business back then – and here’s a bit of proof.
 - Jerry Beck, Cartoon Brew (September 2, 2010)

1.9.10

Five Starcle Men - Gomba Reject Ward Japan


01 - So Far Backie
02 - Follow Me To The Store
03 - Yellow Frog Legs
04 - Donavon Palsy Master Ward
05 - Our House Is Important
06 - Bitchen Transmission
07 - Spaceman And Human
08 - 48 Of Stars
09 - Stutterer
10 - Ducks Abduct
11 - Only Kids Of Nothing Star
12 - Pizza Hut Families Rule
13 - From Death Trap
14 - Ten Foot Barbie Ward
15 - I Said Momma
16 - Teen Texas Concert
17 - Oh My Goodness
18 - Electric Valley
19 - Mommy On Drugs
20 - Broadway World Kids
21 - We Come From A Land
22 - Starcle Manee Alien
23 - Baby FSM
24 - Starcle Cartoon Glossolalia
25 - Crevice Block Poet
26 - Gomblasemba Lumbieca
27 - Calm Stay Calm
28 - You Will Realize Me

This FSM history album (spanning 1992-1998) for study by government demons and cartoons for Japanese kid of audience is not gay. But this is a gay press release for the University Press and Disney CGI.


Meanwhile, Only Kids of Nothing Star by the two guys in Five Starcle Men has been released on the Net, with the band's Web history claiming that one of the two killed himself a while ago. Eighty percent of it is cack—cheap software chitter and silicon noises—but the duo's mythology indicates they were dextromethorphan punks, feeling the need to dull existential pain.

Two
Nothing Star numbers are rhythmically compelling. One rips off Beck's "Loser" riff; another has a harmonica sound and the chant "Pizza Hut families transcend spiritual reality." However, because Five Starcle Men were downers, honestly horrid, and maybe nuts, they never made a video featuring the glum faces of dysfunctional boozer parents, stealthily corrosive friends, and assorted earnest-looking made-for-TV ringers.
 - George Smith, "Go Ahead, Kill Yourself," in The Village Voice (January 20, 2004)


These kids were involved in alien drug torture and deadly cartoon culture governments. They loved performing their little hit "Pizza Hut Families Rule" which often led to their being kicked off stage by the police or various forces that didn't like the song. Using modern cultural, pharmacological, and other technologies, these young suburban punks constructed highly aestheticized, delusional realities for themselves and their viewers, often resulting in a dangerous sense of political and intellectual ability.
Glen Hobbs soon died by suicide. He left many fabulous artifacts.
Luke McGowan now studies science, philosophy, and history at university.

They built and played on home made insturments and bent looped electronics from toy stores and Radio Shack.

The label "Lost Frog" from Japan sells their CD and a documentary about the deadly chain of events that resulted from the Five Starcle Men chain of Dextromethorphin abuse is in the making.
They came from Lancaster, Ca. (1991-1998)

 - Rich, tribe.net


gonna listen to this later for sure
my friend rich polysorbate 60 was really into starcle men mythology
apparently you see them on large doses of dxm

yea, i dont know his real last name, he had it legally changed to that
member of the long gone LA chaos society (its not chaos, a word like chaos i can't recall right now), lives in long beach and is really into making fake mythology real, like planting fake dead bodies, and giving lectures on skunk apes at universities and such. He would mention starcle men a lot, and him and his buddies had stickers and drawings of them and one even had a tattoo of one. But I don't remember much other than they are common DXM dis-associative hallucinations. As these guys are from LA, it's probably part of the same circle of DXM lovers. Not really sure.

ok, so chris (baboon torture division) said this about it:
"It could be a fictitious band invented by Rich for all I know. Jeff McLean has a starcleman tattoo. According to Rich, the music was all made during DXM trips and was somehow influenced by 5 dimensional aliens. I don't think it's too much of a stretch if you believe in telepathic communication, that aliens would have an easier time contacting us psychically than using radio waves. Maybe people in a dissociative state such as a DXM or DMT trip are more receptive to these kinds of things."

[www.erowid.org]
a reference to the dxm-alien connection

 - Dr. Rek, braindance! forum


Five Starcle Men - Gomba Reject Ward Japan : ZIP / stream