Hatching a new kind of turtle.

Woodshedding. It's amazing the amount of things you can want to try to pull off in 15 or 20 short minutes.
In this manner I have been occupied for the last few days.
Apologies.
Here are some tiny tiny graphical parts of my gnawing.

Merry Christmas!

2008 - Denver's Christmas Mix!


I made this mix of sweet Christmas music especially for my girlfriend Tis who is away visiting family, and who I won't get to spend Xmas with.
Peej and I miss you!! :(
Anyway, I made it for her to listen to today since I can't be there, but I think everyone will like listening to this one today! So don't snooze on downloading it! You want to listen to this one today!!!
Don't worry about there being noise. There isn't. Just nice christmas songs. :)

Also, when the kids (or parents) aren't around, there's a super secret bonus track for the mix, which can be downloaded
right here!!!

01 - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - Darlene Love
02 - Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight) - The Ramones
03 - Sleigh Ride - The Ronettes
04 - Happy Xmas (War Is Over) - John Lennon with Yoko Ono
05 - Christmas In Hollis - Run DMC
06 - White Christmas - Orenda Fink
07 - Christmastime Is Here - SP
08 - White Christmas - Mark Kozelek
09 - Blue Christmas - Low
10 - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - The Pretenders
11 - Little Drummer Boy - Mark Kozelek
12 - Silent Night - Low
13 - O Tannenbaum - They Might Be Giants
14 - Santa Baby - Madonna
15 - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - U2
16 - Santa Claus - The Sonics
17 - ???

More snow in Portland...

oh boy. that's great.

The dream of what love could be...

1970 - Band Of Gold

I think almost everyone knows the song 'Band Of Gold'. You could easily argue that it's one of the greatest soul songs of all time. If you don't find yourself singing along with this song like you fucking wrote it yourself, choking on every lyric, then you are a cold, dead husk and I hope there's a way to fix you, you Scrooge. :(
Also, there's something sick about the drummer on this song. Not sick like a guy in a Mountain Dew commercial would describe his "brah's" snowboard trick. No. Sick like, someone make sure that guy's doing ok. Is he about to snap?
Jesus.
Talk about single-minded, relentless drive... It's almost maddening.
Anyway, alot of you already know this.
However, NOT many of you have listened to the rest of this record.
You totally should.
This album is smoldering hot.


Freda is fucking amazing on every one of these songs. She totally owns it. The whole damn thing is a classic and everyone deserves to have this music in their lives.
Of interest also, is the fact that many of these songs were co-written with Ron Dunbar who later went on to help create the Parliament and Funkadelic worlds.
You can't get this on CD. Never was such a thing made in this country. You can either dish out a bunch of cash for an original vinyl copy, or order a fucking ridiculously expensive CD from Germany.
Oh, and there used to be a ridiculously expensive Japanese version of the CD. It's out of print though.
This is a tragedy I cannot abide by.
Rock this record.
Rock it damnit.

Check this bad-ass woman's website as well:
"Whatever! It's all good..."

Loving Love Tara

1993 - Love Tara

I bought this album about 16 years ago when I was a junior in high school in Spokane, WA at a little store on North Monroe called 4000 Holes. (Told you we'd be back) I had taken the bus downtown really early that day so I could get some coffee and look at records and just try to pretend to be living some bohemian lifestyle far far away from the flat hell of the northside in Spokane. I remember it was very snowy so it must have been in November or early December. Maybe even January. The owner of the store, Bob, had put the album on in the store while I was browsing around, looking quite literally through every single record in the store. (I did this once a week at least. sorry Bob.) I looked up and asked him what he was playing and he said "Here. These guys are from Canada." and handed me the record cover. I must have just stood there and stared at it for like four songs, trying to wrap my head around what I was hearing. I was hooked.
Violently.
I spent the last of my money, including bus fare, on a cd copy so I could listen to it in my headphones while I walked home through several miles of snow. It was normally a completely miserable, cold, wet, long, uphill trek but I spent the whole walk in a state of total jubilation. From the sublime perfect songcraft of "Behind the Garage" to the soaring buzzed out bliss of 'Sunlight' there isn't a song on here that doesn't take me right back to when i first heard it. Hearing 'Blinded' was like a sea change for me. I sat down on a curb, played it three times in a row and decided right then that I wanted to continue making music for the rest of my life. I felt... liberated. The way that only a 17 year old can.

oh sweet starjob...

