A Tribute to Will Stratton

A little late on this but, last Friday was a pretty exciting event.  It was the tribute to Will Stratton coupled with the release of the album available for purchase that also goes to his Medical fund.

It was a pretty fantastic sow held at Spin in Manhattan - a large basement ping-pong club.  I wish I wrote this earlier so I could remember it better.

First there was Beat Radio.  That was a two-man group.  Not usually into that kind of thing, but it was cool.  Next you had Kid in the Attic who I had previously seen at a rooftop show with pow wow! and Crazy Pills on Andrea's birthday.  It's just one woman in a red hat and this was certainly a better venue for her than a drunken Bushwick party.  Both artists are on the tribute album and make pretty cool contributions.

Aaron Roche was the next to perform, an older guy and collaborator of R. Stevie Moore's.  Naturally that piqued my interest and his set, though long awaited from the set-up time was pretty awesome.  It started really quiet and then got louder as he had two young female vocalists with him for harmonies that reminded me of a more successful version of what the Dirty Projectors try to do.  With mostly pre-recorded backing and high intensity, his set reminded the most of John Maus.

The Next two sets were more personal by New York friends Jesse Rifkin and Trevor Wilson.  Both of them are on the tribute album as well, and by then things got so emotionally taxing that I couldn't even pay much attention to Wilson's set, though it was clearly a continuation of Rifkin's with a lot of delicate beauty.  You should look into both artists.

Will closed the set himself which was an unexpected treat, up to some point, and though he was underrehearsed, I doubt I've seen him play better.  It was overwhelming.  There were only three songs in his set but it was the highlight despite some great competition.  He is looking surprisingly healthy and in good spirits, so we all have a lot more to look forward to from Will.  His next album is entitled Gray Lodge Wisdom and will be quite a change of pace, and I personally have very high hopes for it.  A demo of its title track (sure to change a lot) is included in yesterday's article's package.

Photo by Mike Raynes

Photo by Jeff Nasareno

Well, there goes my policy of not reviewing friend's shows, but I have to push the BENEFIT ALBUM and how you should buy it.  I was asked to include a couple tracks and I chose Jesse Rifkin and David Garland's.  The former because it is quite a radical reinterpretation of an old favorite differing from either artist's usual sound, and the latter because of that artist's connection to Connie Converse and the Documentary my wonderful girlfriend Andrea is making about her.

Well, here are those TWO TRACKS, but you really should just buy the album, probably several times.

Anyway, my mind has stopped functioning, rather it's malfunctioning and I should probably stop.

Friends

So the last series was really self-centered, but this whole time it was all with the intention of putting out a collection of songs by my friends.  Most of the are the fascinating characters mentioned in my previous articles.  I have been lucky enough to be surrounded by geniuses my whole life, most of them musicians, and many of them collaborators.  Though some may be over or under-represented in this set, I tried not to have any favorites, I merely wanted all the major projects represented.  Alameda and Basking Ridge probably make up the majority of the lot, but people I know from college (the bridge to all, I suppose) and LA are in there too.  Now for the long explanation int eh only order that makes any sense:  Alphabetical...

Colin O'Brien-Lux is a Maryland-bred performance artist in Los Angeles who has been active in many communities in the city and is perhaps best-known for his Winter 2012 clown show Everybody Nose Nothing Means Anything And I'm Very Worried, which unfortunately coincided with Super River's debut.  Not to discuss my own band too much, but the connection is a major one as Jesse Johnstone did the engineering on the EP Angel Will You Marry Me? from which both these tracks are taken and played drums on one song.  Other drums were played by Miles Marsico and bass came from Andrew Lewis, who played in Skin Rat.  Last I know he was performing as Grandma in a very atmospheric and intimate way that should not be missed.  "Scarf" is one of the most powerful tracks I have heard in a while.

The Darflers is a project led by Alex "Flash Gilmore" Hatatsis that has also featured fromer Funbeatles/Sunfighter Marty Skeels and local legend (and portrayer of Nagatoku in "Gundam Driver") Chris Arnold.  The band had an emphasis on power-pop with green musician Halatsis skillfully pulling off both bass and vocals.  Not much has been heard since, but Halatsis is now in a band with Big/Ewox member Alyssa Polizzi before her move to LA.  "Best Boy" comes from the Spencer's Girl EP, and "Another Lonely Girl" is a demo with lyrics penned by yours truly.  One of my two appearances in this set.

