OHHH...danny boy

In the haze known as this afternoon, I somehow remember my conversation last night with Rick Digglesworth aka "Papa Barrel." It went like this:"Glover don't work." I had been wondering why no one had downloaded that particular track, as if there was some secret about it that I wasn't privy to. So if you tried to download the tune "Glover" from the Barrel lp and it didn't work, it should now. Just look to your right in the "Omnibus Links" section and click that bitch. The Barrel lp link, that is.

Hey people, let me know if it doesn't. Like love, this blog is a two way street and you can add comments.

Charts

Out of 82 files total:

top 10 Downloaded Files (so far)...
New Band 25
Purkinje Final show track 6 24
Purkinje final show track 1 21
Moreland Audio Final untitled track 20
Home of the Wildcats crime story 16
Moreland Audio string theory track 15
Purkinje final show track 2 15
Copa Vance four 14
Home of the Wildcats fireside matador 11
HOTW glory and whiskey 11


Total downloads to date: 417

As I start to have less stuff to post I'm sure the downloads will slow down, but as soon as I reach 1000 downloads I'll post a video of the first Purkinje Shift show ever (also from Moreland Avenue Tavern.)

The Band Who Wasn't There

As long as I'm posting practice recordings, I figured I'd put up some recordings of a band that failed to get off the ground. Right before this new thing with Bryan Fielden, Gary and I were playing in a band with Lee Corum on drums called Book of Rides. We got three songs together and then Lee got too busy (hmmmm... .) I feel like the songs were pretty good so I'll put em on up for yas. They were recorded in sparkling thunderbox stereo mush. I don't know if we'll rearrange these songs or parts of them with Bryan. We'll see.

Songs this way...

Broken omnibus lnks

are fxx//d

Yess Yess Yule

Sax w/ noots...sax + bari guits with c//d-v'oh

james al shejoyce in nootsy and sunn av krusharr

Riffing is Fundamental

Last year or the year before (boy it all blends together,) maybe even the year before that I was involved in a version of Russell Jackson's Riff Fest/Ansurbana. Originally he wanted it to be a big involved thing with multiple drummers and many guitarists but it ended up being just a quartet. It was: Russell//guitar---Rick Moore//guitar---Lee Corum//drumset//hand percussion---me//bass//tenor sax//hand percussion. Russel had it posted somewhere but I can't find it anymore.

Anyway, it is one 16 minute recording divided into about four sections. The first section is total noise. The whole band overdubbed on top of itself playing chaotic craziness. The next section is slow sludge a la melvins/earth, but based on a random numeric form we came up with. That goes into a drone rock groove section over which I play saxophone and Lee and I also overdubbed bongo and conga drums. That's right, Lee played hand drums. That eventually gets into the closing math polyriff for about two minutes. Just like some of the avant jazz stuff I've posted, if you actually sit down and listen to it then it can be an enjoyable and rewarding experience. I'm not sure it's ipod treadmill material. Maybe it is though. I'm about to get a new YMCA card so I'll let you know.

I have to thank Russell for organizing the whole thing and bankrolling the recording. It was recorded at Zero Return studios. If it wasn't the last thing recorded there then it would have to be one of the last. The whole thing was 16 minutes and with overdubs we got it done in maybe two hours. Russ had paid for the day so with all that time left over Lay Down Mains came in and recorded (and mixed) their tune "Grey Sands" which I believe came out on the ISP 7" comp.

Okay now,

Riff-fest III is this way...

Hopefully we can do something like it again someday. I had a blast.

Skronk

"Skronk" is a term coined by Robert Christgau (or at least Lester Bangs attributed it to him in his "A Reasonable Guide to Horrible Noise") to describe the music made by musicians in the late '70s art-punk movement No Wave (i.e. DNA, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, etc.), and like-minded noisy or 'difficult' pieces of music.

I just lifted that from http://skronkbox.blogspot.com. Of course, in the interim the term has been co-opted by other journalists to define a particular genre of music involving the saxophone. The downtown music of John Zorn comes to mind as an archetype for "skronk."

I do giveth and partaketh of the ol' skronk my own seff, though I feel as though the noisy aspect isn't quite as involved in my own playing. I have witnessed first hand people that find my free playing incredibly noisy and unmusical though, so the skronk is in the eye of the beholder. You can be the judge if you download the performances I'm posting of duets with Keith Leslie (on drums.) Keith is an incredible drummer and pianist, never ceasing to amaze me with his sense of spontaneity. He was the original drummer of Samadha and also played keyboards in Twittering Machine.

Why do I like this style of music? Because it's HARD. When nothing is preset and no one knows whats about to happen...well I think it's actually alot truer to what daily life is really like. It often sucks, but when it doesn't it can be very, very beautiful (in the words of John Lurie.)

Okay, enough bullshit.

There are three files: two live sets from Eyedrum and one from live @ WREK.

They are pretty big files but I think some of you will really enjoy them. They go well with coffee..maybe 10 a.m....I'll see you there.


Keith and Ben Avant Duets are here...


p.s. I encourage everyone to find John Coltrane's "interstellar Space" cd. That album inspired me to pick up the saxophone after a 5 year post high school hiatus. It is really what is behind my desire to explore the tenor sax/drum format. I've been listening to it for about 12 years now and I keep finding new things in it.