Uh, wow! And WTF!? That's what we thought as soon as we got a good look at these, the other day when Tyler from Ajna dropped 'em off at the store. Is this for real? This late 2011 release from the Ajna affiliated, vinyl-only cult metal reissue label Unseen Forces seems tailor made to be of immense aQuarius interest. First off, we, and many of you, are pretty into the whole Father Yod / Ya Ho Wa 13 / Source Family communal '70s psych rock thing. Pretty much everybody here at aQ owns one of those Japanese 13cd God & Hair box sets of Ya Ho Wa recordings, and we just this week hosted an instore event promoting the Source Family documentary currently screening in the SF Film Festival.
Also, several of us at aQ (and again, many of you) are keen on obscure '80s old school metal, the more outrageous and over the top, the better.
And somehow, unbelievably but awesomely, THE LAW brings those two obsessions together!!
You see, the guys in The Law were members of Source Family, followers of Father Yod. Bassist Peter Tobin and singer/lead guitarist Troy Duke at least, had played and recorded with Ya Ho Wa 13. But by the early '80s, they were transitioning from being long haired hippies to being long haired heshers! Gotta change with the times, man. Having formed a garage (more like barn, cuz they lived on a cattle ranch) band, The Law (= Love And Wisdom), in 1979, they decided to make the big step of moving from Hawaii (where the Source Family had been based since the late '70s, and Father Yod had sadly perished in his fatal hang gliding accident) back to LA, now a hotbed of heavy metal activity in the year of 1983! But they brought their interest in esoteric, psychedelic spirituality along with them, into the realm of the heavier-than-thou, glammed-up, Decline Of Western Civilization Part II, Sunset Strip scene, where they rubbed shoulders with the likes of Motley Crue. Theirs was sleazy hard rock with a mystic message, though, all right!!
Though that unusual backstory (and the picture of the band on the back of the lp, all done up in macho tight leather and studded belts) would probably have been enough to convince us to buy this, it was listening to the songs on this lp that made us decide, heck, all that AND they totally rule, in the hot rockin' department? Ok, Record Of The Week time.
These ten songs include hit single in an alternate universe "Chill The Wine", theme song "Here Comes The Law", and several with either "Baby" or "Love" in their titles, like the dirgey (mostly) ballad "Baby I'm A Mystery", the lyrics to which include the advice: "Sweet child of the fire, the only way to go is higher, higher, higher...". These songs feature plodding riffage, wailing psych guitar solos, commanding vox, low budget sound FX, and (we're just guessing here) an exploding drummer a la Spinal Tap.
Unseen Forces' ringleader Dennis Dread sez this slab of "vintage volcanic rock" is for fans of "The Rods, Oz, Blue Cheer, and Buffalo"... sure! And we'd say Dwarr, Cirth Ungol, and Iron Butterfly, too! There's paradoxically party-hardy outsidery-ness to this, The Law bringing in '60s influences (they do "Wild Thing"), astral influences, whatever, so that while it's not quite Ya Ho Wa 13 in spandex, it's sure not your usual corporate Sunset Strip LA '80s hair metal.
The power trio's sole, independently released, lp came out in 1983, and failed to become a commercial success despite (or because of) its eccentric charms, but it did eventually become a collectable rarity. This reissue probably will too!
Remastered and reissued with the cooperation of The Law's original members, also with help from Source Family historian Isis Aquarian. Pressed on 180 gram vinyl and lovingly packaged. Includes liner notes and lyrics insert. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!! And the label is almost out of 'em, so these may well be the last copies we'll be able to procure. But we still had to make it Record Of The Week, nonetheless. How could we not? None escape The Law!!
We sorta spilled the Mamaleek beans, mistakenly reviewing their forthcoming full length last time, when in fact, we were meant to be reviewing THIS, a four song 12", just out on local label The Flenser, the latest (not counting the NOT OUT YET full length) from this local black metal brotherly duo whose sound has mutated over the course of their previous records, touching on blessed out metal gaze, avant black jazz, and pretty much every warped stop in between, and nothing gets less twisted, or less difficult to describe this time around, but they do seem to continue to move ever further from the black metal that birthed them, although to be fair, they were pretty well removed already with record number one, but on He Never Said A Mumblin' Word, the sound once again exists in some nether region, fusing, lurching distort beats, crumbling atonal riffage, bizarre vocals, damaged production, twisted on-the-verge-of-collapse arrangements, the vocals this time around even STRANGER, sounding like a chorus of croaking frogs, but here fused to one of the prettiest things we've heard from these guys, a lilting noise-doom dirge, that constantly devolves into a sort of industrial lumber, a sort-of-chorus perhaps, with the sounds even more distorted and blown out and in-the-red, but somehow remaining weirdly lovely, which seems to be these guys' specialty, making beautiful ugliness or vice versa.
