HAPPINESS IS GUARANTEED – RAW POWER: SWANS LIVE AT BROOKLYN MASONIC TEMPLE & BOWERY BALLROOM

If there were any doubts raised by the seemingly random reactivation of long dormant NYC noise behemoth, SWANS, or their generally very good but slightly spotty new album, then they were crushed brutally, repeatedly and gleefully into dust and snorted up Michael Gira’s eager nostrils and bellowed back out in punishing sonic bliss as the band steam-rolled through Brooklyn and Manhattan this past weekend.  But, lest you think these shows were some sort of bullshit nostalgia trip, this was not your droopy-drawered grand pappy’s Swans.

It’s a new millennium and Gira has surrounded himself with a fantastic group including some old (most notably, long time guitarist, Norman Westburg) and new (MVP bassist, Chris Pravdica formerly of the terribly underrated bands, Gunga Din and Flux Information Sciences) Swans that play to his strengths.  The current six-piece band (augmented by two trombone players for the NYC dates) pummeled, soothed, unnerved and uplifted in equal measure.

An unending, hideous, piercing treble alarm/drone preceded the band both evenings.  The drone was eventually penetrated by a double-fisted, hammer-wielding Thor Harris (Angels of Light, Shearwater); who appeared before a large, homemade-looking set of tubular bells and began clanging away.  After several minutes he was joined by the rest of the band, but if the audience was anticipating some relief from the noise they were sorely disappointed.  Without ceremony the six-headed hydra (plus the brass players) blasted into a teeth-rattling crescendo of noise rock ecstasy that could easily withstand comparison to anything from the classic Swans’ canon.  This morphed into “No Words/No Thoughts”, the opening track from their new album, My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky.

The band spent the next hour and a half shooting the audience further and further into the stratosphere with some of the better songs from My Father (“Eden Prison”, “Jim”, “My Birth”) as well as some classics from Cop/Young God (1984) (“Your Property”, “I Crawled”).  The highlight of both nights, however, was culled from their seminal 1987 album, Children of God.  They dusted off and tore apart both the mighty “Sex God Sex” and the absolutely devastating “Beautiful Child”.  I’ve always found even the studio version of “Beautiful Child” to be one of the most disturbing vocal performances ever set to tape (let’s not even get started on any of the excellent versions from their old semi-official bootlegs such as Feel Good Now) the dictionary should have an accompanying sound sample of Gira screaming “I could kill the child” next to the word ‘unhinged’.  But really that was child’s play compared to the performances he gave both nights in NYC.  He clutched his guitar to his chest with both arms like a drowning man with a life preserver (or perhaps a psychopath with a dead child) and, scream really just doesn’t cover it, he let loose a primal howl that could make a drill sergeant soil his pants.

While being louder than God certainly does not differentiate the new Swans from the old, Gira’s stage presence did.  He chuckled and made jokes and, at one point, even introduced all the band members to the audience.  During all the shows I saw Swans perform before their initial demise in 1997, the most I ever heard Gira say to the audience was “thank you, good night.”  He seemed much more affable and human and even approachable at these shows, which were certainly not words one could use to describe his stage persona during the initial run of Swans (think: dour, taciturn, frightening).  The end of Swans seemed to lift a certain burden of expectation from him, which manifested itself in the live performance setting as a much more relaxed and humorous Gira.  The new incarnation of Swans seems to have brought about a new hybrid Michael Gira – part old-style hellfire (vigorously slapping himself in the face and screaming before starting the show, the violent vocals on “Beautiful Child”) and part bemused gentlemanly elder statesman (band introductions, opening act shout-outs, joking and actually enjoying himself enough to smile!).

But all good things must end, and after a very brief break the band returned for an encore mutilation of the closing track from My Father, “Little Mouth”.  The studio version is a relatively pleasant love song (granted a sad and demented one) featuring pretty vocals by Gira’s wife, Siobhan.  Live, the band deconstructed it into a harsh mutating wall of screeching noise, complete with trombone accompaniment, which came to an extremely abrupt halt, leaving all the musicians save Gira stuck in place like automatons whose charge had worn down.  Gira went on to perform the lyrics a cappella.  As he finished he too froze in place for close to a minute until he suddenly snapped out of it and said, “thank you, good night”, thus releasing the rest of the band from their stasis and adding a strange, disconcerting end to two wonderful shows.

Swans are dead.  Long live Swans.

Guided by Vegas - The Show Spectacular

I was very excited to see Guided By Voices reunite for Matador's rather self important "21-Year-Anniversary-Festival"  in Las Vegas.  To be honest, I almost tossed my cookies when I saw "Matador" and "Las Vegas" in the same sentence, but what can you say?   Sensitive music nerds in argyle sweaters who talk about their record collections and the glitz/madness of the nightclubbing Las Vegas set are a tough-mix to envision.  With that being said, we'll give Matador credit for surprising the hell out of everyone with such an event, and more importantly, partying in style and doing something completely off the radar.   It's also nice to see Robert Pollard continue to rock out in his old age.   While Matador was a haven for great music in the 90's, it's interesting to see the majority of the current bands got swept under the rug by the old-school rockers like Pollard.  Not that we're surprised by such a thing....

Here's a report of the event, courtesy of a random hipster who attended. 


"Anyone who walked into the popular casino during the three-day venture witnessed a culture shock like no other as hundreds of well-established, middle-aged rockers filled the building to see label legends Sonic Youth, Pavement, Belle and Sebastian, Guided by Voices and more.

Performing inside the small and intimate Pearl, most of the bands were playing in Vegas for the first time.
"It has run smoothly but with a lot of help from the staff and all the people that are working for us," said founder of Matador Records, Chris Lombardi. "It's come together. We were very conscious of all the potential snafus that could arise and so far it's been fun."

 [...The festival went so well, actually, that it's kind of surprising...]


That last sentence really got me.  "The festival went so well, actually, that I felt that it was ironic."   There that's better!

