Friday 20 September 2013

The Jazz Punk Connection.



When jaded music-nuts, chin-strokers and hipster whipper-snappers mull about things like 'where did punk rock come from,' very rarely do you hear anything about jazz. Some poor souls are under the misconception that "jazz" only means Chuck Mangione or George Benson, forgetting such pioneers as Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Sun Ra and Albert Ayler, all of whom are the real grand-daddies of punk.
To see the connection, you have to go back to the original performers who influenced punk. Usually you hear about the MC5, the Stooges, the Velvet Underground and Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band. One thing all of these amazing groups had in common (other than not burning up the charts) is the raw grit and noise they splashed across their records, something that had been lacking in rock for a while. One other important common denominator is that they were all jazz fans, using their guitars to imiate their favorite players or actually using horns themselves.
Look at those Detroit greasers, the MC5. Ray Charles and Screamin' Jay Hawkins were part of their sets but so was Pharoah Sanders and Sun Ra- this is most obvious on Kick Out The Jams and semi-legitimate releases of their early material. Unfortunately, their record companies and their producers scrubbed up their music somewhat and this wasn't always obvious from their records- their next album, Back in the USA was based on Chuck Berry much more than any jazz that they loved.
Then there's their Motor City homeboys the Stooges. Iggy was lecturing at a college (!) a few years back, talking about the Stooges. He played a Stooges record then he played a jazz album (I think it might been have Coltrane). His whole point was to show what the band was trying to do, successfully or not. Most of all, you heard this with Steve Mackay's sax wailing on Funhouse, especially on the free-form "L.A. Blues." Maybe they were trying to simulate how their live shows ended or maybe they didn't have enough material (like on their first album) but there was no doubt that this wasn't Chuck Berry material (I ought to stop picking on Berry though since he is a pioneer and a God in his own right).
When I started out I was inspired by people like Ornette Coleman. He has always been a great influence- Lou Reed
Even though John Cale's influence and the work he did with minimalist composers John Cage and LaMonte Young heavily influenced the early work of the Velvet Underground, there was another strong influence at work with the band. Lou Reed said that "European Son" was his way of trying to imitate Ornette Coleman with guitars- I don't think it was successful but it was still a mind-melting blast. Later on, Lou would follow this influence by using the late Don Cherry (a Coleman sideman and a great player himself) as part of his stage band in the late '70s and recording The Bells with him. Reed actually can full circle when he made a guest appearance with Ornette and Prime Time at their live show at Avery Fisher Hall in New York in '97: since Lou is playing the elder musical statesman nowadays, he decided to do 'Satellite of Love' rather than 'European Son' (which would have been more appropriate).
Most of all, there's that lovable crank Captain Beefheart. If the spastic rhythms that his band blurted out weren't clue enough, then his saxophone playing should have left no doubt about his influences. Especially on Trout Mask Replica, his playing is a tribute to Coleman and Ayler, even more so than the Stooges, Velvets or MC5. Delta blues were also important to him and this became to dominate his music more and more in the seventies.
It's interesting to think about the other performers from the late sixties who were jazz buffs. Jimi Hendrix and Jerry Garcia not only played a kind of jazz in their long solos but they would also perform with jazz musicians (Jimi with Larry Young and Garcia with Ornette years later). Most guitarists from that time (Page, Beck, Clapton, Richards, Townshend) were most into blues and R&B. The garage bands would take this to an extreme, making the same music rawer, simpler and louder. Years later, most alternative bands would follow the same path.
At this same time, jazz itself was going through an interesting development. The Filmore in California was hosting the psychedelic bands as well as Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley and Roland Kirk. This was important because it helped to open jazz up to young, white audience. In the case of Davis, it also may have changed his attitudes about music. The stupid rumor that he was pressured into fusion by his record company doesn't hold up- Miles had the idea himself to use electric instruments. The shock was as big as when Bob Dylan did the same thing with his music but proved just as influential. If Miles helped produce a whole wave of bland fusion performers, in his time, he also made music in the '70s that was as metal as AC/DC or Metallica.
Years later, when punk started up, some of the players were also jazz fans, especially the incestuous New York scene. Patti Smith's second album, Radio Ethiopia, contained a frenzied title-track that rivals "L.A. Blues." (Supposedly, Ornette himself was slated to play on it). Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd of Television certainly had Coltrane and Ayler in mind when they took off on their solos. Voidoids guitarist Robert Quine sounded like this was where his head was at also. In all, they had the same thing in mind as Lou Reed when he was trying to get his guitar to imitate the jazz he loved.
By in large though, this kind of jazz influence was not directly seen in most punk rock. Other than Lora Logic (Essential Logic/X-Ray Spex) and James Chance (who had played with Ornette guitarist Bernie Nix), you didn't even see any saxophones. Most punk bands went for noise and maybe songs but not much "improvisation" or musicianship- these seemed too foreign or uncool to the whole experience. Look at the Sex Pistols, Dead Boys, Dictators, Blondie, Ramones, Clash, Talking Heads, Heartbreakers, Adverts and the Cleveland and West Coast groups just to see this. They listened to a dirtier version of the blues and R&B that most of the sixties guitarists were into: the garage bands. And of course, there was also the MC5, Stooges, Velvets, Beefheart...
Today, many of the grunge and alternative bands follow the same path. The list of jazz-influenced bands ranges from the few obvious to many not-so-obvious. Sonic Youth had done a show with Sun Ra shortly before he died and the Minutemen did a show with Ornette bassist Charlie Haden. Other signs of hope abound: Naked City (with John Zorn), urt, Spanish Kitchen and Bazooka. Most likely, and hopefully, there's many more. This may mean that there isn't a real, solid movement out there for this yet but that may only because most alternative bands who broke through the charts haven't taken this particular route yet. That's how we measure things, isn't it?
So what is the real, direct link between the free jazz of '50s and '60s and punk rock? One big difference is that in free jazz there were very talented, accomplished musicians playing complex music. With punk, you had a bunch of amateurs who played simple music. They did and still do have a lot in common though. Both were (and are) hated by many so-called critics, writers and the old guard of their respective types of music. They also each re-wrote the the whole goddamn book on their own music, challenged many preconceptions and opened many eyes- you may hate them but it's hard to ignore each of them. Maybe most importantly, they each spawned a sub-culture of musicians, bands, clubs, scenes, record labels and all kinds of collectives to help nuture their own music. This was important because it took YEARS for either style to be accepted and assimliated into the mainstream. Still, the two types of music are, mostly, as exclusive of each other as they were in the heydey of punk or free jazz (hey, how about FREE PUNK then?).
This isn't to say that the whole idea of rock-fusion music isn't dead or gone. Who knows if any of those new bands won't constitute a movement themselves. Or maybe they'll become influences for another wild style of music just like the punk grand-daddies did. One thing is for sure: it'll be quite a laugh to see how the record companies would try to market all of this. If Ornette ever makes it onto The Simpsons or even back on Saturday Night Live (which actually happened years ago but is unthinkable today unfortunately), you'll know it's happened. And there will be much rejoicing.

