Arthur Gadney wrote:
Only thing I know is that he seems to still be friends with Yamamoto, the Boredoms guitar player. He plays quite often at his club in Osaka... This would be Bears, a grotty little hole (with charm) in Namba, and yeah, Grind Orchestra plays there every month or two. I've never actually seen them, mind you, but they're one of the acts on my "Oh... *they're* playing again... I really should go and see them sometime..." list, which I've finally been able to start picking away at recently. Speaking of which, some great musical surprises that have brightened my life of late:
NASCA CAR: Incredibly silly stolen '70s and '80s electro-pop hooks and shouted duet vocals, plus some really pretty good theremin playing, all delivered with the kind of energy that made the Ramones great and makes Chicks on Speed worth seeing now. (NOTE: Their CDs aren't nearly this good.) HELICOID 0222 MB: A crunchy rock trio who were heavy enough and tight enough to deserve a spot in the studio when John Carpenter scores his next movie. I actually mean that in a good way... they kicked ass, and on the same night as Nasca Car, no less. BOOM BIP & DOSE ONE: Their album, Circle, or whatever you want to call it, is pretty old, but wow... I just checked it out for the first time a few weeks back, and it's one of the few Anticon-related titles that really lives up to the insane production and lateral-thinking vocal potential of that whole arm of hip-hop from beginning to end. ALBERT AYLER: I guess Impulse/Verve/Universal/whoever just cranked out this nice-sounding re-issue of Music Is The Healing Force of The Universe recently, and for the first five cuts, I wasn't sure what the big deal was. Sure, the vocals were only sporadically interesting, but then... damn. That last song would have worked as a musical number in the Blues Brothers movie. Colour me astonished, and kind of sorry that he didn't live to produce anything else like this. Thought y'all should know. -me