Here's where we usually say, oh the rest of the record follows suit, but with these guys of course it doesn't, track two is all whispering winds, and acoustic guitars, a slow building swell of crumbling buzz, sampled operatic vocals, before exploding into some sort of blackened electro, with a programmed beat, more crumbling riffage, and some seriously harsh processed vocals, but again, some impossible poppiness swirled in, and eventually some almost black metal, but really, the sound is more like some sort of malfunctioning, avant, noise drenched electronica, with some madman growling and bellowingly demonically along, maybe black electro karaoke? Whatever it is, it's fucked up and fantastic.
The third song manages to be even MORE distorted, which once having heard the other two songs seems impossible, but the weirdly processed, crumbling, peaking riffage, becomes something weirdly textural and droned out, hear drifting atop swells of synth swirl and more hellish vokills, another delicate balancing act between twisted beauty, and harsh ugly heaviness. Finally, the duo wrap things up with a loping crumble-pop black-gloom dirge, that plants drum machine skitter beneath cascades of ultra distortion, soaring female vox, bellowed demonic vokills, the whole thing managing to sound sun dappled and dreamy, even though it also sounds like the insides of your speakers must be melting...
We know you've all be waiting for us to weigh in on one of the burning issues of our time: just how terrible IS the Lou Reed / Metallica album? Is it terrible terrible, or maybe so bad it's good (but still terrible)? Or, perhaps, like The Wire, would we be all contrary and proclaim it to actually be brilliant, not terrible? Well... let's just say that actually writing a review of Lulu is difficult 'cause simply sitting through Lulu is difficult! Imagine a random rock band (Metallica) jamming on some generic stoner riffs they wrote in like 5 minutes, while Grandpa Simpson (Lou Reed) speak-sings disturbing/cryptic/asinine lyrics from the POV of an underage girl prostitute and whatnot over the top... and it's TWO freaking discs long!
Well, even opinion here at AQ is divided... just like when Morbid Angel's Illud Divinum Insanus came out. We DO like stuff that's "fucked up" after all, and certainly this is. And there's ways in which the "transgressiveness" of this might appeal to Oxbow fans, for sure (and we're Oxbow fans). But if you're a Metallica fan... well you're a glutton for punishment already anyway at this point, and this IS better than St. Anger (what isn't)? Is it possible that Lulu is Lou Reed's laughing-all-the-way-to-the-bank joke on a clueless, desperate-to-be-artistic Metallica?
Maybe we should just cop out and say that Lulu stands outside of any conventional good/bad judgment. It's just...ludicrous. And not 'cause it's Lou Reed and Metallica, as a concept, per se. Actually, when we first heard about Lou Reed teaming up with Metallica, some of us thought it had potential. On paper. After all, Lou Reed had written songs for KISS before (on 1981's Music From The Elder) and look how that turned out. No, seriously, we dig that KISS album. And if Lou was good enough to write songs for KISS, he should be good enough to write songs for Metallica, heck they should have brought him in sooner. Or, another possibility, was that they would do a full-on noise album together, conducted by Reed: Metallica Machine Music, perhaps?! That could have been cool. Instead, we got this arty absurdity. Which, to be fair, does have its (unintentionally HILARIOUS) moments. For instance, "I Am The Table" (not the name of the song, but it should be, it's actually called "The View", after the TV talk show) is almost worth the price of admission, it's already a classic. Or, check out the very next song, "Pumping Blood", sample lyric from Reed: "Waggle my ass like a dark prostitute coagulating heart pumpin' blood... c'mon, James!"
Yes, he really says/sings that. Wow.
And if Reed's half-assed spoken word style, way-too-high-in-the-mix vox weren't ruinous enough, James Hetfield then sings backup throughout, in his usual heartfelt, gruff, rock dude croon. Singing stuff like the aforementioned, "I am the table!". The juxtaposition is, again, just so ridiculous. As is the entire album. We're not sure what's worse, when they try to do "songs" (like "Iced Honey") or when it's just Lars on the drums providing random backup for Reed's beat poetry.
Ok, it's not all laffs. Ferinstance, in the finale of the set, the whole second half of the epic 20 minute "Junior Dad" is just droning somber strings, and that's quite pretty, although that part doesn't appear to involve either the members of Metallica OR Lou Reed...
