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taeguboi · 4 years

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BTS as... Rockers

Ngl, I panicked a little when I checked on the masterlist because an older post about BTS as rock band members was labelled as this title and I’d already written this one for like 3 members already. There’s various genres I mention, some of which are also metal and pop but I thought a simple general title would be best here.

Anyways, my second post coming back recently. Hope you enjoy.

Mainly a classics man

Loves to analyse lyrics

and loves writing his own lyrics based on his current favourites

It’s like a form of literature to him

Loves to chill out to prog and psychedelic rock

Accidentally had the same music tastes as that weird geography teacher in school

Probably has a pet named after a member of a power / symphonic metal band

sorry I’m a bit of a Nightwish nerd and now I can just imagine him calling for his dog “Floor!” and everyone getting confused because they think he’s just shouting at the ground

this is the kind of genre he likes the most other than classic rock; that’s where the most literature references are. It’s poetry about poetry

Has a journal of art and lyrics quotes for when he’s super into a song

Could be mistaken for a geek in school

because to a juvenile ear, his taste in music might be challenging to listen to

like no one else had the patience aged 12 to listen to a 9 minute song or an instrumental track

and then even at 15/16, how many people your age would listen to Dark Side Of The Moon?

Guess he would say music is all about sitting back and listening and taking it in

Would love to be a songwriter for the right kind of singer

unfortunately though, he’s a bit of a loner

likes his own company too much

it’s probably the solitude that motivates him to write

too many more friends than he already has would be too much of a distraction

It’s not a sad situation though

music is what Namjoon loves the most

and “nothing else matters”

Oh yes, let’s have a bit of Metallica in there too

It’s not until he finishes school that he becomes more in touch with what people in the current world of rock and metal like

discovered “Rollin’” by Limp Bizkit like WAY too many years after it came out

“Have you heard this ace song man?”

“yep... in 2004 dude”

“oh”

But he’s no ashamed or anything, no

He’s proud to be a fan of the bands he likes

even if they aren’t to everyone’s tastes

“Well, sorry if this isn’t some 3 minute long four chord song repeating the same 5 words”

If they don’t appreciate it, their loss

Jin

The old ones are the best ones

Think 50s rock n’ roll; Little Richard, Elvis, and so on

mixed with guilty pleasures of songs about ‘my baby girl’

Loves themed music nights

Whilst of course his favourites are the 50s themed ones

he also loves showing up to 60s nights to flaunt the flower power

or 80s nights in a fun wig as some member of a hair metal band

all the styles are very fun

but on a daily basis, he’s basically dresses like a teddy boy

tight trousers with white socks peaking out

jacket - sometimes a suit jacket, sometimes denim

as you can imagine, when a lot of this stuff comes back in fashion...

“Well, I did it first...”

you know, in this era he means he did it first

Loves a good finger clicker song

Once considered doing a tribute act around pubs and clubs

but he couldn’t decide who he wanted to be

Probably should take a role in some live production of Grease

he’s seen it enough times

and he can sing

He reckons he could never do theatre for long though

his fantasies are with playing instruments to perform

talented keyboard player

starting to get the hang of guitar too

but he does get carried away whilst trying to learn guitar

because he wants to add on all the cool moves NOW

He’s got some bangers he created on the keyboard though

he didn’t really intend to create original songs

it just happened one day after a break up

and he listened to Heartbreak Hotel

too many times

he just sat at his keyboard

and made something that really felt special

and then the day after that, he made a more upbeat song

and the week after that, he has 4 full songs in total

Open mic nights become something he enjoys

a bit of a local celebrity

“Would you play my grandma’s 80th party? Pleeeease?”

and aww bless him, he plays all the throwback songs at care homes

all free of charge

slips in some of his original music too

“Ooh, I’m afraid I don’t remember that one dear, must be my brain”

“Oh, no no no” explains Jin “I made it myself”

Old dears just love him basically

but so do the girls his age

Whilst some think the whole 50s get up is a bit lame

some go wild for it

because he dons all his outfits so well

and his songs feel so true to the era they were inspired by

you gain a love for the 50s just from watching Jin

Talented boy, keeping the 50s alive

Suga

A lot say Yoongi has an acquired taste

an electronic element to rock or metal always makes it more interesting to him

loves industrial music - NIN for days

Linkin Park made most of his jams

cried for half a day at the news of Chester no longer being with us

Likes a bit of new wave, synthpop, all that

emo songs just help you through the bad times okay

Can equally enjoy a dub festival as much as a rock concert

some people think his taste is actually naff

but then they realise he also listens to the likes Foo Fighters or Sum 41

Plays like the same 30 songs on repeat

but his collection has so much more

He has some rock and blues for the road trip

he’s got your 70s singalongs for the party

Was briefly a DJ at a rock bar

got fired for not playing enough popular songs in his set

“wtf I thought this was a bar where people could appreciate this” huffs Yoongi

“yes but people want to sing to ‘down with the sickness’ or something, not ‘down in the park’!”

“stuff you then, I’ll take Gary somewhere else with me”

guilty pleasure: Kate Bush

A somewhat gothic sense of style

but not overwhelmingly gothic

He likes bandannas and black clothes

not always in black clothes though

sometimes the merch he wants just isn’t available in black

but no worries

as long as he can happily flaunt the music that makes him who he is

J-Hope

Can listen to any rock genre

give him something and he probably already loves it

So yeah, the band members are pretty cool and all that

but what Hoseok has more interest in the backstage roles

he’d love to manage a rock band

be a tour manager

guitar tech

Much knowledge is stored in that brain of his

and he wants to put it to good use

He starts out as a promoter and organiser for the rock bar in town

which he eventually lives above

His events are ace

he can pick out fresh talent that everyone on that scene can enjoy

His showcase nights are the place to be

everyone can agree, he’s got amazing taste

no one can disagree with him

He’s a one man show and still managed to pull it off

he’s the promoter, the sound guy, the tech on all the instruments

way more professional than most other local music events

He takes pride in his work

did I mention he’s so good, it becomes a full time job?

As time goes by, he listens to less and less older music

but that’s okay

he’s happy with the time it takes to listen to all the up and coming bands

in the moment is where you should live

and he can still appreciate a band’s influences should they initiate conversation

“man, this dude really knows his stuff”

“will you manage our next tour?”

“can you do sound at our next gig? our guy’s rubbish”

and that one is like right in front of their current sound guy

The future is bright for Hoseok

his love for rock music could really earn him a solid living

Jimin

Some say he’s a bit of a poser in his leather jacket

but he really does love his rock music

Sometimes a bit behind on modern rock bands or releases

Low key wishes he was born in the 50s / 60s

just so he could live in his favourite eras

his heart really lies with the classics

60s, 70s, 80s.

90s at a push

not the later 90s where grunge bands did pop

actually any movie made in that time makes him cringe

like he’s all up for good clean fun

but christ it’s like they were trying to go back to the 50s or something

not everything is ‘swell’ you know

Don’t get him wrong though

he does also like some 50s music

He may or may not have spent that one time acting like Elvis in the mirror

it really hyped him up before a night out though

it may or may not have become a thing before going out in the evenings to boost his confidence

His all time favourite bands have to be The Rolling Stones and AC/DC

and no, he couldn’t pick between the two, ever

Doesn’t really have a desire to be in a band

but sort of accidentally picks up the bass to help out a mate in a band

and sort of accidentally becomes a permanent member

It’s just a cover band

but it’s so much fun

Sometimes, you can have a really bad day

and then listening to 23 people singing “I Love Rock n Roll”

kind of lifts your mood

“Play Wonderwall!”

gets a bit annoying to him

kind of wants to hit that one guy around the head with his bass

but he holds back

Because being aggressive wouldn’t be very rock of him

and whilst he does like punk music

he’s definitely not a punk

Screw all that political rubbish

music should be to enjoy yourself with

stop worrying about the world for one minute and

let’s sing about whiskey and cigarettes and just living life

“What do you MEAN you don’t know any Def Leppard songs?”

“For crying out loud!”

He tries to understand that not everyone will listen what the music he likes

“but... like seriously, how can you not though?”

Probably likes all the underrated bands

Loves vinyl

definitely collects vinyls

Likes to shop at vintage stores to fulfil his obscure taste

People are like “you paid £60 just for that?”

but to Tae, it’s worth every penny

He likes the classics too

he can sing along in a rock bar to all the well known tunes

old or modern

and there may be loads in his vinyl collection barely anyone recognises

but there’s some more familiar faces too

there’s The Beatles, Guns n’ Roses, Foo Fighters, anything like that

it’s just only like 20% of his huge collection

Whilst his style is inspired by those he idolises...

he can never copy them

that would be an insult to them and his originality

Plays guitar and writes songs

never anything soppy though

actually fairly hesitant to pick up an acoustic guitar

always plays electric

and the songs he makes are about having a good time, life experiences

but not about love

He can listen to a couple of cheesy tracks

he just won’t make any

“Who the heck is John Otway, Tae?”

“Oh, you know, Wild Willy Barrat”

“Willy who?”

“Cor baby, that’s really free!”

“....”

“Headbutts! da da da da da... Headbuttttsssss”

I feel like rocker V loves anything that feels slightly random

probably make his own secret songs that sound silly to others

Probably has a band that never gigs

it’s him singing and playing guitar

and a bassist and drummer that aren’t really sure why they’re here

but they kind of like the unique stuff he does

and the band is almost purposely bad

“It’s the imperfections that really give a song character”

Jungkook

Modern rock and metal

low key emo

Tears Don’t Fall by BFMV on repeat aged 14, his first break up

Lives for festivals

like when he goes to work, that is what he is earning money for

well, that and bills and food

has a jar for each festival he wants to go to this year

Also loves a bit of melodic punk

like when that one Australian band are finally coming to his country

he HAS to go

help me I’m really sad because this is me and The Decline were supposed to be coming to the UK and then this pandemic happened and now I might never see them criii

Has a playlist for every aspect of life

every feeling, every colour, every occasion

songs that remind him of a time, ones where he can visualise a colour...

many people don’t get it

“how many playlists?”

“how can a song be a colour?”

it just is

like come on, listen to this Red Jumpsuit Apparatus song

and tell him this doesn’t remind you of gold

Could be a journalist

knows everything and anything about his favourite bands

AVENGED SEVENFOLD

because it’s the perfect mixture of everything he loves about music

vests because M.Shadows

So badly wants to be in a band

tries every instrument you could find in a typical rock band

loves the drums

gets stuck on guitar though in his first band

well, he was just desperate to go gigging

he left after a year and a bit though

got boring

forms his own band instead around him being on the drums

Lives for this band

it’s like a rock band but with political lyrics

and they can perform at most events

they just fit any bill

gigs are booked almost every weekend

road trip with the lads

they travel like 50 miles just to be paid in beer only

Dreams of big time collaborations

that will probably never happen and he knows that

but it’s nice to dream, right?

puts on his own gigs a few years down the line

of course his own band are always on the bill

everyone thinks his gigs are a hoot

He even manages to book some lesser known punk bands

but they are a massive deal to him

“God, I love live music!”

“Do you always wear a black shirt guk?”

“Hey, I’m a drummer! It’s hard work; a lot of sweat involved... I’m sure no one wants to see my wet pits whilst trying to enjoy the show”

and then that person wishes they never asked...

but he’s right

he knows that a good band is all about the hard graft and work

and he is always so thankful for the great rock bands that influence him

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daggerzine · 4 years

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Ray Farrell on music and his time at SST, Blast First, Geffen and many more.

Ray Farrell has had a lifetime surrounded by music. First as a fan as a young kid and then eventually working for a series of record labels. He’s obviously a fan first and foremost as you can tell by reading below. It also seemed like he was there at the beginning of some major music scenes happening.

I had met Ray very briefly at one of the A.C. Elks hardcore shows that Ralph Jones put on in Atlantic City in the Summer of 1985 though Ray doesn’t remember it (honestly, a bunch of us were standing in a circle and chatting so I’m not even sure if any proper introductions were done).

Anyway, knowing some of the record labels that Ray had worked for I wanted to hear the whole story. I contacted him and shot him some questions and he was more than happy to elaborate and let us know where he’s been and where he’s going. Take it away, Ray!

Where did you grow up?

RF-Jersey City and Parsippany, New Jersey in the 60/70’s. I have two younger brothers.

What did you listen to first…classic rock or stuff earlier than that?

RF-Rock wasn’t classic yet. My earliest memories of music are my parents’ modest collection of 45’s and grandparents’ 78’s. My mom had a handful of singles on Chess and Satellite (pre-Stax) that she said fell off a truck. We rented our house from a family connected to the mob. The records probably came from them. My mom and her sisters often sang Tin Pan Alley era songs at family gatherings. Harmony was encouraged!

Some records I heard as a toddler stayed with me forever. Lonnie Donegan’s “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor?” is a skiffle classic. Chuck Berry’s “Guitar Boogie” and “Last Night” by the Mar- Keys are still favorites. I remember being spooked by the overblown production of the “Johnny Cash Sings Hank Williams” e.p. on Sun Records. In the mid 60’s, my mom had top 40 radio on in the house unless my dad was home. When I was in kindergarten, a high school neighbor in our building babysat me for a couple hours after school a few days a week. Her girlfriends came over regularly. They listened to a lot of doo-wop, which I still love today. The babysitter and her friends taught me how to slow dance, even though I wasn’t nearly a full grown boy. J

My best friend in 7th grade was a Beatles fanatic and we immersed ourselves in decoding clues to the “Paul McCartney Is Dead” gimmick. That was a brilliant scam and a fun short term hobby. It was a deep dive into The Beatles music as a junior music detective. By the time I started buying records, The Beatles were on their way out.

I happily lived for many months on only three albums-

CCR’s “Bayou Country”, Iron Butterfly’s “In A Gadda Da Vida” and the Beatles “Sgt. Pepper.” I joined the Columbia Record Club. I got the first twelve albums for one buck. That was a popular scam. Those first twelve records shaped my taste because they were the only records I had. I didn’t know what to order but I chose very well in retrospect. After that, I bought a lot of records. I didn’t smoke, but many of my friends did. A carton of cigs cost the same as an lp- 5 bucks.

I learned in 7th grade that if I knew the songs that girls liked, we would have something to talk about. Girls loved Tommy James and The Shondells and The Rascals. I still do! I had a wider range in music taste than most of my high school friends. Everyone in my extended circle loved the Stones, Neil Young and the Allman Brothers. In a tighter circle we were into David Bowie, Lou Reed, Sparks, Todd Rundgren etc. I loved Mountain, Led Zep, Hendrix, Budgie, The Kinks, Alice Cooper, Sabbath. At first, The Stooges seemed too deep and serious for me. A little scary because I thought if teenagers felt like this all over the world, I’m doomed. I bought the album with “Loose” and played that song for weeks before listening to the rest of it. The girl next door had Iggy’ s “Raw Power” album the week it was released. When glam rock was happening in England, there was a weekly NYC radio show that played the Melody Maker Top 30 singles. I was fascinated by T.Rex, Slade, Hawkwind. I don’t recall if prog rock was a tag yet, I knew that I didn’t like songs that rambled on for more than 7 minutes. There were exceptions of course- some King Crimson, Yes, Mahavishnu. I was impressionable. Radio station WBAI hosted “Free Music Store” concerts with local acts. One show was a keyboard group called Mother Mallard that had banks of synthesizers on stage. They were similar to the music of Phillip Glass and Steve Reich, who you would only hear on that same radio station. I talked myself into buying their records, but it took years to comprehend them. I was too young to be listening to such serious stuff. I played soccer and ran track for a couple years. During meets at other schools, I made friends. At parties I heard Issac Hayes, Bohannon and James Brown records. Brown was all over top 40 radio. Rhythm guitar was my jam! Soul and funk records were best for that. I spent many nights listening to AM radio. The signal travels farther at night, so I’d listen to stations far away. It didn’t matter what kind of music it was. Some of my relatives had short wave radios. I was more interested in radio production than short wave content. The production quality has not changed much since then. It often sounds like broadcasts trapped in the ether for the last 30 years.

