Music Meridian

I was just reading the new issue of Modern Drummer tonight, and discovered that Zach Hill (of Hella fame along with tons of other projects) has YET ANOTHER album recorded.

Here's an excerpt from an interview with Janet Weiss (of Sleater-Kinney fame):


When Sleater-Kinney toured with Pearl Jam, Matt Cameron was awesoe to watch. He can switch grips, going from one to another. He's definately one of my musical heroes. I loved Soundgarden so much, and Matt has his own sound with the band. That's kind of what I'm striving for, that when someone hears me play they know it's me. The drummer from Hella, Zach Hill, is like that as well. Actually Zach, Matt and I made a drum record. We set up three drumkits in a small studio here in Portland and we just jammed.....
....We have to release that. We came up with a 50 minute piece [laughs]. It's not for the weak of heart.


Wow! This sounds really awesome. Zach Hill, Matt Cameron and Janet Weiss playing drum solos! Maybe this will get Matt back in the position of an interesting musician in my eyes. His work with Pearl Jam has been kind of a snooze in my opinion.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the Zach Hill/Mick Barr "Shred Earthship" CD as well as the Toughguy Fantasy/Artic Boyz 2CD set (found it for $4.99, Thanks Reckless Records!) which also features Mr. Hill in fine form. It's like cool drumming overload around here lately....

ITEM #1 - Residents - River of Crime!
As I previously reported, The Residents have a new series of "old time radio serials" coming out called River Of Crime. The release date for the first episode has been pushed back a bit to the end of June. However, I got a promo CD with the first two episodes on it. Each episode is about 16 minutes long.

Amazing, crazy, interesting stuff! Well worth it for Residents fans waiting for new stuff. I look forward to the "official" release because, if you read throughout their blog you'll see they plan on giving people tons of extra music/multimedia snazziness when you purchase. So, this promo CD has whetted my appetite, but I want the real deal. Stay tuned.

ITEM #2 - Weasel Walter/Mike Keneally Collabtorate!

There have been reports on both Weasel Walter's Myspace Blog and Mike Keneally's MySpace Blog that they collaborated with a bunch of other kickass musicians on an upcoming Albert Ayler tribute CD! This sounds like it will totally slay and I can't wait for it.

ITEM #3 - Cool Myspace stuff!

Speaking of myspace, here's some cool bands to check out if your so inclined:

Child Abuse
Way-cool punk-skronk. One of my favorite new discoveries. Kinda like a less annoying Neon Hunk or something.

Ocrilim
Yet another Mick Barr project. Way more melodic, with lots of harmonized sounding guitar parts. Still totally insane shredding overload. Maybe a little more accessible than Orthrelm. New album out now, kicks ass.

Psychofagist
Totally insane tech-grind from Italy. (Thanks John for the recommendation)

Drumcorps
Cool German band that mixes grindcore and jungle beats. Crazy enough to work.

ITEM #4 - Genesis still rules

I've been listening a lot to Genesis lately, after making my buddy Q a mix CD with Supper's Ready on it. Geez, even their pop 80's stuff is interesting. I recently got the 3CD "Platinum Collection" for a mere $12. It's like 4 hours of music. Everything before "Wind And Wuthering" is pretty much flawless, but like I said a lot of their 80's pop kicks ass too. Check 'em out again....trust me.

To get you in the mood, here's a video I found on YouTube of them playing the entire 20+ minutes of Supper's Ready live (w/ Peter Gabriel in 1973!!!):

Supper's Ready 1973

ITEM #5 - Flying Luttenbacher's in total brual-prog mode

Speaking of YouTube here's some kick-ass footage of Infection And Decline era Luttenbachers. Shows how powerful and over-the-top they were at that time. Unstoppable.

Flying Luttenbachers - 3/31/02

I guess that's enough totally random thoughts for now. Have a fun Memorial Day.

Posted By: Phil Plencner
at 5/26/2006 8:57:00 PM

Permalink | Category: Rock | Comment On This Post | Reader Comments (0)

Check this site out:
Pandora

You start out by just putting in one artist you like into their system. Then it finds artists it thinks are simialr and starts playing them. There's little buttons you can press saying you like that song or don't. Plus you can skip ahead of a song you totally hate.

It's all based in Flash and totally easy and fun to use.

You can only listen to a few songs before you have to signup, but that's also painless and they don't need much info beyond your email address. Once you do that you can set up to 100 of your own personalized stations!! So you could set up a country station, rock station, jazz station etc all to your own liking!! I think this is pretty badass....

