Items of Self-Promotion

1. Here’s something I just wrote for Paste online that’s not likely to be in the running for DaCapo’s Best Music Writing of 2007.

2. I’ll be MC’ing Gonerfest 4 – Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. More info here. One of the dates is shaping up to be “character nightâ€Â – see post from 9/20. No, I’m not dressing up as Steve Malkmus.

3. For 20 seconds of grocery store reading, check out my two reviews in the October issue of Spin Magazine. The Shocking Pinks album is wonderful (it’s on DFA) and could pose as a lost Flying Nun recording circa-1989. Have I mentioned how hard it is to write a 90-word review?

Brat – Not Quite Right

Brat – Not Quite Right/ Long Time Away –Red Rooster Records (1974 US)

This is in fact the first release by Artful Dodger prior to signing to Columbia and to big shot management team Leber-Krebs. Artful Dodger never really made it, but were big favourites as they really hit the spot with their special mix of Power Pop /Byrdsian jangle and upfront raspy Faces rock. All 4 albums are worth seeking out –but I especially recommend their first two ( self-titled and Honor Amongst The Thieves) as well as their later album as a four piece on Ariola (Rave On). Not Quite Right finds the band at the boogier edge of the spectrum, although the intro is reminiscent of Wayside and there’s enough melodicism to elevate them way above being average boogie merchants. Long time Away is simply gorgeous and is very different to the version found on their first album.

Click on title for edits of Not Quite Right and Long Time Away

Anne Briggs

Dear Friends: Sorry to have been away so long. I'm back and am here to tell you about Anne Briggs. I don't care about the British Folk Revival, the phenomenon that gets mentioned in every Mojo issue about 20 times, the thing that you have to hear about every time a new Devendra Banhart (sp?) or Joanna Newson record comes out. But Anne Briggs, while a British folkie to be sure, is a something else altogether, somebody too original and sublime to be cast in that pot. She is a field hippy with a punk attitude, like a PJ Harvey singing ancient folk ballads. She prefers to sing a cappella, and has never been crazy about being recorded. She dislikes being photographed, and when caught on film she generally looks like she needs a bath and a hairbrush, and like she might be considering punching the photographer. Her 1971 album The Time Has Come was reissued this year, and this record is what I'm really writing about here. On this record Briggs allowed herself to be accompanied by some light guitar playing, and on the two instrumental tracks she plays some rare stringed instrument herself. This is a spellbinding album, and something that should be known as one of the great folk records of all time, instead of an album only a select few have heard. The guitar playing is similar to that of the acoustic work on Led Zeppelin III, and Anne's vocals are something that can't really be described – they just need to be heard. This is Nick Drake meets Judee Sill, it's acoustic Led Zeppelin with a female vocalist, it's timeless music performed by an extraordinary artist, it's Anne Briggs . . . and it's the reissue of the year, as far as I'm concerned. Also highly worthwhile is the Anne Briggs compilation, A Collection, which compiles much of her best a cappella material. The one I would skip is Sing a Song For You, on which Briggs is backed by the band Ragged Robin – just not the same caliber of material as is found on Time Has Come and A Collection.

PopKomm Ate My Brain, and other music news

Hmpf, I thought I’d have a lot more to say about PopKomm this year, but it was almost spectacularly uneventful. The trade show was put into larger quarters, which meant there were larger stands, but except for Sony/BMG, which had a huge, almost empty area all done in sparking white, none were terribly notable. There were almost no freebies (this is usually when I recharge my cigarette-lighter supply, but no luck this year), and almost no gimmicks, although the light-up martini glasses some Swedish company was using for their drinks were cool.

Overall, it seems attendance at the conference and trade-fair was down, and a number of countries whose export agencies are usually quite visible — most notably Ireland — were missing. For those of you who are interested, the export agencies are, obviously, government bodies in charge of promoting goods made in a given country to potential customers in the outside world. In a number of countries, particularly in Europe, pop music is perceived to be one of these potential exports, which means that a band or performer working abroad can, at least theoretically, get some support from the export agency, since any success will mean money for live shows and/or records coming into the country. It’s a good idea, and has worked well for Holland and France, to name just two.

