Outsight
Outsight: Distro Deals and Disc Reveals
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Outsight brings to light non-mainstream music, film, books, art, ideas and opinions.
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NEWS AND VIEWS *******************
CD BABY PARTNERS WITH MP3.COM
MP3.com chose independent music retailer CD Baby to facilitate the fulfillment and customer service backend for artists selling pre-existing CDs from their MP3.com artist pages. MP3.com artists now have the opportunity to place their music in CD Baby's online store as well as have the CDs warehoused in the company's Portland headquarters alongside the 11,500 independent titles that CD Baby currently distributes. MP3.com promotes and sells music from 180,000 artists on MP3.com.
The arrangement places MP3.com's existing membership in the ranks of the 11,000 plus artists that already call CD Baby home. Over 1,500 artists already affiliated with both organizations had their official CDs automatically linked from their MP3.com page to their page within the CD Baby store. CD Baby handles all transactions, shipping and customer service for CDs purchased on CD Baby (http://www.cdbaby.com/)
PORCUPINE TREE SIGNS WORLDWIDE DEAL WITH LAVA ATLANTIC
London’s Porcupine Tree, the group led by multi-instrumentalist Steven Wilson, inked a global agreement with Lava/Atlantic Records. They are now recording their seventh studio record and first for the new label. The high watermark for the group was their 1996 album Signify (Delerium). Generally acknowledged as an excellent album, this is also the element of their discography thought to best represent the Porcupine Tree live experience. That successful album apparently nurtured a desire for greater popularity resulting in the dismal, song-based Stupid Dream (Snapper/K-Scope, 1999). In the Autumn of 2001, Delerium released Stars Die – The Delerium Years box set, which presents an overview of the 1991 to 1997 Delerium catalogue and will hopefully garner a reaction to steer the group away from the mainstream and back to the art. Visit the Website at http://www.porcupinetree.com.
Hear or Buy Porcupine Tree at CDnow
MORDAM TO DISTRIBUTE ALIVE RECORDS & DISASTER RECORDS
Beginning January 2002 Mordam Records exclusively distributes Alive Records & Disaster Records from the Bomp! family of labels. Alive Records joined with pioneer Bomp! Records in 1993. It focuses on high-energy music: punk, Detroit-psych and primitive rock 'n' roll. Groups that released titles on the imprint include Thee Michelle Gun Elephant, U.S. Bombs, G.G. Allin, The Streetwalkin' Cheetahs, and plenty more. Disaster Records came about in 1998, when professional skater Duane Peters (U.S. Bombs, The Hunns), decided to start his own record label dedicated to street punk rock. Besides Peters’ groups the Disaster Records catalog features records from Smogtown, The Richmond Sluts and more. Ruth Schwartz founded Mordam Records in 1983. It is the exclusive home to over thirty important independent record labels and publications. The roster includes Alternative Tentacles, Sympathy For The Record Industry and many others. In 2001 Mordam added New Red Archives, Scooch Pooch, The Cramps’ Vengeance Records and others.
Hear or Buy Mordam Records on CDNow
Hear or Buy Alive on CDNow
Hear or Buy Disaster on CDNow
DVD REVIEWS ***********************
Guided By Voices
The Who Went Home And Cried
http://www.musicvideodistributors.com/
Guided By Voices are at the heart of the lo-fi indie rock movement. There is little that is more lo-fi than the half-dozen tracks performed here by the group as they jam on singer Robert Pollard's porch in Dayton, Ohio. This informal open-air performance is captured with a video camera’s microphone. This is the musical central portion of an afternoon and evening’s progression to a show that is the final appearance for the bass player. This performance is only partially presented in muddy sound, but bonus footage on the DVD includes nine selections with adequate sound captured at the Whisky in Los Angeles." (2)
More on this video title from CDNow
Miklos Jancso, Director
The Red and The White
Kino on Video
http://www.kino.com/
In The Red and The White, Hungary’s Miklos Jancso (Silence and Cry, My Way Home, The Roundup) plunges us into the anonymous, confused melee in one of the shifting, 21 fronts of the Russian 1918 Civil War. A beleaguered monastery turned hospital is the central location of this opus, filmed grandly in black & white Cinemascope. Ushering us to this place is arbitrary cruelty, sudden death and ready debasement. The shirtless Bolshevik Reds, battling the uniformed royalist Whites in the role of hunted in a demeaning game, collect at the monastery and gather their wits. No attempt is made at character development as they strive to continue their existence; the soldiers of both sides are nameless, impersonal. The Reds’ overall hopelessness is broken by periods of individual triumph and escapes and boils down to a call for rescuing cavalry. However, their final slaughter on hillside leaves only a moment for honored remembrance by the cavalry that arrives too late. Since history tells us of the Whites’ eventual fall, this episode of useless death in the Whites’ favor underscores the absurdity and wastefulness of war as Jancso intends. (3)
More on this video title from CDNow
Peter Clifton, Director
London Rock & Roll Show
Cleopatra/MVD
