Back in March over at Mere Words, I wrote about how I was honorably mentioned in managing editor Ed McCormack’s essay “Andy’s Aura, Patti’s Power, My Sister’s Boxes, My Father’s Press Clippings, Paul Nelson’s Withering, and Other Aspects of Art and Fame, Obscurity and Loss, Death and Resurrection,” published in the February/March issue of his magazine Gallery & Studio. Lo and behold, tonight I discovered that the article is now available online at the G&S website. Check it out.
Copyright 2007 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved.
Back in March over at Mere Words, I wrote about how I was honorably mentioned in managing editor Ed McCormack’s essay “Andy’s Aura, Patti’s Power, My Sister’s Boxes, My Father’s Press Clippings, Paul Nelson’s Withering, and Other Aspects of Art and Fame, Obscurity and Loss, Death and Resurrection,” published in the February/March issue of his magazine Gallery & Studio. Lo and behold, tonight I discovered that the article is now available online at the G&S website. Check it out.
Copyright 2007 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved.
Back in March over at Mere Words, I wrote about how I was honorably mentioned in managing editor Ed McCormack’s essay “Andy’s Aura, Patti’s Power, My Sister’s Boxes, My Father’s Press Clippings, Paul Nelson’s Withering, and Other Aspects of Art and Fame, Obscurity and Loss, Death and Resurrection,” published in the February/March issue of his magazine Gallery & Studio. Lo and behold, tonight I discovered that the article is now available online at the G&S website. Check it out.
Copyright 2007 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved.
A couple years ago the HYPED 2 DEATH label unearthed a boatload of 1980-83 archival recordings, many of them cassette-only, from a little-known UK band called THE MIDNIGHT CIRCUS. I was fortunate enough to get one, and they had me at hello. The CD, with the compact title of “RICHARD, RODNEY, RASTUS, RAOUL, RODERICK, RANDY, RUPERT”, has a smattering of home & studio & live recordings from this sometimes-tuneful workingman’s artpunk band, who practiced their rough trade at the intersection of early MEKONS and Detailed Twang namesakes THE DOOR AND THE WINDOW. I was a bit surprised, given my immediate enthusiasm for these resurrected simpleton masterpieces, how little attention they garnered, and how to this day I haven’t read a single word of praise about the band that wasn’t part of a sales page or on my own blog. Here’s what Hyped 2 Death themselves had to say by way of introduction:
Midnight Circus are known to a handful of fanatics from the rare Angst in my Pants compilation EP, but they put most of their energy into the cassette-only wing of the DIY movement. Nevertheless, they churned out vinyl-worthy DIY-punk tunes by the score, and unlike most bands that did make it to vinyl -who typically spent most of their money on pressing and printing– the ‘Circus were free to blow it all on recording.
C’mon folks, have a listen – here’s two killers from the CD, which you can purchase by clicking here.
Muff –Do The Hand Jive/ Discotheque King –Polydor 2040135 (1975 German Issue)
Here’s a little something to dance away the weekend. This single Seems to have been the follow up to Muff‘s Sexy Sexy Lady (Bell 1380) and once more the A side is a fun piece of commercial Glam fodder, but the B side is just so wonderfully inept. There seems to be more than a slight tempo conflict going on here and the crunching handclaps/foot stomps are lagging behind the beat (it’s also rare to have Glitter handclaps on the on-beat). The effect is just bizarre and you would have to be a real Discotheque King to be able to gyrate seamlessly to this one…
Click on title for a full version of Discotheque King
When Ryan Wells & Scott Soriano, two gentlemen of my acquaintance, decided to start an mp3 blog called STATIC PARTY featuring rare 45s of what they call “punk’s third rail, 1990-2000â€Â, I figured the thing would be pretty solid. What I didn’t count on was just how much terrific spazz/garage/noise/ punk these vaunted record hoarders were swooping up in those unheralded years, and how much stuff they had that I didn’t. STATIC PARTY, about once or twice a week, posts a 45 direct from these fellas’ hallowed stashes, and more often than not, the tracks are pretty friggin’ wild. They’re certainly unavailable elsewhere. If they weren’t doing it, not only would you (and I) not know about these gems, virtually no one else would know either – because I’ll bet dollars to donuts that virtually no one else owns such a dizzying array of garage-influenced punk rock vinyl from that age. I know you can say that about a lot of mp3 blogs (Soriano’s CRUD CRUD, for instance), but this microscene is territory that only Static Party is mining, and I’ve found a large bucketful of new favorite songs as a result of their labors.
