B12 Solipsism

Earlier today…

David Bowie adored Kraftwerk, writing the track V-2 Schneider for his 1977 album Heroes (the band would namecheck him back on Trans-Europe Express). African American DJs also found an odd kinship with the Germans. Keen to find a new musical language, they were familiar with the urban sounds Kraftwerk were using; 1978′s The Robots became particularly influential on the dancefloor, and in the burgeoning B-Boy and breakdancing scenes. Afrika Bambaataa fused the melody of Trans-Europe Express and the rhythm of 1981′s Numbers to create Planet Rock, one of hip-hop’s pioneering tracks. Trailblazing electro group Cybotron used a loop from 1977′s Hall of Mirrors; its founder, Juan Atkins, would create techno, and from there came modern dance culture.

Via:
Why Kraftwerk are still among the world’s most influential band
[automated]

 
Nuggets Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968

I’ve written¹ about my love for garage band music, and this compilation previously, but 40 years later, the Nuggets set² still rocks.

Before he would achieve recognition as the guitarist for Patti Smith, Lenny Kaye wrote reviews and articles for Rolling Stone in its early years and was hired as a freelance talent scout by Elektra Records in 1970. During that period, Elektra president Jac Holzman told Kaye about a record he wanted put out consisting of songs that were either hidden on records or minor hit singles. The result? Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968.

“In a way, it seemed to me that these songs were in a twilight zone,” Kaye tells Spinner, “between what was then the AM format — catchy three-minute singles with a good chorus and a hook — and the more expansive album-oriented music that developed in the ’60s when all these artistic parameters were kind of pushed aside, and a certain sense of possibility came into the music where you could think expansively and imaginatively beyond certain time lengths and song lengths and song constructs. Having lived through it as a teenager, I felt very much connected with it in terms of my own artistic growth and what I could see as the possibilities within music.”

With songs selected by Kaye and released in 1972, Nuggets became a classic garage rock album featuring bands that never achieved long-lasting fame. In marking the record’s 40th anniversary this year, Rhino Records reissued the original set as a single CD (it was previously released as an expanded 4-CD boxed set in 1998).

(click here to continue reading Lenny Kaye and ‘Nuggets’: 40 Years of a ‘High-Class Oldies Album’ – Spinner.)

Hypnotic Beat of Your Band.jpg

The sequel, Nuggets 2³ is quite worthy as well.

Two words on the shrink-wrap sticker on “Nuggets II,” a Rhino Records box set, say it all: The collection, four CDs each running more than an hour, contains “no hits.”

In the record industry — heck, even in the world of box sets, which are often filled with filler — this would seem to be apostasy. No hits? Why would anybody want to buy a box set with no hits? You may as well manufacture CD-sized Frisbees.

But there is a method to Rhino’s madness. After all, this box set follows in the tradition of “Nuggets,” four CDs of 1960s American garage band music from the same era, based on the famous 1972 double-LP compiled by Lenny Kaye.

That box set ran the gamut from national hits — the Count Five’s “Psychotic Reaction,” the Beau Brummels’ “Laugh Laugh” — to regional obscurities such as the Merry-Go-Round’s “Live” and the Sonics’ “Strychnine,” all celebrating the DIY ethic of countless Beatles/Stones wannabes.

 It also surprised the heck out of Rhino (a division of AOL Time Warner, as is CNN.com).

“It sold four or five times what I expected,” says the label’s vice president of A&R, Gary Stewart, noting that sales tallied about 45,000 copies. (Sales of 20,000 copies of a box set is considered good.) The popularity of “Nuggets” cemented a decision, made even before “Nuggets” hit the stores, to do a sequel.

But what to focus on? Stewart and his colleagues decided to do anything but more American indie rock.

“We realized, rather than go to the next level of garage rock, there was a whole other world out there,” he says — a world of 1960s rock songs from locales ranging from Great Britain to Iceland, Peru and Czechoslovakia.

And so “Nuggets II” began, a box set that would feature more than 100 songs most Americans had never heard of.

…

What is on “Nuggets II” is still a record collector’s dream. There are bands that were big in their native countries, such as the Move, that never had a U.S. hit. There are bands that featured future stars (the Rolling Stones’ Ron Wood in the Birds, Yes’ Steve Howe in Tomorrow) and bands that were obscure even in their native lands.

