blackstrap rock durham

April listening: Pterodactyl, Conn, Reatard and some older stuff

2007-04-09T13:21:00.000-04:00

Here's what I've been listening to lately. I've done full reviews for Pterodactyl, Jay Reatard and Black Lips at Dusted. So you can get my full opinion on 'em there.

Jay Reatard's Blood Visions has got to be one of the best punk albums of the last decade, if not ever. It's made me realize how much I don't like over-emotive singing. He's so pent up and stiff on this record, I gets to me in a way being moany never would.

Pterodactyl have a new take on wobbly, spazzy post punk, which is hard to believe after so many bands have coursed through those scorched wires lately.

The Menomena track is a stand out on a solid album of arty pop- the sax riffs remind me of Roxy Music, but the whole thing is so jumbled and pleasant and epic, I'm a taken aback at how seamlessly they fit so many parts together.

Bobby Conn does over-the-top rock that's so campy that it starts to become seriously affecting.

Black Lips have a new live record that upstages the studio takes of the same material. Not only are the songs tighter, but the monochrome tone makes them stand out more than the shifting levels of noise on their studio records.

And there's some older stuff from the Swans and Amon Tobin. When I first got "Money is Flesh" back in 1986, I used to stick it on the walkman and I'd feel like Godzilla as I walked down the street. I was playing a Swans live show from the same era on my headphones at work, and I worked right through a fire alarm. Dangerous stuff. Amon Tobin takes drum n' bass minimalism to it's lushest extremes.

Running order: 1. Pterodactyl "Astro", 2. Swans "Money is Flesh", 3. Amon Tobin "Bridge", 4. Bobby Conn "King for a Day", 5. Menomena "Evil Bee", 6. Jay Reatard "My Shadow", 7. Black Lips "Stranger".

April Listening (~30 Minutes, 37MB)

Glam Tube

2007-01-08T00:30:00.000-05:00

Having a productive night sitting on my butt and looking at YouTube, tracking down the big rock. First up, Suzi Q in full glory:

Then these mid-seventies guys Hello. Never heard of 'em, but this is pretty catchy. Reminiscent of the pop metal that followed fifteen years later, but that spoken bit by the bearded dude makes it stand out:

In 1972, I was really into Robin Hood, and had a birthday party where I dressed as the outlaw. If only I'd have been able to get Lt. Pigeon and his mom to play my fourth birthday party:

And finally, Tim Curry, post-Rocky Horror, pre-character acting:

Bad Ideas Beautifully Realized

2006-12-14T07:28:00.000-05:00

Dusted Magazine published my year-end round up this morning. To sum it up real quick, here is a chronological list of the records of 2006 that I keep returning to, and some links to longer reviews of the discs (including reviews by excellent Dusted writers like Emerson Dameron and Jennifer Kelly):

Tarantella - Esquelitos
Eagles of Death Metal - Death by Sexy
Epsilons - S/T
The Gossip - GSSP RMX
Various - The World Is Gone
Battleship - Hearts Addendum
Dark Meat - Universal Indians
Nina Nastasia - On Leaving
Dirty Faces - Get Right With God
Entrance - Prayer of Death

And if you'd like to play along at home, here is an hour-long MP3 mix of some of songs I talk about in the article:

Bendy - 2006 Mix

Hillbilly Boogie - Side B

2006-11-08T21:26:00.000-05:00

Finally got a chance to digitize this. More vinyl to hissy cassette to wav to mp3 hillbilly from Dick Thinker, carefully compiled around 1991. I think the Charlie Feathers tracks are from the 80s, but most of this is vintage, and Charlie Feathers is always in good form. This side is more rockabilly, and many of the artists on this set did cut straight up Rock n' Roll. Mr. Thinker didn't list the final track. It has a cajun yodel feel to it, so if anyone knows, let the rest of us know.

Hillbilly Boogie - Side B

(side A, with the cover)

October 26: Blackstrap at Blackbeards

2006-10-15T15:50:00.000-04:00

Our next gig is Thursday October 26th, at the Cave in Chapel Hill, as part of Blackbeard's Lost Weekend. Blackbeard is a three day garage punk fest held each year, put together by Todd of the Gondoliers and formerly of the Spinns. Dirty Little Heater, Dexter Romweber and many other rough and tumble act are playing this year. I'll dig up some more links soon.