YOU ARE THE BUDDHA: ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKY AT MUSEUM OF ARTS & DESIGN

(By Christien Lauro)

Alejandro Jodorowsky is a mystic, theater director, prolific author, anarchist, musician, psychomagician, filmmaker, tarot card reader & restorer, costume designer, poet, genealogist, Zen Buddhist, comic book writer & artist, self-help guru, friend to both Marcel Marceau & Marilyn Manson and octogenarian wild man. Or, as he would say, he is ‘not anything but a human being’. Whatever he may be, he will forever primarily be known in the US as the man behind the bug-fuck, midnight movies ‘El Topo’ (1970) and ‘Holy Mountain’ (1973). Thus it is not surprising that a retrospective of his meager film output, Blood Into Gold: The Cinematic Alchemy of Alejandro Jodorowsky, at the Museum of Arts and Design (Sept. 23rd – Oct. 8th) is what brought him to NYC. Not that I’m complaining, mind you; any reason to see the Maestro in action is well worth the price of admission.

Jodorowsky spoke at screenings of El Topo and Holy Mountain, on Thursday and Friday respectively, before giving what the museum dubbed his ‘master class’ on Saturday. He seemed genuinely pleased that the retrospective was sponsored by a museum instead of a regular or even repertory movie theater because he considers his work to be art and not films (at least not in the Hollywood/business/multiplex sense of the word). Remarkably, given that English is not his first or even second language, he did an excellent job of making himself understood and made sure he in turn understood all the questions and comments directed towards him with a minimum of help from his translators.

Jodorowsky began his Saturday afternoon lecture by telling a very funny penguin joke. And with the ice broken he proceeded with a short bio and a few video snippets of ‘Holy Mountain’ and ‘Santa Sangre’ (1989) which segued into a crash course in filmmaking – anarchist mystic style (thus effectively aligning his lecture with the film retro). He moved into a discussion of his use of symbols and dreams as well as his studies in various Shamanistic practices and Zen Buddhism in his work and gave a brief rundown on his popular Parisian Psychomagical (mystical psychoanalysis) practice. He neatly tied it all together by giving examples of ways in which an individual might use these ideas in their every day life as well as their creative projects. All the while, he digressed into fascinating, alternately humorous and heartbreaking personal anecdotes, as well as fables and jokes, which served to vividly illustrate his ideas. He then opened up the floor to questions from the audience.

If you are at all familiar with Jodorowsky’s notoriously difficult works, you can imagine that the pretension factor in the audience was extremely high. That coupled with the proliferation of painfully self-conscious, art wanky attire and antisocial haircuts meant we were in for a bumpy ride, question-wise. To be fair, some of the questions were actually very thoughtful and interesting and inspired some quite poignant answers and anecdotes but, as I feared, there were some really awful, generic and cheesy questions, which, thanks to Jodorowsky’s vast public speaking experience and seemingly infinite patience, still inspired some pretty intelligent or at least humorous answers. Throughout the process, he made sure that everyone understood his answers and his points, which, given the language barrier was a quite admirable undertaking.

To Jodorowsky’s eternal credit, he never preached to the audience even though he made his prejudices clear from the outset. He is an artist, not a businessman but he encouraged his listeners to make their own choices and decide what path was the right one for them. As he said while relating an ancient parable to the current cultural landscape and its relationship to art and commerce: when the Emperor who had commissioned a beautiful temple and Buddha painting asked the artist why he painted a beautiful temple with no Buddha in it, the artist responded, ‘I offer you a temple, go inside, you are the Buddha’.- Christien Lauro

THE MAGIC CARAVAN / ATP IN BROOKLYN: Shellac & Helen Money at Bell House, 9/7/10 and Sleep, Storm of Light & Lichens at Brooklyn Masonic Temple, 9/8/10

(by Christien Lauro)

I’ve never been one for festivals.  I generally find them too expensive and too choked with idiots and bands I don’t like to be worth it.  I’ll admit, the list of performers at the annual upstate NY version of England’s popular All Tomorrow’s Parties Festival has made attendance tempting, but, luckily for me, it is proximal enough that NYC gets the run off of great bands in the weeks surrounding the festival so I can be more selective and see the bands I’m really interested in for a fraction of the price (in money and patience). 

Thus I found myself braving the pinnacle of MTA incompetence, the G train, and traversing the scenic and pungent Gowanus Canal on a Tuesday evening, bound for the quaintly trendy Bell House to see Shellac of North America (or Chicago to be more precise) the long, if rather slow, running project of Steve Albini (Big Black, Rapeman), Todd Trainer (the awesome Brick Layer Cake) and Bob Weston (Volcano Suns, Mission of Burma).  But first up was a fellow Chicagoan, Helen Money (stage alias of cellist, Alison Chesley).  I thought Shellac had lost their minds or begun cultivating a very different sense of humor and gotten some crappy rapper to open for them but I was both relieved and perplexed when a lone woman with a battered cello and lots and lots of guitar pedals graced the stage.  

Allison Chesley

Don’t let the cheesy moniker fool you, Chesley, is a quite talented and entertaining performer and her music could easily be the soundtrack to an offbeat horror film or even a really strange love scene.  She ran her cello through two sizable banks of guitar pedals (fuzz, echo, loop, polyphonic octave generator, you name it, she had it), which she played just as much as her instrument.  She quite impressively still made it sound like a cello, not a big heap of noise (which is more than most musicians who run their instruments through that many pedals can say).  Chesley used her set up to: make atonal loops and play beautiful melodies over them; loop beautiful melodies and then play fuzzed out feedback over them; create some very impressive industrial rhythm loops and play rock god solos over them; scrape C string drones while playing oddly pretty rhythms and melodies.  She picked, bowed and slapped her cello and generally rocked out, all the while winning over a good percentage of the audience who were genuinely sad to see her set end. 

Shellac

But ultimately, everyone was there to see the mighty Shellac play an increasingly rare NYC show.  Shellac’s absurd and sardonic aesthetic is evident before they ever play a note.  Albini and Weston’s precisely symmetrical amplification units flank Trainer’s small drum kit, which sits dead center stage, complete with a Doctor Seuss looking, impossibly tall stand set up behind the drum stool with a lone ride cymbal sitting atop it.  Albini, clad in a blue workmanlike boiler suit, attends to his equipment only to shed the suit, revealing traditional rock musician attire (blue jeans and t-shirt) as Shellac was about to play as if his (literally) blue collar, clock-punch day job were ending and his moonlighting gig as funnyman rock star was about to begin.