The August 5, 1972, London Rock and Roll Revival show was a summit led by such rock founders as Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Bill Haley and Chuck Berry. Hippies, Teddy Boys (‘50’s wannabes), bikers and pre-punks with dyed hair and festooned leathers filled Wembley Stadium to pay homage to this pantheon. Clifton captures energy and controversy in a show that features hit after hit and a running debate about who is the true King of Rock: the nominal Haley, energetic boogie-woogie maven Jerry Lee Lewis or a bitchy Little Richard? (The name of Elvis Presley on a t-shirt is the only inroad that the king seems to have made with this British audience.) Screaming Lord Sutch, while not patriarch of the movement, is on hand to deliver an over-the-top, theatric performance. Also here is rockabilly from Heinz and The Houseshakers. (4)
More on this video title from CDNow
Steve Marriott
Steve Marriott Live
Classic Pictures/Music Video Distributors
http://www.classicpictures.co.uk/
http://www.musicvideodistributors.com/
Steve Marriott (Small Faces, Humble Pie) rocks the audience with Packet of Three live in 1985 at London’s Camden Palace Theatre on this hour-long DVD. The nine-song performance includes such Marriott classics as “All or Nothing,” “What Ya Gonna Do About It” and “Tin Soldier” along with the obligatory “30 Days in the Hole” from the Humble Pie catalogue and an excellent version of “Walking the Dog.” Marriott’s guitar performance is top-notch and vocals are strong and lucid in a classic arena rock style. Along with a biography and discography, this DVD includes an interview with Marriott. (4)
More on this video title from CDNow
Chen Kaige, Director
Life on a String
Kino on Video
http://www.kino.com/
Kaige is known for the excellent films Temptress Moon and Farewell my Concubine. This 1991 film also exemplifies his memorable visual style. Each frame is arranged as if for the canvas, for peerless effect. In this tale, a blind master and his blind apprentice eagerly await the breaking of the one-thousandth “banjo” string to grant them enlightenment and restored sight. This instrument is actually the san hsien, a long-necked folk lute with a small, snakeskin-covered body. Its distinctive plucked sound is only part of the musical treats of this film. Nearly every chapter of the story includes a wondrous song with a haunting beauty matching the singular, harsh otherworldly beauty of the lavishly pictured landscapes of Inner Mongolia. There is an overt message to this film of purpose and discovery for the individual over conflict and attainment of the conglomerate nation. Twice in the film this becomes a cloying idealism, but the beautiful visuals and memorable songs overcome all that to make this a very worthy opus. (4)
More on this video title from CDNow
Various Artists
CRAPtv Presents Lapdance 01, the DVD
CRAPtv
This is a 2-disc set drawn off an anti-film festival staged parallel to the better-known Sundance Film Festival. Disc one features CRAPtv roving transvestite comedian reporters, Troma Studio personages at play, nubile gals at play in nurse uniforms and a hot tub and such interviews as Tammy Faye. Rock band DVDA, from South Park’s Matt Stone and Trey Parker, perform live with more music from Vynil, an ad-hoc Bay Area Latin jazz summit, and Banyan, a Mike Watt project. However, the jokes and scenarios wear very thin on this disc, even before the end is reached. The promise after this disposable disc is The Lapdance 01 Film Festival subtitled The Most Outrageous Short Films Ever Shown to the Public! There are several films, though some are merely film trailers. Most are the type of lowbrow humor you would expect from high school teens smoking joints: a penis -wielding martial arts master and a hand farts study can be included here. More engaging material can be found in a psychobilly video and Terence McKenna expounding on the alien entities around us. Other highlights include a documentary on supposed oligarch sex slave Brice Taylor, the gross-out makeup extravaganza Zitlover and the makeshift bout among vagrants on Beach Bum Boxing. (2)
More on this video title from CDNow
REVIEWS ****************************
Strobe Talbot
20 Pop Songs
Alternative Tentacles
http://www.alternativetentacles.com/product.php?product=449
This collection of sugary odd-pop features the quirky stylings of Jad Fair. Monsters and sweets and sappy thoughts are the content of these post-bubblegum creations. The rest of the goofy trio is Mick Hobbs and Benb Gallaher. Mick Hobbs hooked up with Fair in a late incarnation of Half Japanese. Previously, Englishman Hobbs worked with many progressive groups in Britain, including The Work with Tim Hodgkinson (Henry Cow). Benb Gallaher was the drummer and organist in The Jaunties, a sort of Half Japanese side project as it featured Jason Willett, bass player for Half Japanese. So, as one would expect, there is a lot of similarity to Half Japanese in these 21 tracks recorded in Spain, Portugal and Maine over the course of a year. (3)
Chava Alberstein
Foreign Letters
Rounder
http://www.rounder.com/
Chava Alberstein is the preeminent artist in Israeli vocal music. Presenting material in Hebrew, Yiddish and English, this is an album from one of the world’s oldest peoples and one of the newest nations. It is no wonder that Chava says, “No matter where I am, even if it’s in my own country, I feel like a guest.” This touchstone for Israeli folk-pop comes from a guest of the world with mellifluous delivery.
