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Outsight
Outsight: The Tommies
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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.
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NEWS **************************
THE TOMMIES
Following is an alphabetical list representing my choices as Top 19 albums for 2001. Note that while many of these are reissues, they are all 2001 releases.
Allison, Luther Luther's Blues (Motown/Universal Music)
Attention Deficit The Idiot King (Magna Carta)
Bensusan, Pierre Intuite (Favored Nations)
Berry, Heidi Pomegranate: An Anthology (4AD)
Björkenheim, Raoul Apocalypso (Cuneiform Rune)
Brozman, Bob / Hirayasu, Takashi Nankuru Naisa (World Music Network)
Carter, Dave & Grammer, Tracy Drum Hat Buddha (Signature Sounds)
Les Claypool's Frog Brigade Live Frogs - Set 2 (Prawn Song/Red Ink/Columbia)
Einstürzende Neubauten Strategies Against Architecture III: 1991-2001 (Mute)
Evora, Cesaria Sao Vicente (Windham Hill)
Fujii, Satoko April Shower (Ewe Records)
Gobeil, Gilles …dans le silence de la nuit… (IMED)
Intergalactic Contemporary Ensemble I Dig (Innova)
McCollough, Teresa New American Piano Music (Innova)
Scott, Jimmy The Source (Label M)
Shipp, Matthew Matthew Shipp's New Orbit (Thirsty Ear)
Various Artists Head Jazz (Label M)
David S. Ware Quartet Corridors & Parallels (AUM Fidelity)
BEDTIME FOR ALTERNATIVE TENTACLES?
Reeling from the controversial loss of the Dead Kennedys albums from their back catalog and feeling the effect of the current recession, AT openly considers a foreboding future. You can help keep the label alive and educate yourself through their new, recent spoken word releases in conjunction with AK Press. Noam Chomsky on An American Addiction ( http://www.alternativetentacles.com/product.php?product=450) examines America’s foreign policy and the intersection of drugs, guerillas and US involvement. Learn how U.S. military might merely transform hardworking peasants into criminals at work deep in the jungle and out billions in military aid supports a Colombian ruling class rife with corruption. Chomsky lucidly delineates this insidious chain of invents since the beginnings in the ‘80’s of the War on Drugs. This exegesis reflects back on current events through the Bush administration providing $43 million in aid to the Taliban to destroy opium poppies in May 2001.
Listen to or Buy Noam Chomsky at CDNow
Similarly, a spectrum of thought can be heard on the various artists collection Monkeywrenching the New World Order ( http://www.alternativetentacles.com/product.php?product=452). This double-CD compilation features speakers ranging in length from under a minute to 15 minutes. Like earlier Alternative Tentacles spoken word releases, this clarifies the discontent that led demonstrators to shut down the WTO meetings in Seattle as well as place the WTO and other factors in their place in a full picture of the New World Order. This political
landscape includes militarism, and policing; environmental issues, ‘frankenfood,’ and genetic engineering; digital capitalism and more. Featured speakers include Noam Chomsky, Craig O'Hara (“Philosophy of Punk”), liberal historian Howard Zinn and Agent Apple of the public pie-throwing Biotic Baking Brigade.
Listen to or Buy at Monkeywrenching the New World Order CDNow
A PORTRAIT OF PATRICIA MORRISON
Patricia Morrison, bassist for The Damned, is the only child of an Irish immigrant mother and Sicilian born Italian father, prompting her to joke, "I'm real even tempered!" She is a veteran of Sisters Of Mercy, Gun Club and The Bags. Morrison joined The Damned in 1996 at the suggestion of the band's founding member and guitarist, Captain Sensible. Two years later, Patricia married the group's other founding member, lead singer Dave Vanian in a Las Vegas ceremony on their way back from an Australian tour. "I was walked down the aisle by an Elvis impersonator in a black jumpsuit. It was brilliant!" she recalls. The Damned just completed a six-week North American tour in support of their recently released CD Grave Disorder (Nitro Records). The band just began a tour of the UK that will be followed by concerts in Italy. Patricia and The Damned hope to return to the US in April for another tour.
