9 posts tagged “avant-garde”
As for the Knife, I don't know a whole lot about them. My friend Lindsey gave me a burn of Deep Cuts a little while ago, mentioning the Ween-sound, and also that they're apparently a brother/sister combo from Sweden who go around in various masks. I'm not sure if they're anonymous or just the Daft Punk type of anonymous where everyone knows their names but you never see their faces. I thought originally that they only wore Luchadore masks, but I saw another picture where they were wearing cool bird mask things. So, I guess they're open. I should really get around to picking up one of their records for real. Like maybe this one, Silent Shout!
By the way, I'm thinking the Hiatus will be ending pretty soon. Part of it was that I've been busy updating my iTunes with Album Artwork because I am just that lame, but also that work has had me kinda slammed lately. But I'm thinking it'll be OK again soon!
I recently burned a new disc for me to listen to on my way to and from work. (I'd been getting slightly sick of the old one, though it was a very good mix of albums, as it turned out.) Anyway, one of the albums burned-and-shuffled on the mp3 disc is Andy Prieboy's Sins Of Our Fathers. I actually haven't heard this album before, I'd ripped it when Aila wanted to play a cut from it on the radio show I used to do for Steve.Fm, 50 Skidillion Watts Of Good Will. I really dug the track she chose ("Who Do You Think We're Coming For"), and I have been digging his work with Wall Of Voodoo lately, so I figured it'd be a safe bet that I would dig the album, AND it'd give me an excuse to finally listen to the damn thing.
SO, ANYWAY -- I was on my way to work, and this song came on, and I
couldn't figure out who it was -- it almost had a Scissor Sisters vibe
(for a minute I wondered if I'd put Ta-Dah on and forgot -- by the way,
I've finally come around on them, sorry I was late to that party), but
I couldn't place it. I liked the really strange disco-ish feel to
it, and the lyrics. I did a google search for the lyrics as soon
as I arrived at work, but no dice. I'd actually _forgotten_ I'd
put the Andy Prieboy album on the disc and was trying to figure it out
-- none of the other acts (Chumbawamba, Sufjan Stevens, Rilo Kiley, the
Minus 5, Cracker) I knew I'd put on fit at all -- about the closest was
maaaaybe Republica, like, perhaps that one cut from the other album
that I had downloaded but listened to only once or so. (Speaking
of Republica, anyone catch the mention of them on this week's Venture
Brothers? The Monarch claimed that when they first met, Dr.
Girlfriend looked like Saffron from Republica.) But anyway, so
about halfway through my busride home, another Andy Prieboy cut came
on, and I realized it pretty much had to be him, but I still wanted to
know what the cut WAS -- and after all, if it was indeed him; the
vocals didn't have his usual almost-kinda-Stan-Ridgway-kind-of-sound...
I suppose I could have dropped in another song by accident or
somethin'. So, I got home, ran up to look, and it's this
one. So, here. Enjoy this song, because I did.
So, as I mentioned yesterday, tonight is the big Seattle Jandek concert! Which is really pretty wicked awesome, considering that the dude had been putting records out for, what, not quite 30 years and has only started playing live in the tail end of 2004? (Amusing co-inkydink: The date of Jandek's very first show was the same day that my friends and I had all seen Jandek On Corwood for the first time at the Film Forum. So, how about that?) So, yes! Here's a cut from Your Turn To Fall, one of the earlier records, put out in 1983. For more on Jandek, including the whole history and whatnot, pick up the DVD of Jandek On Corwood, and check out Seth Tisue's Guide To Jandek, which is really wicked awesome.
Also: If you are in New Jersey or the neighborhood, The Red Paintings are playing a show (I believe with the Dresden Dolls, who are wicked awesome) -- they're Oh-Kay, I Guess, but the main reason I'm mentioning this is because they had a film backdrop when I saw them a week or so ago, which I was really trying to figure out the source for, because I really wanna see the movie they were using.