1997 - Star Job EP


I love this record... SO much. This is Chicago area freak cult band the Frogs, all dressed up for a hot, slick rock show.
Gone(!) are the trademark, ultra lo-fi jabs. In with the ultra-slick production and rock wild guitar heroics!!
The Frogs do not let go of their urges to make broad, infantile and intentionally wildly offensive jabs at everything in their path though, for which, I thank them.This is a crystal perfect beheading of the era of the rock star, written in the language of big ROCK.
The album is produced by Billy Corgan under the pseudonym 'Billy Goat' and certainly features some of his guitar playing. Probably a lot actually.
But wait.. isn't Billy Corgan a HUGE rock star?
yes. yes he is.
The Frogs gladly handjob him right onto the record with commendable shamelessness and even drop his name with a wink wink nudge nudge.
Did I mention I love this record?God damn. Yes I do.
It might not even be my favorite Frogs record though...
I dunno.

(A really nice thing that you could do is buy this album (plus TEN bonus tracks!) directly from the band!)


I love it so much that shortly before I left Tea For Julie, I played in a Frogs tribute band. Not just a Frogs tribute, we were a tribute to specifically this EP. We called ourselves 'Starjob'. What else?
I was playing bass and keyboards. Michael from TFJ was on guitar and vocals. Kenny Erlick was playing guitar as well, and our friend Flapjack who formerly drummed for Icanlickanysonofabitchinthehouse was behind the kit. Practice consisted of... well... mostly it was an excuse to drink retarded amounts of tequila and smash our way through a cover of the EP. We did these practices... six, maybe seven times(?) and I did all kinds of wild damage to the physical structure of my bass and found out that the two ten Ampeg cabinet I have actually lights up if you push it too far into feedback! Who knew?! When I quit TFJ I pretty much quit this band by default, but we were gonna be awesome man...
totally rad...

Noise in it's natural surroundings.

1991 - Incapacitants Live In Tajima, Fukushima, August 25th

So what exactly is on this list?

Top Ten Albums Of All Time

(according to Denver's personal preferences, and in no particular order)


'Black Woman' - Sonny Sharrock
1969



'Rid Of Me/4-Track Demos' - PJ Harvey
1993


'Loveless' - My Bloody Valentine
1991


'Journey In Satchidananda' - Alice Coltrane
1970


'On The Corner' - Miles Davis
1972


'Psychic Hearts' - Thurston Moore
1995


'Sign O' The Times' - Prince
1987





'Red House Painters I & II' - Red House Painters
1993


'Incesticide' - Nirvana
1992


'Fear Of A Black Planet' - Public Enemy
1990


it's pretty standard, but there it is. I have no explanations.
subject to change at random, and upon whims.

Woodshedding

I'm going to be quite busy, locked up, alone, making some sounds come to fruition. I have a show coming up on New Years eve, and I insist on it being awesome. It will be my first live performance since leaving my former band, but if you liked Tea For Julie, this music may not make any kind of sense to you, but I'm really feeling it. I'm feeling good, but I won't be ready to perform until I feel good the way wild beasts do. Hopefully, by the day of the show my viola will be totally afraid of me when I approach it. I'm also making a theremin type device from scratch and my friend Alex Miel will be joining me at a point in my set to draw (like with a pencil) some live sounds right before your eyes. Art that speaks as it is born. All of this is such a long time coming.

Beater

Even when it's giving me tons of shit and sputtering and dying, my Linux box is still somehow more dependable in ways than any windows machine. The software is just awesome. Even as it's literal guts fester in sad squalor, it works on. I love it.

