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Outsight
Outsight: Hardcore's Not Dead
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Outsight brings to light non-mainstream music, film, books, art, ideas and opinions.
Published, somewhere, monthly since July 1991. Feel free to re-print this article.
Please, keep Outsight informed:
Email Outsight at outsight@usa.net
Ratings are (1) = :(, (5) = :)
Outsight Radio Hours Internet radio Webcasts with live interviews:
Sundays 6pm-8pm EST http://www.new-sounds.net
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HARDCORE'S NOT DEAD
However, watch all the great video footage on the D.O.A. Greatest Shits 1978-1998 DVD (Sudden Death Records) distributed by MVD and you may feel the patriarch of North American hardcore Joey Shithead draws as much from new wave as he does from hockey. This retrospective of the many faces of D.O.A. includes the cops busting up "Disco Sucks" (1978) on Canada Day, "War" (1982), the anti-capitalist "We Know What You Want" (1996), Joey preaching in The Badlands and much more. Joey gave us the algebra of activism: "Talk- Action = 0." Political awareness and direct action pervades the music and this is an important part of Joey's philosophy and he explains himself and the history of hardcore in the bonus documentary here that includes Jello Biafra, John Doe, Henry Rollins, David Grohl and Randy Bachman… D.O.A. also has a new split CD out with metal rocker Thor Are U Ready (Sudden Death/ThorToen). The title track is used by the Vancouver Canucks before hockey games.
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WILLIE BACKS KUCINICH
Willie Nelson is in Iowa radio ads supporting Dennis Kucinich for President. Heartland hero Willie Nelson narrates the ads running in the heartland. The theme of his radio message is that Congressman Kucinich is the candidate ready to fight for Americans "who need a stronger voice." The ads can be heard at http://kucinich.us/willienelson.htm. The goal of the spots is to continue to raise Kucinich's profile with voters. The radio spots will expand coverage in Iowa and then on to other states.
DVD Reviews *********************
Various Artists
J'ai été au Bal (I Went to the Dance)
Brazos Films
This is a film legendary filmmaker Les Blank (Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe, Burden of Dreams). It is a shining example of how any celebration of a roots genre should be. Les Blank takes us from the earliest roots of Cajun music springing from traditional French music of displaced Acadians mixing with Creoles to how the music continues to live and thrive in zydeco. Along the way there are numerous interviews and lots of great, live music. Clifton Chenier, Queen Ida, Michael Doucet, Wayne Toups and more are highlighted in this lively, entertaining and informative feature. It exists as not only a celebration and exploration of the Cajun-zydeco spectrum through first-person accounts and testimonials but a video encyclopedia of the history and variety of Louisiana's aural exports. (4)
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David Markey, filmmaker
Desperate Teenage Lovedolls
Eclectic DVD/We Got Power Films
This film is a Super 8 production with sound added after filming. For maximum enjoyment, prepare yourself to understand the film on every level. Start by seeing Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, because this is a send up of that Russ Meyer film. Then cut right to the making-of featurette and learn how David Markey took We Got Power from zines to films and of the explosive reaction of this film when originally released on the Los Angeles punk underground in 1984. The story of hard-fighting runaways was too close for Kim Fowley to his own story of creating The Runaways, or so says The Story of "Desperate Teenage Lovedolls" and We Got Power. There is a lot of great early West Coast punk here from Redd Kross, Nip Drivers, The Bags and more. Making appearances in the film are Los Angeles punk musicians Jeff McDonald (Redd Kross), Phil Newman, Vicki Peterson (Bangles), Annette Zilinskas (Bangles) and Dez Cadena (Black Flag, DC3, Redd Kross). DVD features include two trailers (including "The Lost Trailer"), director and executive producer commentary, outtakes, cast and crew bios, Redd Kross "Ballad Of A Lovedoll" video and more. (3)
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McLaughlin/De Lucia/Coryell
Meeting of the Spirits
Quantum Leap/MVD
This DVD preserves the essence of a historical summit as jazz-rock icons John McLaughlin and Larry Coryell meld with flamenco great Paco De Lucia. Paco proves the excellent and appropriate counter point to the other more cerebral two. Thus infused with Latin passion, the jazz/fusion pioneers lend themselves to create vibrant and compelling music including the McLaughlin piece that serves as the title here. This concert is taken from the 1979-198 European tour made by the supergroup trio. (4)
