Gentle Jams

The good Lord knows I like to get my face melted on the regular.  I have little tolerance for attempts at rock that don't make me want to twist around and screech all hard.  But sometimes you just can't get your face melted off because it might make you vomit.  Sometimes your body just can't take it.  Such times include:

• stomach virus, strep throat,and other maladies
• first thing in the morning
• when the kids are screaming
• that day of the month when your body is trying to purge all hard
• the early part of a snow day when nature demands silence
• hangovers not treated by further drinking
• upon learning of the death of a famous internet cat

and so forth.  Unfortunately, these times have taken up a larger percentage of my life this winter than usual.  The good news is that it's allowed me to revisit some of my favorite gentle jams and to discover some new ones.

At our latest binge vinyl shopping up at Once Possessed, I picked up "Our First Record" by Oregon on a whim after listening to only a couple of songs.  It's not my typical thing, but something about the strain of bacteria colonizing my tonsils told me that I might be in the need for some new gentle jams really soon.  Also it's hard to say no to the classic combination of sitar, flute, and oboe.  Also it's hard to say no to some twisted looking hippie mens from the hippie capitol of Earth, especially when the percussionist is wearing a bikini top.  Here goes Oregon:

This record did the trick.  It is gentle and earthy, with plenty of Eastern vibe that makes a thing go right.  I listened to more on Spotify, and their next album, "Music of Another Present Era," works as well.  Sadly, it's downhill from there.  Oregon is actually still together and putting out music, but over the years it slowly morphed into Weather Channel jazz.  It's OK, Oregon.  Most people get lamer as they get older. 

Having said all that, I would be remiss if I didn't disclose my two all-time favorite albums to listen to during gentle times.  Dawg actually gave me a copy of the first one:  "Ponds and Flutes" by Das, who is apparently a nut job who makes flutes and can't seem to launch his music, possibly due to a drug problem, but this is 100% speculation on my part.  Let me just say this - every time I am getting a back massage I wish this album was playing.  It's really beautiful.  Also, when I get a massage, I only want to hear organic music, and this is the album that taught me what organic music really is.  It's free of synthesized instruments, for one thing, but to go even deeper, the man makes his own flutes by hand.  That's pretty fucking organic.  Here goes Das:

 



And lastly, my favorite compilation of gentle jams ever, "Elements:  The Island Anthology," which is technically a box set from 1995 of four albums by Jade Warrior, including "Floating World"(1974), "Waves" (1975), "Kites" (1976), and "Way of the Sun" (1978). This is probably my favorite album also that Kevs has introduced me to, with the possible exception of Pink Floyd's "Meddle."  The great thing about this album as a set of gentle jams is that instead of letting you go totally into a narcotics wave, it occasionally wakes you up for a sec with some kick ass guitar or Latin rhythms or some reasonless tympani.  Here goes Jade Warrior:

And a visual:

One last note about gentle jams...  No vocals, please.  Let the music speak.  Feelings that are complex enough to warrant killer gentle jams don't need words.  They need an absence of words.

BIG BOYS of RAWK: inspired by buffalo killers

I know I tend to lose my goddamned mind over the slight little wispy men of rawk, but id like to take a moment to appreciate and reflect on the big boys of rawk too. 

Listening to the kadavar mixtape, they featured this band buffalo killers and they are from ohio. and they are big ol boys, and theyre lawng haiyuhed and good lookin, and they fucking rawk. It got me thinkin damn, what other big ol boys are out there rawkin?

They kinda got a black crowes vibe going on, which was confirmed by a wikipedia scroll where I found out that Chris Robinson all collaborated with them on their sound or whatever.

So following this train of thought about the big boys of rawk I started brainstorming: what other big ol boys are out there rawkin? I mean, there are/were plenty of rockers who got fat, but not very many that attained notoriety already fat. I did a google search, natch, but I also engaged friends in my brainstorming effort. I knew our buddy Michael "Thunder" Taylor would be down to help- he loves a challenge, and he is nearly on the spectrum when it comes to classic rock/music in general trivia.

