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WAYNE BUTANE
Swipes
Flaming Canine www.flamingcanine.com
Typically fucking excellent Butane sound-collage - six thousand million little
sources, all cut up and placed in their proper sequence to create a long, rambling,
amazingly detailed narrative with sound effects. Opening with multiple samples
of people talking to or about "Wayne," including Howard Stern saying
what a great guy Wayne is and how much he loves him, etc. It's hard to describe
this kind of thing effectively, you just have to hear it. Like Terry Gilliam's
animation - bizarre and extremely retarded humor. My favorite kind. Finally
someone is making use of the sample of Michael Jackson saying "my penis,
my buttocks and my lower torso."
Ian C Stewart
DON CAMPAU & ERIC WALLACK
Disappearing Act
Lonely Whistle Music
Live rock stuff - guitars, live drums, bass, keyboards and Don's patented vocals
on top. "Possess Her" is a moody alt-rocker with a blistering guitar
solo. The chord progression is XTC-like and the vocal melody is the shit. "Wrong
Turn" is a moody beatnik folk track with Don singing and narrating. "Deep
River" opens with bizarre repeated intervals on guitars and bass (I think).
This is another moody one, not a ballad exactly but not a happy ditty either.
The title track closes the album, with just distorted guitar and vocals, giving
it a very cool, unique vibe.
Ian C Stewart
NICOLE CAMPAU
Akrisa
Lonely Whistle Music
CD reissue of a 1995 classic. Don's daughter Nicole was 19 at the time. It was
one of my favorite homemade recordings at the time and it's lost none of its
indescribable charm over the years. She sings and plays most of the instruments
with Don adding "additional instrumental backing." The vocals are
the primary element for the most part. "Some Of Us" has a loose, synth-jazz-funk
stab kind of vibe to the music. "Loss Of Self" adds vigorously-strummed
guitar and shuffly drum machine. "Blonde Assassin" is a strong bass
guitar line with singing out front. Still bewildering and unique.
Ian C Stewart
CAPTAIN THREE LEG
The Birth Of The Creatures To Conquer
Mortville Productions
72-track monster recorded between 1997 and 2002. Captain Three Leg is a fearless
grindcore band that plays fast as hell. Dirty and raw and with vocals that sound
like a cameo by Jabba The Hut. None of the tracks exceed three minutes, so it's
very much a concentrated dose of blasting and riffing. The recording is surprisingly
excellent considering a lot of it was recorded on a 4-track. The drums sound
great. C3L recalls the blistering fury of early Sore Throat, Napalm Death and
Carcass. And, hey, a Celtic Frost cover. "Return To The Eve," nice
one.
Ian C Stewart
CAPTAIN THREE LEG
Captain Three Leg
Mortville Productions
Jesus, I can't believe this is the same band. This is, like, instrumental, progressive,
midpaced metal - not even thrash. Doom in spots. Almost pop-alternative-metal
in other spots. Extremely bizarre and unexpected. The last track is even a ballad.
That rules.
Ian C Stewart
GIRLY FREAK SHOW
Demo
www.girlyfreakshow.com
Estrogencentric rock band action. Pro production. Four short songs, all to the
point. "My Boyfriend" opens with a loping guitar riff and jagged,
overemoting, obscenity-laden vocals. "Too Fat" rocks very similarly.
"You Can't Leave Me" starts off all serious, with minor- key guitar
and earnest vocals but it's the oldest punk rock windup in the book as the pogo-frenzy
breakout riff demonstrates. Back and forth it goes, several times. "Rain
Song" goes even further up the tree of woe, with plaintive acoustic guitar
and synth cello behind the straightforward vocals. This is, like, a serious
song and it doesn't exactly fit in with the first three. It's not bad, it's
just not what you'd expect after the others.
Ian C Stewart 101703
DINO DIMURO
Unfinished
(Lonely Whistle)
Answering the hypothetical question about whether or not one can still sound
like a hometaper if they use Pro Tools, the venerable Mr Dimuro answers in the
affirmative. Hypothetically. "The Becker House," if I'm hearing this
right, is a song about that one guy who has to have more Christmas lights on
his house and yard than everyone else combined. There's always one guy. It's
a cool song, melodic almost like children's music or Dr Demento-type novelty
stuff. There are sound effects and stuff. Singing, guitar, live drums, etc.