In fact, the main event during PopKomm was one that didn’t happen there: Steve Jobs came to Berlin to hold a press conference announcing the iPhone partnership with T Mobile, and to talk about iTunes’ German store. (Hey, Steve, what about that Apple Store that’s been supposed to be opening here for the last five or six years?) This event is such a natural to have happen at PopKomm that I can only wonder why it didn’t. Has PopKomm got so little visibility in the international tech and music worlds that nobody at Apple knew about it? Is it visible but considered unimportant? It’s inconceivable that an event like that would ignore SXSW, the folks I was working for at PopKomm, because events like this are where the early adopters are — not to mention that iTunes is a music-biz behemoth.

Which brings me to yet another gripe, although not a PopKomm one, for the most part. Once again, the list of attendees with their contact information was on a CD-ROM, which is a bad idea because it’s so easily scanned by spammers, and once again that CD-ROM was Windows only. So was the DVD given away in the bags, called See the Music! Berlin’s Music Industry in a 3D City Model, developed for music-in-berlin.de by Berlin Partner, the Berlin KommunikationsForum e.V., the Senat’s Department for Economics, Technology, and Women’s issues, the Senat’s Department for Urban Development, and funds from the European Regional Development Fund. Any of whom could have walked around the room and noticed the disproportionate numbers of Macintosh computers in use, and most of whom, I would think, would also know that it doesn’t cost any more to put together something like this in a hybrid form. A complete and total waste of money the city doesn’t have. Which I’d probably also be saying if I could play the damn thing.

As always, I skipped the live music in the evenings and went home to rest up for my 7-hour shift at the SXSW stand during the day. PopKomm never brings in anything I want to see anyway (hell, I’m not interested in 90% of the stuff at SXSW, either; aging does have its up-side), and this year was certainly no different.

* * *

Meanwhile, Tesla, whose troubles I outlined earlier, has decided to fight back. Here’s the latest press release from them, orthography and all intact:

call to action

in light of the current threat to t e s l a ‘s existence, we call upon artists, audience, and colleagues, to communicate to the state of berlin what the city risks to lose with this decision. learn more about the current situation at https://www.tesla-berlin.de , write a letter or an e mail to mr andre schmitz, the state secretary for cultural affairs, and please remember to send a copy to t e s l a , as well, for our documentation. you will find the necessary addresses at the end of this mail.

rather than generic protest letters, we particularly encourage qualified statements on the meaning and importance of media art, on the need for venues for artistic production, presentation, and reflection, on support for media art in berlin, and on t e s l a ‘s role in both a local and international context. in the coming months, we will increase our efforts to attain support from the state of berlin for this branch of the arts, and we hope that this action will make it clear that a real need and a broad interest exists.

we thank you for your support. we hope that this campaign will reach those responsible for cultural politics and demonstrate to them the vital need for a competent center for art and media in berlin. please forward this call trough your mailing list. please address any questions to moritz von rappard (pr and press) at 030. 247 49 788 or public@tesla-berlin.de.

andreas broeckmann, detlev schneider, carsten seiffarth

Herrn Staatssekretär André Schmitz
beim Regierenden Bürgermeister von Berlin
Senatskanzlei – Kulturelle Angelegenheiten
Brunnenstraße 188 – 190
10119 Berlin
andre.schmitz@senwfk.verwalt-berlin.de

t e s l a
media > art podewils’sches palais
klosterstraße 68
10179 berlin
public@tesla-berlin.de

I gotta say, I wish them well, but I’ve been here long enough to suspect this protest will be given polite attention and then ignored.

