Wow, check it out, in this Drive Like Jehu show from 1992 at the X-Ray Cafe in Portland, Oregon, starting at 30:00, there’s a TOTALLY UNRELEASED DRIVE LIKE JEHU SONG that I had never heard before and is not on any album, 7″, compilation, or any other live video I’ve ever seen.
Does anyone know the guys in this band, are there any other rare gems out there? Totally awesome. The only other unreleased piece of Jehu I’ve ever heard is the original? or an alternate intro for New Math–you know how it’s called “New Intro” on Yank Crime? If you listen to the recording of the live Drive Like Jehu KXLU radio set, the intro to New Math is totally different than on Yank Crime and is totally awesome too…
Featuring Mark C from Live Skull, Stuart Argabright from Ike Yard, and Kent Heine from The Holy Ghost, o13 (formerly Outpost 13) has made the record of the year, actually of the past few years, with their new release Time Wave Zero. It’s a sophisticated mix of new wave, no wave, krautrock, dub, electronic, and ambient music that sounds wholly original and inspired, invoking the present, past, and future (bridging the gaps from 1978 to 1985 to 2013 and beyond) in a totally unique way.
I’m tempted to say that only veteran experimental/underground musicians who never hit the big time and have been keeping the torch alive, making art and music in the background for the last few decades, could make a record that sounds as effortless and evocative as Time Wave Zero. If pressed for comparisons I’d say this would fit in nicely with some Can, Philip Glass, Live Skull, Orb’s Orbus Terrarum, Suicide, Joy Division, Brian Eno, all in their prime!!! It’s super-accomplished and stylized, the type of album that all fits together perfectly, evoking a number of moods and emotions that you just can’t get anywhere else. It’s about time–an album this good and consistent hasn’t come out in many years, especially out of the indie/postpunk arena–maybe the last records this interesting were Battles’ Gloss Drop and Mirrored?
Newsflash: Desire Records is also re-releasing some Live Skull records on CD and vinyl, and they’re on Spotify too! It’s about time, Live Skull is basically as good or usually better than Sonic Youth in their own inspired and unique way (only Sister and Daydream Nation are on par with the best Live Skull records) but many of their best records have never been released on CD until now (or soon, currently in preorder)!!! A dedicated post on this monumental (I’m serious) news soon!
Survival Knife: Justin Trosper and Brandt Sandeno from Unwound etc in the amazing new band Survival Knife!!! Kind of like Unwound meets Black Flag, Drive Like Jehu, and Voivod!!!
Their whole first show, soundboard, can be found here:
Six Finger Satellite’s 1995 album “Severe Exposure,” specifically the song “Rabies (Baby’s Got the)” may have influenced Daft Punk’s 1996 single Da Funk, which is also featured on their Homework album from 1997. How you may ask? Check out the keyboard stabs in Da Funk–conceptually similar to this arpeggiated keyboard part/stab in Rabies–then especially, check out that high pitched keyboard sound in Rabies–the notes played are similar to that main winding keyboard riff in Da Funk, it’s just that the riff in Da Funk has a little more frills. And notice how the keyboard sound in the first few seconds of Rabies (also used to echo the main bassline periodically after :50 seconds in the song) sounds alot like the keyboard sound used for the main melody/winding keyboard part of Da Funk and a sound used alot on Daft Punk’s Human After All album. I’m not saying these parts sound exactly the same, but that both feature conceptually similar keyboard stabs and winding synth parts with very similar notes. They also both feature steady beats–a little more rock in Rabies, still dancey/disco-ish, and a little bit more straightforward dance/funk in Da Funk.
Daft Punk obviously listened to lots of weird 70s music, disco, electronic, experimental music (see all the music they sampled for Discovery and Human After All and the songs they picked for their Electroma movie), and I would not be surprised if they may have heard about this weird American band Six Finger Satellite that was making weird 70s-ish punk-electronic hybrid punk dance music in 1995 through friends, the press, or college radio, and having eclectic experimental tastes, may have picked up the album and been impressed with Rabies, which may have consciously or subconsciously influenced Da Funk. What do you think? On first listen, you may think, “These sound nothing alike.” But keep your ear open for the conceptual similarities of the keyboard stabs, and the conceptual similarity of the notes of the main winding keyboard parts/main melody and the steady drum beats–conceptually they’re pretty similar in structure and intent. Interestingly, the soundman for Six Finger Satellite, James Murphy, would go on to start LCD Soundsystem, and would end up making a song “Daft Punk is Playing at My House,” so you can see that there are definitely some conceptual and music shared roots there.
The crowning achievement of Western music to date, Don Caballero on the American Don tour. Here’s the whole show. Fireside Bowl, Chicago, 1999. Please, if anyone has footage of the Fucking Champs show that accompanies this, let me know!!!
