Sunday Morning Whiteout

The day after the mighty Mugstar conquered Liverpool Psychfest I rediscovered a tape of old John Peel sessions from the days when I was doing as little zoology as possible at university. In amongst the two Dinosaur Jr session, the first three Pixies sessions, a House of Love session and songs by Slint, Bailter Space, Snapper, the Cateran and half a Mudhoney track, was a very nice surprise indeed. I'd forgotten that the Live Skull session featured a brilliantly intenseley immense and otherwise unreleased song. I hadn't written the title on the inlay and so I have emailed former Live Skull singer Thalia Zedek to ask her if she can remember it.

A few days later after a little confusion, Thalia got back to me to inform me that ol' Uncle John P hadn't mentioned the name of the song as the band hadn't given it one.

"The song you are talking about has a chorus that goes something like " Look at you, wrapped up in your regrets, couldn't leave. Said you weren't finished yet, I think you I know what you're waiting for". I don't think it was ever recorded anywhere else and it probably didn't never had a name."

The Paradox of Abattoir Blues

Saturday was a busy day. I started out with a trip to King Bee Records (www.vinylnet.co.uk) where I bought two seven inch singles: A Place Called Home / Kick It to the Ground by PJ Harvey and Happy House / Drop Dead/Celebration by Siouxsie and the Banshees. Last stop was Age Concern where I swapped a brown piece of paper for a white book case. On Returning someone was shouting my name in the street. It was Tom Long of the band Easter and his girlfriend Laurn Bolger of the band Sea Man. Synchronously they were looking for a happy house, or more literally a place called home. Lauren told me I should make sure I check out the band Cherry Pip at her Paradox gig at Fuel in Mithington that evening, as she thought they bore some similarity to the music of the lovely Ms Harvey. They were well worth sticking around for after Songs for Walter and Sea Man had played, and their piano driven cover of Gary Numan's Are Friends Electric was nice.

Later I zoomed into the centre of the city on wheels and raided the Vinyl Exchange 50p bin. There wer also a couple of grea three quid promos that some cloth eared ignoramous at the eNMEy hadn't bothered to listen to:

"Formerly Extinct" by Rangda on www.dragcity.com
"Black Mesa" by Jon Porras on www.thrilljockey.com

However my primary reason for hitting the city was an all day free gig in the Castle Hotel and Gullivers just across the road of Oldham Street. There I witnessed eight great bands or solo musicians hopped up on the blues: The Bourbon Words, Rag and Bone, Hopper Propelled Electric, My Red Balloon, Cactus Knife, Bones Shake, Euchrid Eucrow and Jim Adama. The best of them was the highly Birthday Party influenced trio Bones Shake, whose frontman was akin to some apstate preacher delivering a hellfire rock'roll sermon.
I liked the skeletal art on the flyer done by this lady
www.emmabrownowl.com

Then I headed to Fuel where I made new friends with my lucky dip carry bag full of CDs I never want to listen to again.

Wodecults and Bootleggers

Baptists and Bootleggers are a record label who give away all releases for free. They gave everyone at Fat Out Fest a free tape featuring Mugstar, Charles Hayward and ten other bands who played that weekend. I grabbed a couple of extras upon my exit so if anyone needs one, ask me when you see me and I might give you one. The also compiled a five song LP or CDR with Go Lebanon (who played), VEI (who was there but didn't play), Borland, Stagger and Dafydd Jones all soundtracking the same clip from a 1930s film of Dante's Inferno. www.baptistsandbootleggers.com

Wode slaughtered all the other angry shouting man combos at Fat Out and were flogging a mighty barrage of a four song CDR for a mere two quid. If they have any left a couple of these is much better value than almost being able to afford a bottle of Weston's fine organic cider at the Night and Day. Findout more at
www.wodecult.tmblr.com

NASDAQ's two (very long instrumental) songs on their CDR released by www.carnageclub.co.uk are well worth more than a cider in one of Manchester's grossly overpriced venues (Lincoln Engine Shed and Leeds Brudenell charge £2.80 for cider), but only a little more. Buy copies for all your friends so that Ed and Dan can invest in food commodities trading in order to starve African children so that all the angry men have something worth shouting about at next year's Fat Out Fest.
www.nasdaq.bandcamp.com

Summer Fun

Over the summer these were my new music acquisitions on heavy rotation:

