WFMU : Freedom is Freeform!

Suicide may have lit the torch in the mid-'70s, but one could argue that by decade's end, its carriers lived on the other side of the country -- in San Francisco.  Sure, L.A. had the Screamers and some other odd ducks.  But SF hosted an impressive number of bent bands who used synths, tape machines and other electrical apparatus to extend punk's mutated left end by leaps/bounds.  Informed by avant garde composers and performance artists, fueled by apocalyptic abandon and paranoid pop twitch, groups like Tuxedomoon, Nervous Gender, the Residents, Factrix, Minimal Man, Chrome, and Pink Section would release timeless slabs of aggresively bizarre noise -- as would the Units, whose Digital Stimulation LP (415 Records, 1980) remains a personal favorite.  The album's a lush and moody salvo if there ever was one, and I was thrilled to ask former lead synth player and vocalist Scott Ryser (right) a few questions about the band and its M.O. by e-mail last week.

WFMU held a showcase independent of the SXSW Festival at the great Beerland in Austin TX on March 17th. It was a 6-band blowout featuring Electric Jellyfish, Death of Samantha, The Wedding Present, Supreme Dicks, Xray Eyeballs and The Men. We aired sets live over WFMU (91.1/90.1-FM NY/NJ) with a stream at wfmu.org (and many FMA jams blastin thru the soundsystem betweens sets!). We're pleased to share high-quality mp3s from this event!

WFMU returns to Austin Saturday night for it's showcase, this time an event independent of the SXSW Festival at the great Beerland, 711 Red River. It's a 6-band blowout featuring The Wedding Present, The Men, Xray Eyeballs, Electric Jellyfish, Death of Samantha and Supreme Dicks! Liz Berg, Jason Sigal, Brian Turner will be broadcasting the sets live over WFMU-FM and wfmu.org starting 8pm central/9 PM Eastern. $10 door entry, no SXSW badges or wristbands accepted. All proceeds to the bands. Special commemorative posters designed by Nevada Hill will be available at the show.

Lineup (Times Central):

8PM: Electric Jellyfish: Straight outta Melbourne: "Electric Jellyfish carry the torch along with Eddy Current Suppression Ring lighting the way to a legendary story of distinctive rock 'n roll beginning with bands such as Radio Birdman, The Saints, X, the Birthday Party, feedtime, etc. Their sound is on par with The Wipers in their heyday...such daring emotional vulnerability, yet it's psych/punk that's sonically full-fledged, solid, walloping, and (to quote Monoshock) 'philosophically Stoogely'".(Rick Ele)

 9PM: The Wedding Present: The first band to play a WFMU show to have had 18 top 40 singles in the UK!

10PM: Death of Samantha: Full on reunion show by Cleveland post-punk/indie godfather legends! DoS tore through the late 80's early 90s and gave birth to Cobra Verde (which included members John Petkovic and Doug Gillard, who also spent time in Guided By Voices); Petkovic also was a member of Sweet Apple with J Mascis, Gillard made records with the great Gem, solo, and nowadays plays in Bambi Kino and Nada Surf. Drummer Steve-O was an Elvis impersonator in Memphis for a while. This is gonna rule.

11PM: Supreme Dicks: Uber-rare out-of-New England show by these reclusive woodsy Massachussetts psychedelicists! Their official recordings ceased in the mid 1990's, but have popped up live around their locale through the years, now lured to Texas on WFMU's special invite to which we are extremely grateful. The Dicks are also subject of a well overdue recent anthology on Jagjaguwar, a 4CD complete history called Breathing and Not Breathing.

12M: Xray Eyeballs: NYC new wave dance party faves, started up by OJ from Golden Triangle. Equal parts Jay Reatard and the Urinals, described by our own Liz Berg (who had them live on her show): "fuzzy, over modulated garage pop at a languid trot.”

1AM: The Men: (photo left: Ryan Muir) Raucous four-piece post-punk combo out of Brooklyn who've cobbled together a pile of not-so-pounding influences (drone, Krautock, pop) and sets them into car-crash mode. Howling guitars, rocked-up Suicide references, this could be the great crossover Amphetamine Reptile spacerock band if they were around circa 1989. Seriously driving punk rock with intricate, layered structures amidst the raw power. Played live on Brian Turner's show in 2011 (issued as a tour CD), and have a new album out Open Your Heart on Sacred Bones. Perfect way to tear up the evening's finale!

