Walt Falbo - The Digger Demos: Vol. 1

Here we have a nice collection of acoustic covers by a gentleman named Walt Falbo who resides in downstate Illinois. This was recorded as a demo for a show he played at a bar aptly named "Digger's." There's even a great cover of "Zool" by the infamous Oracles.

Tracklist:

1. Busted (Johnny Cash)

2. T.S. Eliot (East River Pipe)

3. Golden Days of Missing You (Silver Jews)

4. Queen of the Savages (The Magnetic Fields)

5. Cold Blooded Old Times (Smog)

6. Village Green Preservation Society (Kinks)

7. Road Worn and Weary (Supersuckers)

8. Farewell Ms. Carousel (Townes Van Zandt)

9. Sexx Laws (Beck)

10. Bananas and Blow (Ween)

11. Dirty Work (Steely Dan)

12. Illegal Smile (John Prine)

13. Revolution Blues (Neil Young)

14. You Have To Be Joking (The Flaming Lips)

15. Zool Part One (The Oracles)

Dig it.

We Shave - In The Flesh

We Shave is spearheaded by Memphis resident, Brendan Spengler. Twisting experimental pop and psychedelia here, Brendan manages to achieve a completely listenable and addicting album. When I first bought this tape, I just kept flipping it over and over for a couple weeks straight. I've never heard an artist tackle covers of Faust, Harry Nilsson, and Wagner all on the same album and execute them all with a stunning sense of originality. This is one of my favorite Night People releases and consequently one of my favorite albums from 2010. Here's what Sean Reed of Night People says about it:

"tinged with outsider garage rock and velvets leaning noisy rhythm zones with a bit of Eno esque dream sound. In the Flesh is good for all moods, all times of day, and all zones from city to country road."

buy the tape here.

Satyajit Ray - Scores of Satyajit Ray

From last.fm:

Satyajit Ray was an Indian filmmaker. Born in the city of Kolkata (then Calcutta), into a Bengali family prominent in the world of arts and letters, Ray studied at Presidency College and at the Visva-Bharati University, at the poet Rabindranath Tagore’s Santiniketan. Starting his career as a commercial artist, Ray was drawn into filmmaking after meeting French filmmaker Jean Renoir and viewing the Italian neorealist film Bicycle Thieves during a visit to London.

Ray directed thirty-seven films, including feature films, documentaries and shorts. Ray’s first film, Pather Panchali, won eleven international prizes, including Best Human Document at Cannes. Along with Aparajito and Apur Sansar, the film forms the Apu trilogy. Ray worked on an array of tasks, including scripting, casting, scoring, cinematography, art direction, editing and designing his own credit titles and publicity material. Apart from making films, he was a fiction writer, publisher, illustrator, graphic designer and film critic. Ray received many major awards in his career, including an Academy Honorary Award in 1992.

Wes Anderson used some of Ray's tracks in the film "The Darjeeling Limited." Score.

King Blood - Eyewash Silver

I was going to rip this vinyl of King Blood after I was baited, hooked, and sold a copy at the record store a couple weeks ago. My record player has been acting up recently, making it hard to transfer LP's. Luckily, I found a rip of this psychedelic scuzz rock gem on Hot On the Heels of Love. (Apologies for my lackadaisical approach to posting of late). The "blown-outness" of this recording is remarkable yet retains a core beauty of hypnotizing and trance-inducing repetitious guitar riffs dripping with glitter fuzz.

Sun Ra and His Intergalactic Research Arkestra - It's After The End Of The World

Been getting kind of lazy about posts. Yes, this too can be found elsewhere online but there is often times a LOT of Sun Ra material to sift through. This is one of my favorites.

Beck - Live in L.A. 1997 (Opening For Bob Dylan)

Been a long time since I've posted, I know. Schoolwork, travels, and moving have prevented me from doing a decent job on this blog over the past few months. A friend emailed me and urged me to keep it up so here I am frantically trying to type a draft of a research paper on Alan Lomax and simultaneously posting this here gem.