Flash Gilmore & the Funbeatles was Alameda's greatest band, band certainly the greatest live act of 2012.  With firm roots in The Comfy Men, they were comprised of frontman Flash Gilmore, drummer Jerry Ramone, bassist Mick James and guitarists Hazel James and The Glove.  Their uniformed and choreographed shows were a rare spectacle featuring both phenomenal originals and classic covers.  They released the record Debauchery Playground, named after their closing track - the first composed for the project shortly before disbanding in late Spring of 2011.  Unfortunately, the album was recorded months before and the band's playing and songs had improved much in that time, but that's only an issue if you were lucky enough to witness these later shows.  It still stands as one of the best rock records of its time and "The Top" and "Here It Comes" are hardly enough to hear by this unbelievable combo.

Kidz was a project led by Sam Deutsch (who will be explained in more detail shortly) with a collaborator named Mike.  "Move Yo' Body" is a fantastic piece of 90s dance music that shows just how much the artist who cut his teeth in Hurtu/the Shears/Love Athena can do.

The Last Nights was the brief reunification of Funbeatles Alex Halatsis, Paul Igaz, and Arran Rogerson who made a worthy (even by their standards) debut with an improvised set in May 2012.  Before the Hawaii exodus they played a few shows and recorded Dig This from which these two tracks come.  "Dany James" is about the inspirational Oakland artist.  Sadly other classic tracks "Virtual Tibet" and "Guided by C-Mac" remain unrecorded to my knowledge.

Love Warrior was a solo project from Arran Rogerson after the disbanding of the Funbeatles and recorded the album DMZ, a power-pop album mostly about masturbation.

Also from Alameda is One Tribe, the project of Hawaii native Tony O'Toole.  A spiritual figure in the Alameda scene, Tony was the subject of one of the Funbeatles' earliest songs and has been catalyst to much musical growth (in both directions) with most of the Alameda musicians.  Music For My Friends was an ambitious project for him, but turned out to be a success.  It is the source of the atmospheric instrumental "John" and the cover of "30 Century Man," with guest vocals from Alex Halatsis.  "What a Strange Day" is a demo I rather like as well.

pow wow! is the project of Basking Ridge originals Jeff and Eddie Nazareno with roots going back arguably about ten years, or 26, depending on the perspective.  Last year they released the refreshing Don't Stop To Look with a five-member lineup providing big arrangements, tons of hooks, and beautiful harmonies.  The first two tracks are here, but the whole thing is about as good.  The band has had varying levels of notoriety throughout it its career, and their album, one of the finest of 2012 still needs its due.  Unfortunately their future is a bit uncertain, but there is no doubt its members will go onto creating more great music.

Sunfighter is the primary band of former Funbeatles Arran and Sam Rogerson.  They both play guitar and sing and split songwriting duties.  Sweet Machine was another great and overlooked album of 2012 full of catchy guitar rock that evokes all the best stuff and is quite creative in its songcraft.  They toured the West Coast last summer with rhythm section Fed Martinez (drummer in Rogerson's past groups Life on Mars? and others) and Eamon O'Conner, playing with Super River in two instances.  Here are two of my favorites from that record.

SWade is the former alias of Sam Deutsch, one of the most talented and unpredictable artists I know in any regard.  That made selecting tracks from him very difficult.  He can write great classic pop songs, experimental pieces, piano ballads and just about everything in between.  Lately his focus has been on Dark R&B, though with plenty of breaks in between.  He is currently using the name 50 Grand Sam and working on an EP, but just released the song "Hollywood" yesterday which you can purchase on iTunes, and I implore that you do.  These two are different though - "Could This Mean Space?" is an experimental synth pop that is as edgy as it is catchy, and "A Best Friend's Love" is a funny folk-rock demo.  Just two of my favorites among a whole lot.

Volcano Divers is Liam Carroll, from Liberty Corner, not Basking Ridge if you can believe that.  First appearing in this blog as Batwolf's butler Dr. Alphonzo Vengeance (yes, we had a doctor for a Butler), he has recorded a lot of noise-pop in this form and here are a couple of my faves.

Will Stratton is another old friend from Basking Ridge.  His real name is Will Lulofs and he was a member of Batwolf, the Tangles, and previously Time Well Spent.  He is recovering from Testicular Cancer and planning to return u-time to New York in October.   There will will be more about that in an upcoming article.  Last Friday was his benefit show, featuring a closing performance by the man himself in accompaniment of the BENEFIT ALBUM which I will also discuss in more detail.  Having the most professional career of all (four albums released on real labels) it was also hard to choose material from him, especially considering how much of it has Basking Ridge references.  However I chose one from his first, another from his second, and a demo of the title track for the next.  I am sure it will change a lot before the album is released, but I like this version.  I also used to like the demo version of "You're a Real Thing" more, but that has changed.

