Jim Haku

フィナルＦｒｉｄａｙ～１０月２６日

Posted by Jim in Ａｂｏｕｔ on 2012.10.26

Feel like I gained some traction this month. So much so I almost forgot about finishing this roundup post as I worked on a couple other drafts. I don’t even know what happened this month. This election bullshit is destroying my brain. I can barely write another sentence about it. A possibly deadly hurricane is approaching and not the metaphorical kind. The electric company has just robophoned informing everyone to expect power outages. My first thought: better get that tumblr queue in order.

I have no idea what I am doing.

Just gonna leave that there.
The bright side.

The conscious awareness of mental impairment is clearly an improvement. After I re-listened to the old podcasts when I transferred the archive to this domain (one of my domains is expiring and it’s not worth keeping), I can’t believe I was just putting those out there like that. I was drinking when I made them but not really that much at that point for it to be the excuse. I really sound brain damaged, and that’s ones I didn’t delete. And I completely forgot I did this, but all throughout the thing, I’m giving out the band email. Because I couldn’t get into the gmail then I guess? Which is probably why I started getting press releases for Japanese bands there. Alright.
YouTubes

I finally started straitening out my youtube situation. I made a new account when I was locked out of the old one but now have access to both, same with gmail. Leaving the videos that are still there on the old one but only adding videos to the new one. Moved all the subscriptions over there too. You don’t really “friend” people on there anymore you just subscribe or add them as a contact, which is just the new spam now and totally unnecessary, unless you are a spammer. Why not subscribe? Please. Thank you.

Current BGM. Nothing to do with anything just in my queue. Not exactly calming.
Beards

OK.

Look, a lotta people got beards now. Whatever. I went on a tangent. You know who don’t have beards? The people in Beardsville, most of them. At least half of them can’t even grow beards, probably more. The rest…well, only a few of them really have to grow beards just to prove it can be done. Having a friend with a beard is fine enough. And I realize this whole thing sounds ridiculous to some people in a argument in favor of guitar solos when so many metal dudes have “metal beards” now. How recent is that tho? (Seriously, I ask these rhetorical-sounding questions to get out of doing the research myself.) Still seems pretty new to me. And, uh, apologies to ZZ Top I guess.

Oh, and Freeway did a track with Malik B. That’s cool.
Demise of Hydra Head

Didn’t get to this last month somehow. Pretty bleak. Worth mentioning. Here’s an interview with Aaron Turner about it ~~and his beard~~.
Japanese record industry is really…something.

I thought there was some news about it becoming the world’s largest, just recently edging out America. Can’t find that anywhere now. According to this article about the horrible new anti-piracy law it’s still number two. Maybe someone read a chart wrong, or there’s some projection that it’s headed there. Again, I want to know and would rather someone just tell me.
Notation project really a note-naming project

I need to do a longer post on this. But I mentioned an argument over the key of D#. Take a look at the key of D# with an explanation here. The songs in question are written in the Eb. It’s the same notes. I’m not really coming up with a new way to write out music in any kind of practical way, but it is a more practical and precise way of naming the notes. It’s a more intuitive and direct way of seeing the intervals in a scale.

Real quick, the Aolian mode or A minor scale:

A-B-C-D-E-F-G 0-1-3-5-7-8-10

It looks like the simplest scale in normal notation only because it’s the first one they came up with. It was most common when they started naming notes. That is the only reason for the entire letter-based note system, it’s completely arbitrary. The notes for the D#/Eb major scale then are 6-8-10-11-2-3-5. %

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Rodan | Rusty

Posted by Jim in RECORDS. on 2012.10.15

Rodan’s Rustyis one of the best of the 90s. I’d say it was one of my favorites and it is but I like a lot of music. This one is a true classic. Everything about it is of the era. The octave chords, the Bob Weston production, the found image & scribble aesthetic. This is what the early 90s were about. The good stuff.

Dug this record out when I heard Jason Noble was sick. I didn’t think too much about it tho, beyond, “wow, medical bills, that sucks”. Cause he was still pretty young to actually die from cancer. Not the case. He would have been 41 today. And I didn’t know him or anything, but it’s impossible to not feel some kind of way about that.

I didn’t really know his other bands either. I mean I know Rachel’s and The Shipping News but I don’t have those records. They were not a big deal to me like Rodan, or just this record really, since that’s all there is, except for some 7-inches and whatnot. But this is one of those bands that kind of loom in my mind…I don’t even know what they look like, forget any chance of having seen them live. Like a lot of these type bands I seemed to hear about them just as they were breaking up. I feel like I’m a couple years younger than I should be if that makes any sense. But enough about me. AV Club has a proper obit.