Somewhere I wish I had been.

1992 - Secret Solo Show at the White Horse, Hampstead
January 5th

'Rid Of Me' and the accompanying '4-track Demos' by Polly Jean Harvey are my personal favorite records of alllllll time. Unwaveringly.
Those songs changed my life.
Every year, on my birthday, I listen to both from beginning to end.
I named my dog after her for christ sake.

Here we get a chance to see Ms Harvey working these songs live alongside earlier songs from 'Dry', well before the release of her demos or the Albini album sessions and without a band. It's like spotting a live tiger in the jungle. Awesome. A little bit frightening, but mesmerizing.

The set:

Rid Of Me
Dress
Hair
Highway 61 Revisited
Sheela-Na-Gig
Missed
Man-Sized
Dry
Satisfaction

FLAC files are fully lossless audio codec files. This means they are high quality, larger files. They are worth it sometimes. This is one of those times. Dozo.

Of Pirate Radio, Gamera and Treats From the Sky...

2008 - Sorority Radio

This last summer/autumn I tried a little experiment from out of my room in the eyes of the Sorority House. I set up my linux computer to run as a server so that I could broadcast a free internet feed.
Who hasn't wanted to run their own pirate radio station? I certainly did!
This experiment had several false starts as I struggled to teach myself what I was doing with setting up all of the necessary software in a linux environment, but eventually I got the thing up and running.
I broadcast at my leisure, so I was never going to have a lot of people listening, but it was a fun thing to give to my friends, so they could kind of listen in to whatever thing I decided to play for them. My friend Bonnie in Seattle, and my friend Jason in Seoul were both regular listeners. This in turn kept me doing more and more regular broadcasts. I had other listeners, sometimes several at a time, but I have no idea who they were or what they thought.
Well, all good things must do their thing, and the linux box basically ate shit. It was a gnarly hardware issue, and was cause to have to build a new, lesser computer starting over from other parts I had lying around.
I managed to cobble a sad thing together that works, but it is saaaaad, and cannot handle running the server and the broadcasting software at the same time. So, for now there is no more Sorority Radio.
At one point however, I did record a transmission. Part of one anyway. So here it is if you want to listen. Can't tell you what to expect, except that it is something that I would really love. :) I can tell you it was the night of October 8th 2008.

Percussion makes oh-so nice with violin, electronics, piano, laptop...

2002 - Songbird Suite


Again, here we have one of my absolute favorite records of all time ever. Released in the very beginning of 2002, I remember ordering this cd for the record store I worked for because I saw Ikue Mori listed in the personnel while browsing the distributors new release catalog. Ikue Mori is one of very few laptop artists that I have an easy time getting down with, but that's a whole topic in and of itself. At the time I wasn't familiar with Susie Ibarra, Craig Taborn or Jennifer Choi.
This album is filled with all types of amazing, exotic percussion work from the insanely talented Susie Ibarra who has done lots and lots of amazing session work in New York, mostly for John Zorn's Tzadik label.
However, despite all of the extremely beautiful work she does here, it was Jennifer Choi who shocked my ears into absolute attention when I first put this disc in to listen.
I have played viola and violin since I was in third grade. When I was younger I played zealously. I wasn't a sports kid, or a cool rocker kid. I was hyper and I had asthma. I did ride a skateboard from the time I was little, but when you start skateboarding to school with a violin case in Spokane, the "cool" skater kids show their true colors.
"Faggot!!"

