- To get personal shit out of the way (even though I know very few people who may be reading this care; and those who are probably have been linked here by google searching “george tooker”): That job I interviewed for last week? I got it! I’m getting closer and closer to a final product with this album I’m working on. It should be pretty neat. My wife is pregnant, so soon I’ll be able to share all this art and music and information with a mini-me. Also, my life will obviously get insane… so, I may have to shut this thing down. Okay, enough of that.
- Some of my buds from across the pond, specifically Daniel the curator, will be starting a music blog very soon that I’ll occasionally be writing on. I’ll definitely be linking to it once it’s up and running, I think he’s shooting for a Tumblr-based site.
- New Game of Thrones trailer:
- Jonathan Hickman has been teasing a new creator owned project that comes out sometime in March with Image Comics. This is the latest teaser:
- I saw Beasts of Southern Wild last night and I really, really enjoyed it. Surreal, haunting, powerful, peaceful, humanistic, with a very something-bigger-than-you vibe to boot. The occasional glimpse at the extinct ancient beast “Aurochs“, who have risen from their frozen states, melted out of the ice caps, is perhaps the best visual metaphor in film this year. The acting is top-notch with the occasional good. The directing and cinematography are beautiful, from the fireworks celebration early on to the parting shot of the characters strolling carelessly as the power of the rising ocean bears down on them. There needs to be more movies like this.
- I don’t why — considering I’m a Minnesotan — I just recently heard of the Sioux Falls group Phantom Balance. Good Lord, they’ll tear your face off. This is the kind of thing that can only be conjured up in the midst of frozen lakes, crops, and wind chills of negative 20 degrees Fahrenheit:
- The Times has a good article about the Coen Bros. next flick, Inside Llewyn Davis, they put up yesterday. The movie is set against the backdrop of the early-60′s folk revival, mostly in NYC’s Greenwich Village. Apparently there’s lots of music in the film, a large portion of which being live performances by the actors themselves uncut and unsupplemented. Joel compares it to a musical, notably “Les Miserables”. At the core of the film, it seems, is this notion that talent doesn’t always find its place in the world: “How good you are doesn’t always matter,” Joel said. “That’s what the movie is about.” It’s hard not to think of this film as some sort of tribute to Dylan though, coming from such proud MN artists in the Bros.
- More movie magic. Apparently principle photography on Terry Gilliam‘s Zero Theorem has wrapped. Great news considering how notoriously difficult it’s been for Gilliam to get his projects up and running — then completed — throughout his career. Gilliam did not write this one, which hopefully should see at least a limited release this year, a guy named Pat Rushin did. Rushin’s IMDB page you’ll notice is very, very empty. That’s because this is his first feature film, he’s a writing professor by trade. Interesting. What’s more is the film’s premise… from IMDB:
“A computer hacker’s goal to discover the reason for human existence continually finds his work interrupted thanks to the Management; this time, they send a teenager and lusty love interest to distract him.”
The film stars Christopher Waltz, Ben Winshaw, Tilda Swinton, Matt Damon, David Thewlis, and very possibly Bill Murray.
- Brian Wood‘s The Massive is easily one of my favorite new comics. Lofty, character heavy, intelligent, and scarily plausible, it tells the on-going story of an ex-environmentalist group navigating the waters (literal and figurative) of a new global paradigm shrouded in economic and environmental collapse. I strongly recommend it. Apparently starting with issue #10 he’ll be plotting a “mini-event”, to which John Paul Leon has crafted this amazing (and gigantic) piece of art for:
“Black Hole is one of those stories that lingers long after you read it. If you require answers and nice / neat little packages, you may want to stick with Archie and the gang. This group of teens is far from Riverdale and far more desperate. Black Hole may remind you of places in your mind that you’ve put away since high school, forcing you to ask yourself, “What was my bug? What made me an outcast?” You may not have had a small mouth on the side of your neck, but chances are, if you felt anything that wasn’t pure apathy while reading this story, then you have more in common with the afflicted than you think.”
Last night I had the opportunity to go and see the legend of Minnesota music legends, the spiritual successor to Woody Guthrie (Arlo not withstanding), Bob Dylan. Bob Zimmerman. Robert Milkwood. Whatever you wanna call him. He lived up to that status. His presence was definitely felt from front to back, and he seemed glad to be in his (original) home.
