Volume 15 of the Paul Buff Presents series is available at CDBaby !!
http://cdbaby.com/cd/paulbuffpresents11
Detroit based Childbite doesn't hide the influence from bands like Devo, the Dead Kennedys or Pere Ubu. The band brings powerful avant-garde rock and does a great job transfering their energy to the listener.
I like this.
Sean Clancy on bass, Shawn Knight on vocals, guitar and synth, Daniel Sperry on drum, and Zack Norton on guitar.
These guys sound tight.
Call it indy punk, call it avant-garde, call it whatever you want, this sounds great.
Check them out:
http://www.myspace.com/childbite
The album is available from Joyful Noise Records:
http://www.joyfulnoiserecordings.com/catalog/jnr54
Daevid Allen's space-rock ensemble Gong released a new album last year: "2032".
The saga goes as follows:
Gong is an invisible planet in our solar system, inhabited by the so-called Octave Doctors. These Octave Doctors visited planet earth in the late sixties and while most of them left, a couple of Octave Doctors stayed behind to study mankind.
In 2032, the planet Gong will reveal itself.
The Octave Doctors are prepared to help mankind, but this will only happen if mankind will recognise the peaceful intentions of these visitors.
For this fascinating album Daevid Allen teamed up again with Steve Hillage!
And besides Gilli Smyth, Miquette Giraudy, Mike Howlett, Chris Taylor and Theo Travis, there's also a guest appearance by Didier Malherbe!
"2032" is a very impressive album. More rock than space-rock, it will take you on a fine journey.
A beautiful way to celebrate 40 years of Gong. Let's hope that the band is still around in 2032.
Saturday, August 14, 2010, Daevid Allen will be on the main stage at the Zappanale festival with his University Of Errors project.
Kip Winger is the frontman of the band Winger. He has also a couple of solo albums out.
The first Winger album, from 1988 and self-titled, features Dweezil Zappa as special guest.
"Songs From The Ocean Floor" is Kip Winger's third solo album. It's from 2006 and it has Moon Zappa on vocals on 'Sure Was A Wildflower'.
Nice track. Nice album.
Cabellero Reynaldo is warming up for Zappanale:
Wiki says:
"Oingo Boingo was an American new wave band. They are best known for their influence on other musicians, their soundtrack contributions and their high energy Halloween concerts. The band was founded in 1972 as a performance art group called The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, and from 1976 it was led by songwriter/vocalist Danny Elfman, who has since achieved substantial renown as a composer for film and television.
The group's format changed twice. In 1980, it changed from a semi-theatrical music and comedy troupe into a ska-influenced New Wave octet and shortened their name to Oingo Boingo. In 1994, the band reshuffled its lineup, adopted an alternative rock sound and rechristened themselves Boingo. The band retired after a farewell concert on Halloween 1995, having reverted to the name Oingo Boingo for the concert."
I just bought the album for the beautiful cover, and, yes, that's the same Danny Elfman who wrote The Simpsons' theme.
And "Nothing To Fear" has some great music.
Epic's "Playlist" series includes samplers of Joe Satriani, Cheap Trick, Ted Nugent, and other big selling bands. And now, Steve Vai has joined the list: "Playlist - The Very Best Of Steve Vai".
Adding a bit of extra data to the Dweezil Zappa discography, here's a picture of the Japanese edition of the 2008 Zappa Plays Zappa album. It included one extra track compared to the US release: 'Cheepnis'.
The new Dweezil Zappa album has been out for a couple of weeks. If you were fortunate enough to catch Dweezil and his Zappa Plays Zappa project in concert somewhere the last couple of weeks, you'll know what to expect.
I said it last week: the DZPZ concert that I saw in Antwerp earlier this month, was one of the best Zappa concerts that I ever saw.
"Return Of The Son Of..." captures the same vibe and the same quality. (and features Ray White on a couple of tracks.)
Essential listening.
It's incredible how this band has improved...