A very special night.


Essential listening No3


Monday 16 September 2013

As you are well aware Brian Chippendale was in Lightning Bolt......what was the name of the amazing DVD Load Records released? The first person to leave the answer in the comments will get a pair of Black Pus tickets for this Friday's show at the Exchange.

Sunday 15 September 2013

Grumbling Fur interview


Grumbling Fur's Glynnaestra, released next week, is one of the Quietus' favourite albums we've heard for quite some time. Ahead of its release next week, the duo tell Luke Turner how the complexity of nature, Blade Runner and a UFO sighting came together to inspire the record
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One Friday late in May, Grumbling Fur - Alexander Tucker and Daniel O'Sullivan - were to be found at the latter's home on an estate of red-roofed houses in North London. With a park behind the garden's deliberate wilderness of plants, white bluebells, willow, peony, lavender, and others with healing properties, we're shaded from a hot late spring sun as the sound of children playing drifts in from a nearby community centre. O'Sullivan makes tea with honey as his dog Tarka capers around, and sweet smoke hangs in the air, along with the scent of garlic from the kitchen. The house, owned by Coil associate and Jhonn Balance's partner Ian Johnstone (some of Balance's collection of by-numbers oil paintings can be found in the living room) has a ever-changing series of residents, who come to rest, recuperate, and make art.
Grumbling Fur met when O'Sullivan was 16 and Tucker 21 through a shared passion for hardcore and metal, although their listening stretched outward to experimental music, jazz and post rock. Early musical endeavours together with other members of the hardcore scene included a band called Antarctica, though Tucker claims he was "too inept" for it to work, and that he and O'Sullivan were already pulling in more esoteric directions where "the others were anchored to the riff". After time apart, with O'Sullivan working in his gothic synth group Mothlite and Guapo while Tucker focused on series of excellent and undervalued solo albums, they reconnected on an Aethenor tour. An early Grumbling Fur live performance took place on a balmy summer evening in Stoke Newington's ancient St Mary's Church, where bad sound only slightly hampered their warm, rolling experimentation, and the duo released their debut album Furrier in 2011.
Today, Tucker enthuses about Yorkshire experimental music and his hobby of picking up clinker from the trackbed of the Romney Hythe & Dymchurch Railway to make small carved figures. Here he follows in the footsteps of his father, who makes art from the flotsam and jetsam washed up on the shingle at Dungeness. Both O'Sullivan and Tucker are huge fans of Withnail & I, for the right reasons. "It's all about men and their relationships and all this unspoken shit, the failure of male relationships," says O'Sullivan. "Sometimes Grumbling Fur is quite Withnail & I. We'll go into the pub - 'alright here?'"
Their new album, Glynnaestra, is a glorious mixture of grouching synth ferment, experimental noise, and soaring pop choruses, and has been beguiling the entire Quietus office since we first heard it a few months ago. We've been especially taken with the brilliant 'Ballad Of Roy Batty', which uses Rutger Hauer's famous Blade Runner "I've seen things that you people would not believe / attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion" soliloquy as lyrics for the kind of soaring melody that Hovis might buy and use for an advert featuring Welsh choristers rushing to a rural chapel, brandishing fresh loaves. On 'The Hound', on the other hand, all the sounds were sourced from the kettle in some way. "Actually, that's not true, it's the kettle's relationship with the cooker," says O'Sullivan, remarking that "foley sensibilities" had a key role in the album. "The sounds that we use will always have a relationship to us and our lives," adds Tucker.
Our interview begins with the pair discussing gnome videos on YouTube.
Alexander Tucker: You can see it in the background, this cone-headed little thing, and someone sees it and goes 'agh!' and it just totters off, this tiny thing, about that big. South America... there's some sort of portal around there.
Daniel O'Sullivan: Oh yeah, several.