My cousin who I was with hit it right on the head when he said, “he’s no nostalgia act, is he?”. Suffice it to say after having trouble getting to our seats on the floor due to sheer volume of people, I think the entire row ahead of us emptied after about 3 songs. It went from claustrophobic feeling to just plain bare. I should make it clear that I was told (“warned” seems like too strong of language) what a modern Bob Dylan show was going to be like from several people before going. I knew what I was in for; that being said, I honestly think I still would have the same reaction had I not been aware of the style in which Dylan and his always marvelous backing band present some of the best songs of the 20th Century. I would. Cause I was fairly baffled when I heard people complaining about it for the first time, it seemed a little unjustified. Here’s the deal: none of the songs are very recognizable, especially to an untrained ear (musically, that is). Sure… if you know the lyrics to Bob Dylan songs you’ll figure it out, or if you can recognize a key instantly you definitely will. But if you have neither of things you damn well better be going into the venue with an open mind or you will be disappointed. From the look if it, this happens at his shows with some regularity. Which is such a shame. If you do go in with an open mind, you concede to him that he’s the artist and you’re the patron, you will be in for a very memorable experience.
This was the first time I had seen him, so this could be all in my head… but he felt particularly loose last night. Spry I would even say. There were numerous times where he was playing the piano, getting more fidgety and fidgety until he finally had to pop up off his bench, grab a harmonica and walk to the front of the stage to jam. Indeed some of the best moments of the night were songs that Bob was not playing an instrument during, waltzing around the stage and pointing at his metaphors and imagery before delving into another harmonica solo. Now I know where Craig Finn gets his swagger from. His voice was surprisingly good. Again though, I’m well aware of how his voice has changed with 50 some odd years of cigarettes and red wine under the weight of being “a generation’s spokesperson”. That kind of thing has got to wear on you. Like the song rearrangements though, if you think his voice is gonna sound the way it does in the 60s or 70s, you will be dissatisfied. But I thought he sounded great, and dare I say a little bit cooler with the now trademark rasp. On “Tangled Up In Blue” for example, the long drawn-out words before the chorus hits he didn’t attempt, but he hit the chorus notes pretty well. But he’s a story teller; he’s at his best when he’s rambling on about Highway 61 or not fitting into anywhere you go. “Ballad of A Thin Man” was one of my highlights of the night: the band played a pretty heavy version of the song and Bob seemed to really be feeling the lyrics (this was one of the songs he walked around to). That song — an indictment of the establishment from a confused anti-hero who, no matter what he does (including read all of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s books) cannot seem to become accepted by society — ironically probably feels as personal to him in 2012 as it did in 1965. Add to that the irony of some people wanting to hear that song the way it sounded in 1965, and thinking this old version of Dylan is just too weird to enjoy, and you’ve got accidental (or perhaps intentional) brilliance.
Before the single-song encore of “Blowin’ In The Wind” (a version I didn’t even recognize initially), Dylan and co. played two of his most famous songs back to back: “Like A Rolling Stone” and “All Along The Watchtower”. It was a great one-two punch. I had heard previously a version of “Like A Rolling Stone” from earlier this year (I think from Europe gig?), so that song wasn’t too much of a surprise. And actually they don’t change it all that much, not comparatively to some of the other material. But the rendition “All Along The Watchtower” was amazing. Carefree, bluesy, even with a little snarl and attitude for good measure.
This may have been my last chance to see Dylan, and boy am I glad I did. He’s easily one of the greatest song writers — or maybe poets — of all time.
- Great news for Warren Ellis! His upcoming novel — Gun Machine — will be adapted to television by 20th Century Fox and Chernin Entertainment. Ellis himself will oversee the show, serving as Executive Producer, and Trauma creator/writer Dario Scardapane will be the head writer. I’m so happy for Internet Jesus… he’s been an awesome writer for so long, he deserves some mainstream success. (Not that I don’t wish he’d write comics again.)
- Well this is excellent news too: Joss Whedon is returning to directAvengers 2. Not only that, but he’ll also be the creator and executive producer (and probably do some writing too) of a Marvel movie-verse TV show for ABC tied to his films. I figured he wouldn’t want to do the Avengers sequel, considering a project that massive doesn’t allow for much side work. I suppose the C-141′s full of money can’t help (was gonna go with “truckload”… but didn’t think that sufficed). This is awesome though, because ever since the end of Avengers I’ve wondered where Whedon would take the sequel… what with sequels being the darkest of three movies and all (typically) due to dramatic structure.
Coincidentally, Whedon was/is working on a sort-of Internet-show with Warren Ellis. I hope that sees the light of day considering how busy their lives are about to get.