"You Gotta Be Gates To Play With Toy Trains" talks about Bill Gates
and money and toy trains and includes every train-related sound effect you can
imagine. Sweet. Little snippets of phonecalls, conversations and radio shows
between songs. The instrumentals are cool too. Unfinished perhaps but fun to
listen to all the same.
Ian C Stewart 090403
MATCHES F.C.
Matches F.C.
http://www.matchesfc.com
Slappy little modern-rock EP (modern in this case meaning "retro")
of full band treatment. The vocals are the star, followed closely in the mix
by the drums, both of which are all over the place. The singer sounds like TV's
Greg Proops. Why is this? It is unique, that much I can concede. Guitars are
distorted but wholly unmetallic. I'm going to say Fountains Of Wayne, but that's
mostly because I just saw that fucking video of theirs and it's at the front
of my brain. Pro production up in here and the songs are good and catchy. "Come
On Over" is a neatly syncopated rocker at the end with a happy groove and
a very loose vibe. Loose syncopation? I didn't think it was possible either.
Ian C Stewart 090403
TOM FOOLERY AND THE MISTAKES
Take One For The Team
Colossal Thumb CD tomfoolery.freeyellow.com
Kyle Sowash leads the Mistakes to the land of pop/folk/punk indie rock glory
with this self-produced CD. Storming into gear with "It's Not 1999,"
Take One For The Team sounds good as fuck. Not just 'for a lo-fi release' either,
the shit just sounds good. Kyle's energetic and inventive guitar playing is
inextricably linked to his strained, impassioned singing, which is the true
center of this album. Track two and already every song has handclaps. This is
a good thing. "Urkels Lament" is roughly the size and shape of a ballad
and yet it's kind of happy, if that makes sense. Josh Wampler's bass lines are
all over the damn place, just like they should be. And whose two-dollar keyboard
is that on "Everything Is Under Control"? Ha! That rules! The drums
sound especially fucking excellent. How do they do that? "Seven Degrees
Of Kevin Bacon" is a quick little instrumental. "Hollis Queens"
is a touching tribute to Jam Master Jay. These songs are all short and catchy
with lots of hooks and funny/poignant lyrics and this is 32 extremely fucking
rad minutes of fun.
Ian C Stewart
DON CAMPAU + MJB
Sinecure
http://www.semperlofi.com
Last year's meeting of the minds, with West Coast meets East Coast of two home
recording giants. Both of these guys do it all when it comes to music, so Sinecure
is a neato blend of their strengths - and as far as who does what on this album,
uh. Fuck if I know. "Really Like" kicks shit off with an uptempo drum
program and an MJB sneeze? Nice beat, nice guitar chords, cool manipulation/editing
after the fact. MJB singing. And those lyrics: "I like porno, more than
I like you" ! Dude! Fuck yeah. "Thorn" rolls with live drumming
and a guitar solo straight away. Don singing in monotone. Keyboards in there
somewhere. Another nice groove. This is some of the most straightforward pop
I've heard from either of these guys. "Feed Your $ Into The Death Machine"
goes drum machine/acoustic guitar/MJB-layered-vox with it. "This I Will,
I Will Fulfill" opens with some tuned percussion type shit and acoustic
guitar. Mr Campau breaks down a nice vocal track that sounds like a campfire
to me. Hell, I don't know. It's like classic rock genius, which is a phrase
I don't use often. "Eat Meat" is a techno-folk-punk-percussion stomper.
"Collab" rounds out this, um, collab nicely. What a cool little album
this is. Imagine if they'd been in the same room for any of it! West Coast!
East Coast! Represent!
Ian C Stewart 060703
BEN GOTT
Random Patterns Of Song
http://www.mp3.com/bengott
2CDs of Benji's greatest hits, 1996-2003. CD1 is The Beginning (Previously Released
Tracks) and it opens with the one-two punch of "Town" and "The
Thinking Song," two sad little pop gems dating from about 1804 or whenever
he recorded them first. The warm glow of analog recording equipment enhances
the mood of the tracks. "Another Kitchen," from 1997's Education In
Reverse album has a beautiful vocal lilt that has since been pinched by Voivod.
No, really, on their song "The Multiverse." It's bad ass in both cases.
The music bed of "Another Kitchen" is a cross between Nine Inch Nails
"Closer" (the drums), Eminem (though this track predates his rise
by about four lifetimes - with that chiming bell) and uh.. some band that uses
a xylophone? Sorry to say "Jelly Man Kelly" makes me suicidal for
there is no sound sadder than an affluent college honkey singing the blues.