AT: The Bermunda Triangle, UFO sightings. In Mexico City they have to warn pilots all the time because there are so many things flying around. There's a humanoid on I'm obsessed with. Entity Reunion In The Skies is the name of the clip, and there's this cloaked figure swaying in the wind, and this bird-like figure in front of it. Then another bird-like object comes out of the cloaked figure and flies off, and the other one falls... it's so weird.
DOS: It's like seeing eggs hatch in the sky. It's in South America...
AT: ...all the weird things, it comes from there pretty much.
Has all this been inspiring Grumbling Fur?
AT: It's sci-fi, but for real.

What makes Grumbling Fur what it is?
DOS: I think it's just us together. The rule is we have to come up with the stuff there and then, when we're together.
AT: It's a different quantity each time. With 'Dancing Light', we were so pleased with the instrumental when we came up with that, I think it really perfectly is our two things converging. I remember when we did that, we were like 'What just happened?' We were completely gone, making decisions, getting excited about different ideas.
DOS: It's nice when something so seemingly abstract, or that the listener has to unlock somehow - which is the kind of music I like generally - comes together so effortlessly. There's been a lot of that synchronicity, and all the sounds on the record have a gravitas to them, a story.
A lot of the sounds are very natural.
DOS: We're using drum machines, but actually playing them rather than programming.
AT: And then adding other bits of percussion...
DOS: ...finger bells, gongs, a fan on a mic.
AT: The song 'Roy Batty', that began with me using those Chinese balls, trying to do that Vangelis, future console sound. I wanted an organic version of that, and that was literally the beginning of the song, and Dan from that did this really nice Harmonium chord progression, and then just recording ourselves messing around clapping.
It's an incredibly catchy song. It's like a Welsh rugby anthem...
AT: It's quite hymnal. I feel that quite a lot of my songwriting comes from singing in church when I was younger.
DOS: Same here, we were both choirboys.
Why use the dialogue from Blade Runner?
DOS: Seeing that film was a paradigm shifting moment from when I was a kid.
AT: The love of the Vangelis soundtrack was a guilty pleasure of mine for years and years, even when I was into hardcore or whatever.
How has this building shaped the record?
DOS: We do everything here, and there's no guests on the album. It's just the two of us, in this house. It's a year in the life of... I have very strong associative memories in all the songs and sounds, I remember the day, the mood, where I was generally, which is actually in a good place. But we were saying the other day that when we try to write bright, poppy songs, they have some a doomy aspect to them. It's something in the bass spectrum.
AT: It's more disquiet, even when you're happy it has to be really intense. When you're depressed it's the highs and the lows. The highs for too long make you sick.
DOS: "He who knows not that the prince of darkness is but the other face of the King of Light knows not me." I think that's Rilke, someone like that, one of those wise Eastern men.
What is a Glynnaestra?
DOS: It was a word that flowered without any affectation or effort. It appeared.
I thought it might be a plant...
AT: ... or a character in Dune, it was a sci-fi princess or goddess. But definitely female.
DOS: Because that's what it's all about - our relationship with women, or just that feminine aspect of nature and life.
AT: I was just at the Ice Age art exhibition at the British museum, looking at all the female deities there, these voluptuous figures. My girlfriend was saying that she felt at that time society was more matriarchal. [To O'Sullivan's dog] Oof Tarka, you've done a stinker...
DOS: On that note... She did a dirty protest this morning, and had a shit on that mossy stone. I love that stone. 
AT: The lodestone!
DOS: It's not a concept album about feminity or anything like that, it just occurred to us. It was funny with the word, it did just emerge.
AT: We felt it was important to do quite an emotive song, and then have the title something quite sci-fi, or quite banal, or about relationships, and have that all together in the story of the song. It's another way of knitting together aspects of your life, or interests, and thoughts. We had a party, didn't we, you and I?
DOS: Oh we did, we had some mescaline...
AT: And said, 'Let's record...'