The band was in rare form, dissing NYC almost immediately upon finishing opener, “Copper”.  Albini and Weston traded anti-NY quips in between songs and, as per usual, opened up the floor for audience Q&A sessions (which, while occasionally accidentally informative, are usually more a showcase for Weston’s quick wit) while they tuned.  They ribbed each other, took endless pot-shots at NYC, performed acrobatic stage maneuvers (especially the rather frail looking Trainer who at various points windmilled his arms around Pete Townshend style, played the tall cymbal behind his back, ran around the stage beating a hand held snare drum, even while resting it on his head, during the band’s epic rendition of “End of Radio”, and generally sweated out his body weight, all the while playing impossibly hard – I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a drummer so skinny play so hard, it’s kind of frightening to watch, I always imagine his bones are going to be atomized at any moment), and even found the time to play a decent selection of career-spanning tracks.  Shellac’s signature jittery minimalism rarely sounded so tight or urgent.  They really played the crap out of crowd favorites such as, “Wing Walker”, “Canada” (which focused the band’s sarcastic humor away from NYC momentarily to mock our neighbors to the north) and “Squirrel Song” (which opened with Albini screaming, “This is a sad fucking song!  We’ll be lucky if I don’t bust out crying!”).

Albini's arch humor was on display in many of his lyrics, some personal favorites being the anti-chorus of “Prayer To God” where the protagonist wheedles the aforementioned deity to kill his ex-lover’s current flame in any number of horribly slow and painful ways, finally pleading in an unending mantra/prayer, “just fucking kill him, fucking kill him, kill him already, kill him, kill him already, kill him already, kill him, AMEN!” and the exhortations of “Be Prepared” – “ I was born already bald, BE PREPARED!  I was born wearing pants, BE PREPARED!  I was born with $20 in my pocket, BE PREPARED!”  Albini’s ad-libbing skills were apparent during his extensive lyrical extrapolations of “Wing Walker” (the tale of an obsessed man who gives up his entire life to realize his dream of building and flying an airplane) and, particularly, “End of Radio” as he plays the part of a radio DJ ending his final broadcast by commenting on the history of radio and human folly to an audience of theoretical aliens who may intercept the transmission in ten thousand years and wonder what it is they are hearing.  Judging by the sold out crowd’s joyous reaction, they knew exactly what they were hearing at the Bell House that night but after a solid hour and a half of well executed humor and fury, the band cranked out rollicking set closer, “The Crow” and sent many happy hipsters out into the Brooklyn night. 

The following evening (perhaps auspiciously, the night of the new moon), I braved the cock-blocking G train once again to get to ‘NYC’s loudest venue’, the sweltering Brooklyn Masonic Temple, to see the holy grail of stoner doom purveyors, Sleep.  

Sleep

The newly reformed trio of original members Al Cisneros (OM) and Matt Pike (High On Fire) and new addition, Jason Roeder (Neurosis) was playing their second show of the week at the temple.  First on the bill was excellent local band, Storm of Light.  Led by visual artist/lead guitarist and vocalist, Scott Graham (Neurosis, Red Sparowes, Battle of Mice, etc.), SOL use intricate and evocative backing films to augment their simultaneously pretty and heavy, gloomy mini-epics.  The effect of the images and sound is truly stunning and worked perfectly in the psychically potent and image laden Masonic temple.  Another Brooklyn local, Robert Lowe (90 Day Men, OM), performing under his solo moniker, Lichens, was up next…sort of.  Lowe set up quite rapidly and seemed ready to go within a few minutes but was plagued by crippling equipment problems that prevented him from playing for more than half of his allotted hour.  He finally just plugged his microphone into some looping pedals and used them in conjunction with his impressive vocal range to create a short but effective piece of creepily soothing drone apocalypse.

And then, the moment the fire code defying, (over) capacity crowd had been waiting for…Tony Iommi’s greatest hits.  No really, the large onstage screen showed an action shot of Iommi, circa the 1970’s rocking his signature SG, foot up on the monitor, wearing some horrible white one-piece bit of fashion faux pas, while a weird mash-up of old Sabbath riffs, solos, drum fills, etc. blasted out of the speakers and some dry iced smoke crept along the stage floor, all to the crowd’s vociferous delight.  (Note: the tour shirt they were selling at the merch table bore a photo of Iommi similar to the one projected on the screen with the legend “The Deity” on the front and on the back had stats as if he were a Dungeons & Dragons avatar [the best being ‘SPECIAL ATTACKS: Vorpal SG’] and below that the only place that Sleep’s name actually appeared on their own shirt “Sleep: Marijuananaut’s Return US Tour A.D. 2010”)  Just in case you missed it – Sleep worship Black Sabbath and Iommi in particular and more specifically, the riff.  The riff that was so fucking heavy it created an entire metal industry.  The riff that was so good they played it for over an hour, sang lyrics over it like, “Drop out of life with bong in hand, follow the smoke to the riff filled land, proceed the Weedian, Nazareth”, called it Dopesmoker, lost their record contract and broke up more than a decade ago.  But the riff never really dies; like a crusty slasher in a shitty B-movie, it repeatedly rises from the grave, unrepentant and hungry for new souls…and cash (just look at Ozzfest).

