GROUNDISLAVA II: 8-BIT MEMORIES AND THE SOUNDS IN BETWEEN

It’s hard to say what makes some songs feel nostalgic even though you’ve never heard them before. Maybe it’s the quality of the tones you hear, or the familiar melodies that sound like childhood. Whatever that magic element is, groundislava has captured it with groundislava ii.

I first got into groundislava when I saw him at Mississippi Studios a few years ago. He turned a crowd of arms-crossed head bobbers (myself included) into a crowd of people fully enjoying themselves. There is so much energy put into both the recordings and live shows, and you can feel it.

The newest release “groundislava ii” (out this January) is a sequel to his first release groundislava inspired by “video games, retro synthesizers, science fiction movies, and the sounds of the 1980’s”. groundislava ii is a collection of previously unreleased works pulled into a compact narrative that delicately weaves those sounds into a cohesive, tight piece of work. The single “Never Told You” is a chillwave masterpiece full of huge drums and fat synths reminiscent of Com Truise. “Micro Impasse” is a quiet piece that makes me feel like I’m buying potions in an RPG. “Flawed Fortress” instantly transports you back to childhood playing on the SNES on the couch, yet the feel of the song is something completely new. His other single “Wait Forever” is a playful melody mixed with the swing-hat jams of the 90’s that evolves into house-y chiptune gold.

Throughout the album you get the feel that groundislava is paying homage to the sounds of childhood. But he doesn’t leave us there. Groundislava ii isn’t simply bringing us back to those hours spent on the Nintendo. It’s forging a narrative between past and future, stepping into the sound in between.

groundislava ii is out January 26, 2018 <3

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The Chrome Cranks Spent The Night At My House

In 1996, while on tour to promote their album “Love In Exile,” The Chrome Cranks played a show at the venerable punk rock club, The Satyricon, in Old Town Portland. I was a fan and had met the band a couple years earlier, so I went to the show. After it was over I approached them and offered to let them crash at my place. They agreed, packed up their van and off we went.

I discovered the Chrome Cranks in 1994 while I was employed at a small record store in Monterey California, Recycled Records. One of my weekly duties was to order records & cd’s for the store from an independent distributor. We received a catalog in the mail each week, with new releases. I would look through it and select records I thought we could sell at the store. This afforded me the opportunity to order records for myself and my fellow employees.

Recycled Records – Way Back When

In one of the catalogs I came across the Chrome Cranks 45 release, “Way Out Lover” with “Some Kinda Crime” on the flipside. The description for the record referenced the Australian band, The Scientists, who at that time were one of my favorite bands. So, I ordered myself a copy.

The Chrome Cranks were a scuzzy New York City band, with a highly distorted sound that kicked my head round the bend.

“Way Out Lover” and “Some Kinda Crime” ended up on dozens of mixtapes I played at work. Mixtapes were almost a daily ritual for me. I would get up early, make coffee, put headphones on, and make a mixtape for the day. My fellow employees, Jason Moore, Hans Dobbratz & Eithne O’Leyne, also made tapes on an almost daily basis. All of us who worked at Recycled Records became fans of The Chrome Cranks.

Jason Moore and Hans Dobbtraz were in a band called Half Sister and occasionally booked shows at a theatre space across the street from the record store. Somehow they got in contact with the band, The Chrome Cranks or their booking agent, and set up a show for the band in Monterey while they were on tour to support their debut album.

Debut Album – Chrome Cranks

About two weeks before the show was scheduled to play, their band, Half Sister imploded over some personnel issues. With the show coming up quick as scheduled, Hans Dobbratz, his brother, Nick Dobbratz, his friend Phillipp Minnig & Jason Moore quickly formed a new group, wrote, composed, and rehearsed a half dozen songs, which they recorded in a small studio in nearby Salinas California run by Charlie McGovern. I am not sure who came up with name for the group, but by the night of The Chrome Cranks show, they were called Dura-Delinquent.

At that time the population of Monterey California, a quiet ocean side town with not much for kids to do, hovered at around 33,000 people. On the nights when all-ages rock shows were put on at the theatre, the turn out was substantial. A couple of hundred kids turned up and packed the place.

The Chrome Cranks played on this tour. They were used to playing small clubs, half filled at best. Despite their pedigree, the band was not well known. The band consisted of Peter Aaron on vocals & guitar, William Weber (who had played with GG Allin & The Murder Junkies) on guitar, Jerry Teel (who led the band The Honeymoon Killers) on bass, and Bob Bert (who had played with both Pussy Galore & Sonic Youth) on drums. Knowing they had this sort of history in their back pocket, plus the fact that I thought their records rocked, I was ecstatic when they played Monterey. The audience turnout was huge, the largest audience on their tour.

Both bands went down a storm. The debut performance by Dura-Delinquent culminated with the song, “It’s lonely being cool,” an intense ballad that had lead singer, Hans Dobbartz jumping into the audience and flailing around with the kids. After the show, they gave Peter Aaron a cassette of their demo recordings, which lead to their record deal.

When the show ended, we gathered at a bar next door to eat, drink and hear stories. When Bob Bert started talking, my jaw hit the floor and remained there the whole night. Every story he told consisted of something along the lines of “I was at the first show by The Cramps at CBGB’s and…” Having been in New York City during that period of explosive musical energy, it was thrilling to just sit and listen.

By 1996 I had moved to Portland, Oregon and was sharing a house on SE 76th, just off of Burnside. I worked at a record store called Music Millennium. I was excited to see that The Chrome Cranks had scheduled a show at The Satyricon, a punk club on 6th Avenue.

Satyricon

The night of the show I took the bus downtown, paid and entered the club. The place was about half-full, which disappointed me. I felt bad for the band, but it did not hold them back. They came to play. Peter Aaron’s guitar clanged out from the stage. It sounded like he had blown a speaker, but they turned up the volume regardless. It was a mean sound balanced by cleaner, bluesy power lines stemming from the strings and fingers of William Weber on lead guitar and the thud and bounce of Bob Bert on drums and Jerry Teel on bass. Onstage, the band had an unapproachable air. An audience member placed his beer glass on the edge of the stage and Peter Aaron kicked the glass off, spraying beer over the audience.

After the show as people shuffled out, as the band gathered up their guitar cables and effects boxes, in a stark, full, all too revealing after show light, I approached the stage and re-introduced myself to the band members. Unlike their performance demeanor, the greeted me with friendly smiles and we chatted about mutual friends. This was when I offered them the chance to crash on the floor at my place.

My house consisted of two bedrooms, a large living room, one bathroom and an upstairs kitchen. There was a finished basement, complete with some sort of indoor/outdoor carpet and wood panelling that would not have looked out of place on the Brady Bunch. The basement area was a long room with one long wall where I stored my record collection, roughly 10,000 records at that time. Considering the large open space available in the basement, I suggested the band crash down there. They all agreed, except Bob Bert, who crashed upstairs. To their disappointment, there was no liquor to quaff or pot to smoke.