So, our "verdict": you should definitely hear this, a least a bit of it, for a laugh. But buy the thing? Well, we've got one copy, and expect to have it for a while. But please go ahead, buy it. We dare you. And when you're listening to it, try not to imagine this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRPzElP_eSI
Ultra obscure, freaky French '70s underground psychedelic proto punk reissued, oui!! Crazy how there's still stuff like this out there ready to be (re)discovered. The Rob Jo Star band originally put this out in 1975, probably under the influence of the Velvets and the Stooges, kinda like cult Canadian contemporaries Simply Saucer. Like SS, the Rob Jo Star Band packs these tracks with all kinds of ridiculous synth blurt, electronics swooshing and bleeping and farting all throughout this album, other key elements of which include jangling distorted guitars and heavily accented vocals... Pretty darn cool if you ask us! There's moments that sound like a French version of The Cramps, inside a spaceship; others where the singer gets kinda Damo, and basically it's a healthy (or perhaps unhealthy) dose of throbbing fuzz, chugging rock n' roll rhythms, handclaps, wild vox, with song titles like "Acid Revolution" and "Blood Flower". File with the likes of Soggy, Angel Face, and Metal Urbain...
Limited edition, import.
Who is The Space Lady, you ask? Well, among San Franciscans who were here from the late seventies to the nineties, many may remember The Space Lady's (aka Susan Dietrich) busking presence on the streets of the Castro. Wearing her plastic winged helmet with a flashing red light on top, and flamboyantly dressed, she would sing dreamy covers of popular hits ("I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night", "Major Tom") and some originals too, with just a Casiotone, or sometimes an accordion and a reverbed microphone, adding a cosmic flair to her sound. Always pushing her wares, she would often pause mid-song to passers-by and hawk buttons, tapes, postcards, all featuring her winged-helmeted profile - Scott here still treasures his original tape! Before San Francisco, she busked in Boston/Cambridge and has been seen in Berkeley too, but nowadays resides in Colorado, where she is still at it. She even travels to Roswell, New Mexico and plays often in front of the UFO museum and research center. Like other notable eccentric street musicians of San Francisco like Omer (notoriously known around the aQ neighborhood as Bum Jovi) and the loincloth-wearing violinist Thoth (who was the subject of an Oscar-winning documentary short), The Space Lady was previously featured in the Songs in The Key of Z compilations of eccentric outsider musicians. All three have moved on from San Francisco leaving our neighborhoods a lot less exciting (though in Omer's case, people are probably getting more sleep now). The Space Lady was the best of them all, and it's so awesome to have her music on vinyl for the first time. Perfect for anyone into the charmingly eccentric outsider sounds of free-spirited performers like Medico Doktor Vibes, Michael Farneti and Mij. Highly Recommended!
One can always count on Johnny Trunk of the amazing Trunk records for making a mix that is as hilarious and head-scratching as it is beautifully listenable. When asked by strangers what kind of music his label releases, Trunks's response is usually, "you know, funny old shit", which if you think about it is the perfect response to describe the kinds of audible curiosities he reissues, from long forgotten children's TV show soundtracks to obscure novelty records and forgotten jazz greats. A few of the tracks included here are from earlier out of print reissues in the Trunk catalog such as Leona Anderson's wonderfully awful Music To Suffer By, but many of the tracks are from Trunk's private record collection, likely highlighting the best tracks on perhaps otherwise less interesting albums. You get a full gamut of styles and genres from novelty calypso songs from Robert Mitchum and Bernard Cribbins, space-lounge jazz from Alain Romans and Sergio Mihanovich, musique concrete from Pierre Henry and Pierre Schaffer, the punk dub of The Jellies, classical piano from Glenn Gould, ethnic music curios and warped kid songs. So great and for a real nice price, you'd be foolish not to pick this up! (And sorry, the more expensive vinyl version is now gone it seems.)
Never has a record's title more accurately described its contents, cuz we really had no idea what to expect from Hartley C. White's This Is Not What You Expect. Based on the cover, we thought this would be some sort of blues rock, but this is WAY further out. Some serious outsider, next level avant-blues-dub-reggae-funk weirdness, that careens wildly from echo-drenched, looped and layered a cappella rounds, to fractured lo-fi funk, to dirgey, groovy, doomy, psychedelia, to hard rocking, angular, buzzing, sung/spoken WTF? trippiness. White, who was living in Queens when he recorded these jams (between 1984 and 2009), was raised in Jamaica during the turbulent sixties. He conceived of his sound, which he describes as 'Whopazootic', as a musical reimagining of Bruce Lee's martial arts, White's 'broken rhythms' meant to be both offensive and defensive. Wow. But this stuff actually does kind of conjure that vibe, lots of overdubbed vocal workouts, but just as many Funkadelic style freakouts, all wound around classic Jamaican dub styles, some swirling sampled strings, some seriously confusional avant pop, dreamy psychedelic balladry, singsongy almost lullaby like sweetness, all crafted from funky basslines, fluttery flutes, skronking horns, shimmering kalimba melodies, primitive drum machines and FX heavy guitar strum, White's vocals alternately sweetly crooning, chanting hypnotically, or toasting boisterously. The label sez recommended for fans of 10CC, Sly & The Family Stone, Willis Earl Beal and Ariel Pink, and while we'd usually scoff at such disparate comparisons, in this case, that's really not that far off.
