Everything I Own is Broken or Bent

Corleone Records DVD 

~review by Elliot Clapp~

PICK A WINNER

Load Records DVD

~Another review by Jeff Schneider~

     So eloquent are the visual and audio stimulations on this compilation of wonderful artists and musicians stuff.  Who knows what the extent of the popularity of this disk could be?  Who knows if the honors will be received or a slot in the pile of brilliance will be reserved.  On one hand I hope it does not blow up into the dirty hands of critics and capitalists.  On the other, all I can say is that this stuff is a privilege to view so enjoy it whoever you are.

Here are my personal highlights in order – most liked to least.

Barkley’s Barnyard Critters – Tons of hard work and time went into this work by a wunderkind.  I think it is safe to assume that Brian is devoted to a high degree of artistic integrity and it seems he has time and energy to delve into such cool realms of animation, moviemaking and super funky tunes.  I love the 3D graphics intertwined with cartoons and funny dialog.  I am so happy that the Barkley saga continues.   This movie to me is the icing on the cake, the crème de la crème, blue ribbon, grade A, prize winning, Kane of this DVD.

La Machine – Dare Matheson wigged out in a paranoid state of after midnight fever and created this hyper blast of animation.  The tune is from La Machine the bi-polar band that goes from stoned zones a la Sleep to hyperactivity of Chrome or at times even Kraftwork.  I simply like the synchronicity of the music and the visuals, which I see is a true testimony to the artist’s aesthetic and creative skills. Metropolis!

Devin Flynn – Pixeltan brings us some radical music and some radical drawings.  I am not really an art expert (never met one either) but I can see a neat contribution that Devin gives with these drawings that elicit some big ideas.  The sublimation of so much in the last years, maybe in the last whole life, brings forth some animation that is violent (title of the movie is Violent World) and it sooths at the same time.  I feel nothing negative from this movie; rather a real appreciation for what it is maybe an appeal for more peaceful expressions?

Xander Marro – This movie is a documentary expressed through the vehicle of puppetry. It is a sublimated reenactment of actual events that took place within the walls of Fort Thunder years ago (during the Light Ages when all was bright, pre-Bush, pre-destruction of the best place ever to see live music or creative expression).  I love this movie, not for the obvious reasons though (I feel like Andrea Dworkin too sometimes, then again I feel like John Holmes sometimes, what does that mean?  Who knows…).  What I like about this movie is the Chaplin aspects, the argument coming from a comment on the human condition, but at the same time an impressive relation to the acting out of personal anxieties via film.  It is great, and maybe I am alone in recognizing the “Tramp” persona, or maybe it was an accident, regardless I think it exudes brilliance.

Wolf Eyes – The “dog-cam” wasn’t necessary… but the rest of it certainly was.  There was some neat footage of something, I don’t know what, but it looked cool.  The song is old, and it is classic at this point, post Lollapalooza even thought that never happened.

Lightning Bolt – The effects are amazing looking on this video clip.  I think it does justice to the intensity of the music.  I also love this song a lot.  The funny thing is when you actually watch Lightning Bolt play this song, I mean look at the arms and fingers flapping and plucking, it takes away from something.  Maybe it is the sheer intensity of the show, or the melodic aspects of the records, but seeing it done I almost wish could be more Zepplin-esque like moving magically with the tunage.  But at least on this clip it seems too tame to be what it is, anything but tame.  I loved it all the same, and the overlaid effects make a good focus much like a microscope of sound. 

White Mice - Delving into the satanic mud of White Mice’s music is a crawling king snake of visuals from the gutters of Providence’s mills falling into the murk or the rivers and aqueducts in and under the city.  Of course the closing bong hit is at the apex of the movie.  Will McKraken worked up some deal with the horned one for this great montage.

Neon Hunk – Psycho-delic and nice coloring.

Gerty Farish – Nice music.  The Robert Parrish visuals reminded me of taking acid at the mall arcade (the Dream Machine for all elderly Rhode Island residents) zoning out to some Atari-esque game that made no sense but on acid did in some ways. The historical information was informative, number OO surely toked up all the time.  He was rebound king and you need some relaxation techniques to be that.  It was cute, like Gerty Farish.

