There is a youthful innocence, a third-world naivety that permeates "My Ancestors,"the 1974 album by Zambian guitarist, Chrissy Zebby Tembo. Fuzzed-out wah wah psych had obviously made it's way to Africa by 1974 and Chrissy Zebby Tembo was at the forefront of the scene. If you happen to own the great "Love, Peace & Poetry: African Psychedelic Music" compilation, you may remember Chrissy Zebby Tembo's instrumental "Oh Yeh Yeh", which is also featured on this album. The sun shines all over the 9 songs here, and it's hard not to smile when Chrissy's kooky, relaxed vocals come in. The album has a warmth and closeness that make it absolutely infatuating. I fell in love with "My Ancestors" upon my first listen, and I imagine, you (being a person of distinction and taste) will too.
get it
via
11/24/09
Last Stand from Africa
11/23/09
Back to Zambia
The Witch was a Tuff sounding lofi band From Zambia..
Witch released just one album, Lazy Bones, in 1975. It is a work of sheer genius. Witch played a sort of wah-wah psych but with a bit more darkness. Check out the opening track, "Black Tears." It starts out rather melancholy and builds into a chugging, almost Sabbath-inspired shuffle before finishing with a doomy end. Lazy Bones!! sounds as if it was recorded live to 2-track with the vocals and some acoustic guitar added later. The spartan production only makes the album more Tuff. The drum fills and vocals at times overload the mics. You can almost hear the suffocating heat of whatever slap dash Zambian studio they were in.
link fixed
Get Lazy bones!! http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZDBX0Z4X
11/22/09
11/21/09
Heron King Blves and the Califone Megapost loadown
1. Wingbone
2. Trick bird
3. Sawtooth sung a cheater’s song
4. Apple
5. Lion & bee
6. 2 sisters drunk on each other
7. Heron king blues
8. Outro
9. I Walk on Gilded splinters (untitled track)
Producer - Califone
Download Heron Blves here
After the breakup of his former band Red Red Meat, frontman Tim Rutili formed Califone as a solo project. Rutili's solo effort soon became a full-fledged musical project with a regular and rotating list of contributors, including many former members of Red Red Meat and some members of other Chicago bands.
this little bathroom jam clip shows one element of the band... yet they are NOT just a bunch a hipsters with cool swamp music gear taking advantage of someones cool LP collection and just getting by. They do have talent.(and yes, bitchen axes and objects.
According to Rutili, Califone started as a home project: "The statement of intent would have been 'easy listening' compared to what we were doing with Red Red Meat. This was supposed to be making little pop songs out of found pieces. It was supposed to be just a little home project, and it slowly grew from there. Now it seems like just about anything goes."
Califone's sound is a combination of Red Red Meat's blues-rock and experimental music, with inspiration drawn from early American folk music, pop, as well as electronic and groups like Psychic TV. Listeners familiar with Red Red Meat can quickly tell that Califone is not an attempt to revive the old band; elements from a number of musical styles contribute to their distinctive sound.
Sure there has been much more done by Califone before and after this and I have yet to hear it all, but King Heron is still my favorite. (a bit dissapointed in 'Guilded Splinters' though) Highlights..."Heron King Blves" and Sawtooth Sung A Cheater's Song".
Pitchfork review;
Califone return in short sentence with an all new recording Heron King Blues, which comes fresh on the heels of 2003's critically acclaimed Quicksand/Cradles nakes. Heron King Blues picks up where Q/C left off, and was again recorded in Chicago at the band's Clava Studios. This time around the band recorded with Michael Krassner (Boxhead Ensemble, Simon Joyner, Edith Frost), and are led by longtime collaborators Tim Rutili and Ben Massarella, along with Jim Becker and Joe Adamik.
For this recording the band set out to make a record like Captain Beefheart's Mirror Man, entering the studio with a blank canvas and laying things down quickly. The resulting songs combine the bands more pop-oriented qualities alongside their more spaced out ethereal thoughts; these most often found on their Deceleration releases available on the bands own label, Perishable. The resulting sessions led to songs that were improvised or written immediately before recording, and within days a series of raw, live recordings had been completed. From there the initial recordings were chopped up, mixed around, and reassembled into the final product: a beautifully lush and patient masterpiece.
