Eddie Gale @ Vision Fest!

If anybody reading this is planning to attend the Vision Fest in New York this week, may I recommend that you go and check out the Eddie Gale All Star Band, which includes William Parker on bass and Kidd Jordan on tenor among others. The band are to play at the festival venue, The Angel Orensanz Foundtion, on Saturday at 8:30 and it should be a hoot. If you do get to go, please drop me line on how the gig turned out as I would have loved to have been there myself. Visit the Vision Festival website for more information (it's flash site, so I couldn't retrieve any direct links to the schedule).

In case you don't know Eddie Gale or his music, let me give you a short bio. He was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1941, and grew up on gospel and blues. He started out playing trumpet with several prominent hard boppers, before he was drafted in to play on records by Sun Ra, Lester Young, and Cecil Taylor, Most notably the latter's Unit Structures. Gale has recorded sporadically as a leader, but two of those occasions have spawned the records Ghetto Music (Blue Note, 1968) and Black Rhythm Happening (Blue Note, 1969), both of which I admire deeply. The music on these records feels like an extension of Max Roach's experimentation with protest music with vocals in a hard bop setting, but at the same time the music is clearly inspired by the avant-garde and it also has a distinctive funkiness to it. His last recording as a leader was, to my knowledge, Afro Fire from 2004. Finally, I've uploaded a tune from Black... so you can get a taste of his music.

• Eddie Gale: "Song of Will" mp3 (from Black Rhythm Happening, Blue Note/Water, 1969)

Check out Gale's informative website for more, including video clips and sound bites.

Art Brut ist nicht Tot!

I love the title, It's a Bit Complicated, as if to say that things are not always as straightforward Bang Bang Rock 'n' Roll. But much of this is bang bang, in sound as well as themes, which is a good thing: It's a "Direct Hit", as singer Eddie Argos puts it. Complications include learning your German from a 7" record ("St. Pauli"), and choosing between kissing and the urge to turn up a pop song you love ("Pump up the Volume"). Argos is as witty as ever, even providing answers to important questions that have been asked for decades:

"What becomes of the broken hearted / they get drunk for a few weeks / and then they're right back where they started".

True, their sound may not have evolved much since last time around, but there are hooks aplenty and it's a terrific setting for Argos' jokes. (A side note: Some of their riffs even remind me of early nineties Amerindies such as Superchunk. 90's revival, anyone?). Punk rock ist nicht tot! I like this.

Get Yer Ga Ga's Out!

Spoon's lovely new record Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, due out on July 10th, is now streaming around the clock @ http://www.gagagagaga.net/.

Two Candles: relevant now as it was back then

(Gerard Richter, Two Candles)

This (apologies for the S-FJ pastiche).

Is...

...M.I.A the new Neneh Cherry? Compare:

• colorful video - check
• big a** earrings - check
• catchy as f**k - check

Well, that's about it, I suppose, but it gives me an excuse to post a link to this video, plus embed the one below:

Sound and Vision: Hope for Men?

I can't help but question some of Kevin J. Elliott's argumentation in his review Pissed Jeans' Hope for Men. While I won't disregard the fact that pop music is heavily associated with image -- some artists than others, of course -- basing your critique of a record almost solely on its relationship with the artist's image seems odd to me. This is what Elliott has to say about Hope for Men:

"The first thing you’ll notice when cracking open Hope for Men is that Pissed Jeans are pretty ordinary looking guys. By being photographed in artistic light, sitting in their bedrooms with lap dogs and half-eaten doughnuts, it sort of sucks out the danger that once coursed through the veins of their music."

Which would be ok if it was felt that the imagery on the record sleeve was a symptom of the music on the record itself. But Elliott admits to liking some of the music:

"Were Hope for Men packaged in a brown paper bag, things would be different. Even as elaborate farce (in visual presentation anyways), many of the album’s pieces are still extremely brutal, nihilistic, and confrontational, with riffs tossed around like a shot put aiming to break bones."

Even if I was to buy into his line of thought, I'd argue that the fact that Pissed Jeans are pictured as ordinary looking guys makes the band appear even more deranged -- juxtaposition of image and sound. But I still feel the music itself is enough to merit a response on its own terms, which I feel Elliott only gives to a lesser extent in his review.

And in case you were wondering, I happen to enjoy Hope for Men.