Anyway, though, the stuff I remember from the film:
Nuclear bombs go off, as there're mushroom clouds and whatnot. A man
with glasses appears to be in pain and nerviously, he rolls up his
shirt sleeve and discovers that his skin is cracked and gross from the
radiation. He also
sees a hunk of metal pipe in there, and kind of goes "AHH!" at it,
which I suppose would be the proper reaction. He finds a woman
and kidnaps her or beats her up and kidnaps her or something and puts
her bloodied body in a bathtub. The odd thing, though, is that she
actually seems to be enjoying it sexually, even though she looks like
she's beat up pretty bad. The guy ends up in more pain and I'm guessing
through mutation, he starts to get all sorts of....
fluffy-dirt-mud-skin-something over him (I'm thinking it was supposed
to be tumors), and it seems to be very painful and perhaps making him
more into a monster.
It was Black & White, and LOTS of fast motion/jump cut kind of stuff. One of the other things I remember is another guy with an "X" on his jacket running around in some of the fast motion scenes (which were often basically a collage of stills going down a street with telephone poles and whatnot),
Ben & I both saw it, and said that it reminded us that we'd both rather be watching this or Eraserhead (Ben)/Funeral
Parade Of Roses (Me). Ben said it reminded him of Eraserhead because of
some faces looked kind of like the Baby. It kind of reminded me a
little of Funeral Parade just from the general feel.
Ben thought to note too that it may have just been sped up by the Band, but to me, it looked like it was like that in the
real film. Ben also remembers the X guy riding around on a
bike. I've also heard it suggested that it was a collage of
different movies, but disjointed though it was, it really seemed to
have the Same Feel, like it WAS all from one movie.
Also, there were a few shots of piles of rather dryish looking dirt,
and also some spaghetti lookin' stuff, though those might have been
wires. Also, the Mutated Guy looked like he might have been part robot
or part wires and such
like, too. (There was a shot of a rotating pile of un-sorted wires, that I actually noted reminded me a little bit of the
way Cartoon Planet would, say, have a stop-motion spinning plate of beans or spaghetti. But that part isn't helpful,
probably.)
(Also, it cut out about halfway through their set, and got replaced with footage of the eye-slitting scene of Un Chien
Andalou (and NOTHING ELSE from UCA), then a movie which had the
Creation Of The Universe, which lead to a bunch of weird religious
imagery and also hole imagery, but the main thing I remember is an old
guy in a hospital bed, a Televangelist Lookin' Dude with a white bible
throwing the bible down in a really bright place, and then a cut back
to the Hospital Dude, where you're going to expect the bible to hit
him, but instead he's covered up with the Shroud Of Turin, which he
pulls from his face angrily and throws in the corner. Soon after, it
cuts to a multi-eye goat-headed man being crucified. I wouldn't mind
finding out what that was too, but it didn't look nearly as compelling
as the Weird Japanese Avant Film. It looked like the
Televangelist/5-or-6-eyed-goat-jesus film would have been more of an
Ironic Watchin', rather than the Japanese one which looked legitmately
rad.)
I know that it sounds like it might be Tetsuo: The Iron Man, but the stills I've seen from that don't seem to match. (Also, I would have noticed if anyone had a drill-dildo-penis, too. That's not something you typically overlook.) So, yeah, a) If anyone knows, that would be awesome, or b) If you get a chance to talk to the folks in the band, that would be awesome too. I've emailed the band via their website, but I haven't heard back, so, yes, I don't know! Hooray! I like pie! I'm gonna crosspost this to my LJ too, just because I think more people read that. Also the Music Wiki, just because I like to include all the notes there, even those that don't have anything to do with anything. Hooray!
I gots to go to a dub club meeting wit' a
quickness, so I shall make this brief! Even though I'm not a big
fan of Pork Soda, it's got its moments, one of which is this song,
which I've always liked because of the "Forgive Me If I Hesitate" part
and the shout out to the Residents. (Yeah, who would have guessed
that Les Claypool's a Residents fan.) So, anyway, here it
is! I used to play it to death on my college radio show.
Now I will post it here! Also, I haven't actually heard it in a
few years. So hooray!