But Noble was not the sole contributor to the group. Jeff Mueller, later of June of 44 brings a lot of the drama. Without him I think it would be much more straight ahead post-rock, which was not quite established then but I think you get the idea. From the almost orchestral opener Silver Bible Corner to the almost hardcore Shiner you get introduced to these two dichotomies, which then fight it out and at times resolve throughout the album.

This is most emo record I own. They might not get put under that tag, they are more compared to Slint and math-rock. Slint is not emo to me, they’re too arty for that. Rodan takes the Slint blueprint and brings a more direct emotional honesty to it. When Brian McMahan of Slint gets all shouty, he’s playacting the character of this weird story he’s telling. I don’t think those guys have been literally shipwrecked on a weird island or whatever.

I can’t believe there’s only 6 songs on this thing. I guess I’ve always taken it as whole. The long songs seem like shorter songs stitched together, giving the effect of later “songs” referring back to earlier ones in the album. The Pixies get credit for creating the extreme loud/soft dynamics in indie rock but this takes it much further. The catchiest song on this record clocks in at almost 12 minutes: The Everyday World of Bodies.

Oh man, that is the stuff. The strongest vocal hooks on this album are the mantra-like verses with Tara Jane O’Neil, “everything changes, everything changes”, then the two loud choruses, “COME ON COME ON COME” and “I WILL BE THERE I SWEAR”. Just damn. I dunno, too much for some people. I think I was ruined after this. Nothing else like this sounded as good. Plus the girl in the band helps a lot. Most emo bands are like four dudes broing down over one guy’s breakup, I could never get that. I’m generalizing, but I’m just saying. I think this transcends in a way the other stuff does not. It goes beyond coping mechanism/bonding ritual with music into…art? Art.

So it sucks to have to talk about about the record in this context, but you can still help benefit Noble’s family by buying the tribute album (which I’m not going to review, just buy it) and/or a shirt from Shirtkiller. %

90s, Bob Weston, emo, Jason Noble, math rock, post-hardcore, quarterstick, Rodan, Slint, touch and go

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Myspace Days Revisted

Posted by Jim in Ａｂｏｕｔ on 2012.10.15

Found an old Myspace blog post digging through the old band RSS, it’s more appropriate to repost here. It’s a list of people I bought stuff off of. There was someone on there with a list of albums for sale that I felt was just fucking with people so I called their bluff and bought one, because I was also fucking with people but I had real CDs I was giving away for free. Of course I never got anything, or my money back. After a period of public antagonism that probably went on longer than it should, I decided to thank the people who had no problem at all exchanging money for goods. I’ve rewritten and updated the list, I could add more people but there’d be no end to it. This is more like a where-are-they-now of that original list:

