No blind spots on a leopard's eye: WIRE

I've been meaning to write something about Wire for awhile now, and the points have converged. I may be either revealing or dating myself here, but when I explain that I was a mere two years of age when Wire recorded their groundbreaking album Pink Flag at London's Advision Studios, I expect to be forgiven for not being a life-long fan. 

I am a fervent admirer now, I should add.

I thought that the first time I heard Wire was on the beautiful little Luna 7" Outdoor Miner, 1996, on Radiation. The track (oh, sorry, that would be "Outdoor Miner," track 10 from 1978's Chairs Missing) was re-released on the awesome download-only album Lunafied, a magnificent collection of covers by Wareham et al over the years, and it is a gorgeous version of the song: rolling along groovily in that distinct Luna way, with Dean Wareham's plaintive wail doing the cover better (in my mind) than the sublime original (it's always something special when an musician paying tribute to another manages to better the song). Anyway, I loved the Luna "Outdoor Miner" so much I started hunting down the original, which proved harder than I had hoped, but since the original LPs had been out of print for more than a decade, I was very lucky indeed to find them recently re-issued on CD by Revolver USA. 

After tracking down several albums, I realized the remarkable permeation Wire's work had worked into my subconcious mind over the years. Their general influence over most every (rock and punk) band I've ever liked was crystal-clear, and surprisingly (there was a time when I was much more lax about reading liner notes, credits, or even *gasp* titles), I discovered that the REM track "Strange," on 1987's Document was, in fact, a straight cover from Pink Flag, and that Elastica had ripped off wholesale the guitar riff from the same record's "Three Day Rhumba."

As I made my way through repetitive listenings to the records I felt a sense of welcome, that this music had been out there waiting, in a sense, for me to make my way to it. The lyrics were paranoid and disjointed, and the jagged, often robotic, sonic barrages (particularly on the then-startling Pink Flag) were fraught with the potential to turn-off or overload, but they felt so right, so fitting. I was sinking backwards through the strata of 1990s post-punk, down through the feedback to one of the original sources. 

So I was thrilled when my friend Rodney told me the other day that Wire had a new record out. A new studio record, not some unearthed collective of unfresh vintage. And so i got my hands on the nine songs that make up the thoroughly excellent Object 47.

The first track, "One of Us," makes clear from the first beat, a lone, stark snare strike, that Wire has lost none of their potency or freshness, and just in case it was too subtle, the first note is followed by an intense, grinding bass that leads into a quietly growling rhythm guitar melody and then the slightly louder growling of Colin Newman's vocals. The beat is pulsing and rapid, with all the best nostalgic feel of Joy Division or, indeed, Wire itself back in the seventies and eighties. The repetitive crescendo builds up, with high whingeing tones aching like sirens, "Declining... dividing... / One of us will live to rue the day we met each other."

As the album progresses, a history of punk/post-punk as filtered by the British exponents, slightly more conceptual, definitely artier (in bad- and not-bad-interpretations) is laid out for the educated listener--certainly anyone coming across Object 47 without prior knowledge of Wire will come away with the impression that the band is actually retro, unaware that they actually pioneered the sound. It really does sound fantastic, though less similar to Pink Flag than to the band's subsequent efforts, which makes some sense when one notes that the first three Wire records, Pink Flag, Chairs Missing, and 1979's 154, which were all released within one frigging year of another on EMI's Prog-rock division Harvest Records, boldly diverged from a distinct formula, each breaking new ground, as it were. Object 47, on the other hand, benefits greatly from 20/20 hindsight, and one can trace strands of the nine tracks back to references, sensibilities and sound from the collected back catalogue. One listen down. I can't imagine this will be leaving my CD player any time soon...

うなぎ

So this is the post where I break my mandate to talk about music.

BUT I just had the most awesome dinner. After trying a lot of amazing food from all over the place (second place, andouillette in Paris with mustard sauce and frites; third, Armandino Batali's ridiculously good pasta with pork cheeks and tomato paste--i could have died--actually it could have killed me...), but my favorite isn't a specific dish, but a type of food: godDAMN i love me some eel.

Just ate a bowl of Japanese eggplant, carrots, broccoli and huge, yummy chunks of braised eel. With rice and saké.

Fuck off, it was good.

It occurs to me that my actual favorite food is the sandwich, a creation capable of the sublime as readily as the mundane, but sandwiches are so ubiquitous, we'll just give them their own place and let the unagi rule the rest.

OH WAIT: hey, I finally got around to listening to the eponymous album from Vampire Weekend that my friend Steven gave me. It's good, and I knew it was going to be good because I saw this months ago, but every fucking person i know has been flinging their poo around the room for this band, and dude, i'm not that down on bandwagons. I mean, I must be the only indie-musician in Seattle who doesn't read 'Pitchfork' (you can check my browser--ain't never been there). Anyway, I give, their pretty kick-ass. But I''ve got the disc-changer stocked with the new Clean, the Magick Heads, Ladybird and The Cannanes too, so...