Pleasurehorse – Pleasurehorse deals in high art that is beyond me.  This movie I think is the same situation.  Anyone who wants to give me an honorary scholarship to RISD can feel free to, I would sincerely love that.  I guess, “What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence” – Wittgenstein.

Black Elf Speaks – Dude… this is one of those things better heard about than actually seen.  I got hyped, people ”wowed” me about what them crazy bastards in USAisamonster’s side project (sorry, other band) was like.  I am sad to say that this didn’t exactly deliver the goods as much as the descriptive did.  But isn’t it always that way, isn’t human interaction far superior to letting some squawk box or another lead the way, isn’t the warmth what it is all about, the laughs the idiosyncratic gestures and adjectives?  Warhol says no.  But what did that pasty creep know anyhow?  Shoe design maybe… that’s about it in my book.  Anyhow, chasing that cocklebur all over and romping around a tee pee isn’t Black Elfish enough.  Fog machines, berries, Frodoisms, and midgets were needed and were not there… but eh, it is neat to watch, who knew elves rocked so hard?  Especially that hairy one, whoa!

Monstrosity Brinkman - Admittedly this was a cool idea.  Unfortunately it worked, this imagery made me ill and almost induced a seizure.  Snort nothing before viewing this one kids, in your dorms, or high rolling apartments late night – put on some Brinkman… yeah yeah lets do it… he he… no wait I have to wash this screen… no do it… Listen MoFos  Beware.  This guy is out to contaminate the world one soul at a time like every true noise artist is sworn to do.  Be it gassing people at a show with exhaust fumes, or flipping your brain out with flashing diamonds in the sky with Lucy.  I liked it.

Pink and Brown -  This movie was unethical.  With so much other unethical stuff on the web that is funny, I just didn’t even laugh.  Sorry… I can finally feel justified in saying that this band was a Lightning Bolt cover band and this is a video to go with that.  Nice guys t’was always fun to play with ‘em, bad video. 

Thee Hydrogen Terrors -  I can only guess that this was thrown on the DVD because there is a five foot stack of Thee Hydrogen Terrors records somewhere in Ben’s office not flying out the mail-order shoot very fast.  If you can bring yourself to, buy them… if you can stand it, like this band. I don’t. The Israeli Olympic team don’t… I think almost all the other artists on this disk represent the revolution that took place after this Czar of a band was assassinated (musically) and they have no place being associated with the greatness that came soon after they were overthrown. Sorry…

     If you are not mentioned on this list, don’t worry take a deep breathe.  I probably enjoyed your art/musical contribution. It is simply a matter of editing.  To all that put this thang together, this joint, congrats (Ben, Laura, Peter i.e the Producers) kudos to the artistes of Providence and foreign friends.  And remember whether you are panning, fading, zooming, jump cutting, wiping, and your boom or dolly is getting the blues, you are all part of cinema verite of Load Records and who knows how great this thing can be better than you?

Gary Young

The Butcherings

Tijuana Hercules

~Reviewed by Jeff Schneider~

Well, pre-show I was in a funk, tired, sleeping at 7 PM absolutely unenthused about going to or near a rock concerto of any form. My propaganda organization of a band played last night, and it was at REDRUM… translation: show ends @3 AM… which is fine, orthodox, right, valid and just and is the way it should be always BAM. Anyhow, I was called on the phone, the telephone by friends and was summoned to one Trinity Brewhouse, downtown, Providence. I went, I was drinking, socializing, commenting on the vanity of the Social Work field, the ins the outs, the yeas the nays… Making fun of one Patrick Crump because they printed his mug in the Providence Phoenix shitrag without permission with a caption which apparently he hates, and righteously so… The same shitrag that brings you wonderful music on a weekly basis also mocks one of the best drummers in Providence in a fucking beer ad. No. Well, fast forward to mild intoxication fun time. There commonly are people who come in to Trinity to sell flowers, migrant workers or simple Hammersmith Odin types or some nonsense like that that sounds good. This guy walks up and interrupts kindly enough and asks Ms. X (who I am drinking with) if she likes “the rock n roll”… which she does… of course. He proceeds to tell us about the show at ASS220 that we are preparing (mentally) to attend. We tell him we are going fer sure, and he writes on a napkin our names and puts us all on the guest list. He introduces himself as Gary Young, he has on a pseudo-Hawaiian button-up shirt, one red sock, one white, Chucks (blue) and a NYC Cops hat. From afar one could easily label him as just another by-product of the failed social services, 12 step Serenity Prayer Nightmare of an abortion we call rehabilitation processes in the US of fucking A. But to do so is thinking from only one singular and ignorant (in the greenest, and most positive sense of the word) Think about the 1960’s and psychedelic… none of us were there Gary was… Gary also was on five of the band Pavement’s records, Gary in my opinion was and is the only credible and interesting part of Pavement, and Gary is the pure attribute, the levy from which a whole genre of music was spawned.