3Xfx pedals: Still around but not very active on the social sites. Crazy stuff. The pedal I got from them is so crazy apparently no one else wanted it cause they didn’t make anymore.
ASSACRE: Bandcamp), but he’s moved on from one-man conceptual-performance art metal bands; the quintessential type of Myspace band that’s half-joke but was able to find some kind of audience outside of an immediate group of friends.
Autonomous: Gone without a trace. Got some band buttons from them, really nice. Haven’t seen another place offering transparent backgrounds.
Azure Emote: Another one man metal band but less of a joke, Mike Hrubovcak is also another artist who does artwork for other bands.. Met this guy a few times but we’re not friends to where I get free CDs or anything. And yet, for money, a physical copy of his recordings can be obtained directly from him in a timely manner. Definitely worth buying too, he puts a lot into the packaging of course. Moved his business to Reverb Nation which Myspace made almost obsolete…at one point.
Bei Bei: The other type of unique artist on Myspace are the completely serious Classical instrumentalists. It’s a lot rarer to interact with these people on other networks the same. Bei Bei plays Chinese Zither and she’s got a regular website but that’s not much fun (right). Got a CD from her with a personalized autograph, nice touch.
Brad Warner: Think I bought his book from him before he joined Myspace, whatever. He’s good for it. Altho you can get his stuff on Amazonnow of course, which I recommend, but what do I know. He was not a fan of the Myspace. Moved on to his own site.
Bubble/Gum: Inactive. They might have broken up. Bought their one CD and they threw in a 7″ after sending them a money order with a hilarious note I do not think they found funny but what can you do.
Candle-Ends: Purveyor of spooky music, and a spookier podcast. On his site.
George Korein: Took down his personal page although his several other bands are still on the site. On bandcamp.
Kenny Mooney: I’ve got a CD copy of industrial project Novak’s In Ruins with a different cover than on his new site but you can’t argue with a free download. I’ve tried.
Nick Millevoi: I believe Circles is no more. This guy has a lot of projects which can be kept up with in blog form.
Matt Garfield: Mose Giganticus mastermind is now signed to Relapse, but used to sell his own CDs direct to you, the CD buying public. By which I mean me. Also he had another band Hulk Smash who also had a CD, purchased painlessly.
Joseph Suglia: Clearly an instigator, yet comes through with the product. Bought his book Watch Outtwice, because I lent the first edition to a friend who was so disturbed by it he threw it away. I try not to lend him things anymore but that’s a different story. Yeah you can get it on Kindle now but the paperback of that edition us really nice. Seems to have run out of steam after making a straight-to-video movie adaptation of the book which is another thing all together. Most likely to comment on this post.
Jon Solomon: WPRB DJ Jon Solomon is mostly know as a WPRB DJ, But he also runs Comedy Minus One and My Pal God Records. You can buy records directly out of his basement. You should really follow him on twitter.
Pirate Satellite: I don’t know how this happens in 2012 but I think there’s another band using this name now. Members are now The Glass Bees.
PxOxFx: Planet of Friends was a one-off benefit comp. Mean to review it, some good Russian hardcore and not-so-good rap-rock. Interesting tho. It was for a good cause but not sure how much money they made.
Pothole Skinny: Know these guys but you know how that goes. Still around but very sporadic. Cover of one CD was handpainted. And…it looks they’re on bandcamp, wow that’s a lot of stuff. I should talk to these guys more. Reclusive dudes.
Secretary: Bari sax player Moist Paula and co. is on facebook and such.
Seething Grey: Know the bass player through the Giant Robot message board, but he doesn’t run the site so I bought it off one of the other guys. This is like a almost local to me Jersey band I should have known already but didn’t until I met the one guy. One of those weird things. They were pretty good. Apparently…the one guy (who I don’t know) is making new songs. Not sure what that’s about. The old stuff is on Amazon digital.and CD Baby.
Wheatboy Dave: Dave has probably created and deleted more myspace profiles than anyone. His experimental band MFM changes what their initials stand for every time they do something. One of those is or was on bandcamp, but I can’t find it now. He’s on youtube but who knows how long? The easiest way to contact him is by postcard. Or facebook, I guess.
Yah Mos Def: Seems like they broke up. One of the guys is in Instamatic, but that is not the same at all, it’s just a regular band. I guess they were too extreme. And they were probably bummed they had to change their name. Sucks. That album still rules.
Vanessa Rossetto: I bought one of her records and when I didn’t get it after a month I told her and rather than shamelessly mocking me she sent me two more. Astonishing. You can get them now through the site for her label Music Appreciation Records.

I hate to admit feeling a little nostalgic for a site that never worked that well. Absolutely nothing works on there anymore. I can’t even delete inbox spam, which people don’t even bother to send lately. Supposedly there’s some radical redesign coming, I do not see that working. But when everyone was using it, some people made it worth using. And I think there were some strengths to the way it was originally designed that other sites have missed. They’ve all gone for a real-time feed-based system which favors the noisiest members: It encourages meaningless activity. This was originally only a small part of myspace (the bulletins) that you didn’t even have to look at to use the site, you could just go through your friends list. It’s almost calming just to think of this simpler time…of course this was all because they hadn’t figured out the best way to maximize people’s time spent on this kind of site. The feed is distracting and addictive. It keeps you coming back to a site there’s no reason to visit more than once a day and makes it harder to just look up what you might be looking for that day. It’s diabolical bullshit, man. You gotta not get sucked into it. I hate to see people falling off that can’t deal with it all but you can’t blame them either. And there was that whole NewsCorp thing. Pure evil. I don’t know what else to say. Support the arts. Have a great summer.

It did? You didn’t? Well, keep in touch.
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Andes Manta | Desde Los Andes

Posted by Jim in RECORDS. on 2012.10.08

Got this at a show at the Columbus Day Weekend festival that used to held every year at the Rancocas Indian Reservation. (Now held only on Memorial Day Weekend. Bummer.) Used to go with a school trip every year in high school and I still associate Fall with memories of being at the thing. The weather just started turning this weekend and I love it. It’s my favorite weather to stand in a field eating venison chili and fry bread, maybe smoke some “Indian Tobacco” which turns out to be literally regular tobacco grown by the Indians—but whatever—and watch some musical performances which may or may not have anything to do at all with the indigenous tribes of New Jersey. (But it’s a solidarity thing.) It’s too bad. I just grew up in this area, I’m not Native native, but I’ve tried to learn about it.