DOS: I was total jelly, and you were really on it...
AT: We changed roles in a way. Dan's a really really good musician, and I'm self taught and have the things that I do.
DOS: That's too humble, you're an accomplished player now! The mescaline was quite nice, it made the air so still. You could see the raw data of the trees moving outside the window, and I was really enjoying it. Alex was on the couch with a guitar going 'ding-diddly-ding-ding' - 'no, it should go like this!'. It was intense.
AT: That was where the idea began. And a few weeks later we were in a really nice mood, and I'd bought these Chinese bell things over, and thought, let's do a really abstract, stretched sort of thing, really slowed down. It was a real pleasure.
Has it been the whole way through? 
AT: It really has.
DOS: We're trying to pretend it's not a band, because as soon as it becomes a band things will go wrong.
AT: As soon as you think of things as bands I feel a bit trapped.
DOS: The level of expectation goes up, and it can make you behave like a hustler, and you shouldn't have to hustle for your music. The music is there all the time.
What about some of the synths you've been using? The bit on the first track...
DOS: It's a treated MicroKorg, with a PolySix drone underneath it.
AT: It's quite alien. It's about an encounter that Dan had...
DOS: I had my Roswell experience up on Streatham Common, around Christmas time. I was walking Tarka, and it was snowy. We got to a forested part, and it looked like there was a film crew in there, with floodlights. I went a bit further in, and the light retracted as a solid form, you could see the edges of it, and arrived at an epicentre and went straight up, soundlessly, and followed it till it was gone...
AT: ... to the outer atmosphere, God knows how.
DOS: Everything changed from then on, to be honest.
How so?
DOS: It's an ineffable experience. I can describe what I saw, but everyone is 'Yeah whatever', because I would be 'Yeah whatever'.
AT: That's the thing when it happens to you, it's just imagination or the mind, your relationship with seeing this thing.
It's interesting talking about the Ice Age exhibition, do you think as a species we've gone from being wide open to closed?
AT: Numb to it...
DOS: It doesn't take away from the fact that it's all one thing. As soon as I saw it I thought, well, yeah of course, it's entirely plausible that I'd see that. It was light, and I am familiar with light, but I don't know what light is.
AT: On New Years Eve I was watching fireworks. And then one of the fireworks just stayed in the sky, a red light, and then it started sailing across the sky, still really bright. We ran through the house, watching it through every window, until it went off into the cloud, illuminated the cloud a bit, and then went.
You talk about sci-fi and otherworldly things, but I get a big sense of nature from this music.
DOS: It's a very magic realism thing, seeing the complexity in nature and nature becoming quite sci-fi. I think it's important to observe it for what it is, in order to have a conservationist mentality. You need to be aware of it as something different that needs to be protected. It's also seeing the worlds within it, and the patterns.
AT: Like organic machines. I think we both like desolate areas where the foliage has taken over again. Dungeness, where my folks live, has that about it. The shingle, and the sea kale plant, this incredible alien thing, and loads of gorse.

Essential listening No2


Gim loves a rainbow outside the Exchange


Slow Death

Join us on Saturday 19th October for a SLOW DEATH.