Commerce and Anarchy

2006-10-15T15:29:00.000-04:00

So, you can now buy the whole of our Media Slut EP at the iTunes Music Store. Soon enough, you'll be able to get it on my preferred music service, eMusic.com. The iTunes music store was uptight enough to change the name of the record slightly. However, the letters the chose to obfuscate suggest an even ruder word.

We've made some of the tracks Creative Commons licensed, too. And I'm glad we did, because one of our songs caught the attention of a DIY filmmaker, Wrayer. He used our track as the theme music for a short meditation on anarchy. Check it out,

Gig on Friday, August 25

2006-08-01T14:10:00.000-04:00

Veronique Diabolique and The Experts and Blackstrap on August 25, at Joe and Jo's Downtown Durham. That's a Friday night. Veronique are our gothier Gallic kindred spirits, and Joe and Jo's shows always seem to sound great.

Veronique Diabolique - Spleen

Spleen was my introduction to VD- they've got a punky take on darkness. And when I first heard it on local radio it totally jumped out at me. The Experts are straight forward enough to call themselves southern rock.

We're on a new 307 Knox compact disc of local music and so is Veronique. It's free if you stop by you favorite area little record store, and it's at Joe and Jo's too.

Our track is the song "City of Meds" which has been through a lot of permutations, dropped and revised from the set several times. This latest version comes from a recording we remixed ourselves, making it into a sort of dub. Now we got to learn to play it that way love. I'd post the song, but since the comp is FREE, you best track that down. 'Cause you'll hear a whole bunch of great bands from around Durham. Out-of-staters and other foreign types should contact 307 Knox and tell 'em you're interested.

So here's a excerpt, and an excerpt from a 2003 recording, so you can see how much it's changed.

Blackstrap - City of Meds (2006)

Blackstrap - City of Medicine (2003)

We chose the name "Blackstrap" 'cause at the outset, we thought the band might be a bit twangy and country-ish, like molasses. But our sooty black hearts took things in the more strapped up direction.

Sun. July 16: Skating With the Oldies

2006-07-10T12:17:00.000-04:00

It's an outside gig, so there will probably be sweating too. We'll be playing this Sunday with two other less-than-youthful punk bands, SAPCO and The Chest Pains.

SAPCO - Fall Apart
Chest Pains - DCny

Mr. Surly knows the SAPCO guys, and we've been trying to play with them for a while now, and Dave was a bandmate of Tim in Chest Pains. Like Blackstrap both bands have a sound the you could of heard at an American Legion Hall all-ages gig in the Eighties, 'cause that's pretty much what we were doing back then. This gig is a Jimmy V Cancer Research fundrasiser at the Factory Skatepark at 1839 Main Street in Wake Forrest. There will be skating. We're planning to setup right near the edge of the bowl and have skaters colliding into us. Full Details here. And to hear more, here's the myspace links for Space Age Polymer Co. and Chest Pains.

Last minute show. July 5th.

2006-06-29T11:59:00.000-04:00

Chaz put us on the bill of next Wednesday night's punk gig. We're the TBA! Blackstrap, Bob Ucker, Lefty Loosie and Army of Jesus. We'll go on at 9PM.

Let's see. Bob Ucker doesn't have music on MySpace. But they're an offshoot of a band I've been listening to quite a bit, the Modern Machines- they've got a Midwest punk and pubrock feel. Lefty Loosie are solid pop punk. And Army of Jesus are hardcore. I'm not sure if I've got the trackname "Airopine" correct, but that's what I see as the first song when I squint at their cover art online.

Modern Machines Flash Infatuation
Army of Jesus - Airopine

And we've got one coming up on July 16th, and the Wake Forest Skate Park. This is part of the Jimmy Jam fundraiser. Details to follow.

Hillbilly Boogie - No Country Shit!

2006-06-24T01:42:00.000-04:00

I just moved, and found the crate of cassettes. I'm down to one boombox with a cassette player. And there's one in the minivan. The cassette player in the Accord busted while playing the Birthday Party, driving on my way to a gig a few years ago.

Anyways, I found this beloved mixtape, one that changed my outlook on music. It was 1991 or so, and I was getting deeper into Rockabilly, and the friend who'd set me down that road sent me this. It is a trip one circle deeper. Most of these tracks are contemporary to early Rock 'n' Roll, but mostly devoid of the R&B influence. Hillbilly boogie isn't lacking in drive, however.