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Joe Louis Walker
In Concert
Inakustik/MVD
Joe Louis Walker, roommate to blues rock architect Mike Bloomfield in San Francisco during the late '60s, systematically leads a set of potentially fiery R&B in from of this German audience at a 1991 concert. However, Walker seems surpassed in energy by his band, especially the exhorting Chicago bassist Art Love. This was only a few years after Walker returned to secular electric soul-blues after a gospel stint. The way he pours his heart into a measured and emotional delivery of "The Gift", one can hear that is where is heart truly is. This was only a year after the two riveting sets cut live at Slim's that were the highpoint of his career. Huey Lewis amped up those shows on harp, but Walker plays the harmonica himself here and thus provides one of the concert's highlights. (3)
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CD Reviews *********************
FM Knives
Useless & Modern
Broken Rekkids
FM Knives has a distinct, post-punk power pop sound that makes Useless & Modern sound as if it were part of the Buzzcocks' discography at times like "I Love Alone". Other English punk pop can apply, like The Boys. The band is American, though, and derives from Sacramento punk bands Nar, Los Huevos, Lil' Bunnies and Karate Party. It is excellent, the best Buzzcocks album since A Different Kind of Tension. (3.5)
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Krakatoa
We are the Rowboats
Cuneiform Records
Cuneiform does a great service in bringing back into the light forgotten and important and often insanely rare albums. We are the Rowboats sounds as if it could be some krautrock-inspired prog rockers pushing their analog equipment to the limits in the '70s onto a forgotten and lost vinyl master. But indeed, this Brooklyn group is young and contemporary, although there influences are not so contemporary. Drawing off of King Crimson, Mothers of Invention and Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, Krakatoa produces wondrous and wildly divergent music full of drama. Bold violin (Glendon Jones) recalls the music of Curved Air. The dramatic element probably comes from the fact that musicians met as members of The Lost Art of Puppet Orchestra where they put on shadow puppet theater with live music. (4.5)
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Rich Halley Quartet featuring Bobby Bradford
The Blue Rims
Louie Records
Cornetist Bobby Bradford really spices up this instrumental acoustic jazz album from Rich Halley Quartet. Bradford well-seasons the half-dozen pieces here and seems to thus exhort Rich Halley (tenor saxophone) to wilder leaps. The two brass players alternately meld into a groove (end of "The River's Edge of Ice") or playfully toss back and forth melody fragments, keeping this disc varied and exciting. Rich Halley has been noted in Down Beat magazine for an exemplar circular breathing technique. Sax jazz aficionados will find much to admire as Halley stretches out in this disc, as the often-relaxed Bradford trumpet is excellent juxtaposition of Halley just as Bradford spurred John Carter on in that working relationship. (4)
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Comets On Fire
Comets On Fire
Alternative Tentacles
This is a wild ride of reckless abandon that recalls the early Butthole Surfers albums. This Santa Cruz band would have been on the early Rat Music for Rat People compilations, with groups like the Surfers and Big Boys. The cathartic, lysergic rock freak out also recalls the early, heavy Sub Pop sonic damage, like Lubricated Goat and the Blue Cheer-inspired Mudhoney. This is a CD reissue of the groups first LP, with six bonus tracks. (3.5)
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Clifton Chenier
The Best of Clifton Chenier - The King of Zydeco & Louisiana Blues
Arhoolie
Clifton Chenier is singularly responsible for blending the swamp sounds of French Creole music with the popular R&B sound to conjure up the still popular zydeco. This music is wild and exuberant ("Je me Reveiller le Matin (I Woke up this Morning)") or sincere and soulful ("I'm Coming Home") on this bilingual disc. Long-time Chenier producer Chris Strachwitz selected the tracks of this excellent, bluesy compendium from Arhoolie releases and included a previous unreleased alternate take of Chenier's signature zydeco anthem "Zydeco Sont pas Sale (Snap Beans Without Salt)". Chenier left this world in 1987 and the final track here is a 15:30 1978 radio interview with Chenier that allows us to here Strachwitz gently pull from Chenier the story of fusing the traditional Louisiana accordion music with some fiery R&B. (4)