The next morning, I woke early and made some coffee. I heard a noise out back. I opened the door and there was William Weber, clad in a leather jacket, smoking a cigarette, playing my roommate’s acoustic guitar. I brought him some coffee and we conversed and grunted our way through the morning. Over the course of the next couple of hours the other members of the band woke and joined us, stretching, groaning, a bit worn out. I made eggs and bacon and soon after they departed, heading onto their next show.

And that’s how the band, The Chrome Cranks came to spend the night at my house. I know it was not a tale filled with woe or danger. But it happened. It happened to me. And I am happy to say that I am still somewhat acquainted with the members of the band, and still listen to their music fairly often.

In case you are unfamiliar with the band, READ MORE ABOUT THEM HERE.

Nigerian Afrobeat: The Wings / Original Wings / Super Wings

by Karen Lee (Weekend Family Music Hour) and Jim Bunnelle (Center For Cassette Studies)

(We are indebted to founding band member Manford Best for the details summarized below; check out his book The History of The Wings for more information.)

In 1966, civil war erupted in Nigeria. The Prime Minister and his cabinet were killed in a coup by Igbo secessionists in the East who declared themselves the breakaway Republic of Biafra. “The perpetrators brazenly looted properties, raped women and committed unfathomable atrocities under the guise of a religious uprising,” Wings guitarist Manford Best recounts. “This exodus led to an influx of refugees and caused untold hardship such that hunger and starvation became the orders of the day.” Young men in Biafra were expected to fight for the survival of the new republic, but the safer gig was logistical support for the military. This included bands to perform at bases and official events, and to boost overall troop morale. Hence, the Biafran Air Force created a band called BAF Wings.

BAF Wings consisted of two distinct units of musicians: a popular highlife section, led by established bandleader Adolf King; and a second smaller line-up geared towards the “beat” pop music of the day. This pop band consisted of Dream Lovell (Dan Ian) on lead guitar, Gab Zani on lead vocals, Jonathan “Spud Nathan” Udensi on rhythm guitar, Arinze “Ari” Okpala on bass, and Manford Best on drums, with Frank Moses Nwandu acting as manager. The military paid for instruments, amplifiers, and a bus for transportation between assignments. The two sections continued on until the collapse, as recounted by Manford Best:

“After Christmas 1969, it became clear that Biafra was about to lose the battle. When non-stop gunfire and mortar shells started landing everywhere indiscriminately, we knew that advancing Federal soldiers had finally broken through in several sectors. As people in general including the highlife section ran for their dear lives in different directions on foot, members of the pop music section decided to converge at Azia, which was Spud Nathan’s village. Despite the fact that there was no time for a thorough movement plan, we were able to salvage two amplifiers, three microphones, loud speakers, the drumset and two guitars as we fled. Thereafter, we went to our various villages to reunite with members of our families and for them to be aware that we survived the war.”

Following the 1970 ceasefire, Nigeria was divided into four states, and the renowned sounds created by the funk bands of the defeated Biafran insurgency quickly began to take hold and spread across the nation. The reformed band, now simply The Wings, decided to base themselves in Enugu, the new capital of eastern Nigeria, focusing on hotels as their mainstay. If you could get steady work at a hotel, you could become a sort of house band there, building a following and making enough to live on. Any spare income earned by the band was invested back into improved equipment (synthesizers and organs were notoriously hard to maintain), and through this process, they became regulars at the Dayspring Hotel on Sunday afternoons, playing primarily pop/soul numbers by The Beatles, James Brown, Sly and the Family Stone, and Otis Redding.

A significant setback occurred when lead guitarist Dan Ian (later of Wrinkar Experience fame) and singer Gab Zani decided to leave the band, which effectively ended their tenure at the hotel. Just as the band was on the verge of splitting, their manager was approached with a fortuitous offer of a 1-year contract with 33rd Brigade Headquarters in Maiduguri. This meant a monthly salary, free housing, health care, all new musical gear, plus a new bus. The members of the band agreed that it was an amazing opportunity, despite the lack of autonomy that went along with being a military attachment; at least there was no war. They quickly grabbed two new members to flesh out the lineup: Okechukwu “Okey” Uwakwe, a lanky guitarist from a band called The Wavelengths; and Pius Dellin, a keyboard player from neighboring Kano. The band’s existing rhythm guitarist Spud Nathan, who had already been singing some highlife numbers during the band’s hotel sets, mainly to give vocalist Gab Zani a break, stepped in to lead vocals and began honing his voice.

It was now 1971 and pop music was making inroads on the African highlife scene. Fela Kuti and his drummer Tony Allen, inspired in part by Sierra Leone’s funk stars Geraldo Pino & the Heartbeats, are credited with coining the term “Afrobeat” to describe this new sound. EMI’s Nigerian subsidiary began scouting local talent to sign, as did Decca. When not performing for military functions, The Wings were free to gig around the city of Aba at will, and they quickly became a fixture in the burgeoning club scene, primarily at the Ambassador and Unicoco hotels, where they played with house band The Funkees. This led to their being signed by EMI.

“You’ll Want Me Back” b/w “Catch That Love”, 1972

In early 1972, the band headed to Lagos and recorded their first 7” single, entitled “You’ll Want Me Back” b/w “Catch That Love”. The release sold well and brought them nationwide radio exposure for the first time. This was followed within six months by “Afam Efuna” b/w “Had I Known” on the HMV label. At this point, due to increasing opportunities and regional fame, they opted not to renew their contract with the military, which resulted in a punitive confiscation of all gear and equipment which the military had purchased, including their bus. Once more, the band was destitute and on the verge of financial ruin.

Jake Sollo and The Funkees, looking to relocate to England, arranged for the sale of their instruments to The Wings through negotiations with EMI, the label of both bands. This enabled the recording of their third and most successful single to date, in October 1973: “Someone Else Will” b/w “I’ve Been Loving You”. Former member Dan Ian played guest rhythm guitar on the track while his two sisters, Callista and Meg Mbaezue, sang backing harmony over Spud’s vocal. The band’s popularity accelerated quickly, culminating in their appearance on the premier musical program on NTA, the Nigerian Television Authority.

Kissing You So Hard, The Wings, EMI/Capital, 1974

For reasons unclear but purportedly to strengthen the rhythm section, additional percussionists Emma Dabro and Dandy Aduba were hired. Manford Best moved from drums to rhythm guitar, replaced by veteran highlife drummer Joel Madubuike, who is credited only as “Noel” on the back jacket of their first LP. It was with this lineup that The Wings entered EMI Studios in Lagos in April 1974 to record their first and only full-length album, Kissing You So Hard, with Pal Akalonu producing. The album was a regional success and stands today as one of the finest Nigerian pop records of all time, starting with Spud Nathan’s anthem “Single Boy” and ending with Uwakwe’s prophetic and plodding groove “Gone With The Sun”.

