the frig blig

Karlheinz Stockhausen, pioneer electronic (and NOT) music composer, died wednesday at 79 years old according to the BBC (who oughtta know). I remember his compositions fondly — the house with a different band playing in every room, the interposing national anthems, and of course the stimmung sung underground. May you rest in peace and your compositions continue to inspire..

Jimi Hendrix was born 65 years ago today, and shockingly, this fact does not appear on Wikipedia’s front-page ‘On This Day’ listing.

His music has and will continue to be discussed to death (NPI) but as I was in highschool when he died, allow me the following reminiscences:

1. I can’t do any better than to quote my friend Tim who upon first hearing Are You Experienced, recalled intense puzzlement, thinking “What the hell was that?”, followed by immediately replaying the album. The sound was that new.

2. I recently discovered quite by accident that prior to going to England he had a band for a few months in New York city, Jimmy James and The Blue Flames. I learned about this while researching Randy California, after listening to an old Spirit CD and wondering how he got that name. Turns out there were two Randys in the Jimmy James band and to distinguish between them Jimi called them Randy California and Randy Texas. The moniker stuck (and when Are You Experienced came out, 15-year-old RC was surprised to learn Jimi’s last name wasn’t James).

3. I gave away my copy of ‘Hendrix in the West’ to my highschool friend and Hendrix fan Tripp Anderson way back when; I hope you got lots of listens out of that disk Tripp! Regards whereever you are.

4. Who would have guessed that I’d end up living in Hendrix’s hometown umpteen years later?

Peak Park was officially opened this afternoon. Your intrepid bligger enjoyed the sunshine, vista and music, including a kids’ marimba band with all sizes of locally-made marimbas! (The band pictured above is different, of the oompah variety.)

Like thousands of other guys all over this land, I created a playlist of songs for our upcoming halloween party. Some are appropriate for the music, or the words, or the overall effect, or the title. A few are a slight thematic stretch, but were included just because I like them.

Anyway since this here blig is all about sharing, here’s this year’s list:

phantom_of_the_opera - the_music_of_the_night
built_to_spill - you_were_right
dissecting_table - shikkogaki_remix
pixies - ed_is_dead
zevon_warren - werewolves_of_london
soundgarden - black_hole_sun
phil_ochs - the_highwayman
mission_of_burma - dead_pool
iron_maiden - run to the hills
pink_floyd - careful_with_that_axe_eugene
velvet_acid_christ - never_worship
weill_kurt - the_ballad_of_mack_the_knife
tool - undertow
tom_waits - misery_is_a_river_of_the_world
screaming_trees - the_looking_glass_cracked
phallus_dei - body_and_soul
frank_zappa - goblin_girl
kronos_quartet - black_angels
alice_in_chains - them_bones
mose_allison - everybody_cryin_mercy
beck - devils_haircut
metallica - the_unforgiven
cohen_leonard - the_future
suicide_machines - i_hate_everything
trance - ennui
green_day - jinx
nirvana - something_in_the_way
avenged_sevenfold - city_of_evil
a_frames - surveillance
meat_puppets - we_dont_exist
tom_waits - gods_away_on_business
talking_heads - listening_wind
radiohead - fake_plastic_trees
bach_johannes_sebastian - toccata__fugue_in_d_minor_s565
soundgarden - searching_with_my_good_eye_closed
sonics - the_witch
beatles - maxwells_silver_hammer
medeski_martin_and_wood - anonymous_skulls
phish - the_story_of_the_ghost
black_sabbath - children_of_the_grave
the_receiving_end_of_sirens - dead_men_tell_no_tales
husker_du - bed_of_nails
dylan_bob - man_in_the_long_black_coat
boris - six_three_times
led_zeppelin - the_battle_of_evermore
john_zorn - graveyard_shift
phallus_dei - earth_go_back_rough_mix
u2 - helter_skelter
legion - the_somnambulist
motorhead - bad_religion
nocturnal_emissions - never_give_up
motorhead - hellraiser
premature_ejaculation - death_works_as_you_drift
blue_oyster_cult - dont_fear_the_reaper
art_decade - my_death
metallica - enter_sandman
paul_lemos - somnambulation_remix
husker_du - how_to_skin_a_cat
metallica - the_god_that_failed
premature_ejaculation - red
husker_du - she_floated_away
bloc_party - hunting_for_witches
dylan_bob - everything_is_broken
dear_hunter - the_church_and_the_dime
dixon_willie - I_Aint_Superstitious
the_phantom_of_the_opera

Chris Cornell’s performance at the Paramount last night was pure quality entertainment. He had a great band, had a blast onstage, and his voice is as powerful as ever. He performed three Temple of the Dog tunes, and many Soundgarden songs. He covered an acoustic version of ‘Billie Jean’ and the band’s final encore was ‘Whole Lotta Love.’