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The Moglass
The Moglass
Nexsound Records
This is an album of cinematic, sweeping instrumental electronica ala Tangerine Dream. Guitar and bass manipulations suggest a Fred Frith influence. However, the influence the band offers is Paul Bowles books. Just as the desert is itself a character in The Sheltering Sky, the most famous of Bowles' books, so does this music suggest a haunting impressionism of the yawning emptiness of The Sahara that lied to the south of Bowles' adopted Tangiers. (3)
James Mathus Knockdown Society
Stop and Let the Devil Ride
Fast Horse Recordings
James Mathus recorded of down-home rock in a country-blues vein at the Kudzu Ranch studio of Rick Miller from like-minded Southern Culture on the Skids. Knockdown Society is like that, but without the humor. Instead that emotion is largely replaced with a big-bottom Chicago blues intent, as heard in Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. The pronounced backbeat in this trio comes from the rhythm section. That team is made up of Mathus' former bandmate in Squirrel Nut Zippers Stu Cole (bass) with Nate Stalfa on drums. (4.5)
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Dressy Bessy
Dressy Bessy
Kindercore Records
This is a fun album of summer fun. The vocals from Tammy Ealom and charming and smiling lyrics of power pop fun, like an '80s summer but the fuzzed guitars is a '60s AM summer. This is the delicate but bouncy midpoint between Sleater-Kinney and Davie Allan. There is a warm restraint to the music that buzzes along with girl power pop offering catchy choruses with a wink and nothing ostentatious. (3.5)
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The Shods
Tippy
Poorhouse Records
Kevin Stevenson's Boston punk band The Shods uses all kinds of studio tricks like sound bites and edits to dress up the excellent lead track "A Drink to Forget". This signals that this post-punk rock band likes to have fun with its music and thus its keeps the tracks rich and varied. The music is so cheeky and the guitar can be so twangy that the result is often a cross between pub rock like Peter and the Test Tube Babies and humorous roots rock like Tommy Womack (Bis-quits). (3)
Eels
Shootenanny!
DreamWorks Records
This album from Eels is a bit more relaxed. There is less hand waving for attention here. This is a more mature indie rock/soul-blues side of mysterious E. The son of many-worlds physicist Hugh Everett III, E (Mark Oliver Everett) now shows us one of his many worlds in an honest and revealing album full of autobiography and songs about love. Thus eschewing the bombast and hard rock reveling of the earlier works, this song-oriented album kicks back into lush but not over-powering arrangements of a rock combo with keyboards, horns, harmonica and Lisa Germano on violin. (4)
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Jonas Hellborg
Temporal Analogues of Paradise
Bardo Records
This is the remastered and repackaged Temporal Analogues of Paradise, a live recording originally released in 1996. The trio on this album is Hellborg (bass), Shawn Lane (guitar) and Jeff "Apt. Q-258" Sipe on drums. The two tracks (each about one half-hour) in length) are elaborate and engrossing instrumental conversations between these masters of rock improvisation. Jeff Sipe, who was early on part of Col. Bruce Hampton and the Aquarium Rescue Unit, sees this album as monumental, a personal achievement in his own career and skill-building as well as a perfection of spontaneous composition in practice that he never saw in even ARU. (4.5)
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William Parker
Scrapbook
Thirsty Ear
William Parker has a wonderful and creative tendency to become part of unique and fascinating combos. That is his combos are not The William Parker Experience, but Parker part of a new and fascinating thing. Here Hamid Drake (drums) and colorful violinist Billy Bang fuse into a kaleidoscope of sound. This violin trio features Parker sometimes in a supporting rhythm role and sometimes leading with a fractured and angular melody. The theme of this album is Parker's lifetime memories so that each track is a piece of autobiographical impressionism for Parker. (4.5)
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Suzy Bogguss
Swing
Compadre