Tijuana Hercules – from Chicago, Illinois, home of Los Crudos, US Maple, Azita, The Fireside Bowl and a hundred other things I miss so much I could cry, honestly people… it hurts, I miss some friends from this town, not only that I miss the person they know, the guy I was when I was in that town last, some mustached maniac, jobless and insecure, believing in myths that are no longer told and if they are only an idiot would believe them… ANYHOW, this band, Rock… straight Rock. I like them when I look but what I hear is just not too impressive to me. It is good Rock, but it could be found at any given moment in the USA in many time zones on most nights and 24-7 in NYC. But they did do it well.

The Butcherings – I like this band for many reasons. First, because it has some qualities that conjure some stuff in music that has not only been buried for a while, but has been ignored and not paid homage to in the way it should be… I mean, indie-rock in a way, also pop good pop, the kind I remember from the days of Small Factory (yeah, admit it you liked it, and if not you weren’t at the right shows, and if you were then you lack some chromosomes) but the Butcherings have that man… the progressions and builds are really tasteful. The balls out solid parts are enough to hold up in any post-Lightning Bolt reality. I think these guys are also very nice fellows as people and that is a reason to like them because it shows in their tunes whether intended or not… Everyone I mention this band to initially says something to the effect of “those guys are so damn nice.” Agreed, they make me happy to have this cow stamped on my hand. Now this band sounds like old Chicago music! I mean… really… the good stuff. I can’t wait to see them play again.

Gary Young - He comes in… in a Hawaiian shirt, Beefheart tie, mismatched socks, shitty drumset. But when the music lays in, the Pavement worshippers sync up, the whimpering whine of that indie-rock demise, the bad stuff, the sweater-rock, the emotional sputterings, the emotional schmutz, and I am a reeling… I am seasick… just then Gary starts in… slowly like a monk. He creeps up like a negative creep from some Nirvana song called… oh yeah, Negative Creep. He lays in those beats man… the ones they called “slacker” in the 90s… that was big, but yet another forgotten chapter of life, much like “progressive music” which meant girls with wicked cool hair, best hair-do yet, shaved in the back, long skater bangs in front… and they wore those pippi long stockings… wow… and the music was like Skinny Puppy or early early early Nine Inch Nails. But that morphed into “alternative” music see… and that is bad now. Gary started right there, in the midst of all that. He started with “High Fidelity” and other suck 30 year plus guilt mechanisms, which prevent us from going to shows at all anymore… He started with Slanted and Enchanted, a record he recorded and played masterfully on. Some douche bag had the gall to review that record slagging Gary for being some old weird hippie dude who just happened to play on it, so the rest of the band could use his equipment. In a sense it is true, those assholes who were part of that whole scene the 4ADers, and the Fort Apache dillweeds, Belly, Steve Malkamus and all of them, all were thinking like that… it is sick, it is wrong and Jimi Hendrix would tell them that to their tweed little faces. Gary Young was this music man! Gary was the passion, Gary is the passion… and if you know anything about music, if your ears are open, if you can escape the genre cage, if you can think a bit more universally aesthetically then you can surely hear that Gary is it, he is what made Pavement stick, he held it down… I thank him for producing that great stuff then and now… I am upset with him for enabling a dillweed like Malkamus to sabotage it all… and whoever in Pavement now (that relic of a city), whoever now is dating Azita from the Scissor Girls, should be… hung… sorry.