While the approach to recording Heron King Blues may have seen it's inspiration come from Captain Beefheart, the records topical and musical make up was inspired from Tim Rutili's recurring dream featuring a giant half-man/half-bird character. Rutili was startled to learn recently that the very character he imagined did indeed exist and was named Heron King. The perhaps real, perhaps fictional character was used by the Romans to defeat the British in ancient times. If you think we're kidding about this stuff, the jokes on you, just listen to the record.
The Heron King and aviary themes are omnipresent through the record with Rutili making frequent mention and reference to the king's legend. He also manages to cull mood and tone from his own personal experience with the "bird man," going as far to feature on the album's cover "an entirely accurate portrayal" of the Heron King of his dreams. Heron King Blues brings together "numerology, bird references, wartime tension, filthy rock and tender mercy" to form what is Califone's most mysterious record to date. One that Rutili himself concludes as: "pretty dark and very natural; it's us."
(from Quicksand/Cradlesnakes)
Dig and download Quicksand and Cradlesnakes also here...
and Sometimes Good Weather Follows Bad People (early EPs) here.
11/20/09
Predictable Islamophobia
Last Thursday's shooting spree at the Fort Hood army base in Texas -- which left 13 people dead and 29 wounded -- was of course the "horrific outburst of violence" that President Obama bemoaned and condemned.
But, because the soldier who was quickly identified as the gunman had a name that led to the presumption that he was Muslim, the incident inspired an all-too-predictable explosion of Islamophobia.
News reports named the man who used two handguns in the assault on his fellow soldiers at a base that is a prime point of departure for troops headed to Iraq and Afghanistan as Major Malik Nidal Hasan. The major, who was wounded during the incident, was identified as a psychiatrist who had served in the Department of Psychology at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress at the Bethesda Naval Facility in Bethesda, Maryland, before his transfer to Fort Hood.
Hours after the incident, and hours after news anchors and politicians cited his religion as an explanation for the shootings, a family member confirmed that Major Hasan was indeed a Muslim.
But that was hardly the only relevant detail about the major.
For instance, Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison reported shortly after the shootings, Hasan had been preparing to deploy to Afghanistan. The senator said, "I do know that he has been known to have told people that he was upset about going (to Iraq)." Several new reports suggested that the major saw a deployment to the warzone as his "worst nightmare" and recounted how he had treated victims of combat-related stress and was upset about the ongoing U.S. occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Military officials at the base and in Washington refused to speculate about motivations or intents in the immediate aftermath of the attack. But Paul Sullivan, executive director of the group Veterans for Common Sense, suggested shortly after the incident that it might well be the latest in a series of stress-related homicides and suicides involving soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan or are being dispatched to those occupied lands.
No matter where the speculation went Thursday afternoon, the bottom line was clear: No one knew on whether stress, fear, anger over mistreatment, mental illness or a warped understanding of his religion might have motivated Major Hasan.
The point here is not to defend the soldier or his alleged actions -- the evidence at hand suggests that he was, at the least, a deeply troubled man whose statements and actions should have raised concerns among his superiors long before Thursday's incident. By Friday, there were news reports that he had shouted "Allahu Akbar" ("God is great") before opening fire. There was clearly something wrong with this imperfect follower of Islam. But that does not mean that there is something wrong with Islam.
Enlightened Americans -- at least those who trace their patriotism to Thomas Jefferson, a man fascinated by and respectful of Islam and whose library contained copies of the Koran -- should be unsettled by the initial rush to judgment regarding not just this one Muslim but all Muslims.
It should be understood that to assume a follower of Islam who engages in violence is a jihadist is every bit as absurd as to assume that a follower of Christianity who attacks others is a crusader. The calculus makes no sense, and it is rooted in a bigotry that everyone from George W. Bush to Pope Benedict XVI has condemned.
But that did not stop right-wing web sites from responding to the release of the suspect's name -- and no other details -- with incendiary speculation about a "Jihad at Fort Hood?" and a "Terrorist Incident in Texas."
Fox News host Shepard Smith asked Senator Hutchison on air: "The name tells us a lot, does it not, senator?"
Hutchinson's response? "It does. It does, Shepard."
With those words, the senator leapt from making assumptions about one man to making assumptions about a whole religion.
What could Hutchinson have said that might have been more responsible response?
She could have emphasized that the investigation of the shooting spree has barely begun.