The loud and sweaty crowd was getting increasingly agitated, so, it was a great relief when Pike finally stepped out on the stage, shirtless and already sweaty, strapped on his Les Paul, held it up like weapon and smashed the riff that opens “Jerusalem (Dopesmoker)” out of his two full Orange stacks.  The sound was so loud that I could feel the skin on my face actually tighten and move back.  The heavily tattooed Pike looked like an impishly grinning devil risen up to damn all those within earshot of his massive wall of THC fuzzed guitar tone as he gleefully sustained the living hell out of the riff.  The screen behind him played imagery about as subtle as the deafening sound – various scenes of rockets launching and floating, dreamy outer spacescapes, stars, planets, etc. with footage of fields of marijuana plants fluttering in a gentle breeze superimposed on top.  A few minutes later when, the more stoic Cisneros thumbed his Rickenbacker to life, the rumble coming from his full Orange stack and two huge Sunn amps vibrated my clothes like thousands of ants were crawling on the fabric.  The sound was literally so thick if felt like a physical barrier against my skin.  By the time Roeder finally began bashing the skins seven minutes in, the entire audience was already slowly lurching their sweaty torsos and banging their heads in time to the riff, entranced along with the band.  Somewhere around the ten-minute mark, “Jerusalem” smoothly morphed into a super fuzzy rendition of “Holy Mountain”.  Around fifteen minutes in Cisneros finally graced the audience with some vocals.  He returned to the gravelly delivery style from the Sleep albums, eschewing the more restrained incantatory vocals from his OM oeuvre.  This opening laid a solid twenty minutes of uninterrupted riffage on the crowd, who, of course, screamed for more and after the briefest pause, the band launched into the endlessly entertaining, “Dragonaut”, as an animated dragon flew around apocalypse red skies on the screen.  The show continued on in the same vein for over two hours, during which time the band ploughed through all of seminal stoner doom bible, Sleep’s Holy Mountain, interwoven with various excerpts of “Jerusalem”.  The images on the screen remained subtle as ever, with hypnotic undersea footage for “Aquarian”, images of Stonehenge for “The Druid”, etc., you get the picture.  To prove that the band did understand and employ a certain degree of subtlety, they played a quite pretty and mellow extended intro for the true highlight of the show, “From Beyond”, that was so quiet it couldn’t be heard over the drunken mumblings of the half deaf audience.  The band huddled together, facing each other and played the song, for and to themselves, completely ignoring the noise of the crowd.  When they eventually blasted into the immense slab of stoned sonic bliss that was the bulk of the song, they pulled out all the stops – dime-stop dynamics, super trippy vocal effects, shredding guitar solos, more floating pot leaves and volume swells that, even after an hour plus of the most heinous sonic abuse imaginable, still managed to split skulls and burst ear drums.  By the time the song bled into Pike’s ripping solo from “Jerusalem” and Cisneros began his road paving chant, “Proceeds the Weedian…Nazareth!” just before the band exited the stage, I felt like I was going to collapse under the colossal weight of the riff and the heat trapped in the room.  They returned after a brief rest to perform some really kick ass new (or perhaps just unreleased?) material and a completely beside the point Ozzy Osbourne cover.  No one could claim they didn’t get their money’s worth out of Sleep that night.  My head was so fuzzy by the time I reached the craptastic G train, I could have floated home.

-Christien Lauro

SWANS – MY FATHER WILL GUIDE ME UP A ROPE TO THE SKY YOUNG GOD RECORDS – RELEASE DATE 9/27/10

(by Christien Lauro) Michael Gira’s monolithic band, Swans, inspired awe across many genres before officially disbanding in 1997 after nearly two decades of violent abusing of ear drums and expectations with the dissolution of his marriage to fellow Swans mainstay, Jarboe.  The demise of Swans seemed to free Gira from audience and self-imposed constrictions and he went on to release several well received and uniformly excellent albums with new project, Angels of Light, as well as collaborations and solo efforts, all the while continuing to change, refine and experiment with his signature simultaneously brutal and beautiful brand sonic mayhem.   

The Swans' My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky album artwork

He seemed happy enough for the past decade to have removed that particular bird from around his neck, so, his return to the Swans with new album, My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky, on his own Young God Records as well as a supporting world tour might be viewed cynically as a money grab; critical acclaim and being name checked by more popular artists does not necessarily translate into paychecks – and let’s face it, everyone has bills to pay, especially new fathers.  But it is hard to argue with Gira’s claim that the songs he had been writing since AOL’s absolutely brilliant last album, 2007’s We Are Him  (itself containing the very Swansish tracks “Promise of Water” and “My Brother’s Man”), were closer to being Swans’ songs than AOL songs when you hear bombastic and beautiful album opener “No Words/No Thoughts”.    It really does sound like a companion piece to the epic final Swans studio recording, 1996’s double album, Soundtracks For The Blind, and could easily stand alongside any of the later Swans material.   

The return of original Swans secret weapon/lead guitarist, Norman Westberg certainly doesn’t hurt the proceedings either.  All but one track previously appeared on the subscriber only, I Am Not Insane, a solo acoustic album that Gira released earlier this year to fund the recording sessions for My Father and Gira and his current collaborators have done a brilliant job of Swanifying much of the material, especially tracks like “No Words…”, “My Birth” and show stopping “Eden Prison” (a favorite of Gira’s recent solo live performances).   

The one new track (the wonderfully titled), “You Fucking People Make Me Sick” is musically quite fitting but the thin guest vocals by former Gira protégé, Devendra Banhart, don’t do the track any favors, although Gira’s young daughter, Saoirese’s call and response vocals at the end brighten up the track considerably, brief as they are.  The real disappointment here is the absence of, I Am Not Insane’s tantalizing “Opium Song” and “Oxygen”.  Even in their solo acoustic versions, these songs seemed to lend themselves to inclusion on a Swans release, certainly more than some tracks that made the cut such as the slow, creepily lovey dovey album closer “Little Mouth” featuring Gira’s wife Siobhan Duffy’s (Gunga Din, God Is My Co-Pilot) pretty backing vocals.  That’s not to say that a love song by Gira, even one as lascivious and sad as this, is not welcome, it just seems a bit misplaced and may have sounded better on an AOL or solo album.  One could also question the decision to turn the incredible, “Reeling The Liars In” (another recent live favorite), into a countrified, Morriconesque hum-along instead of giving the mean-spirited lyrics a caustic more Swanlike backing track but, all things considered, it is good to have Swans back and it should prove a rapturous event to see them perform at NYC’s loudest venue, The Brooklyn Masonic Temple in October.   

There is a limited edition, double cd version of My Father which is worth seeking out for fans and collectors.   The second disk contains one, 46 minute track entitled, “Look At Me Go”, which consists of raw recordings from the album’s sessions lovingly mashed up in a computer and molded into an alternately somnambulantly droning and chillingly apocalyptic shifting soundscape reminiscent of the protracted experiments from Soundtracks For The Blind or Gira’s solo Body Lovers/Haters albums.  Be warned: the last ten minutes of the disk should teach young noise bands a thing or two but will most likely give the average listener nightmares for years to come.  Highly recommended!

The Top 5 Reasons why Lou Reed has every right to ruin Susan Boyle and Simon Cowell’s ‘Perfect Day’

In the latest controversy that’s been dominating the entertainment wires, the rock legend Lou Reed was widely reported to turn down Susan Boyle’s request to cover his song “Perfect Day” (off his 1972 album Transformer) on the America’s Got Talent program.