Nice.
After years of stuffing my head with theory and music history and hours and hours and hours and hours of playing I reached a point where I didn't want to hear classical music EVER AGAIN. I quit playing when I was 18 and didn't pick it up much again except to record some background-y stuff for various bands in Portland. Also, busking outside of Berbati's in downtown with my viola kept me fed for a few rough months in 98 or 99. I never totally abandoned it, but I wasn't too inspired anymore. It made me sad.
Jennifer Choi's performances on this album make me feel passionate about the viol again. Every time I listen. She creates atmospheres throughout these songs that are alternately playful and creepy, frantic and soothing, abrasive and lyrical. Her violin sounds mystic. Mythic. Otherworldly.
Sometimes I wonder if she is playing it at all, or whether it is compelling her to allow it to speak. I know it sounds weird and dramatic, and it is, but this is NOT a completely inaccesible record by any means. Don't be scared.
The album is beautiful.
This album is definitely in print and available from the Tzadik website directly. Stores can certainly special order it, but you're unlikely to just run across a copy in stock at the average record store.

Googley Moog-ley!

1969 - The Age Of Electronicus

60's pop, funk and soul hits played by Dick Hyman, on the Moog? What isn't fucking awesome about that? If you don't find something to like about this record you probably like to see baby kitties and puppies die.


A track list is in order, so you might be further enticed into this weird bubble!

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
Give It Up Or Turn It Loose
Blackbird
Aquarius
Green Onions
Kolumbo
Time Is Tight
Alfie
Both Sides Now

Enjoy!

A pleasant summery memory for our day of snow

1999 - Let's Start A Family 7"
Sub Pop Singles Club June

I was never in the Sub Pop Singles Club. I have moved too often for such things. I did however, get onto the Sub Pop website back in spring of 2002 and order myself a copy of the vinyl reissue of Mudhoney's 'Superfuzz Bigmuff'. I'm from Washington state and that record is like mother's milk to me, so... I can't help myself.
I had really enjoyed the Bonnie Billy album 'Ease On Down The Road'. I should do a blog for that one. It's the dirtiest little lullabye of a record you're likely to hear.
Sorry. I'll stop with the tangents.
So...Sub Pop website. While perusing the website I saw this seven inch for sale. I figured it was worth dropping a few extra bucks to hear it.
I had moved out to Beaverton (which ended up sucking crazy amounts of ass) to live alone in a one-bedroom apartment. However, that first couple months was a pleasant summer retreat from the everyone-ness of living in Portland. I kinda forgot about ordering it. Not that it took an incredibly long time or anything. The day this showed up was a pleasant surprise upon returning from an early day of working. It's always nice to get something that isn't a bill from the postman. The songs are perfectly summery, mellow, and calm and always bring me back to sitting on my second floor back patio in that apartment, smoking a cigarette in an anonymous, cookie-cutter apartment complex in the burbs. No one around. Just me and my records. A pile of books to read, and a new (used) leather armchair. I didn't run into anyone I knew when I went out to buy groceries. Ever. It was ecstatic and cathartic. Immediately, the sound of these two songs became the anthem for that little slice of time.

Come in Red 5!

This is one of the two most comforting groups of sounds I know.

IX

pardon,

The streets of Harlem in the early 80's

1984 - Crash Crew

The Crash Crew came together in the Lincoln projects in Harlem back in 1977, the year after I was born.
While this record was released in 1984, what we really have here is a document of the first few Crash Crew 12" singles, which were released between 1980 and 1983 on vanity labels and also, on the famous Sugar Hill label, which issued this LP.
That's all I got in me right this second. I'll add some meat to this post later. Good night! :)

Happy Holidays!!!!

Peej

I soooo love my dog!!!

...and it only took 12 years to find it!

1986 - Girl In The Sweater / I Heard Her Call My Name 7"