OMG

I don't have a (like, one) favorite band, and on of my guiding philosophies in life (along with "Rightists are always wrong" and "mmm... bread is good") is that people who have A SINGLE FAVORITE BAND are 

a. not paying enough attention to the world, and

b. not spending enough (time or money) on records, and

c. are ig'nant.

If I did have a favorite band, it would be the result of a bloody fracas between several totally legitimate contenders, knuckle-bruised veterans of my stereo who have witnessed the rise and fall of my fickle affections, one of whom would have broken bones and emerged bloodied and torn-of-tee-shirt, wiping someone else's effluvia from his jeans, and would say, "IT IS I."

That could conceivably be The Clean.

Seriously, those guys have the chops to mince the competition. True, they're not that prolific as The Clean, but between that trio's output and the sum of their parts, they pretty much could knock Prince out of the water, and could probably draw up neck and neck with John Darnielle. 

And then there's the wealth of bootleg material...

Today, however, we shall briefly discuss the disc that's in my machine right now, which is the brand-spanking-new Clean record, Mashed.

This is the first of two (TWO! I just peed myself...) records expected this year from The Clean, the later one is the long-awaited new studio album (it's been seven years since Getaway), and Mashed is a live album from the New Zealand leg of the "Bangers and Mash" tour. Shamefully I had to order this from an online store in New Zealand because it's not (yet?) available in the US. That makes me hurt. Merge should have been all over that puppy, or Matador, or whoever, right? I think the studio album will be coming out on Merge, based on something Bob Scott said in an interview, but to my knowledge they haven't (yet) picked this up--maybe they'll do a two-for-one.

It's actually really hard to get anything out of the antipodes these days, and one can only hope that when Scott's other band, The Bats, releases their upcoming studio album later this year (peed again) it'll have a US distro deal (I mean, I'll probably order it directly from the band, but everybody should be lining up at their record stores for anything from either of these bands). Fortunately for the human race (particularly me), David Kilgour's gorgeous recent release (The Far Now, 1997) was released (as well as other DK stuff) by Merge, as have several of Hamish Kilgour's Mad Scene records. Incidently, I just got DK's  brilliant second solo album Sugar Mouth, from 1994, and while it's very different from The Clean (less irreverent, less punk, more indie-rock-progenitor), it's worth tracking down, if nothing else than for "No, no, no" the opening track.

Returning to Mashed, though, the recording is (appropriately) crisp and clean, and the idiosyncracies of the band's shambling, improvisational sound is allowed full reign. Always impressive sonically, considering that there's only ever three guys (when playing live), The Clean barrels through a edgy but necessarily minimal selection of their back-catalogue, with 1981's "Anything Can Happen" from Boodle Boodle Boodle (incidently, you need to see the video), Robert Scott's lovely lead on "I Wait Around" from 1990's Vehicle, "Safe in the Rain" from Modern Rock, 1994, and a kick-ass version of Lou Reed's "I Can't Stand It" (the opening of Reed's eponymous solo debut from 1972--a totally underappreciated classic, it's much harder than the glam-flavored and more-known Transformer), a really nice choice of cover for The Clean, as Reed/the Velvets were clearly a deep influence on Scott and the Kilgours, breaking out as musicians in late-seventies Dunedin.

The record totally rocks. One listen down, countless more to follow.

Can't wait for new studio, the appetite is well and truly whetted.

Also, for anyone deeply interested in this band, check out the snippets of them in a breathtakingly stripped-down show at a New York record shop. I wished (in vain) that some of this would be on Mashed, and if anyone out there has a copy of the show itself, PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE send me a copy. I would be eternally grateful.

Regressive tendencies?

Uncovering the obscure is exciting. Carter was elated in the valley of the kings, Stein recognised that recognition was recognition when she allowed herself to believe she'd discovered Picasso. Colmbus was draming of metaphorical sugarplums when he discovered what Leif Erikson had been relieved to land upon 500 years earlier (and what Siberians were probably nonplussed to find 15,000-20,000 years ago, since there was probably no real distiction from the steppes of northern "Russia" to an isthmus of indeterminate "american-ness").

We like discovering stuff. Sometimes people make a big deal out of it, like when the press discovered that the American military (and, by default, the CIA) had no scruples,videlicet Abu Ghraib.

I try not to make a big deal out of "discovering" bands that other people have known about for years, but that doesn't make me any less excited about doing so.

I am currently excited, scilicet about Mark Szabo.