What always struck me about this mix was how it really created a portrait of a world- and not just the cheatin' and drinkin' one expects from this sort of music. Where rockers from the era were reaching out, going for the craziest and most unleashed emotion they could find, these tracks are confined to a small town landscape. These artists were negotiating a place in those confines. "Hog-Tied Over You" is full of cornpone jokes about chasing each other around a farm, but is genuinely horny sounding. "Johnson to Jones" is one of several songs where the singer declares his young age, though here he's settling down with a sugar-mama he stood behind at the bank. And Jean Shepard's "Two Whoops and a Holler" has a hostility towards the less-fair sex that still stings. Pent-up it the dominant emotion across this mix. Since I was living at home at the time, stuck again my own rural home town, I could commiserate.

I just digitized side A. Plugged in the boombox, and let it run. Here is the vinyl to cassette to wav to mp3 conversion. This music was so clearly recorded in the first place, you won't miss a thing. I'll post side B later. Stay tuned.

Hillbilly Boogie - Side A. (54 Megabytes, it's gonna take a bit)

A pdf of the original cassette cover.

Tribal

2006-06-16T11:04:00.000-04:00

I recently got digital copy of the album Uncarved Block by Flux, and it's dredging up a load of memories. This was a hunk of vinyl I really enjoyed in it's day. I don't hear "tribal" used to describe rock percussion anymore, but in the late-80s it was used to describe music like this album; rock instrumentation filled out with a ton of banging. The general suckitude of industrial after NIN ascended had something to do with why I didn't pick up Uncarved Block for a while. And then the whole Iron John drum circle thing probably turned me off to the adjective.

The album is somewhat dated- the guitars have a squelching Adrian Belew sound. But it's still a defining moment. Flux of Pink Indians was agitprop punk band when they started, but by this album they'd grown into something unique. The lyrics were still political, but less overt, and the songs flow like a suite. Or a very extended remix. Bitches Brew horns are what really set this apart, floating in an out of the rock instrumentation. Flux keeps the album in print, under the long version of their name, and have posted some lengthy excerpts of the first section of the record. Which is nice, 'cause you've got to hear the songs in order to get the sense of how this album washes and rises over you-

Flux - Value of Nothing (excerpt)
Flux - Youthful Immortal (excerpt)
Flux - Just Is (excerpt)

If they were more dedicated anarchists, they'd put the full songs up.

The recording that injected this approach into popular music was an early 70s proto-world album of Balinese music, Golden Rain. The first side is gamelan music, an orchestral tradition in Bali. Tuned to a non-western scale, the music is droning, atmospheric and clanging at the same time, sort of like early Sonic Youth. But the second side is the real stunner. A twenty minute chant performed by 100 men in a circle, whose voices become drums.

Ketjak - The Ramayana Monkey Chant

Ketjak recordings show up in horror films all the time, and Fellini used it in Satyricon as a stand in for Roman mystery-cult music. It hits something primal. It's so pagan, it brings out the frightened missionary in anyone raised in the west. It makes you want to go native.

And what an eerie coincidence, WFMU recently blogged about this too.

The band that took tribal percussion the furthest in rock was Savage Republic, who blended it with surf guitar and Arabian scales and album packaging that looked third world currency. Before a gig, like Einstruzende Neubaten, they'd gather some junk from the area around the club, and use it for drumming. I saw them twice, both times completely mesmerizing. They still perform sporadically. This track is from the final performance of their 1989 incarnation.

Savage Republic - Mobilization

and this recent demo captures the surf-punk side of the SR sound:

Savage Republic - New Generation

I learned about Flux and Savage Republic from a guy who went on to form a band influenced by both; Washington DC's long-running instrumental band Tone. They don't tour- some versions Tone have had five or more guitarists. That electric guitar orchestra sound is represented nicely on their latest album:

Tone - C&P

While the tribal side can be heard in this one:

Tone - Fate

Tone is especially generous with the mp3s. Be sure to explore their site.

Now that Stomp has come and gone, underground bands might be able to wring something new out making a racket with percussion. Liars have been drifting in that direction. But the spectacle of pouding on rusty urban detritus should get recycled.