Back in 1993 or 1994 I was a junior in high school and dating this girl whose mother was an exchange teacher from Australia. She had some mix-tapes that her friend back in Woolongong had made for her that we listened to together bunches of times. Apparently she had forgotten to pack one or something because she was always looking for a tape that had this elusive song called "Girl In The Sweater" which she wanted to play for me.The song was by a band called the Hard-Ons, who were a very popular old-school punk band back in Australia. Many times she frantically tried to find that cassette and many times she made me promise that I would continue to look for this song for the rest of my life or until I found it, whichever should come first.
I can honestly say that probably because of her manic insistence, or perhaps because of how much other great music she had turned me on to, I did in fact search for it. And search, and search, and search...
I had no problems finding material by the Hard-Ons. They are pretty well known in Australia, and the UK, and aren't completely unknown these days in the states among serious punk collectors and enthusiasts. This song though... God damnit. I could have sworn that she made that shit up!! No fucking trace of any such song, even after working for years in used record stores, where I got to see and listen to pretty much every weird, obscure record that ever existed.
Nothing.
Then, one day, about three years ago, I was just kind of wandering around the Clinton neighborhood, waiting to meet a friend at Dot's and decided to pop in to this really great little record store called Green Noise. I browsed around and found a great old record of early Roy Orbison recordings and was close to leaving when I thought, "Oh, I should look for Hard-Ons" (yeah, haha) I went to the "H" lps and there it was. Right in front. A yellow covered record by the Hard-Ons. Self-titled. I had never seen or even heard of such a thing. I flipped it to the back, and there it was, 'Girl In The Sweater'. I flipped it back over.
$80
*erkkkkkkkkkkk*
That wasn't going to happen. :( However, the owner of the store was nice enough to let me put the record on a turntable and listen to it in headphones. Finally.
A few months later somebody from London via the interweb traded me a copy of the 7" version for a 7" I had of green day.
Sucker.
Sarah and I still keep in touch. She's busy back in Sydney being a bad-ass teacher/art-curator/musician and though I talk to her relatively regularly, I don't think I ever told her that I found that goddamned song.
She is getting married in March or something and I won't be able to go, but in honor of her engagement I dedicate this post to her. Congratulations Sarah! May your marriage be even lovelier than chips!

Thurston was hiding out in St John's

1995 - Cindy (Rotten Tanx) 7"

This seven inch was released as a promotional item for the 1995 record 'Psychic Hearts'. I could go on and on and on about that record and it definitely belongs in my Top Ten Records Of All Time list, but this post is only related to that album by proxy, and I'm pretty sure that you can easily find a copy of that one if you want to.

I found this little gem hiding in a pile of otherwise totally uninteresting 7"s out at a tiny little record store in St Johns at the far north end of Portland. This same trip to this record store yielded up a Deftones promotional 7" for '7 Words' as well, which people have offered me all kinds of crazy things to trade for including first-born children. Oh, those wacky Deftones fans...
Anyway, this little record has the album track Cindy (Rotten Tanx), a super fucking tough bad-ass of a song that grinds like a night driving in the city, high on youth energy and a joint you snuck past your parents. Doesn't make sense? Listen and maybe it will. The lyrics have something to do with a guy who is rapturing in the idea of wrapping himself up in all the things that are amazing about females, but get a little lost in all the revved up guitar slithering.
The B-Side is the otherwise unreleased track 'Teenage Buddhist Daydream', a gentle, lo-fi, songlette which is interrupted in several spots by seemingly random clips of audio, probably dubbed off a TV. Considering the heft of 'Psychic Hearts' it makes sense that it wasn't included on the record. It isn't a total throw away though, and if you like the album you'll probably want to hear this.