When Bogguss performs "My Dream is You" it seems as if the singer may have always sung jazz standards, but this album is a stylistic departure for the neo-traditionalist pop-country artist. Her dream was a swinging album and she has a lot of fun with such swinging numbers as "Straighten Up and Fly Right". She even dips into the songbook of criminally underrated hipster Dan Hicks to come up with "Sweetheart (Waitress in a Donut Shop)". Asleep at the Wheel guitarist Ray Benson is on hand to help get the proper mix of western swing and traditional jazz as are other present and past members of Asleep at the Wheel. (4)
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Marilyn Manson
The Golden Age of Grotesque
Nothing/Interscope
The formula for industrial rock is pretty simple and, some may think, used up. But on The Golden Age of Grotesque, continues to prove he make it sound fresh and new as he renews his clarion calls for violent individuality in a censorship-free arena ("Use Your Fits and Not Your Mouth"). One of the standout tracks is "mOBSCENE" and Manson uses a chorus of young-sounding girls there. He employs a self-deprecating attitude in "Ka-boom Ka-boom" which allows him to sell more records and still not alienate his core audience. While Nine Inch Nails and Ministry produced excellent albums in this genre before Manson, Manson has now produced more work of quality and import and worthy of consideration in the same formula. (4)
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Jodi Shaw
The Pie-Love Sky
Big Head Records
Steve Addabo (Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, Dar Williams) produces this sophomore release from the cogently lyrical neo-folk artist Jodi Shaw. The talented lyricist's words in sophisticated arrangements recall witty lyrics and developed songs of The Beautiful South. Jodi herself has a basic, direct delivery that recalls Edie Brickel or Natalie Merchant. The songs tend to have a narrative quality exemplified by the captivatingly complicated spy story "The President Knows". "But while you were dreaming/The lilies were screaming" is a cunning couplet from "Dumbo's Feather" and is the class of vivid metaphor that calls out from this excellent album of songs delivered in a charming and sweet voice. (4.5)
Dear John Letters
Stories of Our Lives
Foodchain Records
Dear John Letters is a song-oriented indie pop group featuring singer-songwriter Robb Benson (Nevada Bachelors). This is definitely accessible music in touch with the times. "Creation Myth" could be a deconstructed reflection of "Mr. Jones" (Counting Crows). But in this song, coming as it does from a sparse and repetitive but honest, compelling and bubbling arrangement the throat-wrecking yell in the chorus marks this as a song to real and personal for true commodification. Going in the other direction, songs like "Sorry to Sorry" sound like one of the revealing Daniel Johnston "songs of pain" built up to reach a wider, college audience. (3.5)
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Barefoot
Only Souvenirs
Boss Tuneage Records
This is ambitious, melodic punk that yearns to be the memorable anthem to someone's first year out of high school. One can envision each song (they're all similar) as the dramatic piece that plays at the end of gen-this-year movie as all the transformed characters run out of the school doors, shown from a high crane shot. However, revisiting that movie a few years later proves it to be not as important as was remembers. These sweet songs are "pretty in pink" but will fade under the harsh glare of solar scrutiny. (2)
Sylvie
I Wish I Was Driving
Boss Tuneage
It is a hard art to make compelling, song-oriented music with a noisy, clamorous vein through much of it. Sonic Youth is a rare example of getting it right. This earnest Canadian combo offers a ten-song debut that veers from sonic cataclysm to indie-pop charm without ever finding a durable, post-hardcore formula that works. (2.5)
Dennis Most
Wire my Jaw
Bacchus Archives
This is a rugged gem of early American punk with a hard-rock/metal influence that includes zany leads ("Cleareyed Man"). No, scratch that, this is a new recording of a band that made metallic proto-punk in the late '70s. However, it sounds like a time capsule and they even put a picture of them in their period best (suspenders, horizontal stripes, blazer with button on lapel) on the cover. No, actually it is both. You can compare for yourself, because the first five tracks are loud, bombastic new recordings and the next ten are from various studio sessions 1983-1990. This section also includes two live cuts from Dennis Most's AudioLove band in December 1976 as well as a live version of "Excuse my Spunk" by Dennis Most & The Instigators which became a punk collectible as a single. The sound here is much thinner than the first part, but the attitude and punk-rock-looking-back-to-hard-rock style remains consistent in these Most projects. (3.5)
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Bob Hocko and the Swamp Rats
Disco Still Sucks!