TMZ picked up the story and reported that Boyle “flew back to London in tears” upon hearing this news of Reed’s refusal, and since then Reed’s reps have been backpedaling and claiming it was last minute red tape and that the song was “only cleared for use in her native UK, not in the US.” Show creator Simon Cowell has since entered the fray, branding Reed’s behavior “petty” and “pathetic” recently in an interview on the BBC.
Whether you’re for or against Reed’s reported decision, there’s several reasons in Reed’s defense that must be acknowledged as to why he, the composer of the original material, has every right to tell Simon Cowell, Susan Boyle, and America’s Got Talent to “take a hike” – (or as Reed once sang in his live version of “Heroin” from his live album Rock & Roll Animal ) “you can all go take a f***ing walk!”

1. It’s his song.
That’s right! If you – the artist – compose a song from the ground up, and you don’t want to see your song performed live on a TV program, in a commercial, or featured in a film – that’s your right since you composed the song. Regardless of the reasons, it’s your song, and you (as the artist) can do as you like with it. One of the benefits of composing your own material to perform!

2. Songs are personal – and not necessarily about profit right?
Reed first composed this song in late 1971, and the only times this song HAS been covered by high profile artists, it was notably for charity (as a recent UK charity-single featuring David Bowie and an all-star cast covering “Perfect Day” proved), OR when he decided to accompany the artist (as he did with Luciano Pavoratti) back in 2001 (which can be seen here…) Charity or personal accompaniment aside, Simon Cowell doesn’t have a leg to stand on when he’s claiming loads of artists have covered this song…Yes they have Simon, but Reed’s obviously put charity performances first and foremost in the considerations, and he can veto your requests (or Ms Boyle’s). That’s his right as the composer of the original material.

3. Maybe Lou Reed doesn’t wish to endorse America’s Got Talent?
Perhaps Lou Reed doesn’t want one of his treasured songs being used as an advertising vehicle for a potential fly-by-night TV show that he’s likely not a fan of? We can guess Lou Reed likely isn’t glued to his television set waiting for the next episode of America’s Got Talent, and it’s his 100% given-right as the composer of the material to say “You know what? I think your show is awful – please don’t use my material for it.” Some artists are willing to sell their songs to commercials and let their material appear on shows for a share of the royalties. Reed has always been sensitive on this subject and we can guess he holds this particular song in high regard – maybe he doesn’t want to tarnish or (some might say) “cheapen” the song? This reason can also be titled “artistic integrity”.

4. Maybe he really ISN’T a fan of Susan Boyle?
Stop the press! Maybe Reed wasn’t as boiled over as the rest of the country when Boyle came out and sang “I Dreamed a Dream” on Britain’s Got Talent? Reed’s reasoning for turning down Boyle might be awfully similar to why The Cure had turned down Paul Young back in the mid-80’s when Young approached the UK band about covering their song Boys Don’t Cry. (As recounted in A Visual Documentary by Paul Thompson.) When The Cure’s vocalist Robert Smith was asked about this “snub” by a reporter, he responded: “[Young] asked us for our blessing but I said “no” – I couldn’t imagine anything worse….”. However, Young’s fortunes changed when Daryl Hall had given him permission to cover one of his lesser-known songs “Every Time You Go Away” in 1985, and the song ended up becoming Young’s sole monster-Top Ten hit song in the US. Maybe Susan Boyle might benefit from this current fall-out by accepting song donations by other artists, in lieu of writing her own?

5. He’s Lou Reed
His artistic contributions to rock need no introduction. His musical-genre-inventing work with The Velvet Underground landed him critical praise, and legions of rock musicians have since cited Reed as an “influence”. Reed can do whatever he damn well pleases, and he always has for the past 40 years and this stance has kept Reed still going strong. While many other sixties musicians are either dead & buried, or re-generating the same material over and over again, Reed’s latest recordings have been arguably experimental and “new”. His artistic stance has served him well to this day, why should he be forced to change it now?

Unless Reed comes out and permits Boyle to cover the song, or he helps iron out whatever behind-the-scenes snaffoo his reps have been belatedly claiming, the legions of upset Susan Boyle fans might do themselves a favor and remember that the world doesn’t revolve around their dearest Susan, and that she might be better off seeking material elsewhere or dare we say – compose her own to perform on the program.
If any lesson is to be learned from this debate, maybe Simon Cowell and the rest of the entertainment industry might recognize the value in artists that write & perform their own material live – as opposed to artists that strictly depend on others for their own artistic stabilities – or lackthereof. – Dennis Tyhacz

Courtesy of  JournalismNow.com's Music Page

Interview with Ron Haviv, Photojournalist

Ron Haviv is a world-renowned and award winning photojournalist, who’s iconic images have illustrated conflicts and human-rights issues for over 20 years.

Recently, he and several other photographers from the VII agency in New York, NY, traveled around the world to produce a series called Starved For Attention, which sheds light on the underlying causes of the global malnutrition crisis. More information can be seen here about the galleries here which launches today in New York City.

We asked Ron some questions about his background, and what we can expect to see at the gallery…

How and when did you first get into photography?

I was a journalism student at University and during my last year decided I would rather tell stories with images. I took an introductory photography course and taught myself the rest.

One of your first foreign photo-assignments involved covering the Panama elections back in 1989, and you ended up capturing a very disturbing image of the bloodied & beaten Vice Presidential candidate shortly thereafter. This photo made the cover of Time, Newsweek, and was published all over the country. Did you realize the initial impact your photograph would have? It was only shortly after that the US decided to finally intervene and over-throw Noriega.

When the photograph was published, I had no true understanding of the role that photojournalism could play in the world of communication. It was only when months later that the President of the US spoke about the images as one of the reasons that the US invaded Panama did the impact truly mean something beyond myself.

Ron Haviv's legendary photo of VP candidate Guillermo Ford in 1989, as seen on the cover of Time Magazine that same year. (photo by Ron Haviv)

You covered some disturbing war images in Bosnia & Croatia, which resulted in a photobook you published called “Blood and Honey”. How did you first become immersed in this conflict, and how did this book come about?
I went to Slovenia, the first republic to secede, after reading a small piece in the newspaper about nationalism and a possible war. I spent more then 5 years between 1991 and 2001 covering the dissolution of the country with its various wars. Sometime during the Bosnian war it was apparent to me that I was going to see it through, and that my thoughts on the conflict would best be shown in a book and multimedia piece.

The upcoming Starved For Attention exhibit in New York (in June) will cover your recent work from Bangladesh. Can you describe your time in the country & what you saw there?