TRYOUTS FOR A TRIBUTE
Wampus Multimedia seeks submissions for a new CD tribute to Lou Reed. Wampus hopes you might have something to say on record about Reed's career as one of the most influential pre-punk songwriters in rock. Deadline for submissions is February 28, 2002. Find out more on the Web at http://wampus.com/lou.html
DVD REVIEWS ***************************************
Bertrand Tavernier, Director
The Clockmaker
Kino On Video
http://www.kino.com
More on this video title from CDNow
Spencer Rice and Kenny Hotz, directors
The Pitch
Video Service Corp./MVD
http://www.musicvideodistributors.com/
http://www.videoservicecorp.com/
Canadian filmmakers Spencer Rice and Kenny Hotz launch into the American music industry with naivety and enthusiasm that turned into disgust. This is the video-documented story of their attempts to pitch their transsexual mob comedy script, The Dawn. First rebuffed on all accounts through the phone solicitations of their office they go to the Toronto Film Festival to engage the industry firsthand. Herein is the greatest comic value of the flick as Roger Ebert, Matt Dillon, Al Pacino and other names react differently to being approached by the duo. There’s no “reel” happy ending even after they land in Hollywood for hopeful if questionable negotiations but after it is all done we are all are educated in the realities of independent scriptwriters’ hopes with laughs and entertaining impromptu cameos along the way. (3.5)
More on this video title from CDNow
BOOK REVIEW **************************************
Kim Cooper and David Smay, editors
Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth: The Dark History of Prepubescent Pop, from the Banana Splits to Britney Spears
Feral House
info@feralhouse.com
A cast of contributors from cartoonist Peter Bagge to the bizarre Partridge Family Temple to Greg Shaw document the history of and celebrate the unknowns of bubblegum music. Pete Townsend once remarked, “Some of the world’s best music is bubblegum,” and most of these contributors agree. Their overlapping and amorphous definitions of the genre cause the chronologically laid out volume to act as a history of pop music from the ‘60’s to today with a focus on that created with marketing in mind. Entertaining and enlightening, this lively tome sheds light on the names behind the manufactured sounds, the true stories of the real people leading or trapped in the movement and institutions that fostered its growth. As educational as it is fun, this excellent collection of essays and interviews is a must for any music fan. (5)
More on the book from Amazon.com
STYLUS COUNCIL (VINYL REVIEWS) ******************
Dan Melchior’s Broke Revue
Heavy Dirt
In The Red Records
http://www.intheredrecords.com/
A journeyman of garage rock and heavy roots rock, Melchior is one of two Brits joined with two guys from Florida in this lineup. Like a harsh distillation of American folk music, Heavy Dirt fuses wailing country blues in overdrive and Jon Spencer take on R&B. It’s the hard-bottom rhythm section of Greg Anderson (drums), and B.L. Truax (bass) that hails from Florida and they provide a the low-end with a delivery as heavy and extreme as the metal acts that hail from that state. This incarnation of Dan Melchior’s Broke Revue is hardcore heartland heroics. (3.5)
Institut
Unto the Last Man
Cold Meat Industry
http://www.coldmeat.se/
Featuring an embossed, full-color gatefold cover with insert, this double-single is limited to 911 copies. Unto the Last Man is four sides of dominant, art-noise exhortations toward the oppressed to strive for freedom spread over a double seven-inch vinyl release. Cacophonous and searing, this four-sided documents tonally and translates revolutionary angst. Primitive, but effective, this is the sound of streets filled with the rubble of radical change. (3)
King Brothers
King Brothers
In The Red Records
http://www.intheredrecords.com/
Dressed like a Yazuka visitation and rocking like the Demolition Doll Rods on “Drum Rock (Part II)” and then a punk Dick Dale on “Big Boss,” they cut a burning swath through every hard rock sub-genre on this album. This florid display of lo-fi mayhem is a typhoon from Osaka and is the soundtrack to their highly praised live rock performance when they toured the U.S. club in 1999 and 2001. (4)
Hot Rod Honeys
Kill Me Now
Demolition Derby
http://come.to/demderby
demderby@pi.be
This European punk rock band exhibits a wide strip of American-born drag rock. The music is often hard and fast, a real blur, but whether the sounds wax of wane melodic the lyrics always have a catchy, sing-along feel reminiscent of the bubblegum birth of ‘70’s East Coast power pop and punk. Kill me Now could be The Ramones producing The Dwarves. (3.5)
Various Artists
Victims Family “Calling Dr. Schlessinger” b/w The Fleshies “Gonna Have to Pass”
Alternative Tentacles
http://www.alternativetentacles.com/
http://www.victimsfamily.com/
Old school Alternative Tentacles (Victims Family) meets new school Alternative Tentacles (The Fleshies) on this split 7”. The punk panegyric to Dr. Laura starts out creepy and ends up hard. The youngbloods in The Fleshies don’t have time for such arranging and put their explosive episode at the front of their side leaving a few seconds for the vapor trails to fade out from their speed-punk outburst. Alternative Tentacles has been doing hard punk on vinyl for years and it shows, production on both sides is excellent. Also, both tracks do not appear on other releases from the groups. (4)
REVIEWS ***********************
Various Artists
That’s Rock & Roll
Golden Stars / Qualiton
This 3-CD set is comprised of sub-three-minute early rock gems that stood the test of time to earn the moniker as “oldies but goodies.” These selections include the two great streams that gave birth to rock-n-roll, the rockabilly born of country like Carl Perkins “Boppin’ the Blues” and the blues-born thread like Bo Diddley. A live version of Diddley’s “Road Runner” can be heard here. (3.5)