While I was in high school, it was common for local colleges to host rock and jazz concerts for low prices, sometimes free. The schools had to spend the money sitting in the student union coffers. There was a live music club in my town called Joint In The Woods. The venue began as a banquet hall that doubled as a meeting hall for Boy Scout Jamborees and the like. When it became the Joint, it was a disco. The first night of live music was a show with Iggy & The Stooges. The regular disco patrons were pissed! The guys were mostly goombah’s in Quiana print shirts and bell bottoms. Three or four guys smacked Iggy around after his set. Sure enough, he played Max’s Kansas City the next night as if nothing happened. Because of this club, touring bands were suddenly playing in my town. Badfinger, Roy Wood’s Wizzard, Muddy Waters. The NY Dolls were scheduled but didn’t show up. Springsteen was often an opening act. The N.J. legal drinking age had just lowered to 18. It was a great time. I was still in school, so I wasn’t staying out on weeknights.

I was determined to learn NYC music history by hitting all the Greenwich Village clubs and talking to the owners and bartenders. It didn’t matter what kind of music they specialized in- I was into the vibe. There were occasional scary nights parking near CB’s or jazz spots in that neighborhood. Folk music was on FM radio at the time. A high school friend booked a local coffee house called Tea & Cheese. Mostly locals and ambitious tri-state artists. Martin Mull, Aztec Two Step, Garland Jeffries. Some of Lou Reed’s touring band, The Tots, played there. I went to all kinds of record stores, mainly those that sold rock imports and cutouts. I was fascinated by the street level buzz of a record. In ’74, I heard dub reggae for the first time. The only stores to get that music were in Queens because there was a strong West Indian community there. It may have been the “Harder They Come” soundtrack that got me started. There was a “pay to play” radio station in Newark - WHBI. DJ’s had to buy their airtime. Arnold “Trinidad” Henry had a weekly show playing new calypso and reggae. He was more into calypso than reggae. A lot of calypso was political and comical. Arnold was fascinating! There was often a personal crisis he’d talk about on the air. My favorite incident was when he said that his life had been threatened during the program, so he locked himself in the studio.. Someone called the cops. They convinced him to unlock the door. He just wanted more airtime. Arnold played the first reggae dub track I’d heard- full dub albums were a new concept at the time. Most dub was found on the flipsides of reggae 45’s. One of the shows sponsors was Chin Randy’s Records in Queens. I trekked out there by train to buy my first dub records. That was a trip! Randy Chin’s family went on to start VP Records.

What was the first alternative/independent music you got into? How did it happen (friends? older siblings?)

RF-The term “punk” as a music style hadn’t been coined yet. I vaguely recall equating “punk” with the great “Nuggets” compilation or something Greg Shaw might have writ in Bomp Magzine. I didn’t identify labels as independent. I knew that if the label design was simple and the address was listed, it was probably a small company. There were plenty of record stores carrying obscure stuff. I bought import records from a few NYC stores. I took the bus in until I was old enough to drive. One store Pantasia, was up in The Bronx. I went there one Christmas eve day to get the import of the second Sadistic Mika Band album. The clerk talked me into buying the harder to find first album as well. He said it sounded like Shel Talmy produced it. I knew who that was and it was a revelation to talk to somebody in a record store at that level. That is what a record store should be! I read Phonograph Record magazine, Bomp and Trouser Press regularly. Patti Smith and Television self released their debut singles- those are the first “indie” records I bought, followed by the first two Pere Ubu singles. I remember hearing the Modern Lovers’ “Roadrunner” from the Bezerkley Chartbusters comp on WFMU and thinking that there must be more music like that. It was refreshing.

Seeing Patti Smith and Television perform at CBGB’s changed my life. I connected the dots. I had BÖC albums on which Patti had co-writes. She had a poem insert in Todd Rundgren’s “A Wizard, A True Star” album. She read a Morrison poem on a Ray Manzarek lp. She wrote for rock music mags with distinctive style. I read a brief story about her in the Voice and went to see her do her annual Rock N’ Rimbaud show. Shortly after that she and Television played CBGB’s for six weekends in early ’75. Both bands were really great. Patti didn’t have a drummer yet. Richard Hell was a big inspiration to me. He looked cool. He played bass like he just picked it up the month before. That was a new concept. Television changed bass players in the middle of the residency. Television was the first band I saw with short hair and they dressed like teenage delinquents circa 1962. The CBGB’s jukebox had a good number of 60’s garage records. In my head I conceived Television to be inspired by that music. Made sense to me- Lenny Kaye, who assembled the “Nuggets” comp, is in the PSG. When I went back to see Television headline, The Ramones opened. Seeing The Ramones again, Talking Heads opened. It seemed like the streak of seeing great new bands would not end. They were distinctly NYC sounds. They could not have merged anywhere else. I remember avoiding the band Suicide because I didn’t think the music could be good J. Bands like Tuff Darts, Mumps and The Marbles opened shows but I wasn’t thrilled by them. A CBGB’s band that doesn’t get mentioned much is Mink DeVille. They wore matching outfits like they were playing a low budget Miami dive in 1962J. The club still had the small corner stage. The p.a. was ok and the bands had small amps. The music wasn’t loud in a “rock” way. You could sit at a table right in front of the band. Although we consider the club a birthplace of punk, the club showcased local bands that had been around for a while. I think the club upgraded the p.a. once before building the big stage. I realized at that point that when a band was great or at least interesting live, the records were basic documents of the band’s sound.

What was your first job in the music scene/industry?

RF- Before realizing I wanted to be in the business, I hounded import mail order guys on the phone about non-lp b-sides and albums that weren’t released stateside. I was fascinated by the process. Why were some records not in stores even though they had local airplay? My dad did not listen to much music, but he had an army buddy that made a living in Al Hirt’s band. He came to our house once. He gave my dad a copy of John Fahey’s “After The Ball” album, which he played on. I liked his stories about the session man side of the business. Fahey treated him well. I was generally shy, but when it came to music I would approach anyone I thought I could learn from. I heard horror stories about the music biz in NYC but learned later that those were a mob related labels. At the time, I thought the entire NYC music biz might be that way. I planned to move to California anyway. In high school, I go-fer’d at local Jersey radio stations and talked my way into meeting a few top FM radio dj’s. I thought I wanted to be a professional dj, but my dad wisely talked me out of that. The itinerant radio jock life would not be for me. It was a racket.

In ’76, I took a long low budget cross country trip with my high school sweetheart. Along the way, I stayed in Memphis for three weeks with a cousin who was stationed at the Millington naval base. Got a job at a hip movie theatre that served liquor. I found Alex Chilton in the phone book and spent an afternoon talking with him. I wasn’t yet legal drinking age in Tennessee. It amused him that a fan showed up in his town who was not old enough to drink. En route to Cali, Tulsa, OK was on my route to find Shelter Records and studio , but it shut down and the label moved to L.A. At the time, Dwight Twilley’s “I’m On Fire” was a radio hit. I didn’t think there were still bands like that. Twilley was from Tulsa, but had moved to L.A. by that time.

When I arrived in L.A. I visited small label record company offices. A few offered me jobs or references. I spent two weeks crashing at the Malibu house of a distant family friend. I didn’t want to live in L.A. but I was encouraged by the opportunities. I got a job at the famous record store- Rather Ripped in Berkeley, CA.

Patti Smith told me about Rather Ripped before I left Jersey. In ’75, she and her band went to California for shows in L.A. and Berkeley. The northern Cali shows were set up by the store. She did a poetry reading there. This is well before “Horses” was released. I bought a couple records from the store’s Dedicated Fool mail order service. They had a monthly catalog on newsprint. Thousands of records in tiny font. Every record was described with a few words. This is 1976 and punk rock was just getting started. I worked as a prep cook in a charcuterie associated with Alice Waters’ famous restaurant Chez Panisse. The proprietor knew the record store owners. I wasn’t actively looking to work there, but I talked about music all day every day. They fast tracked me for an interview. Because of a scheduling mistake, Tom Petty interviewed me for the job. His first album just came out and “American Girl” was close to being a hit single. The band came to the store before a local show. Tom overheard the owner apologizing for not being able to do the interview, so he offered to conduct it. It was great. I knew all about his label, Shelter Records. I deliberately avoided talking about The Ramones and Patti Smith because punk was new and against the grain. At the end of the interview Tom told the owners that if he lived in Berkeley, he’d buy all his records from me. The store owner still had to interview me formally the next day, but I knew that I nailed it.

It was owned by two dynamic gents that were connected to Berkeley society and Bay Area journalists. They weren’t typical record store guys. They celebrated the 70’s in the moment. They held court with well known music scribes, musicians, dj’s. They were good friends of The Residents. Perhaps my strangest story is meeting The Residents with the Rather Ripped owners at a S.F. Irish bar that specialized in Irish Coffee’s. I had only recently heard of the group, so I was not cognizant of their marketing myth. At the bar, we were with our girlfriends and wives. One of the Residents tried to convince me and my gf to go back their place for a hot tub session. I laughed out loud and said “geez, what a bunch of hippies”! We didn’t go. In retrospect, I should have gone on the condition that they wore eyeball heads in the tub. At that time, The Residents rarely performed live, but they did in 1975 for the store’s birthday party. The early Bezerkley Records (Jonathan Richman, Greg Kihn) was distributed to stores through Rather Ripped. Their office was a few blocks away. At the store, each employee had unique music taste and expertise. Pop music was changing rapidly with a new energy. Some of us were tapped into it. We all had to know the key new releases in every genre because we were tastemakers. Major labels would beg us to do window displays for new releases. But if they could not find a store employee that liked that artist, it was no go. So, no Pablo Cruise window display. We weren’t against major labels, but we put a lot of energy into selling the ton of music that we loved. Our focus was on imports, indies, promos and cut outs where we could get a good price mark up. We had a rare record search service with customers all over the world. We’d find rare records through trade-ins and by combing record stores all over the state.

There were a few import distributors, but they weren’t hip to many small run U.S. independent releases. That was understandable because bands didn’t often press enough records for a distributor to get excited about. In other words, why spend half your day hunting down records that were only pressed in small quantities. Just as they start selling, you’re out of stock. There gonna sell a hell of a lot more Scorpions’ picture discs! As always, some distributors financed exclusive re-pressings of records that had momentum. The only way to get records like Roky Erikson’s “Two Headed Dog” single or The Flamin’ Groovies’ “You Tore Me Down” 45 was directly through mail order. I wrote to label addresses listed in Trouser Press and fanzines to buy direct in order to sell them in the store with no competition. Major label sales reps didn’t prioritize us because we didn’t shift bulk units of the hits. However, we were so plugged in to the lesser known artists that we were a good place for record companies to try and start a buzz. We could swell 50-100 of a record that all the other stores sold a handful of. Bands showed up at the store while touring. Springsteen bought Dylan bootlegs from us by mail order. Patti Smith’s manager Jane Friedman used the store as a home base when Patti and John Cale came through the area.

Berkeley is in the East Bay of the S.F. bay area. A few months after starting at Rather Ripped, I realized that the city had a rich music scene well before punk /new wave started. There was Fantasy Records, a well known jazz r&b label but best known for CCR; Arhoolie, Solid Smoke, Metalanguage; the contemp classical labels- Lovely Music and 1750 Arch; folk and blues labels like Takoma and Olivia. Of course, bands like Chrome and others started labels to release their own music. Ralph Records was started by The Residents, and they began signing bands. Rather Ripped was also a center for improv, electronic and meditation records.

In ’77 or ’78 I joined the nascent Maximum Rock N Roll radio team. This was well before the magazine. In the early days there were weeks when we didn’t have enough new punk records to fill the two hour weekly show. Tim Yohannon was all about energetic, real rock n roll, so he filled in the program with records by Gene Vincent, The Sonics etc. BTW, Tim applied green masking tape to the three closed sides of every record he had. He gave me a Mekons double single he decided he didn’t like. It was in a gatefold sleeve that he sealed shut with his green tape! Sometimes he re-designed the cover art…never for the better. He made his own pic sleeves for 45’s that didn’t have them. Bands would stare at their own records in bewilderment. Tim was archiving the records of the entire punk and hardcore movement worldwide.

Eventually, Tim brought in Ruth Schwartz, and Jeff Bale as co-hosts- both great people. Jello Biafra was a frequent guest. Tim assembled the “Not So Quiet On The Western Front” lp and later organized syndication for the radio show. I remember hearing the first Disorder ep and thinking -this is the future! J It was exciting. But soon, most hardcore records sounded alike to me. It was like- “Do you want more fries with your fries?” I went to plenty of live shows without knowing a lot about the bands playing them. I was happy when the fashion trended away from jackboots to sneakers…getting a boot kick to the head in a stage dive could be brutal. I didn’t see a lot of skinhead violence at shows, but I know it was changing the scene.

San Francisco and Berkeley were important music centers, activist meccas as well as creative artistic and intellectual hubs. Yohannon had history as an activist. He identified with public protests for causes & social issues. For many teenagers, punk rock was a rite of passage. I think it changed a lot of kids’ lives for the better. The overriding message was to be civically aware of what is going on around you and what affects your life.

Tell me about your time at Arhoolie Records. Where was it located?

Rather Ripped’s owners had a falling out and the remaining owner just wanted to sell records and antiques with his wife. He moved it to a nearby city. Just before the store closed, he told me of an open position at Back Room Distribution, a division of Arhoolie. It was in El Cerrito, a small town north of Berkeley. Chris Strachwitz, the owner of Arhoolie is a legendary record man. He recorded many of his early blues albums with a tape recorder in his car. He owned the legendary Down Home Music store in the same building. Separated by partition behind the store was Back Room. It was an indie label distributor for blues, folk roots music. Rounder Records was still a new label at the time. I gotta admit, when Rounder issued The Shaggs “Philosophy Of The World’ I was in seventh heaven. I worked primarily for the distributor, grooming to be a sales rep but I spent a lot of time in the store. At first, I didn’t yet relate to blues and country music. But there were a lot of touring artists in those styles making a living. It was a strong network of clubs, fans, radio shows and press that fueled it. The store had an incredible selection of obscure 50’s/60’s rockabilly and garage band comps. The Cramps were my favorite band at the time. The rockabilly comps mostly on a the Dutch White Label, were treasure troves of insane songs. My heart was in new music- whatever you wanna call it, punk, new wave, art music. That’s the business I wanted to be in. I used my time to learn more about distribution operations. The people that worked at Arhoolie and in its community were fun music heads. There were a lot of good musicians among them. It was a great time to live in Berkeley.

What was next, Rough Trade and CD Presents? Was that in San Francisco? I went to that Rough Trade store a few times and it was an amazing store.