The production sound is cavernously weird, with bursts of guitar and organ moving up high in the mix, disappearing, then surging back; check out “Make Me Happy”, with its two distinct passages of Uwakwe’s fuzzed-out guitar and Dellin’s organ breaks, punctuated with Madubuike’s precision drum fills. On the technical aspects of the recording process, Manford Best states that “while all the instruments were being played with the singing going on, the engineer skilfully recorded all the inputs at a go.” The album’s philosophical centerpiece is Spud Nathan’s cut “But Why”, in which he bleakly describes his “struggle to exist” when “emptiness drowns his whole life.” The song’s brooding spirituality would obsess fans for years, especially in light of what was shortly to come.

December 26, 1974. The band played a gig at Mbaukwu. Stories differ as to what went down from this point forward with regard to a disagreement that night within the band. According to Best’s recent account, it was an established practice to rotate a leader monthly between the band’s core four members (Spud, Manford, Ari, and Okey). Spud was supposed to hand over leadership to Manford on December 24th, but he refused to do so for reasons unclear; the latter theorizes it was because a lucrative show was coming up in Port-Harcourt, and Spud wanted to be the one to collect and distribute the money. Tempers flared but Spud ultimately agreed to hand over control to Manford and rode with him in his newly-purchased Toyota to the next gig as a conciliatory gesture. At 4:00am, the band departed in separate vehicles to the town of their next show. Spud and Okey rode in Manford’s car and slept. What happened, according to Manford, is as follows:

“At about 6:00am, two kilometers after crossing the notorious Njaba bridge, we reached Azara-Obiato village and I was turning a corner when suddenly I saw a woman crossing the road. I tried to avoid her by swerving to the left but on seeing an oncoming vehicle swerved back to the right, lost control of the car and knocked her down in the process. The car skidded over the embankment and somersaulted in the bush resting finally on its side. The noisy impact of the crashing car and the alarming cries of the injured woman attracted villagers to the scene. They turned over the car to its normal position, forced the door open and carried Okey and I out while others rescued the woman. When I regained consciousness I stood up and heard Okey moaning and saying some indistinguishable words. I tried to help him stand up but he could not. This was because of the excruciating pain resulting from his injuries. I looked around and could not find Spud so I started shouting.”

Spud Nathan had been thrown from the car’s window; his neck snapped. Okey, in excruciating pain and unable to stand, was placed on a bus and transported to two different hospitals, since the first lacked the expertise to handle the traumatic damage done to his spinal cord. The rest of the band, traveling in a different vehicle, would not learn of the crash until the following day. Word traveled fast throughout the region about the wreck and the circumstances behind it, feeding rumors and conjecture among fans and friends. Internally, between the bad blood from the fight beforehand, Best’s comparatively superficial injuries, and the mysterious unidentified “woman on the bridge”, suspicions arose immediately. Class rifts between the more-affluent Best and the other founding members, especially Ari Okpala, erupted. According to Best, an assassination attempt was made on his life shortly after the crash, which he attributes to either Okpala or Spud Nathan’s sister in London. Ari Okpala and the other members decided to dissolve the band for two years in honor of their dead friend.

(L-R: Dandy Aduba, Spud Nathan, Pius Dellin, Okey Uwakwe, Manford Best; photo, M.Best)

True to their plan, in 1976, Ari Okpala founded a new outfit called Original Wings International (sometimes just called Original Wings). Of the Kissing You So Hard lineup, only Okpala on bass and the hired percussionists, Dandy Aduba and Emma Dabro, remained. Johnny Fleming, who had briefly toured with an earlier pre-1974 iteration of the band, returned to replace Pius Dellin on keyboards. With Okey Uwakwe now paralyzed, Charles Effi Duke took over on lead guitar while Jerry Demua was hired to replace Spud Nathan on lead vocals. Drummer Joel Madubuike, who had already split to join the popular funk band The Apostles, was replaced by Emma Chinaka, a.k.a. Emma China.

Men of the People, Super Wings, Clover, 1976

Meanwhile, keyboardist Pius Dellin (also excluded from the Original Wings relaunch) alerted Manford Best of the brewing betrayal by their old comrades. Furious and feeling slighted, he immediately formed a rival band called Super Wings, with Pius on keys and three other musician friends: John-John Duke on bass; Johnson Hart on drums; and George Black and Jerry Boifraind on vocals/percussion. Afraid of getting beaten to the punch and wanting to stake their claim to the name, they rushed into the studio to record a new album, signing to Lagos-based label Clover Sound, run by Ben Okonkwo. The resulting LP called Men of the People was, by Manford Best’s own admission, a bit of a mess, poorly mixed and engineered (a problem plaguing many Clover records), despite some incredible performances, particularly the tracks “Lonely World”, “Trust Your Woman”, and Dellin’s shimmering “Sunshine of Tomorrow.”

Tribute to Spud Nathan, Original Wings, EMI, 1976

This mad dash to the marketplace backfired. Sales of the LP were flat, and their second-rate status was soon sealed, when, just weeks later in 1976, Ari Okpala’s Original Wings International released their own LP, entitled Tribute To Spud Nathan, on Nigeria EMI, its cover sporting a photo of Spud, arms outstretched and in belled-sleeves, singing onstage at a University of Nigeria show. Starting off with the tribute song “Spud Nathan”, which acknowledged the acrimonious splintering and promised peace from this point forward, it is a meticulously crafted record from start to finish, every bit as good as its forerunner Kissing You So Hard. It was, by all accounts of the time, a major comeback in the Nigerian pop scene.

My Love Is For You, Super Wings, Clover, 1977

Super Wings would persevere for one more record, again on Clover and with Ben Okonkwo producing. Most of the lineup remained, sans Jerry Boifraind, who left to record his first two solo LPs for Anodisc and Love Day. Lessons were clearly learned from the rushed release of Men of the People, and 1977’s My Love Is For You is the band’s creative apex. Manford Best’s crisp, reverb-drenched riffs, mixed with Pius Dellin’s layered synth and new vocalist Allwell Opara’s strange warbly vibrato, make for a distinctive and powerful unifying sound throughout its nine tracks. In true competitive form, that same year also saw the release of the Original Wings International LP You’ll Want Me Back, which featured a re-worked version of the first 7” release by The Wings. While a fantastic record (“Stoop To Conquer”, “Help Yourself” and “Anonymous Man” are high-energy standouts), the balance between Original Wings International and Super Wings was now shifting a bit.

