Ted Lucas

One mailing list I hope never to be unsubscribed from is that of the Drag City label. The latest missive from them brought tales of the new album from Six Organs of Admittance and single from Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and the Cairo Gang. Let's not forget also that it is this imprint that supports many Alasdair Roberts' releases.

But it is their reissues that have been causing me the most frissons of excitement. Of course, it was Drag City (and indirectly, Six Organs Of Admittance) who allowed the world to hear Gary Higgins' Red Hash, when they oversaw its re-release in 2005. That album's dazzling magnificence has seen it become relevant to the constant inner dialogue that is the tumultuous and fatuous debate over the best album I have ever heard. Red Hash is up there.

Anyway, the latest Drag City email contained details not of one of their own reissues, but pointed in the direction of the Sebastian Speaks label (run by former Silver Jews guitarist William Tyler). They have put out a curious thing from 1975 by Ted Lucas. Lucas was a meandering soul who drifted between a few nondescript bands in the 60s to become quite a big deal as a sessioner in the 70s, according to a his tribute website, working with Frank Zappa, Yes, Ravi Shankar and a few others. Here, for starters, is a song:



His 1975 eponymous album, apparently known as The OM Album among many, is a delightful thing. Sebastian Speaks put out the album earlier this year, and it hits a vaguely similar spot to Higgins, if a little less spacey and textured. The LP is full of short examples of woozy songwriting by a man for whom life must have been one long stretch of calm, with quite a lot of weed thrown in too. On that note, Lucas even managed the difficult trick of coming up with a song extolling drug use that isn't wretched:



Some other interesting reissues in recent times from Drag City include that from Vernon Wray:



along with that from good old Mickey Newbury:



and a wonderful load of nonsense from Ed Askew, the prototype for Daniel Johnstone:

Live Review: De La Soul, Enmore Theatre, Feb 10

I've been to some concerts recently. And even had a good time at a couple, proving there is still life in the old dog yet. Writing about them, however, is another matter, but I did have to ease out the following as a favour to someone.

When De La Soul Is Dead was released in 1991, it was a strident deconstruction of everything that had defined the trio three years earlier on their debut 3 Feet High and Rising. That album saw them at the forefront of a strange new age for hip hop, one that involved fluorescent colours, advocated peace and compassion and had a surreal sense of humour. The daisy age phenomenon allowed De La Soul commercial success, yet some in the rap community deemed them lightweight, hippies, or worst of all, hip hop for white people.



De La Soul Is Dead was a cutting, ironic and relatively dark riposte to all that. It distanced them from the acts who followed their lead and returned them to the less exuberant, more profound territory of the pre-daisy years, with a sound more like Eric B & Rakim than the Jungle Brothers. Twenty years later, they are playing Enmore to pay tribute to this landmark release. The enthusiasm and the heart are all there, but they failed to honour De La Soul Is Dead, preferring instead to tread their well-worn path of dance-happy party music.

These days, De La Soul cruise around the world like the Harlem Globetrotters, performing shows that are more exhibitions of hip hop than anything original. Naturally, there is nothing wrong with that, aside from them being a little one-dimensional in their hell-bent desire to entertain, negating the changes of pace and overlapping samples that make their music so extraordinary. This was one of those typical shows, apart from the absence of Maseo, whose flight was cancelled from the US. Long-time producer Prince Paul filled in on decks.

True, they did play a number of De La Soul Is Dead’s best tracks, with Trugoy and Posdnous careering through ‘A Roller-Skating Jam Named ‘Saturday’’ and ‘Ring Ring Ring’, while 3 Feet High was honoured with ‘Potholes In My Lawn’ and ‘Buddy’. It was a good show, but anyone who came expecting something in the spirit of their fine second album would have seen its message swamped by the deafening sound of a good time.

Goodbye Pen Pusher

Around this time of year about five years ago I was still in the middle of what is increasingly turning out to have been a fruitless waste of time and money. In other words, my Masters in Journalism from London College of Communication. In the midst of this, I was offered the chance to contribute to a new London-based literary journal that had been set up by a pair of bright-eyed and pro-active young women working in publishing. The journal's title was Pen Pusher and back in 2006 its design was only a few cuts above your average campus lit-journal. Almost a chapbook (although it managed to achieve some degree of notoriety on the back of its front design being straight from the imagination of one Ricky Wilson of indie morons Kaiser Chiefs).

I contributed a few things to them in their early days. All of it the ignorant dribblings of a half-ambitious, sycophantic idealist enthralled by the premise of this new magazine. So the poor editors got lightweight and ill-informed opinion pieces on both Norman Mailer and JD Salinger, and then a little something on PJ O'Rourke. That was Pen Pusher's first year, and they have come a long way since then as you can see from their website.