I knew folks from Rough Trade UK because I bought imports from them to sell @ Rather Ripped. When they wanted to open in the U.S. they contacted me, but at the time the wage was low and there wasn’t enough space to work. I was interested in working in the distribution division, not the store. They speiled something about it being a socialist business. I stayed at Arhoolie for a little while longer. In the meantime, I was offered my own weekly late night radio show on Pacifica’s KPFA in Berkeley- same station as Maximum Rock N’Roll. I took over a show called “Night Sky”, an ambient music program. My interim program title was “No More Mr. Night Sky” until I settled on “Assassinatin’ Rhythm”. The station’s music director was a contemporary classical composer closely associated with avant -garde and 20th century music. A major segment of my show was for industrial, post-punk and undefinable music. I hosted a few live on- air performances with Z’ev, Slovenly and Angst among others. Negativland’s “Over The Edge” program started on KPFA around this time. KPFA was 100,000 watts of power with affiliate stations covering the Central Valley down to Fresno and Bakersfield.

When the time was right, I moved to Rough Trade’s U.S. distribution company in Berkeley. The record store was in San Francisco. We distributed a lot of British records sent by Rough Trade UK, often in small quantities. Rough Trade US was set up to press and distribute select RT and Factory records by Joy Division, ACR, The Fall, Stiff Little Fingers, Crass. It was cheaper and more effective to press in the U.S and Canada. I also distributed some U.S. labels but there was one Brit on the staff that hated most American music. On top of that, it could be a dangerous place to work. One of the staff was importing reggae records and weed from Jamaica to our warehouse. The local connection was shot on his porch shortly after he picked up a shipment! I was lucky to spend a few days travelling with Mark E.Smith of The Fall. He loved obscure rockabilly and garage band records. I was able to return to Memphis for a while to prep the first Panther Burns album for release. Tony Wilson of Factory put up most of the money to keep RTUS going. He was a brilliant character, but I learned from talking with him how not to conduct business. I often got sample records from bands that wanted distribution. Pell Mell’s “Rhyming Guitars” e.p. was the start of my long association with the band. I enjoyed selling records to stores all over the country. I learned about local scenes, records, fanzines, clubs and college radio stations everywhere. Making these sources connect for touring bands and record sales was exciting. Because Rough Trade is British, we had the benefit of connections with club dj’s. We pressed and promoted New Order’s “Blue Monday” single on a shoestring budget. For a long time, it was the best kept secret from the mainstream. I left Rough Trade for Subterranean Records ( Flipper etc) for a spell while working in a record store. The guy that put up the money for the record store ran guns to Cuba through Mexico. Thankfully, not through the actual store. I booked Cali shows for Panther Burns, The Wipers, Sonic Youth, Whitehouse.

Who owned the CD Presents label? I remember that Avengers compilation.

It was owned by a lawyer, David Ferguson. He had a recording studio as well. I didn’t understand why he wanted to run a label. He did not have an ear for music. But we did release a Tales Of Terror lp! He almost released a DOA album that I thought the band would kill him over. Many years later I got into a fist fight with one of David’s employees in a limo ride shared with Ferguson and Lydia Lunch. We fought through the window separating the driver from the passengers. I would love to recreate that for a film. Good times!

My main role there was to set up the first Billy Bragg record in the U.S. Billy’s manager was the legendary Peter Jenner and both were great to work with. They were using CD Presents as a stepping stone to a major label. In the meantime, I knew a few people at SST. Joe Carducci is an old friend. He was pitching me to move to L.A. and work there, but I resisted for a while. I had just met the woman that I knew would be the love of my life. I didn’t want to move to SoCal. Joe gave me an ultimatum. He sent three advance cassettes that convinced me to go- Meat Puppets’ “Up On The Sun”, Minutemen’s “Double Nickels” and Huskers’ “New Day Rising” That’s an excellent recruiting strategy. I later married the love of my life.

On the side I booked shows for bands I loved. Gerard Cosloy asked me to book Sonic Youth first northern Cali shows. I also booked shows for The Wipers and noise band Whitehouse

Was SST Records next? How long did you last there and what was that like?

I was there for three years. “How long did you last there?” sounds like I was biding my time :) I’m often asked about my time with SST.

Carducci hired me to do PR. That meant publicity, college radio, regional press. Video was a valuable promo tool. MTV’s “120 Minutes” program was a great way to promote our records.

In 1987 we put out more records than Warner Brothers. By that time, I hired people to help.

I’ve done a number of interviews about SST. If you have specific questions, shoot. I recall that my social life was almost entirely with my co-workers and bands on the label. I was nearly oblivious to music from other labels. I was a big fan of Dischord and Homestead. Metallica, COC, Voivod and the Birthday Party/Nick Cave were my non-SST staples.

I think around this time I had met you briefly in NJ at one of the Elks Lodge shows that my old friend Ralph Jones put on. Were you living in NJ at that point or just visiting?

You’ve mentioned that before and I don’t recall the specific show. I moved out of NJ permanently in ’76. I came back for annual summer visits to NYC, north Jersey and Philly. Some high school friends went to Upsala College, then the home of WFMU. On my first visit back in ’76 I met Irwin Chusid and R. Stevie Moore. Some high school friends were connected to Feelies before they took that name.

Was Blast First! next? I met Pat Naylor once and hung out with her at a show and she was really sweet.

Yeah around the time I left SST, the folks in Sonic Youth called saying that they had left as well. They wanted me to be involved with Blast First! in the U.S. I knew Paul Smith because he released their albums in the UK. Blast First UK released a number of Touch N Go and SST records. The label was a division of Mute which had a U.S. deal with Enigma. My job was almost entirely “Daydream Nation” promotion. It was so much fun to be able to go deep with one album. We issued Ciccone Youth shortly afterward, which augmented the overall Sonic Youth story. The only other active touring band was Band Of Susans and on a limited level, Lunachicks and Big Stick. It was only one year of work before Enigma cut Mute/Blast First loose. I went on Sonic Youth’s Soviet Union tour and I had a few memorable meetings with Sun Ra. David Bowie called a few times asking about recording studios that Dino Jr and Sonic Youth used. Bowie had a brilliant idea to record Suicide’s “Dream Baby Dream” with Glenn Branca’s large guitar group. We tried following up on it but Bowie was immersed in Tin Machine and other projects.

Was it on to Geffen then?

Yes, Sonic Youth had good meetings with the label. I had recently met Mark Kates who was championing the signing. He suggested that I come in to meet the entire company. He brought my name up with David who said, “we need someone like that here”.

I had fleeting thoughts that working for a major was “selling out”...punching corporate clock. I wanted to apply what I knew on a larger scale.

What was that like, working for a proper major label? Was David Geffen still involved?

On my second day there, David called me into his office. He is down to earth, street smart. Like many of the best in the biz, he didn’t have an attitude. He had met with the Meat Puppets. He sensed that Dinosaur Jr. was important. I reminded him that I was not hired for a&r.

He said- “I don’t assign job titles. If you find something else you’d like to do here, you can pursue it ‘after 5pm’ ”. I found reissue projects like the Pere Ubu box and Raincoats catalog. I recorded a new Raincoats album. I signed Southern Culture On The Skids, Garrison Starr, Skiploader. I assembled and recorded Rob Zombie’s Halloween Hootenanny comp. With Sonic Youth, I pondered making records with John Fahey and Townes Van Zandt. After ten years, it was time to move on.

Tell us what you do now, didn’t you get involved with digital music at some point?

Geffen Records was folded into Interscope in 1999 and I was bored with the limitations of the business as it was. Digital music was gaining ground solely through illegal file trading on Napster. I knew there would be a major shift in the business moving to digital. I worked for the download site. eMusic.com, signing distribution agreements with labels. This was years before iTunes and YouTube. Major labels would not work with us because mp3 files are open source files that could be traded freely without control. They saw eMusic as a facilitator of illegal file trading. Like marijuana use leading to hard drugs! In the big picture, I knew that digital downloads weren’t “sexy”. But at some point, digital music would develop into something easier to track and use. We skipped the major labels. The bigger independent labels understood that digital music would be the future. It was a great place to be. I knew a lot of music, but I had no idea there were so many labels in every country. One label owner told me that I had the best job in the world. I knew that to explain this new unproven music format it could be an uphill climb. So I took the time to research label websites for song samples. That way I could find common ground with label owners. There’s surf music in Brazil? There’s a young female cellist duo in Prague that make energetic music? There’s archaic royalty rules connected to opera arrangements? Bring it on! It certainly changed how I listen to music.

It was a time when business rules and legal rights had to change in order to deal with digital income disbursement. For example, digital downloads could be sold by the song while royalty payments were based on album sales. eMusic was at the forefront of those changes. When iTunes launched, digital music was “legitimized”. Borne out of eMusic was RoyaltyShare which provides a royalty accounting platform for labels. It is now a division of The Orchard and I divide my time between The Orchard and RoyaltyShare.

Who are some current bands you are into?

A loaded question! I listen to a lot of new music. I spend a lot of time listening to records and cd’s in my collection. Of current artists, I really like Steve Gunn’s music. I listen to the projects involving members of Sonic Youth. Bill Nace, Kim’s partner in Body/Head is a guitar genius. Body/Head’s music is a cathartic experience for me. London is lucky to have Thurston Moore living and working there. I think the music they make separately is far more exciting that what Sonic Youth would’ve made if still together.

Lately I’m digging Melenas from Spain, Hayvenlar Alemi from Turkey. Quin Kirchner is a Chicago based drummer that put out a great jazz record in 2018 called “The Other Side Of Time”. I think he plays on Ryley Walker ‘s records.

Because I’ve spent so much time with the music of Sonic Youth, Branca and Rhys Chatham, I crave the occasional dive into instrumental symphonic guitar army and tonal stuff. Current favorites in that vein are Bosse De Nage, Pelican, Sunn O)))

Given the chance I’ll see any performance by Mary Halvorson, Ches Smith, Marc Ribot or Mary Lattimore.

It took me years to get it, but I’m now a big fan of Keiji Haino’ music. Dean McPhee is a British guitarist I really like. I just bought a couple of Willie Lane lp’s on Feeding Tube.

I research music history and the development of the industry. There are historical and social components of every type of music by culture, country, time period. I love stories about riots at premieres of new avant garde works. I read a book about famous classical composers in the 18th Century playing home concerts (salons) where people are talking the entire time…but they are paid handsomely for the performance. Streaming music sites and YouTube are vast repositories of music and cultural documentation.

Do you still make it out to many shows?

I go to two/three shows a month when I’m home and more when traveling especially NY/London. I start work early in the morning so I’m not out late often. I understand why people see less live music as they get older. I’m done with music festivals. The Big Ears Festival is the only Stateside event that might inspire me to stand for eight hours.

I always hear music by new artists that I really like. I don’t always go to see the live show. Sometimes I hear a new band that sounds like a band I liked 20 years ago. I wouldn’t deliberately see a band that uses another band’s sound as a template.

What are your top 10 desert island discs?

I cannot do 10. It’s 20 or nothing. If you say sorry Ray, it will be nothing. FineJ If I’m on an island, I’ll listen to the ocean waves and sounds of nature. If I’m relegated to a desert, I’ll listen to the blood coarsing through my veins.

Miles Davis- Kind Of Blue

Television- Marquee Moon

Peter Brotzmann- Machine Gun

Sex Pistols -Never Mind The Bollocks

Rolling Stones- Let It Bleed

Soundtrack – The Harder They Come

Billy Harper – Black Saint

Kleenex/Liliput- First Songs

Patti Smith Group -Easter

Hound Dog Taylor & The Houserockers- Houserockin’

Led Zeppelin- Houses Of The Holy

Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation

Elvis Presley- Sun Sessions

The Cramps- Songs The Lord Taught Us

Pell Mell -Flow

Procol Harum- A Salty Dog

Sibelius- Complete Symphonies

Lou Reed -Coney Island Baby

Meat Puppets- Up On The Sun

The Kinks- Kinks Kronikles

“Hmm....Flow or Star City?”

Any final words? Closing comments? Anything you wanted to mention that I didn’t ask.

I’ve been involved off and on with the artist Raymond Pettibon for a music project called Supersession. He has made records under this moniker before. This project began in 1990 and stalled for many years. We revived it a couple years ago. I play bass. Raymond wrote many pages of words and lyrics that he passed to the band, encouraging us to write music behind them. It’s different from Raymond’s other records because it is not improvised. Rick Sepulveda, our guitarist is a great songwriter and he wrote music for Raymond’s words. Rick sings a bunch of the songs because Raymond loves his voice. We did a NYC performance in November that was really fun. So now of course, I’m thinking we should play monthly in L.A. We are nearly finished with the album that we recorded at Casa Hanzo, the San Pedro studio Mike Watt owns with Pete Mazich. Raymond is a brilliant man; fun and inspiring to work with. When I practice with Rick, he’ll often break into a cover song deep in the recess of memory. Like John Cale’s “Hanky Panky Nohow” ,Kevin Ayers’ “Oh Wot A Dream” or the Doors “Wishful Sinful”. We may cover a Harry Toledo song. It’s a blast. I hope to have the album finished in July.

Tav, Bobby, Pell Mell and Ray

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marginalgloss · 5 years

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the name of the door

‘Every move I send out begins with the same word: You. When I first wrote most of them, so long ago now that it’s incredible to think of it, I had in my mind only a single player, and of course he looked almost exactly like me: not me as I am now, but as I was before the accident. Young and fresh and frightened, and in need of refuge from the world. I was building myself a home on an imaginary planet. I hadn’t considered, then, how big the world was; how many people lived there, how different their lives were from mine. The infinite number of planets spinning in space. I have since traveled great distances, and my sense of the vast oceans of people down here on the Earth, how they drift, is keener. But you, back then, was a singular noun for me, or, at best, a theoretical plural awaiting proof.’

Wolf in White Van is a difficult novel to summarise. I knew next to nothing about its author, John Darnielle, before I began reading. I was aware that he’s a fairly popular musician, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard one of his songs. Being a famous songwriter can cover all kinds of sins in novelistic terms. But by the time I finished the book I felt as though I had been through one of the most solipsistic and forbidding novels I’d read in some time. I don’t mean ‘forbidding’ in the sense of difficulty: the language is mostly quite plain, and the plot is not complicated. I mean that there is something about this novel which looms large over the imagination. It is haunting in its implications.

The book is written from the perspective of Sean, a middle-aged man who suffers from a severe facial deformity that has him living a reclusive life. It will be some time before we learn the cause of his injury. Sean makes his living by running a play-by-mail game of his own invention called Trace Italian. (The name comes from ‘trace italienne’, a certain kind of renaissance fort intended to resist cannon fire. There is much else that seems fortress-like about Sean.) This game takes place in a post-apocalyptic version of America; players write to Sean describing their moves, much like in any other role-playing game, and he writes back with the results. Somehow the player subscriptions pay well enough to keep him going.

Trace Italian isn’t improvised: every ‘move’ in the game has been charted in advance, meticulously documented in a series of filing cabinets. It is effectively a labyrinthine concept novel, through which players move over the course of days, months, years. Nobody can ever see it all except Sean, and in this respect it is unlike any other book, any other game. For as long as he lives it is inviolable; a perfect private universe where every threat can be contained, every secret can be secured. There are places in it only Sean knows about:

‘…Charts and notebooks lie open around the corpse in a constellation; if you marked its points and drew a line connecting them, you’d have a shape that would later help open a door deep within the Trace, but nobody will ever notice this, or learn the name of the door, which you have to say when you open it or you end up in a blind corridor that traps you for at least four turns, which would probably outrage any players who made it that far. But who knows. What it would be like to make it that far is sheer conjecture…’

The most appealing part of the novel is its detailed portrait of fandom in the pre-internet era. We see how the young Sean was captivated by the genre science fiction and fantasy of the times. Mainstream references like Star Trek and Star Wars take a back seat here — it is all about Friz Leiber, the Gor novels, and weird VHS-era movies like Krull. It’s about finding inspiration in the album art for obscure prog-metal bands, and writing to adverts in magazines to order a cassette tape of music inspired by the Conan books by Robert E. Howard.