Bangladesh is a country of extreme beauty and hardship. From a feeling of immense overcrowding in the capital to the island of Bhola I witnessed a country struggling to do best for itself while fighting against nature and endemic poverty.  On the island of Bhola I spent time documenting a new approach to fighting health issues, especially malnutrition. By incorporating local level intervention with education, it is hoped that malnutrition, which is thought of us as normal, can be severely reduced.

With the constant bombardment of imagery and information on the web, is photojournalism losing it’s impact or is it gaining a wider audience?

I think that the responsibility is upon us as the audience to appreciate and understand the images that we are being shown. With the advent of the internet information is easily accessible by many more people. If we look to trusted sources we can all become better educated global citizens.

Does the general public under-estimate the power of photography in your opinion?

I think that the underestimation of the power of photography often comes from the heads of media rather then the public. When imagery touches people they respond.


What is your next assignment/project you’re currently working on?

VII is currently working on a project with the United Nations.

Thanks Ron for answering our questions!

Courtesy of JournalismNow: 
http://www.journalismnow.com/news/blog-news/feature-interview-ron-haviv-photojournalist 

BROKEN KEYBOARDS, BROKEN MEN: Modern English Live at Le Poisson Rouge 7/16/10

Show review by Christien Lauro

Modern English know what their audience wants and they have no qualms about giving it to them. If the mostly reformed original 80’s line up wasn’t enough of a clue then the merchandise table made it pretty obvious; it offered the choice of their first three albums which span the years 1981-1984 (plus their new album) and one t-shirt design with the cover art for the original “I Melt With You” single emblazoned on it.

Most of the band members seem to have aged well, certainly better than some of their music. Energetic front man, Robbie Grey, comically announced they had just come from Toronto with broken keyboards and broken equipment as broken men. But they looked pretty healthy and happy as they ripped through beefy and very loud, rock oriented versions of classic tracks from their first three LPs as well as a couple of songs from their new album Soundtrack. The new songs were surprisingly decent; the title track sounded like an inspired nourish rocker a la Pulp’s “This Is Hardcore” only darker and louder. The older songs held up pretty well for the most part although they did make a few missteps such as turning the dour, dancy, Joy Division influenced “Life In The Gladhouse” into a schmaltzy, band intro number and not playing any tracks from the unfairly maligned and recently reissued, Stop/Start.

Even though they played very well and the band, especially Grey, have obvious enthusiasm for the material, there seemed to be something missing. Perhaps tellingly, they were at their best when playing songs from their twenty-nine year old debut LP Mesh & Lace. Ironically, these songs sounded the most contemporary and animated with Grey, himself stating his preference for that album over After The Snow before the band launched into a blistering version of “Black Houses”.

The band ended the relatively short set with their two biggest hits, “Hands Across The Sea” and the inevitable, audience sing-along “I Melt With You”. All of which seemed curiously anticlimactic until after a very brief pause they returned to play an excoriating but sadly, shortened version of “Sixteen Days”. As the band tore the song into shreds of guitar feedback and tribal drumming and Grey began jumping around wildly and screaming “sixteen days no bread and water!” the joy and energy they exuded was contagious and you couldn’t help but wish the entire set was as good as the encore.


Originally posted @ http://www.journalismnow.com/news/music/broken-keyboards-broken-men-modern-english-live-at-le-poisson-rouge-71610

Three Miles from Space/THC at Radio City, Audience Participation Percussion and Saliva Stalactites: My Rock & Roll Weekend

by Christien Lauro
I always feel out of place at Radio City Music Hall. Whenever I’m inside gawking at the opulent art deco interior, I think that any moment a large usher is going to tell me I have to leave because I’m not wearing a tie. But I dutifully showed up, along with several thousand other fans to see Jason Pierce lead his band Spiritualized plus an orchestra and choir in a performance of his classic Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space LP last Friday night at said venerable venue. If there is any modern album that actually deserves to be performed in its entirety at Radio City Music Hall with a string octet, a horn sextet, a white-gowned gospel choir, and a percussionist augmenting a six-piece rock band, it is definitely Ladies and Gentlemen…



After a late start, a mirror ball mishap and Kate Radley’s sampled voice introducing the album’s opening title track, the curtain finally rose over a stage crowded with musicians and equipment and a dazzling light show which included a backdrop made to look like the stars in deep space and harsh LED strobe lights (and let’s not forget the requisite dry iced smoke). It was impossible not to be awed by the visual spectacle but that was nothing compared to the dense layers of sound created by the dozens of musicians. Not content to simply play the album, Pierce rearranged most of the songs and utilized all the available musicians to maximum effect. For anyone familiar with the original album there were some unique surprises (a harmonica vs. gospel choir dueling solo during “No God Only Religion” being one stand out), some amazing arrangements (the choir overtaking the rest of the musicians on “Home of the Brave”), some especially captivating performances (“I Think I’m In Love”, “Broken Heart”, “Cool Waves”) and a great many moments where musicians and audience were blasted en masse into the furthest reaches of outer space (all the Varèse meets “Sister Ray” instrumental jams on “The Individual”, “No God…” and “Cop Shoot Cop”).