Nash The Slash is another anonymous musician,
only instead of being from the US like the Residents, he's from
Canada. This is a cool sounding song, and it's pretty rad. I
enjoy it! It's from his album Thrash. Um, I got distracted
again and am posting this at the last minute. Bloo had a $15
bill. Amazon doesn't have this album, so you can get it from his site.
I've been kinda in a Zoogz Rift mood again lately, and this is my
favorite song of his, I believe. It's from the album Nonentity
(Water III: Fan Black Dada), and it's sort of a pastiche of bubblegum
pop. A like the sound of it, and the vocal line, where it's a
sarcastic-yet-bouncy delivery of the lyrics. It's very jokey, but
it works very well. I think that Nonentity might be my favorite
of the Zoogz Rift albums I've got (though I really should get the 2
CD-R set of his entire discography. That'd be awesome.), but all
the ones I've heard are pretty good. This was actually released
on SST records, too, which might be a little surprising, just because
it's not exactly punk, but they also did a lot of avant-jazz kinda
stuff, too. Not that this is terribly jazzy or anything.
And, hey, they had Negativland, too... well, until they sued
Negativland. Oh well. Here is the song!
Frank Chickens is another one of those bands that I tend to really sing
the praises of that not a lot of people know about. Granted, in
the US, they have had a grand total of one release -- and that's a
remix 12". D'oh. In the UK, they're considered a novelty
one-hit wonder, though they were actually pretty Residential and
experimental. The main member of the band, Kazuko Hohki's
actually had quite a bit of outside success in the UK -- she's hosted
TV shows, put on plays, shows, monologues, written books, and all
sortsa stuff. She's also got a couple of solo albums out, but
they're kind of hard to find. This is from the remix CD version
of my favorite Frank Chickens album, Club Monkey -- though the original
mix is superior. Not much is different on this particular cut,
though, so that's always good. It's a cool, sad little song with
a italian tag -- "O cane! O cane mi amore! Mangia me, ah
per favore" -- or, "Oh dog! Oh Dog, my love -- please eat
me!" It makes more sense in the song and when combined with the
full narrative of Club Monkey. It's also just a wicked awesome
song.
I actually had the idea to post this in a
dream. In the dream, I talked about the Magical Misery Tour piece
from National Lampoon's Radio Hour (or, one of the records actually),
where it's pieced together from John Lennon interviews. One of
the lines in there is "'Don't Worry Kyoko' was one of the best fucking
rock 'n' roll records ever made!" and in the dream I argued that it in
fact was. After all, it's got a great, hummable riff, and the
sheer emotion in the lyrics and vocal performance is as impassioned as,
well, anything. I think I had one other point w/r/t/ what people
think of Rock 'n' Roll is that's exemplified by this recording, but
I've forgotten it, now. After all, it WAS a dream. Anyway,
though, this song really is great, and it's actually pretty sad -- it's
about Yoko's daughter who was abducted by her ex-husband who got really
deep into born-again Christianity and decided that Yoko was a Bad
Influence or whatever. Yoko recorded this song for her in hopes
that she'd hear it and be comforted that her mother was still looking
for her and loved her. Yoko didn't see her for almost 30 years --
she was abducted in 1971, and they got back in touch in 1998.
OK -- To inaugaurate the new VOX blog, which I'm using as an mp3 blog, I'm gonna do my first post! Which is a song I've been wanting to post for a while, as it's one of my favorite Residents songs, but it's awfully long, a bit too long to send via email. Then I saw something shiny or something, and never posted it to Phancy.Com anyway. But now I shall! So here we go! It's a cut from Freak Show, which is apparently getting (another) rerelease soon. The album is about the various freaks at a freak show -- aside from the first and last songs, each song is named after a character and tells their story (which is gone into more depth in the excellent Freak Show graphic novel, well worth picking up -- my favorite story is probably that of "Herman, The Human Mole", but anyway). This freak, however, is the freak that freaks the freaks out, and she's not even in the show -- she's in the audience. The first half of the song takes place from the other freaks' point-of-view, but the second half is where the Pure Awesome is -- when it opens up a window into Lillie's own particular sort of madness. It's a sad and scary song, and one of my favorites from that excellent record.
