Pink Reason - Cleaning the Mirror

Found this one in the Shake Shop. Just some cool midwestern lo-fi, guess they've gone punk since. Glimmers of doomy solo Thurston Moore works. Also hints of Folk Implosion (before Lou Barlow stopped making good music in 1995)... "Gotta' get more o' that wet stuff," if ya' know what I mean. Another excellent and unique creative offering from the Siltbreeze catalogue.

Pink Reason - Cleaning the Mirror

I recently asked Neil Hagerty what his feelings on file sharing were. Here is what he had to say.

-Me 'n the Big Dawg

"I am ok with it, it is like the olde argument about cassettes to me but hyperspaced. It is stealing, I guess, but music is meant to be heard. So I'm not a 'copyfighter' or whatever, if the RIAA wants to try and clamp down, good luck to them. Drag City try to do what they can to protect their files, requesting take downs etc. Sometimes it is easier to just get on iTunes etc and quickly pay 99 cents, sometimes it is not. Sometimes you can afford it, sometimes not. I'd rather that the person hear what they're looking for.

The greatest thing about this to me is the death of the fucking ALBUM. I'll be glad to see that finally replaced by playlists and mix tapes. A world of Greatest Hits!" -NH http://www.howlinghex.com/diary/1552/#1574

There you have it. Piracy is good for artists. Albums are bad for artists and listeners alike. Anyone telling you otherwise is either brainwashed or has a wad of $$ bundled up in some shit publishing company. Viva free universal access! -DC

:::Tyvek "Mutant Love - Live in Hamtramck":::

“Tyvek is rejects! Tyvek is rejects! Tyvek is rejects,” chants Timmy Vulgar, artist, taco chef, and front man of Human Eye and Timmy’s Organism, into the spittle-soaked microphone. Moments later Tyvek rips into “Outer Limits” and closes this marathon set at the Painted Lady in Hamtramck, MI.

Tyvek’s live sound is rife with self-effacement, sabotage, chaos and the attitude indicative of a band that has nothing to lose. They live in a wasteland. They have no prospects. In their world, the apocalypse has already happened but that doesn’t bother them. Actually, they’re glad that everyone is gone so they can do what they want. Here, the reject is celebrated. In Detroit, the world of burnt out buildings, urban deserts, and nothing but sprawl to stretch your legs in, the reject is Adonis and creativity is Zeus. 

I picked this tape up in Ann Arbor, MI, from Shelley, formerly of Tyvek and currently of Swimsuit and Saturday Looks Good To Me. I didn’t know anything about it and I had been under the impression that Tyvek had broken up. I didn’t know it was live and I’m not sure she did either. As she told me, “They [Tyvek] like to release lots of different versions of the same songs…”

Mutant Love contains feedback, off-key singing, drinking, banter, slobbering, and whacked out keyboard runs. Despite the description, this set is actually not technically sloppy in the least bit. Tyvek’s music is composed with the intention of sounding this way. That’s why we writers call them “art punks.” In that regard the performance is really an exemplary relic of the band in their prime and they sound great. Mutant Love is just as good as Fast Metabolism.

Tyvek - Mutant Love: Live in Hamtramck Cassette

Matthew Friedberger - Cut It Out

:::::::::Matthew Friedberger – Acoustic and Electronic Percussion / Vocals:::::::::

Cut It Out is the fourth offering this year from Matthew Friedberger. Comprised solely of drums and vocals, it’s a fairly straightforward continuation of his previous efforts in his epic 2011 masterpiece eight-album collection, Solos: similar songs, different instruments.  If you heard the first three you should pretty well know what you’re in for by now. 

Matthew is exploring composition in a way that not many, if any, other popular musicians have the talent and discipline for.  He is far more concerned with the development of themes and of motifs than he is with crafting songs.  Interestingly, during interviews he rarely, if ever, describes these Solos works as composition but rather always refers to them as “songs.”  He also rarely, if ever, makes any sense at all.  I, personally, hesitate to use the word song in reference to any of his solo material. 

Although this music is extremely formulaic, and I use that word in the most unconventional sense, Friedberger keeps the listener engaged in his almost comedic approach to the the drums.  The tones of the programmed percussion and funky robotic nature of the beats are reminiscent of Beck’s Midnite Vultures.   Remember driving to school and listening to “We like to sit around and get real paid,” laughing at, then, Puff Daddy’s and friends’ all too real enthusiasm for str8 benjamin$$$?  

This would really be a great album to have sex to if not for the extremely off-putting lyrical content and deranged vocal styling that have become Matthew's modus operandi in his Solos collection.  Actually, I would rather have sex to this than Midnite Vultures, which, according to Beck, is an album he wrote specifically so he could have something to have sex to.  You probably would too so, you know... just sayin'. 

Anyway, yes, I'm using sex to sell a Matthew Friedberger album. 

No, that is not really normal in the context of Matthew Friedberger but, well, yeah.  Use protection. 

Right now, it's 3:43 AM and I'm at work in Northbrook, Illinois.   I am extremely fortunate that my job requires little to no actual work.  I am left here in my swivel chair, ostensibly getting paid to contemplate the true nature of the Friedbergers.  

I always compare them to Frank Zappa, the only other popular musician I can think of with such obvious compositional leanings.  Are they smarter than Zappa? Again (see the Old Regimes post), the answer is no, but they are pretty damned smart and funny, enough so to create satyre of even themselves... which is really refreshing and, in today's music scene, brimming over with overblown dramatic facades and almost insultingly simplistic pop idiocy, something to be cherished.

Matthew Friedberger - Cut It Out