Here are three stunners I downloaded straight from the site. All are from Seattle (a coincidence, honestly), and as of this writing, two are actually still available on Static Party itself. They won’t always be – most disappear after 3 or 4 weeks. THE STITCHES are a band I saw in 2003 up there – they put on monkey masks or something & jumped around like goofballs, and never in my wildest dreams did I think they were capable of balls-out raw power like this. (Correction, May 19th – I’m confusing “The Stitches” with “The Spits”. I know nothing about either band, but I’ve been corrected in the comments below – The Stitches were a California band, and I assume they did not employ monkey masks). MAN-TEE-MANS – well, it’s a Rob Vasquez band, post-NIGHT KINGS, and I’m dumbfounded that I sold this 45 back after I bought it in 1994, despite featuring the Great Man and my pal Caryn to boot. I think I was burnt out on Rob’s tuneless “learning to playâ€Â bands, but this sounds like pure genius now, as simple and unadorned as the first URINALS single, and even more dumb. I saw STEEL WOOL a few times back in the 90s, but never did they sound as roaring and loose as they do on “Devil’s Nightâ€Â, which out-Mudhoneys MUDHONEY. Check them all out below and at STATIC PARTY.
I wrote about Tom Pacheco a couple of months ago over at Mere Words. Back in 1974, Pacheco was one of the artists Paul struggled to sign to Mercury Records. While Paul was unsuccessful, he did help Pacheco land a record contract at RCA, where he recorded his first two solo albums. Until I brought it to his attention in March, Pacheco was unaware that Paul had reviewed his debut album, 1976’s Swallowed Up in the Great American Heartland.
Pacheco, who himself is known to wax political now and then, says, “One thing was true: Paul did not care much for political songs.” He told the critic back in the Seventies: “Paul, sometimes you’ve got to write those things. You have to. Even if they’re only going to be good for two years, you still have to do them once in a while.”
One wonders what Paul would think of Pacheco’s “When You’re Back on Your Ranch in Texas,” a lovely anti-Bush number that manages to invoke the war in Iraq, what’s left of New Orleans, international diplomacy, the separation (or not) of church and state, the national debt, 9/11, and global warming while at the same time humanizing the target of the song’s haunting vitriol.
Copyright 2007 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved.
I wrote about Tom Pacheco a couple of months ago over at Mere Words. Back in 1974, Pacheco was one of the artists Paul struggled to sign to Mercury Records. While Paul was unsuccessful, he did help Pacheco land a record contract at RCA, where he recorded his first two solo albums. Until I brought it to his attention in March, Pacheco was unaware that Paul had reviewed his debut album, 1976’s Swallowed Up in the Great American Heartland.
Pacheco, who himself is known to wax political now and then, says, “One thing was true: Paul did not care much for political songs.” He told the critic back in the Seventies: “Paul, sometimes you’ve got to write those things. You have to. Even if they’re only going to be good for two years, you still have to do them once in a while.”
One wonders what Paul would think of Pacheco’s “When You’re Back on Your Ranch in Texas,” a lovely anti-Bush number that manages to invoke the war in Iraq, what’s left of New Orleans, international diplomacy, the separation (or not) of church and state, the national debt, 9/11, and global warming while at the same time humanizing the target of the song’s haunting vitriol.
Copyright 2007 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved.
I wrote about Tom Pacheco a couple of months ago over at Mere Words. Back in 1974, Pacheco was one of the artists Paul struggled to sign to Mercury Records. While Paul was unsuccessful, he did help Pacheco land a record contract at RCA, where he recorded his first two solo albums. Until I brought it to his attention in March, Pacheco was unaware that Paul had reviewed his debut album, 1976’s Swallowed Up in the Great American Heartland.
Pacheco, who himself is known to wax political now and then, says, “One thing was true: Paul did not care much for political songs.” He told the critic back in the Seventies: “Paul, sometimes you’ve got to write those things. You have to. Even if they’re only going to be good for two years, you still have to do them once in a while.”
One wonders what Paul would think of Pacheco’s “When You’re Back on Your Ranch in Texas,” a lovely anti-Bush number that manages to invoke the war in Iraq, what’s left of New Orleans, international diplomacy, the separation (or not) of church and state, the national debt, 9/11, and global warming while at the same time humanizing the target of the song’s haunting vitriol.
Copyright 2007 by Kevin Avery. All rights reserved.