Anita Lane
Sex O’Clock
Mute
http://www.mute.com/
Anita Lane was an original Bad Seed who wrote “From Her to Eternity,” “Stranger than Kindness” and other songs with Nick Cave. She collaborated with many since then, including two other ex-Bad Seeds, Barry Adamson and Mick Harvey. Sex O’Clock has a lot of similarity to the recent releases of those fellows, especially to Harvey’s Serge Gainsbourg albums, which Lane worked on. There is an easy, languid sexuality to these pop rock tracks. Like Harvey and Adamson, Lane leaves the harsh sound of the Bad Seeds behind for an updated approach that includes strings, electronic beats and a soft, breathy delivery. It works very well and much of this disc is catchy and memorable. (4)
Bill Neely
Texas Law and Justice
Arhoolie
http://www.arhoolie.com/
Neely’s marked influence is Jimmie Rodgers. He tells the story of how the Blues Yodeler and forefather of country music taught him the C-chord in “On a Blackland Farm.” Also drawing on his life is the title track, with haunting chorus-box effect that tells the story of Ira McKee, a Neely relation who wrote the song and was executed for a crime he was later proven innocent of. Mostly the material is delivered simply and effectively with Neely accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. The songs draw on blunt, rural spirituality, Neely’s soldiering experience (WWII, Korea) and stark views obtained as a penniless hobo as in the previously unreleased “Skid Row.” (4)
Markus James
Nightbird
Firenze Records
http://www.firenzerecords.com/
Taking the blues to their very deepest roots ultimately leads us to the native sounds of Mali. Markus James went to that country with his gentle, but contemporary style, and played alongside ethnic percussion and stringed instruments. This puts side-by-side the first whispers and a current voice of the blues. The union of traditional and current sounds works together extremely well. This is a singular and remarkable recording of songs by Markus James. (4)
Chava Alberstein and The Klezmatics
The Well
Rounder
http://www.rounder.com/
This is a reissue of The Klezmatics’ successful 1998 release, which works as a precursor to Chava’s solo career beginning with the December 11, 2001 release of Foreign Letters (Rounder). Chava Alberstein, “The First Lady of Israeli Songs” exhibits her vocal talent on this album from gentle, floating melodies to ebullient, lively folk songs. The lyrics to each of these tracks are drawn from the work of 20th Century Yiddish poets. (4.5)
Les Savy Fav
Go Forth
French Kiss Records, 111 E. 14th St., #229, NY, NY 10003
info@frenchkissrecords.com
Working since 1995, Les Savy Fav now has a well-crafted marriage of stylized British punk and trebly guitar rock, like a fusion of The Clash and U2. Like any number of groups, they spawned from an association formed by attending the same Providence, RI art school. A similarly-spawned group is Talking Heads and there is similarity in the arty beat music of the two, though Les Savy Fav tends toward a more stark, almost Gothic sound. Think David Byrne producing Bauhaus. (4)
The Trey Gunn Band
Live Encounter
First World Records
http://www.firstworldmusic.com/
http://www.treygunn.com/
Trey Gunn once again uses his trusty and alien-sounding Warr touch guitar to produce an amazing album, this time the live recording Live Encounter. Built on deep grooves, Gunn’s music is often composed of short, repeated parts that give his prog rock pieces a hypnotic aspect, composed as they are of repeated phrases making a sound mosaic. The King Crimson sideman’s serpentine work features a second Warr guitarist, Joe Mendelson. This enhanced CD features live QuickTime footage of the group. (4)
Twinkle
Golden Lights
RPM
http://www.rpmrecords.co.uk/
info@rpmrecords.co.uk
RPM makes available the first ever collection of Twinkle's singles. This includes many rare tracks with her hits “Terry” and “Golden Lights.” The Smiths covered “Golden Lights.” Twinkle herself was involved with the compilation which features extensive sleeve notes, a discography, rare pictures and more. Her bubbly, innocent pop songs, like “Ain’t Nobody Home But Me” or “Tommy” juxtapose with darker pieces like the saga of a biker killed in “Terry” and incarceration ode “Poor Old Johnny.” Such melodramatic pieces put Twinkle in the “death disc” debate that included “Leader of the Pack” by The Shangri-Las. (4)
Billy Preston
Billy’s Bag
RPM
http://www.rpmrecords.co.uk
info@rpmrecords.co.uk
RPM brings together Billy Preston’s exquisite, sly and funky Hammond sounds in this collection covering the years 1963-1966. This is from the groovy heart of his soul years. This gathers from the various labels he worked for earning a name as the ‘wildest organ in town’ before going on to pop fame as part of Capitol in 1966 and then The Beatles’ Apple Records in 1969. From hearing the exemplary, fiery playing on this compilation, it is easy to understand how he got the attention he did. Excellent liner notes cover the history of the organ in R&B and soul as well as Preston’s career. (4.5)
Dave Storrs
Another Thing
Louie Records, 644 SW 5th St., Corvallis, OR 97333
http://www.peak.org/~louierec
louierec@peak.org
In Storrs’ 35 years as a jazz musician, he has internalized Cuban, African and Latin styles. He draws upon this entire palette of multi-ethnic inspiration in his solo instrumental release. Storrs plays all the tracks on this percussion album. Storrs’ exceptional talent marks his playing with crisp, bright beats on this warm, percolating album that employs a wide spectrum of percussion timbres. (4)
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.