Some of this is the same tone that Stranger Things leant on — kids playing Dungeons and Dragons in the era of the Satanic Panic — but there is something altogether more obscure and threatening going on here. Stranger Things is exciting because of the sense of togetherness engendered by D&D, whereas Sean’s hobbies only serve to lead him further into himself. He never falls in with a gang of like-minded kids, so he becomes a Dungeon Master unto himself. Eventually, under his influence, a young couple go on an adventure through the Trace Italian. They think they are on the trail of something important, much like those kids in the Netflix series. But it doesn’t end well for them.

There aren’t many characters in this novel outside of Sean. The inside of his head is a bleak, violent place, surreal and unpredictable and paranoid compared to the controlled world of the Trace:

‘There was a small, strange moment during which I had this feeling that someone was filming me, which was ridiculous, but it was that specific—“there’s a camera on me”—and then some hard ancient pushed-down thing, a thing I’d felt or thought or feared a long time ago, something I’d since managed to sheathe in an imaginary scabbard inside myself, erupted through its casing like a bursting cyst. I had to really struggle to recover. Something was dislodging itself, as from a cavern inside my body or brain, and this situation seemed so divorced from waking reality that my own dimensions lost their power to persuade. I craned my great head and saw all that yellow-brown plastic catch the light, little pills glinting like ammunition, and then my brain went to work, juggling and generating several internal voices at once: someone’s filming this; this isn’t real; whoever Sean is, it’s not who I think he is; all the details I think I know about things are lies; somebody is trying to see what I’ll do when I run across these bottles; this is a test but there won’t be any grade later; the tape is rolling but I’m never going to see the tape. It is a terrible thing to feel trapped within a movie whose plot twists are senseless.’

Like the players of his game, the reader only exists in the world Sean has created for us. The effect is compelling, and claustrophobic. Sean’s narrative is intense and evocative. He is specific and articulate in his writing, but almost silent in his social life. His thoughts are frantic, anxious, self-perpetuating machinations; we are given very little idea of how he is perceived by society at large. There are moments of contempt and of friendship, but they’re only brief islands of contact in a sea of loneliness.

It is some time before it becomes evident what Wolf in White Van is really about. The story pivots around two big questions: what happened to Sean’s face? And what happened to that couple on their adventure? But even when the reader is told the facts of those matters, they may not understand the implications. Certainly Sean has no answers for us. There is something forlorn about his world. He writes beautifully, and the reader will likely think him a good person because they can see into his heart and his mind; but there’s a sense that he is somehow beyond help — not because of his disfigurement, but because of his isolation. He is a prisoner inside a game of his own making. And as the pages go on it seems increasingly clear that he will never get out.

We are accustomed, in novels and films like this, to another party breaking through to the narrator. Something will happen to shake them through their desperation so that their evident state of insecurity doesn’t become all-consuming. They might fall in love. Perhaps there will be a reconciliation, or an epiphany. But that never happens here. The only connections made in Sean’s world are brief and incidental, but the pain from discord resonates below all that. By the end it feels as though the world around the narrator has grown smaller and smaller, draped in a perpetual shroud, while his inner life has expanded out of all knowable proportions; the effect is mesmeric, and terrifying.

‘…I remember my anger at hearing my real dreams spoken out loud by someone else’s uncomprehending voice. “Number five, sonic hearing,” she said. “Number four, marauder. Number three, power of flight. Number two, money lender. Number one, true vision.” Some of the other kids shot laughing looks at one another. It was horrible. People talk sometimes about standing up for what they believe in, but when I hear people talk like that, it seems like they might as well be talking about time travel, or shape-changing at will. I felt righteousness clotting in my throat, hot acid: the other kids were suppressing laughter and exchanging glances; the whole thing was so funny to them they had to punch their thighs to keep from cackling out loud. None of them had actually made a true list like mine, I thought, though this was conjecture…I remember this scene because it was embarrassing to live through it, and because remembering it is a way of knowing that I am half-true to my beliefs when the time comes. I sit silently defending them and I don’t sell them out, but I put on a face that lets people think I’m on the winning team, that I’m laughing along with them instead of just standing among them. I save the best parts for myself and savor them in silence. Number three, power of flight. Number four, marauder. Enough vision to really see something. A stack of gold coins and a ledger. People want all kinds of things out of life, I knew early on. People with certain sorts of ambitions are safe in the Trace.’

#books #wolf in white van #john darnielle

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happymetalgirl · 5 years

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Baroness - Gold and Grey

Never before have premonitions been as wary and nerves been as tense going into a new record from the mighty Baroness as they have been for Gold & Grey, the follow-up to the band’s fourth, and my favorite, album Purple, and the proclaimed finish to the band’s saga of color-themed records. And all this tension sprouted up after the release of the album’s first single, “Borderlines”, back in March, stemming from one irritating source: the song’s production. While Purple was a step toward a more compressed and hard-rock-oriented production style after Yellow & Green, the songs were so consistently ridiculously well-composed and powerful enough to outshine the slightly grainier production that the band were kind of able to get away with it. But Baroness really went all in on the over-compressed, fuzzy mixing on “Borderlines”, far more than anything on Purple, to the point of it being a seemingly intentional attempt to give their sound a more lo-fi feel. And this time, with “Borderlines” being one of the most meager lead singles in the band’s entire catalog, the songwriting did not outweigh the atrocious production. John Dyer Baizley sounds like he’s singing into drum microphone fed into a practice amp, the guitars are washed into this hazy white noise of mixing that becomes absolutely atrocious during the song’s finale with the bass all but disappearing into obscurity along the way, and the drums become homogenized and made unnecessarily difficult to discern in all the crackling. And after excitement about new material came and went, fans were not keen at all about this perplexing direction the band were taking behind the soundboard.

The second preliminary single, “Seasons”, was thankfully a much more convincing compositional exhibition that much better captured the soaring emotional bombast that characterized Purple, but the similarly compressed production, though not as bad as “Borderlines”, did not ease fans’ tensions. And Baizley seemed to be in complete denial about Dave Fridmann’s unflattering production job it from what I saw from fan interactions and challenges on the subject.

After finally getting to listen to the album in its entirety, though, I can thankfully say that while the production is still the worst of any Baroness album to date, it’s not as much of a distracting and negating factor as I and many others had initially thought it would likely be. With hindsight being 20/20 and all, “Borderlines” was definitely the worst single they could have led with, suffering more than any other song on the track list from the fuzzy muffling and claustrophobic compression of the mixing. The compression does fluctuate from song to song, thankfully, but it does make attentive, dissective listening more difficult, though not completely impossible, and hearing it in its more tempered doses, I can see what Baizley and company were shooting for with this production style. The mediated fuzz on the tracks more in line with Purple’s level of compression show the type of raw, somewhat old-school feel the band was shooting for, and it does give their sound that kind of vibe here, even if it comes kind of artificially without much compromise on the thickness of the instrumentation they like to use. They certainly didn’t go east on fans though by presenting this mix at its most obnoxious on “Borderlines” before anything else.

Stylistically, Gold & Grey is a continuation of Purple’s refining of the less-sludgy-more-catchy heavy metal sound that started with Yellow & Green, but it is definitely less consistent than its immediate predecessor, and possibly even Yellow & Green too. Gold & Grey has a good few tracks that hit the compositional highs that would help them fit in right at home in style and substance on Purple, the cathartic and expressive “Seasons” being one of them, along with the soaring “Throw Me an Anchor” and the heartbroken “I’m Already Gone”. The triumphant alternative rocking “Tourniquet” even feels like it could fit in with the high points on Yellow & Green. But there are also plenty of tracks like “Front Toward Enemy”, “Broken Halo”, and the low-key closing track, “Pale Sun” that feel more in line with the more average material on Yellow & Green.

The band also try their hand at a handful of more candid clean/acoustic ballads in the middle of the album, starting with the lighter-waving woes of “I’d Do Anything”, moving on to the soft and subtly bell-tinged “Emmett - Radiating Light”, and finishing gloriously with the tenderly gorgeous vocal harmonies between Baizley and Gina Gleason of “Cold-Blooded Angels”.

Though I don’t want to overstate it, this album does come with one other major flaw besides the production. At just over the hour mark with 18 tracks, Gold & Grey is stretched out to its fuller length partly by its littering with numerous and interlude and prelude tracks of questionable value that often seem to stem from incomplete ideas that made it on here only to pad the album and potentially artificially give it a feeling of being more dynamic and diverse than it really is. Again, none of these tracks are absolute bombs; at worst they feel like inert time wasters, but more often they feel like little unfinished musical doodles or like they’re really just part of the tracks they follow or precede.

But honestly, the more I listen to it, the more Gold & Grey’s positive qualities outshine its negatives. The interlude tracks are mostly inoffensive or even just codas or intros, and the production, though grainy and less than ideal for Baroness’ intricate heavy prog rockery, is not as crippling as many, myself included, had anticipated it being. It takes a few listens to get used to (or past), but it’s not as abrasively lo-fi as a Microphones or Neutral Milk Hotel record or anything like that. Though maybe not as wildly dynamic as the band would like you to believe, this is definitely a diverse crop of songs, most of which find the band playing to the strengths they established on Purple or even succeeding with the few first-time accomplishments they set out for on here. Baroness’ knack for bold, slightly sludgy, proggy, alternative metal composition is thankfully still the focal point of the album, and the band members’ powerful performances still manage to break through the muffling screen of the album’s mixing. I wouldn’t say that it supplants Purple from my favorite spot in their discography, but considering how incredible that album is, it might just never happen. regardless, Gold & Grey is a respectable follow-up and affirmation that Baroness still have plenty of artistic potential and creativity to pull from. It feels weird knowing that this is the end to the color-themed albums, but I’m also excited for what Baroness have in store for the future after the possibilities this album has opened up.

sun-bleached art nouveau/10

#Baroness #Gold and Grey #Gold & Grey #progressive metal #sludge metal #alternative metal #progressive rock #metal #heavy metal #new music #new album #album review

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thesunlounge · 5 years

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Reviews 227: Kankyō Ongaku

In 2017, Light in the Attic initiated an ambitious project, one seeking to survey and contextualize the modern musical history of Japan. The first release in their so-called Japan Archival Series was Even a Tree Can Shed Tears: Japanese Folk & Rock 1969 -1975, an extensive celebration of Japan’s “New Music” scene. One of the artists that emerged from this era was Haruomi Hosono, whose discography the label visited during 2018 as part of their Haruomi Hosono Archival Series (which I covered extensively here), taking a slight detour from the more general overview of modern Japanese music to celebrate one of the world’s most enigmatic and creative sonic minds. And now, at the start of 2019, Light in the Attic’s Japan Archival Series resumes with the stunning Kankyō Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental, & New Age Music 1980 - 1990.

An introductory essay by project mastermind Spencer Doran (and a complimentary Vinyl Factory interview) paint an incredible picture of unique moment in history, when the lines between pop art, science, corporate capitalism, and new age healing all seemed to blur together. Heady modern philosophies inspired by Eno, Satie, and ancient musical traditions such as Hosono’s “oceanic feeling” and “sightseeing music,” Satoshi Ashikawa’s notions of passive environmental ambiance, and Hiroshi Yoshimura’s modes of silent tranquility all came to life within a period of great economic prosperity and technological advancement, which afforded the myriad artists and sound designers new methods and experimental avenues to display their vibratory art. This was a time when corporations, exhibition curators, theater producers, fashion designers, and advertisers all sought out musical explorers, both popular and obscure, to create wonderfully experimental compositions in conversation with the environments that surrounded them….a time when you could walk through a museum or department store and hear deeply mystical or adventurously cosmic music spilling out into the air. As well, the essay traces how Japanese environmental music, or kankyō ongaku, adapted and expanded over time, specifically its folding in of new age textures and natural field recordings as people sought an escape from the frantic energies of modern life.

Visually, the collection is adorned with gorgeous photography of the Fumihiko Maki-designed Iwasaki Art Museum, a location and architect that both play a large role in this musical story. And beyond the introductory essay, there are well-researched descriptions and bios by Spencer and Yosuke Kitazawa that provide context and history for each and every track, with contemporaneous photos, fliers, and album covers accompanying the words. Musically, the set comprises a completely immersive and beautifully sequenced experience, one that features glowing electric piano dreamscapes, minimalist organ psychedelics, aquatic synth experimentations, spiritual stone meditations, tropical fusion glides, kosmische sound baths, underwater ambient adventures, and so much else besides. In this way, the compilation is also positioned within a larger context…a sort of global movement of space music, new age, and ambient that Light in the Attic has been exploring via their I Am the Center and (The Microcosm) collections, with Kankyō Ongaku seeking to do for Japan what those releases did for America and Europe, respectively.

Kankyō Ongaku: Japanese Ambient, Environmental, & New Age Music 1980 - 1990 (Light in the Attic, 2019) Though his life was tragically short, Satoshi Ashikawa looms large in the world of kankyō ongaku, not only for his compositions and philosophies, but also due to working at the influential Art Vivant book and record shop, a sort of cultural hub and early importer of avant garde, ambient, and minimalist music within Japan. His “Still Space” sees crystallized FM pianos moving through starlight note clusters and atonal chord bursts, with a backing of vaporous string swells. The sounds evoke leaves blowing in the wind and slow motion ripples on the surface of a pond and Satoshi is just as interested in silence, with chasms of empty space sitting between the patient, methodical, and meditative melodies. Yoshio Ojima’s “Glass Chattering” is taken from Une Collection Des Chainons: Music for Spiral, his 2xCD masterwork created for Wacoal’s Spiral building…another important architectural space within the environmental music scene designed by Fumihiko Maki. Underwater computer sequences sound like seafloor vents letting out streams of liquid glass while space flutes swim overhead. The dazzling electronics briefly recede, leaving synthetic woodwinds to intertwine and flow freely. And once the vibrant sequential patterns return, melancholic orchestrations are discernible within their movements, only obscured by watery percolations. Pale synth streaks drift on echowaves then fade away during a false ending, with the silence soon replaced by a looping vortex of polychromatic music boxes and shimmering chimes with gentle pads walking underneath…their spacious notes decaying through reverb caverns.

One of my favorite aspects of this compilation is how it goes out of its way to pay tribute to Hideki Matsutake, the un-official fourth member and sound programmer of Yellow Magic Orchestra and expert synthesizer technician who rarely gets his due. “Nemureru Yoru” was originally conceived as a novelty sleep aid and is presented here in its instrumental form. Wavering pads and whistling sequences generate playful vibes of childlike wonder before fading into a phaser-blasted drone expanse, wherein pillowy 808 kicks sit below synthetic approximations of traintrack clicks and dripping liquids. And as heatwave static mirages create psychedelic patterns that wrap around the body, dreamtime arps constructed from filtering feedback flutters lull the mind into relaxation. Then comes a track by Ayuo Takahashi, who spent his teens jamming with Ryuichi Sakamato and those lords of molten psychedelia Fushitsusha before embarking on an adventurous solo career marrying modern electronics and ancient and medieval musical traditions. “Nagareru” is intensely beautiful and starts with gentle piano arpeggios intertwining with waterfall solo cascades as shimmering bell strands and twinkling chime vibrations suffuse the background. String synths and kosmische organs swell with majestic orchestrations while Ayuo’s piano journeys into the clouds…all setting the stage for the introduction of Koharu Kisaragi, a radiant goddess whose cosmic angel voice soars through gaseous fx layers and star ocean expanses.