As mentioned before, Zero the Astronaut is Alex Adler's solo project after Ways ceased to be.  With so much material he started narrowing it down and went into the studio to record a debut single of "Solitude" and "Misery City."  He played all the instruments except the bass on "Solitude" which, not surprisingly was me.  The songs show both his sides - heavy and complex and soft and stoney, but both have a great deal of raw emotion.  Adler is an excellent songwriter who is firmly in the tradition of the best American rock of the 80s and 90s who has a lot of potential, particularly in his ability to not fear the obvious.

DOWNLOAD: THE BEST OF FRIENDS

I hope you enjoy all these tracks and artists as much as I do.

Gonna Break You Down, Gonna Pop You In The Mouth!

Just now, a friend of mine who was visiting New York City told me a bout a great concert experience he had there seeing a band called Personal & the Pizzas. It sounded like an amazing show featuring songs with titles like "You = Beat Up" and "Nobody Makes My Girl Cry But Me" and the singer whipping chains around while threatening the sound guy. The group is from San Francisco but their gimmick is being from Hoboken. They are quite similar in image, lyrics, and sound to the Ramones and The Dictators.

Here is a link to their myspace.

In a lot of ways, this is the best parody of the Northeast you could ever ask for and it's a whole lotta fun. The intro to "I Don't Wanna Be No Personal Pizza" says it all. Other great tracks to check out on there are "Brass Knuckles" and "I Don't Feel So Happy Now." "I Can Read," though is perhaps the rebuttal the Dictators would give their detractors after going Girls Crazy.

We're Leaving at Five In The Morning - We Could Get Better Mileage

I write this in my second hotel room of the trip in Western Colorado. Today's drive was made even more transcendent through repeated listening of Popol Vuh's Coeur de Verre, which could not leave my CD player as ventured through the Rockies. One listen, even without seeing the movie would explain why. Download it!


Yesterday's drive, though, was through Iowa. Probably my least favorite state thus far, but I would never have dared say that to Arthur Russell!

Russell, who died of AIDS in 1992 was a genius, and if you don't beleive me beleive the likes of Jens Lekman, the Talking Heads, and even the K.L.F. who sampled his "Go Bang!" while he was still alive! He is the unifiying force of all the great music that was happening in Manhattan in the late seventies with punk/new wave, the avant-garde, disco, and minimalism. All of their influences are heard on this record, like most of his available releases is a posthumous compilation. This one may not be the best, but its general sound unifies his vast skills better than others while still remaining cohesive. That, and it contains what I would consider one of the greatest pieces of music of all time, "That's Us/Wild Combination." That piece, like many of his songs is made up of two very distinct parts that gradually unify and then disassemble, also heard in his disco classic "Is It All Over My Face?" The record also includes some great dronier tunes that still have his kind of pop and disco sensibility like the title tracks and "The Platform on the Ocean." Others are a New Wave dance party for the eccentricly genius, most notably, "Calling All Kids."

Russell was a legendary perfectionist who spent nearly all his time working on and recording his music, especially in his last days. That being said, anything you think could be better in these songs probably has been done and recorded. Hoprefully it will be released one day as well.


Arthur Russell - Calling Out Of Context (2004)

The cover photo may have been perfect for the release's time, but Russell's trucker hat is not the result of a prescient sense of fasion, but rather a relic of his Iowa roots which he always held dear.

Come Hither To Me Under The Canopy

They say that Jonathan Fire*Eater's lack of success was due to their over-hyping from new label Dreamworks. Despite a track on the Dead Man On Campus soundtrack, it is quite hard to believe that today as the only people that remember them are hipsters aged 28-35. Not long after discovering the offshoot Walkmen and wanting roughly the same thing, only better, I discovered them and have never manged to succede in finding any material copies of their work.

I suppose the world would not yet ready for a quintet of good-looking, privileged, and very hip New Yorkers for another four years. Regardless, they were a remarkably talented band that really set the stage for what would be going on a few years later. After meeting at St. Alban's School in the D.C. area the members all dropped out of college and moved to New York to form this band. The group developed a unique sound with a vintage tone lead by Farfisa organ and a heavy beat that reflected a contemporary attitude and modern influences as well. They released two even rarer independent (I have not heard them) albums before being signed to Dreamworks. With Calvin Klein using them as models and opening for the likes of blur and Pulp the deal was remarkably generous worth over a million and including complete creative control and a dental plan. The complete creative control really paid off... for us, the listener.