- David Cronenberg has a son who is now directing. And it’s looking like his movie’s will be as grotesquely creepy as his father’s. Antiviral is his first full-length and is I believe out in select cities/theaters. It stars the kid who played Banshee in X-Men: First Class. Caleb Jones. I think he’ll probably become a household name in the next 5 to 10 years. Also, apparently he plays drums and sings in a band called Robert Jones.
- In other movie news, Francis Ford Coppola looks like he’s bitten off a lot more than he can chew with his new film idea. The Edgar Allen Poe masks with 3D eye-holes are one thing, but having to put it on and take it off constantly? Not to mention he has “devised an interface between himself and the film so he could alter it in real time, adjusting the flow of the narrative as he read the audience’s reactions. This interface was built as an iPad app.“ Obviously the rebuttal here is… so he’s going to be present at EVERY ONE of his screenings…? The Bleeding Cool writer called this “several bad ideas crashing into one another”. He should know, he was at the Comic-Con screening.
- More reasons Texas is kinda batshit crazy. Or… at least has their priorities in a bunch. This HIGH SCHOOL football stadium costs $60 million. That’s American bucks. And before we go all “YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE… HOW IMPORTANT HS FOOTBALL IS DOWN HERE”. I do not. But, I hail from Minnesota, where High School hockey is super important. Where professional players, who have played and won the Stanley Cup (and in some cases Gold Medal games in the Olympics) have said that playing in the MN High School final was a more memorable experience. Hell, I bet we have a higher percentage of NHL players than Texas has NFL players. But you know what they do up North? They fucking play outside. In a rink that probably costs a couple grand to manufacture. But hockey is life up there. Really explains both the differences between BOTH hockey and football, and MN and Texas. Down to Earth love-of-the-game shit vs. massive spectacle.
- New Com Truise is streaming at Stereogum. Beautiful, ambient, dancey stuff. The album came out yesterday, it is called “In Decay”.
- Exhibit A of why Image Comics can compete with the “big 2″ year-in/year-out: people who don’t normally read comics don’t give a shit about the big new “event” crossover comic, but they are interested in things like Saga and Fatale. Things that are familiar in a way, and relatable, yet wholly foreign and bizarre at the same time.
“Part of what we do is make good comics, and we want to be the best version of Image Comics. But part of what we do is create a sustainable market. It has to be a part of what we do. Things like Saga and Walking Dead and Fatale, these are things that people want to return to. People can recommend these things to their friends, even people that don’t read comics. As opposed to tailchasing events, these yearly spike makers, but who’s going to be talking about AvX ten years from now.”
- NewFlying Lotushas been announced. The album is called “Until The Quiet Comes” and will be out via Warp Records October 2nd. Damn, this is a good year for me in terms of music releases. This is the cover:
Track listing:
1. All In
2. Getting There feat. Niki Randa
3. Until the Colours Come
4. Heave(n)
5. Tiny Tortures
6. All the Secrets
7. Sultan’s Request
8. Putty Boy Strut
9. See Thru to U feat. Erykah Badu
10. Until the Quiet Comes
11. DMT Song feat. Thundercat
12. The Nightcaller
13. Only if You Wanna
14. Electric Candyman feat. Thom Yorke
15. Hunger feat. Niki Randa
16. Phantasm feat. Laura Darlington
17. me Yesterday//Corded
18. Dream to Me
- Kristoff Krane, over the past few years, has evolved into one of my favorite rappers. And songwriters. He’s a captivating performer, inspirational and wholly original, and he writes excellent lyrics. If you don’t know much about him, a good introduction to him might be his dual release from 2010: Hunting For Father/ Picking Flowers Next To Roadkill. The latter features Slug, the late Eyedea (RIP), and POS. The former features very experimental production from Krane and Eyedea, and blends a singer-songwriter sensibility with Krane’s stream-of-conscious brand of hip-hop. “Hunting For Father” is one of my favorite albums to come out in years.
He’s back with a new release titled “Fanfaronade”. The album will be a FREE download, which is awfully kind of him. However, to offset the cost of making the album, he’s started a Kickstarter page for it. Any little tiny bit helps. There’s an excellent video of him explaining all this at the link (I’m having a hard time re-coding it to embed here). The album is apparently going to be pretty dark, on account of him losing his best friend over that period of time, and features some awesome rappers like Crescent Moon, Sage Francis, and Illogic.