Killed by Death

2006-06-14T13:17:00.000-04:00

Those Nuggets-like comps of first and second gen punk have inspired a great radio stream at killedbydeath.org I've been listening for a few days and the selection is nearly flawless. Along the same lines, I've been listening a ton to the Murder Punk comps of early Australian punk bands- the big discovery for me is the Fun Things. But it seems like everything loud that came out of Australia in the years around 1980 was good. Some of the best bands are still around: the Saints, though they've been mellow far longer than they've been loud; Celebate Rifles who share only measly realaudio samples of their mighty output, and it seems even Radio Birdman is set to return.

Next Gig: June 1 w/ New Granada, Dirty Little Heaters

2006-05-19T07:13:00.000-04:00

We're set to play a Thursday night gig at the Local 506 in Chapel Hill on June 1. New Granada has got our Big Dave on drums. It's the last gig with their bassist, before he moves to New Orleans. But, out drinking recently, he broke his hand. So maybe it will be their first gig with their next bassist, if they can find one. But he's hoping to be healed. New Granada's entire set is a rock opera, by the way.

You can reduce the sound of the Dirty Little Heaters to just two elements: Reese's blues-belting quaver and Melissa's tom-heavy drumming. But since they're a duo, that's just about all there is to their sound, and Reese's raw guitar chords are great too. They've been catching some much-deserved attention of late, and we're glad to finally get a gig going with them.

Snuggle Factor 10

2006-05-15T12:43:00.000-04:00

Eliza from Blackstrap has a side-project, Snuggle Factor 10. They posted their first song to MySpace. It's a doozy. The sample comes from Fetchin' Bones, a band that was a big influence on her musical upbringing. SF10 is a lot different than BS, but we're planning to trade some songs back and forth.

Sales Figures When You're Giving It Away

2006-05-04T01:11:00.000-04:00

Blackstrap got picked up by the podcast Morning Buzz the other day: thanks for the play, guys. You know your shit. (Listen, you'll see what I mean...)

It's been almost a year since I started blogging as a way to promote Blackstrap. By the middle of the summer, we were getting enough traffic to have to move the site off of a free webhost, and with that came detailed stats of what's being read and listened to on blackstrap.org.

I did a tally of our music traffic, and was pleasantly surprised to learn we've had our songs downloaded over 12,600 times since July. "Walking into Walls" is the big winner, accounting for 5269 plays. There are days where that mp3 seems to get linked to baidu.com, the giant Chinese search engine, and we get 40 or 50 plays. That track and "Everybody's Doin' It" (3844 plays) get the baidu treatment the most. I'm not sure why baidu chooses those songs. There was a hit album in Ireland last summer with a track called "Walking into Walls" which might explain some of it, since baidu has a mp3 search function. So some of the traffic might be fans of this Irish boyband guy's solo album. On those 50 download days, it seems that a link to the song is getting featured somewhere, breifly, on their site. 'Cause when I try to follow the referals, it's gone.

We've posted six tracks to this site, and that averages out to 2100 downloads per song. I'd be overjoyed if a song of ours got that many plays on the radio. This is probably just as good: it takes a bit of effort to download a song, so those 2100 clicks aren't to totally passive listeners.

That got me thinking about punk and indie music, and wondering how many influential albums have also sold decently.

I found the RIAA database of Gold and Platinum records.

Never Mind the Bollocks went gold in 1987, platinum in 1992.

Combat Rock went platinum in '83, but it took till '91 for the debut and London Calling to go gold. Eventually London Calling went platinum too, tho' Sandanista is stuck at gold. Which is impressive for a triple album with a lot of experimental tracks.

Third generation punk has done much better. Rancid's "Wovles" went gold in '96, platinum in '04. So it's been a steady seller, not just a flash. And that helped Op Ivy go gold in '03. But the second wave remains obscure. Black Flag, Minutemen, Huskers, no dice. Nothing from SST. Cobain's attention helped the Meat Puppets To High To Die go gold.

The Kinks have only had four gold records. A comp, a live album, and Give the People What they Want and Low Budget. Rock critics don't pay for records.

The Smiths have three gold. Almost everything by the Cure is gold or better. I'd have thought their sales were comparable.

Devo have two gold and a platinum, Freedom of Choice. Two for Lou Reed. None for Velvet Underground still, which amazes me, since the Pixies eventually picked up two gold albums. Plenty for Velvet Revolver, multiplatinum even. I didn't even realize they had multiple albums. And that's a reminder that even the dullest mainstream rock sells in a realm far beyond the records that occupy the minds of musicians, critics and nerds.