She might also have noted that thousands of Muslims serve honorably, indeed heroically, in the U.S. military; that American Muslim soldiers have died In Iraq and been buried at Arlington Cemetery; that some of the first condemnations of the slayings at Fort Hood came from Muslim veterans such as Robert Salaam.
"I'm sad for those killed and wounded by a traitor to both God and our country, and I regret that I even feel that I have to write something on the subject. Words cannot express my emotions and the instant headache I received when notified by my dear sister Sheila Musaji over at The American Muslim (TAM) concerning the alleged culprit," wrote Salaam, who served in the Marine Corps, within minutes after learning the gunman's name. "They have not yet released further details such as the motive but I will state for the record that no true Muslim could ever commit such a crime against humanity. As Muslims we are reminded that to take one innocent life is as if one killed all of mankind. Muslims are also commanded to keep their oaths when given."
Salaam is not alone in regretting that, as a Muslim, he feels a need to respond to the incident with an explanation of his religion.
But the conversation between Fox's Smith and Senator Hutchinson reminds us why it is necessary to respond.
And so Muslim groups have responded quickly and unequivocally.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, issued a statement that read: "We condemn this cowardly attack in the strongest terms possible and ask that the perpetrators be punished to the full extent of the law. No religious or political ideology could ever justify or excuse such wanton and indiscriminate violence. The attack was particularly heinous in that it targeted the all-volunteer army that protects our nation. American Muslims stand with our fellow citizens in offering both prayers for the victims and sincere condolences to the families of those killed or injured."
Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, declared that, "Our entire organization extends its heartfelt condolences to the families of those killed as well as to those wounded and their loved ones. We stand in solidarity with law enforcement and the US military to maintain the safety and security of all Americans."
Those are sentiments that are worth noting, especially by news anchors and senators who are in a position to inform the discussion of a horrific incident -- rather than to inflame it.
via The Nation
No Wave post#2
Glenn's Biography
Lesson No. 1 was Branca’s first release in which he delved more fully into instrumental sounds that melded the dissonant rock of his former outfits with the heavy, massed sounds that he would later explore with groups of anywhere between ten and a hundred guitarists. Originally issued on 99 Records in 12” format, Lesson No. 1 contained two songs, one on each side.
This cd reissue contains those tracks, “Lesson No. 1 for Electric Guitar” and “Dissonance,” as well as “Bad Smells,” a dance score previously available on a split LP with poet John Giorno. In “Lesson No. 1…,” Branca first exhibits the formula that would serve as the basis of his next LP, The Ascension, a combination of heavy, repetitive, rhythmic statements overlaid with a chorus of guitars that begins in an almost stately mode before rising into a celestial frenzy.
The more aggressive “Dissonance” also builds on a straightforward, repetitive rhythm, though the clangy interjections from the guitars and percussion, and the mechanical yet furious strumming that follows take the track in a new direction in which the different parts of the piece hurtle along together like a locomotive, then battle in and out of rhythmic phase with one another. The twitching rhythms suggest Was (Not Was) and James Blood Ulmer, but the five guitarists, including Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, revel in the darker side of the naked city, sinister and slashing. (dustedmagazine review)
Download
11/19/09
Fuji Picks up the Slack
More than a year ago, the death knell of the Polaroid camera was widely documented. In February, Polaroid began shutting down its film factories, as the technology faded to black.
But lomographs, take heart. Fujifilm has stepped in with its line of Instax Mini instant-film cameras, which can be purchased for about $100 or so: a bit much for an impulse buy, perhaps, but cheap enough that a true fan can resuscitate some childhood fun without paying an arm and a leg on eBay.
see all the fuji models here.
the film is 10.00 a pack.
11/17/09
Death Threats Against Obama Increase By 400 Percent
Is this not TREASON???
Psalm 109:8 "Let his days be few; and let another take his office. "
109:10 gets rougher.. 9, 10. "Let his family share the punishment, his children be as wandering beggars to prowl in their desolate homes, a greedy and relentless creditor grasp his substance, his labor, or the fruit of it, enure to strangers and not his heirs, and his unprotected, fatherless children fall in want, so that his posterity shall utterly fail."
and then there is this.....