Bruce Dern Scene-Chewing Hall of Greatness

1. The Laughing Policeman (1973) – A weird little movie. There’s possibly two people reading right now that have seen it. Dern plays Matthau’s short-fuse, talk-the-paint-from-the-walls partner. Contains what is easily the best line of Dern’s career: (to an overweight cop) “I see that you’ve been putting in some overtime with the ‘ol knife and fork.â€ÂÂ 

2. The Driver (1978) – Nothing beats Dern as an obsessed cop, and he played a lot of them. If you’ve yet to see a good Walter Hill film, here’s a great place to start. Good example of the tail end of great American 70’s cinema. You can have your French New-Wave (granted, probably the biggest influence on American 70’s cinema), your post-1990 indie bullshit, and whatever quasi-intellectual concerns that you don’t understand but claim to. In the 70’s, with a year or two of before-and-after wiggle room, American directors, writers, and cinematographers created the greatest genre/period of film EVER. Disagree? Welcome to WRONG MOUNTAIN, start climbing! Wow, that was a stupid closing line. 

3. The King of Marvin Gardens (1972) – Dern is the only redeeming quality of this misguided (and unofficial) Five Easy Pieces sequel. 

4. Silent Running (1972) – My favorite Rated-G movie. Not sure it’s ever a good idea to confine a mouthy character actor alone in a space station. 

5. Coming Home (1978) – Next time I get tempted to watch this Vietnam vet emotional holocaust, I’ll stick my head in the oven instead. 

6. Black Sunday (1978) – The blimp-over-the-stadium scene still kills. As paranoia films go, this has a 50% hit-rate. 

7. “Big Loveâ€Â (an HBO original series, coz!!) – I once said that a show with Harry Dean Stanton, Bill Paxton, and Bruce Dern must be VERY bad to keep me away. That definitive comment has since met with some trademark Earles apathy. I an not passionate about it. That last sentence serves to state that there ARE television shows that pull the passion right out of my stomach, leaving the butterflies to deal with the bleeding peptic ulcer (no brown/tree liquor, no gin, no rum, no tequila…..conversely, vodka, beer, wine, and some liqueurs make the cut). Well, there’s one, and it’s called “The Wire.â€Â Communicating any degree of distaste for “The Wireâ€Â gets one a coupon for a free exit from my life. There are those that do, and those that don’t. What all of this means is….I’ve watched and enjoyed 6 or 7 episodes of “Big Love.â€Â It lacks, or I lack, that very special something. 

8. Thumb Tripping (1972) – Bad Movie + Dern = Watch It!! (Remember this equation) 

 

Fan Etiquette: Are The People Who Love Your Music Ruining Your Band’s Reputation?

They’re generous, they’re consistent, they’re giving…and most of all…they love your music. They’re your fans and they come to every one of your live shows, fork out money for cover charges, CDs and t-shirts, bring your band gifts, throw you house parties, and spread the word of your music on the internet and beyond. Your fans are the single most important ingredient to the success of your band. Without them, you’d be rocking out in your Aunt’s basement to an audience of none…well, maybe her cat.

But there can be a dark side to the hoards of happy humans drunk on your future #1 hits. Sometimes the folks barreling in to see you play, or flooding your websites with their online presence are causing more harm than good to the reputation of your band. Rude behavior, message board flaming, compulsive sticker-ing and flyer-ing, may all seem like helping to your flock of followers but to club owners, industry and those newly interested in your music, they may seem like trouble-makers, belligerents and vandals.

It may be simply a case of over-exuberant fan zeal. Your fans think they’re preaching the gospel of your band to anyone with eyes and ears: by dropping your postcards all over town like a bird with irritable bowel syndrome, by filling up strangers email in-boxes with bulky MP3s and HTML photo-heavy notices about how much you rock, and by yelling your band’s name at the top of their lungs during another band’s set like a parrot with Turret’s Syndrome. These unsolicited over-promotions…albeit well-intentioned…are hard for the average person to separate from your band’s own promotional efforts and may not be appreciated in the way they were intended. On the other hand, it may be that your fans are so revved up by the love of your music that they’ve become arrogant, aggressive and just plain out of control in any arena (or cyber place) your band inhabits. At any rate, you may find that you need to dial these folks back a bit to create a environment that is fan-friendly without comprising your band’s opportunities.

The following are a few tips that will help you to guide your supporters in their quest to be adamant fans without allowing them to turn into an obnoxious, rowdy, gang of rabid baboons.

