The Residents - "Is Anybody Out There" DVD Review (MVD Video)

While I’ve reviewed a number of Residents’ discs over the past few years, the DVD Is Anybody Out There had slipped through the cracks. Prior to starting in on the band’s latest limited edition, Night Train to Nowhere, I wanted to close out the last of the Bunny Boy and Talking Light discs.

Is Anybody Out There follows the Bunny Boy story arc – a large portion of this footage was posted to the internet as a multi-part docudrama as a run-up to the Bunny Boy tour and these original videos have now been edited and sequenced with some live footage from the tour. For anyone who missed the original YouTube video series, Is Anybody Out There isn’t a full-length “music video” but rather a “feature film” that has a lot in common with Blair Witch Project. The Residents’ music adds to the increasingly uncomfortable story line (and was documented in the tour-only disc Postcards from Patmos) but the music is neither a prominent nor focal part of the DVD. The story line follows Roger (aka “Bunny”) on his descent into madness. Roger is living in the basement of his x-wife’s house, recovering from an accident he had in Greece that he doesn’t remember. The basement is particularly creepy as it looks like a torture chamber, with a variety of weapons on the wall and “John Wayne Gacy” style clown paintings of Roger and his brother Harvey.

The storyline follows Roger’s “self-made” videos that he is posting on the internet asking for help finding his missing brother Harvey. Harvey is described as being obsessed with the apocalypse and he went missing on the Greek isle of Patmos (home of the “Cave of the Apocalypse”). After filling in the back story of Harvey’s disappearance, Roger’s sanity progressively slips and he makes the later videos dressed in an adult bunny suit. After selling some possessions on eBay (this really happened – how’s that for a bridge between film and reality?), Roger raises money to pay The Great Carson (an internet psychic) who told Roger that Harvey is in Patmos, Arkansas getting ready to do battle with “The Beast”.

Note: There may be a “Part II’ to this disc as the DVD ends with Roger/”Bunny” boarding the bus to Patmos.

The Residents have enjoyed many attachments over the years, but none more unique than "Bunny." Their relationship flourished in the 70's when Bunny's eccentric ideas often pointed the group in unexpected directions, but Bunny eventually grew distant and his appearances at the El Ralpho Studios declined. Then, after a lapse of several years, a video tape arrived in the mail. Looking like the product of a discarded Korean surveillance camera, The Residents quickly recognized the unidentified video as the "work" of the long lost Bunny. At first amused, the group soon became disturbed by Bunny's obvious cry for help, attempting to gain support finding his missing "brother" Harvey. Hoping that a project focused on their lost friend might stimulate his reappearance, and subsequent psychiatric care, The Residents reenacted Bunny's plight in a series of internet videos, resulting in this DVD. Unfortunately after a CD, a world tour and the video series, Bunny remains among the missing.

Links:
The Residents

Read More

Tu Fawning - Download "Bones" from Forthcoming Sophomore CD "A Moment" (City Slang)

DOWNLOAD: Tu Fawning - "Bones" (from forthcoming CD A Moment - out May 15th)

Portland, OR's Tu Fawning will release their sophomore album A Monument in the US on May 15th, 2012 via City Slang. The album is preceded by the free MP3 download premiere of "Bones", a 7+ minute-long opus of fluttering and pulsing primal beats.

Led by Corrina Repp and Joe Haege (31Knots), Tu Fawning expands upon the dark, vaudevillian vibes of their 2010 debut LP Hearts On Hold with A Monument. The album marks the first release written and recorded collaboratively as the four-piece of Repp, Haege, Liza Reitz, and Toussaint Perrault, who came together shortly after the duo of Repp and Haege returned from Tu Fawning's first tour. A Monument is steeped in the band's love of music from around the world, and wastes no time making its impact with the dynamic opening trio of the billowing, hypnotically rhythmic "Anchor", the warped R&B/soul cadence of "Blood Stain", and the moody and sensual "Wager". The spooky theatrics of "Build A Great Cliff" and the choral loops and scaling of "Skin and Bone" segue into the mesmeric second half, which closes with the epic "Bones". Repp's formidable, smoky voice leads the charge throughout, at once ethereal and earthly.

The songs of A Monument were found in the practice recordings made by Haege, or in Perrault's home-recorded demos, and - in addition to the usual guitars, keys, horns, and drums - feature instrumentation such as a ragini, a tuned-down marching band drum, old '80s synths, and South American chant samples turned into chords. Some of Perrault's recorded loose ideas ended up somewhat defining the album: to use synths more heavily but with no intention of making an "electro" record. The band employed four tracks, old tape recorders, and dying guitar pedals in documenting the songs, and sometimes recorded vocals by turning their backs to the microphones and yelling - always finding character and a sense of timelessness in the unusual and sometimes less than perfect means.