Anyway, the other day they announced they were packing it in. Here is the email:

Pen Pusher was hoping to take the magazine kicking and screaming into the digital age as we informed you all last year... But sadly finance – our continuing lack of a grant or funding of any kind – and an ill-advised lack of interest in the digital world means we have taken the very difficult decision to cease publication.

We're older, no wiser, but yet feel it is time to move on to other projects.

Many thanks to everyone and anyone who has ever submitted, been selected as a contributor, been interviewed by us, supported, read, or even bought the magazine since we began as a free and modest wee thirty-two-page saddle stitch number we gave to our friends in 2006.

Apologies to anyone who has sent a submission – if you have provided postage we will return your work – otherwise there will not be a response; and apologies to those of you with subscriptions – we are unable to refund any remaining monies or provide old issues in lieu of those you were expecting to receive. Hate us for this if you like… or don't!

Once again many, many thanks to all who have been involved or supported us in any way. Best of luck to all aspiring writers and poets, and very best wishes,

Pen Pusher.

This is obviously a real shame, as Pen Pusher filled a vital hole on the literary landscape, in its own small way. This was a publication accessible to both readers and possible contributors, worlds away from the stuffiness of the established journals and more inclusive than those that exist entirely within academia. It managed to be credible, approachable and it looked good, eventually. The other thing was that it actually managed to get read: its list of stockists was impressive and the launch nights of each issue were always well-attended. Over five years it built up a firm identity and a loyal readership.

This all begs the question of why exactly they could never get funding. It's not as if their profile wasn't high enough (more than once I read about Pen Pusher in national newspapers, and one time it was even featured on Radio 4, with the editors interviewed) or that the quality was inferior. Of course, anyone seeking arts funding might expect to be disappointed what with the economic panic of the last two years, but even before then Pen Pusher failed to secure funding. The Arts Council will have its reasons but the message it sends out to anyone wishing to launch a similar enterprise is stark: even if you support it yourself for five years and achieve a success you never envisaged when you started, we still won't help you out. Pen Pusher was not the sort of magazine that could have been bought by a publisher and, say, had a marketing team installed and gone for free distribution. So Arts Council funding was really its only chance.

It must be said that such brutal disregard doesn't seem to be the case here in Australia. Here I find half a dozen or so journals doing pretty well, such as Overland, Southerly, Meanjin, Mascara and others, and they get funding. It's true there's an awful lot less competition for arts funding over here, but I'd rather be in a landscape where you can breathe and look around than one that as so crowded as to be stifling.

A Final Word On The Year That Was...

I have a friend who is a list maniac. He loves to make lists. His lists are his children. He recently made a list of the top live shows from 2010, and given that 2010 was a year that saw me visiting many countries in the name of music, I thought I would do the same. Such an exercise seems to be more worthwhile than the humdrum live review, as this can act as a pointer towards who is good, rather than account of something that has already happened. So...

1. Nils Bech - Slottsfjell Festival, Norway
Disco-opera boy prancing in tight denim as the sun sets.



2. Rufus Wainwright - Kaufleuten, Zurich
'Song-cycle' show, in beautiful theatre, complete with belly-ups during 'The Dream'.



3. John Grant - Green Man Festival
Included an acappella version of 'Chicken Bones', in the rain.



4.The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Abart, Zurich
They didn't seem like they could care less, which made them just too attractive.



5. Yeasayer - Exil, Zurich
The first time I saw the new album live, and was happy.



6. Pavement, Primavera Festival
Finally saw a comeback show, splendid it was.



7. Mayer Hawthorne, Abart, Zurich
He said he had eaten the best meal of his life at Abart.



8.The Black Angels, The Borderline
Too hot to breathe, soulful nonetheless.



9. Field Music, Great Scott, Allston, Mass
Tiny audience but the Brewis brothers on special form.



10. Sleepy Sun, Green Man Festival
One of the last shows before Rachel left.



11.Tame Impala, Enmore Theatre, Sydney
Biggest ever show in Sydney. They slowed everything down, still sounded okay.



12. Crowded House, New Theatre, Oxford
Blissful, including cover of Bowie's 'Moonage Daydream'



13. Built To Spill, Dynamo, Zurich
Second on the bill to Dinosaur Jr, which seemed unholy.



14. The Besnard Lakes, Green Man Festival
One of the best sets of this year's Green Man



15. Scout Niblett, Primavera
Utterly flabbergasted to find I like her.



16. Little Feat, Cropredy Festival
Dayglo t-shirts and all.



17. The Dixie Bee Liners - Cropredy Festival
Very pleasant surprise on a miserable day, with a largely miserable line-up.