A CNN source with very close to the U.S. Secret Service confirmed to me today that threats on the life of the president of the United States have now risen by as much as 400 percent since his inauguration, 400 percent death threats against Barack Obama — quote — “in this environment” go far beyond anything the Secret Service has seen with any other president.
more
these people are freakin scary and should be locked up!
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Live At The Sturgis Armoury- MC5
recorded 1968
Tracklist:
1 Kick Out the Jams
2 Come Together
3 Revolutionary Blues
4 Rama Lama Fr Fr Fr
5 James Brown Medley-Cold Sweat-I Can’t Stand Myself-There Was A Time
6 Upper Egypt
7 Tutti Frutti
8 Borderline
9 Born Under a Bad Sign
10 I Want You Right Now
11 Starship
12 Black to Comme
Download:
11/14/09
Cut and Paste this Post
Oblique Strategies (subtitled over one hundred worthwhile dilemmas) is a set of published cards created by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt first published in 1975, and now in its fifth edition. Each card contains a phrase or cryptic remark which can be used to break a deadlock or dilemma situation.
Examples:
* State the problem in words as clearly as possible.
* Only one element of each kind.
* What would your closest friend do?
* What to increase? What to reduce?
* Are there sections? Consider transitions.
* Try faking it!
* Honour thy error as a hidden intention.
An introduction to the Oblique Strategies can be found in the deck itself. This is how each of the first three decks labels and describes itself:
(card one)
OBLIQUE STRATEGIES
Over one hundred worthwhile dilemmas
by BRIAN ENO and PETER SCHMIDT
(signatures, if your copy is signed)
Printed January 1975 in an edition of 500
of which this is number (your number, circled)
(card two)
These cards evolved from our separate observations on the principles underlying what we were doing. Sometimes they were recognized in retrospect (intellect catching up with intuition), sometimes they were identified as they were happening, sometimes they were formulated.
They can be used as a pack (a set of possibilities being continuously reviewed in the mind) or by drawing a single card from the shuffled pack when a dilemma occurs in a working situation. In this case,the card is trusted even if its appropriateness is quite unclear. They are not final, as new ideas will present themselves, and others will become self-evident.
This excerpt from the Oblique Strategies site.
The deck itself had its origins in the discovery by Brian Eno that both he and his friend Peter Schmidt (a British painter whose works grace the cover of "Evening Star" and whose watercolours decorated the back LP cover of Eno's "Before and After Science" and also appeared as full-size prints in a small number of the original releases) tended to keep a set of basic working principles which guided them through the kinds of moments of pressure - either working through a heavy painting session or watching the clock tick while you're running up a big buck studio bill. Both Schmidt and Eno realized that the pressures of time tended to steer them away from the ways of thinking they found most productive when the pressure was off. The Strategies were, then, a way to remind themselves of those habits of thinking - to jog the mind.
(note; This is in relation to lateral thinking)
All five editions are available in Apple's App Store as of 2009, for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Also from the Strategies site, you can download a version here.
Go to eno web for different formats including a PDF version for printing.
Though, I've never seen the cards in person I have heard they are as much an art piece as an intellectual tool.
Eno discusses the Oblique Strategies at greatest length in an interview with Charles Amirkhanian, conducted at KPFA in Berkeley in early 1980:
"These cards evolved from our separate working procedures. It was one of the many cases during the friendship that he [Peter Schmidt] and I where we arrived at a working position at almost exactly the same time and almost in exactly the same words. There were times when we hadn't seen each other for a few months at a time sometimes, and upon remeeting or exchanging letters, we would find that we were in the same intellectual position - which was quite different from the one we'd been in prior to that.
The Oblique Strategies evolved from me being in a number of working situations when the panic of the situation - particularly in studios - tended to make me quickly forget that there were others ways of working and that there were tangential ways of attacking problems that were in many senses more interesting than the direct head-on approach. If you're in a panic, you tend to take the head-on approach because it seems to be the one that's going to yield the best results Of course, that often isn't the case - it's just the most obvious and - apparently - reliable method. The function of the Oblique Strategies was, initially, to serve as a series of prompts which said, "Don't forget that you could adopt *this* attitude," or "Don't forget you could adopt *that* attitude."