- There’s probably no quote that better sums up my feelings of presidential elections now, and the one this year than:
“The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s palace”
- Lot’s of good comics coming up this spring (I believe a few came out today). I’m especially pumped for:
China Mieville‘s DIAL H. Mieville’s a batshit crazy enough genre writer to turn an old series about dialing “H-E-R-O” into your telephone and becoming a superhero for a short period of time into a modern trip through popular culture.
Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples’ SAGA. This, I think, came out today. A creator-owned from Vaughan about new parents trying to raise their baby through an ongoing galactic war? Sure, why not. Also, it promises “Star Wars style action and Game of Thrones-esque drama”.
Hickman‘s MANHATTAN PROJECTS. Which is already out I believe. Don’t know too much about this one, but if it’s a creator owned from Hickman, one could guess the concepts will be very high-brow and I’m certain the art will be beautiful judging by the preview. Also from Hickman, SECRET, which came out today.
- I was unaware that the cinematographer for Whedon’s Avengers flick is the same guy who did Atonement, Seamus McGarvey. That is excellent news, considering how beautiful Atonement (a quite a bit of his other work) is. He was nominated for an Oscar that year for cinematography. Along with No Country For Old Men, There Will Be Blood, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford. What a year that was. Yikes. Very very pretty movies. Anyways, there’s an interview that just hit the interwebs with Whedon, who talks about creating the iconic imagery necessary for a film like that without it feeling to contrived.
“The Internet to us is not something external to reality but a part of it: an invisible yet constantly present layer intertwined with the physical environment. We do not use the Internet, we live on the Internet and along it. If we were to tell our bildnungsroman to you, the analog, we could say there was a natural Internet aspect to every single experience that has shaped us. We made friends and enemies online, we prepared cribs for tests online, we planned parties and studying sessions online, we fell in love and broke up online. The Web to us is not a technology which we had to learn and which we managed to get a grip of. The Web is a process, happening continuously and continuously transforming before our eyes; with us and through us. Technologies appear and then dissolve in the peripheries, websites are built, they bloom and then pass away, but the Web continues, because we are the Web; we, communicating with one another in a way that comes naturally to us, more intense and more efficient than ever before in the history of mankind.”
- Now Playing: “Keep Warm… With The Warm Digits” by Warm Digits. Old-school, 80′s style electronic music. Bit of a Kraftwerk-ian feel to it: analog based, repetitive, happy. At least, a lot happier than what I’m used to listening to. They also employ a great bunch of live drumming. Which is always refreshing.
I got a decent sized stack of comics Monday. Here’s a few micro-reviews:
- PunisherMAX #20 & 21 - I feel bad for anyone who dug Garth Ennis‘ run and have slept on what Jason Aaron is doing with Frank Castle. It pretty much is a direct sequel, the way Joss Whedon‘s X-Men run was a sequel to Grant Morrison‘s. I just dropped way too many names. Issue 20 ramps up to 21 which sees the final conflict between Fisk and Castle outside “the tower”, Fisk’s impenetrable piece of skyscraper property somewhere on the West side. #21 is something special though, as it reads like a flash-before-your eyes moment before death: images of Frank’s time in Vietnam abound, the first time he killed a man (charlie was taking a shit, literally), when his father died, when he bought his first house, fishing with his son, etc. The last few pages remind you how devout of a life the man has lived since that day in Central Park, since the war. There’s simply no rest. Ever.
- Scalped #55 - This book is essentially one long, twisted, manic, dirty, brutal fight between two of the main characters, then a brief, one page ending that I’ve been waiting for for some time. The secret is out. Now it’s just a matter of how the chips will fall. With 5 issues left, one arc, I’m sad to see this book go; but I’m glad it’s ending on its own terms, not some publisher or CEO’s. There’s still some ends that need tying, or cutting off.
- Secret Avengers #21 - As if I needed a reminder of how much it sucks that Warren Ellis is perpetually out of the comics game in 2012. Damn. Not that he doesn’t write awesome novels. His first was a trip, and I’m sure Gun Machine will continue that tradition; but Jesus the guy sure knows how to write a save-the-world story. This is black-ops meets spy meets superhero stuff at its best. And quite the throwback to the one-and-done comics of yesteryear. Steve Rodgers is a master interrogator, Moon Knight is insane, and Beast is the best tech-support imaginable. A rooftop escape jump, bio-alien invasion, and something called the “Shadow Council”. All this, yet it remains incredibly grounded somehow.