Thunder added Jerry Garcia, Boy George, Elvis, billy joel (all fat after the fact) and started pushing it with heart, bassist for sublime, bb king, bassist for widespread panic...And I'll admit I considered Robert Smith. Matthew Sweet, Ozzy, and Gene Ween, but they all got fat after the fact.

Here are other chubby mens of rawk (of my own selection) that deserve a shout out:

Leslie West of Mountain

frank black

buddy miles

I love this version of midnight rider because he totally outsings the allman brothers, great version of this song, and the melody I always sing when I sing in karaoke.

bob hite of canned heat was a major fatass

after taking an informal poll of several people  i felt compelled to add meatloaf, because he may be the quintessential fat musician, although I dont much care for his music, so no examples contained herein.

brother iz deserves a shoutout, even tho he aint RAWKIN he is performing his own brand of rawk.

  heres a blog with a similar idea and good points. I had never heard of most of the musicians on that blog, but I definitely thought about damn, its a lot of fat dudes in rap, and they certainly celebrate and capitalize off their fatness, but its just mostly skinny dudes in rawk...

finally i guess i should include the band FAT, just to round things out (LOL @ my pun)

i found this album on my redneck riveria record hunt back in october, a month for doing music related things, yet not completing blogs about. (ill finish them soon, i swear!) although none of the band members actually appear to be fat, the album is pretty great, so enjoy!

finally, please feel free to weigh in (BOOM! @ my second pun!!) in the comments below and rattle off some more fat rockers!! RAWK AWN BIG BOYS!!!!

VINYL EXPLOSION: yuletide edition

Man so the Yuletide season brought lots of new records this year! In particular lots of fruity colored vinyl that deserve to be featured here. Behold:

Earthless's new album from 2013! This is an awesome, nonstop, instrumental, fucking facemelt. Its a double disc LP and features four songs. When I showed it to Thunder he was like "sweet! one song on each side!!" and actually, its three songs on the first disc, and one single song on both sides of the second disc! Amazing.

 

Just found out about Uncle acid recently- I think they toured Europe opening for Sabbath last year. This album is actually from 2012, and I gotta get the 2013 release still. Dig the splatter effect!!

Of course, my new boyfriends, Kadavar. The mustard vinyl is sort of an odd effect, but totally werks for them. I love their logo real hard, def gonna have to git me some Kadavar merch. This album is perfect.

 

This is actually a hella old release from Dead Meadow, like 2001 I think, but I'm just getting my toes wet with them still and I think I liked this album cover the best. Anyway it was the only album by them they had in stock at Criminal. Sweet minty green vinyl matches their hazy, fuzzy sound perfectly.

 

This record by Naan Violence was a gift from dear friends at DandeLion Zion, Constable Eva Deva and Bert LeVert McDert. Its pretty sweet sitar jams, plus it came with a "poster" (some scriblle art on a semi cloth bag scrap) 

Now onto the new/used scores:

Stopped into Wuxtry on a payday Friday for a quick dig, its my payday ritual since its right next to the hospital. Its in the same shopping center as the hippy grocery, Rainbow, and a way overpriced, rarely open, yet still intriguing junk/pawn shop. Ended up walking out with some more Spooky Tooth! Dig them!

 

The major haul this go round was from Once Possessed. They always got my hits! Behold:

Styx- just getting into this, heard it some on Stonehenge. Sweet album artwork.

 

Ive tagged a bunch of Cactus on Shazaam so i picked this one up too, plus its a killer album cover, and shows they lawng haiyuh on the back, nice. 

A word about Shazam- this is one of the greatest inventions ever. If you dont know its an app for your mobile device, you can "tag" songs by letting your phone listen for a second. It will tell you whats playing, and archive your selections for you to revisit later. It knows all kinds of rawk from the 60's and 70's, even super obscure stuff. But I'll tell you what it doesnt know- hardly any electronic or reggae music. Needs inmprovement there, otherwise it rules because it also links you to info about the artist, album etc, and of course links you to amazon or somewhere to buy it from . Its such a great tool for me because I can tag music I like wherever, and then remember it later or research it later. It puts the album cover on there so I can spot it ususally later too. 