Change This World, Original Wings, EMI, 1979

But it didn’t matter. The market was changing. Nigerian Disco and the spinoff scene later codified as Boogie were on the ascent. Funk bands across the country began closing up shop, with some musicians shifting increasingly into arrangement and production work. Manford Best shut down Super Wings and recorded two solo records. Original Wings International released a final LP in 1979, Change This World, before Ari Okpala decided to dissolve the band permanently.

Founding lead guitarist Okey Uwakwe’s eventual death in 1977, from spinal injuries sustained in the car crash years earlier, was the sad closing coda for both outfits.

Top Fives (Collected by Secret Snake) Part 1

Ever wonder what punks, metal heads, and grind freaks listen to other than their preferred genre? I asked some musicians about their top five favorite albums. Their answers might surprise you. Here is part 1 of the list:

1) Gun Club – Fire of Love

2) Pharmakon – Contact

3) Daikaiju- Monster Surf

4) The Sound Defects – Iron Horse

5) Interstellar – A Trip Hop Mix

Flashback – Who Played In Portland This Week in 1967?

I turned forty recently and realized something that I found intriguing. When I was 15 in 1992, the legendary music year of 1967 was just as many years in the past as 1992 is for me now. Maybe it’s the perspective of having lived in it, but the musical landscape of the early 90’s do not seem as entrenched and gilded to me now as the Summer of Love, Acid Tests and Monterey Pop festival did to me when I was 15. Growing up in the Bay Area, there were plenty landmarks of the 1960’s counterculture, but Portland music history seems to jump from the Kingsmen of “Louie Louie” fame to the dire post punk of The Wipers.

There is a wealth of amazing information online about the Portland music scene in the late sixties. Blogs documenting when the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin or The Doors hit town and there is even an excellent scholarly essay about local bands at the time. Using these sources and The Oregonian archives, I came up with a live music itinerary for the first week of December, 1967 in Portland.

The Squares

I don’t read the Oregonian to check out music, so maybe it’s coverage hasn’t changed in fifty years, but it was pretty much show tunes, classical and big band jazz. I was intrigued by Cindy Layne and Don Palmer at the Keyhole on NE 102nd and Halsey. From the small amount I could find online, it seems like they were a husband and wife musical comedy act where the gag was that she was a 6 foot tall blond and he wasn’t. Being signed by Joey Bishop means that they were sponsored by the least known member of the “Rat Pack” at its nadir. Not really my thing, but I bet the drinks were stiff at the Keyhole.

Frat Boy Garage Rock

The Longhorn at NE 94th and Sandy had a house band called Prince Charles and the Crusaders. They were a legitimate group at the time whose members also played as The Ultimate and The Dart. Drummer and vocalist Gary Nieland appears to have been playing shows throughout Oregon until at least the early 2000’s. Based upon their R&B sound and kitschy medieval garb, they were part of a Northwest garage rock trend that Steve Bradley of the Portland blues rock group U.S. Cadenza described as follows:

“It was all that act, those uniforms, the three-cornered hat deal . . . Papa Oo Mau Mau, Jolly Green Giant, Long Tall Texan, Louie Louie, Twist & Shout, white frat boy R&B kind of things . . . I mean, it’s cool that the Raiders and the Kingsmen are doing it because they invented that sound, but there’s 100 other bands that are like carbon copies. It was just appalling. Get out of here with it.”

But hey, if they were playing every night at the Longhorn, Prince Charles and the Crusaders had to be a tight band, right? Their 45 “Mr. Love” / “Lights of the Town” is listed at a steep price on Discogs, but you can listen to the A side on an archived WFMU setlist here. It sounds good and if you were comfortable drinking some Blitz-Weinhard beer with the crew-cut set, this could be a fun night.

If You Remember It, You Weren’t Really There

Portland was a stop for the big west coast acid rock acts, with Jefferson Airplane, Buffalo Springfield and Moby Grape all visiting in 1967. The Crystal Ballroom was an important venue for Portland hippies when it reopened that January. The first major out of town act was Bay Area group Sopwith Camel, who supposedly did not get paid, which was sometimes an issue at the Crystal back then. A lesser known venue was The Masonic Temple at 1119 SW Park, now the home of the Portland Art Museum. The Grateful Dead played their first advertised Portland show at the Masonic in July, although there are rumors of an “acid test” performance a few months earlier in Old Town. 1967 was the breakout year for the counterculture nationally and Portland was no exception. That December there were two great options for seeing heavy hitters of the era with the Doors at Memorial Coliseum on the 2nd and B.B. King at the Crystal the next night.

Keep It Local

Boasting a strong downtown music scene of it’s own, Portland was more than a destination for big rock acts in 1967. In her illuminating essay, Music on the Cusp: From Folk to Acid Rock in Portland Coffeehouses 1967-69, author Valerie Brown documents the bands and venues of the time. Due to Oregon’s byzantine liquor laws, only a handful of establishments could sell alcohol and allow live music (or even dancing) at the time, opening the door for so-called coffeehouses to be the destination for local bands. In a strange twist, the Greater Portland Council of Churches (GPCC), were one of the most important forces in the coffeehouse scene, operating The Catacombs in the basement of the First Congregational Church at 1126 SW Park and The Charix at the Unitarian Church on SW 12th and Salmon. The GPCC got involved in order to provide social service outreach to the significant amount of teenage runaways and homeless young adults living downtown. Local bands with a blues or acid rock style such as the Portland Zoo Electric BandU.S. Cadenza and Nazzare Blues Band were the lure to bring the kids in, and it worked too well. City officials singled out the coffeehouses as the root of an out of control hippie scene growing in Portland. By 1968 most of the coffeehouses were closed, including the commercially operated Cafe Espresso, which was owned by Walter Cole who would go on to fame as the proprietor and personality behind female impersonator cabaret Darcelle’s XV.

In early December of 1967, the coffeehouse scene was still in full swing, so who better to see than the Charix’s house band Portland Zoo? According to a spread in Portland State’s Vanguard they were playing every Wednesday and Saturday to what must have been packed houses of hippie kids at the time. Based upon interviews in Valerie Brown’s essay, the goal for Portland bands in the coffeehouse scene was to keep it local and not try to get big. Portland Zoo member Sharyle Patton said,

“We looked at the bands that were really trying hard to make it professionally and being on the road to make money and make the records, and I think Peter (Langston) and I had a kind of funny idea that we wanted to play the best possible music . . . but we weren’t really interested in being rock stars. . . . We didn’t want to be on the road being pasty-faced and not getting enough sleep and having to deal with all the pressures of that.”

Mike Cross of Nazzare Blues Band echoed this sentiment.