- Northlanders #47 – Part 6 of the “Icelandic Trilogy” sees the last remaining blood of the Hauksson family taking the last resort to ensure their own safety, and that the name lives on: by converting to Christianity. Since the Christians came to Iceland, the ongoing power struggle between the Hauksson and Belgarsson clans has shifted: the Belgarssons have joined the new religion, the Haukssons have tried to hold onto their pagan roots. There’s a problem though. The specter of Christianity runs so deep through the land, in the year 1000 A.D., its influence so powerful, there’s simply no choice. You either succumb to it, take its protection in exchange for donations to the church, or you die. Sounds a lot like the mafia.
(I just realized I didn’t mention anything about any of the art these books; SHAME ON ME)
- A friend of mine has started a sports-based website. Specifically it targets Minnesota sports (what a pack of losers!). It’s called the “SportsChef”. He knows his stuff, and pretty regularly posts. Check it out. Also, he’s apparently made an Android App for his site, which is a lot more than I can say. Ha. Again, THE LINK.
“SOPA and PIPA are both awful, absurd laws, and if either of them come to pass Topless Robot will be shut down and I will be immediately out of my job. Based on the laws as they currently stand, every single article I wrote today — because of a quote, picture or video I ran — would be an illegal use of copyrighted material. Yet shutting Topless Robot and sites like it down does nothing to stop actual online piracy, which is what these bills are purportedly trying to stop.“
Just recently, I pointed out how asinine it would be for an artist to sue me for promoting his work and site. Yes, of course un-marked, non-referenced copyright infringement is shitty… but when you’re referencing the work and linking to where it’s being sold or shown, all that can do is help. This isn’t piracy, far from; it is marketing. Piracy is torrenting.
- Super Mario Crossover is a brilliant idea. Playing along through the original Super Mario Bros. games but with a massive cast of classic, NES characters:
(I’m releasing my new album tomorrow — which I’ll post — but in the meantime here’s the flash-fiction piece I wrote for it. Hope anyone who reads it likes it. Items in italicized-bold indicate track names, the album title is “The Parallel”.)
The dust bowl got us moving. I’ll never forget that billowing monster looming on the horizon, inching closer hour by hour, tumbling over itself and infecting all it touched. Sometimes I still see it: a black cloud, spitting venom and creeping into the boundaries of my consciousness. It shouldn’t happen to a dream. We cultivated all we could and got out. The road crumbled underfoot, weary old expansion. Millions of stars played tag in the sky. Summers at Itasca were just memories. Flashes of moonlight, Lakeshore, tiny little rocks in my hand. A signpost outside Pipestone read hash-mark, N, G. We setup camp outside town and scavenged for wood. We were sleeping in our tents when the Earth cracked apart and something terrifying emerged from the unknown. The glow of smoldering embers lit the creature’s face orange. Horns dripping sticky waste, wounds all over. Minotaure of the Beyond. It receded after it saw nothing to fear. The next morning we came to a train yard sprinkled with rust and tags. A teenage boy with a guitar and little more lay hungry amongst the cargo. His case was covered in a story written in white paint. Words, pictures, symbols. The story of his life. We left him with a can of beans and hopped the switchbacks West. A couple days later we came to a taconite mine and managed to flee without being seen. The sound of dynamite blasts echoed through the Range. An aging ship captain let us rest in his home for a day and night. His wife took a shining to Maria, gave her a crushed Velvet dress and some pearl earrings to boot. We hadn’t eaten so well in days. They sent us on our way to St. Paul to meet a 7th Street swing dancer who, they said, could help us in our travels. The road became grey as the season changed over. Frost came and went. Tunnel passage. The map shifted again and again. Smoke signals emanated from the valley to the East. Ancient beacon. We huddled around the fire, singing “Carryin’ On” until our voices ceased. Our last day on the road led us to a farm knee deep in repairs; it had encountered a devastating tornado weeks prior. The fields were cloaked in splintered wood and uprooted crops. The farmhands never stopped working. A photographer from out East photographed a migrant mother with the pea pickers. The negative reached out to me, I reached back. The sharecroppers gave us a jug of their moonshine for lending a hand. It was brown, bitter, and reeked of rotten tree bark. That night we passed it around and stumbled into the city’s outer limits. A bluesman repeated a lick on the corner, while a stranger dressed in all white improvised to the chaos. Blurs like long-form exposure. We woke to one of our party lying dead on his back, the concoction poisoned him. That was one gloomy Sunday. Blast furnace… wondering why. I broke bottles all day in an alley behind the depot. Entry static resonated through the brick. I ran away through the broken glass, cuts in my palms. Trail of blood down St. Peter cobblestone. I ran into a bearded plainsman with a hatchet and a pocketwatch; he clutched me tight, smearing ashes across my face. Light embedded eyes blinded me. I tried to squirm free but it was no use. The traffic stopped and we walked across river road, down to the embankment. On an island I saw my traveling party, my family. They smiled and waved and yelled for me to join them. The plainsman heaved me into the river. I flailed, unable to swim, desperately kicking. The water started to fill my mouth, I began sinking. I touched down to the muddy river bottom. As all hope ceased, I saw their faces emerging from the darkness. They carried me to the surface; I coughed and rolled over on the island shore… Closed my eyes under a full moon and dreamt of…
I had a very successful trip to the record store yesterday; I’m already realizing how valuable (not monetarily, in terms of sampling) several of these records will be for me in the future, and that’s grabbing stuff based on the short descriptions of the outer plastic by the employees. Or the cover art. Or both.