Warmup NYC trio Earl Greyhound wasn’t too shabby either.

If you like Soundgarden and this tour comes to your town, I say don’t miss it. I’m still hearing his tunes in my head.

S and I met up with two of her out-of-town cousins and their respective husbands (one couple hails from Pueblo and the other from Miami) at the base of the needle last night to do Bumbershoot. It’s been a few years since we attended, as the event seems more expensive and more crowded with each passing year. However it proved a fun-filled evening, and one could argue it was well worth the price since we saw three bands for the price of one.

First up was The Frames, an Irish band that S had seen in a film and likes. They were quite good, definitely have the Irish sound, mixing storytelling folklike ballads with driving rock similar to U2 (but with a fiddle).

Next we caught locals The Whore Moans at the Sky Church who after a short bizarre silent intro featuring flag-waving Lincoln clones broke into energetic hardcore. They rock socks with chock blocks.

We left in the middle of their set to catch The Greyboy Allstars at another stage already in progress. These guys from San Diego apparently regrouped last year and sound as tight and funky as ever. It was a treat to end the evening on. A good time was had by all (except for Kenny).

I had a percussion jam yesterday with S on conga and myself on kit. It was fun; we alternated between 2 formats, the first in which we both played simultaneously, and the second where we traded solos, playing off of each other’s riffs and ideas. S performed admirably on her single hand-struck drum, coming forth with numerous variety of sounds via using different parts of the instrument. I felt like I had it easier, having many more kinds of hardware to hit.

S has taken music lessons from M, the guitar and keyboard player in my former band D. So at times I felt like I was playing with M through S.

But the most striking difference from most jams in my basement was, S is six years old.

We saw my friend D (H) perform with the Cabinet of Natural Curiosities at a benefit for Hollow Earth Radio yesterday, here they are/were:

I first heard jazz guitarist John Scofield back in the 1970s and wasn’t impressed. Technically proficient but passionless, I thought. Twenty years later I heard his ‘A Go Go’ CD at a friend’s house and was blown away. With Medeski Martin & Wood as backup, he was phenomenal both as performer and composer. That recording became my favorite CD of 1998.

So I had to catch his trio last night at Jazz Alley. With Steve Swallow on hollow-body electric bass and Bill Stewart on drums, they opened either trying too hard or wailing, I couldn’t tell which. JS paraded a dirty sound, which continued into the 2nd tune ‘Green Tea’ (from AGG). By the third tune ‘Strangeness in the Night’ he was way into the music. This was a new tune with at least 3 sections (ABCBA) and his new material really drew him out. Bassist Swallow sounded as old as he looked; he certainly had chops and was melodic but he didn’t insert any breathing spaces or dirtiness into his solos, alas. Drummer Stewart was nice and energetic.

Choice of material was all over the map, from Cole Porter’s ‘Everything I Love’ to the Stones’ ‘Satisfaction’ — heh, it could have been gimmicky but in fact was a terrific jazzy rendition that rocked with crazy chords. ‘House of the Rising Sun’ made me question his choice of material again but by this time I suspected it’s all just musical vehicles to JS…he had his way with / inside of / around the form. It could be any old tune, it doesn’t matter, he takes it to outer space.

Another ballad had JS emanating exquisite phrasing and tasty chords with complexity. Just when I was lamenting that Swallow hadn’t played anything longer than a quarter note all night he started playing mellow phrases with some space.

Before it was over JS was recording loops and playing with himself, proving the geezer’s down with technology. He transitioned into the predicted uptempo number for a big crowd-pleasing finish, performed with style, elan and effects — another tune from AGG, and like the others it’s a springboard for flying, diving and swooping. To make the evening complete Swallow plays some whole notes (!) while Stewart pounds it out in pull-out-the-stops fashion.

Last night after the wedding party I experienced the a-frames at the alibi room downstairs. I’ve been trying to catch a live show since I heard their first CD several years ago but for one reason or another it’s never worked until last night. Excited was I. I got a next-to-front row spot prepared to rock and was not disappointed.

Since what’s-his-name coined ‘wall of sound’ in the 1960s, I spent a few minutes trying to come up with another, better phrase for the a-frames sound… industrial art noise; post-retro-modern; broccoli brick sound; steel-n-concrete sound; firehose of nails; wall of noise; para-rock; fuzzy bunny sound etc.

Today I spent all day in bed nursing a migrane which generates a better phrase: migrane music. The a-frames gave me a fucking migrane plus I’m half-deaf to boot. How good is that?!

They just played one set but it was loud, hard and fine. I recognized about half a dozen songs from the first CD, including ’surveillance’ played by request and way heavier than the recorded version. Making the ambiance weird was a video of backyard songbirds projected on the side wall. Them birds be jerky…which may have influenced a dance step or two.