Of all the artists appearing here, Joe Hisashi has one of the most storied careers. He’s a musical polyglot, equally comfortable exploring anime and video game OSTs, classical music, and vocal pop. But for Kankyō Ongaku, we focus on Joe’s more obscure and psychedelic side with Wonder City Orchestra’s “Islander.” Owing to his early interests in American minimalism, “Islander” is deeply indebted to Terry Riley, with bubbly organ patterns moved over by ring modulated steel drum sequences and aquamarine pad swells. Rainforest drum panoramas work into the mix with rolling finger motions and sunshine rhythm energies while kosmische organ smears swirl like a galactic gas cloud. And best of all, psychoactive organ pulsations fly through time-lag accumulators, creating rapid motion dreamspells and hypnotizing crystal cascades. Yoshiaki’s Ochi “Ear Dreamin’” is another piece closely associated with Wacoal and the Spiral Building, though it was originally written as part of a stage performance entitled Natural Sonic from 1983. Layered mbiras, balafons, bell-tone shimmers, and lullaby chimes work together as whistling melodies fly through the sky…everything coming together for a polyrhythmic dance of idiophonic magic. Mermaid choirs float up from deep sea depths as wooden planks vibrate, metal tines oscillate, and bulbous gourds rattle and dazzling solo flights occasionally break-free from the Afro-minimalist dream weavings.

The liner notes cast Masashi Kitamura as somewhat of an outsider, one more involved with Japan’s prog, punk, and noise scenes than anything overlapping with kankyō ongaku. However, “Variation·III” from 1984, which was released with his band Phonogenix, fits nicely within this compilation’s larger sonic aesthetic, as triangle chimes ring out over waves of water and static. Bleary ambient tones drift in…as if funereal choirs and swells of synth and guitar ambiance have been submerged within a viscous gray fluid. Thunderous drum smacks sit loudly in the mix while mutating vibrato waves and currents of burning noise wash over the mind and at some point, bowed string instruments scream into the void. One of several Haruomi Hosono-produced tracks here is “Park” by Interior. Clicks and snaps background impressionistic smears of synth brass while drunken sequences dance through fragile melodies. Time flows in nonsensical ways and everything cycles according to a hazy dream logic as the track builds towards a climax of whip-crack drum fx and heavenly organs playing spring meadow hymns. The next track was produced by Sankai Juku dance troupe director and SCI Prophet-5 wizard Yoichiro Yoshikawa for a documentary series called The Miracle Planet (NHK, 1987). In “Nube,” galactic revolutions of aquatic synthesis surround massive bass waves and obscured male choirs that mutate through tremolo breaths. Thrilling filter ascents are immersed within sea-blue vortices and currents of black fog while elsewhere, feedback wisps and spiritual drone baths circle together.

Yoshio Suzuki has a rather impressive jazz background, having worked with titans such as Art Blakey and Sonny Rollins during the 70s before exploring softer sounds in the 80s via the use of synthesizers. Taken from Morning Picture, which was produced as part of series of ambient home listening releases by JVC, “Meet Me in the Sleep Meadow” finds hallucinatory synth pianos swimming through a thick haze, with all sorts of magical modulations added via tape warble and wow’n’flutter. And as Yoshio’s gentle Oberheim fantasias move above wispy swells, I’m reminded of the spaciousness and meditative wonder found in Satoshi Ashikawa’s work. Ryuichi Sakamoto needs no introduction and his “Dolphins” (from a dance piece by Molissa Fenley called Esperanto) is utterly beguiling, with aqueous swells of heaven bringing in reverb-smothered piano chords that seem to decay from infinite clifftops. Backwards flowing noise hazes and sea-form delay sprays sit above cut-up voices, skittering cyborg loops, staccato conversations, and droning machine breaths, all while Yas-Kaz’s improvised marimbas dance on sunbeams. One of the most interesting pieces here comes from Toshi Tsuchitori, originally a jazz drummer who drifted towards archeological musicology and ancient instrumentation. His “Ishiura” is played on sanukaito stones and sees earthen energies flowing forth from vibrating volcanic rocks. A tambourine rattles softly as Toshi creates vocal tremolo waves and overlapping resonances from stone, with his soft taps and violent bursts sometimes evoking wind chimes, other times a gamelan ensemble.

Shiho Yabuki is yet another figure who started in the world of jazz and then opened up her sound via synthesizers and research into traditional musics. In “Tomoshibi,” which is part of an album dedicated to the 1200th anniversary of the Enryaku-ji monastery, gemstone feedback fluids waver through the void…as if hallucinatory streaks of sonic mesmerism are flowing forth from a string instrument made of pure crystal. Soft plucks generate massive rainbow wavefronts while celestial zithers cascade on echo-currents and as it progresses, the track evolves into a hypnotic dance of purifying feedback melodics and Laraaji-style deep sea new age. Toshifumi Hinata produced “Chaconne” with his brother Daisuke, who was a member of Interiror. The song comes from Toshifumi’s first album Sarah’s Crime and presages his breakthrough as a TV and film composer. We begin with sirens calling out from an island of dreams…their voices flowing through pearlescent clouds of self-oscillating delay magic and constantly threatening to spill over into resonant feedback chaos. Cosmic harpsichord sequences dance through asteroid fields and melodious bass pads flow out from the center of the cosmos with lush symphonic movements and shadowy dream transitions. Klaus Schulze-style key changes swim within a kosmische sound bath…the sequences and melodic fogs sweeping upwards through minor and major key ecstasies as pianos splash through tide pools of ether.

The adventurously far-out career of Yasuaki Shimizu intersected often with the world of kankyō ongaku, many examples of which were collected on 1987’s Music for Commercials. “Seiko 3” comes from this release and sees Yasuaki scoring a Seiko watch commercial alongside sound designer Seigen Ono. But this seemingly shallow corporate concept betrays the deep mysticism of the music, as starlight sequences and ever-flowing chime strands descend across universal expanses. Pulsing brass pads blare out and gentle submarine pings float through the ether while breathtaking polysynth movements swell in strength…the soul floating towards a cloud paradise of unimaginable color before it all cuts away. The krautrock and kosmische inspired synth fantasias and pastoral prog dreamscapes of Inoyama Land caught the attention of Haruomi Hosono in the early 80s, whole then produced and released their stunning Danzindan-Pojidon LP. “Apple Star” comes from that album and explores sunshine minimalism as played on alien sequencers. Filtering and morphing synths dance in each ear with hypnotizing patterns of futurist psychedelia while Solina string orchestrions fly through ecstasy phasers. Hosono’s water tank delay system gives the whole track a sort of mystic sic-fi aura, as ancient earth materials are used for space age purposes. Sparkling chime strands work into the mix…these thrilling descents up and down the scale that weave fairytale polyrhythms and seascape panoramas, all while the ever pulsating keyboard patterns induce paradise trance states and interstellar string melodies swell the heart.

Like Satoshi Ashikawa, the influence of Hiroshi Yoshimura on kankyō ongaku is hard to overstate…an intrepid pioneer and cultural historian who wrote extensively about sound art and whose music found its way into “prefab model homes, train stations, public pavilions, cosmetic companies, and fashion shows,” in addition to traditional avenues of release. “Blink,” taken from Music for Nine Post Cards, is built around dreamy electric piano conversations that flow across the stereo field. Inspired by the view from Hiroshi’ss window, the music evokes cloud shadows moving over serene landscapes, hypnotic snowfall motions, grey waves crashing to shore, boats rocking gently in a paradise lagoon, the growth of grass, and the fluttering of butterfly wings. And ever so often, the hazy piano dream weavings are back by softly swelling strings and ambient orchestral gases. Cosmic prog and stoner psych legends Far East Family Band proved to be fertile breeding ground for new age music, with Kitaro, Fumio Miyashita, and Akira Ito all going on to have long careers of exploratory sonic healing. Fumio Miyashita’s “See the Light” appears here and begins within a world of soul-cleansing sonic mesmerism. Smeared out pads hover on the horizon and bass synths waltz though a forest clearing…the warm and enveloping notes moving through dew-soaked meadows while flowers open to the sunrise. As regal french horns stretch into a mystical haze, airs of Indian classical music start suffusing the harmonious drones…the track evolving into a sort of sunrise raga colored over by relaxing modulations.

As just mentioned, The Far East Family band also launched the career of new age nature healer Akira Ito, who spent a long and productive career exploring the theme of yasuragi (translated in the liner notes as “peace of mind”). “Praying for Mother / Earth Part 1” sees a Floydian space prog ceremonial hovering above a mystical river. Rick Wright-style synth brass meditations and luminescent black hole drones recall “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” while bell-tone sequences fade in and out of the galactic ether. Frogs, birds, and insects grow increasingly ecstatic while helicopter oscillations swarm within a dark sonic mist and moving towards the end, celestial pads and angel voices join together for enchanting songs of sadness. Perhaps my favorite piece here comes form Takashi Toyoda, something of a child prodigy with an incredible range as evidenced by his participation in both the New Japan Philharmonic and the Taj Mahal Travellers. In “Snow,” trance inducing minimalist patterns swim through an astral sea of dreams as flutey synth bubbles dance around dreamworld melodies of overwhelming beauty. Majestic key changes sweep the spirit away to cloud castle utopias where pure white snow falls onto the slopes of an eternal mountain....the whole thing strongly evoking Emerald Web. And the ethereal vibes of harmony are pushed over the edge by Takashi’s lonely violin fantasias while golden gloss drops of feedback descend onto the mix like shooting stars. It’s one of the most magically transportive tracks I’ve ever heard…the kind of music that could heal the world...with pure starshine flows of light and love immersing the soul.

Jazz fusion and synthesizer master Jun Fukamachi appears with “Breathing New Life,” which was originally produced to accompany a fashion show. Ritualistic drums move side to side as ceremonial metals swell. Space winds blow over bubble-synth sequences…these softly squelching dream patterns flowing beneath feedback streaks and joyous drum clatters. Marimba solos dance on tropical clouds and bring vibes of island balearica and solar fusion, while swelling choirs radiate shadow energies. And as golden glitter hazes rain over the mix, ethereal voices and epic atmospheres wrap the heart in hues of sky blue and sunset orange. The inclusion of “Loom” by Yellow Magic Orchestra is another tribute to Hideki Matsutake, as this is the only YMO song co-written by Hideki. Based around the Shepard-Risset glissando illusion, the track keeps the mind and body in a constant state of anxious anticipation as interlaced sine waves continually ascend. There is a powerful yearning for melodic alignment...some sort of heavenly convergence of harmony and sonic power and indeed such a moment eventually arrives as massive pipe-organ dronewaves fly forth and recall the score of 2001: A Space Odyssey. All the while, ping-pong balls made of electronic energy bounce through infinite hallways and as the towering organ chords recede, they leave behind a contemplative weaving of blurred synthesis, with springtide orchestrations reso-filtered into glowing phaserfluids.

Takashi Kokubo’s Get at the Wave has featured prominently on this blog, and shows up here in the form of “A Dream Sails Out to Sea - Scene 3.” Seafloor choirs diffuse through flowing ocean layers alongside aqueous pinging tones and cascading pianos. The strange asymmetrical floating motions of exotic sea-creatures are evoked by drunken tremolos and warbling delays and eventually, the pianos work into a swooning post-classical love song as long flowing chime strand intertwine with wondrous harp runs. Masahiro Sugaya’s “Umi No Sunatsubu,” like most of his recorded work, comes from a theater production by the group Pappa Tarahumara (called Zoo of the Sea). Plinking upright pianos are close mic’d, with multiple layers drifting over each other. The sounds are old and detuned with no fx or overt production tricks…just strange ivory mesmerisms moving untethered through space and time. Kankyō Ongaku ends perfectly, with an expansive polysynth solo meditation from Haruomi Hosono called “Original BGM”. Here he is…stripped free of the concepts, the ironic humors, the sort of mercurial distance he typically maintains…baring his heart and soul through warm fantasias of synthetic brass. Sometimes he dances through single note dream spells, the decaying tails wavering through balmy modulations. Other times, hovering chord clusters transitions into descending runs that seem to fall over themselves, with occasional flights into soaring resonant feedback. It’s ethereal, exploratory, and deeply entrancing…a relaxing and impressionistic rendering of the cycles of nature.

(images from my personal copy)

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atemusluckygal-fanfiction · 6 years

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Yugi, Anzu, Atem and Joey for the meme

Hi @grimaulkins! Sorry, only one per customer! I barely even have time for one, as you can tell! Since Yugi was the first one you listed, I’ll do his:

- What they smell like: Depends on when in the series. Yugi happens to be going through the “smelliest” years of puberty during the canon series. So he either smells like deodorant, or… what teenage boys smell like.

- How they sleep: Either on his back or on his side. He tosses and turns when he’s distressed.

- What music they enjoy: Yugi appreciates all types of music for their intended purposes, but as far as personal preference, he likes all kinds of rock–alt, prog, classic, etc. Though he doesn’t usually seek out the heavier stuff.

- How much time they spend getting ready every morning: Well, it wouldn’t take him very long if he didn’t have his particular brand of bed-head to deal with…

- Their favorite thing to collect: This one’s easy. Games and cards. But I’ll say that when he goes pro with games and is able to travel the world, he’s able to extend his (and Grandpa’s) collection of games/cards native to different parts of the world.

- Left or right-handed: Right-handed. I think.

- Religion (if any): He doesn’t practice any religion; if anything, he is more spiritual. But he has much appreciation for the Egyptian Gods, largely due to his personal connection with Atem.

- Favorite sport: Card games XD mostly joking. He likes throw/catch games like frisbee etc. Nothing too physical or that requires running.

- Favorite tourist activity: Museums, game shops, burger joints. That’s his way of immersing in the culture of wherever he is. XD

- Favorite kind of weather: He’s a simple dude who likes a cloudless sunny day. Though he is more of an indoor person so he’s not too heavily affected by weather.

- A weird/obscure fear they have: Fire. The warehouse incident was very traumatizing. I talk about it in Vices.

- The carnival/arcade game they always win without fail: You mean like… every game? XD Street Fighter is his favorite though, especially when he was extra smol. Since he liked imagining himself as a big burly fighter dude.

Thanks for the ask!

xo ALG

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kentuckywrites · 3 years

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Imperium Side Story: To Guide These Lives

Lao wakes up on a beach in Primordia. He’s not supposed to be here, how is he alive?...and who’s that hooded figure nearby? Takes place after Imperium Chapter 3: Oblivia.

He remembered the darkness. He remembered the pain of the Lifehold’s protoplasmic fluid, the fusion of Earthen DNA into his mechanical body. He remembered their frightened stares upon seeing his new form, their weapons drawn with either forced confidence or hesitant necessity. He remembered dying.

But the fact that he remembered at all meant he was alive.

Consciousness found him slowly, as did his senses. He could feel sand underneath his fingertips, on the patches of skin exposed under torn armor and fabric. He heard waves crashing softly against the shore and the wind whistling a quiet tune. He smelled the saltwater, the fresh air he associated with Primordia. But he could smell something else too, and hear it - a fire. Yes, the smell of burning wood, distinct crackling as branches snapped under the flame’s pressure.

When his eyes finally managed to open, his name returned to him, as did most of the memories that came before his transformation. Lao. Lao Huang. He was a husband, a father, a soldier, a traitor. The bad deeds far outweighed the good. He saw the sky above him, the stars and all their might, and he knew none of this was for him. Wherever he was, he wouldn’t believe he was alive. He didn’t deserve it, not after everything he’d done.