 Best of all are the songs themselves. Sure, there are a couple recognizable tunes — “Friday on My Mind” and “Pictures of Matchstick Men” — but many are classics from Uruguay, the Netherlands, Denmark and Spain that likely would have been lost if not for Stewart and his merry band.

 

(click here to continue reading CNN.com – The making of a box set with ‘no hits’ – March 6, 2002.)

Pick up a copy of either if you can…

1. probably [↩]
2. officially called Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968  [↩]
3. officially known as Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond [↩]

CAN – The Lost Tapes

I am just unwrapping my copy of this; I haven’t heard it yet, but I’m already in a better mood…

Fifteen, twenty years ago, it would have been natural to respond to The Lost Tapes not just with astounded applause but with a rather lofty prescription: any group could learn a lot from close, repeated listening. It’s still true, of course, but in 2012 it seems a bit out of touch. In many ways Can – whose name so clearly dates them to a time before the internet search – were not like us, sat here with conflicting histories of everything, isolated by choice and by the new demands of our miserable lives. Living and working together was the point; the strengths of five individuals merged to create something greater, something uncontainable.

…

Can’s spontaneous, co-operative creativity hasn’t been weakened by time or by anything else; the music here sounds somehow even more potent, having outlasted all the cultural currents which carried it in. It sounds almost revolutionary again. Something unburdened by the self, or by self-consciousness; free of the past and the present.

Holger Czukay, somewhat professorial at the age of 30, joined Inner Space (the original name of the group formed by keyboard player Irmin Schmidt) on the understanding it would be a kind of art collective, a rather academic fusion of rock with the teachings of Karlheinz Stockhausen, he and Schmidt’s old teacher and mentor. In fact, from the sound of ‘Millionenspiel’, the opening track on this collection, Inner Space progressed very quickly to what would become the early Can sound (‘Millionenspiel’ is a psychedelicised Chantays on a surfin’ safari through medieval Europe and Jamaica in the 50s, far beyond the fumblings of the Prehistoric Future tape). Still, it was only when grainy-voiced Malcolm Mooney joined on vocals that Czukay grasped what could really be achieved. As he describes it in the sleeve notes to The Lost Tapes, “Stockhausen with a hell of a drive!”

That drive was Can’s trademark, powered not just by Mooney’s aggression but by Michael Karoli’s tattoo-needle guitar style and (especially) the drumming of Jaki Liebezeit, in which the delicacy and invention of jazz was applied to a series of rigidly mechanised beats, a kind of percussive hypnosis driving the others forward without fear. In time, as Mooney was replaced by the ethereal Damo Suzuki, the drive became more of a glide, the sound spun out until it was almost translucent, but the band retained its eerie power: heavy when featherlight, direct when delirious. In the glow of Schloss Norvenich, their hidey-hole near Cologne (then later at Inner Space Studios, a refurbished cinema in nearby Weilerswist), Can spent hours and days and nights and sunrises and sunsets playing. Everything was recorded, although not everything survived, because of the cost of tape, and – according to Schmidt in the sleeve notes – because of Liebezeit’s insistence on constant forward movement: “Erase!” These three discs have been assembled from a pile of rediscovered masters, pulled from a cupboard after nearly forty years, and if they’d been recorded this morning they’d sound like they came from the future.

Occasionally, the centre fails to hold and Can are pitched off in different directions: such is the price of freedom. Still, on those rare occasions where the music is slightly ragged, it remains relentlessly inventive. The single most jaw-dropping thing about Can was this unstoppable originality – what stands out most clearly here is that even at the point of exhaustion, where anyone else would fall back on shopworn blues riffs and keyboard-demo drum fills, Can were utterly incapable of cliché. And when all five members coalesce – which they do more often than not, more often than pretty much any other group who ever relied on improvisation and daring – the results are incomparable, sometimes indescribable.

(click here to continue reading The Quietus | Features | Constant Forward Movement: Taylor Parkes On Can’s Lost Tapes.)

so what are you waiting for? Money is for spending, not hoarding…

and this is a good definition of the band’s aesthetic as any:

The music of Can was never explicitly political, but it was always radical. A synthesis of Stockhausen, Sly & The Family Stone, ‘Sister Ray’ and Ornette Coleman would be musically incendiary at any time, but in these times it was more than that. Can’s aesthetic choices may have been instinctive, but they weren’t coincidental: they were drawn to African rhythms, to the music of Eastern European gypsies, to non-hierarchical systems, personally and musically (crucial to their sound was the abuse of those strict tonal relationships enforced by the Third Reich’s cultural guardians). They were, in Nazi parlance, Entartete Musik – degenerate music – taken almost to its limit. This was not necessarily a deliberate choice on their part. But with that mindset, in that country, at that point in history, there was no choice.