The first Oblique Strategy said "Honour thy error as a hidden intention." And, in fact, Peter's first Oblique Strategy - done quite independently and before either of us had become conscious that the other was doing that - was ...I think it was "Was it really a mistake?" which was, of course, much the same kind of message. Well, I collected about fifteen or twenty of these and then I put them onto cards. At the same time, Peter had been keeping a little book of messages to himself as regards painting, and he'd kept those in a notebook. We were both very surprised to find the other not only using a similar system but also many of the messages being absolutely overlapping, you know...there was a complete correspondence between the messages. So subsequently we decided to try to work out a way of making that available to other people, which we did; we published them as a pack of cards, and they're now used by quite a lot of different people, I think.
-Brian Eno, interview with Charles Amirkhanian, KPFA-FM Berkeley, 2/1/80
Chrysler, the recipient of $15.3 billion (of your taxes) has just announced it is scrapping its PROMISE for producing large volumes of electric cars.
The following is from Friends of the Earth. This is a completely unacceptable situation and now it’s obvious Chrysler should never have been bailed out with our money. Chrysler should return the taxpayer money it took for it’s supposed plan to develop electric cars.
“Chrysler, the recipient of $15.3 billion in taxpayer-funded bailout money — granted in part because of its promise to invest in electric vehicle technology — has just announced it is scrapping its plans for producing large volumes of electric cars.
Join us in telling Chrysler this is unacceptable. Pledge not to buy any Chrysler vehicles unless the automaker reinstates its electric vehicle program.
In testimony asking for a massive bailout assistance, Chrysler’s CEO testified to Congress that “[a] key feature of Chrysler’s future is our capability as an electric vehicle company”1 and that an expected “500,000 Chrysler electric-drive vehicles will be on the road by 2013.”2
This led lawmakers to believe Chrysler’s management recognized the bankruptcy not only of its financial ledgers, but also of its business model of producing large, gas-guzzling cars most consumers no longer want. As late as June 10 of this year, Chrysler’s Sergio Marchionne said, “Work is already underway to develop new environmentally friendly, fuel-efficient, high-quality vehicles, including Chrysler’s electric-vehicle program.”3
But this week, Chrysler announced it is disbanding its electric vehicle team and setting only token production numbers for electric vehicles (this includes full electric vehicles as well as plug-in hybrids).4 Marchionne said he now expects annual sales of only 28,000 to 56,000 electric vehicles by 2014 — a far cry from Chrysler’s original plan to put 500,000 such vehicles on the road by 2013.5
The federal government owns a 10 percent stake in Chrysler, which means taxpayers do as well. As a part-owner of this car company, tell Chrysler it has received enough of your money via federal bailouts — and you won’t give it one cent more via a car purchase unless it lives up to its commitment to produce electric cars quickly and in high volumes.
Chrysler’s decision to abandon its electric car production plans has consequences. Our policy team estimates that more than one million extra tons of carbon dioxide — the chief gas causing global warming — could be emitted each year, starting in 2014, because of Chrysler’s cancellation of this program.
Message from: Erich Pica, President, Friends of the Earth
Don’t let Chrysler bail on its electric vehicle promises
11/13/09
Lobster Domination
Larry David goes on a classic rant comparing religious conversion with lobster. High comedy. From the Season 2 Curb Your Enthusiasm episode "The Baptism."
11/12/09
Sad, Serious and Uplifting
Fantastic psychedelic rock album recorded by Amanaz in Zambia in ’75; & in the early '70s Zambian way stylistically very much rooted in late ‘60s psych, with a few African moves thrown in here & there for flavor. Amanaz were a five piece band (two guitars, bass, drums, vox) & all five members wrote & sang, so there is a fair amount of variety in the songs, though they are stylistically coherent, moving from a sort of semi-Africanized “Loaded” Velvets feel to something maybe along the lines of a stripped down Iron Butterfly, maybe even hinting at something like early Funkadelic, but always high level, plenty of fuzz, riffs, post Ginger Baker drumming, & with a ramshackle underground sound & feel – raw, organic, beautiful. This feels like it was hand carved out of an old tree, rather than recorded in a studio. Mostly sung in English, with a couple of tunes in the Bemba language. A fairly close parallel would be the equally brilliant Chrissy Zebby Tembo album “My Ancestors,” also recorded in Zambia & released around the same time. Beautiful Sunday morning comedown feel. Sounds good immediately, but repeated listens reveals rare timeless magic.
note; to me, i hear Taj Mahal meets VU meets Amon Duul..jpg)
download here
via
thanks sam sweet
