I had recently caught wind that Manuel Gottsching, of Ash Ra Temple and Ashra fame (or semi-underground type fame), would be performing at some sort of minimalist festival in NYC on Friday night along with someone called Rhys Chatham (who I’m sure I’m a douchebag for not knowing) who would be playing with 200 local guitarists (doesn’t seem all that minimal an idea, but okay). Manuel Gottsching was going to perform an electronic trance piece called “E2-E4″ that I recently found out is considered ground-breaking in the electronica world. I’ve had the hour-long piece in my collection for a couple years and dig it on occassion, but I totally praise Gottsching more for his 70′s era Ashra-monikered guitar-heavy, almost new-age projects, which I can listen to endlessly, like the albums Correlations or New Age of Earth. His psych/space/Kraut rock Ash Ra Temple work with Klaus Schulz in the late 60′s is also very different and quite amazing and ground-breaking.
I didn’t plan to go to Friday’s show, as I heard about it a bit too late and the weather was looking awful anyway. Well, I guess a bunch of dickheads went out to the show to see Rhys Chatham, since perhaps Bowie approved of him or he collaborated with Deerhunter or something, and Chatham’s set was cancelled, but only after the crowd had to ‘sit through’ Gottsching’s hour-long “E2-E4″ piece, which couldn’t have possibly been as bad as the way that these Brooklyn Vegan commenters describe it!
Here’s an example: Rhys Chatham can eat me for making me sit through that Gottsching stupidity. You’re never gonna live this one down. You should’ve have done it in the church. You KNEW it was gonna rain, yet you exercised poor judgement and made everyone else pay for it. Nice going.
What this mainly means is that I need to stop reading Brooklyn Vegan’s comments sections and just read the stories. But I’m just drawn to them and can’t help but see what so many (unfortunately) fellow New York music lovers think about certain local shows and events. Unfettered negativity with the occassional nice and/or logical comment.
Anyway, the BV commenters who were so mad at what their ears had to put up with before they found out about Chatham’s cancellation have no idea of the beauty and talent of Manuel Gottsching’s music, and it will be their loss…but it won’t be yours. Here’s a Muxtape mix of some great Gottsching material from his Ashra period of the 70′s. And you won’t get rained on as you listen…and be surrounded by dickhead music snobs. Dig…
Since Muxtape is experiencing RIAA legal difficulties, your best bet is to listen to some of Manuel Gottsching’s music over at his MySpace page. There’s some great stuff there, including edits of “E2-E4″ and “Echo Waves”.
…but maybe they represent freedom in some way…especially the Beach Boys song and Mudcrutch song too!
As a supplement to our most recent Best Band You’ve Never Heard In Your Life featuring the band, MAN, here’s a Muxtape MAN mix to get you fully turned on to MAN’s sound. Dig it this weekend, for it will soon expire. And report back on your findings. Happy Weekend!!!
Original Best Band post on NewmRadio
Link from our friends at Hidden Track
Well it seems it’s sh*tty time and this one was inspired by Bob Lefsetz’s Lefsetz Letter blog. Bob recently gave us a breakdown of his 20 most-played songs in his iTunes with a little explanation of each. Many were lost on me, but I could totally get behind the case he made for Boston‘s “Hitch A Ride”. It’s easy, and popular these days, to show disdain for Boston, but c’mon, they have some doozies…and “Hitch A Ride” is very much one of said doozies!
Well, since we’re not as bright a bunch, and we have jobs to work and people to see and noses to pick and walls to stare at, let’s just do the most-played top 10 of our iTunes or iPods instead of 20, k? Just sort either one in the iTunes window by Play Count and rattle off your most-played top ten below. It’s up to you if you feel like you have to justify them with comments or whatever. So read on below to see mine and to post yours!
So Trout Mask Replica had you as confounded as it had me when I first checked it out from the library in high school? As is the case with most bands, it seems like the most critically heavily-lauded album is usually not my favorite. It’s even the case with the Beatles…I’d rather have the White Album on a desert island than Sgt. Pepper’s (not to take anything away from Pepper’s, though!) What other examples can you think of?
Anyway, I put together this nice Muxtape to share with you the glory of Beefheart’s bluesier, more psychedelic debut album Safe As Milk from 1967. I feel like there’s almost no way to not love this album. If ya dig, the next logical step in my mind would be Spotlight Kid and/or Clear Spot.
So here’s Safe As Milk for your listening pleasure…nice and listenable! Hope this helps all you Star Room folks give Beefheart another chance. Cheers!
Anybody else have any similar examples of critically-acclaimed albums that are not your favorite?
So Saturday is Record Store Day and I guess the reason we’re starting to celebrate it is because of the death of the music industry as we know it. I gotta say I look back on the record store days as pretty sweet. Me and my sister used to go to the local record store (at the Shoppes) and see all these cool records which we weren’t yet familiar, when I was around 9-10 years old. I always remember a Dirty Deeds poster and wondering why all the peoples’ eyes were blacked-out, and a life-size Ringo Starr cardboard cutout in a police uniform. But at that age we were mainly going there to get to the arcade in the back of the store, where I honed my Donkey Kong skills as often as I could.
Fast forward a year or two after Back In Black opened my eyes to rock ‘n roll, and I’m going to the Record Bar at the mall almost religiously and ordering records from the record club…getting 10-12 records at a time in a cardboard box in the mail is about as cool as life gets.
Then a few years later in high school, how many trips did I make to Clifton from the burbs of Cincinnati to visit Wizzards Records to load up on cheap used albums? Then there’s all the stores I’ve loved before… Everybody’s Records, Mole’s, Used Kids, Recycle, and a couple I’ve visited where I live now… Academy Annex in Williamsburg and that joint on Bleecker Street. I’ve gotten the best deals most recently though at NYC street fairs and the last WFMU Record Fair.
So get out there Saturday and find your local record store and grab yourself some tasty vinyl. Or if you don’t have a turntable, seek a cheap one out. Shit, you could even get one of those USB Ion tables, if you don’t have a proper receiver. Anyway, here’s a couple other things…
- Listen to a killer vinyl rip (via Muxtape) , of Neil Young’s Time Fades Away, and then find yourself a vinyl copy of it at your local shop
- Get your free download of the new Gnarls Barkley! The catch…it’s backwards.
- More talk about classic rock live albums at Hidden Track
- Can you think of any other bands that peaked too soon? I’m thinking The Specials.
- You absolutely have to see and hear David Byrne doing his rendition of Paul Simon’s I Know What I Know, which he just performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (where I was married) for the recent Paul Simon Graceland tribute, Under African Skies.
- Central Park Summerstage‘s calendar is up.
I just found this cool new way to share mix “tapes” with friends, called Muxtape. You upload the songs (which is quick), order the tracks, and it reads the titles and diplays them, and plays the songs back for your favorite cats. So go ahead, listen to this, it’s fun and easy, and it removes excess body fat!
And one more thing, God Bless America! Grace Potter is a cool rock chick.
Anyone else gonna share a Muxtape with us?