Exene, Tarantella, Blanche

2006-04-04T02:04:00.000-04:00

Tarantella sound like exactly what their back story describes- Singer Kal Cahoon was married to an Argentine soundtrack composer, but moved back to Denver and fell in with the alt.country scene there, and Tarantella is her first foray into singing. The gothic twang of Sixteen Horsepower is a reference point, but there's something even more askew about them- it's appropriate they're on Alternative Tentacles.

Tarantella - Misa Gringa
Tarantella - Della Morte

"Misa Gringa" is a good example of the eccentricity which makes their debut Esqueletos such somber fun. It's not surprising that this kind of band builds a song around an Ennio Morricone guitar riff. But they throw in the Morricone grunting Indian braves too. "Della Morte" has a more a South American feel. You gotta hear the climax of Esqueletos though- the track "Dame Fuego" rolls along in the same Euro-Latin-noir fashion, but breaks in the middle with a blast of Yamaha DX-7 and power chords that isn't that far off from the "Eye of the Tiger." Yes, the Rocky soundtrack song. There's something confindent and brashly tacky about Tarantella that makes them truly alt. When they get back to their roots, it seems to mean Love and Rockets.

Like Tarantella, who's members came from the tamer Slim Cessna's Auto Club, Blanche grew out of the novelty country act Goober and the Peas, but is far darker.

Blanche - Superstition

They twist the Gun Club's "Jack on Fire" into something very special, too, draining off the original's shuffle and making it into a country-blues lament.

Exene from X has a new album, and she covers Gun Club's "Ghost on the Highway". The 2002 debut from the Original Sinners didn't put her name up front, and there was something admirable about that, 'cause it was as strong a cowpunk-a-billy record as has been made in this decade.

Exene Cervenka and the Original Sinners - Ain't Supposed to Be

But maybe that's in part why it fell by the wayside. When she toured to support that first record, I interviewed the band on WXDU. It was one of the more nerve-wracking hours I've spent in my life. Exene was happy to see that the deejays had written positive stuff on the station's copy of the disc, but wasn't exactly easy to keep coversational, and the rest of the band seemed too intimidated by the situation to say much. Even my most innocent questions ("So what are some other bands out there you like?") were met with defensiveness.

But so what. You gotta admire that she's still hitting the road with new musicians and new material. Both the Original Sinners' debut and the new one,Se7en are punked-up rockabilly mixed with her own wordy style of songwriting. Her voice is still as cutting as it was with X, and of all the X side projects, The Original Sinners seems the closest to Billy Zoom-era X. Original Sinner mix roots and rough edges convincingly.

Von Lmo

2006-03-01T00:03:00.000-05:00

The opening of Von Lmo's Future Language might be the greatest album kickoff since Locust Abortion Technician. Except it came out six years before Locust. Except almost no one has heard it. But now you have:

Von Lmo - Future Language

Now that I'm in the Von Lmo fan club, its hard to believe that they've been mostly overlooked in the last few years of appreciation of all things spazzy and recorded in the vicinity of 1980. They even wore silver pantsuits on the album cover. While Devo would be an obvious comparison, there's they got a meathead brilliance that makes them more like an East Coast version of Fear.

The amazing thing about their music is that, rather than breaking free into noise, noise seems to be the basis of it. But they can't quite keep it up. Their particular take on noise is fashioned out of metal guitar leads fighting with skronky funk. Yet it keeps falling into simple one-two-one-two punk. It's like they can't sustain the chaos for the bluntness. This is good.

In 1981, the year Future Language came out, you could still call yourself Heavy Metal and have a saxophone. With the meager information on the web, the consensus seems to be that Von Lmo were part of the NYC No Wave. But if the early New York Noise scene had a sense of humor, it was subordinate to it's arty confrontation. Von Lmo seems artless. It's hard to pin Von Lmo's sense of humor- some of the tracks here have such an upbeat message, it's impossible to figure out how seriously they were taking themselves at the time. They seem oblivious to their abrasiveness- lines like "Do you know what your are / Or are you trying to be someone else?" seem like earnest attempts at anthems.

Mr. Post Punk Junk has the most spaced-out Von Lmo tracks covered here. So I will add this pop number:

Von Lmo - This is Pop Rock

Which may or may not be sarcastic. This whole album is inspired.

Incidentally, the guy who reissued this on CD, Weasel Walter of the Flying Luttenbachers, is selling his record collection on eBay. So if you can't find a copy of Future Language, you can help him out with his future musical endeavors there.