Repp set out to put a true sense of tenderness front and center in the album, frequently writing lyrics while listening to mixes through headphones in the dark. While working on the words over a concentrated period of time, a common thread began running between them. Each track explores different permutations of what a monument is: the idea of something revered, something that represents something else, something pure. In their mix of the sincere and mildly unconventional, the songs explore the connection between the good and bad, the light and dark, the sensuality and earnestness in being alive.

Tu Fawning recorded A Monument with friends at Tiny Telephone Studios in San Francisco, CA, and at Type Foundry in Portland last summer, with some additional recording at Menomena's Justin Harris' house - all factors that lent a warm, familial feel to the recordings.

A Monument Track Listing:
- Anchor
- Blood Stain
- Wager
- A Pose For No One
- Build A Great Cliff
- Skin and Bone
- In The Center Of Powder White
- To Break Into
- Bones

Links:
Tu Fawning

Read More

The Jettisoundz Promo Years - "The Promos From 1983 Onwards" DVD Review (Screen Edge)

Anyone who didn’t grow up in the 80’s may not appreciate how important music videos were to discovering new bands. While MTV predominately catered to mainstream artists, there were programs like 120 Minutes and Headbangers Ball that featured bands that fell outside of FM-radio standards and USA Network showed a mixture of videos from punk and indie-artists and concert films like "Urgh! A Music War" and Johnny Thunders live on its Night Flight program. In addition to the various cable programs, enterprising “Mom & Pop” record shops in my area sold bootlegs of the British video programs like Old Grey Whistle Test and Top of the Pops which showcased bands that were predominately unknown to an American audience.

The Jettisoundz Promo Years DVD reminds me of these British video programs as it contains 50 videos (just over 3 hours running time) of live and studio videos from a wide assortment of predominately British post-punk bands (“Fifty of the top names from the independents”). There is an eclectic mix of bands on this compilation which includes artists from the space rock, death rock, garage, rockabilly, roots-rock, hardcore and punk genres. As to be expected, some of these artists were regretfully overlooked at the time and others will have you chuckling ruefully. It is a great document of the DIY “anything goes” era that took place in the mid-80’s as, later in the decade, most of the first wave punk bands broke up, the larger indie labels had either collapsed or gotten acquired by the majors and indie-rock morphed into a style of music rather than an aesthetic / way of life.

Some of the stand-out cuts are two live Hawkind tracks (“Night of the Hawk” and “Needlegun”), a couple tracks from Nik Turner’s Inner City Unit (I.C.U), two tracks from Psychic TV’s acid house phase along with a delightfully bizarre cover of “R. U. Xperienced” which is sung by Genesis’ daughter Caresse. Some of the other bands include Guana Batz (UK’s answer to the Stray Cats), Cherry Bombz (Andy and Nasty from Hanoi Rocks along with Terry Chimes from The Clash), goth/batcavers Alien Sex Fiend and football hooligans Macc Lads. Jumping back over to this side of the world, US bands include NYHC stalwarts Crumbsuckers, Mark Linkous’ pre-Sparklehorse band Dancing Hoods and garage rockers, the Raunch Hands.







Brilliant stuff for anyone who “shot up” on college radio in the 80’s.

Links:
Screen Edge

Read More

The Residents - "Coochie Brake" CD Review (MVD Audio)

Coochie Brake is the latest CD from the Residents and this disc marks a clean break from the band’s recent "Bunny Boy" and "Talking Light" related output. To put this disc in context with the band’s recent releases, The Residents toured as a three piece on their "Talking Light" tour with long-time vocalist “Randy, “Chuck” on keyboards and “Bob” on guitar. During the "Talking Light" live shows, Randy announced that, while the Residents had been a four piece, the drummer “Carlos” had retired to Mexico to take care of his mom. With “Randy” touring solo late last year with his Sam’s Enchanted Evening project, Carlos has returned to the band on drums and vocals.

Coochie Brake is an actual place – it is a swamp located in southwestern Louisiana and its 800 acres is totally unrelated to the surrounding terrain. According to the CD liner notes "A million years ago, a big rock fell out of the sky and landed right in the middle of Louisiana. Well, it wasn't Louisiana at that time. But that rock fell, and it hit hard making a giant dent. It gradually filled in but no matter what, it still left a dent. And that dent held just enough water that it became a primeval swamp known as Coochie Brake...Some young guys used to camp in Coochie Brake. They climbed the massive granite boulders that common sense said should not be there. They explored the caves that some said still hid a fortune in Spanish gold. Most importantly, they sat still and let the Brake speak to them as only the Brake can. Those teens grew up to become The Residents. Their music is full of memories. Memories of misty fog, dark shapes and the unexplained sounds of Coochie Brake."