Swans - The Seer (despite helicopter glitch) promo
Swans - We Rose from your Bed with the Sun in Our Heads double live CD
Bob Mould - Silver Age (released October 1st) promo CDR
Plank! - Animalism LP
Can - The Lost Tapes triple CD in nice tape reel box
Lee Ranaldo - Between the Times and the Tides demos LP
Mark Stewart - The Politics of Envy CD
Kogumaza LP
Killing Joke - In Cythera / Penny Drops red vinyl 12"
Ministry - Relapse CD
Bailter Space - Strobosphere promo CD
XXL - Dude CD
Guided By Voices - Class Clown Spots a UFO promo CDR sold by eNMEy for five cigs?
Zaimph - Imagine Yourself Here LP
Plus Instruments - Feb-April 81 reissue LP

Some older releases I've been enjoying:

Enablers - Now You Can Answer My Prayers 10"
Jarboe - Mahakali CD
Office of Future Plans CD (ex Channels / Jawbox dude)
Ministry - Rio Grande Blood CD (Raven RIP)
Larsen and Friends - ABECEDA CD
Kimmo Pohjonen and Kronos Quartet - Uniko CD
Sunn O))) - Oracle double CD
Dumitrescu / Avram - Live in Israel CD
Joe Crow - Coincidence CD
REM - Reckoning double CD remastered reissue
The Jam - All Mod Cons remastered reissue CD

These new releases I liked but have only played once so far:

Seaming CD
Pontiak - Echo Ono CD
Malka Spigel - Every Day is like the first Day promo CD
Beauty Pagaent - tape in an bogroll tube from gig supporting Warm Widow
Jeffrey Lewis - A Turn in the Dream Songs promo CDR for a quid!
Guns or Knives - Can't Beat Him Can't Join Him CDR
Dan Sartain - Too Tough to Live promo Cd for a quid!
Gnarwolves - History is Bunk 6 song orange vinyl 7"
The Big Eyes Family Players and Friends - Folk Songs II CD
Barry Adamson - I Will Set You Free CD

The most recent thing I've been listening to is Evan Camaniti's ambient album on Thrill Jockey which is very nice.

NASDAQ funded by Gay Whores

Nasdaq were on fine form as usual at the Gay Whores basement on the 29th day of August, celebrating the release of their new two song CDR EP with a performance that seemed all too short as usual. Before they went on there was some rap playing which prompted me to encapsulate the situation at hand in a rap of my own much to the amusement to everyone I rapped to:

"These guys ain't shit
  There's pennies on the floor
    I'm goin' upstairs to find me a whore"

I'm not really down with the gangster rap vernacular so I didn't need to rhyme ho with flo as this would have not adequately described what I had observed. Nasdaq quite literally are not shit, or I would not waste time and words on them. In fact Ed Troup the bassist plays in most of the best bands in Manchester now: Nasdaq, FTSE100, Burnst, Wode and Plank! Dan the guitarist plays in so many combinations they are into double figures.

Wode Conquer Fat at the Mill

I had a very good weekend at the Fat Out Fest, where I witnessed 32 performers bring the noise to two stages in Islington Mill. It was great that it was organised so that no bands played at the same time. The only downside was the obscene number of drunk people talking and shouting too loud whilst Jarboe was singing, with only a guitarist to accompany her. I think she might have even cut her set short becasue of it! Have some respect for the artsts and save your blather for after the gig loudmouths.

I nabbed Mugstar's setlist after they played a stormer and this was what was written:

Serra
Tech Knowl
Upturnsidedown
Axis
Floatation Tank
Bethany Heart / Star

Here's a clip of Braitain's most psychedelic band in action
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unY5zwrnn0Y

Here are the lucky seven bands I enjoyed most each day:

Saturday 25/8

1. Wode
2. Khuda
3. Jarboe
4. Alex Macarte
5. Queer'd Science
6. Arabrot
7. Klaus Kinski

Sunday 26/8

1. Mugstar
2. Charles Hayward
3. Kogumaza
4. Black Octagon
5. Apatt
6. Alex Tucker
7. Our Man in the Bronze Age

I guess if Jarboe had performed to a more respectful gathering or just been louder then I might have liked her best on Saturday. I certainly enjoyed the CD of hers I bought, "Mahakali." Kogumaza had only five copies of their excellent album on www.low-point.com and I got one. I also bought the beautiful silver embossed one side etched Enablers 10" "Now You Can Answer My Prayers" from www.lancashireandsomerset.co.uk  both of whom make up two third of Black Octagon.

Read more about most of the bands at www.fatout.co.uk

Modernisation

The post office is "Modernising."
From my perspective this means:

They no longer deliver packages with CDs. These are either ALL lost or stolen.

They do not frank 90 per cent of stamps.

They deliver many letters to the wrong addresses.

I blame the Tory Scum Austerity Con.