At times the effect of the very loud instrumental rumble coupled with the seizure-inducing LED strobe lights was nauseating – particularly when someone in the audience decided to blaze a joint during “The Individual”. But an album so steeped in heartbreak, drug addiction and ultimately the healing powers of rock and roll is bound to be a bit messy for performer and audience alike. There were certainly moments of blissful transcendence as well (the horn and choir breakdown on “Come Together”, the buildup of “Stay With Me”, the languid opening of “I Think I’m In Love”). After nearly an hour and a half of pummeling the audiences’ eyes and ears, the band received a well-deserved standing ovation at the end of the absolutely epic cacophony of album closer, “Cop Shoot Cop” and quickly returned to the stage for a brief encore.
They opened the encore with an amazing arrangement of “Out of Sight” from the 2001 LP, Let It Come Down. This became a unexpected highlight of the show as the band really blasted into the stratosphere with horns blazing, string players sawing away, guitarists rocking out with tremolos raging, wailing harmonica and full on choir back up for Pierce’s unusually impassioned vocals (coupled with the extraterrestrial lighting effects) all working together to add a lush and powerful explosion of sound and emotion to the originally more spare composition. And just when you thought they couldn’t top all that had gone before, they perfectly ended the evening with a gorgeous, Velvet Underground goes to church rendition of the Edwin Hawkins Singers staple “Oh Happy Day” (hey why let a perfectly good white-gowned gospel choir go to waste?).
The musicians received another standing ovation and as the house lights came up bringing everyone back down to Earth, I left feeling exhausted and exhilarated (as well as half deaf and blind), knowing I had just seen one hell of a show, in every sense of the word. Really that should’ve been enough to keep me going for quite a while but the following afternoon I made my way to Damrosch Park in Lincoln Center just as the MC was announcing the start of the second half of the Ponderosa Stomp: The Detroit Breakdown show. I found a seat as Death began their set of dirty rock smack downs. While the influence of bands like The Stooges and the MC5 was obvious, their music sounded more avant than proto punk.
As they performed “Politicians In My Eyes”, it occurred to me that the song could have easily been written yesterday rather than 35 years ago and it’s about the fear of being drafted for the Vietnam war! I couldn’t help thinking that if you sped them up a bit you’d have a more soulful Dead Kennedys or perhaps a less dubby Bad Brains and while I could see why they didn’t quite catch on back then it is sad to think it took over thirty years for them to get a measure of respect and recognition. Luckily Drag City has begun the process of saving them from obscurity by giving their old recordings wide release. I was impressed with their songs and their playing but many of the elderly people and weekending tourists in attendance seemed confused, dismayed and perhaps a little offended. I guess that is what you get when you schedule a band called Death to play outside in the middle of Lincoln Center at 5:00 pm on a Saturday!

The Gories

Next up was newly reformed, The Gories, with their patented brand of fuzzy minimalist mayhem. They put up a brave front of thoroughly enjoying themselves given the acrimony that surrounded their dissolution and still seems to hang about them. But really, it would be very hard to deny the unmitigated pleasure of listening to their exuberantly primitive caterwauling. They definitely know how to put on an energetic show too as evidenced by Mick Collins jumping up and down on his amp until both he and the amp spilled over onto the stage. While they might not be particularly polished musicians (and really that is being kind) they are a lot of fun and seem to inspire an almost adolescent joy in their fans, many of whom jumped and danced around the park for their entire set (much to the dour disproval of the old folks who left in droves during their performance).

This enthusiasm could become a bit misguided as in the case of one overzealous fan that brought along his own tambourine and attempted to play along with Peg O’Neill’s barely competent drum beats. This created a rather annoying arrhythmic echo effect that was impossible to ignore and grew more pronounced as the set went on. Despite that, watching The Gories was a total blast; I especially enjoyed their interesting take on Suicide’s “Ghost Rider”! Following them was ? and the Mysterians and I truly wanted to see them play their signature hit “96 Tears” but I had to rush home to feed and walk the dog and then head into the heart of chooch darkness (the lower east side on a Saturday night) to see the triumphant return of Arab on Radar after an almost decade long hiatus.

I waded through pustulant wanker choked Ludlow Street to the Cake Shop and entered the dank, hot basement club just after Oakland, CA septet, No Babies, took the stage…and the floor. It’s a safe bet that even if the puny stage at Cake Shop was big enough to hold all the members of the band and their equipment, it could never have contained their manic performance. Their sound was akin to God Is My Co-Pilot playing The Feeding of the 5000 and Trout Mask Replica simultaneously while mainlining pixy stix. They were certainly a sight to behold as all members except the two drummers spent most of their time jumping spasmodically around in the audience (in tight bicycle shorts which appeared to be their band uniform) while somehow still managing to play their instruments. Singer, Kimya Lindale, spent so much time running around in the audience that it took me until almost the end of their set to realize that she was actually in the band; I mistook her for a rabid fan! After their all too brief set, local noise trio, Child Abuse, treated the sticky audience to forty-five minutes of standing around waiting for them to set up. When they finally finished abusing the crowd’s patience and began abusing their instruments, they filled the miniscule space with enough ugly sounds for several Cake Shops. Their lurching, mean-spirited music sounded like Sam McPheeters singing for the Jesus Lizard ass raping Suicide. While enjoy might be a strong word, I did appreciate what they were doing musically and their performance had a certain charming entertainment value. The highlight of their set was watching front man, Luke Calzonetti, spit a giant glob of saliva onto the ceiling. The goo proceeded to slowly ooze back down from the low ceiling like a malevolent, saliva stalactite, which came dangerously close to dripping on his mangled Casio keyboard. He swung his arm around, grabbing the menacing globule from midair just as it was about to detach itself and land on his instrument and then shoved it back into his mouth and gleefully swallowed.

After Child Abuse’s performance that lasted half as long as their set-up, it was finally time for those lovable scamps from Arab on Radar to take the stage. And take it they did, running out onto the tiny stage in their creepy proletariat band uniforms (black button down shirts and black slacks) and without so much as a ‘hello Cleveland’ ripped into an unrelenting forty minutes of macho, sexually inappropriate, vaguely homoerotic, aggro sonic Armageddon. The guitars were serrated chromatic blades carving away at the ear canal and the drums a furious, rumbling tribal tattoo, which created a skuzzy, tight fisted noisescape for anti-charismatic front man, Eric Paul (aka Mr. Pottymouth) to shock and amaze and spew forth his orifice obsessed lyrics. In the eight years that AOR has been dormant, Paul, has lost none of his disturbing ability to completely unnerve. He flopped around the stage in a disgusting pantomime of mental derangement screeching horrifically absurd lyrics as if he were a Thalidomide baby trapped in the body of the elderly Marquis de Sade. The band brought their own light show – harsh bare bulbs pointed at the audience and as they started playing the crowd erupted into a seething mess of sweaty, contorted silhouettes. The lights and the pit made the already insufferably hot and dingy atmosphere in the basement impenetrably claustrophobic. One song bled into another without a break and hardly a word from Paul, although at one point he did punctuate a rare half-minute of silence in between songs with what sounded like the wail of a tongueless child screaming, “I used to get hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigggghhhhhhhh!” (as he wriggled and flopped around the stage I thought to myself ‘used to’?) but it was unclear if this was a song title or simply an instance of over sharing on his part. If there ever was a case for recommending behavior modification through copious amounts of medication it would be Paul (as an interesting side note: he is one of only two people I have ever seen horrify an entire audience simply by reading from a book – in Paul’s case from his whimsically perverse, I Offered Myself As The Sea). He is an unhinged parody of a rock front man, sort of like the Anti-Mick Jagger.