UniMuta: You released your "Zappa" album in 2000. It's a fabulous record on which you perform Zappa's music on baroque instruments. I know that you performed it in concert at the Umea Festival in 2003, and I saw you performing it in Brugge, Belgium, in 2004. Do you get many occasions to perform?
Olli Virtaperko / Ensemble Ambrosius: During the past few years we've been performing only occationally. In 2005 we did a one-week tour in Sweden and in 2007 some concerts in Finland and one in St. Petersburg. That's about it for touring. There's not very much demand for an ambitious 7-piece group that plays weird music with unconventional instruments.
UniMuta: How does the Ensemble Ambrosius work? Is it an ongoing project? Do you have regular rehearsals, or is it project-related?
Olli Virtaperko / Ensemble Ambrosius: We perform so seldom that the only logical way to rehease the group is to do it by project-related basis.
UniMuta: You will be performing twice at the Zappanale Festival: The ensemble will do the opening concert in Hamburg (August 10, 2010), and you will be playing at the festival in Bad Doberan on Friday (August 13, 2010). What should we expect? Will you be playing the material from "The Zappa Album"? Other material?
Olli Virtaperko / Ensemble Ambrosius: We'll have a program that consists both Zappa and my own compositions. Most of the Zappa pieces will be from The Zappa Album, but re-arranged, as we have some new instruments, such as a Finnish folk music instrument kantele, whish blends very nicely with broque instruments. However, we also plan to play some new Zappa pieces as well. And Napoleon Murphy Brock will be joining us in both Hamburg and Bad Doberan, so that brings an extra flavour to the events with some potentially surprising new repertoire.
UniMuta: Having recorded an album with Zappa material, I can imagine that you're into the music of Frank Zappa. Will you be staying the three days of the Zappanale festival & are their bands that you want to see?
Olli Virtaperko / Ensemble Ambrosius: I have not have had time to study the program properly, but the little that I've seen looks very promising. Some major Zappa musicians are partisipating the festival, so I'd imagine it will be both interesting and fun.
UniMuta: The Ensemble Ambrosius has released a second album, "Metrix", with pieces that were written by you and by Jonte Knif. Is this the new direction that the Ensemble will be taking? Will you be performing material from "Metrix" as well?
Olli Virtaperko / Ensemble Ambrosius: I would imagine some material of "Metrix" will be played, but as far as our own music is concerned I think we'll concentrate on more recent material. We will be performing 'GACH' and 'Questa storia del mago non mi convince'. Both are written by me. Stylistically those two pieces lie in the category of "modal, jazz-rock-influenced music that utilize some classical compositional approaches", but we'll also play a couple of purely "conteporay classical" pieces of mine. As far as stylistical diversity of our program is concerned I'd like to say that I like to mix things and styles within a concert program, but in individual compositions I prefere to make clear stylistical choises and stick in them - in that sense I'm a conservative-sort-of-a-personality with little interest in "cross-over" as such. My main job and passion is composing music. But I also understand that the concept of Ambrosius is built on Zappa, so it will stay as the core of our doings also in future - which is nice, by the way: it's wonderful music and great fun to play. I'm lucky enough to have lots of other compositional commissions so that I don't have to overload Ambrosius with my own music to fullfill my personal musical ambitions. I think the balance that we now have between Zappa and our own material (50-50) is fine.
UniMuta: Thank you very much Olli. These concerts are something I don't want to miss.
The dates to remember are August 10 for the St.Katharinen-concert in Hamburg, and August 13 for the Zappanale concert in Bad Doberan.
I was fortunate to hear both the 'GACH' and the 'Questa storia del mago non mi convince' pieces, and theY sound great. I hope that both of these compositions will make the program as they would fit in very nice with the Zappa material.
http://www.zappanale.de/zappanale/en/press/77-pressemitteilungen/185-r-zappa-strictly-baroque.html
Yesterday I received a pre-sale copy of Zappatika's "Strictly Frankly" album. It looks like the band is getting up to speed for their Zappanale performance.
"Strictly Frankly" starts with a couple of low-fi live tunes: 'Winoman', 'Dirty Love', 'Broken Hearts Are For Assholes', 'Sleep Dirt' and 'Titties N Beer'.
