Post No Bills
Friday, November 20, 2009
Posted
by Peter Margasak
on Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 3:50 PM
Jim Zespy, who bought the Chicago office of Southern Records and launched
Chicago Independent Distribution late last fall, has followed through on his desire to take advantage of the company’s zoning and storefront location to open a record shop. Logan Hardware (2410 W. Fullerton) made a soft launch today, offering a limited selection of new and used vinyl and CDs and used DVDs.
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Tags: record stores, Logan Square, Logan Hardware, Chicago Independent Distribution, Jim Zespy
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Posted
by Peter Margasak
on Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 1:37 PM
As deep as Chicago’s free-improv scene runs, there aren’t too many folks devoted exclusively to what’s usually called “lowercase sound” or “electroacoustic improvisation,” which is characterized by small sonic gestures, collective development, and an unconventional aural palette that gravitates toward tonal extremes. Last year Jon Abbey, who runs the important New York label Erstwhile—perhaps the most visible and tireless proponent of this stuff—sent me a self-released, self-titled CD-R by a couple of Chicagoans, Graham Stephenson (trumpet) and Dave Barnes (electronics). I didn’t get around to listening to it until very recently, but now that I have it’s clear that these two are pushing in a very different direction than most local improvisers.
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Tags: Graham Stephenson, Dave Barnes, Richard Kamerman, Reed Evan Rosenberg, Erstwhile Records, lowercase sound, electroacoustic improvisation, Aaron Zarzutzki, Brian Labycz, Dan Fandino, David Kirby, Enemy
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Thursday, November 19, 2009
Posted
by Peter Margasak
on Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 3:34 PM
I’ve always made time to check out new music from jazzy organ trio-turned-jam band
Medeski, Martin & Wood, but it’s been about a decade since the prospect has excited me. Back in the mid-90s the group pushed against all sorts of organ-trio conventions—they employed a bassist, Chris Wood, instead of the requisite guitarist; keyboardist John Medeski looked to organ rebel
Larry Young for inspiration; and the band developed a light-footed repertoire that squeegeed away much of the customary Hammond B-3 grease. Led by their sense of daring, MMW pushed further into the realm of improvisation, where around the turn of the decade they made (to my ears anyway) a wrong turn.
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Tags: Medeski Martin & Wood, jazz, jam bands, Indirecto Records, Radiolarians, Blue Note Records, House of Blues, John Zorn, Tzadik Records, Masada, improvisation
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Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Posted
by Peter Margasak
on Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 1:03 PM
Last month
Drag City Records released
Ouled Bambara: Portraits of Gnawa, its second project on the sublabel Twos & Fews, run by Kentuckian Nathan Salsburg. Salsburg, who also plays music himself and maintains the swell blog
Root Hog or Die—which includes a directory of free MP3s of traditional music of all stripes—has worked for the
Alan Lomax Archive since 2000, and both Twos & Fews releases have a raw, folkloric spirit. Last year the label debuted with a collection of a cappella singing by Kentucky coal miner
Nimrod Workman, and to celebrate its release
the label hosted an informal gathering at Intuit Gallery, where it played Workman’s music, screened rare video footage, and served quasi-authentic hillbilly delicacies.
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Tags: Gnawa, Drag City, Twos and Fews, Nathan Salsburg, Nimrod Workman, Ouled Bambara: Portraits of Gnawa, Intuit Gallery, Caitlin McNally, Alan Lomax, Root Hog or Die
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Friday, November 13, 2009
Posted
by Peter Margasak
on Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 6:51 PM
I remember getting a copy of the self-titled debut album from Mexican pop singer
Natalia Lafourcade back in 2003 and thinking it was nice, smart, and stylish but not particularly compelling compared to the work of more forceful Mexican artists like
Julieta Venegas and
Cafe Tacuba. Lafourcade was only 19 back then, but I didn’t bother to keep tabs on her development—which, as it turns out, was a mistake.