Introverted Reverb

2005-06-30T17:00:00.000-04:00

Here's three songs I've listened to constantly for the last year. Plus an old track with a similar feel. What is the genre? Goth Power Pop? Dreary jangle? For music that is bouncy, there's gloom to each of these songs which makes the reverb claustrophobic rather than epic.

Dagons are from L.A., and are a boy/girl guitar/drum duo. While there's an early-Cramps simplicity, the sweet vocals contrast with the dark riffing. Fashion Design are one of the best bands playing around the Triangle. Even with such a pristine, echo filled sound, they can perform a tight set while draining a bourbon bottle between songs. Casual Dots put out my favorite album of 2004, a collection of ten songs which moved effortlessly through folk rock, punk and R&B, all the time sounding like own thing. House of Love appear to still be performing. They appeared in England somewhat after the C-86 moment, and somewhat before the Shoegazer moment. "Shine On" a perfect little song that has a bit of both styles.

Dagons - Heaven Wasn't in the Sky
Fashion Design - Dirty Young Virgin
Casual Dots - Clocks
House of Love- Shine On

Glam Now, too

2005-06-20T23:02:00.000-04:00

Frog Eyes have been lighting up the hipster review sites the last few years. Singer Carey Mercer has cracking howl that evokes Bowie, but I think the Bowie comparisons is even more valid in the songwriting. It has the epic dynamics of pre-Ziggy Bowie, and brings to mind songs like "Life on Mars," from when he was on the verge of giving in to his avant-theatre instincts.

Bloom look to have been plugging away out of Central Florida for about a decade. But they played the SXSW festival this year, and stuck an mp3 in the massive download that was sent around to promote the festival. It really stood out from the other 490 songs. "Don't Tell a Dead Man..." takes that "Radar Love" boogie and sticks it with a melody worthy of the Sweet. Of all the neo-glitter songs I've posted, this is the one that really evokes a bell-bottomed jumpsuit with exposed chest hair. Yet their myspace site shows a band that is fully buttoned up.

The late, great Devil Dogs were central to the nineties garage punk scene that emanated Sympathy for the Record Industry and Crypt Records and gradually grew to the fad of the early 2000's. They started getting exposure around 1991 as band that sounded like old punk. Not sixties psych-punk, but like the early CBGBs bands. So they were the first sign that the snot of the Dead Boys or Heartbreakers was getting retro enough to need reviving. Or to put it another way, they were among the first punk bands that didn't have anything to do with the hardcore scene, nor the emerging indie rock scene. "Hellraiser" has the fifties-cum-seventies hiccup of the Rocky Horror soundtrack, but ain't slick at all. Like everything they did, it's got a crunchy Les Paul lead and a campy approach to macho swagger.

Frog Eyes - The Oscillator's Hum
Bloom - Don't Tell a Dead Man How to Die
Devil Dogs - Hellraiser

Ghost Riders World

2006-01-03T07:34:00.000-05:00

I dunno about the best song ever, but this page full of Ghost Riders in the Sky versions is a pretty definitive rundown of one of the best melodies in country and western. It was written by a park ranger, which seems appropriate.

My Xmas gift this year was a set of 78 RPM records from the 1940's; someone's lovingly organized collection, stored in 6 fake-alligator skin binders that look like photo albums. And that how LPs became known as albums I suppose- 'cause people were already storing their discs in these things. Whoever assembled the 70 or so records in this collection had three versions of Ghost Riders; the Sons of the Pioneers, the Vaughn Monroe and the Burl Ives version included on this page. There's no other folk stuff or anything similar to Burl Ives, so they must have really loved this song. Going through these records is gradually giving a glimpse into someone's life. For some reason, I have a hard time picturing a 1940s version of a record nerd into Country music- I think of those habits as being confined to jazz fans until the LP era.

Anyways, the page has a ton of great versions. I don't have a copy handy, but the Trashman did a excellent take that falls somewhere between the Ventures and the Dick Dale version. And then there's this rough take from Radio Birdman. Radio Birdman were an Australian band that stumbled across the punk sound in the mid-70s, before it was even called punk. They drew from instro surf as much as the Ramones took from the Beach Boys, and their best cuts have hardly dated at all.

Radio Birdman - Ghost Riders.