Essential listening No1

Pop over to the Trunk Records shop and pick up a copy of this.......

Telescopes interview


Formed in 1987, Stephen Lawrie created some of the most sonically challenging music of the burgeoning “shoegaze” era. Taking the noise of the Jesus and Mary Chain records to a new level, but maintaining a pop sensibility that set them ahead of the pack. Songs like “7th# Disaster” and “The Perfect Needle” took England by storm and put them on the cover of all the British magazines. There second album moved towards the “baggier” sound that was popular in 1992. Despite containing brilliant songs like “Flying”, the media turned on them following the lugheaded “change is bad” mentality. The Telescopes went through a series of personnel changes and were thought to be gone until reappearing in 2002 with a new album with only Stephen Lawrie remaining from the original line-up. In much the same way that heavy metal was doomed because of self-indulgent guitar solos (which we like to call, the noodley-noodley concept), noise/psychedelia was undermined by bands playing feedback and dirge just for the sake of it. Without any song structure or “point” to the noise, it became boring and eventually extinct. The Telescopes were one of the few bands that understood how to use noise as an art form, making it interesting and occasionally (gasp) hooky. Their albums and singles (the b-sides on their singles were always genius) still sound as fresh and innovative today as they did in the late 80′s.
We tracked down Stephen and found him still immersed in his craft and working on new music. We exchanged emails to formulate this interview.
TDOA: The band has released records with several different record labels.  Given the buzz in England over the band, I always wondered why you released the first album “Taste” on the American based label, What Goes On.  Why wasn’t the album released on a British label and did you get any backlash from British media for that decision?
Stephen: Our first records were on Cheree who were based in London. We were courted by lots of labels, (but) I guess What Goes On happened to be in the wrong place at the right time.  I don’t remember there being any territorial terrors.
TDOA: What led to the decision to release a live album as your second “album”?  Sometimes bands release live albums to fulfill an obligation to the label.  Is this the case or was it a creative decision?
Stephen: That was a bootleg by Fierce Records.  They were notorious at the time.  We were fine about it.
TDOA: Much was made in the media of the change in sound for the second record.  Obviously bands grow and change creatively with time.  However, I wonder if you can talk about the songwriting process’ for the first two records.  I assume that when you recorded the first album, most of the songs had been written in advance.  The second album was recorded after quite a bit of touring, so did you write it on the road and in the studio which reflected a different “mood”?
Stephen: We did a lot of touring while i was writing the first album, we were always playing.  the second album was written in isolation between engagements.  I became estranged from everything during the process of making that record.  So yes, the moods were very different.  but I felt I was hitting the same vein somehow.
TDOA: The mood of the two records seems starkly different.  Emotionally, were you or the band going through dramatically different things during that time?
Stephen: Yes, at first we were a merge, we overlapped each other, then as things progressed everything was laid bare and open to scrutiny.  i guess we stopped carrying each other. I think the music on that (second) album took everyone out of their comfort zones, the sound came together in the studio rather than in a rehearsal room. Unless you were at the creative helm it meant a lot of sitting around contemplating. not always constructive.
TDOA: It’s also interesting to me that the second album almost seemed like an anamoly. You’ve referenced that you returned to the sound of Taste in your later work. Given the turmoil going on during that period and that some critics didn’t like it, do you regret anything about the second album?
Stephen: No, nothing at all. There’s also similarities between what I do now and the second album.
TDOA: How would you describe your time with Creation Records?  Did you interact with Alan Mcgee often and what was he like to work with?
Stephen: They were exciting times.  Alan managed us too really, so we hung out quite a bit.  He always spoke his mind, we appreciated it.
TDOA: Why did David Fitzgerald leave the band and to what extent did his departure change the sound of the band?
Stephen: He was an escape goat for tensions within the band.  it didn’t solve anything.  We fell apart after that.  Everyone underestimated his role, including him.
TDOA: Do the two of you still speak?
Stephen: Yes, sometimes. he’s very encouraging about current Telescopes music.
TDOA: A frequent topic on our site is that people tend to not evolve musically, frequently sticking to the genre of music they liked in their early 20′s and never broadening their scope.  As a musician, you’ve evolved at an amazing pace.  Why do you think you were able to keep challenging yourself when so many other musicians either give up or just keep repeating themselves?
Stephen: I’ve tried to write the same song twice, but there’s no magic in it.  I’ve tried giving up, but it’s like trying to run from your own shadow.  I’ve also worked with a lot of different musicians, each one of them has challenged me.  It colors the results.
TDOA: I would suggest that your second album is your “poppiest” (and I don’t mean this in a bad way) record and that Taste was really a pre-cursor of the music you’ve done since you left Creation.  Do you think that’s a fair assessment and did you ever worry about alienating those that didn’t come on board until the second record?
Stephen: I think the album Bridget and I did has a lot in common with the extremity of Taste and the stuff I’m writing now has threads.  I’ve always alienated people somewhere along the line.  That’s just how it is.  People were really disappointed with the second album at the time, they wanted more of the same.
TDOA: The Antenna Records website references you in association with Julian Cope frequently.  What’s your relationship with Julian?  As a long-time fan, I’d love to know what he’s like these days and any stories you can share.
Stephen: Julian reviewed a Telescopes ep we did for Trensmat & Amp; Bridget’s cd ‘The Night’s Veins’.  He writes about a lot of great music on his Head Heritage site.  I think Bridget supported him when she was playing in Vibracathedral Orchestra.  I’ve never met him, but I saw him perform a few times in the 80s.
TDOA: I would be negligent if I didn’t ask about the large gaps between records, particularly between the 2nd record and The Third Wave.  What were you doing during these breaks?
Stephen: Outrunning my shadow.
TDOA: Were you writing music during that time? I’d be intrigued to know the tone and sound of the music you wrote during that period. Obviously, we’re talking about a long span of time. Did you write more songs that carried on the theme of the second record?
Stephen: I wrote some stuff with Nick Hemming from The Leisure Society. we did an album together for Double Agent Records. Also, tracks recorded just after the second album found their way on to the Spaceage compilation ‘Altered Perception’.
TDOA: You’re playing shows again in England.  Please tell us who’s in the current line-up and what we can expect from you in the near future.
Stephen: I’ve been playing with St. Deluxe quite a bit, and we’ve recorded together, also 93millionmilesfromthesun have been stepping in.  I’ve plans to do a show with members of Aspen Woods and One Unique Signal down in London are keen to help out.  I’m working towards a new Telescopes album and I might do some more with Bridget under the name of ‘Infinite Suns’.  There’s also the debut album from Afgan coming out soon on Antenna.