Lao forced himself to sit up, his arms shaking as they pressed into the sand below. His back groaned in pain - hell, his entire body felt sore, but that was to be expected considering how he died. A brief question about Lin’s safety crossed his mind before he saw the fire firsthand. Sat next to it was a hooded figure, a shadow barely seen in the night. They made no indication that they’d seen Lao get up, but he was almost certain the figure knew he was there. Would he have gone through the trouble of making a fire otherwise?

Lao decided to try his luck. He stood himself up, dusting off the sand that stuck to his forearms and hands before heading towards the hooded figure. He couldn’t even see their features under the hood, couldn’t tell if this was a human or not. As he neared the fire he discovered he was growing warmer; he’d been cold before but hadn’t taken the time to realize it. A shiver ran down his shoulders and he sat down opposite to the figure without thinking of the consequences. His breath had begun to leave his mouth in condensed puffs, proof that the night was beautiful but unforgiving. Maybe next time he tried to destroy humanity, he’d wear something warmer.

“Good to see you awake.”

The figure finally spoke, and while his voice sounded familiar, there was an otherworldly echo to it, like he and Lao were inside an invisible cavern. Lao looked up, trying to see past the hood that obscured the figure’s face, trying to see if he could recognize him. But it was to no avail.

“How long has it been?” Lao asked.

“Since what?”

“Since I died.”

The figure paused. “About two months.”

Lao frowned at that. There was no way he’d washed up on a beach and hadn’t been found by any wandering BLADEs for two whole months. Too many BLADEs had hearts of gold - despite everything Lao did, despite everything he wished they would think of him, many would still go out of their way to help him.

That was, unless, he was dead and this was hell. That’d be disappointing.

“And who are you?” Lao said with a hint of sarcasm, “It was nice of you to build a fire for me and not wake me up from my dirt nap.”

“I have been preoccupied. I meant to help you sooner, but I had more pressing things to attend to.” The figure said plainly.

“Help me with what, exactly?”

“...Wait, do you still think you are dead? Ha, okay, I get it now,” He chuckled, “Lao Huang, you are very much alive right now. You are in your original body, too, but I had to patch up a few things here and there, so those parts will need time to sync properly with your programming.”

Lao froze. No. No, he couldn’t be alive. He wouldn’t know where to begin again, if he could begin again at all. His silence spoke a thousand words, and he could only wonder if the figure knew what he wanted, what he needed.

“What...what exactly did you do to me?” Lao’s words were slow, cautious, after the silence he had created became too much to bear.

“I do not have access to the same resources humans do when repairing mimeosomes, so I repaired your broken parts as best I could with miranium. Most of the time, the synchronization process is quick and painless, and -”

“Miranium? How the fuck…”

Lao could swear that under the hood, the figure was smiling. “I have my secrets. Just be grateful that I am giving you a second chance here.”

“Why?” Lao growled, “I didn’t ask for a second chance.”

“Too bad. You have too many things you need to atone for.”

The figure, despite their hood covering their face, began to stare Lao down. The night did him no favors in revealing the figure’s features, but he swore he caught a small white glint where a human’s eyes should be. He was the first to look away, tucking his knees tight to his chest. The fire felt cold and unwelcome now, teasing him, mocking his reclusiveness.

“You didn’t answer my question before,” Lao grumbled.

“Hm?”

“I asked who you are.”

He didn’t vocalize his feelings, how he knew he’d heard the figure’s voice before. A part of him wanted to reach out and yank the hood off the figure’s face to connect the dots, but he held back in the hopes that the figure would answer. The figure shifted, emitting a soft chuckle almost disguised by the crackling flames.

“You know who I am, Lao.”

The otherworldly aspect had vanished completely, and in its place was a voice Lao could identify immediately. His eyes widened as the figure reached for his hood, adjusting it so that it still sat on top of his head, but didn’t obscure his face. Pale skin and shaggy black hair emerged from the comfort of the hood, and pupiless indigo eyes peered from under their shadows.

“Pongo,” Lao breathed.

Pongo grinned, a sad and pitiful thing. Lao knew what fueled it, what he must be feeling. Their encounter in Cauldros, a Prog Ares against a standard Lailah model, a traitor against a protector, flashed in his mind like a clip from a movie. He hadn’t felt real in that moment, and something about their encounter tonight didn’t feel real either. That was what made Lao return the grin, not the solace in being saved, and definitely not the solace in being reunited with a kid he’d stabbed in the back.

“I am sorry about what happened back in the Core,” Pongo apologized, soft and sincere, “We...we had no choice. You were...no, no, that was not you.”

“You can say it,” Lao’s shoulder’s dropped, the shock of Pongo’s reveal fading already. “I know what I did. I’m happy you were able to stop me before things got fucked beyond repair.”

“Knowing your past mistakes brings you one step closer to redeeming yourself,” The Interceptor said, “Though, do you want to redeem yourself? Mira did not give you much of a choice it seems -”

“Mira? Wait, what does the planet have to do with this?”

And suddenly Pongo froze in place. Lao squinted and noticed that Pongo’s left eye twitched once, nearly insignificant. Slowly, surely, the indigo of his eyes turned to white, milky and glazed. Lao sat back and watched as Pongo realigned himself, standing with a posture Lao had never associated with him.

“He practically begged me to revive you,” He spoke, and the strange echo returned to his voice. “And it took a lot of convincing, but in the end I figured this was a good start to my own redemption path.”

“Who…” Lao was at a loss for words, dumbfounded by the transformation he’d witnessed. Pongo - Pongo? - sighed, shaking his head with an indignant disappointment.

“I need to spell things out for you, huh? Is this going to be a trend? Whatever, fine. My name is Mira. I am the planet you inhabit, and I created Pongo as an avatar to enact my will upon humanity.”

Lao blinked once. Twice. Three times.

“The planet...it’s alive?”

“Is that really the most bizarre explanation you have been given?”

“No, I just...well, I guess it does explain a few things in retrospect.”

Pongo - no, Mira - tilted his head. “How so?”

“You revived me, so I get the feeling you’re coldhearted and take pleasure in other peoples’ pain.”

Mira snorted before chuckling. “You really wanted to stay dead THAT badly?” Lao opened his mouth to answer, but Mira continued quickly, “Do not answer that, because I know what you are going to say. You need to atone for your mistakes in life. If you really want to waste your second chance, then fine, go throw yourself into the Yawning Giant, I will not stop you. But at least THINK before you do.”

Lao stayed quiet as Mira bent forward, stoked the fire with a long stick nearby. The embers that flew from the flames tried so desperately to touch the night, but they had neither the strength or the resolve to complete the journey. They would always fail. It was in their very nature to fall. Was Lao an ember, destined to fall from greatness and never see the light? Was he going to hit the ground and disappear with the wind before ever seeing the sky? He felt deep in his heart that no second chance could save a dying ember like himself, that it was foolish to even try.

And yet…

Lao missed the city. He missed his nights at the bar with Doug after long days at work. He missed hearing Lin scold him for mishandling his weapons. He missed his team, however derelict their relationship was. He missed being alone and holding his mementos of Charmaine and Chenshi, dreaming about the day he’d resurrect them both with the Lifehold Core. He could still do that. He could still bring them back.

“Okay. Where do I start?”

Mira looked up, white eyes under a black hood. “You have a lot of apologies to make. I bet BLADE will make you run through hoops to redeem yourself, and you might get punched by a few select individuals. But whether or not you go back to the city right away is up to you.”

“It’s not like I have anywhere else to go,” Lao admitted casually. However, the way Mira’s face shifted sent a strange chill up his spine. It was like a spark had flown through his brain, like a newborn idea had suddenly grown into a fully fledged plan.

“If you really want time to think on your approach, I might have a job for you,” Mira grinned, something devilish and excited, “You are a Pathfinder, no?”

“Y-Yeah.”

“Fantastic. That means you know how to deactivate mining probes, I wager. If not, you strike me as a type who knows how to deal a mean amount of property damage.”

Lao scowled, thoroughly confused. “Why the fuck would you want to destroy mining probes?”

From underneath the hood, Mira took a deep breath, rolled its shoulders back, looked to the stars.

“Simple, really. You need to apologize to humanity. I need humanity to fucking BEG for forgiveness.”

#xenoblade x #Imperium Side Story: To Guide These Lives #lao #can you tell I've never written lao before #anyways this has been in my drafts for months #at this point I just wanted it done lmao

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robrob1127 · 4 years

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Dave Matthews Guitarist Tim Reynolds Brings TR3 to The Ardmore Music Hall

By Rob Nagy

Widely known as the lead guitarist for the Dave Matthews Band, Avant guard guitar master and multi-instrumentalist Tim Reynolds is currently on tour in support of his last TR3 album release, The Sea Versus The Mountain. The electric power trio, featuring Tim Reynolds (guitar), Mick Vaughan (bass), and Dan Martier (drums), offers a collection of uniquely original prog rock-laden compositions that takes the listener on a memorable musical journey.

“It’s just the three of us performing live,” says Reynolds, while on tour in Oregon. “The challenge was making this record sound good, Most of the music was never performed much less rehearsed, maybe skelitally just for a minute just to get a take. I had never gone into the studio with so little preparation other than my own. I got the arrangements and how I want the ideas, and how I want to record them. I was thinking about different sounds for the original idea. So there was a sense of discovery, also I hadn’t played with Nick and Dan for a long time. So we started learning these songs, we only had a couple of weeks to get it done, and it was just great. We’d work on a song and start recording it, we usually got one done a day. A long song would take about two days, ‘cause we did it in sections. It was a sense of discovery bringing these songs to life.”

“Our music is frantic because it has so many things,” adds Reynolds.”To me, it’s all the continuity of music in general. It’s hard to use a word that doesn’t make it sound like a singular thing, there are a variety of things. It’s kind of all over the map. It’s always been a hard thing to put a word on. I think the record works really.”

Enamored by the music of the Beatles at an early age, Reynolds developed a passion for rock and roll, ultimately expanding into the world of funk, soul, jazz and jazz fusion, citing Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana, and Jimmy Page as his greatest guitar influences.

In the late 80s, Reynolds befriended then bartender Dave Matthews, in Charlottesville, Virginia, and encouraged him to start his own band, and the rest is history. Reynolds declined the offer to officially join the band, opting to record and tour with them as a sideman from their inception until 1998. Reynolds accepted an invitation to become a permanent member in 2008, he remains an integral component of the band. In addition to performing and recording with the Dave Matthews Band, he tours with Matthews as an acoustic duo, and as a member of Dave Matthews and Friends.

Reynolds formed “The Tim Reynolds Trio” or TR3 in the 80s. Expanding his musical influences to include the reggae of Bob Marley and the alternative metal of Marilyn Manson, he continued to learn how to expand beyond his guitar skills experimenting with the sitar, keytar, and tubular bells, as well as other obscure instruments. Reynolds released his self-titled debut album, TR3, in 1988.

Reynolds has appeared on many Dave Matthews Band live and studio albums, including their multi-platinum major-label debut, Under The Table Dreaming. He continues to perform duet shows with Matthews.

Humbled by the enormity of the Dave Matthews Band as a nominee for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Reynolds is quick to downplay being enshrined among the legends of American music.

“It is a great honor,” says Reynolds. “If I think about it too much I’ll just let it go to my head, I don’t need that in my head so I don’t dwell on it. I’m mostly underground. I just want to do the next gig, and have my act together for that.”

“I never really think about my career,” adds Reynolds.”I stay really busy, and mostly what I’m thinking about, I can’t remember where I’ve been, is that I'm trying to remember where I’m going. Usually, I’m just trying to dial in whats the immediate tour. When I do I think about it, I’m pleased with my carer because it’s functioning and I need to work and it’s all I could ask for.”

Reynolds is looking forward to another year of juggling his solo career and his time with Dave Matthews.

“I’ll do my shows, and tour with Dave,” says Reynolds. “It mostly depends on when Dave decides to go on the road then I can go to my booking agent, and decide when I have these windows to do my thing. It’s an ongoing thing all through the year because things change.

Tim Reynolds TR3 performs at the Ardmore Music Hall, 23 E. Lancaster Avenue, Ardmore, PA 19003, on December 14, 2019, at 8:00 P.M. For tickets, go to www.ardmoremusichall.com. To stay up to date with Tim Reynolds visit www.timreynolds.com

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gigsoupmusic · 5 years

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ArcTanGent 2019 review

‘ArcTan…what?’ ‘ArcTanGent. In Bristol. Same team as 2000trees.' ‘Oh yeah, the chilled punk fest you keep talking about. Same vibe?’ ‘Similar set-up, but different music.’ ‘What kind of music?’ ‘Heavier, more prog and math-rock’ ‘What’s math-rock?’ ‘…..never mind.’ If 2000trees is the UK festival worlds best kept secret, its sister festival ArcTanGent is a fleeting rumor, a prog and math-rock haven known only to insiders. While Trees has, despite its relative obscurity, bolstered something of a ‘little fest that could’ indie-reputation, and a whack of awards, ArcTanGent seems to only be known to those who go to ArcTanGent*. Seven years in, and Goc O’Callaghan’s Bristol event has expertly carved out its niche, filling that gap between Download and Bloodstocks ‘big arena festival with a general-heavy vibe’ and Damnations ‘niche genre festival that’s too small to justify a full weekend’. With a cap just shy of 10,000, ATG (as she’s known to friends) enjoys a nice-sized crowd while retaining a relaxed ambience, mellower staff and the gratifying ability to manoeuvre the site, check a new stage or run to the car within a 10 minute window.

While it’s categorically a genre festival with no claim to offer ‘variety’ in the Glasto or Leeds sense, it would be remiss to call ATG one-note – there are plenty of flavors within the fairly flexible boundaries set here. Those looking for ‘fuck my eardrums’ heavy get an atmospheric, highly visual set courtesy of the always-excellent Cult of Luna and tech-metal Scots Frontierer. Bossk are out offering the layered sludge, enigmatic Carpenter Brut does his synth-wizard thing, with Bostonian veterans Caspian providing the bass-laden post-rock. Further afield, affable Taiwanese trio Elephant Gym are a grand discovery. Matt Calvert makes two appearances this years event, once with Three Trapped Tigers, and again with an orchestral arrangement – only the third time he has performed in this style, and a thoroughly enjoyable change in tone. There’s more experimental and some brass with The Physics House Experiment. And The St Pierre Snake Invasion, swiftly becoming one of the most fun heavy festival staples, bring the hardcore, the cracking stage-irreverence (‘this is a song about being a sad Welsh twat’), and whatever the hell that keyboard-recorder is – if you’ve not seen a St Pierre set, get right with that. Friday night splits the crowd and pits the experimental (official headliner Battles) against the groove-metal (Brutus, packing out the tiny PS3 stage)

Opening night headliners Coheed and Cambria are probably the closest thing to a ‘mainstream’ act on this years bill – one of the few on a major label anyway - and considering they are an indie-prog band whose albums are accompanied by a series of existential graphic novels, that says a lot. Lets talk about that headline set though - their first this side of the Atlantic, and it was a journey – both a display of prog-smithery and a nostalgia bite for those of us who cut our teeth on ‘Good Apollo’. With swirls and eddies of melodic riffs backed by enticing yet unobtrusive visuals, Claudio ‘Cousin It’ Sanchez* and his merry prog-men prove an excellent choice, and a contender for the ongoing ‘next generation of metal headliners’ debate. Setlist-wise, it’s a very ‘festival’ tracklist – aka, heavy on the 00’s ‘hits’* and the latest album. Not a bad thing - Dark Sentancer proves a powerful gig-opener, and we get ‘In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth’, an unexpected ‘The Suffering’, and come the encore, an explosive cheer as the iconic acoustic intro of ‘Welcome Home’ ushers the first night to a close.