Here's a live version of a song I love on this Cactus album, its their cover of Evil. I know this song as performed by Howlin Wolf, courtesy of my friend Rahim, but I can see that it has been recorded many times, by many artists.

Got some more Deep Purple! Nice, featuring the hit single smoke on the water (a tune i love to whistle)

Bang: I had not idea what this was when I picked it up, it just looked appropriate for my interests (lawng haiyuh, intensity). I thought the sticker said $15, I gave it a quick google, gleaned that "They were strongly influenced by Sabbath, and are considered the forerunners of the doom metal genre". sounds kickass right? Then I realized that the sticker said $XX (I will not disclose this amount, but I will say that its the most ive ever paid for a record). I asked why is this record so expensive?! and was informed that its super rare. I dont much care about rare or collectable or whatever, I just want to rawk, and there is no price tag for rawking. It was looking cool, and my budget permitted, so into the stack it went! Its pretty kickass, and an interesting record. Its actually a double album in the same sleeve (Mother/Bow to the King) And, as I read online, the band had announced a reunion, just before I got this, fun. 

Fucking Be-Bop Deluxe. This album rules. Pretty sure I heard some of this on Stonehenge. Fairly certain they used the album cover as their image on facebook for the halloween show, and thats why I recalled it when I was out diggin. Such killer album artwork! Beyond that tho this album rules, and its sort of a cross between prog rock and glam rock. Its lots of great guitar on here. 

Captain Beefheart: This was more of an interesting listen for me, but didnt get into it very much the first time, and still learning about the band. The previous host of Tower of Song used to play them I believe. 

This Iron Butterfly album is sweeet! Its their first album. I love that one of the dudes strictly plays tambourine and warbles, because thats all I can do too. He is also like the only member of the band to not have his own wikipedia page :-(

Finally I also picked up this Spirit album. What a glut of tunes, maaan! Ima be rawkin for a while!

Just because it was raining vinyl this yuletide season doesnt mean there is not more in the pipeline. Plus my brother in law hooked me up with like everything I been wanting on mp3 for like the last year for xmas, via "the torrents". So I'm just swimmin in it over here! Now if I can just find some time to be home parked in my living room and just jammin.....

Y'all got any sweet new tunes for the holidays???

KADAVAR: the One Direction of psych/doom/stoner rock?

OMG im loving KADAVAR! (I'm talkin, Ich bin total verliebt mit Kadavar..)

I'm loving every. fucking. thing. about Kadavar. Its getting really debilitating...

I heard that song Doomsday Machine on the mixtape for the austin psych fest, which i am so totally fucking royally stoked to go to this spring with my best bloggin buddy area.personality! Doomsday Machine is totally one of their "hit singles" off the album Abra Kadavar, which came out earlier in 2013, and I am just finding out about.

I had first seen Kadavar on the lineup for APF a month or so ago, and I could tell by their look, they were a band I would be interested in, at least giving a listen to.

SEXY AS ALL HELL. look at that hair, look at that fringe! and they're in a forest?! what?!

OMG and they're GERMANS.

So I decided after hearing the one song, that was enough, I just needed to go ahead and buy the album. They fucking RAWK. 

Being that it was the yuletide season I ended up just buying it on amazon along with a bunch of One Direction merch for my niece. Here goes my haul:

Perhaps its  just that it arrived with all this one dimension crap, or perhaps its real, but I  get the feeling that Kadavar have been manufactured specifically for my demographic. Like they are a boy band concocted by scientists following a series of intense research into my psyche. And you know what? I don't even care. In fact, if they are working overtime to brew up some more of this, then BRANG IT.

I can honestly say I love everything about Kadavar right now. They fucking rock my face off, they're German, and they're cute, which is just the icing on the rawk cake as far as I'm concerned.

I'd like to take a moment to address my extreme boy craziness: When I was a young girl, let's say 7-8 years old, the fucking New Kids on the Block were a thing. All the other little girls were losing their goddamned minds for those little shitstains, and I SO did not EVEN buy into that garbage....

....and yet, i feel their pain. I feel it when I see lawng haiyuhed, bearded wonders, like Kadavar, and the Allman Brothers, Sabbath, and Mike Harrison of Spooky Tooth. If they made a BOP magazine for psychedelic and stoner rock and doom metal, I would SO be all up on that shit.

