Air Modern

Reader Bryan Chandler sends me the following message:

Check out my historical Blog of Fresh Air Progressive Rock Program on WKSU BEFORE terry gross stole the name…

I strongly advise that you drop what you’re doing a go visit his amazing blog. He has compiled an amazing array of  interviews with artists from the golden age of when Prog rock collided with New Wave. Some highlights:

• Peter Hammill
• Laurie Anderson
• Bob Mothersbaugh of DEVO
• Ralf Hutter of Kraftwerk

and many, many more!

Go there now. 

every king of cheese needs his queen

One of the things I love most about having a blog (and blog readers) is some of the self-made art and music that people have forwarded me.
One such thing recently was Every King of Cheese Needs His Queen, a song by The Stanley Zappa Quartet .
It’s delightfully jazz-damaged.

Personnel: Mark Leonard, bass; Nick Skrowaczewski, drums and percussion; Stanley Zappa, saxophones; Wyatt Doyle, voice.

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/newtexture

Be sure to check them out.

Bill Laswell, Otomo Yoshihide, Yoshigaki Yasuhiro (repost)

Soup

P-Vine Japan

Four lengthy, fairly dirgey jams from Laswell, Yoshihide and Yasuhiro. Otomo’s an amazing guitar player! Who knew? I always assumed he was more of a turntablist/manipulator, but as an axe-grinder he’s no slouch.
Sometimes the tunes take on a dub-like quality - a Laswell trait.
This sounds like music made while coming off of a bad acid trip in Yokohama, Tokyo or a sushi joint in New York.

Download:Right here

(5/29/07) This is a repost for someone who wandered into my old blogger incarnation - and a timely one, too. I just recently accidentally deleted everything from my iPod, which wouldn’t have been such a big deal if I didn’t have lots of stuff on it exclusively. This album is one that I thought perished forever (along with more than one un-backed up album*) until I remembered that I burned it onto a CD. Crap! - When do I EVER make CDs anymore? So, luckily for us, here it is.

*The others I’ve noticed so far (inasmuch as I miss them): Peter Hammill - Nadir’s Big Chance; The Orb - Auntie Aubrey’s Excursions Beyond the Call of Duty pt. 1, and lots and lots of single tracks.

Tom Waits

Nighthawks at the Diner
Elektra/Asylum

Nice live in the studio by album by seventies-era singer/songwriter Tom Waits. This is long before Waits became the hoarse, surreal croaker he is now; equal parts Howlin’ Wolf (vocally), Charles Bukowski and Jack Kerouac (lyrically) and Harry Partch (instrumentally). Tom had recorded three critically acclaimed, yet obscure albums for Asylum. His style was that of a beer-soaked piano man or a jazzbo, bebop speaking grifter or even a sensitive guitar playing singer.
Here - backed by a top-notch minimal jazz unit - he spins yarns about long-lost loves, the virtues of single life, eggs and sausage, phantom truck drivers and the goings-on of a fictitious county that would prefigure Garrison Keillor’s schtick by a year or two.
Waits really knows how to engage an audience and his between song banter takes up nearly half of the album. His portrayal of his stage persona and the characters he introduces us to are closer to a tragic, yet beautiful Diane Arbus photograph than Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks , the album’s namesake. After this album Waits became artier and more surreal, fianlly leaving Asylum for Island records where he continued to explore more fertile grounds artistically and lyrically with his wife, playwrite Kathleen Brennan.
This is probably my favorite Tom Waits album from his early career.

Download