I grabbed this album as a bit of an afterthought, I already had about seven or eight things in my hand at the time:
The Velvet Underground & Nicois, to me, the best Velvet Underground record. That’s nothing against their trash-can infused, excellent self-titled (I have sampled “Murder Mystery”), or the attempt at going a little more wall-of-sound/Phil Spector-esque with Loaded. And this is a rarity for me; I typically loathe the “they’ll never do anything as good as their debut” haters, for several reasons. Mainly, I’m of the opinion that most bands — who are worth talking about — get better as they go along, at least to a point (lots of my favorite records come from the dead middle of said artist’s discography). Oh okay, apparently this album sat at #13 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
That was about the only Rock (when it comes to Velvet Underground that term is used loosely) record I got yesterday. Most of my time, now, is spent perusing the used bins for interesting Jazz or Blues or Electro stuff I can attempt to harness. On the cheap. The record store(s) I shop at really help people like me. Yesterday it was Electric Fetus, but I really like going to Cheapo too because of the sheer amount of vinyl they have (an amount so big they were forced to rent a space across the street for vinyl only). At the end of the Electronic section, Fetus has got a couple sections featuring some more “miscellaneous” type material, where I picked up something from England called Fluid Ounce: Unmeasured.
The hand-written synopsis on the outer-dust cover read something along the lines of “Abstract/Electro, Jazzy Breaks”. Sounds nice right? Digging a little deeper today, Fluid Ounceturns out to be a neat little record label based out of south-east London. They print vinyls on the regular and on the back of the record I bought the bottom right corner reads:
“We put out music that we love. But, if you are unsatisfied with this release for any reason, be it a defective disc, broken packaging or the musical content, we will replace it. Return the product and a copy of the receipt to us, postmarked within ten days of purchase, and we will send back an equal value product of your choice, guaranteed.”
Hard not to like a mission statement like that. Their Myspace page (thank God it’s mostly bands/labels now using Myspace; the way it was originally intended to be used!) genre tab reads “Electro/Hip-Hop/Jazz”, and it’s got some interesting tracks to listen to. Their official page is stark and amazingly designed. With all the releases on a scroll bar to the side and large-font news updates staring back at you. I might have to follow this label closer in the future. I’ve only listened to about half this record but am digging.
I grabbed two records out of a bin at the end of the used-Jazz section specializing in “Jazz breaks”, which of course will come in handy. One is a split 12″: Paul Scriver‘s “Upswing” standard and remixed on one side, and New Legends‘ “Sole Food” standard and demoed. Which, in turn, has led me today to Fog City Records. Hmm. The other is a Skyjuice/Dark Leaf/Byard Lancaster mix. The best thing about shopping like this is I had never heard of any of these people or labels.
Of course I had to get some good old Jazz/Blues, specifically stripped-down female vocal based records to chop up and layer and slap FX onto and repeat. Mary Lou Williams and Della Reese filled that void, two singers I had barely heard of but are awfully close to being legends. The latter is still alive, and made records well into the 2000′s; as of 2012 I believe she is an ordained minister and preaching rather than singing. Which is too bad. I also, after having my mind wiped by the first I’d ever heard of him in full, bought a new Sun Rarecord, 1978′s “Landquidity”. I haven’t listened to it yet but it’s the one where he upped the Jazz-fusion and Funk influence more than ever before, or ever again. With over 100 albums under his belt, and over 1000 songs, that dude should without a doubt be a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee. But I won’t get started on that topic…