Listen Locally, Listen Socially

2006-02-18T09:22:00.000-05:00

The North Carolina music blog The Oak Room is updating again. This is a great one-stop spot to find out about local music, and it's great that he's finding time to work on this again.

There's also now a MySpace group for Triangle area bands. Even before the web started rolling, projects like the Internet Underground Music Archive tried to use the 'net to link together independent bands. MySpace is the first to really succeed because it's intrinsically linked to more general social connections. I and can't help thinking it's become the top social-networking site because it's so intertwined with music. MySpace is plug-ugly, but no more than most of the band sites out there. It gives a common interface for exploring music. It has good content that is easy to find. That's why it's succeded, to the dismay of graphic designers everwhere.

More and more, I think that the experience of music is about 50% social. Sure, we grow to appreciate the formal qualities of a genre of music, and anyone can get a melody earwormed into their head. But it's hard to underestimate the social aspect of music listening- the world of making mixes for friends, getting passionate about an artist no one else seems to know about, getting your heart broken when a favorite band realeases something you just can't dig.

Think about an artist you love. Think about an artist that hit you the first time you heard them. I bet it wasn't just the melody or beat that trapped you- at some level, that song was playing to your ideals. I recall a freind slapping on a Nick Cave disc, and saying, "You really have to hear this song 'Tupelo'." I was aware of Cave, but this was the first time I really listened; the single, simple beat, the mix of Elvis history, John Lee Hooker steals, the biblical references. I was flat out shocked at how perfect that song was. For me. Raw rhythm with a sense of music history so ambitious it could be dismissed as pretentious- that sums up my love of music.

I hear a lot of people in the 30s sigh when they realize that they haven't heard anything new. It's 'cause the push towards middle age usually narrows one's social circle. It's easy for one's listening habits to become frozen in the music of their youth. We make the most new friends when we're young. Including friendships with music.

There's been a great thread on alt.music.chapel-hill this week: The best way to support artists? I'd say the best way to support an artist you like is to talk about them. Like a nut. I do. Go ahead and overrate them, 'cause you never know when they'll live up to your expectations. The major labels have "street teams" to talk up acts that they're trying to promote. At some level, they know that music is a social thing. Even if they can't divorce themselves from the idea that they're selling units, what they're really doing is selling connections.

Gig: Feb 10th with Red Smokes White

2006-02-06T00:42:00.000-05:00

It's our first show with Big Dave on bass.

At Joe & Jo's in Durham of course. A Friday Night.

So this is the next phase of Blackstrap. We spent 2005 shaken up- disbanded at first, then talking about how to proceed. Then practicing again, but consumed by commitments and loosing a founding member. Dave came in on bass at the end of the year, already familiar with us. He brought his own feel to the stuff right away. At practice last night, we were R.O.C.K. Between songs, we were all philosophisin' about how men and women are often attracted to the worst traits of either sex, Dave said something like "All I'm looking for is someone who knows who Bon Scott is. That is a foundation I can work from." I can relate. The difference between and old rocker and an young one is that us oldies have learned how not to choke on our own vomit. We're quite good at getting it down. It's an important part of staying employed.

Dave has done time in all sort of local scene greatness, from the Chrome Plated Apostles to Jett Rink.

Jett Rink - Mittens

Red Smokes White are doing something right, 'cause I can't decide whether to describe them as spooked-out chamber rock or boogie metal. Is that a cello or a upright bass sawing away? I haven't seen them live yet, so I can't tell. It's like you took Black Sabbath's folk tendencies and ran with it.

Red Smokes White - SOBs from Earth

I Love German TV

2006-01-31T03:41:00.000-05:00

There's a thread over on I Love Music where folks are digging through the YouTube site and finding gems of old music footage. Some of the coolest comes from German TV shows- like this one which clearly establishes the Monks as the most crazy-ahead-of-the-time thing ever:

(here's a direct link if the embedded players lock up your browser)

And this Birthday Party appearance (dir link) with Tracy Pew rocking the pirate shirt:

And this impossibly offensive music video from Nina Hagen- Heroin and Hitler all at once! (Link)

Actually, I think Germany has laws against this sort of thing, so I wonder what country did air it.