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Tags: Natalia Lafourcade, Julieta Venegas, Casa, Hu Hu Hu, Las Cuatro Estaciones del Amor, Logan Square Auditorium
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Posted
by Peter Margasak
on Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 12:35 PM
I don’t know what it is about the hip-hop business that makes a new album so often take years longer than planned to see the light of day. I get it that leaks can screw with a label’s marketing efforts, and I always hear about how artists want to make sure everything is perfect—on Tuesday Chicago’s
Kid Sister is releasing her debut album,
Ultraviolet, after nearly two years of delays, much of which she spent tweaking its mixes and redoing its track list. Still, it’s a pop record—when perfection takes that long, it can’t be helping an artist’s career. I mean, I’ve been waiting for the second album by the great Chicago MC
Diverse for six years now, but I’m not sure how many other fans are still holding out.
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Tags: hip-hop, Rita J, Kid Sister, Diverse, Artist Workshop, All Natural Records, Darkroom, Kenny Keys, K Kruz, Guilty Simpson, Black Spade
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Thursday, November 12, 2009
Posted
by Peter Margasak
on Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 1:06 PM
He's better known as front man for Devo and for his prolific work scoring TV shows and movies, but Mark Mothersbaugh is a visual artist as well. Back in 2005 I interviewed him about his music and about an exhibition of “corrected” antique photography he calls Beautiful Mutants that was happening at the time.
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Tags: Devo, Mark Mothersbaugh, David Leonardis Gallery, Vic Theatre
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Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Posted
by Peter Margasak
on Wed, Nov 11, 2009 at 5:09 PM
- Richard Lerman's "Sections for Screen"
We all know how important the soundtrack is to most films, and scores by certain composers—
Ennio Morricone,
Toru Takemitsu,
Bernard Herrmann,
Georges Delerue, and
John Barry, to name a few—more than stand on their own. Other soundtracks rely heavily on nonmusical material, such as
Walter Murch’s brilliant sound design in the Francis Ford Coppola film
The Conversation. Though it’s rare for filmmakers to place as much emphasis on sound as they do on what’s on the screen,
a program screening at the Gene Siskel Film Center on Thursday night at 6 PM offers just as much to fans of experimental music and noise as it does to cinephiles.
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Tags: Sound tracks, experimental music, sound, optical sound, Gene Siskel Film Center, Conversations at the Edge, Outer Ear Festival of Sound, Experimental Sound Studio, Michelle Puetz, Robert Russert, Barry Spinello, Paul Sharits, Peter Kubelka, Arnulf Rainer, Chris Langdon, Richard Lerman, Travelon Gamelon, Folkways Records, Guillermo Gregorio, Brian Labycz, Art Lange
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Posted
by Peter Margasak
on Wed, Nov 11, 2009 at 1:13 PM
The press release that accompanied my copy of
Don’t Throw Me Away (Galaxia), the charming second album from San Jose’s
Mumlers, cites
Bobby “Blue” Bland as singer Will Sprott’s favorite artist. Sprott’s got nothing on Bland, one of the great soul-blues vocalists of all time, but his nimble band has forged its own quirky strain of mush-mouthed soul. It’s hard not to refer to them as “the Mumblers,” considering Sprott’s slack-jawed delivery—when he’s at his most loquacious he reminds me a bit of Andrew Bird.
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Tags: Mumlers, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Will Sprott, Don't Throw Me Away, Galaxia Records, Beat Kitchen, "St. James Infirmary"
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Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Posted
by Peter Margasak
on Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 2:02 PM
To my knowledge no record store in the world matches the
Amoeba Records location in LA, a sprawling supermarket housing every conceivable stripe of music, run by people who know and care about what they’re selling. I’m not alone in feeling this way, and almost everyone I know who really digs records makes sure to visit the shop on any trip to the city. In fact, the store gets so many visitors that it’s started tracking and reporting on musicians who shop there, posting silly promo videos that reveal who bought what. John Herndon and Douglas McCombs of
Tortoise recently spoke about their purchases, and they’re so unhelpful that it’s actually rather entertaining. The video is after the jump.
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Tags: Tortoise, Amoeba Records, record shops, Los Angeles, John Herndon, Douglas McCombs
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