The rest of the band was almost as entertaining to watch as Paul. Drummer, Craig Kureck, augmented his band uniform by wrapping himself in the bright red Christmas tree tinsel hanging over the back of the stage and as each song finished he would leap up from his stool, frantically wave his arms in the air for a few seconds sending tinsel shooting in every direction and then sit back down and start pounding out the next song. Guitarists, Steve Mattos and Jeff Schneider, jerked around the stage strangling their guitar necks as if they were offending priapic members. As they finished their set the crowd screamed for more even though the air in the room felt like hot wet wool wrapped around your entire body. The band returned to the stage after only a minute and Paul launched into a brief rant about NYC bands stealing Providence bands’ ideas which was by far the most he spoke during the entire show. They played two more twisted tunes, causing the crowd to begin writhing around with renewed energy. When the show ended, I couldn’t get out of that room fast enough. The putridly humid early August morning air felt like a cool ocean breeze after the confines of the Cake Shop. Of course I had to wade through the chooch apocalypse which had doubled and gotten more liquored up during the time I was inside.

One would think that I would’ve spent Sunday sleeping off my music binge but I capped off my rock and roll weekend by going to see Ken Russell’s cruelly anarchic film, The Devils, at the Walter Reade Theater in Lincoln Center. And, lest you think this was a more relaxing pursuit, rest assured that at certain points the film was both louder and more violently disturbing than anything I had seen or heard in the previous two days, but that is an entirely different story.
For More on all of the above artists:

No Babies
Child Abuse
Arab On Radar
More links soon!

Interview with Ken Stringfellow (after SXSW)

Courtesy of JournalismNow.com

The Big Star Bassist discusses the recent Big Star memorial show in SXSW, reflects on Alex Chilton, and talks about the future……Prior to his joining Big Star (at an impromptu reunion at the University of Missouri in 1993), Ken Stringfellow was (and is) a member of the The Posies, and is a solo artist & producer as well.

(This interview was conducted via email between NYC & Bejing (where Stringfellow is currently working a recording project), and it’s been edited to fit the format of our site.)

You’ve just returned from SXSW and it looks (and sounds) like the show was a fitting memorial for Alex. What is your frame of mind having come back from this event, and how was it meeting & playing with Andy Hummell?

I think we did an amazing job, considering–it was hell to be there, really. I was hit very hard by Alex’s death, it just was so unexpected, and…who knows, I mean, I was very fond of Alex, but I didn’t see him that often. I hadn’t seen him since our Brooklyn show in November. But, somehow…I was just kicked in the gut by those events, and having to make a decision immediately about what to do with the scheduled show 72 hours after Alex died, phew…in fact, it’s a testimony to a lot of love and a lot personal strength that we did what we did, and did it well. After the event, I was wrecked, really…I was sick, tired, jet lagged. I left the next day for Paris, and the day after I got home I headed to Beijing, which is where I am now. I am coming out of my funk now, about a week later.

I met Andy in 2004, also at SXSW (he lives in Texas now). We had a panel about the music of Big Star [that year.] I swear he might have even jumped up and played on a song, or am I dreaming? In any case, it was a little more involved now–if he did play in 2004, I would have been *off* stage, having given him my bass. This time, He didn’t feel comfortable on the spot with playing “Way out West” on bass, so he went for guitar, and then he played “September Gurls”, the last song of the night, on bass–which was fine, I actually know Alex’s parts quite well on that one. I wish I could say I enjoyed it at the time, but looking back now, it’s quite a powerful memory. We have the event on film, so with a little distance, I’ll be able to look at it when I’m not deep in the emotional well of mourning, which I was that night.

When did you first meet Alex, and what was your initial impression of him?

Mr. Neutral. He didn’t say a lot, at first. He was cool, laid back. Of course, that just makes someone (when you’re 24 and a huge fan) quite intimidating but that was my head, really. He just did his thing, like always. This, by the way, was in 1993, when Alex and Jody came to rehearse with us leading up to the first Big Star reunion show that was recorded for a live album (“Columbia”). We knew Jody well by then, but had never met Alex until they came to Seattle for that two day rehearsal.

You’ve had a long history with Alex’s music, from your own work with The Posies, to the original Big Star reunion in 93′ to today. I’ve read some statements over the years where you’ve said Chilton “taught you a lot musically.” Can you give some examples of his approach to music?

He was very dedicated, and continually sought to improve his skills. He did things in a kind of unusual order. He learned the craft of songwriting quite well at a young age, [and he] did a total kind of anti-craft deconstruction – (his feedback-laden live shows in the early 80s, e.g.), and then ‘went to school’ as it were. Learning his jazz chordbook, learning how to transcribe and arrange music in written form. He just followed his interests, really, and his interests kept growing.

You perform music all over the world, as you did with Big Star. Was there a Big Star show in particular that made you or Alex say “This is the best show we’ve ever played”?

Alex was not given to superlatives, really. Or self-congratulatory statements. I think the last show we did was one of the best ones. We played superbly well, the venue was beautiful (this was the Masonic Temple show you saw), and Alex was healthy and in great spirits. The show was sold out, and the audience was fanatical. Even Alex, who tried not to be too impressed with himself or his achievements [especially given] Big Star’s resurgence, couldn’t restrain from being aglow. Nothing needed to be said.

What project are you currently working on as we speak, and when can we expect another album from Mr. Stringfellow?!

At this very moment I am in Beijing producing sessions for the band Hanggai, who mix Mongolian folk music styles with rock power. Really awesome. My band THE DiSCiPLiNES have just completed a glorious, brutal, fantastic album called ViRGiNS OF MENACE. Not sure when that will come out in the US, but [we’ll] probably concentrate on Europe first, and get a release date when we know we can come back – which might be awhile, because The Posies will record our 7th album, starting next month, in Spain; we plan to release it on Rykodisc in late September, worldwide tour to follow. So, my next solo album might be awhile.
We are planning to use our last previously scheduled Big Star show, May 15 at the Levitt Band Shell in Memphis, to put Big Star to rest and say farewell to Alex, presumably with some special guests….

Thanks Ken for answering our questions!

Interview re-posted courtesy of JournalismNow.com

Test