“In those days it wasn’t competitive. . . . It was so much about the music and so little about commerce, that never got to become part of the equation. It was friendship dead-on right from the start. We were united in a musical adventure.”

It is safe to say that the outlook of these bands have been a major aspect of the Portland music scene since then. Whether it be early 90’s bands like Hazel and Crackerbash who turned their scene inward in the face of the grunge explosion, Dead Moon’s long bond with their hometown or the countless small local groups who have been in it for the music and the fun as opposed to stardom.

Early December of 1967 provided plenty of options to rock out in Portland. Even though our city has become a hip destination spot recently, there is a long music history worth looking into. If you’re interested in learning more check out the below sources that I used for this post.

Blog Rock Prosopography 101 documents mostly West Coast concerts from the sixties and seventies in detail and images of concert posters.

Valerie Brown’s essay on the Portland coffeehouse scene is a treasure trove of local music history. You can read it for free by registering on JSTOR at https://www.jstor.org.

Music on the Cusp: From Folk to Acid Rock in Portland Coffeehouses 1967-69, by Valerie Brown, Oregon Historical Quarterly Vol. 108, No. 2 (Summer 2007)

Other sources

The Oregonian issues December 1, 1967 to December 7, 1967

Website Pacific Northwest Bands

Richard Hell and the Blank Generation

Richard Hell is widely acknowledged as one of the prime movers of punk rock. Born Richard Meyers of Lexington, KY in 1949, he moved to New York City in 1966 after a few years of troublemaking to pursue a career as a poet.  He was soon joined by his friend and fellow poet, Tom Miller (who took on the name “Tom Verlaine”).

Hell and Verlaine have been characterized as inseparable and were often mistaken for brothers. They worked in bookstores and printed their own poetry magazines. This period of time is most notoriously remembered for their combined invention of the fictitious poet “Theresa Stern” whose book of poetry Wanna Go Out was published in 1973. The cover of the book featured a picture of “Theresa Stern”, which was actually a superimposition of Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell in wig and makeup.

The pursuit of poetry soon gave way to a more in your face form of art, rock ‘n’ roll. The two young men formed a band called the Neon Boys, whose garage rock feel and literate, clever lyrics full of puns and double entendres hinted at what the future might hold.

Hell and Verlaine recruited a second guitarist named Richard Lloyd, brought back Neon Boys drummer Billy Ficca and formed the band for which they would both be known for the rest of their lives, Television. Hell has often been credited with ideas behind the band’s image: short cropped hair and ordinary street clothes, often torn or with holes, which was a rebellious stance for a band of that era. This stood in contrast to most rock bands of the time, who were glamming it up in fancy shiny clothes and hair that cascaded past their shoulders. “We wanted to be stark and hard and torn up,” Hell wrote, “the way the world was.”

This version of Television would last for about a year or so, with vocal duties being split fairly evenly at first (about 60/40) with Richard Hell singing early punk rock classic “Fuck Rock ‘n’ Roll (Read a Book)” and an early version of the song that became a misunderstood anthem, “Blank Generation”.

After splitting with Television, Hell formed a nascent version of The Heartbreakers with Johnny Thunders, formerly of the New York Dolls. They recorded some demos, famously including another version of the track “Blank Generation” and performed live, but Hell soon quit to form a band he could lead.

Richard Hell formed the band the Voidoids in 1976, with Robert Quine and Ivan Julian on guitars and Marc Bell on drums, musicians who had floated around the NYC punk scene. Quine had already seen Hell perform with the Heartbreakers on a night that Hell had been chewing gum while playing.  At some point during the performance Hell aggressively spat out the wad of gum. Quine later told him that was the moment he knew Richard Hell was a star.

In his autobiography I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp, Hell states “I think Quine was the best rock and roll guitar soloist ever. He found a way to mix art with emotion that put him ahead of everyone.” He also speaks of Ivan Julian as “…a pro, was young and sharp, and he liked the same kind of slashing, swinging rhythm guitar that we did. He ended up playing some of the most popular and frenzied solos on our records as well.”

With his two guitarists in place the group rehearsed songs for a demo record, which was subsequently released by Ork Records as an EP. The world at large could now hear the sound they had imagined when reading articles published in the Village Voice and NY Rocker about punk rock, CBGB and Max’s Kansas City. The EP consisted of three songs: “Blank Generation”, “You Gotta Lose” and Another World”.

The U.K. release of the EP by Stiff Records boasts a fantastic cover: a picture of Hell standing shirtless in his apartment, pants unbuttoned, a picture of his own face pinned to the wall behind him, his name is spelled out with a font made of razor blades. I’ve got to admit that I didn’t realize those were razor blades for years, only noticing when I casually looked at the cover after it had been in my possession and played hundreds of times.

The EP did the job, showcasing Hell as an architect and instigator of the New York punk scene and lead to a contract with Sire Records. The ink barely dry on their contract, the band hit the recording studio to record their debut album, one of the most highly regarded debut albums in rock history.  It wasn’t an simple process, however. The band finished their recording and submitted the tracks to Sire, which was undergoing negotiations for a change of distributor. This delayed the release of the record, leading Hell to overthink the process and re-record some of the tracks prior to the final mastering and release of the album. Despite it’s well regarded reception and continual praise since its release, the album Blank Generation is in truth a bit of a cut and paste job, a fact revealed with subsequent reissues of the album.

Flashback to 1977.

At the time I lived in a slightly rural area outside of Monterey, CA. I didn’t read the Village Voice or NY Rocker. I had no knowledge of bands such as New York Dolls or Television. It wasn’t until October of 1978 when my little brain was punk rockified by seeing Devo on Saturday Night Live.

My taste in music began to shift. Commercial radio held little interest for me. I sought music at the left of the dial, on smaller non-commercial radio stations and began the hunt for punk and new wave records. Not every purchase was a Blank Generation or Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo, but I visited both of the records stores in my area week after week, searching for new excitement, seeking sounds that would raise the hair on the back of my neck.

My first memory of the cover of Blank Generation was seeing it on a record store wall being used as a dartboard. There was Richard Hell, holding open a trashy jacket with his left arm, inviting your gaze. He is shirtless underneath the coat, poverty or junkie slim, hair and face non-committal, as though he just woke up at 2 in the afternoon. Across his chest, written in felt pen, “You Make Me_____” .  I was compelled to buy the record and fill in the blank.

The picture is intentionally misleading. He wrote of being interviewed by pioneering rock journalist Lester Bangs who asked him to come up with definitive meanings for the songs on the album. In his frustration he stated “To me, ‘Blank’ is a line where you can fill in anything. It’s positive.” He later explained, “Would I really write ‘I belong to the Blank Generation’ without knowing that it would be understood as describing us as being numb and apathetic?”

