Spin #43: Resurrecting in Edmonton, Alberta

 Hi, I'm back. Elvis says "hi!"

There is stuff that needs addressing...

First off, Figment Bee . It is the bandonym handle for Tim Butler, formerly of Green Ants Dream, The Garble Rays and Tim McCarroll-Butler. 

It's not the Psychedelic Furs guy, ergo the use of the bandonym. Kind of like why I'm Mole/Spin Turlock instead of Bruce Mowat.

Cicadas, the title of Mr Butler's first release in 15 + years, hints at an approaching apocalypse without hysterics (Luxury), offers domestic bliss without being cloying (Alyha), has a song about a park in my old Hamilton hood, (Beulah Park) and all the metaphysical musings you can eat (just about every other track), and set to some winsome tunes. The guy's still got it: the chord changes that sneak up on you, the essentialist forward movement (don't say minimal) of the drums n bass parts that recall Moe Tucker/Modern Lovers, and the genre smash n'mash approach that makes him equally not at home at folk AND rock festivals.

What's different this time around is a) this stuff is now available worldwide through the miracle of the Internet. and b) the jay-uzz touches, which come courtesy of his daughter, Naomi McCarroll-Butler, a serious player in her own right.

Listen to it and Buy it here

Some of you have been poking around the Back Spins. Good, because I've written about Iconoclast before.So click on this and catch up...

...got that?

So there's been a few Iconoclast releases since I last posted. The most recent one is Demolition Of Wisdom.

The salient point here is "chocolate ice cream tends to taste like chocolate ice cream the first - and the last time - you taste it" Iconoclast is consistency itself and this recording is just as great as the previous one, except for the first.

Everything I said about the duo in the past still applies..you have thrashing, shrieking, percussion mayhem galore, screamalongs, and faux drunken sentimental drinking songs. I can't play these recordings at home without using headphones because they drive Shirl crazy, but I enjoy the texture and consistency of each and everyone. Even more consistent than Bo Diddley (and the duo has been a going concern for 32+ years). Someone pointed out that this album has a blues feel. I would say in response that it's extra-terrestial blues influenced.

Given all of that, the song titles should be able to fill you in the rest of the context: Tour of the Wild Moons, Indulgence No. 505, When I Was Naughty,(and it's follow-up, When I Was Nice), and who could forget The Lurking Tumbleweed.

Like Ice Cream, baby. Chocolate ice cream. Go here

Other stuff I've listened to: Mdou Moctar, Khun Narin, Moonlight Benjamin, and The Shangs

I work for the latter group, true, but I still listen to their latest, Sonny Bono, Tear Down This Wall Of Sound

A lot of this recording germinated in the Saucer73 reunion recordings , which featured four out of the six members of the 1973, pre Cyborgs edition of Simply Saucer. That outfit was more into improvs-cum jams, and was collectively responsible for auto-generating the loudest sound heard in Hamilton since World War II.

So a lot of this will sound jarring to young ears. Especially the one-two punch of Betrayal and In the Shadow Of The Stars (part Two). Personally, these are my favourite bits...but only on the phones!

The more conventional song pieces are unconventional in their own right: you have tribal hippie anthems inspired by the Manson Family ("Eleven"), neo-bossa nova pieces caught in a head-on collision with Marty Rev ("Love Charade") and skewed b-movie soundtracks (The Secret of the Purple Reef)

I haven't been reading much about this on the web, except for this bit. I imagine people saying "too..": too noisy, too soft, too this, too that, the singer's voice is off. "

Too bad. Your loss

WWW of Spin Turlock #34: Sundry & Fury, Signifying Nothing

From the Desk of Spin Turlock, Sports Editor:

Here's a bit of freelance PR I did recently. I only do this for people I like, and I like fewer people these days. It turned up immediately on this blog, which I quite enjoy, btw: young Tim used to write for Now Weekly & used to get the hackles of readers up on a regular basis ..always a good thing, right?

What does this mean for Simply Saucer, now that Foster (and apparently drummer Joe Csontos,too, although this is "unconfirmed" at this point)is out?
Well, the two Original Members, (i.e. the guys who were responsible for Cyborgs) Edgar Breau & Kevin Christoff have quorum dibs on the name usage. Breau is pushing his new solo album, Patches of Blue, which is getting all sorts of virtual ink all over the blogosphere. Noted hep cat, Gary Topp compared parts of it to Caravan. The five other people who understood that last reference will be sussed, but for the rest of us, here's yer actual nibs:



I suspect Saucer will be put in mothballs, while Ed & KC promo the solo disc, & Dan updates the website. In the meantime, watch out for Sunnhouse, (or is that Sunnhaus..I can't tell: the cocktail napkin has stains on it) . Note to all, though: this is a LEGIT group and it features 3/5ths of the Saucer Half Human, Ha;f Live line-up, inc. the aforementioned Messrs Foster & Csontos. An album, tentatively titled either "Die Kinder sind überrascht" or "Teutonic Neurotic", . There's also talk of Foster joining those super-duper groups The Kewpies or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Doak. Again, these reports are unconfirmed.