Rolling Stone Magazine has published a list of their top 70 Bob Dylan songs (and a few variant versions, mostly live versions, or bootleg versions with The Band in their Woodstock hoedown days) in the print edition called The 70 Greatest Dylan Songs – online has different lists, and their top ten Dylan songs. Of course I had to make an iTunes playlist for these songs, and am listening to it now.

Is Like A Rolling Stone my favorite Dylan song? No, probably not, but if I haven’t heard it in a while, I can appreciate it for the revolutionary track it is…

The next issue of Rolling Stone – on stands and in the digital archive on May 13th – celebrates Bob Dylan’s 70th birthday (happening on May 24th) by ranking his 70 greatest songs. Bono, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Jim James and many other artists discuss their favorite Dylan tracks. “Every songwriter after him carries his baggage,” Bono writes. “This lowly Irish bard would proudly carry his baggage. Any day.” 

If you come over to my house, I’ll let you listen to the MP3s. Or even better, pick up the box set called The Original Mono Recordings.

Sad news, Alex Chilton died, entirely too young.

“Radio City (33 1/3)” (Bruce Eaton)

“Keep An Eye On The Sky” (Big Star)

Pop hitmaker, cult hero, and Memphis rock iconoclast Alex Chilton has died.

The singer and guitarist, best known as a member of ’60s pop-soul act the Box Tops and the ’70s power-pop act Big Star, died today at a hospital in New Orleans. Chilton, 59, had been complaining of about his health earlier today. He was taken by paramedics to the emergency room where he was pronounced dead. The cause of death is believed to be a heart attack.

His Big Star bandmate Jody Stephens confirmed the news this evening. “Alex passed away a couple of hours ago,” Stephens said from Austin, Texas, where the band was to play Saturday at the annual South By Southwest Festival. “I don’t have a lot of particulars, but they kind of suspect that it was a heart attack.”

The Memphis-born Chilton rose to prominence at age 16, when his gruff vocals powered Box Tops massive hit “The Letter.” The band would score several more hits, including “Cry Like a Baby” and “Neon Rainbow.”

After the Box Tops ended in 1970, Chilton had a brief solo run in New York before returning to Memphis. He soon joined forces with a group of Anglo-pop-obsessed musicians, fellow songwriter/guitarist Chris Bell, bassist Andy Hummel and drummer Jody Stephens, to form Big Star.

The group became the flagship act for the local Ardent Studios’ new Stax-distributed label. Big Star’s 1972 debut album, #1 Record met with critical acclaim but poor sales. The group briefly disbanded, but reunited sans Bell to record the album Radio City. Released in 1974, the album suffered a similar fate, plagued by Stax’s distribution woes.

…

The group made one more album, Third/Sister Lovers, with just Chilton and Stephens — and it too was a minor masterpiece. Darker and more complex than the band’s previous pop-oriented material, it remained unreleased for several years. In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine would name all three Big Star albums to its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

[Click to continue reading Memphis music legend Alex Chilton dies » The Commercial Appeal]

I’ve loved Big Star for as long as I knew their music (probably late 1980s or early 1990s), and the box set, Keep an Eye on the Sky was my favorite collection of last year. Big Star rewards repeated listens, especially with headphones.

Sigh. I’m sure there will lots of obituaries around the web, Big Star and Alex Chilton had influence far beyond their units-sold¹.

“Third/Sister Lovers” (Big Star)

“#1 Record” (Big Star)

“Radio City” (Big Star)

1. like @CKlosterman: I have nothing to say about Alex Chilton that wouldn’t be better said by virtually any song he ever wrote. [↩]

Nothing great here to hear, but nothing objectionably bad either. I’m too mentally drained at the moment to bloviate about each track, so just imagine me telling you amusing anecdotes as to why these particular songs ended up in my library.