The title track leads off side two of the album with rhythm guitar and a solid bass thump, the kind that kicks you right in the chest. It only took the opening line, “I was saying let me out of here before I was even born…” before I was hooked. “Triangles were falling out the window as the doctored cursed…” punctuated by a couple of the most jarring, slashing guitar breaks I had ever heard! I had no knowledge of jazz guitar or up from the gutter New York rock like the Velvet Underground, so this was all new to me.

Side one opens with a songs that would make any teenage boy giggle, “Love Comes in Spurts”.  The song starts with everything already in motion, which forces the listener is to chase after the band, and yes, laugh a little at the chorus: “Love comes in spurts (oh no, it hurts!),” yelped by Hell, his voice breaking like the teenage boy that was listening to the record.

The album is playful and rocking,  filled with ideas I had never considered. It opened me up to new things, like a well written book. It was and is still everything a record album should be.

When the album was first reissued on CD the cover was different, showing Hell in a shirt, torn at the left shoulder with sunglasses on. The cover has a light purple, almost pink border, which was not very punk rock. On the original album, the recording of “Down at the Rock and Roll Club” has Hell squealing out the line “Scotch & soda” as though he had been struck by a cattle prod. For some unfathomable reason they replaced it with a slighter longer, tamer version. They also unnecessarily added a couple of bonus tracks, “I’m Your Man” and “All the Way”.  As a rule I am in favor of bonus tracks (I’m a completist), but in this case these additions and choices weaken the album.

Thankfully today we have the newly issued 40th anniversary edition which restores the album to its original state, including the original LP version of “Down at the Rock and Roll Club”. Both the CD & LP versions of this latest reissue also include a wealth of bonus tracks (this time appropriately), including some alternate recordings of some of the songs that appear on the album proper. This gives the listener some idea of the LP that might have been, if not for Hell’s tinkering during the delay in the album’s release. Some early live recordings of the band at CBGB give us a glimpse of what it must have been like in the mid-seventies. It also includes a radio advertisement made for the album which clearly shows that label was out of their depth and had little or no idea how to promote the band.

The original LP has been a favorite of mine from the very first time I listened, so much so that when I had an opportunity to have my own radio show on a local public radio station in Pacific Grove, CA on KAZU 90.3 FM, I named the show Blank Generation. It ran for close to eight years before I decided to leave California and move to Oregon.

Portland was a smart move on my part. In addition to the opportunity to continue hosting a radio show (It’s a Nice World to Visit on Freeform Portland), 2014 Richard Hell visited Powell’s Books in 2014 to promote his autobiography I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp. He read from his book, was heckled by a seemingly drunk woman (whom he fended off with clever verbal barbs), and signed copies of his book afterwards. He was a distinct pleasure to meet. I treasure that day.

Thanks for the music Mr. Hell!

Chickfactor 25 – An Interview with Gail O’Hara

Founded in 1992 by Gail O’Hara and Pam Berry, Chickfactor is a stalwart of the indie pop scene, publishing one of the longest running and consistently readable zines, put on numerous awesome shows and events, and inspired a Belle & Sebastian song. Currently based in Portland, but with a past that takes in Washington DC, New York, and London, we sat down with Gail to talk about Chickfactor’s history, the upcoming 25th anniversary celebrations, and her Magnetic Fields documentary.

So how did Chickfactor get started?

Pam and I were already very good friends. We were living in DC and both working for The Washington City Paper. We were both kind of playing around with Quark Xpress on the Macintosh. Mostly I was just learning by making things. I moved to NY in February 1992 and I was working for Spin Magazine and I had an opportunity to interview the Wedding Present. It ended up being like a half page story with a few quotes, but I had interviewed him so thoroughly that I had this really long interview. Pam had written a lot of the questions. I think that was the catalyst for us deciding to start a zine.  It was like “we’ve got this interview!”  With these bands we liked on the east coast, like Small Factory and Honeybunch, it was a really vibrant time in indie pop. Slumberland Records were our friends as were Velocity Girl, and we knew Unrest, so it was a cool time.

From Fanboy Memoirs, an illustrated zine from Kevin Alvir of The Hairs

We ended up having friends write things and we just threw the first issue together. Then we handed it out at a show at Maxwells in September 1992 and it was free. We gave it to everyone at the show. We had written over them in silver and gold and magic markers. It was juvenile, no it was fun. It was really good.

When I was in college I was learning how to be a zine editor, and the Washington City Paper job helped move it along. But it wasn’t until we started working with a friend who was a graphic designer around issue 12, that the photos started looking a lot better. Because I didn’t really know how to use photoshop that well.

So Pam and I were just good friends and Chickfactor was a way for us to hang out. When I went home we would work on it, but a lot of time was just spent goofing around. I had to get her to focus to write her reviews. We would just sit around in the production room and eat ice cream.

To clarify, Pam is Pam Berry from Black Tambourine.

She’s been in a million bands. But Black Tambourine, Gloworm, Sea Shell Sea, Cast Away Stones, The Pines. These days she plays with Withered Hand in their live shows, and also with Pete Astor sometimes. She’s a very talented singer, and she was part of the crew who started Slumberland Records. They were a big influence on me.

Pam quit Chickfactor in 1995. When you look back, we did a lot of issues between 1992 and 1995. Then I got a job as music editor of Time Out New York so I just didn’t have as much time to devote to a zine. I probably did one a year after that until I moved to London and I kind of stopped for a while. I did one issue online and that was a mistake.

In terms of who you cover, is gender important?

No. The first issue was a lot of guys really. I don’t think it was ever that female centric, but we were focused on interviewing that one girl in the band, because you know, in the 90s every band had the one girl. We always wanted to talk to her because she never got to speak. So it would be like Laura from Superchunk. We just sort of did what comes naturally.

When did you move to London?

2003. So Chickfactor was really active for the first ten years and especially with the shows. We did a lot of shows in New York when I was living there.

How did you get into putting on shows?

It was really just that we wanted a chance to give out the issues to our friends. You could just set up a show at Under Acme in the East Village. You could rent it out like a party room for $150 and then keep the door money. It was so laid back then, nobody got carded, it was just really chill, before Giuliani ruined everything. So it was really fun. The first time we had a show was 1993 and I think there were like 11 or 13 bands. In some cases people just jumped up and did a song, like they weren’t even on the bill. It was just really fun. So that really spawned just a style of show where we would have a lot of bands play really short sets, share a backline and have tons of fun. Nobody would do it for the money because there were so many bands, but people would drive from DC and play, they didn’t care about the money.

Our second show was at the same place during a blizzard, and six bands showed up to play out of nine, including people from DC.

You made a documentary about The Magnetic Fields (Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and The Magnetic Fields, 2010).

