Tag Archives: noise

MOTION FLARES, ESKIMO JOKERS + COSMIC GLANCES

I’m back in Portland, and have a few housekeeping announcements… I have two pieces in the latest issue of Signal to Noise, including reviews of a recent Eskimo King/Afternoon Penis split LP on Abandon Ship Records, and the debut solo release from Ken Camden on Kranky.

I also have two pieces in the summer issue of Paris Transatlantic — read the review of Roger Tellier-Craig’s tape ‘Motion Flares’ on Root Strata here and the review of Usurper and Sticky Foster’s self-titled collaboration on Chocolate Monk here.

Also the Christian Wolff/John Tilbury/Howard Skempton/Robert Worby transcript is a gem — I love the long-form pieces on PT the most:

Tilbury: The great Thelonious Monk – one of my favourite pianists, along with Dinu Lipatti and Clifford Curzon – he said that, “I made all the wrong mistakes.” I know exactly what he meant, having improvised a lot over the years. Nothing you do sounds right; whatever you do, it always seems wrong. Your mistakes seem wrong, your decisions seem wrong. You feel you want to walk off the stage. And sometimes if you are in the company of people like Eddie Prévost and Keith Rowe, you can actually do that. You can stop and say “Bugger this. I’m off. I’ll leave it to them to clear up the mess. Let them sort it out.”

The rest is here.

we don’t need people / to be alone

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>nace under time constraints

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>amen dunes, total reverbed-out jandek/neil young vibe from this nyc duo

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>metalux takes over ithaca. charms the fellows at the bars (‘you look really intelligent.’) using the alias ‘hepatitis c’ and/or ‘sun ra.’

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>throbbing gristle flavor / oscillator hummmmm ecstasy

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>nace playing nice

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>talk talk talk talk

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>jones with the intense eye contact

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>gettin ready to gettin gone. mmmm good times as usual. this is slowly turning into the most killer summer ever.

victims of space

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i leave you wanting everything you like best

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the utterly selfish aspect of booking concerts is that i only arrange shows for musicians that i personally would want to see. there’s nothing altruistic about the endeavor, other than the happy coincidence of taste overlap within the community.

i can’t imagine a better example of this than bringing the magik markers to ithaca – a fiercely smart duo that would probably never visit our town otherwise, given ithaca’s prediliction to boring rock and well-treaded jam idioms. this show – friday, june 26 – is my quintessential breath of fresh air. not to mention the industrial metallic clank and creak of mouthus and the free improv weightlessness of american sphinx creating the veritable bill of the summer.  fuck, i’m excited.

a curse on the coast

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i always get a little bit sad when a show ends and the musicians move on to their next destination.

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is it post-partum depression for the music promoter?

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either way, you kind of just don’t want the night to end.

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heavy keyboard drones made me want to clutch my stomach in happiness

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and west coast blown-out psych fuzz that was so mind-meltingly loud i regretted the absence of earplugs.

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post-show shenanigans with ‘would you rather’ & red wine until 3am. it all resulted in quite the killer evening.

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i mean, who can say good-bye to these boys.

sudden oak claims ithaca

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so so, summer begins & shows are underway. tomorrow, the first of three shows in the month of june. thursday at the state of the art gallery – a lovely, intimate and open  space – a popcorn youth show. come early for snacks, come at 8pm for music, stay until 11pm to catch the love story [keir neuringer], american sphinx, swanox, and sudden oak. san francisco palm tree vibes meets german komische psych rock. $5 for this veritable buffet of music. [popcorn youth]