Past WFMU Austin events [2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011] have included: Sun Araw, Kurt Vile, Half Japanese, Mayyors, Los Llamarada, Harvey Milk, Pierced Arrows, Dengue Fever, Cheveu, Kelley Stoltz, Whitehorse, Hank IV, Evangelista, Major Stars, Iron Man, Absu, Woven Hand, Gary War, XYX, Shit & Shine, Gunslingers, Home Blitz, Todd, Moon Duo, the Renderers, Sonny & the Sunsets, El-G, Amen Dunes, the Homosexuals, Lexie Mountain Boys, Psychedelic Horseshit, Gary Higgins, Paul Metzger, The Bad Trips, Citay, the Endtables, Obits, Slough Feg, Elm, Prizehog, Speedwolf, Prizehog, Epileptinomicon, Headdress, and True Widow. So you know it's gonna be a stellar night in 2012! Stop by, grab a poster, dance the night away with WFMU.

1-666-CALL-SAAD is a 110-track thrash metal and avant brutality compilation presented by Kalashnikov. The spontaneous metal duo of Jamie Saft and Mike Pride contribute eight hours of new Kalashnikov recordings and gather a team of avant all stars like "Mad Skills" Mary Halvorson, Joe Morris, and Weasel Walter for an epic stream of positively brutal thrash interpretations.

By way of introduction to this massive endeavor, we are honored to host a selection here on the Free Music Archive. All twelve thrashing hours can be downloaded for free courtesy of Veal Records.

Ed Saad is the inspiration and backbone of this compilation, with his motto "FREE RULES." The full download includes Ed Saad's "History of Thrash Metal & Avant", plus many improvised spoken interludes recorded while on the go in his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. Many of the contributors are connected with Ed Saad via Facebook, even if they have not met in person.

WFMU DJ Kurt Gottschalk explains in the liner notes (below).

Liner Notes by Kurt Gottschalk:

As Vialka, Eric Boros and Marylise Frecheville cover a breadth of sonic terrain inspired by physical space. Their music—a rich tapestry of European prog rock, funereal folk, Saharan blues, gypsy punk, traditional Chinese ballads, and mathy rock excursions—soaks up input from the myriad cultures they've traversed in over a decade of constant touring far off the beaten path.

This month, Vialka travel to India for Rock the Sun, an interactive collaboration with Cédric Carles' 3S Solar Sound System to promote sustainable energy:

"The team will build a mobile solar powered sound unit that can be operated without using the electric grid. After the onsite construction of the solar powered unit at Jaaga in Bangalore, the team will demonstrate its functioning at presentations, lectures, DJ-sets and concerts by Vialka in Bangalore and Pune."

Vialka's corner of the Free Music Archive has recently been updated to include several full albums, and is also linked up with the duo's solo projects, side projects, and collaborations.

Science & Superstition, their most recent LP, offers an acoustic barritone take on classic Vialka tunes like "100% Hello" and "Petit Mot" alongside a distinctly vialkan mix of traditional songs in Russian and Hebrew, tributes to Hungarian and Armenian groups, plus a guest saz solo:

The album is available for sharing throughout the world wide web under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license. You can send donations or purchase LP/cassette versions at vialka.com.

Related Articles:
>> Vialka: Plus de vie que la musique (Joe Mc) 
>> Vialka Live at WFMU Plus Xiao He (2010)

Vicki Bennett (People Like Us) has a new article in the fantastic Wire Magazine series Collateral Damage, in which artists respond to the effects of the internet.

"In the early 2000s, increased bandwidth allowed recombinant artists to enter the gift economy. It’s a freedom we should defend at all costs, argues Vicki Bennett aka People Like Us" [Read the full article at The Wire Magazine]

In the article, Vicki observes that the abundance of music at our fingertips "shifts the way one listens, as the process becomes more like a ‘one-off’ experience of something that is ‘live’ or ‘unrepeatable’, almost like it was before the age of recording." But we should be wary of putting our faith in the cloud; "My main concern over the cloud is that this ‘automatic and effortless’ experience of access may be improved upon by eventually narrowing down results to only mainstream or sponsored content."

Vicki Bennett's 744-hour-long Radio Boredcast airs this month as part of AV Festival 12: As Slow As Possible. Among the 100 slow music contributors are Mark Gergis (Porest/Sublime Frequencies), Radio Web MACBA, Jason Willett, Zach Layton (Issue Project Room), Andy Bayo (waxy.org), Chris & Cozey, Matmos, Ergo Phizmiz, Dylan Nyoukis, Jared Blum, Felix Kubin, Gudrun Gut, Irene Moon, DJ/rupture and a bunch of other WFMU DJs.

We are proud to host a collection of People Like Us recordings here on the Free Music Archive. A few selections are below, including "DO or DIY" from her 2003 John Peel session, "I'm Backwards" from Christian Marclay's Sounds of Christmas at Tate Modern, a re-working of Daphne Oram commissioned by the UK's Sonic Arts Network (now known as Sound And Music), and "Happy" from last year's This Is Light Music.

Previously:
>> Bob Ostertag in The Wire: "The Web Changes Our Understanding of Music" 
>> Liz B on People Like Us Reworks Daphne Oram: "Queens of Avant Garde Pop"

After fluttering across the fretboard live on WFMU in 2010, Dustin Wong made a return visit to LizB's radio show this Monday for a live set of looped solo guitar magic.

Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads, the 2xLP follow-up to 2010's 2xLP Infinite Love, comes out next Tuesday on Thrill Jockey. The music video for "Diagonally Talking Echoes" is below, and we've excerpted the live session version for you to download and share. First, enjoy a couple live takes of songs that won't be on the album: "Chocolate Dentist" is a brand new composition from the future, while the studio version of "Liberal Christian Youth Ministry" is hot of the virtual press at the Deathbomb Arc Digital Singles Club.

As a founding member of Baltimore art/noise-makers Ponytail and the original Ecstatic Sunshine guitar duo, Dustin Wong is sculpting new forms with intricate, processed guitar. It's an especially fun sound to follow as it is being created live. There's a great video from Newtown Radio.

If you're in the Brooklyn area, Dustin Wong plays tonight at Roulette, and the Dreams Say... record release show is Friday Feb 24th at multimedia space La Sala, with Lichens and Highlife.

Meanwhile, there are a few days left in Dustin's "Say Your Dream, Create a Sound" project. Dustin Wong has been working to soundtrack your dreams. The dropbox for your dream audio narrative submissions is still live though the deadline's around the corner -- the tracks will be available starting on Feb 20th.

Israeli-born fingerstyle guitarist Yair Yona started out as a bassist, playing stints in several London bands including Human Beings. But when he discovered the music of Bert Jansch, Yair followed that musical path to the "Takoma school" and beyond. Yair Yona toured the US in 2011, including a performance at the Hopscotch Festival, and a WFMU session on Irene Trudel's show alongside fellow steel-stringer Glenn Jones:

World Behind Curtains, Yair Yona's new album, is out today on Strange Attractors Audio House. The label is also home to releases by Glenn Jones and his band Cul de Sac, and a great range of post-rock and acid-psych. Strange Attractors offer a great selection of promotional mp3s here on the FMA, including three selections from Glenn Jones.

Yair's former label, Anova Music, also shares a great selection on the FMA. Check out our Earth Day feature on Turkish-born free jazz saxpohonist Albert Beger, and keep an eye on Yair's new free jazz label, OutNow Recordings.

While his music harkens back to analog times, Yair Yona is very much in the digital realm. He did a great YouTube video series, "A Day in Tel Aviv," soundtracked by his 2010 album Remember and previously featured on this here blog. And speaking of blogs, Yair runs a great site covering his wide-ranging musical interests over at Small Town Romance.

It's winter.... well not really.  Technically the calendar says winter, but for the past few months there has been no sign of it.  Except for today.  Yes, today when Fujiya & Miyagi are scheduled to show up to do their session with me.  It decides to snow and enough to make the band's drive from their show in Philly the night before not a wonderful one.  So I prepare the coffee, buy the bagels, fruit and juice while I await their arrival.

It's so refreshing when the band you have come in is actually a fan of the station.  They become in awe of you and your place while you are in awe back at them for actually wanting to do a set for your show!  They all pile in and are as nice as can be.  As the band sets up, I chatted with David, the guitarist and singer, about the station and promised them a tour afterwards.  It was such a relaxed vibe they gave off that it made everything run so smooth and comfortable.  They get in to play and are pure professionals.  It's my own private show, just for myself, though they can't hear me cheering behind the double plated glass.  The entire time I can't stop moving.  The music takes over and your are in their control, which isn't a bad thing.  

Afterwards, the promised tour makes them giddy and the record library is a world of wonder.  One of them even pulled out an album of his from a previous band.  Ahhh, yes, the wonders of the record library....  

Hopefully the next time they come around, the sun will be shining, the weather a little warmer and the stay a little longer.  I could have listened to them all day and night.

The Golden Festival is a massive Balkan and East European music and dance bacchanal. On January 14th, WFMU's Transpacific Sound Paradise presented its fourth live broadcast from the event's main stage in Brooklyn's kitschy and fabulous Grand Prospect Hall. The Grand Ballroom was one of four stages, and the two-night event featured over sixty groups. This year, the Free Music Archive will host archives from all four stages.

We're starting the Golden Festival 2012 Collection with the Atrium Room.

Black Sea Hotel (pictured) is the Brooklyn-based vocal quartet of Corinna, Joy, Sarah and Willa. Their set included traditional songs learned under a plum tree in Bulgaria, but with their own distinct twists and arrangements, since many of the songs were originally sung by larger choirs.

Brazda (pictured) is a New York-based Balkan band that plays fresh arrangements of traditional repertoire from Bulgaria, Macedonia, Greece, and beyond. Like many of the groups, they have provided information about each song in their set including translations. I was surprised to learn that "Yiati Foumaro Kokaini" has lyrics that translate to "That crazy rascal, cocaine smoker For my troubles, now I smoke cocaine."