I found this CD on the ground

1997 - 70 Minutes Of Happy: Bulb In Bulbophonic


Yes, I literally found it on the ground. Right in the middle of the street near NE Sandy, close to a nice little townhouse apartment I used to live in with my friend Keira.
It was summer and I had had a crap day at work and it was about a millions degrees outside. I rode my skateboard all the way from the record store I worked at on NE Sandy and 20th to our apartment, which was on like 54th or something. If you are familiar with that patch of Sandy Blvd circa 2000 - 2001, you know that it IS NOT skateboard friendly. 100% uphill and riddled with vicious potholes, shitty, smashed up sidewalks and weird intersections.
Anyway, I had turned up Sacramento to the kind of back approach to the apartment complex, and stopped to sit on the sidewalk and rest before I crawled up the last couple blocks. And there it was. Sitting right in the middle of the street. I picked it up and looked at it. A cdr with a printed disc in a little plastic sleeve with what looked like a photocopied piece of bright pink paper for a cover.
(the scan above I found on the internet. It sucks I know, but I can't find the cd right now...)
I assumed it was for some local band but saw that it was on a label called Bulb, out of Osaka, Japan. I fucking LOVE Osaka! Favorite place ever! I recognized something else as well. A name. Incapacitants. I had never heard these "Incapacitants" but I had heard of them. Infamous japanese godfathers of the Osaka noise scene, and older contemporaries of Hanatarash. This I was excited to hear. I decided to just go ahead and listen to the whole thing from the beginning and I had a discman with me. In it goes. It sounded a little like...
"SSSSSSSSSSSKKKKRR
RRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
E!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Auh-
GUHH-g-g-g-g-g--g-g-G-G
-g-gkschkreeeeeeeegk... gk...
gk gkgkgk!!!! DOOM".
This stuff isn't for everyone. Hardcore NOISE. Right at that moment though, it was like a perfect reflection of my mood. I was hot, and wanted to crawl out of my body. 15 million annoying reminders of people being rotten and aggressive were wrestling each other in the front of my brain. My skateboard fighting against the jagged, toothy sidewalks and complaining audibly. Surrounded by pushy, careless automobiles with faceless automatonic drivers. Only sounds like these could push them far enough away from me that I'd be able to maybe catch my breath and assemble my thoughts reasonably. It sounded perfect.

The cover is cryptic and the track list spotty. Some tracks don't even list an artist, or just say "???" When I find the CD, I'll make sure and put up an accurate transcription of the track listing as it is listed on the cover. Til then, you can listen. :)
As far as I can tell this thing is very very uncommon and out of print. The label doesn't even seem to have a website anymore. Anyone have any more info on this thing?

NeoBoys and a brief dip into Portland's punk roots...

1983 - History Of Portland Punk Volume One

I used to have a vinyl copy of this ridiculously cool record, but I gifted it to my friend Isaiah from the band the Eegos. :( I'm a dumbass. This record was released by Zeno Records on wax, back before I ever lived in Portland. The CD reissue from 2000 is out of print and goes for about $70 on Amazon. However, the label now offers it for sale as a CDR here. This is a really amazing peek at the scene here in Portland in the late seventies, which was fantastic and really in and of itself. Around this same time the Satyricon released a lesser compilation of local bands as well. I'll get it up here someday. The track listing is as follows:

1 Better Off Dead - Wipers
2 Up In Flames - Wipers
3 Does It Hurt? - Wipers
4 Romeo - Wipers
5 No Solution - Wipers
6 Never Comes Down - Neoboys
7 Give Me The Message - Neoboys
8 Rich Man's Dream - Neoboys
9 Afraid Of The Russians - Stiphnoyds
10 Mom's A Fake - Stiphnoyds
11 Radiation - Stiphnoyds
12 I'm Trouble - Sado-Nation
13 Gimme You - Sado-Nation
14 On Whom They Beat - Sado-Nation
15 Mom & Pop Democracy - Sado-Nation
16 Rock & Roll Hell - Napalm Beach
17 Johnny Paranoid - Sado-Nation
18 Running Dog - Lotek
19 World Gone Mad - Lotek
20 Running In The Shadows - Neoboys
21 WW2 - Neoboys
22 Mutant Baby - Smegma
23 Outro - Smegma
24 Same Old Thing - Wipers
25 Meat Is Rotten - Stiphnoyds
26 1988 - Rubbers
27 Riot Squad - Rubbers
28 Bug - Cleavers
29 Bop Street - Bop Zombies


I also am linking a live recording of the amazing and hard to track down music of old-school Portland girl-punkers the NeoBoys.
Enjoy!