Then there's "The Trouble," a fantastic tambouriney Ben Folds piano-driven
sad pop song that also reminds me of Prefab Sprout. Two XTC covers round out
CD1: "Battery Brides" and "Making Plans For Nigel." "Battery
Brides" goes freeform 'n' floaty, shitcanning the stacatto groove of the
original. Interesting. "Nigel" is a mad interpretation that doesn't
bother with the song's signature drum pattern. Interesting. With a gospel-ish
extension at the end where the fade-out should be. I take back what I said before
about college boy blues. Gospel is much sadder. Over on CD2 is called The Rest
(B-sides, unreleased tracks, and everything else) and it includes more covers
of songs that I've never heard by people like Babybird and Richard Thompson.
And other covers of Springsteen, the Smiths and Andy Partridge. "Melody"
is a little snippet of an instrumental with echoey guitar and that slow Reznor
groove. I keep saying Trent Reznor because it's so totally inappropriate to
do so. This music has nothing to do with him. Ben takes the XTC Homespun approach
by putting "Saturday (demo)" before "Saturday." Followed
by "Wherever You Are (demo)" and "Wherever You Are." Nice
harmonized guitar at the end. Happy pop song "Marilyn Manson" holds
down the middle, a couple tracks over from its friend "John Lennon (demo)."
Naturally. The hints of the next album Songs About Songs are very promising.
Further refinement of the craft. Um, word up? So, bottom line, why isn't Ben
Gott up there with Ben Folds and Ben Harper and Ben Franklin, pounding out his
hits on a piano to a bunch of college fucks in turtlenecks and glasses?
Ian C Stewart 053103
SHY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
Only The Lost Can Find Their Way 7"
http://www.geocities.com/kawtapes
Holy god, this is the one. The strongest combination of songwriting and performance
yet from Mark Ritchie and Paul Doucet, aka the Gloomer Twins. And on this excellent
format of the clear vinyl 7"! It gets no better! You'll know the drill
by now if you've been paying attention: acoustic-based mope rock that borrows
heavily from the collected works of Mark Eitzel, but with a personal spin. The
recording is very lo fi but not in a trendy way - Shy Rights has been kicking
it that way all along. It's not like they just read about this new four-track
craze and decided to get onboard. So, the songs. "Only The Lost Can Find
Their Way" goes for a full band approach with drum machine and bass added
to the mix and a cracking chorus. "The Solemn, Balanced Weight Of The Hammer"
is a stunner, with Nick Drake style guitar voicings and one of the best melodies
Ritchie has done, and that's saying a lot. It's just guitar and vocals and a
sort of floaty feedbacky guitar in the background. Excellent. Another handmade
treasure from KAW Tapes.
Ian C Stewart 053103
REVIEWS from 2001. These were too late for the final printed issue of AUTOreverse.
But not too late to be included here.
AN EVENING WITH DAVID & DIANA CD
David Aronson 606 2nd Street Pike, Southampton PA 18966 USA jaron98449@aol.com
Kids! Yuck! Feedback, noise, and the f-word! Yuck! Humorlessly arty poetry!
Yuck! Sound as "art"! Yuck! Vocal throwaways looped and used as hand
grenades! Yuck! One more thing! Yuck!
Ian C Stewart
FRANK PECK
GARNET HILL cassette
KAW 94 Main St, Forth, Lanarkshire, ML11 8AB UK kawtapes@hotmail.com
http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/197/the_shy_rights_movement.html
Mark Ritchie CAN do wrong, he just chooses not to. If there's a better, more
together, more melancholic and beautiful singer-songwriter-acoustic guy out
there, I don't wanna know. Because Mark's the shit, period. Frank Peck = beautiful,
aching, acoustic torch songs. To infinity.
Ian C Stewart
THE HIPTHRUSTERS
THE LOST SESSIONS CD
http://www.hipthrusters.co.uk
Sounding more like latter-day The Damned than I ever recall, this CD was recorded
in 1996, but the master tape led the band on a wild goose chase not unlike Sir
Paul McCartney's pivotal film "Give My Regards To Broad Street." Still
fuckin' basic rockin' rock action, but the production is good and there seems
to be more depth to this one than their other stuff. From what I recall anyway.