1. Luna- Fuzzy Wuzzy

   
   Pup Tent

2. Wells, Junior- So Tired

   
   Junior Wells 1957-1963: University Rock

3. Lennon, John- Born in a Prison

   
   Some Time In New York City

4. Iguanas, The- Flame On

   
   Plastic Silver 9-Volt Heart

5. Monk, Thelonious- Eronel

   
   The Complete Blue Note Recordings

6. Watson, Doc- Brown’s Ferry Blues

   
   The Vanguard Years

7. Beastie Boys- Do It

   
   Ill Communication

8. Malathini and the Mahotella Queens- Thokozile

   
   Thokozile

9. R.E.M.- I Don’t Sleep, I Dream

   
   Monster

10. Deadstring Brothers- Where Are All My Friends?

    
    For A Decade Of Sin: 11 Years Of Bloodshot Records

A few interesting links collected January 5th through January 8th:

• Letters of Note: Art is useless because… – Included in the preface to Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is the now famous and often misconstrued line, ‘All art is quite useless’. In fact, following the novel’s original publication in 1890, Oxford undergraduate Bernulf Clegg was so intrigued by the claim that he wrote to Wilde and asked him to elaborate. The following handwritten letter was Wilde’s response.
• The Airport Scanner Scam | Mother Jones – Beyond privacy issues, however, are questions about whether these machines really work—and about who stands to benefit most from their use. When it comes to high-tech screening methods, the TSA has a dismal record of enriching private corporations with failed technologies, and there are signs that the latest miracle device may just bring more of the same.
• 
• Buddyhead’s Best and Worst Records Of 2009 | BUDDYHEAD – Animal Collective – “Merriweather Post Pavilion”Lazy music journalists tried to act like these nerds armed with bongos and delay pedals were the second coming of The Beatles or some shit. Everyone from Mojo to Rolling Stone to Pitchdork seemed to have these fruitcakes somewhere in their top five records for 2009. These dudes couldn’t write a song if their lives depended on it, they are to songwriting what “Alvin and The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” is to cinema.

A surge I could believe in…

“Audio Technica AT-LP2D-USB Fully Automatic Stereo Turntable with USB Output, Includes Recording Software and Dual Magnet Cartridge” (AUDIO TECHNICA)

At a glance, the far corner of the main floor of J&R Music looks familiar to anybody old enough to have scratched a record by accident. There are cardboard boxes filled with albums by the likes of Miles Davis and the Beach Boys that could be stacked in any musty attic in America.

But this is no music morgue; it is more like a life-support unit for an entertainment medium that has managed to avoid extinction, despite numerous predictions to the contrary. The bins above the boxes hold new records — freshly pressed albums of classic rock as well as vinyl versions of the latest releases from hip-hop icons like 50 Cent and Diddy and new pop stars like Norah Jones and Lady Gaga.

And with the curious resurgence of vinyl, a parallel revival has emerged: The turntable, once thought to have taken up obsolescence with reel-to-reel and eight-track tape players, has been reborn.

[Click to continue reading Vinyl Record Albums and Turntables Are Gaining Sales - NYTimes.com]

If I had space, I’d love to have a room dedicated to a turntable, a quality headphone, and a wall of vinyl records. Sigh.

A few interesting links collected September 1st through September 2nd:

• Will Chicago See a Hotel Strike? – Chicagoist – Chicago's hotel workers are clocking in today without a union contract, as negotiators from UNITE-HERE Local 1 and the Hotel Employers Labor Relations Association has yet to reach an agreement on a new pact. The previous contract expired at last night at midnight. “It’s been a fight to even just get to the table,” a spokeswoman for the hotel workers’ union told Crain's. “We’re not close, and I think we’re looking at the possibility of a major fight.”
• Dithering: Jonny Greenwood: Sasha Frere-Jones : The New Yorker – "Q: Is the MP3 a satisfactory medium for your music?

  JONNY GREENWOOD: They sound fine to me"
  I would add, they sound fine if they are recorded at a high enough sample rate.

• Washington Post Crashed-and-Burned-and-Smoking Watch – And if it is indeed the case that the Washington Post is recycling the public views of ideologues, hacks, and torture-tourists like Marc Thiessen as inside scoops, then Finn, Warrick, and Tate granted anonymity to their sources because naming them would by itself discredit the story. There is a place for anonymous quotes in journalism, but this is not it.