I've been listening throughout the day today. I started out by putting "Flying Luttenbachers" into the box assuming they wouldn't know what that was. Surprisingly the first track that came up was indeed a Flying Luttenbachers track off of "Systems Emerge From Complete Disorder"! As I listen I have been occassionally nudging it with yes/no answers if I like something. The playlist has been pretty great so far with only a couple things I totally hated....plus some bands I never heard of before! So it's actually doing it's job and turning me on to new music I like. Here's the tracklist I've been enjoying:
--------------------------
The Flying Luttenbachers - Entropic Field/Total Disorder/Cellular Chaos

Shalabi Effect - A Glow In The Dark

DJ Methodikal - Am I Hip Yet?

Tony Conrad & Faust - Outside The Dream Syndicate Alive_track_13

Flying Luttenbachers - Destruktion Ritual

Shipping News - Haymaker

Bone - Big Bombay

The F*cking Champs - Espirit De Corpse

Melk The G6-49 - The Instantaneous Mobilization Of All The Resources In The BURROW And All The Forces Of My Body And Soul

Yowie - Toni

Acid Mothers Temple & The Cosmic Inferno - OM Riff From The Cosmic Inferno

Steve Hillage - The Glorious Om Riff

Yngwie Malmsteen - Black Star

Sonic Youth - Koncertas Stan Brakhage Prisiminimui (Part 1)

Slowly Minute - Minutes Made!

Steve Hillage - UFO Over Paris

Rush - YYZ

Tortoise - Five Too Many

Naked City - Metalov

Devin Townsend Band - A Simple Lullaby

Warmen - Unknown Soldier

The F*cking Am - Powerpoint

Ateriavia - We're Not Dutch, But We Wear These Wooden Shoes Like We're From Montana.

The Flying Luttenbachers - Rise Of The Iridescent Behemoth

E.A.R. - Enigma Coda

Mouthus - Ghetto Stairs

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Check it out! I think you'll like it!!

Think again.

Check out this plea from a band called Bad Acid Trip that's been offered to play on the 2nd stage of Ozzfest this year. They're friends with System Of A Down and are on Serj's record label, Serjical Strike.

They don't get payment from Ozzfest for the whole tour. Apparently, they only get money from the merch table.

So consequently, they are asking for $12,000 for tour expenses (van, hotel, food etc).

Sounds like bands on 2nd stage get really hosed. They play at like 2pm in the blistering heat to small crowds and have to spend approximately $12,000 to do so! Is it really worth the exposure? Especially for a band as left-field as Bad Acid Trip? I mean, they're not like Orthrelm or anything, but they are kind of a goofy grindcore-based band.....certainly not the "next big thing".

I think they'd be better off on their own club-based tour.

Quite a few cds have flopped through the letterbox recently so I thought I'd give some quick takes on some of them:

Dysrhythimia - Barriers And Passages
This CD flat-out rules. These guys have surpassed expectations. The drums are way up front and the whole record is much heavier and pummeling than previous outings. Lots of convoluted songs and tricky time signatures. They are showing bands like Don Caballero how it should be done. I can't get this thing out of my player. A+

Neil Young - Living With War
Great return to form after a few shakey (pun-intended) albums. This album harkens back to Rust Never Sleeps style (although Crazy Horse doesn't appear and there's no really long guitar excursions). Very ragged and pissed off sounding. Everyone talks about the song "Let's Impeach The President" which is good, but for my money I thing songs like "Shock And Awe", "Looking For A Leader" and the title track are better. Extra cudos for the 100-member choir that appears throughout the album and the fact that Neil was able to list all their names in the liner notes (Neil's A class-act all the way). I'll give this one a B.

Ministry - Rio Grande Blood
Ministry is like, totally back! Well, maybe not totally. The first half of the album is really really great. The first 3 songs especially are totally in-your-face and great. The 2nd half lags a bit and the track with Jello Biafra is so-so. For some reason the bonus track is a drill instructor barking orders. B-

Behold The Arctopus/Orthrelm - Split EP
If you like either of these bands you won't be disappointed. I think this is the best Behold track yet, and the Orthrelm one is keeping me busy figuring out all the patterns. Highly recommended, but very short. Come on you Arctopus guys, put out a full-length already. A-

OSI - Free
New album from side-project with Mike Portnoy. Sounds a lot like their last album, which means it kicks ass. Moody, meloncoly prog. I think the songwriting is stronger here,so it's definately a nice choice. B+

Coming soon reviews of CDs from Peeping Tom, Tango Saloon, and Hill/Barr.