Imagine this magazine but with their bearded visages on it....mmm

But its not just their pretty faces that have me all in a frenzy: they actually fucking wail. Besides there clearly being "hit singles" on Abra Kadavar, every single song on the album stands on its on. They bring the heavy riffage, the facemelt, the drum roll, the modulations, and the wailing on every track. I'm having a hard time discerning every lyric (which I like the mysterious factor) but the lyrics I can catch, I dig. I wonder if I would like them more if they sang in German sometimes- that kinda goes back to my mysterious factor that I dig so hard in music. Like, I can understand in German quite well, but you better believe that I would be struggling if this shit was in their native tongue, seeing as how I'm already kinda struggling to hear thru the fuzz in English.

They also are way into the hits of yesteryear as evidenced in this totally awesome mixtape they made for some scottish radio program online!  Its just great to hear them wax on about their fave jams, I could hang out with Kadavar all damn day. We srsly have so much in common, music interest wise. I just want to have them over for coffee and Lebkuchen and play records together all night.



Chermans are so serious.  (you must say that in Werner Herzog voice). Their german-ness reminds me of Scorpions a lot (and his singing voice too) Maybe its just cause theyre all Germans. And Germans be so intense. Although they actually seem quite lighthearted to be Deutsch.

This other video for the other hit single off of their most recent album, Abra Kadavar, is also a straight up motherfuckin winner. I need for you to remind yourself while you watch it that they are GERMANS and the whole viedo takes on a new light..



Germans be loving them some wild west shit! and who can blame them really? Its a great vibe/look, and the boys just rock it so well. Goes great with their sound :-)

I like their total Motorhead influenced foto:

l'original:

I love the story about this motorhead foto, where the band all had this vision of the look they wanted, and they just knew the record company was going to fly them to the States to go out to the desert and have a foto shoot, and instead they just took them to some guy's sandpit outside of London. Still looks legit tho.

I read this interview with Wolf Lindemann of Kadavar last night (which is great) about how their last attempt at US tour was thwarted by visa issues, so they just ended up doing a crosscountry drive thru the desert in a hotrod. I'm glad they did, because thats honestly probably way more fun than touring, and they got so many photo ops out of the situation, not to mention a kickass video. Just enough press to drum up everyone into a frenzy for them to get back and perform.

In that same interview they also talked about how they came up with them name, which was interesting, because they totally dont sound like you might expect from the name, but also its a cool ass name, and the spelling makes it look cool and i just feel them so hard on that shit! Here's the excerpt:

The first time I heard of you, I was like “Kadavar… What is it ? A black metal band ?”. How did you guys come up with such a name ? 

WL : The idea was to find something easy, one word. We also wanted something German that people could understand everywhere. We’re German, so why would we copy all the other American ou English bands ? We sat at my place for three nights, got drunk and stoned, we were just throwing words around on a piece of paper. The name “Kadaver” came up, it sounded dark and evil but actually we’re not. Then we had a photoshoot and that guy sent us the files later with an “AR” at the end, I looked at the names with the three A’s and found it cool.

plus their logo  is amazing with those letters. nice job, Kadavar!! (Totally about to have to buy me some Kadavar merch with that logo, whaaat.

I think its pretty ridiculous that they gave each other animal names, but then, its also totally awesome. They are Christoph "Wolf (Lupus)" Lindemann, Christoph "Tiger" Bartelt, and Simon "Dragon" Bouteloup. All the better to get all tweenaged girl on them with.

But srsly, do you not see the similarities?

Behold: the standing about pose:
 

The playful scene:

I am SO ready to go dork around on a swing with Kadavar.

the dressed up for date night look:

Oh, where yall taking me for dinner?

Both songs I've featured here were off the most recent album, but their first self titled album also rules. It just doesnt seem to have much "hit singles" or whatever as Abra Kadavar. Here is probably one of the more catchy ones off the first album:



But more important than "hit singles" or whatever, the first album just shreds on and on and on.