The event has been lumped with something of a ‘Friday curse’ – this year is no exception, as the second day was treated to 12 hours of relentless downpour, turning the entire site into a quagmire of Mr. Whippy-consistency. If there’s one negative to throw out about this years Arc, it’s the relative lack of effort from the team to counter-act this apparently recurring problem – the stalls quickly ran out of ponchos and there was enough straw for the main stage, but not for the mud-Baikal that blocked the entrance. It’s a festival of treats, many sets feeling like rewards for the loyal punters here for the music. Northern Irish instrumental colossus And So I Watch You From Afar have garnered a well-earned reputation as one of the most exciting live acts in the genre, and their playthrough of their self titled debut to mark its tin anniversary is an experience – watching the pure intensity on their faces as they carve out an intricate wall of sound is a feeling of watching master craftsmen at work. Its not even the only album play-through, crowd favourites Black Peaks give their last record, ‘All That Divides’ a full run, with Jamie Lenman (‘I don’t have a saxophone and my moustache isn’t as good’ he cheekily warns the sodden crowd) featuring up front.

Speaking of treats, a rare set from elusive Swedish titans Meshugghah finishes the weekend – the crowd gathered before the Medusa columns segue beautifully between a 10k strong sing-a-long of ‘I Want to Know What Love Is’ into a war chant of ‘ME-SHU-GAH!’ as the grizzled quintet emerge on stage for a blistering, relentless hour-and-fifteen onslaught that is both technically complex and phenomenologically overpowering. Its an unassuming festival with no need for bells and whistles – while there are a few fun side activities (axe throwing, a board game café) the crowd are unquestionably here for the music. Still, the team must be commended for the subtle touches – havens of quiet, some intricately designed merch. Food-wise, Arc shares Trees selection of small-time festival stalls with few of the big names from arena events – the Pad Thai stand bringing so many bangers it became a sixth stage. Shoutout to Piggie Smalls and a peanut-butter jelly hot-dog that was transcendental. A selection of local ales, real West Country cider and White Russians grace the bar, while new for 2019 is the Bar Room stage – treated to a number of sets, the apogee of which comes courtesy of No Violets, whose frantic grungey vibe and captivating PJ Harvey-esque front-siren Ellie* mark them as one to keep a serious eye on.

The after-hours entertainment is a fun twist on the norm - ArcTanGent does the typical Silent Disco but with its own take on this festival staple – the Thursday night crowd are treated to a full-on silent gig, with Gost providing an entire set through the headphones. The Disco King revellers for Friday and Saturday get an astute blend of nu-metal classics and 80’s numbers….with the added option of an entire channel dedicated to Mars Volta* ArcTanGent is a strange one to critique – of course its highly recommended for fans of the heavy and the intricate – but it seems a futile recommendation when pretty much anyone whose heart lies in this heady world is likely already an ATG convert. As for casuals looking to explore a new avenue…. Well if you like your riffs complex, your crowd in good spirits, and a place that’s somehow heavy-as-balls while retaining an easy-going atmosphere, well, ArcTanGent has you covered. As long as you can deal with a little mud. *As a metal-fest aficionado but math-rock casual, I was only dimly aware of Arc before my flatmate Nathan, an ATG regular, piqued my curiosity enough to check it. *There was something of a contest going on in the photo pit as to if anyone could get a shot of his face. *I mean, Coheed don’t really have ‘hits’ as such, but the Apollo/Silent Earth tracks that were singles – Suffering and Home here. My wish for Ten Speed wasn’t met and Wake Up would have probably confused the crowd…. *6 seconds of Google did not turn up a last name so……sick vocals, Ellie. *Speaking of bar…. the crowd managed to literally drink both remaining bars dry by the end of Sunday’s disco. I’ve literally never seen this at a festival before, and took weird pride in having the last can of cider at the event. *I’d heard of this beforehand but genuinely wondered if Nathan was going for satire. Nope. Whole channel. Just plays Mars Volta for four hours. Read the full article

#ArcTanGent #Bossk #CarpenterBrut #CultofLuna #Frontierer #MattCalvert

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reviverradio · 7 years

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‘Fargo’ Uses Pop Songs Better Than Any Show On Video

FX / Warner Bros..

As prestige TV proceeds to ape the conventions of theatre, a growing number of TV shows have stepped up their match once it comes to a device near and dear to my own heart — with pop music. Many of the Very Best and most talked-about displays on television do this very well: The Americans, Big Little Lies, Better Call Saul, Mr. Robot, Legion,Halt & Catch Fire. But there is one series that really does it a bit better than the rest, FX’s Fargo.

Filmmakers and showrunners utilize pop songs. The most basic objective is to immediately set a time interval — Duran Duran for its ’80s, CCR for those ’60s, Donna Summer for the ’70s, Nirvana for its ’90s, and so forth. Considerate artistswill really incorporate the audio as either a Greek chorus signaling themes that are significant or simply as a window to the lives of the characters. Or they’ll revel in the possibilities which arise when you choose a part of activity and mix it with a tune, which can elevate an otherwise flat sequence to the dizzying heights of a dance number.

Fargo, notably in its second season, has escalated in using tunes as storytelling devices, in addition to finding ways to create musical sequences that looked and sounded unbelievable on-screen. Throughout the show’ forthcoming season, I’ll be writing weekly columns dedicated to the way Fargo employs music in each episode, exploring the ways that tunes deepen (or perhaps detract from) the storyline. (I’ll also inquire into the obscure tracks which will inevitably pop up on the soundtrack, for people without ready access to Shazam.) Before that, here are five good moments from the first two seasons.

Season 1, Episode 2: Eden Ahbez, “Full Moon” Scene: Mr. Numbers and Mr. Wrench get rid of a body in an ice-covered lake.

Fargo did not really hit its stride for a series that cinematic scenes to pop music in distinctive ways until its next season. However, this incident from early in season one shows Fargo‘s flair for digging up obscure tunes and doing something subversive together. Ahbez is a cult figure who achieved his greatest triumph in 1948 when his song “Nature Boy” has been conducted by Nat King Cole, who flipped it into a No. 1 hit. “Nature Boy” was reflective of Ahbez’s proto-hippie life — he wore his hair long and grew up a Jesus beard to choose his normal garb of sandals and white robes. (Ahbez was also living beneath the “L” at the Hollywood sign all over the time which “Nature Boy” became a hit.) On his own, Ahbez recorded profoundly strange, ethereal music including his starry-eyed, spoken-word vocals, as typified by the strangely hypnotic “Full Moon.”

On paper, “Paper Moon” shouldn’t go with a spectacle where a guy his killed by two hit men. But much like the Billy Batts sequence in Goodfellas, which uses Donovan’s similarly hippie-dippy “Atlantis” while Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci celebration Frank Marino’s head in, the mix of violence and serene audio functions in a yin-yang sort of manner, conveying the pathology of people that commit horrible acts with cool efficiency.

Season 1, Episode 9: “Green Tambourine” by the Lemon Pipers

Scene: Super-criminal Lorne Malvo, posing as a dentist at Kansas City, hosts a party at his home.

“Green Tambourine,” a likably trashy bubblegum oldie which went to No. 1 in 1967 and has been the only real hit by ersatz-psych group the Lemon Pipers, could typically be an unusual choice to score a celebration scene that happens in 2007. But it’s perfectly suited for Fargo, that informs stories which take space during hyper-specific periods of time which also somehow appear to exist slightly out of time.

Lorne Malvo, particularly, seems like he could be a commodity of every year between 1989 and 1961. It is a part of the character’s life, “there really are no rules” influence on the entire world around him, represented in a small way by reviving the outdated “Green Tambourine” at a scene which takes place 40 years following the song’s original cultural instant. For Malvo, “Green Tambourine” represents normalcy and mediocrity — it’s his way of appearing like a regular individual while slyly commenting on how boring he thinks ordinary folks are.

Season 2, Episode 1: “Children Of The Sun” with Billy Thorpe

Scene: Rye Gerhardt pushes to face a quote in a diner.

In an interview with The A.V. Club, Fargo music supervisor Marguerite Phillips explained that the series’s creator Noah Hawley “wanted me to research prog rock and Krautrock” as a musical motif for the next season. Though I prefer to believe that it’s also regarding the pervasiveness of AOR this could be related to the year’s sci-fi overtones. (As a native midwesterner born in 1977, a number of my earliest memories have been scored by pomp-rock riffs and ridiculously wiggy keyboard solos.)

Apparently, Billy Thorpe’s anthemic “Children Of The Sun” was among those very few songs ever written to the script of the second-season premiere. While mostly forgotten now, Thorpe did exist around the periphery of FM radio from the late night ’70s, that gave him sufficient exposure for the Australian rocker’s 1979 concept listing Kids Of The Sun to hit the top 40 in the album chart. In addition to subtly foreshadowing the preponderance of UFOs at Fargo‘s sophomore year, “Children Of The Sun” seems like the sort of song you’d hear in the radio late at night whilst riding shotgun on a lonely street road near the edge of Minnesota and North Dakota in 1979.

Season 2, Episode 7: Lisa Hannigan, “Danny Boy”

Scene: Bear Gerhardt implements his niece, Simone

The biggest hurdle for Fargo the TV series has been overcoming comparisons to Fargo the film. A show that was confident would have worked to play down the Coens’ influence. However, Fargo has rather embraced not only its cinematic supply material but the entire Coen brothers oeuvre, though in a manner that’s more reminiscent of an inventive remix than a slavish cover. In the next season, this interpreted musically by having modern artists perform versions of classic tunes related to Coen brothers movies, such as Blitzen Trapper’s shoot the normal “I’m A Man Of Constant Sorrow” (out of O Brother Where Art Thou) and White Denim’s redux of Kenny Rogers and The First Edition’s “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Is In)” (in The Big Lebowski).

In the case of “Danny Boy,” which initially uttered the remarkable shoot-out series from Miller’s Crossing, the Irish singer-songwriter Lisa Hannigan was called on to execute a distinctively lovely rendition for arguably the most funniest scene at either season of Fargo. For a callback to the Coens, “Danny Boy” stands alone as a memorable audio queue on Fargo. It might, in fact, even top Miller’s Crossing, where the use of “Danny Boy” enrolls as marginally jokey. But on Fargo, the song’s sentimental depiction of familial love and the death of generations gets the death of Simone doubly awful.

Season 2, Episode 10: Black Sabbath, “War Pigs”

Scene: Everything goes to hell in Sioux Falls.

Here we’ve got a tune that strikes on every one of the bases for tune usage that is good. It’s a strong personality option for Hanzee — that I could easily imagine him listening to Paranoid non-stop whilst serving several tours in Vietnam. It comments on the activity. It will help to set the time and place — nothing epitomized evil in communities at the ’70s and ’80s including Black Sabbath, whose music and iconography served as shorthand for the mania from Satan worshippers that are mostly non-existentent.

But place of the and re-watch the sequence another 37 times. There’s something to be said for having a song because it seems incredible when juxtaposed against terrifying action that’s unfolding on a split screen. Much like the Scorsese-esque “Locomotive Breath” chain in the next season’s seventh episode, “War Pigs” gets over on sheer cinematic audacity. It looks cool since it looks freaking cool.

from reviverradio http://www.reviverradio.net/fargo-uses-pop-songs-better-than-any-show-on-video/

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thisaintascenereviews · 7 years

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Album Review by Bradley Christensen Sacred Oath – A Crystal Vision Record Label: Mercenary Music / Angel Thorne Release Date: 1987 (Vinyl / Cassette) / 1988 (CD)

Out of the many kinds of music fans there are, there are two that I cannot stand. The biggest one are the “I miss the older stuff” fans, you know, the ones that hate everything new a band puts out. They always have to mention how the older stuff is better, and to put some icing on the cake, they may or may not call the band a “sellout.” I don’t like those kinds of fans at all, but the other kind of music fan I hate is one that sometimes has good intentions. Not all of them do, however, and it depends on what they’re talking about, and why they’re talking about it. These types of music fans are the ones that talk about how “diverse” their taste in music is, and they list off the most obscure, underground, and unheard of bands / artists that you never would have found otherwise. I’m talking like ten likes on Facebook, or five follows on the depths of Soundcloud, but these music fans end up in one of two camps. There are the music fans with a diverse taste that don’t brag about it, or look down on people for only liking a few kinds of music, and they have recommendations for basically everyone. I’d like to think that I fit into that camp, personally, because I don’t think it’s a big deal that I listen to a lot of music. I like what I like, and I just happen to like a lot of stuff, no matter what it is. This is the type of music fan that has common ground with everyone, because no matter what you might like, they’ll like the same thing, or at the very least, something similar. The other camp of the “diverse” music fan is the kind that will rub it in your face about how diverse their taste is, and they’ll say something along the lines of, “You probably haven’t heard of them,” or something incredibly smug and arrogant. They take pride in their music taste, which is fine, but they do it in the most arrogant, judgemental, and obnoxious way.

Listening to “underground” or more “obscure” music is great, but there’s nothing wrong if you don’t listen to anything more underground. You like what you like, and that’s all you can do. That’s the most important thing. It’s always great coming across hidden gems, though, but not in the obnoxious “I knew them before they were famous” way, either. I hate it when music fans say that, and both the “older stuff” and “diverse taste” music fans tend to do that a lot. It’s just great, because you have something to talk about with people that might not otherwise know about this act, or ever would come across them, because they don’t have the ways and means to access more underground bands. They most likely just don’t know how, since their taste is only surface-level. Either way, though, I love being able to talk about more underground bands, because I want to spread the joy of music to people, especially those that might love it. I don’t understand why some reviewers won’t bother to review more unknown / underground bands. I mean, yeah, those videos or blogs wouldn’t get as much traffic, because those bands aren’t huge names, but that’s not the point. That’s not what should matter. If your only goal is getting a huge amount of views, clicks, or ad revenue, you’re not doing that for the right reasons. If a bigger channel, blog, or news site is talking about a band that’s not quite as popular, that’s definitely some exposure for them, and even if one person checks it out, that’s something. If you couldn’t guess, I’ll be talking about a relatively obscure band today, but I’ve been excited to talk about this band all week. That band is Connecticut power metal / prog-metal band Sacred Oath. I’ll be talking about their debut LP, 1988’s A Crystal Vision.

This band came to my attention out of almost nowhere, but I happened to come across them on Bandcamp, while looking through the power metal tags. I was listening to a lot of 80s metal last week, so I thought I’d check out their debut, because it fit in perfectly with what I wanted. The band also has a new album coming out in a few weeks, so I thought that if I liked this one, I’d pre-order their new one. Sacred Oath has a bit of an interesting history, too. Aside from being a relatively obscure / underground band in the world of power metal, they didn’t release another album until 2005. Yeah, they went about 20 years without releasing another album, but they’ve been alive and kicking ever since. I find that kind of interesting, but I digress. I didn’t know what to expect with this LP when I pressed play, minus that they were a very underrated power metal band, but what I got was so, so much more. This band is awesome, folks, and if you’re into power metal, prog-metal, or both, you have to listen to them. This band reminds me a lot of Tanagra, a power-prog (or prog-power) metal band that I came across last year (they have a new album in the works, too, and I’m very excited about that, because I thought 2015’s None Of This Is Real was a fantastic album; if I had discovered them when the album came out, it would have made my top albums list, hands down), because they mix prog-metal with power metal. That’s the only other band I’ve heard to do this, but I wouldn’t be shocked if more bands in that vein existed. I just don’t know where to find them. The one thing I like about this LP, at least more than None Of This Is Real (even though that album is god-tier), is that it’s not as long. This LP is only 43 minutes, versus None Of This Is Real’s 57-minute run-time, so if you want a shorter album, this is definitely more up your alley. Length is a big deal for me, unless an album is so good, engaging, and interesting that I want to hear more (which is how None Of This Is Real went for me, actually), and it’s good that A Crystal Vision is so short.

