boring shit no one cares about except maybe jon
michigan is a pretty cold place, but i still like it. all my classes are going well, especially my creative musicianship one cause i get to record a song with this cute girl i have a crush on. i was being creepy and trying to find her picture on facebook so i could post it here but i had zero success. anyway, last night i went to detroit to this cool record store to see a concert. warn defever (from his name is alive), this dude Elliot (from saturday looks good to me,) & my friend dan were supporting faruq z. bey as the opening act. they were terrific, but not as unbelievable as henry grimes and marshall allen.
this is faruq:
he was in griot galaxy and sounds a lot like pharoah. the cool thing about his playing (and their set last night) was that he's able to play along with anyone. warn had more of a psych-rock vibe to his playing, and elliot was laying down these weighty synth lines while dan was really pushing the beat. it was definitly something i've never heard before.
this is henry:
i may have mentioned this before but my friend joey (also one of the people i went to the show with) helped re-discover henry and get him back on the scene after he'd dissapeared for 30 years. in the 60's he played on recordings with ayler (he absolutely destroys on spirits rejoice), cecil taylor (unit structures,) sonny rollins, archie shepp, mccoy tyner, pharoah sanders and don cherry amongst many others. his playing was ridiculous- on one tune he vamped for half an hour at least and i thought his arm was gonna fall off. i've never heard another bass player with 1/10th the talent and stamina henry had. i got a chance to hang out with him a bit after the show and he's also a really nice guy.
he also happens to be the polar opposite of the guy he was playing with, marshall allen:
marshall was in sun ra's arkestra, in fact he joined in 1957. he's 83 now, but he jumped around and played like he was in his 20's. it was unbelievable the way he played the alto sax (along with a bunch of other instruments and gadgets). he also had this half spoken word/ half singing thing he would do that was so out. he would go on and on about space ships and such, which sounds really crazy but the way he'd make eye contact and roam around the audience gave the show the intensity to back it up. after the show he told me he was from saturn, and you know what i don't doubt it- his shit was otherworldly.
since the place doubled as a record store i also picked up a couple records. most noteworthy is this really cool esp-disk sampler:
mines actually black instead of blue, but anyway it has tracks from: pearls before swine, pharoah sanders quintet, ayler, henry grimes trio, sunny murray, the marion brown quartet, the new york art quartet and the fugs amongst a couple other greats. it's really fantastic and the dude rang it up as 99 cents rather than the 9.99 it was supposed to be (ironically it says 99 cents on the actual record, right above the price tag that says 9.99 on my copy).
i also picked up a sealed copy of this:
it's the art ensemble of chicago live at the ann arbor blues & jazz festival in '72. it was reccomended to me by dan piccolo, and it turns out to be one of the burninest things they ever laid to wax. it has an intro by john sinclair (of mc5 fame) and just has some killing playing from roscoe mitchell, lester bowie & malachi favors as well as a bunch of other crazy looking dudes who just slay.
the last album i picked up was by a dude i'd never heard of, on a label i've never heard of (FM), but who's cover art intrigued me. i wish i could find a picture of it somewhere, but shits so obscure i cant find anything anywhere about it. theres no listing for him on allmusic either... anyway, the album is our man in africa: george anderson. the cover is black and white and has a picture of this dude in the recording studio holding an acoustic guitar and wearing this really cool plaid hat and black suit, looking like a cross between thelonious monk and al green. the back of the album doesnt really describe his music, it just has a map of africa and has a little bio that says he was born in africa in 1933, and later moved to paris in 1952. this album was recorded in paris in '63 and all the songs have african or french titles.
i didn't know what to expect when i put it on, but what i heard was way different than i could have ever imagined. the dude sounds just like gilberto gil or maybe caetano veloso. basically, if you hadn't shown me the cover id have guessed this guy was brazilian singing in some made up language. its a crazy album and it just goes to show the chances you can take on cheap records.
today i stopped by wazoo (the record store that employs me) to pick up my paycheck and to my surprise they finally had an album i'd requested they order me a couple weeks ago:
it's a revenant compilation featuring some really cool pre-war gospel. the labels site says:
"77-minutes of gut-bucket, early gospel from the collections of Gayle Dean Wardlow and John Fahey, complete with a 24-page booklet of liner notes and photos. Included... Charley Patton, Rev. I.B. Ware with Wife & Son, Booker T. Washington - “Bukka” White, William & Versey Smith, Blind Willie Davis, Frank Palmes, Bo Weavil Jackson, Elder Otis Jones, Blind Roosevelt Graves, Blind Joe Taggart, Blind Mamie Forehand, Jaybird Coleman, and more."
i still need to get american anthology of folk and that recent dust to digital box "goodbye babylon." i was intrigued by the greil marcus book i read recently called "old, weird america," that's primarily about bob dylan & the bands basement tapes, but sort of goes off on tangents about the music that preceded and inspired those sessions. all in all, really interesting music that was made by unique individuals with entirely different motivations than artists these days. i could go on forever about this stuff.
i've also been listening to the following a lot recently:
sorry i couldn't find a better picture. i actually picked this up not knowing at all what it was when i was in philly with jon. i think mia can sum it up better than i can, this is what she said about it in a recent interview:
"This is where my mind has been recently. 'Baile funk' ('funk ball') is basically Brazilian kids in the favelas (ghettos) going crazy, screaming the dirtiest lyrics over Clash songs and electronic music that sounds like Kraftwerk. They take Miami bass beats, really basic drum loops, heavy bass - I can only describe it as 'booty music' - and produce something so fierce and angry that reflects the absolute chaos around them. Diplo (half of the Philadelphia D.J.-duo Hollertronix) put out 'Favela on Blast: Rio Baile Funk '04' (available at www.hollertronix.com), a compilation of the best ones he found when he went to Brazil."
speaking of MIA i can't stop listening to arular, along with:
piracy funds terrorism isn't quite as good as arular, but its still pretty great. it's jolting to hear her flow over lil jon beats but it works in a weird way. i've now also developed a crush on mia, making her my new background:
as for life outside of music, joey and i can't stop playing:
he picked it up at blockbuster for like 4 dollars but its the most addictive sports game ever. each game is only 9 minutes long, but the intensity is enough to make you want to pull your hair out. simple games for simple minds i guess.
its a little past 4 am now but i dont really have any classes tomorrow (musicology at 2 hardly counts since all i gotta do is listen to music). so yeah thats that i guess. reed, i emailed the guy at indieworkshop, what's your email address? jon, im glad the eric bachmann interview went well. everyone else, congratulations for getting this far. i think soon im gonna do another round of reccomendations cause everytime i hear something now i think about which of my friends would be way into it. so yeah, enjoy your weekends.
lloyd out.
for eric (more blasts from the past):
remember the night that began with this:
and ended with this?:
good times.