Get Hip
Listen to the electric soul of "In the Midnight Hour" and you will know why this McKeesport, PA combo kept the stages and 45 RPM players smoking as late '60's human jukeboxes of the Pittsburgh scene. What drives their impassioned covers of "Tobacco Road", "Louie Louie" and more is a two-guitar front of crushing fuzz that could have been scrapped from the bottom of a gravel pit. A standout track of this compilation of standouts is the cover of The Sonics' "Psycho" with its bi-directional editing. Putting together this backmasking with all the other psycho-rock tracks makes for all the singles plus four vaults including a bluesy "I'm Going Home" and a cover of The Kinks' "She's Got Everything." Extensive liner notes with plenty of photos and excellent sound quality make this a winning package. (4.5)
The Spectors
Beat is Murder
Get Hip
This anthology is aptly subtitled Cockfights & Cakefights 1992-1996. The suitably describes the almost schizophrenic dichotomy of two extremes in the two-tone style spectrum of The Spectors. On one end are the confection love songs ("cake") of "The Trains", "That Girl is Leaving Town", etc. Then there is the unfetter freakouts of "Lunch Box", "Gotta Sow my Wild Oats", etc. Alternating the songs gives the album the feel of a classic Brit Mod compilation. As Phil Spector created great music of a genius prone to violence, so do the liner notes her let us in on a history of a band as anger on fire with a love for melody. This Minneapolis combo grew out of The Funseekers and was a Midwest secret. This sweet-and-sour compendium should get them the wider audience they deserve. (4)
Lightweight Holiday
Lightweight Holiday
Porterhouse
Lightweight Holiday, indeed, this album of buoyant indie pop features multiple members of the male quartet singing the vocals to cheery ditties with a full bevy of multiple guitars filling out the tracks. Nothing heavy here, it is all light and airy songs to lighten your mood. It is from Cincinnati that this ensemble hails, and the place themselves on the Ohio rock spectrum equidistant from the guitar-punk assault of the The Dead Boys and the sophisticated songwriting of The Pretenders. (2.5)
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Th' Legendary Shack*Shakers
CockADoodleDon't
Bloodshot Records
This country-fried boogie 'n' roll album runs the gamut of Southern references from Hank Williams to The Kentucky Headhunters and recalls, at points, the psychobilly of The Cramps. "CB Song" is a comical trucker imitating Elvis Presley through his aerial and "Shake Your Hips" starts off with those John Lee Hooker riffs that so enthralled ZZ Top that it was tempted into plagiarism ("La Grange") before launching into that Chicago blues sound (Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters) that the delta bluesman brought north with him. (4)
The New Christs
We Got This!
Smog Veil Records
This group features vocalist Rob Younger, formerly of Radio Birdman. The Australian modern rock group delivers it hard and fast in a late-period Iggy Pop style, but without ever rising to the level of anything compelling. This latest release from Younger's two-decade-old recording project with numerous personnel changes in its life refuses to gel into a cohesive victory of experience, passion and rock-n-roll. (2)
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Various Artists
Guitar Ace - Link Wray Tribute
MuSick
The Link Wray formula of power chords, down strokes for emphasis and liberal use of distortion remains the basic hard rock formula today. Two-dozen bands fete Link Wray, as one of the principal architects of this approach, here. Fleshtones, Southern Culture on the Skids, Calexico, Gore Gore Girls, Boss Martians, Woggles and Hypnomen are among the acts on the tribute. The new versions of the songs on this compilation reach from Wray's early '50s material ("Raw-Hide") into obscure '70s sides ("Fallin' Rain"). Excellent liner notes from this raucous compendium compare the each original version to the band's approach. (4.5)
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Leyton Buzzards
The Punk Collection
Ahoy
This collection of Leyton Buzzard punk tracks starts off with a bang, the lead track being its debut 1978 anthemic Small Wonder Records single "19 & Mad". Things get bitterer with the suicidal "Youthanasia" (also off SMALL 7), but what really gets things going is the bouncy, jubilant ode to bar nights "Saturday Night Beneath the Plastic Palm Trees". This is the Leyton Buzzards spectrum, from proto-Oi working class street punk to dub-influenced melodic punk that recalls The Clash. (4)
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The Revillos
Jungle of Eyes
Ahoy
This is the CD debut for the third, previously unreleased studio album by The Revillos. This is the band formed after The Rezillos by singers Fay Fife and Eugene Reynolds. This new project started with a bang in the triumphant and campy Rev Up! (This is also re-issued on Ahoy.) However, this third album in the group's discography does not back the same oomph as that album. The group still strives for a full new wave sound employing several singers and added instrumentation. Much of the sense of humor is absent and the sound is rather thin. Jungle of the Eyes, while a necessity for completists and new wave fans in general, moves more into then territory of Wham and Tears for Fears than is necessary. (3)