I'm assuming that this is recent stuff, as it includes Ke on violin.
Too bad that the sound quality isn't up to it as the band shows that they have made quite a bit of progress. The sound is fuller, and the band sounds tighter as well.
From track six on, the sound quality goes up a couple of notches. This is what a demo should sound like: good quality, good playing and a bunch of fine songs.
The collection of songs that Zappatika presents here are the 'classic' rock songs: 'Dirty Love', 'My Guitar', 'Torture', 'Black Napkins', 'Cosmik Debris', ...
Their strong point, however, is that they play it in the typical Zappatika style: laid-back, with a psychedelic touch, and with lots of humour as well.
The last song of this disc, 'Wino Willies Montana Hop', is just great. These are the kind of Zappa puzzle exercises that I would like to hear more often! Love it.
If Zappatika will take this set to the Zappanale stage, the public is in for a midnight treat.
www.myspace.com/zappatika
And here's one of those YouTube movies that Roddie mentioned: Live in Larvik 2010.
Not too chronological as this download only album got released two weeks ago by Crossfire Publications, and we've seen Volumes 13 & 14 as well already...
But here's Volume 11, with Mr.Clean, Paul Conrad, The Pal Studio Band, and many more.
The Pal Studio Band can be heard with an early verion of 'Take Your Clothes Off...".
Available from CDBaby:
http://cdbaby.com/cd/paulbuffpresents7
And here's some more catching up with volume 12 of the Paul Buff Presents series.
The Hollywood Persuaders, The Masters, The Tornadoes, The Rotations and Johnny Barakat are just some examples of the bands that recorded at Paul Buff's Studio PAL.
Two of these feature a young Frank Zappa.
Available as download only from CDBaby
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/paulbuffpresents7
The first thing I listened to this morning, was Todd Rundgren's "Arena" album.
The album is from 2008 which means that Todd Rundgren was 60 years old when he recorded it.
"Arena" is a pretty straight-forward, heavy rock album. Todd Rundgren toys around with all the classical rock elements making the result something that you can easlily hum along.
I hope I can turn sixty like this...
It has been a long wait since Joost Buis released his first Astronotes album in 2006.
We did get a tiny glimpse of what we could expect through the 2008 BBC Radio 3 broadcast on "Jazz on 3", but that just made us more curious.
"Zoomin" does not disappoint. It's an excellent album that shows the beautiful rich sound of the tentet perfoming Joost Buis' fine compositions.
Joost Buis & Astronotes' "Zoomin" got released on the dutch Datarecords label. The album is available through Joost Buis' website.
www.plutones.com
I mentioned the Chickenfoot CD a little while ago.
In the meantime, a concert DVD has been released "Get Your Buzz On Live", live in Phoenix, and more recently a deluxe limited edition got released in Germany. The digipack includes the original CD, plus a bonus DVD. The DVD has live tracks and the usual silliness that one expects from the Joe Satriani / Chad Smith / Michael Anthony / Sammy Hagar line-up.
Fun.
When I received this album from Transparency a little while ago, I had never heard of Kraig Grady. A little research revealed that Kraig Grady is an American composer and sound artist who is known for composing music for microtonal instruments.
On "Beyond The Windows..." Kraig Grady investigates overtones and resonance as his ensemble plays long, stretched notes. The album consists of one piece. Actually, it consists of one note on which another tone is imposed. This second note can take over, and other notes can be added.
An impressive experiment.
Read more about Kraig Grady at wikipedia, or at his Anaphoria website:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraig_Grady
http://www.anaphoria.com/
Besides the rare tracks by The Masters, Sonny Wilson, Paul Buff, and others, volume 14 of this remarkable series includes another couple of extremely rare FZ recordings:
- "The Swag" by The Tornadoes - another late 1962 acetate engineered by FZ and produced by Dave Aerni
Here's the second and final volume of the PAL Studios' early years.
The album consists of recordings of bands and local musicians that booked time at the Pal Studios to make recordings of their repertoire for promotional purposes and the occasional record release.
