I thought it was San Francisco where the spirit of the Residents might have loomed largest over the years, but it looks like L.A.'s been getting a trickling of it as well more than usual. Edan Serge Gillan's CDR a few years ago caused a few head-swivels around WFMU, and now in 2008  Blk Thndr Rekrds has finally committed his five strange songs to 7" wax: panicked rock-a-boogie via turntable surface noise, atonal car horn-honk keyboards and toxic dayglo flank both sides of this one. I don't know if it's a windup or not, but his label claims all straightfaced that Edan hooked up with Tracii Guns and his kid in 2006 to play 20 shows in a revamped L.A. Guns around the world (including a somewhat heralded-on-the-press-release 20th Anniversary show for Rickki Rachtman's Cathouse on Sunset. Real Audio: "My Love Is a Fire."

In 1977 four New Englanders of varying musical goals convened for a private press LP under the name Orange, that by all accounts, was born under stressful circumstances (sneaking into studios, band members at odds), and upon release got no love from friends or family of all members involved (one of which being modern free-blowing stalwart Paul Flaherty). Now reissued on DeStijl, In the Midst of Chaos is an interesting peek at a short-lived combo at odds with itself: Flaherty obviously pushed for the freedom aspect while the others were split between trad leanings, fusion/bloozy needs, McCoy Tyner fixations, but all willing to go into freak-form mode after they got all of that outta the way. The result of the recording is a very cool LP of some basic mic'd interplay with some almost MX-80 moments of electric guitar flurry from Barry Greika, tranquil soundscapes with a few electronic flourishes and of course some hippo-charging sax action from Flaherty. MP3: "And Then She Appeared in the Midst of Chaos".

Varghkoghargasmal online discussions seem to attract metal-purist hatred akin to the kind that the late Anton Maiden received. "Retarded" seems to be the key phrase uttered, in fact. This stuff, however, is brilliant and completely original. Label tUMULt has been calling it "Wooden metal", maybe due to the fact the evocations of forests are clear in the sounds of the music. It definitely is Black Metal in essence, though there's no distortion on the instruments (all played by a fellow named Avenger) despite them being electric. Drum beats are struggling, guitar pluckings run into a few stutters, keyboard lines amble around, and even weirder, I can hear bits of stuff like the Norton Records King Usniewicz vibe drifting through this thing. That is, stumbling, amateurish American roots-rock! Buggy surf-guitar runs etc. Drowned In Lakes is an amazingly atmospheric and mood-setting record despite the bizarre descriptions above, enjoy "Tanz der Walteufel" (Real Audio) from an earlier EP, and check out "Far Away From Earth" (Real Audio) from Lakes.

On a somewhat more direct but still unconventional angle of darkness, I've been waiting for a solo release from Norway's Runhild Gammelsæter and I'm happy to say it's been worth the wait. Runhild first joined a pre-Sunn o))) Greg Anderson and Stephen O'Malley in the band Thorr's Hammer when she was a 17-year old exchange student, and two years ago did a great collaboration called Khlyst with James Plotkin.  Her new Utech release Amplicon swings between darkly beautiful passages and jarring, Diamanda-esque explosions of vocal mayhem, both soundtrack-like and extreme within short timeframe. Challenging listening, but painting an intriguing tapestry of sounds. "Love" (Real Audio)

After hearing the news of a possible Faces reunion, I spent the better part of the last few days watching live clips of the band in their 1970s heyday. In the process, I came across this recently-posted YouTube clip of Ron Wood live onstage with soul legend Don Covay, apparently sometime in the late 80s. The song they perform, "Somebody's Been Enjoying My Home," (RealAudio from Hatch's show) is one of my favorites from Covay's 1973 masterpiece Super Dude 1.

Check out some other great Faces-related YouTube clips after the jump, including a couple of amazing songs that the reunited group won't be able to do very well without Ronnie Lane, who died in 1997, and an embarassingly incoherent--but still strangely compelling--Ron Wood live performance of "Ooh La La" from 2004.

Hope they ditch those backup singers before heading out on the Faces tour. Aw who am I kidding. It's pretty much impossible to imagine anything involving a modern-day Rod Stewart not being absolutely godawful. I'd link to a YouTube video of Ron and Rod together very recently, doing "Maggie May," but my conscience forbids me. Believe me, you'd rather not see it.

Since we last checked in on the cassette tape archival Website Project C-90, they've continued to update their catalog and add features to their site, including discussion of the tapes in Russian and English and organization of the tapes by format (cassette, mini cassette, micro cassette). Definitely worth a second look! (tip from Create Digital Music)

Broadcasting historians and one-hit-wonder enthusiasts may want to take note of the death of Les Crane this past Sunday, aged 74.

Considered a pioneer of the talk-show format, Crane got his start on the radio in 1958 at KONO in San Antonio. After a stint at WPEN in in Philadelphia, he went on to KGO in San Francisco, where, according to his wikipedia profile, "he delighted and irritated callers and listeners with his forthright style and unwillingness to suffer fools quietly, often hanging up on callers in contravention of the polite ethos of the time."