18. MV + EE, La Case a Chocs, Neuchatel
Perfect tiny space for the woozed-out couple.



19. Dr Dog, Primavera
New material is good, but it was the Fate stuff that did the job.



20. Monotonix, Primavera
It's Monotonix, which should offer an explanation of this set.

Repairs to the Mothership

I have finally managed to give my website a thorough updating, adding a number of features and reviews I managed to do over the last 12 months for the likes of The Stool Pigeon, The Quietus and R2.

Among these morsels are interviews with songwriter fellows John Grant and Kevin Barker, fantastic Canadians The Besnard Lakes, dirge-psych band Carlton Melton, and rather more leftfield artisans Surf City and Giana Factory.

I can offer reviews of albums by The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger, Phosphorescent, Faun Fables, The Black Angels, Alasdair Roberts and two from Elliott Smith - the Introduction To... and the reissue of Roman Candle.

And finally, flying in the face of the ongoing pointlessness of live reviews, a write-up of two festivals - Green Man 2010 and Slottsfjell 2010, and The Black Angels' Borderline show last year.

Interview: The Black Angels

In the forthcoming September issue of the Stool Pigeon, there will be a short Q&A with The Black Angels about their new record Phosphene Dream. By me. This is possibly the best album so far this year that isn't by a hirsute, troubled homosexual from the mid-west. Their third LP is looser, less drone-based, with more harmonies and with, believe it or not, a sense of humour and positivity. The first track to appear online was 'Telephone', available for free download. Such a song is a genuine change of direction for this most soulful of psychedelic bands, proving them admirers of the lighter side of 60s rock like The Byrds, The Yardbirds, early Rolling Stones, and as they mention below, The Zombies. The darkness and thud is still there mind, they've just complemented it with some attractive dashes of colour and zeal.

The interview took place backstage at London's Borderline before they played a devastating set that night, prompting one wide-eyed, awed punter to observe, loudly, "man this is fucking brilliant" to the band's two directors of noise, singer Alex Maas and guitarist Christian Bland. It was those two who sat down with me, and below is the more or less verbatim transcription of what followed. We covered those stylistic changes, mismatched tour buddies, death and God among other things...





The new album is certainly more melodic and maybe mellower than before. Is that what you were going for?

Alex Maas: It’s definitely more melodic, and we wanted to use more vocals. Everyone can sing in the band so we wanted everyone to have their chance. As far as being more mellow, I hadn’t really thought of that but I can see the songs you’re thinking of.

Christian Bland: It’s not as freaky.

AM: And because its not as freaky I think more people can understand it, but without us losing any artistic integrity and keeping it in the psychedelic realm.

So do you think it's more accessible?

CB: I think so. It’s a way of getting some people intrigued who might not have heard us before, so they delve further in, and then on the next album we just freak them out [makes buzzzzzz noise].

What made you go and record this one in LA rather than Austin?

AM: Dave Sardy [producer] was interested in recording us. He said he wanted to make the most psychedelic record of the new millennium, and we took the bait. Once we got out there he had really good tact in how he spoke to us and was really good at motivating us and pushing our sound. He pushed us to try different things and took us out of our element to open our minds. We have new ways of looking at music now as far as writing songs goes.

CB: The new album is a lot more thought out. The second album was the band in the practice room jamming, and if something sounded good we’d be "sounds cool, that’s a song," but this one had more thinking it out – but not over-thinking, that’s horrible.

AM: There's something happening all the time.

Does Mr Sardy think he succeeded in making the best psychedelic album of the new millennium?

AM: Yeah, he really likes it. He’s really excited. I remember getting text messages at two o’clock in the morning saying "dude, I’m still listening to this record," and then at three in the morning, "man, I really like this record." We believe in it too, it’s a whole new direction.

CB: The last one was an hour and this is only thirty-five minutes. It’s unexpected... so it’s better.

The album seems less directly political in its lyrics, is it maybe more abstract in that way?

AM: Yeah, there is a political aspect to it, but not an overtly obvious one. We don’t have a song like ‘The First Vietnamese War’ on here but there are definitely elements of that like ‘River Of Blood’ and ‘Phosphene Dream’.

CB: I think each song is a metaphor for something. A song like ‘Telephone’ in a literal interpretation is about calling someone in this physical world, but it may be something more than that, like trying to pray to God and not getting answers. Something like that.

Speaking of God, spirituality has always seemed important to The Black Angels, is that still the case?