Part of the appeal here is that all these things seem to have been taped off TV when they first appeared, and have been laying dormant on Betamax tapes for 25 years, waiting to be shared. I was in middle school when Saturday Night Live had The Specials as the musical guest, and I had no idea what to make of all the hopping around with machine guns. I was very disturbed, and I remember trying to explain it to a friend. "The way they were jumping, I think there was something wrong with them! I don't know what they were called." My friend suggested it might be Devo. 'Cause Devo were really strange and stiff. Nowadays, Devo is all about rocking the middle schoolers. I wasn't watching SNL on Halloween, when Fear got punk banned from SNL for a decade.

Anyways, before I get too excited about continental television, there's this Jodie Foster performance which surely violates several clauses of the Patriot Act. And then there's this disco-Apache thing which appears to have been made under the influence of chugging Mazola corn oil straight up.

Naomi Peterson and SST

2006-01-08T01:56:00.000-05:00

Joe Carducci, who worked at SST Records during it's prime, wrote this memoir of Naomi Peterson recently. He learned in May 2005 that she died back in 2003. If her name rings a bell, but you are having trouble placing it, she was the photographer for SST Records.

She took all those tiny photos I'd stare at in fanzines and album jackets when I was a teen. I'd try to discern something about the people who made this frayed and life-changing music; they all looked so ordinary. I remember hearing Zen Arcade, and staring at the crayon-scribbled silhouettes on the cover, and thinking these must be some tough looking guys. And then, a few weeks later, I saw my first Husker Du gig. The audience was all spikes and leather but the guys on stage couldn't be more ordinary. Or loud. Greg Norton's handlebar moustache was totally confounding. I felt like I was just catching up to this hardcore thing in 1984, and here I saw it was already mutating into something else.

Perfect Sound Forever did a nice history of the SST label, and the last page is a very good round-up of the lesser known bands. The writer mentions how good Slovenly were- I don't have any discs myself, but I do remember liking them. They're totally out of print now. The sound was out of place in the late-80s: a monotone Joy Division/Interpol vocalist, and icy guitars. But that's pretty up-to-date these days. They were five years too late or 15 years too early. They looked like hippies, and so did their album art; SST was a confounding batch of punks for sure.

The article Perfect Sound article fails to mention Lawndale, though. Lawndale was a witty instrumental band, surf oriented, but like Shadowy Men from a Shadowy Planet a few years later, they didn't stick to a retro sound. Sasquach Rock has a blending of Brubeck's "Take 5" with "Whole Lotta Love" that was a cool novelty track. An SST band that was five years too early. 'Coulda been contenders with the flamey-shirt greaser crowd of the 90s.

But my favorite lost SST band is Opal. Happy Nightmare Baby is a little classic of sleepy psych. Kendra Smith's vocals sound bored and sensual at the same time, rather like Trailer Bride's Melissa Swingle. The music is slack and dreamy too, but doesn't get melodramatic the way Mazzy Star tended to be; after Smith left the guitarist started Mazzy Star.

The T. Rex comparisons are obvious the first time you hear "Rocket Machine"

Opal - Rocket Machine

...it's those cellos, or fake cellos. But this song drags and sighs in a way that Marc Bolan never did. This song turns over, roused from an afternoon nap, and starts kissing you.

All three of these artists deserve to have their work available. Carducci sensed that SST was the Sun Records of its day. And twenty years after the fact, SST is still alive and as bizarre as Sun was in the Seventies. They seem to have become a Decline of Western Civ version of Rockabilly Orion, content to nurse the Black Flag and Minutemen legacy. Those bands' recordings are kept available; but you can't get them on iTunes or eMusic. And you can't get the back catalog at all. With so many of the folks involved lost, like Naomi Peterson, it might be hard to make all this music accessible again. It should be heard.

Take your date to a blackstrap gig.

2006-01-05T10:19:00.000-05:00

It's usually intersting looking over the logs for blackstrap.org, and seeing what search terms lead folks to this page. Two amusing ones this morning:

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=link+wray+lyrics

Link didn't sing a whole lot, since he was missing a lung. I can think of the song "Hidden Charms" and that's about it, if you don't count some sinister laughing and such.

There was also this:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=cool+date+ideas+durham

We're the perfect band to take your date to! Infact, I had my first conversation with my future wife at a gig for these guys. We're at least as romantic as them. Though we probably dissapointed the websurfer from Saudi Arabia who was looking for "wimp naked butt women photos" The government might cut of his, um, good hand if they found out what he was looking for.

We're planning to have our first gig since the fall in Feburary, with our new bassist and more than a few new songs. Bring along that hottie and let us scare 'em.