Available as download only:
http://cdbaby.com/cd/paulbuffpresents9
UniMuta: The “Oh No... Just Another Frank Zappa Memorial Barbecue” album was released in 2003. Has the ensemble had many opportunities to perform these pieces live?
LEBOCAL: Oh yes, the band has performed the Zappa repertoire in France and abroad on numerous occasions. We have performed in cultural centers, in jazz clubs, and at festivals. We’ve performed in Switzerland, in Africa (Senegal), and earlier this year in Bremen, Germany, at the Jazzahead Festival.
One of the most memorable ones was with guitar player Nguyen Lê in Albertville.
UniMuta: The collective will be doing two concerts at Zappanale: the first one on Saturday, the second on on Sunday. Can you already give us some details? Will these concerts be different?
LEBOCAL: The Saturday concert will be an acoustic one. It will be in close proximity to the public. The setlist has not been established.
On Sunday, we’ll have the full blown, amplified concert. Liberating all the concentrated energy, ...
UniMuta: Sounds like two concerts I don’t want to miss.
Zappanale is a rather particular festival. There’s a great atmosphere, and people really come to listen to the music. Are you ready to do another festival?
LEBOCAL: LeBocal is used to play at festivals. We’ve already played for huge crowds: in Genève we played for almost 1000 people. Bremen had a crowd of about 800 people.
UniMuta: This is something that I’m really looking forward to. "Oh No... Just Another FZ Memorial Barbecue" is a fabulous album. I’m really curious to find out what it will sound like live.
Thanks & see you at Zappanale soon.
LeBocal will be playing at the Zappanale Festival in Bad Doberan, Germany, on Saturday, August 14, 2010, at noon, at the Truckstage, and on Sunday, August 15, 2010, in the early afternoon, on the Main Stage.
Prince? Yes, Prince.
I've been a fan for years.
Never saw him live, as I'm not someone who like to be in big crowds, but I have most of his albums...
Yesterday, Prince performed in Werchter. That's a little village in Belgium. A bit north of Brussels, in the neighbourhood of Mechelen and Leuven.
Without me.
I was more than satisfied with the new Prince album that was available for free for people who bought belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad or De Gentenaar.
Prince is doing this very same stunt all over Europe, so check your newspapershop.
"20ten".
9 tracks. 10 if you count the hidden one.
Nice. Very nice.
To my knowledge, Dr.Lotech & The Minimal Man only released one record: "Journey Into Light". It came out on the Bullseye / Left Of Centre label in 2001.
It's a fascinating album.
Track three is entitled "Frank's House" and is an obvious reference to the music of Frank Zappa (it's a raw guitar solo against a repetitive bass-line).
The entire disc is a fine mixture of blues, slow jazz, and zappa-esque, nonconformistic rock.
I like this.
If anyone knows anything extra about Dr.Lotech, please let me know !
the 2cdr advance promo by razor & tie
And here are some pictures of the CDR-promo that is used to announce the concert in Tel Aviv next week.
cdr promo for the israel concert on 2010/07/14 - cover
cdr promo for the israel concert on 2010/07/14 - backcover
cdr promo for the israel concert on 2010/07/14 - label
Download-only tracks are becoming common practise.
Call me old-fashioned, but I still haven't got used to it.
A couple of months old, and available as download-only is Thierry Deruelle's 'Stardust', a track that features Dweezil Zappa.
It's a nice track, combining a funky bass-line with psychedelic synth and guitar, or maybe it's synth-guitar...
It's a very nice track.
And besides being available as a download-only at the known outlets, you can also order it as 'CDR on demand'. A bit expensive for one track, but it does look good, and sounds even better.
So what do you get when four rock-ickons just want to have fun? The answer is easy: rock 'n' roll.
After last year's CD, here's the DVD. Recorded in concert at the 'Dodge Theatre' in Phoenix, Arizone, "Get Your Buzz On Live" delivers a classic rock concert.
Michael Anthony on bass, Chad Smith on drums, Joe Satriani on lead guitar and Sammy Hagar on vocals.
Fun.