The main instrument in most Native American music is the drum. The Lenape tribe has a great drum performance but they don’t put records out. Andes Manta have drums, but their main instruments are some mandolin-type things and pipes. Lotta pipes. Various other flutes as well. You could dance to it (they have dancers live) but you could not put this on at a party or anything. Even if it was some kind of South American drug party. It’s not that kind of music. It’s not very trippy at all. If you like Paul Simon…you won’t like this, there’s no white guy singing. But if you know El Condor Pasa that is the general ballpark. Although that song is pretty chill. This music is very lively (and it’s from Ecuador, not Peru), mostly instrumental with some shouts thrown in. It’s really well-recorded considering it must be just a live in studio performance and mic’ing pan pipes is a bit of a challenge. The CD looks kind of cheap, but the recording is worth it.

Sin Fronteras is my jam. A mid-tempo slow burner, it stands out among the other tracks. The melody is introduced on tandem pipes, then after a brief breakdown the two dudes switch to the six-footer bass pan pipes, which is pretty impressive live, trading off notes of the melody several octaves lower. The pipers are panned (yup) left and right to get the full effect on record. I think the song stands alone and I’ve put it on several mixes over the years, but in the middle of the record you’ve spent maybe half an hour with just these flutes and high-pitch guitars, and that pan pipe bass drop sounds so cool. I don’t think that sound exists outside of a meager approximation of a keyboard setting. You can hear their technique, it takes a lot of wind to play those things, even the normal size. Really impressive.

Note on the name of the album: Amazon (which get it’s name from the Andean river, btw) lists this album as self-titled, confusing it with another self-titled album. This is the fault if the packaging, which only puts the album name on the back cover and the CD itself.

Both of these CDs carry the exact same review from a Mr. S. Adkins:

As an avid collector of Andes / Peruvian music, I can say that this is THE best in my large collection. Not one song is a filler on this CD. If you enjoy high quality sound of Peruvian Andes music, this is the CD to buy — and if you only buy one CD of that genre, this is the collection to own.

I’ve only got this one, but I guess I’m doing alright. They’re not the same album however.

But you know what, don’t even buy this one from Amazon you can get it directly from them. Their whole country got stolen, what’s a few bucks? Hell, get some pan pipes while your at it. You will never, ever use them in one of your own songs no matter how much you think you will, but you’ve pretty much have to have at least one. Now you might be thinking, “Hey man, I didn’t steal their country, I’ve never been to that country! And I will learn the pan pipe!” Look, maybe there’s some way, as a North American, you could support your local tribe on Columbus Day. Maybe go into an Indian casino and just intentionally lose a ton of cash. But what does that fix? Can you really fix centuries of cultural genocide? Isn’t even trying to feel better about your personal benefit from that even somehow worse? The only thing you can do is buy those pipes but never play them. But better yet, buy the records and listen to some people that know what they’re doing. And just think about it. %

andes manta, ecuador, native american, pan pipes, peruvian, world

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Top 10 Smashing Pumpkins Solos

Posted by Jim in ｌｉｓｔ十 on 2012.10.05

I’m moving some stuff around and I found these files I used for one of my old podcasts, which might be the only coherent thing to come out of them. I don’t think I even played the solos in the podcast itself I just put a link to the file directory that is now deleted because why use up valuable podcast on music when you can fill it with hating on ridiculous things Billy Corgan has said?

Here’s a recent article that I’m not going to tear apart line-by-line of what I agree with and what I don’t. (At least, I’m not going to share that with you; I’ve just deleted several paragraphs.) As far as lead guitarist/frontmen who fire their entire bands go, Corgan is no Dave Mustaine. By which I mean, I agree with him on some things. His ego is pretty astounding, but he’s not a total dick about it. I think people who get genuinely mad at him miss his repeated references to a deep love of professional wrestling banter. Buncha jabronies if you ask me.

Anyway, I feel like Corgan is not taken seriously enough just as a guitar player. Doesn’t Kurt Cobain beat him in every top guitarist list? It’s absurd. To metalheads, his band is not metal enough to really matter. To non-metalheads, guitar solos don’t really matter. Not to go down the road Corgan himself travels of trying to paint one the most successful bands of the last 20 years as some kind of victim of unfairly not be even more loved, but I think some people jumped on the anti-Pumpkins bandwagon without even checking where it was headed: Beardsville. Except it’s not really called “Beardsville”, there’s just a sign there with a strikingly crafted cartoon of a beard on it and you either know it or you don’t. And uh, I dunno I like it if you like it, I guess. Nobody can really tell you what’s in there but there’s one thing there isn’t. Guitar solos. Fucking guitar solos. Don’t you fucking hate fucking guitar solos?

Maybe you don’t. That’s all I’m saying.

[The editing could have been a little tighter, but I’m not redoing these things. BONUS: this new media player I just installed allows multiple tracks at once, so let em all go and see how that treats you.]