1.) Communicate With Your Fans—A lot of problems can be eliminated by simply setting up a line of communication between your band members and your fans. For instance, if you know that a particular club forbids setting around flyers, postcards or other promo materials, post it on your website with the upcoming show info-blast. Set guidelines for your band and for each individual show and let your fans know that they need to follow these simple rules or they’re no longer permitted to attend live gigs and to post on your cyber message boards. A little information can go a long way and your fans will be happy that you let them know what they can and can’t do at any particular show.

2.) Learn From Experience—Sad but true, often the best way to learn what’s not appropriate at shows is for inappropriate things to happen. When fans begin their overblown behaviors, benign-intentioned or not, you will learn by the reaction of the clubs, the industry and your other fans what’s okay and what’s not going to fly. A good example is this…placing bumper stickers on club walls may be encouraged at some places but forbidden at others. The first time you get a call from a red-faced bar owner screeching through clenched teeth that his men’s room walls have to be repainted, you’ll know that it’s time to email your fan base and let them know to leave their reserve of band stickers at home when the band plays that club again. In another example, it may not occur to your band that certain fans are behaving rudely to club personnel or to your other fans, at your shows, until someone makes you aware of it. At that time, you may need to email your naughty fans and let them know that certain bad attitudes are unacceptable at shows, and on your message boards, and that fans who can’t be pleasant will not be invited back.

3.) Friends And Family Are No Exception—As awful as it sounds, often times a band’s family and friends are the most out of control and obnoxious at shows…and on the web. Maybe it’s because they’re more emotionally invested in the band and its members, or maybe because the musicians forget to remind their loved one about fan etiquette. You and your bandmates may think it’s a given, but some of the biggest jerks, idiots, and rebel rousers at gigs are your loved ones. It doesn’t matter it’s the bass player’s ten year-old brother to the drummer’s 60 year-old dad, you don’t want to be banned from your favorite showcase venue because granny kicked the bouncer in the shin. Don’t be afraid to sit your friends/family down and spell out the live show/internet rules for your band. Sometimes you can’t control the fans you don’t know, which makes it all the more important than ever to control the fans you do.

4.) Lay Down The Law—Once you become aware of the "problem" fans, it’s time to explain to them what they can and cannot do at your gigs and on your website. Before banning anyone from visiting the band’s shows and sites, try sending out a polite, but firm, email with some specific guidelines and a serious warning that the next step will be cutting these bad elements out of the band’s loop. It’s important to try not to make the email too harsh, as it may insight further acting up. So, just deliver the message in a casual way, explaining that their actions are hurting and not helping the band…a fact that they honestly may not realize. Honestly, you may need to give it some backbone so that your jerky fans really understand that their jig is up. If you’re having trouble with someone you know well…a particular friend or family member…a phone call or face-to-face meeting might better do the trick. No matter how the message is executed, it’s important to let your fans know that certain behaviors will not be tolerated by the band under any circumstance. Most fans would rather shape up that be cut out of all of the fun, and the band’s reputation will be safe from troublesome followers for the time being.

It’s true that fans are a band’s biggest asset. But left uncontrolled they can also be the biggest liability as your band takes on the responsibility and reputation for the antics that its fans pull at live shows and on websites. Like crazed leprechauns, full of mischief, each fan’s silly stunts and nasty attitude problems will eat away at your band’s good name with tiny bites…like a school of piranha in a stream eating a full sized goat down to the bone in seconds…until your band is left, a former shell of itself, wandering your town trying to figure out why you can’t get booked and no one visits your website. It’s not a good sign when you see a tumbleweed blow through your music career. Nip it in the bud now. Control your fans behavior. Trust me; you’ll be glad you did.

Sheena Metal is a radio host, producer, promoter, music supervisor, consultant, columnist, journalist and musician. Her syndicated radio program, Music Highway Radio, airs on over 2,400 affiliates to more than 126 million listeners. Her musicians’ assistance program, Music Highway, boasts over 10,000 members. She currently promotes numerous live shows weekly in the Los Angeles Area, where she resides. For more info: https://www.sheena-metal.com.