Despite the album being a bit on the shorter side, it doesn’t pull any punches with the music itself. Where the heck do I even begin with this record? Let’s talk about its sound, since I was just talking about how unique they are in that regard. I don’t listen to a lot of prog-metal, but combining it with power metal works quite well. You have very soaring vocals, epic fantasy-based lyrics, and sweeping and spacious instrumentation with some guitar solos thrown in. With the addition of a prog-metal influence (and even a bit of a thrash metal influence, too), that leaves more room for interesting, huge, and atmospheric instrumental moments. Sacred Oath is still more of a power metal band, but the prog-metal influence, as well as the slight thrash metal influence, makes them stand out a lot. Their instrumentation is absolutely fantastic throughout this LP, even if it makes the album a bit unfocused, because the LP switches gears a lot (definitely more than None Of This Is Real, which kept its sound relatively simple, despite how the music itself is relatively complex and technical). It can only be an issue if you’re looking for something more straightforward and easygoing, but it’s not that kind of album. This isn’t straightforward, generic, or anything close to that. Moving onto the vocals, and they match the intensity, speed, and precision of the instrumentation. They’re very soaring, epic, and huge (definitely some of the most soaring power metal vocals I’ve ever heard in my life), and they’re great. I can’t say the lyrics are anything that interesting, which is what I can say about a lot of these kinds of albums. They’re fantasy-based, “epic,” and made for battles in Middle Earth, but that’s about it. I’m not too crazy about that kind of lyricism, but they’re fun, interesting, and poetic.

I said in the beginning of this review that you shouldn’t be reviewing something, whether it’s in written or video form, if you care about putting views and hits before talking about something really good, especially if it’s underrated, because you clearly don’t care about talking about music, you just want to jump on the hype train for the hot album of the week. Sacred Oath’s A Crystal Vision hasn’t gone down in history as a classic album, but not because it’s bad, just because no one really knows about it. The album hits its 40th anniversary this year (it came out in 1987 on vinyl and cassette), and that’s amazing to me, because it doesn’t sound like it’s aged a day. What else can I say about this record? It’s awesome in every single way, shape, and form. Power metal doesn’t get much better than this, but I like how they put that prog-metal spin on it. Like I said, I haven’t heard this sound much, and it’s quite refreshing to hear something different, unique, and interesting. They add something more that Tanagra didn’t, too, since they have a slight thrash metal influence, too. These guys are gearing up for a album, ultimately coming out in a few weeks. I can’t wait for it, because if it’s anything like this one, I’m definitely excited. It’s going to kick a lot of ass, and it’s sure as hell going to be one of the best albums of the year. That’s both a blessing and a curse, though, because music has been great this year, so it’ll be tough to cut certain albums when it’s time to make a yearend list. Nonetheless, though, if you’re into power metal and / or prog-metal, I’d check this out (while they do have a bit of a thrash influence, thrash fans might be disappointed by this because it’s more of a subtle influence), because it’d be right up your alley. I mentioned that I don’t like prog-metal that much, but when it’s combined with power metal, it sounds awesome. A Crystal Vision isn’t the most well known album, but it should be, and by spreading its awesomeness, I hope more people will finally be able to hear the album.

#sacred oath #a crystal vision #power metal #thrash metal #prog-metal #80s metal #traditional heavy metal #heavy metal #metal

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guacnroll · 7 years

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that 100 question jawn

Yeah so @starsburnouttoo tagged me in this like a month or two ago and I typed it up and never posted it so here it is. My bad.

1. DO YOU SLEEP WITH YOUR CLOSET DOORS OPEN OR CLOSED?

Closed. I always thought some kind of monster was in there as a kid. Now it’s out of habit.

2. DO YOU TAKE THE SHAMPOOS AND CONDITIONER BOTTLES FROM HOTELS?

Why? That’s just more shit to pack and potential spillage to clean up later.

3. DO YOU SLEEP WITH YOUR SHEETS TUCKED IN OR OUT?

Sheets tucked in. You know, like a normal person.

4. HAVE YOU STOLEN A STREET SIGN BEFORE?

I haven’t, but I would and I will.

5. DO YOU LIKE TO USE POST-IT NOTES?

I just use the memo app on my phone.

6. DO YOU CUT OUT COUPONS BUT THEN NEVER USE THEM?

I don’t use coupons unless I need them, so nah.

7. WOULD YOU RATHER BE ATTACKED BY A BIG BEAR OR A SWARM OF BEES?

Swarm of bees, because they could probably be dealt with easier. Smoke or some shit. Worse comes to worse, there’s a better chance of survival with a swarm of bees.

8. DO YOU HAVE FRECKLES?

I don’t think I’ve known any full Filipino with freckles.

9. DO YOU ALWAYS SMILE FOR PICTURES?

Lmao barely.

10. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST PET PEEVE?

Getting interrupted while tal-

11. DO YOU EVER COUNT YOUR STEPS WHEN YOU WALK?

There’s an app for that, bruh. Count calories.

12. HAVE YOU PEED IN THE WOODS?

I went backpacking in the mountains for a week for a class, so yeah.

13. HAVE YOU EVER POOPED IN THE WOODS?

A week. At least we had toilet paper.

14. DO YOU EVER DANCE EVEN IF THERES NO MUSIC PLAYING?

Why would I do that? I’m not even a good dancer in general.

15. DO YOU CHEW YOUR PENS AND PENCILS?

I used to. Not anymore.

16. HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE YOU SLEPT WITH THIS WEEK?

Do engineering textbooks count as people?

17. WHAT SIZE IS YOUR BED?

Twin because that’s what the apartment provided.

18. WHAT IS YOUR SONG OF THE WEEK?

Suede – NxWorries

19. IS IT OK FOR GUYS TO WEAR PINK?

Why would it not be okay?

20. DO YOU STILL WATCH CARTOONS?

Listen man, there’s so much anime out there, and with that Steven Universe shit coming out, damn. Speaking of which when is Koe no Katachi and Kimi no Na wa getting subbed this needs to be a thing also back to Steven Universe what’s Cartoon Network doing like are they trying to lower rati-

21. WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE MOVIE?

If I don’t like a movie I’ll just stop watching it. The worst movie I remember having to watch all the way through is the second Percy Jackson movie, and I only watched it because my little sister wanted to watch it.

22. WHERE WOULD YOU BURY HIDDEN TREASURE IF YOU HAD SOME?

I’d probably take a long drive somewhere, and find a nice secluded area. Then I’d bury it there, and record the geo coordinates somewhere.

23. WHAT DO YOU DRINK WITH DINNER?

It depends on what I’m eating man. You gotta match the drink to the food, bruh.

24. WHAT DO YOU DIP A CHICKEN NUGGET IN?

Chick-fil-a sauce, Polynesian sauce, BBQ, ketchup, honey mustard.

25. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE FOOD?

Filipino food’s da bomb.com.

26. WHAT MOVIES COULD YOU WATCH OVER AND OVER AGAIN AND STILL LOVE?

Any Studio Ghibli movie, probably. Or, you know, Shawshank Redemption. Maybe Clerks? Idk.

27. LAST PERSON YOU KISSED/KISSED YOU?

Someone at a New Year’s Eve party.

28. WERE YOU EVER A BOY/GIRL SCOUT?

Luh mao. Nah.

29. WOULD YOU EVER STRIP OR POSE NUDE IN A MAGAZINE?

Yall are funny.

30. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU WROTE A LETTER TO SOMEONE ON PAPER?

I dunno, like, sixth grade? Yall ever heard of e-mail? Game changer, man.

31. CAN YOU CHANGE THE OIL ON A CAR?

I drive. I better know.

32. EVER GOTTEN A SPEEDING TICKET?

Nah.

33. EVER RAN OUT OF GAS?

I try to make sure that doesn’t happen.

34. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE KIND OF SANDWICH?

Either chicken parm or pulled pork.

35. BEST THING TO EAT FOR BREAKFAST?

I was talking to a few of other Filipino friends earlier. Bacon, eggs, and rice seems to be a staple in Filipino, or at least, Fil-Am culture. Idk if that’s just an Asian thing or a Filipino thing, tho.

36. WHAT IS YOUR USUAL BEDTIME?

Electrical Engineering major and late working hours dictate between 12-3 AM.

37. ARE YOU LAZY?

Despite all the work I piled onto myself, I still find time to take naps. So yeah.

38. WHEN YOU WERE A KID, WHAT DID YOU DRESS UP AS FOR HALLOWEEN?

Astronaut, Harry Potter, the usual.

39. WHAT IS YOUR CHINESE ASTROLOGICAL SIGN?

Year of the ox.

40. HOW MANY LANGUAGES CAN YOU SPEAK?

My parents tried teaching me Tagalog as a kid but apparently my bitchass was like “Speak English I’m an ungrateful brat hahahah.” I know a few words but other than that, nah.

And English. But that’s a given.

41. DO YOU HAVE ANY MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTIONS?

Nah.

42. WHICH ARE BETTER: LEGOS OR LINCOLN LOGS?

Better question: who would answer Lincoln Logs?

43. ARE YOU STUBBORN?

Only on something that really matters to me. So like “drop this class it’s getting in the way of your grades,” I’ll be like “nah.” Other than that prolly not.

44. WHO IS BETTER: LENO OR LETTERMAN?

I don’t watch a lot of late night talk shows, and those guys are like before my generation, bro.

45. EVER WATCH SOAP OPERAS?

My sister told me to watch this K-Drama called Goblin and that’s basically a soap.

46. ARE YOU AFRAID OF HEIGHTS?

If there’s no railing then yeah.

47. DO YOU SING IN THE CAR?

Not unless I’m the only one in the car honestly.

48. DO YOU SING IN THE SHOWER?

Lmao nah.

49. DO YOU DANCE IN THE CAR?

Only when I’m with close friends or alone.

50. EVER USED A GUN?

Yeah. It was pretty fun ngl.

51. LAST TIME YOU GOT A PORTRAIT TAKEN BY A PHOTOGRAPHER?

Last year.

52. DO YOU THINK MUSICALS ARE CHEESY?

[has flashbacks of high school pit band]

53. IS CHRISTMAS STRESSFUL?

The most stressful part of Christmas is my mom bringing us to Church for like 3 hours.

54. EVER EAT A PIEROGI?

They’re pretty good.

55. FAVORITE TYPE OF FRUIT PIE?

Apple, probably.

56. OCCUPATIONS YOU WANTED TO BE WHEN YOU WERE A KID?

Musician, author, scientist, somebody famous with lots of hoes and money, idk.

57. DO YOU BELIEVE IN GHOSTS?

My friend claims he talks to ghost and I’m inclined to believe him tbh.

58. EVER HAVE A DEJA-VU FEELING?

Yeah, a bunch.

59. DO YOU TAKE A VITAMIN DAILY?

Nah.

60. DO YOU WEAR SLIPPERS?

Don’t touch my chinelas cuh

61. DO YOU WEAR A BATH ROBE?

Nah.

62. WHAT DO YOU WEAR TO BED?

Sweatpants, t-shirt. The basics.

63. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CONCERT?

Kanye West, floor tickets, TLOP PSU 2016 heh heh

64. WALMART, TARGET, OR KMART?

Target bruh

65. NIKE OR ADIDAS?

I have a pair of Adidas sweatpants so like Adidas I guess

66. CHEETOS OR FRITOS?

Cheetos if I had to choose.

67. PEANUTS OR SUNFLOWER SEEDS?

I hate peanuts.

68. EVER HEAR OF THE GROUP TRES BIEN?

Ohhh you tryna go there? You think just because you know one obscure band means you’re all that but I bet you don’t even listen to prog rock you hipster piec-

69. EVER TAKE DANCE LESSONS?

I should.

70. IS THERE A PROFESSION YOU PICTURE YOUR FUTURE SPOUSE DOING?

Nah. But the dream girl is probably Yuja Wang, so if you’re classically trained in any instrument then you’re probably an 8/10 in my book already.

71. CAN YOU CURL YOUR TONGUE?

Nah I got dem recessive genes bruh.

72. EVER WON A SPELLING BEE?

Like, once. In third grade. It wasn’t a huge thing.

73. HAVE YOU EVER CRIED BECAUSE YOU WERE SO HAPPY?

The only time that would’ve happened in my life is when my sister was born.

74. OWN ANY RECORD ALBUMS?

I got a vinyl of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band b/c y not ya feel

75. OWN A RECORD PLAYER?

I’ll probably buy one. Eventually.

76. DO YOU REGULARLY BURN INCENSE?

The only thing I burn regularly is dat broccoli heh

77. EVER BEEN IN LOVE?

Yeah, that’s like a thing most people do.

78. WHO WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE IN CONCERT?

I’mma see Chance the Rapper soon, but other than that, Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, Isaiah Rashad, and I’d like to hear Yuja Wang perform some Prokofiev or Rachmaninoff or something.

79. WHAT WAS THE LAST CONCERT YOU SAW?

Kanye West lol

80. HOT TEA OR COLD TEA?

Hot tea preferably.

81. TEA OR COFFEE?

I like both, but given my life I’ve been drinking a lot of coffee to stay awake recently.

82. SUGAR COOKIES OR SNICKERDOODLES?

Idk.

83. CAN YOU SWIM WELL?

I know how to swim, I guess.

84. CAN YOU HOLD YOUR BREATH WITHOUT HOLDING YOUR NOSE?

Who can’t?..

85. ARE YOU PATIENT?

I wouldn’t be able to be an engineer if I wasn’t :^)

86. DJ OR BAND AT A WEDDING?

I’ll figure it out when I’m at that point.

87. EVER WON A CONTEST?

Does winning a music scholarship for my high school count.

88. HAVE YOU EVER HAD PLASTIC SURGERY?

Nah.

89. WHICH ARE BETTER: BLACK OR GREEN OLIVES?

I’m not, like, an olive expert man.

90. CAN YOU KNIT OR CROCHET?

Nah.

91. BEST ROOM FOR A FIREPLACE?

The living room I guess.

92. DO YOU WANT TO GET MARRIED?

Yeah sure.

93. IF MARRIED, HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN MARRIED?

Nah.

94. WHO WAS YOUR HIGH SCHOOL CRUSH?

There was some cute bassist in the pit band in my junior year. I prolly could’ve asked her out, but like she was a senior going to college so I didn’t really see a real reason at that point.

95. DO YOU CRY AND THROW A FIT UNTIL YOU GET YOUR OWN WAY?

No because I try to be better than that.

96. DO YOU HAVE KIDS?

Nah.

97. DO YOU WANT KIDS?

Sure.

98. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE COLOR?

Idk, blue, maroon.

99. DO YOU MISS ANYONE RIGHT NOW?

I’m at home rn so nah.

100. WHO ARE YOU GOING TO TAG TO DO THIS VIDEO NEXT?

Is this a video? This isn’t a video.

@katie-be-happy @bluebrry What’s up yooo

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