Oh yes, that was a long time later. So the second Chickfactor show at Under Acme, The Magnetic Fields played, and they played a lot of our shows before they became more popular. So my relationship with Stephin … I worked at Spin Magazine and I hired him as a copy editor when I was there, so we became friends in 94/95. Spin is a monthly magazine, but they would do everything really last minute so three weeks of the month there would be nothing to do. We had a lot of time to faff around or go eat junk food and walk around Chelsea and take photos. So he was kind of hilarious as a copy editor. He actually quit working there when they did this thing called the Spin Alternative Record Guide and they described him in some capacity as being like Warren Zevon. He fought it and they wouldn’t change it, so he quit.

That friendship and my access to him as a friend more than just a photographer or zine person… I did interview him and everyone involved in the band a lot and would go on the road and take pictures and in 1999 I got a little video camera and started shooting footage. That went on about 10 years and then I got other people involved who were better at shooting footage than me and so we shot around 300 hours of footage. That’s how the film came about.

How does your photography come in to Chickfactor?

CF has always tried to photograph its subjects. When there’s an interview we try to take photos. I have a pretty ridiculous archive of stuff and I would like to do more with it, show it more. I made a small book five years ago and had a show then.  I’ve had exhibitions at Reading FrenzyOther Music and Ladyfest 2000. I’m most proud of a lot of the Stephin Merritt ones because he was so fun to photograph in those days and he’s really changed. I think every artist becomes more guarded, and they get sick of being photographed all the time or interviewed or whatever.  I feel really lucky that I was there a lot of times for people when they were new and not sick of it yet.

Chickfactor is having anniversary celebrations in New York, London, and Portland. How are you feeling about it all?

I mean, it’s kind of shocking that it’s been that long, but to me I make these trips every so often to see my friends in those cities and it’s just an excuse to make everyone play and people are always really happy about being there. I do feel a bit like it’s a service we are performing, especially in a year as hideous as this one, to have a sort of “friend” reunion where we can block out the bad stuff for a couple of days and bask in the good stuff. It’s tricky, like right now I’m going through all the pre-show flurries of emails about drums and backlines and guest lists, and it’s awful, but it’ll all be fine. I do feel like this is the last anniversary I’ll do. I don’t want to do any more. Like I said, I’d probably be going there anyway, and its just like “take the party out of someones living room and put it in a venue”. It is annoying if you are a Pastels fan in London and you never heard about the show and now it’s sold out. But that’s the way life is. Sometimes you have to pay close attention.

Chickfactor 25 Poster

Who is playing Chickfactor 25 in Portland (Dec 9/10)?

Rocketship is playing. They are an indie band from 1990s Sacramento. Dustin Reske has lived here for a long time. Most of the current band members are new, it’s all his thing. It should be fun. They haven’t played a full band show since 1996 so that’s a big deal. Kites at Night is Rose Melberg and her husband Jon Manning. Their band used to be called Imaginary Pants. Jen from the Softies is playing with them on bass I think. Lida Husik is an old friend from DC. She used to be on Astral Werks, in the old days. Calvin Johnson is dj-ing.

Rocketship

I’m also doing an indie pop brunch the next morning at The Toffee Club. It’s going to be me, Jen from the Softies and Janice Headley from KEXP who is Chickfactor’s webmaster so we’re all going to DJ for an hour. Janice ran a zine called Copacetic back in the day. She is an enthusiastic supporter of people like me, she also runs Yo La Tengo’s website and a lot of other people’s websites.

Belle & Sebastian wrote a song called Chickfactor (on The Boy With The Arab Strap LP). How did you feel when you heard about that?

We were in Glasgow in October or November of 97 and that’s when I interviewed Sarah and Isabel from the band. They told me about the Chickfactor song and it was very exciting. Pam was over in London in December of 1997 and she heard the song live for the first time. I think I heard it for the first time at the Supper Club in New York. We were blown away, it was so cool.

Are there any new bands or any things that you are excited about now?

I am excited about a lot of things. I really like Sacred Paws a lot, they are a girl duo. I love Girl Ray but I’m finding it really hard to put my hands on a vinyl LP of theirs. They’re from London. I’ve been listening to this band Lake Ruth, they have a Broadcast vibe, really good. One good thing about doing Chickfactor is that I can be like, “hey everyone send me records”. I get a lot of records sent my way, and I do a lot of research on Bandcamp to see what’s coming out. There is so much good music happening, it’s an exciting time. I love Alvvays and I love the new signing to their label, Anna Burch. She’s from Detroit. There’s a million things I love.

Has there been a time when you’ve been doing the zine and just thought, there’s nobody, this is a terrible time for music?

No. Then again I’ve definitely had periods where music hasn’t been as big of a deal in my life for whatever reason. I feel like there’s always something out there that maybe isn’t the cutting edge but it still sounds really nice. It is strange to have bands that are keeping the flame of 1991 era Creation Records alive. But maybe that’s ok, if they’re really into it. I also really love Brazilian music – it’s like an antidepressant – for me that’s what I want right now. I want a soothing balm of music. Like The Clientele. Their new album, it’s like thank god, something beautiful to wash away the nasty stuff. Without going into politics, it’s an important time to delve into creative projects and lose yourself in karaoke or soccer, or whatever your thing is. Just get out and don’t dwell on all the bad stuff. The Chickfactor parties and the zine will provide a tiny bit of escapism for someone. That’s all I hope for for myself – to not think about all the stuff that is going on.

The Portland Chickfactor anniversary celebrations are as follows:

Saturday, December 9 – Bunk Bar

Rocketship (first full band show in Portland since 1996)

Kites at Night (featuring Rose Melberg)

Lida Husik

+ DJ Calvin Johnson

Get tickets

Sunday, December 10 – The Toffee Club. Free, daytime 11am–2pm

Indiepop Brunch chickfactor special featuring DJs Gail Chickfactor, Jen “Softies” Sbragia, and Chickfactor webmaster Janice Headley at the Toffee Club (no tickets required).

Issue 18 of Chickfactor zine will be available in early 2018. For more information click here.

Music of Anthology: Harry Smith and American Folk Music

Among many other things, Harry Everett Smith made seminal surrealist films, overstayed his welcome at countless cheap hotels, produced the first Fugs album, attempted to synchronize painting with jazz notes and archived every paper airplane he found. Born in Portland, Oregon in 1923 his family later moved to Washington growing up in Anacortes, Bellingham and parts in between, where he documented Native American rituals on 78 rpm recording equipment transported by bicycle and delved deep into the mysticism that his eccentric mother introduced him to. After leaving the Northwest for the Bay Area and later New York, Smith was a full fledged beat and a major influence on the hippies. Charting Smith’s poly-artist life is dizzying as it is filled with epic obsessions, volatile behavior and incredible creativity; however, he is most known today for editing the groundbreaking Anthology of American Folk Music, which he was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Grammy for in 1991 before his death the same year.