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Kick Joneses
Tales of Discontent
Boss Tuneage
This post-punk indie hard rock group from Germany sings in English. The band's fast, revved up material lacks any compelling style, though. The group adds trumpets to its rock lineup without referencing anything as cool as ska-core. The group also occasionally uses organ without ever channeling the spirits of rowdy psych-rockers of the '60s. (2.5)
Ipanema
Je Suis Un Baseball Bat Vs. Skull
Boss Tuneage
This is a trio formed from Serpico. The power trio delivers fast, hard rock with nods to punk. The vocals reach for upper registers taking a falsetto route. Nothing here proves very memorable. This is a two-song CDEP, so it may be early to judge to group as it gets its sea legs in the indie scene. (2)
Doughboys
La Majeure 1987
Boss Tuneage
This 3-song CD is from the first demo sessions done by Doughboys in 1987. It was on the strength of these demos that Doughboys got their debut LP out on Pipeline Records. The peppy indie rock on this album draws off punk and hardcore as well as some subtle pop references through the use of piano. (3)
Jerry J. Nixon
Gentleman of Rock 'n' Roll
Voodoo Rhythm
A mysterious drifter from England, Jerry J. Nixon got the idea in Santa Fe, New Mexico to do what Elvis Presley was doing and start a career as a rock 'n' roll singer. With Nixon it comes out more like Johnny Cash with Bobby Fuller with Dave Alvin. It is a heavier, more visceral sound than that we get from The King. Taking more cues from Bill Haley Nixon joined in the Mexican radio revolution and this compilation of singles starts with a border station interview in Spanish. This is an excellent compendium of early rock from one of the unsung pioneers. Excellently packaged, this CD includes a CD booklet with the whole Nixon story. (4.5)
The Del-Monas
Do the Uncle Willy
Get Hip Recordings
The three ladies of The Del-Monas are astute curators of a '60s garage rock sound. Listening to cuts as the title track, it is hard not to believe these are not songs of Nuggets-like lost 45s unearthed in the dilapidated warehouse of some of jukebox distributor. But, no, this is original, new material from the talented throwback trio. (3.5)
Freddy & The Four-Gone Conclusions
Wigged Out Sounds
Get Hip Recordings
This is a new project of neo-garage rock from Detroit. Freddy Fortune (Fortune & Maltese) gathered psychedelic rock talent from greater Detroit to put together this two-guitar jangle-rock album with many guests. One of the guests is Max Crook. Crook was Del Shannon's original keyboard player. He lends his distinctive sound to the Shannon song "Stand Up" on this album with, as the liner notes say, " his late '50s, custom-built, Musitron keyboard." The songs boast well-executed harmonies and an authentic, vintage sound courtesy of Jim Diamond production.(4.5)
Holly Golightly
Truly She is None Other
Damaged Goods
Holly Golightly's musical career started in the all-girl garage band Thee Headcoatees, a splinter from Billy Childish's Thee Headcoats, in 1991. Rather than the raucous, primitive garage rock of Thee Headcoatees, this solo album is sophisticated mostly original songs smoothly and patiently delivered with a '60s rock feel when blues, folk and psychedelic influences altered the face of pop music. A talented songwriter with nearly a dozen albums to her credit, Golightly here gives us an excellent new chapter in her creativity after an unusual recording hiatus of two years. (4)
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The Gits
Frenching the Bully
Broken Rekids
This is a re-release by Broken Rekids of the 1992 C/Z issue. It was the murder of vocalist Mia Zapata that caused Joan Jett to form Evil Stig with the remaining members to raise money for the investigation. Setting all that aside, Frenching the Bully is an exciting West Coast punk rock album that deserver to remain in print on its own merits. Among the bonus material here is eight songs from a June, 1993 concert. The album serves as an excellent showcase of Mia's somewhat feminist punk assault delivered with her rugged voice. (3.5)
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Michelle Malone
Stompin' Ground
Daemon Records
Michelle Malone is a powerfully voiced folk-rock singer in the style of Sheryl Crow and Lucinda Williams. In her rockin' blues songs she channels the early days of '60s electric rock when the muses of folk, blues and electric rock mixed freely. The fast-tempo shuffle of "2 Horns and 2 Wings" could easily be an early electric Dylan nugget. The whole album exudes both this energy and those roots on this historically aware album of roots rock showcasing rock songs and compelling ballads ("Moanin' Coat"). The recurring blues theme here causes this album to recall Bonnie Raitt as times. (4)