AM: Definitely. We were just saying before actually that a song has to move you first before anything else. Spirituality is huge in music, it’s where everything comes from, this ethereal, weird place in our mind or our bodies.

CB: I think music is our way to commune with the unknown, the unexplained.



How far do the new songs date back?

CB: A couple of them were actually written before Directions To See A Ghost came out, and they could have been on there, but they weren’t developed enough. In 2007-09 those other eight songs were in development, then when we laid those down we felt the other two were ready to be let loose.

AM: We brought Dave 16 or 17 songs and asked him what songs appealed to him, and he helped us narrow it down to what he felt were the strongest. We have seven extra songs we have been playing forever, including this one called ‘Ronettes’ that could have been on Passover and then on Directions To See A Ghost. We’ll release it at some point.

I guess the two songs on Phosphene Dream that date back farthest could have ended up a lot different if they had been recorded back then.

CB: Yeah, there’s actually versions of them recorded with the guy who recorded our first two albums [Erik Wofford], and they sound different to what they are on Phosphene Dream. There was a song called ‘Raindance Song’ that became 'Entrance Song' on Phosphene Dream. When we listened to it in our old studio in Austin it was so slow, but the new one has more power behind it, more energy.

AM: Which is probably good for us, because we might not have done that on our own [without Sardy]. It’s always good to see a band have variety of sound. We see songwriting in a different way now, we think of elements we didn’t think of before.

Were you listening to anything in particular between albums that changed your approach?

CB: We’d been listening to a lot of the same stuff as ever, but maybe the Zombies. I was listening to Odessey And Oracle a lot when we were in LA. To me 'Yellow Elevator' has that feel. I was listening to a lot of the earlier Zombies stuff too.

AM: A lot of Clinic.

CB: And Love.

AM: A lot of modern bands too, like A Place To Bury Strangers, Wooden Shjips, we still listen to The Warlocks all the time. There’s so much music, man.

This is the first album without Jennifer Raines on organ. Does that make any difference to how the band sounds?

CB: She wasn't actually in the band when Directions To See A Ghost was released. She was just on the liner notes because she happened to be in the studio when we were recording it in 2007. The whole story with her is that I knew her before The Black Angels ever existed. We got along because we liked the same movies and the same music, so we used to get together and have fun. Early on in the band’s career we had just four people in the band, and I thought it could be cool to have an organ added, and I had one so why not just tell Jennifer what to play and she could memorize it. So that’s how she started out in the band, us just telling her how to play.

And that’s what also led us to parting ways with her, because on three separate occasions extending from 2005 to 2007, we asked her to go and get some lessons and learn how to play, and she was like “we’ll see… my hands are too small”. We asked her a third time and six months later she still hadn’t. We had signed to Suretone by then, which was a bigger label and we were starting to get serious, moving on. All of us had stepped up our musicianship and she hadn’t, so we parted ways.

On record, it definitely made no difference. Live, it might have made a little difference because some songs have six parts, and we only have five people. But we figured out five parts that are most crucial to the core of the songs, and moved on.

I saw you guys play in Zurich earlier this year when you were supporting Wolfmother. How do you think that tour went?

AM: If ten people liked us at those shows, just ten, then we’re happy. To be honest, we were never huge Wolfmother fans and we don’t have any of their albums. But it was a good opportunity to get new fans, so we took it. As a band you don’t want to turn down those situations.

CB: It was good to play in front of a lot of people, that’s the positive side of it. But looking back, I don’t know about that tour.

AM: We haven’t been back [to Europe] yet to see how many fans we’ve got. But it’s gonna be good for us no matter what.

CB: But it was a mismatch.

AM: Oh for sure.

CB: We had a setlist that we were playing for the first three nights in England, and people in the crowd were standing around, folding their arms, talking to their friends.

AM: 16-year-old kids.

CB: So we changed out setlist to more energetic tunes and people got more into it. We had to cater to the Wolfmother crowd a little bit.

AM: It was the smart thing to do. We’re not there to lose fans, we're there to gain fans. So if we have to do a couple of things to change, then fine. But it definitely wasn’t our ideal tour. Now we know the guy [Andrew Stockdale of Wolfmother] pretty much fired his entire band and got new people to play that tour – it’s kind of shitty to not go with the people who got you to that situation. We don’t know what went on though, and its none of my business, and its up to him, but still.

If we could have gained a couple of younger fans this time around then great. I remember when we first started playing and it would just be 50- or 60-year old men - all these old record collectors would show up. All these guys from the sixties. They were our first fans. Indie record store owners. But getting a new audience is a great thing, we need to convert their minds.