In conclusion I have nothing but praise for this hard rocking, facemelting, trio of perfection.  Here is their breakdown based on my archaic star rating system:

heaviness  5/5
flower-power (aka scooby-doo-itude) 5/5
mysteriousness  4/5
fuzziness 4/5
rawness 5/5
shredding 5/5
funk 3/5 (they aint all that funky, but the basslines be poppin)
swampiness 2/5 (not much slide awn it, but it doesnt need to be)
foxiness 7/5

Cant wait to see them at Austin Psych Fest this spring!!!! I sure hope they do a tour of the USA while they are here, and most importantly I hope they play Atlanta, although I would happily travel to other cities to see them, multiple times. They just need to get they dates posted to I can ask off of work accordingly. Bis später, liebe Kadavar!!!

Ms Mabel Florence: Live! at Stone Mountain

Last weekend I went for a walk at Stone Mountain and on a whim I decided to cruise down by the carillon, and guess what: I was just in time for a live show!

Man, I guess there's not many carillons here in Georgia, but according to wikipedia there are many in Europe. Basically its a big ass set of bells, and someone controls them on this keyboard/foot pedal panel thing that looks like an organ. They totally kick ass and they look beautiful too. This is clearly a departure from normal "rawk talk" but the bells are fucking enchanting as fuck, especially in stone mountain and I feel like talking about their particular brand of rawking.

It was cold as all fuck when I was there last weekend, and it was a grey day, so the bell tower looked ominous.....

....or as my friend Kimberly pointed out, it totally looked like Mordor.....

Here's a picture from a sunnier day:

That's actually just the bell tower (which really just holds some big ass speakers). The bells are actually underground from what I understand, and are amplified there. Also I found out that this particular set of bells, while it was originally the largest in the world, in the 60's, is not even really considered a carillon by the snobs over at the Guild of Carilloneurs. I bet Ms. Mabel Florence would beg to differ.

 

From reading the guild's website I found out that you essentially have to go to college and major in being a carillon player to learn how to play the damn things. Alternatively you can be taken on as an intern or whatever by some carilloneur that believes in you. 

It seems hella complex actually. This dude got to visit and get a super duper backstage tour and he totally blogged about it! Nice job! 

Here's the totally tranquil amphitheater at stone mountain where you can chill and soak in all the epic glory of the bells. The vibes they put off are totally wicked.

 

 

Here's a photo I took of the lady playing the console. That thing looks so sweet!! Its all woodgrained and retro! It also totally looks whimsical as fuck. 

  

In other photos I've seen of her she is all dressed up to perform, but as I mentioned it was cold as all hell that day so she was pretty bundled, even though it appears to be heated inside there. But scope those pedals would you? Its all knobs and switches and magic in there! 

Here's a way better photo of her that this lady took. Apparently she usually has her canine buddy in there with her too, but I'm sure she kept him home and cozy due to the bitter cold the day I was there. 

 

I've been knowing about those bells for a long time, seeing as how I grew up in stone mountain and all. I don't always make it out there but I do love to swing through on occasion. And being that stone mountain is in the general vicinity of atlanta there tends to be sweet stone mountain related ephemera to be found in junk shops and thrift stores in the area. For instance these sweet combs I found a bag full of at My Favorite Place:

fucking groovy. 

I also found this kickass record of the bells a while back. This was at a thrift store in chamblee as well (a favorite township for junkin in, also where I attended high school) This record is great because it brings all the magic of the bells right into your living room.

Here's some photos of the back of that record, which supplies some info about the bells, the mountain, and the dude who plays on the album, recorded in the 60's. He was totally a carillon composer:

Here is my shitty video of the tailend of Ms Mabel playing Georgia on My mind on the carillon last weekend. She played a bunch of great classic German sounding, magical jewelry box sounding music, but then she also totally played a bunch of covers of pop stuff which was killer.

And finally, here is photo my sister took at legoland with my niece and nephews the other day. This is a fucking LEGO version of the carillon at stone mountain, under attack by clone storm troopers!

Sure hope that never happens in real life!

Carillon live sets are Saturdays and Sundays at stone mountian park at like one and four, I think. Its enchanting as fuck, and great entertainment for people of all ages. and its free, so go soak in the glory of the bells, yall.