And what better way to occupy copy space than to post an embedded video? Right Harv?



Spin Out!

WWW of Spin Turlock #13: Bachelor Weekend: Now's the Time for the Listening Party!

Here's the deal:

My significant other heads down to Edmonton (capital of Alberta)this weekend. I can't make it due to day job scheduling, but - as it stands - I have the rest of the weekend off.

At the same time, I am in the process of sifting through some 200 or so CDR burns of various Japanese & German titles sent me via former pro wrestler and lead vocalist of the Hated Uncles, John Harvey. Since there's only so much domestic clean-up to be done, and since most of this material isn't exactly what you'd call "social listening", I figure this is an opportune time window to indulge in extreme aesthetics.

The sound system to be used for this task is an old RCA Home Theatre (5 speakers)w/a DVd player tracking the CDRs. You can play DVDs, CDs, CDRs, and MP3 comps on it & it has served me well.

For contrast, I will interject doses of the on-line radio show, "Bus of Real Country" which is about as far removed from this recorded material as one can get. Both of these exercises are "classic" affairs, but all comparisons end there, Herr, Frau und Fraulein listener.

As Harvey himself cryptically wrote in the note that came in the box: "Have fun"!

Round One:

Kluster - 1969 -1972 (ltd edition 6 LP Box set)



Not be confused with Cluster, Kluster was Conrad Schnitzler's baby. Yes, Schnitzler worked with Messrs Roedelius & Moebius, but this is a different fish altogether.

First off, Schnitzler does not - and never did - consider himself a "musician" per se. This is music made by musicians and non-musicians alike, which will p.o. any musicos reading this right off the get-go. As other writhers have remarked, this group - which had three "proper" studio releases in its lifetime - was the missing link between serious electronic/20th centrury composition (think Stockhausen) and the so-called Krautrock of the 70's. Lesser lights would make "industrial" music out of the same sound forms, but Kluster came first.
Violins are sawed and hit percussively, guitars are made to squawk, drums roll in and out ominously.There is no steady pulse, no mama heartbeat, no melody or harmony to fall back on Clearly, monsters or aliens are nearby. On their studio releases, Kluster used their vinyl space as a soapbox for social commentary - all recited in German - but there's Nunuvthat here! What you get here is 4 hours of well-heeled clink and clank. And that's not meant as as a put-down, either. All of it unreleased prior to 2005.
Read this brief manifesto by Schnitzler. It will help you understand, and then, finally, we may have world peace.

Rating (1-10 on the Shirley scale):
Seven Shirleys


Social Observation:

In Hamilton,Ontario there is a Tim Horton's coffee & doughnut joint every 500 yards or so. In Grande Prairie, Alberta, replace "Horton's" with "liquor store" in that last sentence's equation.

Now's the Time for the Fun, Fun, Fun:

For the benefit of both of my Toronto, Ontario readers: Edgar Breau, he of Simply Saucer infamy, plays Mitzi's Sister this Saturday, May 9th. Cover charge is a mere $5.



Left to right: Kevin Christoff,Peter A. Lacey, Edgar Breau, Jeff Bakalar (cruelly chopped off by Blogger)

Edgar is working on finally - FINALLY - finishing his second solo CD, "Patches Of Blue",this year. It will be issued and/or licenced out by Flying Inn Music. The two one hour sets will be comprised of solo and Saucer material (with original Saucer bass player Kevin Christoff for added verisimilitude).

Recently, Edgar & K.C. recounted their memoirs in the pages of Toronto writer Liz Worth's book, "Treat me Like Dirt" , the title of which is derived from the lyric tag line of "Bullet Proof Nothing". It's a history of the Southern Ontario punk scene of 77-78, and Saucer WAS there, playing to all of 30 or 40 people at David's & the Horseshoe Tavern. Steve Leckie of the Viletones remarked at the time that Saucer was "good, but not punk", and the band heartily concurs with this assessment. Having already blown the doors off - and been subsequently brushed off - 2 or 3 years earlier, they had already "been there, done that". They are the only people in the book who dissociate themselves from the whole punk shebang. They are also just about the only people in the book who weren't burned by Other People'a Music.

And, yes, there still is a Simply Saucer . Available for mod weddings and swinging bachelor parties! Write them for details at their Myspace...they WILL return your calls!

More to follow late Friday night...