In September 1963, he debuted on ABC-TV, where he hosted a couple of late night talk shows through the end of 1965. Crane, considered rather hip and edgy, was known as "the bad boy of late night television" according to the New York Times of his times. He conducted the first televised interview of the Rolling Stones in the United States in June 1964, and also hosted Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Bob Dylan, George Wallace, and Lee Harvey Oswald's mother, among others. He later worked as an actor on television shows such as "The Virginian" and "Love, American Style".

In 1971, Les Crane's reading of the poem "Desiderata" reached number 8 on the Billboard Charts, and earned him a Grammy for best spoken word recording. Its inspirational tone hit a chord in the popular sentiments of the times, but Crane disavowed the recording in 1987, saying "I can't listen to it without gagging", and even expressed his preference for the National Lampoon's parody version of the hit called "Deteriorata", released in 1972. (Station Manager Ken played both songs (the Crane version first) on his radio program back in on September 26, 2001 (streaming real audio))

Les Crane ended his working days as the chairman of a software company in northern California. He is survived by his daughter (whom he had with actress and ex-wife Tina Louise) and his wife of 20 years.

"Desiderata" by Les Crane followed by "Deteriorata" by National Lampoon on Ken's 9/26/01 show
Les Crane's wikipedia entry
Les Crane's obituary in the New York Times

Living in New York has made me very suspicious of giant, looming cranes. Sure, it's partly because they have a tendency to fall down, but it's also because the presence of a crane signifies a new high-rise billion-dollar piece of crap is about block out the sky. But then along comes something like Dinner In The Sky, a "what won't the rich spend money on" idea wherein the crane helps celebrate the sky by hoisting a table full of diners up into the air and serving them a luxury meal. What dinner wouldn't taste better while dangling 500 feet above the ground? What says "I Love You" more than suspending your family and friends over a treasured monument? And what screams "our company has more disposable income than yours" quite like an evening floating in the air with the Board of Directors and a bunch of Star Wars characters?

And what is the perfect food to eat in this situation? I say there's a certain yin and yang purity to eating foods up high that were dredged from the depths. Yes, sushi!

I couldn't have planned it out better - somehow more than a few of the Danish psych clips I've been looking through recently happen to be outdoor performances.  On a less serendipitous note, I've also been running into a lot of political kraut that I don't understand because I can't speak the language.  My guess is that this Skousen and Ingemann (top left) video would be a lot more interesting if I could translate, but all the same it's a fabulous slice of flower power at its peak (* Listener William kindly sent me a complete translation of this song - you can read it on the bottom fold of this post).  Savage Rose (top right) are outliers in this post not only because this particular song is more reminiscent of Phil Spector than it is of later psychedelia, but also because I've made a rare exception of posting a video that abruptly cuts out at the beginning and end.  Why'd I allow it?  Because I can't get this fuckin song out of my head and it totally rules my life right now!  Wow, beautiful vocals, beautiful piano solo, hooks hooks hooks, oh man oh man.  Most of Savage Rose's extensive discog doesn't match up to this single but oh man I mean really what a catchy song.

Gasolin' (bottom left) was one of Denmark's most popular acts throughout the seventies.  You wouldn't really be able to tell from the not so huge crowd however, since this 1971 performance caught them a bit before they blew up.  It's too bad a lot of the syncing isn't great in this Day Of Phoenix (bottom right) video because they've got an awesome drummer.  Can't tell you much more about this short lived band, but if you want to know more about this era in Denmark, here's a nice article for you to read from Tarkus magazine.  Also, you oughta check out cool footage of Burnin' Red Ivanhoe, Beefeaters, Pan, Thor's Hammer and part of some Danish documentary.

Here's what listener William sent me:

"I wrote down the lyrics while listening to the
song, so you might have slight inaccuracies in the text, but it really
is a basic text, and from what I can gather it describes the sun
setting on some bummed out hippies who've been up all night talking
(and god knows what else, but the text doesn't elaborate on this).

From the title and delivery of the song it resembles a typical hippie
protest song from the era, but it really doesn't convey any polical
sense, more a stoned out jammy feel about what it's like being
different (a hippie), this is most evident in the verse where someone
has gone too far, see below.

If you credit me on the blog, please link to my weblabel
www.tonebank.dk (which is offline right now, aarrg.)

----

(Here) from where we stand

{Here from where we stand
we can look around
to all sides

it moves
when we move
it changes
through all times}

everything has calmed down
and soon the sun will rise again
the accordion howls of seagulls
is slowly dying out

{from where we stand
we can look around
to all sides

it moves
when we move
it changes
in all times}

we have talked almost through the entire night
but here it has come to a stop
people are lying around us, sleeping
they do not know where to go

{from where we stand
we can look around
and we can look to all sides

it moves when
when we walk
it changes
through all times} x 2

there was a friend who left a little before the others
and now they say he came too far
but if there is no one who knows the direction
there's always someone who will take the blame (idiomatic expression
that literally means that someone will have the gun pointed at him)

{from where we stand
we can look around
to all sides

and it moves when we walk (back.vocal.: "and right where we stand")
it changes
through all times}
x 2

now the morning light is spreading out
with everything that it covers
here we have to spend some time
and there something has to be subtracted [? possibly just gibberish]

{chorus}

guitar solo at ~6:56

{chorus}

end."