Mark Szabo, you say? Isn't he a coach at Shoreline Community College? To which I would answer, sure, sine qua non Google as ultimate reference material. Thankfully, I read this, which brought me elucidation.

I had never heard of Mark until I read this, but now I have the album in question, a copy of "Alone With Mark" thoughtfully provided to me by an extremely astute Brooklynite, and a zipfile of the cassette "Regressing" generously provided here.

Since I can't (in any way) top what has already been written here, or in the liner notes of this by Franklin Bruno, so I think you should follow the links already (jeez) and get on the bus, bitches.

plug, yo

so as you may be aware, i  also make music. and if you're reading this, this may not be news, but you never know, maybe you aren't on myspace, and have come here inadvertently and said, "oh, such prose! how delightful--and what's this? a record by the webmaster? i simply must check it out (and acquire it)!"

you might say that. 

YOU PROBABLY WON'T...

but just in case:

the black lines have released their (or "my") second album.

it is called "your blood trail", after the chorus in one of the songs.

it is very minimal, and slightly folkier than my usual fare. i like it though.

and it's free.

i'm not going to drone on about it, but please do check it out. if you like it, feel free to send me flowery praise.

i ♥ new music; part ii

This isn't going to be a long post, just sort of an teaser, an amuse-bouche of reviews to come. It may be a little bittersweet too...

So, I've mentioned the good people at 555records (which is to say Stewart Anderson) and Red Square (which is to say Jen Turrell)--and it could be further mentioned that both of these indie-entities are blissfully entwined by marriage--and now I'm going to mention them again. A box recently arrived on my doorstep from Arizona, and it was crammed with a butt-load of indie CDs and gorgeous coloured 7" vinyl from the aforementioned labels. I haven't even got halfway through it all yet! I'm so stoked. Not just Boyracer and Mytty Archer (Stew and Jen's "main" bands) but also Steward, Que Possum, The Bright Lights, Jean Bach, Faintest Ideas, The Cannanes, The Love Letter Band, The Tall Boy, Kyoko, The Escargo-go's, Origami, CEX and more.

I don't think I did mention that Stewart's going to semi-close up shop soon. He's got cows and a wife and a baby and a life that takes every ounce. And he hasn't much left to pursue a music career that results in 25 sold 7"s. I wrote him a note saying how much I would miss his creativity and input, but I also sent him about a hundred and fifty bucks to get all this stuff. If you're reading this, go visit Jen & Stew's sites and buy some of their immense back catalog. A lot of the stuff is out of print, and there are some real gems to be found. They are records (not just in the disc-sense!) of a DIY ethos that was once beautifully analogue, but which is being subsumed by the vastness of cyberspace. It's so worth finding, and worth holding close, and listening loud to.

Of particular note, by the way, is the Red Square "The Way Things Change" series. It's a set of compilation 7"s, in coloured vinyl, of some of the best indie bands in the last several years. You can find Dennis Driscoll, Boyracer and Architecture in Helsinki on Volume 5 (blue vinyl), Mirrah and The Cannanes on Volume 3 (yellow!!!), and the brilliant Lucksmiths on Volume 4 (green). 

I can't believe how good some of this stuff is.

Help prevent it from just disappearing into fanboy nostalgia...

Pigskin

I want to set the record straight right off the bat:

I do like sports. This may surprise several of my friends, but in fact it is true. Oh! cycling, a boon to humanity thou art! Tennis! How sublime is thy Federer, how gorgeous thy various Russian women! How irritating yet impressive your tiny spunky Nadal! Oh! football (by which I mean soccer) the poetry (and by the way, anybody catch the fucking awesomness the Spain vs Italy quarterfinal match at the European Cup-- 0-0 in full time, followed by two scoreless OTs, preceding one of the only awesome shoot-outs I've ever seen) of your brutality (and vice-versa), your chess-like depth! Etcetera! 

I should also come clean here and say that I couldn't give less of a bloody shit about the degredation of rugby internationally known as "american football", and locally referred to without the national bias.

I don't like it. I grew up with the Vikings, and didn't really care, but then I moved to Seattle, and the Seahawks drove the coffin shut with their toolbelt full of crooked, rusty nails. I have noted that George W. Bush likes football, but insufficiently so to choke to death on a pretzel in its presence (almost, though...). I have noted that everyone (male) who ever bullied me liked football, and the idiots that try to bully me these days do as well. I suppose there is a balletic nuance, a poetry and beauty to the game, as there must be in all humanity's endevours, but to me such graces are obscured by the sheer ugliness of its lower adherents.

I guess I could have just said I don't like it...

Which makes my following admission all the more paradoxical:

Goddamn(!) do I love The Football Albums by DiskothiQ.