I love Gary Young, thanks for association with me and my friends… be safe, and always trust that I can tell where that beat comes from, and some people can grab air, blues air, folk air, pop air and soul air and make winds and make beats such as those laid back boogies you let us hear… thank you.

Athletic Automaton – Amazing… a trance… all the medication in Gary Young’s pouch couldn’t get me higher than this music… I am biased because Steve and Pat are my brothers… I love them too much to be objective. Sorry, it was great and if you saw it you know… if you chose to stay home with Netflix this night, you are a loser and you deserve Bush, you deserve actually to be woken out of bed in the middle of the night and be forced to watch your family pet being executed by a pack of wolves. Mauled see? Unless you either work, or are simply not interested… but so help me God, if you only come out for Mooney Suzuki or such bands then you shall indeed rot in a musical hell of your own making… missing the point and missing the New.

The Greenhorns

The DIGS

Live at The Call ~~~ (7-21-04)

~Reviewed by Jeff Schneider~

Today I got mad because I wanted Doritos and they were $3.59 for a bag, so I bought the Wise nacho cheese chip instead $0.99, but then I went and bought a book which is easily downloadable, and also cheap cheap cheap on amazon.com… I bought it at Borders at the mall for $15.00… Howard Zinn’s You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train.

Anyhow, I am now listening to Cat Power’s What Would the Community Think. I just got home from The Dirtbombs, The Greenhorns, and The Digs last last, very last show… which to me was very amazing. The Digs opened and played amazing, looked just great, and received an ovation which lasted for approximately 10 minutes after their last song… it was great, great way to end a good thing, on the good foot. The Greenhorns, were real neat too… they had great pop sensibility, it made me think of the 60’s and what it was like in say London or Leeds, with all this music roaring… and the Kinks playing… then Hendrix coming in and fucking the whole thing up in such a way that only a God could do… true Armageddon. He was such a trooper, such a bright light… and Third Stone From the Sun… I remember getting real loose in New Orleans once, and entering another reality in a house in the French Quarter owned a famous inventor I won’t name here, and walking in to a weird scene in this house, claw footed bathtubs with nude women within, televisions with magnifying glasses on the screen – some prop made in the 60’s to see better. And of course someone who looked like Captain Beefheart checking e-mail on a computer hooked to what looked like a palm tree and the music Third Stone From the Sun… How could my loved ones have been there and gone on to become people who get up on a stage and play the shit music they play now? Gone mad. I can’t understand… they were there… GOD!

Anyhow, The Dirtbombs from Detroit played last… and you folks, fucks I mean should be real sad you missed this… they were blazing, two bass, two drummers, one amazing half-blind man who was in the Gories back in the day (thee great Mick Collins)… it blew me out, blew me away… and the real sad sacks should be the rockers, the Jakes crowd, if you missed this you suck plain and simple… why do I say that? I’ll tell you. I say it because if you missed this amazing rock music, you thus cling to that other shit… yeah you know the shit… the womanizing, negative, repressed, in the closet stuff… that wompbompa lulladee womp bang boom stuff… the cocaine, the jockness wrapped up in small penis-ness. The Dirtbombs rocked in a way that transcended genres and I think anyone who was at the Lightning Bolt show the other night should have gone to see them, they would have gotten a jolt from this band… but the divide does stand, and the genres do not overlap sadly…

In conclusion, do The Dirtbombs know The Dorks? Do the Dirtbombs remember that club that Anal Cunt destroyed with cinder blocks way back when? Do they know me? Do they know that the White Stripes (although they are a household commodity much like a toaster now) were one of the only people who would talk to me when I tried to play Detroit so long ago? Who was that girl with the shaved head at this show? I want to know…

The girl from The Dirtbombs was a roommate with The White Stripes. Is that true? If so, does she know the Dorks? If so tell them I said hello… If anyone knows anything about this let me know.

Hardcore sucks. I know this because I've committed much time and many years to furthering the form's
descent into oatmeally bogosity. There is very little real spirit left in the records and bands that
identify as hardcore. There are even genre fans who don't even consider hardcore to be punk rock, which would be fine if it morphed into something better and more challenging, but it doesn't . It stalls in the parking lot, spinning its wheels in mud. Hardcore as it's played and acted right now is the final
realization and admittance of punk as a consumerist trend. Any four boys can start a band; therefore they MUST go on an ill-fated tour and make a shitty record. Maybe their shitty record will momentarilyenjoy expensive status on record collector websites and the members of the band will be able to talk about how they were once in that band. This is not speculation; I've been there. Hardcore sucks.