Ian C Stewart
THE HOT BUTTERED ELVES
A VERY LO-FI CHRISTMAS CD
http://www.mp3.com/hotbutteredelves
These guys take the Xmas-song concept to the fuckin' extreme, with tracks like
"Moonpuppy The Surfin' Elf," "Satan Claus," "Elf In
My Pocket," "Pieces Of Santa," Secret Robotic Gorilla Christmas,"
"I'll Be Your Fruitcake," and "Nuclear Winter." 20 tracks
of yuletide fury.
Ian C Stewart
OPEN MIKE: A TRIBUTE TO THE SONGS OF MIKE MERZ CD
http://www.juniorbirdman.com/merz.html
Bands and artists you've never heard, covering another band/artist you've never
heard. Period. Not since KISS singlehandedly organized "KISS My Ass"
has an artist singlehandedly organized a tribute to their own output. Do you
like the Soul Asylum, the Bob Mould, the The Replacements, the sad twang of
modern country and that shiat "they" call alt.country?
Ian C Stewart - it's a rhetorical question.
PRAYING FOR OBLIVION
BOOKBURNER'S ANTHEM cassette
LSDO Jonathan Kan, 1506 Starburst Dr, West Covina CA 91790 USA
nefixium@msn.com
Beautifully packaged feedback/destructive hiss/hellish racket/controlled experiment/hissy
rumble etc. If you like this sort of thing, then buy this one in particular
for the sexy cover and the fine layout job.
Ian C Stewart
PRAYING FOR OBLIVION
SWAN SONG CD
Final Judgment Church Ov The Great Oblivion PO Box 22103 Nashville TN 37202-2103
USA
http://www.radonstudio.com/bandpages/prayingforoblivion.htm
Yeah, well, you got your "head in a blender" track, you got your "waiting
for the alien spacecraft to descend" whirring track, you got your fucking
shrill feedback, you got your untitled track that sounds like a piano string
coming out of a brick wall. You know, basically something for every mood.
Ian C Stewart
CHAD RULLMAN
KOTORAN JIWA VHS
Supercollider Films PO Box 550172, Atlanta GA 30355 USA
Hey! A good excuse to go lay on the couch while I write a review! Too bad my
computer won't come with me. So this is a filmed deal, like an actual movie.
A guy in a suit sits on a bench. His cellphone rings. It's a female, she's calling
about the ad in the paper. She sends him to a clinic. Cue ghouly experimental
music. Pineal Ventana and AER. The direction is good but the story is merely
okay. The acting is uh, about half a step up from a bad porno. But uh, yeah.
Wow. A movie.
Ian C Stewart
SILBER XMAS 2000 CD
Silber Records PO Box 18062 Raleigh NC 27619 USA
http://www.silbermedia.com
Anaphylaxis should credit their reverb unit as a member of the band, for it
does more than the rest of them (him) combined. MJB and Ken Clinger throw down
"Snow Flurries," a suitably tasty blend of both of their personalities
--- Clinger the synthesist/melodocist; MJB the rhythmatist/fuckwithatist. Aarktica
is the sound of ice melting. Electric Bird Noise's fingerpicked electric guitar
action actually sounds somewhat Xmassy, but not to the point of sounding obnoxious
here in the land we call March. Russell Halasz' little "Christmas Cheese"
acoustic song is a semi-happy, uptempo lo-fi deal apparently dating from 1990.
Which just makes you wonder what he sounds like now. Goddakk goes for the Synthetic
Ghoul approach with their "Sounds Like Christmas," which actually
sounds more like a Cocteau Twins backing track without all the fruity bits.
Remora (that would be Brian, aka Silber honcho) gets all Nick Cavey-creepy on
the last track just to let you know that he's not a complete cheeseball when
it comes to this Xmas Compilation nonsense. In a good way.
Ian C Stewart
SINT: NAUTILUS CD
Casella Postale 1311, Torino Italy
It comes with this glossy 10" square book of vividly colored paintings
that are beautiful and insane and occasionally recall the glee of Keith Haring.
The CD itself is ambling, ambient(ish) groove-based uh, not really techno in
the traditional sense. Technology-oriented groove music. Pro all the way. I
like it and all but I'll have to send it to Paola now for some cultural perspective.
Ian C Stewart
DAVE STAFFORD
VOICES FROM THE DESERT CD
http://www.pureambient.com
The date on the back might say 1992, but this is timeless guitar-based noodle-ambience.
Stafford has long been the master of the e-bow and of static guitar projections.
He might've even been born that way. Plus, "The Scattering" is almost
45 minutes long! Talk about value for money!