Oliver Mtukudzi
The Oliver Mtukudzi Collection: The Tuku Years (1998-2002)
Putumayo
Zimbabwe's Oliver Mtukudzi delivered his "tuku music" with a stylistic consistency of bright, buoyant that caused this singer-guitarist to be one of the most reliable and recognized name in Afro-pop. This giant in African contemporary music is here celebrated with tracks culled from his peak years with South African producer Steve Dyer. Two live tracks complement the eight studio selections. Undeniably joyous and sunny, this is an album of instantly accessible, uplifting music. (4)
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10 Ft. Ganja Plant
Midnight Landing
ROIR
This roots reggae project with a distinctive '70s reggae feel is integrated with Ithaca, New York's John Brown's Body. Exactly what common membership there is remains a mystery, as is much of the inner details of this reclusive group. Tapping into Lee "Scratch" Perry's "black art" sound and the pioneer Jamaica studios like Channel One, Midnight Landing is a time machine back to the renaissance years of reggae. Damp with reverb and shining with sub-tropical sun and hedonism, this is a top-notch album with vocalist that deserves kudos. (If only I could praise him by name.) (4.5)
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Urban Waste
Urban Waste
Hungry Eye Records/<a href="http://www.MATWRecords.com">Mad at the World Records
This reissue of Urban Waste's 1982 EP is eight-tracks of clamorous and cathartic noise-punk that in each song reaches the heights of Circle Jerks' "Live Fast, Die Young". While this has the same loose and dramatic appeal of other West Coast seminal punk acts as Germs and Weirdos, this is an early downtown NYC band. The hard-edged music leans toward hardcore, but is much too spastic and trebly to be pigeonholed into that genre. This is the first legitimate release since the album's debut. Here this and know why Agnostic Front frontman Roger Miret said, "Urban Waste is the band that got me into hardcore. I was more into punk and then I heard Urban Waste and I was like 'Yes! I love this!" (4)
riotgun./Bullet Treatment
Strength to Endure: A Tribute to Ramones and Motörhead
Basement Records
Both Motörhead and Ramones recorded the Ramones tribute "R.A.M.O.N.E.S." and both bands do that song here. Bullet Treatment covers Ramones material and Motörhead is covered by riotgun. Both bands play, fast hard rock and this is good for delivery of the Motörhead material, but the joy and pop punk spirit of Ramones songs gets buried in this approach. (3)
Constantines
Nighttime
Sub Pop Records
This Canadian emo-core ensemble won over Juno Awards nominators, Exclaim! readers and Eye critics with its explosive debut. This four-song EP release marked by haunting, repeated phrases is another album of cathartic indie soul-core delivered in measured might like a slow-motion replay of large-building implosions. The art of Constantines is to deliver emotional, compelling songs that never turn sappy due to the restrained violence of understated electric guitars and deliberately meted out drum rhythms that turn the sincerity sinister. Fans of the early Fugazi albums, like Repeater, will dig this. (4)
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Various Artists
Home on the Range, Vol. 2
The Bingo Lady Record Collective/Eleven:11
www.eleven11.net
This is a compilation of indie rock from pop to the hard stuff. As usual the mixture of styles is going to resonate as a mixture of quality in the ear of the listener. Also, as usual, there are highpoints that are worth exploring suggesting bands one would want to hear more of. The collection starts out with the sweet confection of song-oriented indie pop. 1090CLUB's "Son of Two Minute Pop Song" is just that, then the female-led Hypocrite Like Me offers "Trainwreck". This is a ska-like ballad that recalls the Skatalites and friends collaboration Tricia & The Supersonics Miss Jamaica Meets The Skatalites (Moon Ska). From such very safe fare, this album veers into challenging experimental sounds that I find very intriguing. The noisy trio of such sonic alchemy is Loopian Zu "Charged Oubt-Patients", PCRV "What Makes you Smile Will Ultimately Kill You" and Spurge "Tenitis". (3)
Various Artists
Public Service
Puke N Vomit Records, POB 3435, Fullerton, CA 92834
members.cox.net/2toneunityboi/pnv/
This is the CD debut of the seminal Public Service compilation with Bad Religion, Circle One, Redd Kross, Disability, and RF7. This takes us to before Bad Religion's progressive multi-instrument debut. The compilation finds the band, like its colleagues, performing primitive, dark, clamorous nasal punk. Redd Kross would actually have been Red Cross, at the time, before its necessitated name change. Here Redd Kross gives blood for the future of snotty punk rock with three songs that later appear on Born Innocent (Smoke 7, 1982). RF7 later reformed in the mid-Nineties, but this is the earliest recording I have heard from them and vocalist Felix Alanis produced Born Innocent. Disability is so obscure that I have never heard of them before. Of Disability's three songs here "White as a Ghost" is among the best produced and catchiest on the album. (4)
