Recent Acquisitions, 20080703: Jewy stuff.

413 A by Zakarya. I’m enjoying this more than anything new that I’ve gotten since I got Asmodeus (and Ribot’s on this too). Buy a disc from Tzadik, mp3’s from Amazon.

Limbic Rage by the Amoebic Ensemble. How did I miss these guys? Roughly triangulatable between Clubfoot Orchestra’s Ralph stuff (less polished), Degenerate Arts Ensemble (less rock), and klezmer/gypsy/roma accordionny whatever. Posted as wma’s at Mutant Sounds, here are some mp3’s in case you don’t happen to own the Windows Media patent. You can a couple of tunes from this and a couple from their other record at their MySpace page. The main dude now puts out his stuff on Cuneiform. Some of his projects are also sampled at this WFMU Beware of the Blog post about the Providence RI scene, about halfway down.

Thank you, Inconstant Sol

I’ve been trying to reunite myself with this record, Bush Baby by Arthur Blythe, for a long time.

Blogbert Blogowicz

Here’s a blog that posts film soundtracks.  (via)

Here’s a blog that specializes in library music. Via the first one.

Bloggity bloggity

Mutant Sounds, which I found out about because it won an award, which I found out about because it was geblogkt by Avant Music News.  I live in constant fear of the day that you guys (both of you) start reading Avant Music News for yourselves.  Until then, he’s got a few best-of-aught-seven lists here and here.  But seriously, it’s like Eurypterids never even existed over there.

You know what’s a great tune? Bombers by David Bowie.

It’s from the Hunky Dory sessions, wasn’t on the record, showed up as a bonus track on the CD. Here’s the first minute. There’s a bump or two but the real sphincter-clencher that probably kept it off the original release is in the second verse. Great tune anyway.

Cheap used copies of the cd on amazon. AFAICT, it’s the cd releases from 1990 and ‘96 that have this tune, most of the others just have the tunes from the original release. Also, 99 cents gets you a live version from Bowie at the Beeb either on Amazon or iTunes.

Blogs against cultural oblivion, in a loungy-islandy-brasilly kinda way.

Loronix.

It’s coming out of your speaker.   Lots of Lee “Scratch” Perry on top at press time.

I rant a little: mp3 blogs and the guerilla archiving of commercially challenged music.

Avant Music News blogs the demise of a couple of MP3 blogs (1, 2) that specialize in making available out of print music (I wish someone had blogged their existence).   I’m a little sad that these people are conflicted about what they were doing. The underlying principle for me is that it is never ethical to prevent music from being heard. I believe that the act of turning a music lover on to something that they need to know about improves the universe by a measurable degree. This act is sometimes complicated by ethical considerations involving monetary compensation, but even in these cases almost always registers in ethical black ink.

A couple of clarifying points: I do not believe that a rightsholder not getting money that they weren’t going to get anyway (which is what we’re talking about with these mp3 blogs) moves us closer to Stalinism. And I believe that in this day and age, scarcity is artificial at best and is usually more akin to market manipulation. The correct way for a capitalist to look at the collision between the internet and content is to recognize that there is no longer a market need for the manufacture and distribution of content. Consumers are happy to do it themselves. Anyone wishing to profit from the manufacture and distribution of content must either add value, or regulate our nuts off. Now who’s a Stalinist?

Stump watch, Tuesday, September 18, 2007.

A new comment on a previous post indicates that the universe has inched closer to the day of righteousness when common folk may legally purchase the work of Stump. But all of the info presently on the internet is wrong, or something. Anyway, thanks, Alan.

The Hellcows on the blogosphere.

The Hellcows were one of my favorite bands to see in Portland in the late eighties, they had a very original approach to noisy art-school postpunk with lots of personality. The only thing that I didn’t like about them was that they hated my band, I mean really hated my band, and loved to talk smack about us onstage. Anyway, someone put their first EP and split single with Smegma up on a blog. Good times.

John Schott’s Ensemble Diglossia

So John Schott did this great concert at Yoshi’s in 1996, and after I asked him if he had a recording of it he sent me an entire cd that never came out.

I think the idea of “diglossia” was that John felt split between a way of playing and thinking that came out of jazz and improv, and a different way that came out of concert music, and was trying to do both at the same time (diglossia = two languages). But it was eleven years agoso that may be pure confabulation. He tells me he reads this blog sometimes, hopefully he’ll comment if I’m getting anything outrageously wrong or needs you to know anything else. Anyway, this concert was the Bay Area at its peak, alot of these folks were about to move to New York or join Jewel’s band or fall off of the Earth by other means.

More info below