Ian C Stewart
DAN SUSNARA
ONE HANGDOG JUNEY MOON AT BHAGDAVAGITA RITA'S cassette
7806 S Kilpatrick Ave, Chicago IL 60652-1133 USA
Suss-man gangs up with Campau, MJB, Ken Clinger, et al for a wisely-chosen set
of "collabs & instrumentals." Drum machines, keyboards, a bit
of guitar, universally detached vocals. And is that a vocoder? Wow.
Ian C Stewart
DAN SUSNARA MICKY SAUNDERS
ONTARIO HUES AND BACK | 3 SONG E.P. cassette
7806 S Kilpatrick Ave, Chicago IL 60652-1133 USA
Little Susie-nara retorts with a female vocalist, live drums and the best stuff
he's ever put out, in my estimation. Sensible pop with guitars set on Full Jangle,
prominent (well-recorded too) female vocals, occasional keyboard bits. Good
shit. The rest isn't worth mentioning. She should be the permanent lead vocalist.
Ian C Stewart
WORKING WITH CHILDREN & ANIMALS VOL 1 CD
Wasp Factory Recordings Unit 1, 65-67 High Street, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire,
GL50 1DU UK http://www.wasp-factory.com
"Industrial, darkwave and alternative electronic rock" it says here.
Yep, that nearly covers it. Lots of beats, lots of distorted vocals, a general
return to rock-god behavior across the board. Chaos Engine's singer sure does
sound like Ian Astbury. I'd like to hear him do a good "fire wo-mah-own"
for my answering machine. Arkham Asylum pushes the BPM up to about 394 or so,
but not to the point of stupidity (like, say, Atari Teenage Riot). Guitars are
apparently welcome on Wasp Factory too. I do like this.
Ian C Stewart
posted by Ian Stewart at 12:42 PM
Thinking Plague - In Extremis CD
Cuneiform Records / POBox 8427 / Silver Spring, MD 20907-8427 usa
www.cuneiformrecords.com/bandshtml/thinking.html
members.xoom.com/tplague/tp.html
Thinking Plague are Univers Zero and Stereolab collaborating on the lost goth-prog
scores of Frank Zappa. Thinking Plague are Yes in the alternate universe in
which, rather than becoming blustery, new-agey farts, they instead rocked the
world cross-eyed. Thinking Plague are, from King Crimson, the diffusely moody,
lean and sinewy musicality of Starless and Bible Black combined with the muscular,
precise pointillism / crunch counterpoint of ConstrucKtion of Light. Thinking
Plague are everything I ever wanted from progressive music, but never got. All
the trudging through those bad albums that Yes made after Fragile kicked my
ass are finally jusitified. Thinking Plague kick my ass so hard they make my
nads retract. Deborah Perry's voice is all Jon Anderson-y with a cool, easy,
Euro-pop delivery akin to Laetitia Sadier. She interweaves through difficult
and dissonant intervals as though she were playfully spinning blindfolded in
the flower garden, she makes it sound easy. As do the rest of the group... Dave
Willey's and Bob Drake's bass playing is pure 70's fuzz prog, but they put a
fat groove on when it's called for. The piano / synth / mellotron player Shane
Hotle is obviously treading on a trail made by Rick Wakeman, but he does so
with a minimum of wank, and a maximum of talent. The reed instruments brought
to the table by Mark Harris fills in the mix quite nicely and adds a terse jazz
/ goth-orchestral flavor, (like Univers Zero). Mike Johnson's guitar brings
a lot of Fripp to the stew, but leaves the flashiness to the group as a whole.
There is no egotistical grandstanding to be found here... there is a stunningly
welcome lack of 15 minute guitar solos that could have populated this CD. The
music is the important thing, and it seems the CD is a suite of sorts with themes
popping up here and there... and though it draws from a multitude of previous
influences, has an incredibly distinct style of its own. It is very DIFFICULT
music, certainly difficult to play, I'm sure, but also quite challenging to
the listener... but also addicting in its catchiness. I've honestly listened
to this damn CD two to three times a day since I bought it. I could not recommend
this CD higher, it's completely knocked the new King Crimson out of my CD player,
when nothing else could. If there is nothing else that you consider looking
into, make the time to seek out this CD. Cunieform Records is quite well distributed,
so go down to your local record shop and order this puppy. At least go to the
Cuneiform website and check out their RealAudio snippet. As for me, since T.P.
are a Denver band, I'll be scouring the local newspapers for concert dates,
and booking an appointment with a physician to see what hope there is of having
my nads drop again.
-- c. reider