1990 drops knowledge

1990 - Holy Intellect

Another request, and another totally out of print album. This is for my good friend Jon down in Nashville, fighting the consumer hoards, and making the streets safe for the children. Poor Righteous Teachers. The name really takes you right there all by itself, doesn't it? 1990. Oh, 1990... I bet the first time I heard this I was rocking a pair of bright red denim shorts, a cross colours or Malcolm X hat: and a giant t-shirt with a Loony Toons character on it. Maybe someone said to me, "Hey man, is that the new 'Black Sheep' cassette? Shit.. you should check out these cats PRT!" and I was probably like "Wow man, these guys are fresh!" And I was right.

*
1 Luv 2 tha Nation of Gods and Earths son!
*
"It's only like 5% out of a hundred..."

Friends overseas

In the summer of 1994 I was lucky enough to spend some time with my friend Yoshiyuki in Tokyo. I was 17 years old, and though I was a rabid musician at the time, playing in several orchestras in Washington state, I hadn't yet stumbled upon the rich deposits of experimental and noise music exploding out of Japan. It's probably for the best, as I don't think any of my friends would have wanted to go check out whatever wild noise madnesses were happening in Tokyo that summer. Luckily for me, someone made it their business to make some sort of chronicle of that time and place.

1991 - Tokyo Flashbacks Vol 1

Tokyo flashbacks is actually a long running series of compilations chronicling the vast amount of noise, experimental, and out-jazz music of the Tokyo scene. This first volume was released in 1991 and contains work from relatively popular artists like Keiji Haino, to the completely obscure. I bought this thing on vinyl in 1995 in Spokane, WA at a wonderful little independant record store called 4000 Holes (You'll hear more about this place from me for sure). It said "Tokyo" on it and it had a gamera toy hiding on the cover, which was all the motivation I needed to take it home with me. I was living in a weirdo house with a couple other looney, acid-soaked, art damaged kids and an angry siamese cat named "Agony". My only solid impression of my first listen was a feeling of being about 20 years artistically behind what I was hearing. Spokane in 1995 had nothing on Tokyo 1990. The most exciting thing for people in Spokane was the possibility of mixing ska with grunge... *sigh* Anyway, this is a really well curated series, and I'm sure I'll end up posting more of these records in the future. For now, this is a great jump-off for the uninitiated, and ought to keep you pretty bent and busy trying to unravel it for a while...

honey bliss light melt

2002 - Kali Yug Express

This one is just plain gorgeous and in it's own nice little place. A separate slice of what the Sonik were up to while delving into one of my favorite discs, 'Murray Street'. As far as I can tell this little EP is out of print.

the one that got away...

That's all for a bit today. I'll leave you all with a letter from our boy Jack.

jackpot debris

1998 - Jackpot Studio Demos


Elliott recorded these at, tiny, cute, Jackpot Studio at it's original location on SE Morrison in Portland. I recorded on two different records which were recorded here in his little studio which he co-owned with Larry Crane, who did the bulk of actually running the studio. Larry still runs Jackpot here in Portland and is an ace producer and is also magically patient. I think my old band *deleted* might have baked him a cake he was so nice. Anyway, I always like hearing these recordings. They were recorded right down the street from where I was living, right when I was living there. It's nice to think these songs were being born right in my little neighborhood.

Mad props to the st(r)ash (treasury)!

Sweet sweet exorcist...

1974 - Sweet Exorcist

I don't think that this particular album has ever been put onto CD and made available for mass consumption, which is a damned dirty shame. If you know Curtis already, be prepared to be shocked that this album isn't held up in the same light as 'Curtis' , 'Roots' and 'Superfly'. The track "Kung-Fu" alone will kick your ass. There are a few more Curtis Mayfield records like this one that have just kinda disappeared into the void. I'll put more of them up as I get to it.

New Years Eve!

I live in a house where we have shows. It is popularly known as the Sorority House. Mostly experimental, and noise, but not always. We're having one of these fun things go down on New Years Eve! Old school homie Alex Miel will be decking the crib out with some super sweet art and the musical line-up is deadly! This will be an out of control fun night!