I bring this up because I saw a really great show recently. Wrangler Brutes, Rah Brahs, Sightings,
Lightning Bolt, Fat Day, Japanese Karaoke Afterlife Experiment, It's a Fucking Trap, White Mice, Vincebus Eruptum, Barnacled and like 25 other bands/people making noise. Since there were 400 people there and I was somewhat in charge, I only saw a few of the bands. Hence, a response:

-Wrangler Brutes: You probably heard. It's Sam McPheeters' new band with Brooks on drums, Cundo of
Fast Forward (the only band I've ever seen with a shorter set than Palatka), and Andy Coronado of Skull
Kontrol/Monorchid. Yes, it's a hardcore band, and yes, they illustrated how bad hardcore sucks by being so not sucky. Caveman rock in fine form. And they had a TAPE. Not a CDR, but a TAPE. The lyric sheet (yes, lyric sheet) is so hefty that it's hard to get the tape in and out of the case. What does it sound like? You pretty much know what it sounds like. It's just an exceedingly good version of what you think it sounds like: sloppy and energetic with smart, funny lyrics (Funny like boo-hoo, not haha).Note to bands: good drummers and distinctive vocalists make the band; all you seem to have is loud guitars.

-Rah Brahs: They showed up wearing Residents masks. They set up in front of a projected image of
themselves playing on what looked to be a public access television show, lip-synching in that eerie,
overly jovial way, dancing around amidst no visible chords or microphones. Just party people. Indeed, they began with a medley of Residents songs before doffing their masks and playing their own songs, embarrassing many in the room. I talked to a few people the next day who were bummed out : "I just don't like sarcasm," they would say. "What was sarcastic?" "The whole sexy thing." "That wasn't sarcasm, they're really sexy.""Yeah, but I'm not into them like that." Note to bands: be sexier. Or at least acknowledge it as an option.

-Barnacled are a big band from here. I mean big, like 12 people or something. I don't know how to explain what they sound like, but you probably don't listen to music like they play anyway, so it doesn't matter. I mention them because they played for 8 HOURS. They set up by eight and were winding down by 4:30 am. They didn't stop. Not once. Not for other bands, not for anything. Do you know why? Because they have love in their hearts. Note to bands: get love in your hearts.

So to be honest, those were the only bands I really saw. I'm not writing this just to complain about music. I think we're waiting time and resources. We're smart and resourceful, to a great extent.

Question #1: Who do I mean by "we"?
"We" are an outgrowth of a youth-based subculture that may or may not be "the punx" into our adulthood, yet still manage to run into or work with or talk to or have some sort of connection with them. I'm not talking about music at all. I am, to an extent, talking about politics and product preference. And if
you take exception to inclusion in this semantic corral, then you're not included, okay?

Question #2: What time and resources?
Idealism is a race against the clock and the rock. One ages you and one you beat your head against when empirical living disappoints you. You can choose to hide from adulthood, however you define it, but you are guaranteed to be found. Nothing ever lasts forever. You'll get evicted, fired, and your band will break up. Your dog will die. So what will you be left with? Bitterness? Resentment? Disappointment? If your anger and fear haven't served you well, maybe it's time to look into how the world works. Go places, listen to people. Just as the punk aesthetic has become trite by ceasing to generate new ideas in favor of (barely) recontextualizing an amalgamation of referents (i.e. your band sounds like your record collection), the punks/ whatever it is you call people who listen to metallic boy music and masturbate to makeoutclub.com (do what you want, but call it what it is) are as adventurous as a veggie dog and a can of Pepsi.

We are a lucky group of people because we've managed to nurture an idea that was passed along to us into a sort of lifestyle, or at least a set of ideals. I don't know whether it was the inevitable outcome of concepts gestating in a market economy or sincerely misguided stupidity, but what we have now is just another image to buy that has very little to do with making life richer. If you're gonna leave your child
on a stranger's doorstep, don't raise her to late adolescence first. She'll hate you and find you and
kill you.