"Is that a joke?"  comes the voice from the chorus. "Whom, did you say?" perhaps from another voice.

Well. 

Let me just expound, shall I?

DiskotiQ is a band made up of Peter Hughes, Kevin Hughes and Kevin Trapp. It doesn't do much right now, because one of its members is really busy with a more-well known project, but, before 2000, the band produced five records (four of which were released). 

Two of these records, which came out in 1999 on Sonic Enemy, are The Football Albums. The first volume (the blue one) is The Football Albums: National Conference; the second (red one) is The Football Albums: The American Conference. The ridiculousness and the genius of this project is as great and silly as Stephin Merritt's monumental 69 Love Songs and I albums, which is to say, a hare-brained concept gorgeously realized.

Basically, you've got 32 songs about 32 teams (somewhat dated due to time rolling on, but hey...). That is, thirty-two songs about the thirty-two teams in the USA's two professional NFL football conferences.

And the songs are really good. Like, really.

As I've said, I don't really know football, and even I get some of the stuff in these songs. And some of it you don't even have to get. Some of the lyrics are all insidery (with loads of name-dropping of coaches and players), but like most good music, some of the strongest stuff relies on acute social commentary. Like track 13 on National Conference, "Redskins."

It goes like this:

"Is there anything more offensive than the name of the Washington Redskins?

Why not just call yourselves the Darkies?

Why not just call yourselves the Yellow Men?

Why not just call yourselves the Filthy Thieving Jews?

Why not just call yourselves The Towelheads?"

Now. Peter Hughes is a football fan (and baseball fan, too) and he is still capable of this brilliantly vicious indictment of the casual racism of the continuance of the aforementioned team. He goes hard against the common tendency to shrink from criticizing something you love out of the fear that such candor will damage that thing--like the Bush administration saying that if you criticize America, then you can't possibly love America, as if patriotism were un-patriotic, or some bullshit. A more apt comparison, closer to home for me, might be that the sport of bicycle racing is followed and supported not just by left-leaning Independants such as myself, but also by a great number of Rightist conservative heels and racist Euro-centrists; the sport itself is not the cause, it's just that some fans are douche bags (and to be fair, the same is true about American football--it's not evil, I just don't care to follow it).

That's just one example, by the way. The emotional gamut is complete:there are songs flowing as paens to childhood inspiration and dreams, love songs to heroes and scourges of villains, teasing of coaches and weak points, extollations of sporting prowess--all the pageantry and emotion that makes people tune in to "Friday Night Lights" as well as Sunday Night Football. Al the things that make my brother, father and uncles go ape-shit in front of the tube on holidays. All in a capable and fluent indie-rock vernacular. 

Sometimes the ridiculousness rears up (like in "Giants", a frenetic drone-freakout filled with rolling drums and shrill feedback, the entire lyrics of which consisting of "Giants.", and "49ers" which you should hear rather than make me describe). But usually, the effect is really great, and cute, jaded indie girls should be able to shake their hips (while staying aloof) without necessarily buying into the macho "american-ness" of the subject matter.

My favorite song on the collection, by the way, is the 1:15-long track "Los Angeles." On the subject of growing up in a football-franchise-free city (LA) and how the TV provides an all-access arena, the song is a (willingly? un-?) parable of Americana. 

I came across DiskothiQ (or DISKOTHI-Q) sort of by accident (not, with much regret, having been up on every Shrimper release--sorry Mr Callaci--and I admit this knowing that my friend Carlos V. may indeed kick my ass (although I would counter that he don't know shit about 1970s New York (even Lou Reed) or British (WIRE!!!!!???) stuff) and while I thought The Wandering Jew was amazing (you can download all this stuff for free by the way, as well as The One-Hundred Thousand Songs of Peter Peter Hughes, but you could also pony up a couple of bucks, and PPH will mail you the discs direct--you should do that, these guys are not corporate suck-dogs like Metallica, Madonna or Britney Spears, and also, the second track of The Wandering Jew, "Tulsa Imperative" is a cover of an unreleased Mountain Goats song, so...).

So anyway, I have not been converted to the pigskin army, but who cares? You don't have to be gay to get a lot out of the brilliant songs of Canada's The Hidden Cameras (or the "gay and loud" Mr Merritt, for that matter), although I am assured by my friends of that persuasion that it doesn't hurt either, and you needn't be a wife-beater (or wife-killer, like OJ) or a mustachioed bully to get a great deal out of The Football Albums. In fact, like myself, you don't even have to like football. You just need to have appreciation and Respect (yes, capital "R") for the good, good indie rock of DiskothiQ.

I could mention that each album is ten bucks. Where I live, that barely buys you breakfast anymore. So pinch your pennies and eat a bagel or something, and send PPH some cash. These records are worth that much.