So will Phosphene Dream appeal to, for example, Wolfmother fans?

AM: I think it will be more accessible to more people. Not necessarily Wolfmother fans, but it will be more accessible to people in general

CB: Anyone who has a love for 60s music should be into this.

AM: There’s still a few who won’t like it. Like huge AC/DC fans.

CB: Yeah heavy riff fans might not dig it. But jangle-rockers might.

Is there a difference in how you are received between Europe and the USA?

AM: Yeah, and between Europe and the UK. Europe is bigger.

CB: In Germany and France, they just freak out. They love it.

AM: And you come to the UK and people don’t really know how to react to your music.

CB: Although when we play these smaller shows in England, they’re always awesome. 200 or 300 come out and they are just into it. But we’re not at a level in the UK to play for more than 500. We’re still working on things in the UK.

You two have known each other since you were 12. How has your creative relationship changed over the years?

AM: I think recently we’ve probably been writing more on our own. I think that’s something that had to happen at some point, to move in different directions, then come back and bring certain ideas to the table. I think our communication has got way better than three, four, even two years ago.

CB: There are still magic moments. Sometimes if Alex is at the house when I’m at the house and he hears me playing something, he’ll come in and we’ll be inspired by the spirit and we’ll develop a whole song. That’s what happened with ‘Haunting At 1300 McKinley’, I was playing a riff and he came in and was like ‘dude!’. He started playing the drums and singing, and boom we had a song. On rare occasions that happens and the spirit leads us.

AM: You never want to force anything.

CB: We’ve never been ‘okay, we gotta write a song’.

AM: But if we had to, we’d fucking do it.

On the sleeve to Passover (2006), you quoted Edvard Munch ("Illness, insanity, and death are the black angels that kept watch over my cradle and accompanied me all my life."). Is death still a preoccupation for you guys?

CB: Yeah, it’s the only pure truth.

AM: That nothing lasts forever is the ultimate truth. It’s all about what you do now while you’re alive, what you do with the power you have. Death is always behind you, and its intriguing to us that you’re always being chased by that. It’s not morbid – it’s what makes life a beautiful thing.

Reviews: PVT / BARB

Here are a couple of reviews that won't see the light of day otherwise. The bright and the iffy of Antipodean music, so it is.

PVT
***
Church With No Magic

Rugged Sydney synth merchants back with a third album and a new name.

Pivot, or PVT as they are now known after a legal challenge from an American band with the same name, have always dwelt in an ominous, more hip and subterranean realm than the likes of comparable Australian acts like Cut Copy or Midnight Juggernauts. This is largely down to the fact they are signed to Warp Records, who are so credible it hurts, what with the giant figure of Aphex Twin still an influence on all their releases. Church With No Magic tentatively moves away from the consistent electro bang and clatter of 2008’s O Soundtrack My Heart and instead features pounding crescendos and peaks and troughs of experimental – almost industrial – noise, best evidenced on the imperious 'Light Up Bright Fires'. Preventing the record from being too abrasive are the mellow pop vocals of singer Richard Pike, which take a much more central role than ever before. Church With No Magic is an impressive evolution, though one senses PVT’s true potential is still to be realised.

Key Tracks: 'Light Up Bright Fires', 'Window', 'Timeless'


____________________________________________________________________________________________________


BARB
**
BARB

Young luminaries pool resources for first album together.

Whenever a so-called generation of artists emerges from a certain part of the world, those involved are usually quick to disassociate themselves from such a thing, eager to be seen as individuals and not the result of a ‘vibrant scene’. The current golden generation of young Antipodean songwriters, however, have always seemed eager to celebrate themselves, and so it is that BARB has emerged, a veritable supergroup featuring Liam Finn, James Milne (a.k.a Lawrence Arabia), EJ Barnes, Connan Mockasin, and Seamus Ebbs.

The warmth between this lot is admirable, but unfortunately the project falls down simply because of a lack of personality. It seems all these talents are deferring to each other with none injecting their full selves into the songs, and thus the album is a rather gutless, ill-disciplined mess; BARB lacks the wit and charm of Milne or the soul and passion of Finn. Songs such as 'Lot To Learn' and 'Characterful' feel like the result of half-hearted jamming, waiting for something to happen that clearly never did. ‘A Time To Contemplate’, sung by Finn, marks the only occasion any kind of firm direction is found, a spooky, frenzied track marked by Finn’s familiar electronic experimentation. But it’s not enough, considering the undoubted flair of the artists involved.

Key Tracks: 'A Time To Contemplate', 'Beatman Hasn’t Eaten', 'Counting Sheep'