Get a pair of free Black Pus tickets......

On Monday I will post up a quick question about Black Pus, the first person to get it right will win a pair of tickets.......

Monday 14th October - The Exchange

DYLAN CARLSON of Earth (BASEMENT)

THOUGHT FORMS

ESBEN & THE WITCH

TEETH OF THE SEA

Separate tickets are £8.00 each / Joint tickets are £10.00

Joint tickets here.....

http://www.exchangebristol.com/whats-on/eventdetails/14-oct-13-esben--the-witch-exchange

S L O W E R

New Gonga LP coming soon....and playing Exchange on Sat 28 September.......

Grant Hart


WHAT IS “THE ARGUMENT”?

“The Argument” is the upcoming double album from artist and magus Grant Hart.
“Lost Paradise”, an unpublished short story by William Burroughs, and “Paradise Lost” by John Milton served as inspiration for this ambitious project which follows the fall of Lucifer through to the fall of man.
A wide variety of styles are used to great effect in the portrayal of the characters, actions and feelings. New territories are explored. You will hear things you might never have expected from Grant. And you will also hear sounds that have defined his signature sound for years. The harmonies are even more beautiful and his dischord more menacing than any of his previous work, but listeners need not search too hard for evidence that this is the work of a punk-rocker and anarchist.
Mike Wisti engineered the recordings which were done at his studio, Albatross. Davin Odegaard played electric bass on selected cuts and Peter Susag played upright bass on the track,”So Far From Heaven” A fine job of mastering was done by Bob Weston.
The artwork for “The Argument” features a satellite photo of the Earth during a display of the Von Karman effect. Collages by Grant are found inside and the back of the cover has a tin-type photograph of Grant by Andrew Moxom. The typography mimics that of Parker Tyler and is by Rob Carmichael, who assembled the elements of the package.

Saturday 14 September 2013

I have a Icarus Line LP to give away...I will post up a question on Monday so you can win it......stay tuned.

Win a Wolf Eyes vinyl LP....

The first person to name my favourite Wolf Eyes 12" will get Wolf Eyes - 'No Answer : Lower Floors' LP sent to them in the post.

The Office

Thanks for checking out the Fat Paul Presents blog, I will be posting all the inside information on the shows I promote. I will also give visitors the chance to win exclusive merch, vinyl, cd's and fee entry to shows. Thanks