Dayna Kurtz
Postcards from Downtown
Kismet Records
http://www.daynakurtz.com/
The tray card of this album appears to be from a found postcard communication between mother and daughter. Words from home, that is, postcards from downtown. The feel of this album from this sophisticated jazz vocalist working in New York City has a touch of the heartland and suggests reaching from urbanity to simpler, rural warmth remembered. Kurtz’ lyrics are personal, intimate poetry and her delivery goes from husky affirmation to whispering nuances: a full emotional spectrum. It is her combination of songwriting and performance represented here that has netted her legions of fans and a zealous cult following. (4)
Foetus
Blow
Thirsty Ear
http://www.foetus.org/
This is the remix album of Flow. Flow itself was a superlative album from Foetus, but the efforts of Phylr, Ursula 1000, Franz Treichler (The Young Gods) and more ends up with ultra-effective post-industrial beat music. Following Gash and the stifling business relationship with Sony, were 6 years of chemical and alcohol suicide that ended with J.G. Thirlwell, a.k.a. Foetus, making some changes and getting into that creative flow state that brought out Flow. That triumphant, rebirth brilliance shines through on Blow, a high water mark in the Foetus discography. (5)
Anti-Nowhere League
Animal!: The Very Best of Anti-Nowhere League 1981-1998
Anagram Records
http://www.cherryred.co.uk/
The obscenity-laden career of these confrontational punk rockers is laid out in bare, chronological fashion on this 18-track compendium. By sampling from the entire career of the group, this is the only collection, of the several available, showing the entire musical growth of the group. The disc starts with the track “So What,” that was deemed obscene and then seized and destroyed by British police when it came out as a single. This is the original banned version that was later covered by Metallica on Garage Days. (4)
Sid Vicious
Sid Dead Live
Anagram Records
http://www.cherryred.co.uk/
These are recordings made by Vicious himself at a September 21, 1978, appearance at Max’s Kansas City. This hastily put together show had two sets. One set is entirely throwaway, captured on the first half of the album, unless you want to use it as a Sid Vicious karaoke. Vicious is nowhere in the mix, muddled and confused. The second half of the disc is much more together and includes all you would expect including “Something Else” and “Belsen was a Gas.” The final track is an interview with a rude and uncooperative Sid. (3)
Fad Gadget
The Best of Fad Gadget
Mute
http://www.mute.com/
http://www.fadgadget.com/
Fad Gadget (Frank Tovey) was the first Mute signing and along with Human League, Cabaret Voltaire, etc., Fad Gadget directed electronic music of the late 1970s and early 1980s. This 30-track double-disc includes all the singles and B-sides along with remixes rare and new. Those early singles “Back to Nature” and “Ricky’s Hand” were dark and innovative and still sound strong today on this compendium. (4.5)
Hadacol
All in your Head
Slewfoot Records
http://www.slewfootrecords.com/
It was a potent alcohol elixir named Hadacol that sponsored Hank Williams' radio show in the 1940s. Electric guitar and a modern honky-tonk attitude suggesting high octane fuel on fast- or slow-burn fuels these country and roots rockers. The core of the band is brothers Fred and Greg Wickham. They grew up on pure country as well as roots rock-n-roll in Missouri. This varied but ‘rooted’ inspiration allows them to smoothly glide from ballads to rockers on this excellent album. (3.5)
Gideon Smith & The Dixie Damned
Southern Gentlemen
Small Stone Records
http://www.smallstone.com/
Gideon Smith, a journeyman of the North Carolina music scene, revels in powerful southern-style electric blues-rock on this album. There are shades of Lynyrd Skynyrd without any gratuitous slow-dance episodes. There are tinges of 60’s hard psychedelia ala Black Sabbath. Southern Gentlemen is an overview of hard rock history with a perspective taken from the Southern latitudes. (3)
Willard Grant Conspiracy and Telefunk
In the Fishtank