The album is predominantly comprised of dark and uneasy instrumentals and it sounds heavily influenced by Spanish Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) music. Carlos’ “vocals” are all in Spanish and consist of spoken word and murmured phases. There is also a very brief smattering of vocals in English which sound like Randy may have ‘snuck’ in some brief contributions. Like many of the Residents’ instrumental releases, there are “songs within songs” as the band drops light piano, jazz and rock guitars, mariachi horns, complex percussion, crickets, birds and other swamp noises and chanted/ritualistic backing “vocals” into some of the songs. Cohesively weaving all of this together must have been a herculean feet but the end result is that The Residents push the boundaries further than I’ve heard them do so in years and a comparable reference point would be Eskimo.



The Residents haven't announced any shows in support of Coochie Brake but Randy is bringing Sam's Enchanted Evening to Abrons Arts Center (466 Grand Street) on March 24 - 27. "With four decades of album releases, world tours, and museum shows behind them, the pioneering performance collective The Residents presents a work-in-progress of a new music-theater event. Sam’s Enchanted Evening is the story of one man's fumbling journey through a wasted life consumed by years of pathetic self-deception, unrequited passion, and rock 'n' roll. Performed in character by Randy Rose, The Residents’ lead singer, and set against a cycle of aggressively deconstructed American pop songs, Sam’s is a relentless, violent mash-up of laughter, pain, and elusive redemption, sometimes all in a single song." Tickets are $25 and the show starts at 7:30PM.

Links:
The Residents

Read More

George Clinton: Awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Berklee College of Music

Last night in Boston, Berklee College of Music awarded funk icon George Clinton an honorary doctor of music degree and celebrated his music with a performance from the college's P-Funk Ensemble. After the presentation, Clinton traded his doctoral robes for a silver suit to perform with student musicians on "Testify," "Give Up the Funk," and "One Nation Under a Groove," among other P-Funk hits. Clinton's longtime horn players Bennie Cowan and Greg Thomas, and many other members of his current band, joined him on stage for the career-spanning, sold-out show. The concert was the culmination of Clinton's four-day residency at Berklee this week.



Links:
George Clinton

Read More

Town Hall: Brooklyn Indie-Folk Band Release Valentine Video Tribute to Ja Rule

Town Hall "sold me" with their acoustic re-interpretation (and the vocals trade-offs between Stefan Weiner and Phoebe Ryan) of Jimmy Eat World's "The Middle" and the band is playing a CD release show for their new EP "Sticky Notes & Paper Scraps" sometime next month. This new disc is a mellow "late night" listen that is powered by the two vocalists with instrumentation like mandolin and omnichord carefully woven in beneath the vocals. Most of the songs fall into the "alt-folk" genre but the exceptions are the Appalachian/alt-country track "Pandora" and the indie-pop of "Mary A. Longden".

Town Hall released a cover of Ja Rule and Ashanti's "Always on Time" earlier this week to celebrate Valentine's Day.



Links:
Town Hall

Read More

Spiritual Beggars - "Another Way to Shine" CD Review (The End Records)

I probably would have found Spiritual Beggars’ second disc, Another Way to Shine (1996), more satisfying if I hadn’t recently reviewed the band’s fourth disc, Ad Astra (2000). As compared to the hard-rock/grunge of Ad Astra, Another Way to Shine is more of a psychedelic outing that doesn’t have the same pummeling intensity of this later release. The difference in the sound between these two albums is somewhat akin to comparing Alice in Chain’s debut album to the arena-grunge of later period Soundgarden.

The music on Another Way to Shine wears its 70’s roots with pride - the disc opens with “Magik Spell” which kicks off with a cowbell intro before jumping into the band’s blend of groove metal and Southern boogie and this sound caries throughout the disc. This is a guitar-rock album and most of the tracks are built around Michael Arnott’s psychedelic leads and vocalist Spice’s blues-metal vocals. The core sound of most of the songs is similar but each number branches out with different flourishes and leads. Some examples are the heavy reverb on Spice’s vocals on “Misty Valley” and bass and drum groove on “Entering into Peace” but the jam-oriented, groove metal foundation of the songs makes this a disc to nod off to rather than jump into the pit. There are some exceptions though as “Picking from the Box” and “Entering into Peace” have the fist-pumping, driving urgency that made Ad Astra a smash. The one dud track is “Past the Sound of Whispers”, which sinks under the weight of its hippy-dippy mysticism.





Earlier this month, Spiritual Beggars announced that they are "busy in the studio...writing new riffs and coming up with new songs"

Links:
Spiritual Beggars

Read More