December 20, 2008

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.


December 19, 2008

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.





December 18, 2008

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.

December 17, 2008

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.

December 15, 2008

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!

December 14, 2008

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,