Various Artists
American Lullaby
Ellipsis Arts
In this compilation, Ellipsis Arts gathers together America's finest voices to sings its lullabies. Everything fits with sleepy-time, even when it is unexpected, such as "Resophonic Lullaby" by The Moonlights on Hawaiian steel guitar and "Home on the Range" with extra verses by folk figure and champion yodeler Bill Staines. Meanwhile, Maria Muldaur is on hand for "Prairie Lullaby" and bluegrass belle Kathy Kallick delivers Woody Guthrie's "Hobo's Lullaby". (4.5)
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Various Artists
Angola Prison Spirituals
Arhoolie
This is a set of 22 tracks recorded by Dr. Harry Oster. It features Robert Pete Williams as vocalist and/or guitarist on several tracks. The late '50s recordings are compelling and starkly spiritual. There is little to no background noises so that this appears to be more of a studio recording than field recording, no matter how makeshift the studio Oster may have used at Angola. This is the entire original LP with a full nine more tracks added to the programming. (4)
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Kittens for Christian
Privilege of your Company
Serjical Strike
If you like Birthday Part and early music from The Cure, you will appreciate the dark sounds of this retro gothic project. This is recommended if you like The Pixies and early albums from Wire. The doom-inflected repetition of lyrics and crude electronic rhythms with looping angular guitar all serves to give this that '80s gothic feel. (3)
Bruno Råberg
Ascensio
Orbis Music
Bruno Råberg's Boston jazz ensemble slides fluidly between traditional, structured jazz and more free approaches. All his subdued and melodic in the final listening, the point being to entertain the listener, not challenge. Bruno Råberg's bass holds up the acoustic, instrumental jazz here. The horns of Phil Grenadier (trumpet) and Allan Chase (saxophones) provide the main melodic elements. Crisp, swinging drums are courtesy Marcello Pellitteri. (4)
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Hot Club de Norvège
White Night Stories
Hot Club Records
We have heard Hot Club with fiery gypsy jazz. This time the ensemble joins with sometimes collaborator Ola Kvernberg (violin) before a symphony orchestra. The orchestra tries to be lush without being overwhelming but hot jazz is one thing an orchestra cannot be. An ensemble does not have the agility for that sort of performance. On "White Night" Ola so totally subsumes gypsy passion as to be a theremin wail, but the fusion with the orchestra is a thing of beauty. When beauty is done and it is time for fire, the spirited display by Ola on "Leave it All" gives the orchestra only one choice of reaction: full rest. (3)
African Head Charge
Shrunken Head
On-U Sound
Like a shrunken fits cranial content into a smaller area, so this collection fits a quarter century of African Head Charge into a single CD. This psycho-electric African-oid post-dub project is built around percussionist Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah. With a Lee Perry heart, this compendium includes such gems as "Far Away Chant". Featuring the vocals of Prince Far I this song, slowed to one-half speed, was the soundtrack to the torture scene in he David Lynch film Wild at Heart. (4)
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Various Artists
Punk Rock is Your Friend: Kung Fu Records Sampler #4
Kung Fu Records
When surveying the neo-punk landscape I mostly see amplified mediocrity and angst over melody. However, whenever I encounter a Kung Fu Records sampler, I recall there is a whole label of peppy and upbeat pop punk that provides memorable and worthwhile music. The eighteen tracks of music (Vandals "I Can't Wait" is an unlisted bonus) are enhanced with six video tracks. As if this were not enough Neil Hamburger is on hand as "host" delivering goofy lines between most of the songs. It is a great way to find about new bands. My personal discovery on this budget sampler: Tsunami Bomb. (4)
Summer Hymns
Clemency
Misra
Made nearly melancholy be a southern summer of sun and humidity, this is a lazy album of wide grins and relaxed melody. "Upon Your Face" is a standout track with its catchy lyrics and funky but muted electric organ with slide guitar. That Organ comes from Dottie Alexander (Of Montreal) who adds clarinet. This album resides at the crossroads of something traditional and folksy with some indie experimental pop approach. Clemency takes a hipster's '60s album collection and fuses it with that Elephant 6 philosophy that keeps arising out of Georgia. The result is a peaceful paradise of psychedelic porch pop. (4.5)
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Outsight is non-mainstream music news and views. The content is wholly based on new releases and a focus on the the eclectic and overlooked.