Keeping with the title, opening track "When the Curtain Calls For You," sets the stage (pun) for the rest of the album balancing eerie tones with high energy vintage underground rock 'n' roll much like "These Little Monkeys" does. The band goes into full-on eerieness on the classic "A Night In The Nursery" and has given the theme song to ever subsequent summer in "Bipolar Summer." This album is a masteripiece that deserves a quality re-issue and surpasses everything the band would do without Stuart Lupton in the Walkmen.


Jonathan Fire*Eater - Wolf Songs For Lambs (1997)

Pushed To A Wall The First "Punk" Record.

That is mostly because, perhaps only since I am from New Jersey, that the word "punk" evokes the image of a fat, middle-aged New York area man yelling at a bunch of overgrown teenagers something like "get off my car punk!" The Dictators, straight out of the outer Burroughs (including some of the last whites to live in the Bronx!) certainly were who this man would be yelling at.

Some of the best elements of punk rock are found here including an unbeatable and racy sense of humor in tracks with in-your face titles like "Back to Africa" (catch the Clash's inspiration at the end) and "Master Race Rock." The lyrics end up not carrying the white supremacist message one may assume from the titles. The band carried on some Nazi imagery later in their career with a flair that their UK counterparts could only dream of since many of the members were Jews. Other song topics cover the punk way of life stemming back to the Beach Boys with the classic closer "(I Live For) Cars and Girls" being the prime example along with any street punk theme song "Teengenerate." The band covers much of the same topics of New York artists not typically associate with punk rock like doo-wop, but with a hilarious way of not sugar-coating it best seen in the Friday-night anthem "Weekend." Pop covers are another wonderful element here with "I Got You Babe" being done by two men with enough sense of humor to highlight a true love for the song. Basically, they were coming from the same exact place as the Ramones, but with less image construction, and in my opinion, a bit more sincerity. This record is pure fun.

However, the Dictators cannot be mentioned without "Handsome" Dick Manitoba. The band's mascot and "secret weapon" serves mainly as a background vocalist on this record, but his energy is what propels the band into greatness, as the cover should show you. Think Rob Tyner with the flair of a pro-wrestler. The Dictators can also be connected to metal to a certian degree, not only in the fact that in 1975, this album was surely placed in that catergory. During one of the band's many long hiatuses lead guitarist Ross "The Boss" formed humor-metal band Man-O-War.

Perhaps needless to say the other "Boss" Bruce Springsteen is a huge fan.


The Dictators - The Dictators Go Girl Crazy! (1975)

The Strokes

In many ways, I think the Strokes has been one of the most controversial groups of recent times. Personally, I think they are also one of the best, at least to have emerged within the decade. The Strokes is also one of the few artists I would even compare to Guided by Voices, though they do not even approach that level of greatness. The group does invited this upon themselves, for better or worse by thanking Pollard and company in the liner notes of Is This It and sharing the screen in this fantastic video:



When I make this comparison I often get a strong negative response, even from people who do not have nearly as strong an affinity for Guided by Voices. While the personality of the Strokes differs from Guided by Voices, both bands have the same kind of honesty and genuine love and knowledge of rock music. Most prominently, is the lack of pretension, a statement that I am aware begs for trouble. First, the Strokes are accused to being pretentious, but this is of course, coming from people that seem to forget that New York City breeds arrogance, especially coupled with affluence and youth. Naturally, that attitude is there, but no more than should be assumed under these circumstances. Being older Midwestern drunks GbV gets these accusations more from their music which is often inaccessible. In reality, any close listen to either group will prove that both artists create their music out of a sincere love of the best rock music that has been made since the birth of the genre - whether inaccessible, pretensions, mainstream, artistic, or superficial. Both groups serve as the ultimate culmination of the quality that has been collecting over the years.

When the Strokes were still merely gaining a buzz almost seven years ago accusations of the band being a group of Velvet Underground impersonators circulated even more than fashionable photos of the group. However, when Is This It was finally released the comparison hardly came to mind, at least not any more than artists who had already been regarded as classic like the Raincoats or Talking Heads. What I did hear was everything I liked - traces of Television, the Stooges (to whom my guitar teacher immediately compared after seeing the "Last Nite" video"), and even some of the better indie rock of the time. That record, which I truly believe will stand as the only obvious classic rock of the decade thus far, represents everything great about rock and roll as of 2001 and emits the band's personality to a degree that is almost never heard anymore.

This is not the last you will read of my affinity for the Strokes.