Konkurrent/Touch and Go
It was Telefunk’s association with Willard Grant Conspiracy singer Robert Fisher that finally allowed Telefunk to get their much-sought Konkurrent recording session by involving Willard Grant Conspiracy on this In the Fishtank chapter. The 6-song recording is built around fin de siecle songs such as “Dig a Hole in the Meadow” and the traditional 1869 hymn “Near the Cross.” Each group suggested three of the antique songs, but the delivery is consistent. Telefunk takes their electronica into the whispering background and allows the Willard Grant Conspiracy acoustic approach to handle the melodies. Melancholy and instrumentally rich, this is an exquisitely successful pairing based on gentle and respectful treatment of the chosen material. (4)
Listen to or Buy at Amazon.com
John Washburn
Stumbling Still Warm…
Wayward Records
http://www.johnwashburn.com/
Washburn’s music has an effective, direct rock beat to it, but nothing is overstated about this primarily acoustic approach. Located now in New York City, which Washburn calls “wonderfully dark and seedy,” seems to balance the rural aspects of his music with just enough urban punch. This is Washburn’s solo debut after being a member of promising but ultimately dead-end groups Clara Venus and more. The album comes across as the worthy material of an earnest talented artist finally doing his own music with the benefit of a wide spectrum of experience. (3.5)
Robert McCreedy
Streamline
Safe House Records
http://safehouserecords.com/
Long-time member of The Volebeats, McCreedy contributed solid songs to that group since 1994. One of those songs, “Two Seconds” got the attention of Laura Cantrell. She covered it and shows up to make a guest appearance singing backup vocals on this, his first solo recording since leaving the group after Mosquito Spiral. These detached, imaginative acoustic impressions were mined from the hours traveling from Detroit to Minneapolis to New York to Vermont to Nashville. (3.5)
June Star
Telegraph
Safe House Records
http://safehouserecords.com/
June Star’s roots music features rolling arrangements from near a cappella vocal breaks to shimmering mandolin touches. Vocalist Andrew Grimm delivers the lyrics with emotion and conveyed honesty as he also keeps the roots grounded with southern-rock guitar, classic banjo and the fluid, melodic harmonica that marks the performance of a vocalist. His restrained, falsetto delivery marks this as a backwoods original, especially on such rustic tracks as trotting “If I.” (4)
Precious Bryant
Fool Me Good
Terminus
Precious Bryant grew up in Talbot County, Georgia, surrounded by a bevy of community folk, blues and gospel musicians. Eventually she acquired a Silvertone guitar through a Sears & Roebuck catalog and began her own career. Influenced by early rock-n-roll and R&B, like the song "Fever" which she covers here, Bryant developed a punchy, strumming folk-blues style first recorded by folklorist George Mitchell in 1969. Bryant also appeared on a compilation of Chattahoochee River Valley artists, but this is her debut full-length recording. These songs are all from her repertoire, originals and the covers she learned from the radio and other regional artists. Though recently recorded, this is a time capsule back to late '60's rural blues. When Precious sings her arrangement of Blind Willie McTell's "Broke And Ain't Got a Dime," we here the authenticity of real poverty experience and the clarion voice of rising triumphantly above such conditions. The clear, easy rhythms of her syncopation, heard as clearly on the title track as on any other, keeps each song moving with a forward leaning, swinging rhythm like a muted R&B bass-line. Bryant's most melancholy visitation is the antique warning, "Don't Let the Devil Ride," but even this carried the hint of a reassuring smile. Other traditionals given the warm, hopeful Precious Bryant treatment are "Blues All Around my Bed," "You Don't Want me No More", "Ups and Downs" and "When the Saint's go Marching In." (3.5)
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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.