-Mike T.

A kind of obituary for Elliott Smith, by Wes Wallwace

Dear Everyone,

I am writing to add to the legions of others who I’m sure will be remembering Elliott Smith.

It seems deeply ironic, or maybe even unbelievable, that Elliott Smith should take his own life, since his songs helped me many times to avoid that same fate. Although his songs were haunted by a kind of numbness and isolation which is endemic in our time, it seemed to me that through the power of music he was able to call on ancient and otherworldly sources of hope, and ultimately to overcome the indifference of this world from the standpoint of another one. I thought this especially true in his album “XO”, where he sang the line that seems to stand for his whole life: “I’m never gonna know you now, but I’m gonna love you anyhow.”

I met Elliott Smith in the winter of 1996, when he played in the living room of a co-op house at Brown University, the now defunct “Milhous”. I had never heard of him before, but I bought his record, “Elliott Smith”, on the strength of his live show. There was some truth in his songs, before I ever deciphered the words, that I could not pass by. I paid cash directly to him and he handed me the record. Before buying it, I asked him which of his several records he would recommend. True to form he was so self-deprecating that he would not recommend any of them - more than just to say that they were “all right” and had “some of the songs I played tonight”.

That album “Elliott Smith” has come to evoke the image of my friend Mitch, who listened to it almost nonstop at this time, dwelling in a basement apartment filled with dirty clothes, food containers, scraps of paper, and highly esoteric works of continental philosophy. The serenity and the pessimism of the music both gave it a kind of stable and “unkillable” presence, which was exactly Mitch’s presence.

I should have interviewed Elliott for volume 5 of my fanzine “Wingnut” on the day after his Milhous show, but as fate would have it I did not “seize the day”, and he left town. I now realize that this is the story of my life, though maybe also one of the reasons I’m a fan of Elliott Smith: the recurrent theme of doubt and repetition, the movement forward in life always only through trials and never on the first shot.

As volume 5 took shape, the memory of the New England Puritans became its chief inspiration, and Elliott’s music came to symbolize their attitude for me. I discovered through the combination of his music and the writings of Roger Williams, John Cotton, John Winthrop, Solomon Stoddard, and their modern interpreter Perry Miller, a high ideal of faith and justice, crossed with Biblical wisdom and shrewdness of judgment.

Mixing these influences I wrote a paragraph which I believe may stand as a better testimonial to Elliott Smith than to the Puritans I thought I was describing:

“The Puritan cannot be like the Jew, a confident believer in the might of his religion. Since there is no confidence in his own righteous power, instead an eternal failure takes its place. The failure of love for the sinner is transformed into failure of contact with the world – a failure explained by the world’s fallen nature and the Puritan’s attraction to it rooted in sin. The experience of God’s grace is the detachment of passion from its material object and its flight into inner space guided by medievalistic imagery. (A stillborn baby – the flight of angels – all this to the tune of ancient Kyries…) This tragic detachment imparts a childlike romance to the Puritan mind.”

Two years after writing this, and after “Either/Or” (with its Kierkegaardian title) and “XO” came out, I saw Elliott Smith again in concert. This time he played before a crowd of several thousand, at the famed Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel in downtown Providence. I went to the show awaiting a word from on high, and I was not disappointed. Elliott’s message to me that night was in his encore: a rambling and righteous version of Bob Dylan’s “When I Paint My Masterpiece.”

Do I need to recite the words of that song? Maybe just the words that make sense to me now: “Train wheels runnin’ through the back of my memory – yes it sure has been a long hard climb. Someday, everything is gonna be smooth like a rhapsody, when I paint my masterpiece.”

I left that show that night, thinking that Elliott Smith had finally made it to the top. His long hard climb was over. He was shedding the Puritanical gloom and embracing the prophetic and slightly ribald esthetic of good old fashioned rock’n’roll.

I guess I was wrong, somehow. Or maybe he was. It’ll probably take a while to disentangle the motives for his death, but surely there must have been a mistake in there somewhere. Surely the line of evolution could have been a different one.

Sincerely,

Wes Wallace
Brown University
Department of Neuroscience
Providence, RI 02912