Fred Cass And His Fabulous Cassettes – At The Weekend

Fred Cass And His Fabulous Cassettes –At The Weekend/ Donny & Marie (The Disco Queen) –The Fred Cassette Co (1980 AUS)

Ok, here’s a little something to end the week…The A side is a cracking rockin’ ode to the weekend, which would sit perfectly next to Eddie And The Hot Rods or Stanley Frank. Recorded in the summer of 1976 with The Sports’ Stephen Cummings on lead vocals, it features a great Glitter drum break and blazing dual lead guitars. The packaging on this DIY single includes an insert that’s pretty hilarious and if you believe the credits, the A side was used in a movie called Hot Throat. Whatever the truth, here is a link to a film clip of the band miming the song in the studio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_hFJUoYgY4
The B side, Donny & Marie somehow manages to be pure filth without a sheep or ewe within hearing distance …

Click on title for a soundclip of At The Weekend

THE DWARVES – “LICK IT / NOTHINGâ€Â 45

This one just floored me when I first heard it, which occurred the same month or so that I bought THE DWARVES’ “Toolin’ for A Warm Teabagâ€Â, an EP that to this day rivals the first RED CROSS 12â€Â for over-and-done punk rock godhead. I was just getting over the first show of theirs I’d seen in late 1988, which I’ll recount for you in a second, but when I got their ‘88 “Lick It / Nothingâ€Â single (a UK-only thing on Ubik records), I knew the DWARVES had been total superstars for at least a year following their loud-psych period (represented in the LPs “Horror Storiesâ€Â and the earlier SUBURBAN NIGHTMARE record). I may not have been present at the creation, but I hooked on early & rode the violent wave for dear life. This single in particular still totally rules. That the band is still alive more than two decades after their birth is a musical abomination, though I certainly understand payin’ the bills.

Here’s what I wrote about the band and this era a few years ago:

Among the top 10 rock moments of my life was the first time I saw THE DWARVES in 1988 at San Francisco’s Covered Wagon Saloon. The band was in full bloom from their transition from horror-splashed 60s-inspired garage band to raging hardcore-inspired 30-seconds-flat punk rock band, but I didn’t know that yet. Expecting a heavy dose of angry, keyboard-driven psychedelia, I instead got a ballistic six song, five minute set with so much crazed misanthropic energy that the small crowd was driven into the nether regions of the club, fleeing singer Blag Jesus with a mixture of terror and shit-eating glee. Jesus would announce the song title (“This one’s called “Motherfuckerâ€Â, or “This one’s called “Fuckheadâ€Â), and it was 1,2,3, panic for the next forty-five seconds. The whole band was totally nuts, but from this day forward my favorite Dwarve – nay, my favorite rock and roller – was bassist Salt Peter, who affected the most ridiculous bad-ass leather-jacketed rock poses you could imagine, a combination of the exceptionally effeminate and the Hell’s Angel-style ugly. I can’t do it justice in words, but the memories are strong. Needless to say, I was more than hooked, and I proceeded to attend pretty much every show they played in SF up until about 1991 or so, when they had convincingly passed into mediocrity and self-parody.