Kurt: “Exactly which parts of daydream nation sound like pink floyd? Minutemen are prog rock? I think you are stretching your “everything is prog rock” thesis a bit too far. If you said that husker du sounded like king crimson on zen arcade then yes, but really, come on. Exactly which parts of daydream nation sound like pink floyd? Minutemen are prog rock? I think you are stretching your “everything is prog rock” thesis a bit too far. If you said that husker du sounded like king crimson on zen arcade then yes, but really, come on.”
Trickledown:
Basically, the first two Minutemen albums as prog rock: the complicated bass and the tricky timing that’s way different from punk rock, the bass is like in Yes or Gentle Giant, the guitar is complicated and tricky, so is the drumming, it’s way different from punk or hardcore, and the Minutemen were big fans of Captain Beefheart which falls under the prog rock umbrella in terms of experimentation.
I would say the first two Minutemen albums are as much prog rock as they are punk, not necessarily like keyboard laden prog but tricky time change prog (Yes and Gentle Giant happen to have bits of both). Daydream Nation, the echo and noise breakdowns like in Silver Rocket and Total Trash, are very similar in parts and vibe to a lot of Pink Floyd’s Piper at the Gates of Dawn, it’s their most indie album, with Syd Barret, I’m not talking about Dark Side of the Moon or anything.
Check out songs like Interstellar Overdrive (the beginning few seconds sounds exactly like a song on Daydream Nation or Goo even!) or Astronomy Domine, they’re quite different from more mainstream Pink Floyd (which I happen to like too). They’re very experimental noise rock, art rock, postpunk even at times, much different from what people consider more “bloated” PInk Floyd (but which has become much more influential on bands like Godspeed You Black Emperor etc in recent years).
Pink Floyd: Astronomy Domine
Here’s another person in a book on rock calling Minutemen prog rock, saying they fused hardcore and prog… Also here: “Borrowing the pagan impetus from hardcore, the harsh quirkiness from the new wave and the cerebral, and the convoluted indulgence from progressive-rock, the Minutemen concocted the miniature hardcore shrapnels of Punch Line (feb 1981 – nov 1981) and What Makes A Man Start Fires (jul/aug 1982 – jan 1983).
The acrobatic primitivism of these albums became even more neurotic and atonal on Double Nickels On The Dime (nov 1983/apr 1984 – jul 1984), one of the most ambitious recordings of the decade, a veritable encyclopedia of musical styles revisited from the point of view of a spastic genius reminiscent of Captain Beefheart and the Pop Group. After Boon’s untimely death in 1985, the survivors hired a new vocalist, renamed themselves fIREHOSE (1), released Ragin’ Full On (oct 1986 – nov 1986) and pursued a more conscious program to refound the song format, except that R.E.M.-like folk-rock took over Minutemen’s unpredictable structures.” http://www.scaruffi.com/history/cpt49.html
Also,
“As D. Boon of the Minutemen famously said, “Punk is whatever we made it to be.” This seemed especially true of the generation of American iconoclasts associated with independent labels such as SST and Discord in the 1980s. Not unlike prog-rock or fusion of the time, these bands experimented with song structure, lyrical content, improvisation, and even crowd control. But unlike their more “respectable” counterparts, the punks sought to disrupt the complacent social order they inherited.” http://www.bassplayer.com/article/21st-century-upright/April-2010/110637
One of the best DJ Premier tracks I’ve heard in awhile. From a Youtube playlist
Tracks in the playlist include:
M.O.P. – Follow Instructions
Screwball – F.A.Y.B.A.N
Guru – The Anthem
Jaz-O & The Immobilarie – 718
Jaz-O & The Immobilarie-The Love is Gone
snoop dogg-the one and only
Pitch Black – It’s all real (alternate version)
MOP – Bloody Murder
Now, none of us at the Trickledown listen to any gospel (mostly indie, prog metal, fusion, some hip hop) but one of us is on a downtempo and broken beat kick and heard this on the radio, pretty nice!
So we all know what the Daft Punk helmets look like…turns out they are from the first and second album by 70’s Motown disco/electro/funk artist Mandre, look at these album covers (and we know how much Daft Punk samples obscure 70s disco/electro/funk like Breakwater)! Notice on the first album how there’s that band of black across the silver helmet caused by shadowing, which looks similar to the protruding black visor on that one Daft Punk helmet, the silver with black banding, and the other is just the same too, a large black panel on that gold helmet, just minus those two pointed spikes…Notice the first Mandre robot is in a tuxedo, check the Daft Punk robots in suits below…
The Trickle-Down 