A prodigious record collector, Smith amassed upwards of ten thousand 78’s of pre-Great Depression Appalachian folk, blues, country, and Cajun when most Americans had forgotten about the music. In 1952, Smith moved to New York and tried to sell some of his collection to Moses Asch of Folkways records, but was instead encouraged to put together an anthology for the label. The result was the three volume, six LP, Anthology of American Folk Music. Highly knowledgeable in the occult, Smith assigned an element to the cover of each volume by color: water for Ballads in green, fire for Social Music in red, and air for Songs in blue. Also included on each cover was a Johann Theodor de Bry engraving of the celestial monochord, which Smith found in a 17th century book by alchemist Robert Fludd. The liner notes were also singular, with news clippings acting as social commentary, stark images of the artists and cryptic passages about the songs. Smith summarizes The Carter Family’s “Engine-One-Forty-Three” as, “Georgie runs into rock after mother’s warning. Dies with the engine he loves.”

Celestial Monochord

Beyond the seriously thought out visual presentation of the album, Smith had a mission when selecting songs. Departing from the standard practice of segregating artists by race, the Anthology had black and white musicians mixed together, identified by recording location and year, in an order based on style, theme and perhaps alchemical properties. Although Smith was never an overt political artist, he intended for the Anthology to foment some kind of revolution, telling musicologist and member of the New Lost City Ramblers, John Cohen, in 1969:

“I felt social changes would result from it. I’d been reading Plato’s Republic. He’s jabbering on about music, how you have to be careful about changing the music because it might upset or destroy the government. Everybody gets out of step. . .

The Anthology was not an attempt to get all the best records . . ., but a lot of these were selected because they were odd – an important version of the song, or one which came from some particular place . . . Instead, they were selected to be ones that would be popular among musicologists, or possibly with people who would want to sing them and maybe would improve the version . . .

I was looking for exotic records . . .

Exotic in relation to what was considered to be the world culture of high-class music.”

The seed Smith planted was sown by young musicians such as Joan Baez, Dave Von Ronk and Bob Dylan who embraced the album as a trove of secret knowledge and would go on to change the direction of folk music in the sixties and eventually rock. Dylan said of of the Anthology, “That’s where the wealth of folk music was, on that particular record. It’s all poetry, every single one of those songs.” Even if Smith’s statements about the intention of the Anthology was during the social and cultural upheaval of that decade, it’s clear that he believed the selection and presentation of old music could create powerful change by influencing future generations.

Listening to the Anthology sixty-five years later, I can recognize the styles fairly easily on the songs. After decades of artists plumbing the past, revival bands and films like O Brother, Where Art Thou?, one doesn’t need to be a musicologist or from a particular region to be familiar with the sound of Bluegrass or Zydeco. When Nick Cave or Neko Case sing murder ballads it isn’t as exotic anymore because for better or worse they they are high-class musicians. When weighing the Anthology by the individual songs, I sometimes find them quaintly tucked into a history when a folkster could bust out “Stackalee” in a Greenwich Village club and genuinely wow a crowd with something new.

Uncle Dave Macon

But didn’t he say the songs weren’t the best? After all these years the constant on the Anthology is that Harry Smith is the DJ and maybe that was the point the entire time. Record side 3 on Social Music is two tracks of Rev. J.M. Gates hauntingly sermonizing through song followed by two from the Alabama Sacred Harp Singers that flows with atmospheric energy. I feel like I’ve got religion in my mind and that our country has spoken beautifully in hundreds of dialects. Record side 4 of Songs starts with old time country star Uncle Dave Macon happily rollicking through themes of sex, death and money in mere minutes and then transitions to Mississippi John Hurt lending an improbably serene air over the plight of John Henry in “Spike Driver Blues.”  When listening to a Smith selected side in full, I’m transported to a world with different sins and virtues, forgetting what artist I’m listening to and instead thinking about what it looks, feels and smells like. The alchemy aspect of what Smith employed on the Anthology will always be there making the volumes American spellbooks that never fail to beguile. As it is thoroughly freeform, I will be playing sides from the Anthology on my show Music of Folk this Saturday from noon to 2pm, along with music Smith recorded and artists influenced by him. Hope you can listen in!

Here’s a link to Harry Smith’s masterpiece Film #12 (Heaven and Earth Magic). It is quite simply one of the most amazing examples of surrealism ever and well worth spending an hour of your life viewing.

Sources used:

Harry Smith: The Avant-Garde in the American Vernacular. Edited by Andrew Perchuk and Rani Simon. Getty Research Center: Issues & Debates

The Harry Smith Archives http://harrysmitharchives.com

Show Review: Isaac Rother & the Phantoms – White Owl/Blackwater

Isaac Rother & the Phantoms are one of the best and most entertaining bands you’re missing out on. Luckily for you they tour frequently. I became a fan about a year ago and I’ve seen them play four times, perhaps most notably opening for Guitar Wolf at the Hawthorne Theater during the summer. I think Isaac Rother & the Phantoms can best be described as an early 60s rock/campy horror band. Their Facebook page describes their influences as Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, Bo Diddley, and Scooby Doo, but if you want to know what they sound like just find a picture of Isaac Rother. He is always dressed in a black suit and cape, a necklace of bones around his neck, and a large afro. He plays lead guitar and lead vocals, which he sings with a curled-lip snarl.

And the Phantoms? Well, their bass player looks like Eddie Munster, their drummer is referred to as the Yeti and on backup vocals is the always lovely Tatianna. Tatianna adds some killer vocals and a throwback shimmy that will knock you back a few decades, and she knows how to rock a cape to boot.

Isaac Rother & the Phantoms play some terrific covers. Their most recent tour comes on the heels of their most recent release, a reinvention of “… One More Time,” by Britney Spears which tells you that behind the black capes the band approaches its craft with a sense of humor. Their cover of Little Richard’s “Heeby Jeebies” is not to be missed. The song “Dark Eyes” is definitely a surfer rock throwback. Other tracks that stand out are “The Phantom,” “Hocus Pocus,” “Somebody Put a Hex on Me,” “My Cryin’ Eyes,” and “Possession” all of which showcase the spooky rock n’ roll sound of the band.

All of that aside, the reason you should go see Isaac Rother & the Phantoms is because they’re incredible entertainers. Listen to them onlinebuy their merch and support the band because we need more fun rock n’ rollers like this making the rounds. But most of all, go see them next time they’re in town. I love me some doom metal, punk rock, new wave, prog, shoegazer, etc. but sometimes you just want to rock n’ roll and cut a rug. Let Isaac Rother & the Phantoms work their voodoo on you.