The band’s whole blood/sex/violence shtick was, I maintain, just that: a shtick. Sure, they might have been violent, hateful losers in real life as well, but there was a real tongue-in-cheek spirit and hidden intelligence there that was hard to locate on the surface. When I wrote the band a fan letter the next month, politely enquiring as to where I could find their “Lucifer’s Crankâ€Â cassette, I received a very friendly, conversational handwritten note back from Blag, patiently explaining their discography and thanking me profusely for my fandom. He then signed off with a “PS – Go Fuck Yourselfâ€Â. The next year that amazing “Toolin’ For a Warm Teabagâ€Â 12â€ÂEP came out, still an absolute high-water mark for screaming, socket-bursting, in the red punk rock music. It approximates that first live show I saw quite well: 6 tracks, about 6 minutes, and every last one of them a killer. Soon thereafter the rest of the world began to find out. When Mudhoney came to town in 1990, a drunken Mark Arm couldn’t stop shouting “The Dwarves! The Dwarves! Fuck you up and get high!â€Â to the crowd throughout his own band’s set – seems The Dwarves had made their Seattle debut a few days earlier, and secured their Sub Pop deal in the process. They also were playing their best new song since “Let’s Get Pregnantâ€Â or “Sit On My Faceâ€Â – the masterwerk, the uber-genius, the supremely rarified “Fuck You Up and Get Highâ€Â. Unlike so many of the fake-“dangerousâ€Â bands of the era (COWS, HELMET, HOLE, BASTARDS etc.), the 1987-1991 Dwarves stand up tall even today. I’ll advance the proposition that they successfully took punk rock as far as it had been taken up to that point, and subsequent blaze-punk bands like the Zodiac Killers are only basking in the mid-period Dwarves’ considerable shadow (good as they are). For reference, I wholeheartedly suggest the 39-track “Free Cocaineâ€Â retrospective CD; the out of print “Toolin’ For Lucifer’s Crankâ€Â CD, and the incredible (and incredibly rare) “Lick It / Nothingâ€Â 45, a thrilling encapsulation of their psych-to-punk transition that finds them right smack in the middle of the operation.

What if the cutout bin of 2010 was a mid-sized city?

Slate ran this piece about Portland being a destination for indie rockers. The title is a slightly misleading. A city being described as an “indie rock meccaâ€Â implies that it is choked with fans and bands alike, when this little exercise focuses on established (term used relative to the genre discussed) names…..I hope you have some padding back there…..living next to normal people in a mid-sized city!!! Silly me, I thought that Stephen Malkmus lived in a home made entirely of tropical aquariums, fanned with palm leaves and fed grapes by that redhaired girl that used to be in Verbena. Guess what? You know what’s coming! I haven’t even read the piece.

I will do so now.

I’m back, and I was wrong about Malkmus’ home. It’s just huge. No aquariums.

This passage should irritate the guys in Pond.

If there’s any alluring indie mystique to Portland, it’s most likely due to the late Elliott Smith, who attended high school on the west side of town and recorded his most-loved work here. (Mercer even owns Smith’s old house.) Before Smith, Portland’s primary musical contribution to the universe was the Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie.â€Â”

There’s also a chance that it may irritate those tired of hearing about the late Elliot Smith and his marginal-at-best songwriting talents. Yes, it was a depraved tragedy that continues on open-ended (I can envision the first Mumblecore conspiracy/crime film being based on his death).

And let’s peruse this passage:

…it’s probably just proof that musicians like him (Malkmus) moved to Portland for the same reason as the rest of us: It’s easy to live here. In the words of a friend of mine who used to be the music editor at the local alt-weekly, Portland is like a resort community for indie rockers who spend half the year working themselves ragged on tour. You can venture into public dressed like a convicted sex offender or a homeless person, and no one looks at you askew. It’s lush and green. Housing is affordable, especially compared with Seattle or San Francisco. The people are nice. The food is good. Creativity is the highest law. For young, hip Portlanders, financial success is a barista job that subsidizes your Romanian-space-folk band or your collages of cartoon unicorns.

Read the last two sentences and try not to destroy your laptop with a vomit tsunami.

I imagine that it IS easy to live in a community that’s largely devoid of racial variety (they usually make up for this by screaming RACISM!!! at the rest of the country…over such things as the proven fact that 95% of the politicians nabbed in the Tennessee Waltz sting are black). And the people that perpetually walk in from of my moving vehicle, on a daily basis? They are rarely white. These are proven facts. Yet to some, they sound like the rantings of a Grand Wizard of the KKK.

That’s the PCeeeefic Northwest for you.

Lastly, I do not bemoan the sudden Mayor Giuliani-style disappearance of the crustie punks from Memphis’ streets (back around 2001). I did hear rumors of an underground Memphis-to-Portland railroad. The boarding fee was a Disrupt patch and a half a forty.