I know we probably all have our share and favorites of early Beck material and this one is probably available elsewhere online but I couldn't help myself after this came on shuffle about a half hour ago. I think I got this from a friend whose ex bought a bunch of early Beck bootlegged CD-R's (Banjo Story, Golden Harvest, etc.) off ebay some years ago and this was in the lot. It was so great to hear Beck go back to his acoustic roots for this show opening for Bob Dylan in 97, right around the success of Odelay's big band approach. There are versions of songs from the yet-to-be-released "Mutations" on here but the real treasures for me are the songs from "One Foot In The Grave" and the Jimmie Rodgers cover. Found the photo online. Is that really Beck? Here's the song list:

1. Intro

2. Waiting For A Train
3. Lampshade
4. Cold Brains
5. Girl Dreams
6. Sing It Again
7. Leave Me On the Moon
8. One Foot in the Grave
9. Dead Melodies
10. Rowboat
11. Little Sparrow
12. Nobody's Fault But My Own
13. He's a Mighty Good Leader
14. I Get Lonesome

I've got some more vinyl and cassette rips coming up soon...

The Velvet Angels - Acappella Showcase Presents The Velvet Angels

I grabbed this from roommate's friend's computer late last night while drinking gin and tonics with PBR sidecars. Gorgeous, gorgeous a cappella doo wop at its best here. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of info on this Detroit-transplanted-to-Jersey-group but you can read the All Music Guide write-up here. It confirms what was Danielle telling me about these recordings being made in a hotel room before one of their gigs. This was the perfect music to hear at 2 in the morning after getting buzzed on gin and chain smoking cigarettes. Beautiful.

Sterile Garden - Bind Them

Sterile Garden is the brainchild of my good buddy, Jacob DeRaadt in Fort Collins, CO. This experimental noise/ambient project has changed sounds and approaches many times throughout the last few years I've known him but the effect never ceases to amaze me. Jacob uses anything from contact mic-ing sheet metal to live cassette collages to running 80's drum machines through weird pedals to quarter inch tape loops and more to create a sometimes dissonant and sometimes beautiful atmosphere of grinding mechanical sound. On this recording he uses all tape loops with a little help from Alfred Beattie on violin. I remember when Jacob was recording this at our old band house in Fort Collins and how the sounds wafting up from the basement while I'd be napping would give me some really far out dreams. By and large, this guy is one of the most avant-garde and prolific musicians to come out of the little known Fort Collins cesspool of talent. He also runs a label called Basement Tapes that you can check out here I remember Jacob once telling me that one of the main inspirations for Sterile Garden is that static-y hum that live telephone and electricity wires make when it's really humid or right after rains. Awesome.

Various Artists - Rural Blues: Sacred Tradition 1927-1930

Ben emailed me the conversions of this rare gem a while back and I've been waiting for him to do a little write up on it, but this record is too good to not post. Haven't been able to find much info on this record except that it was released on Herwin and looks to be ultra-rare/expensive. There are a total of 16 tracks here from three different artists: Mother McCollum, Eddie Head and Family, and Edward W. Clayborn, The Guitar Evangelist. These songs definitely have some powerful gospel driving them. Mother McCollum's "Jesus Is My Air-O-Plane" is an awesome declaration of her faith. There's also great versions of "Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!" and "I Shall Not Be Moved" on here. The recording is a bit grainy at times but I imagine that's due partly (or mostly) to the way the original songs sounded when they were put together for this comp. Thanks again to Ben for converting this to the digital realm. If you liked This Old World Is In A Hell of a Fix then you're gonna love this.

Friends Forever - Killball

Friends Forever was a Denver band during the early to mid 2000's that underwent several line-up changes. Notorious for playing shows from INSIDE their van outside of the clubs they were booked at and using full on fireworks and homemade lightshows(see video below), this band completely ruled. They play a particular brand of fun-ass-hell noise rock that drives an 18-wheeler in a demolition derby. Think Lightning Bolt playing new wave, which makes sense since this album was released on LOAD records in 2003. Killball is a concept album. From LOAD's website:

FRIENDS FOREVER'S KILLBALL details an ultra-violent future where games are played to the death. KILLBALL is similar to American football circa 1920-2016, except the players wear no pads and are given PCP to ensure a grizzly game. Each player is equipped with a switchblade and a machete. To be tackled is to be destroyed. Tonight you have been chosen to play KILLBALL. Can you win?