Nat Roe (FMA Admin)

Lord, this one sounded too good to be true when I heard it was in the works a few months back.  And it also helps confirm my suspicion that all the stuff on Judge Judy, Maury, Springer, what have you, are totally made up.  On Monday's episode of Judge Judy, Teeth Mountain's Kate Levitt accused Jonathan Coward, AKA Shams, of killing her cat by throwing a TV on top of it.  The witnesses are Andrew Burt from Teeth Mountain and Narwhalz, who unfortunately doesn't speak much in court but who distinctly refers to Judy as "Mama".  For you animal lovers, this story is not true - although Shams does fuck around with dead birds on stage and burn them as part of these...like...satanic rituals or something.  I'm not sure if they're dead when he finds them.

Teeth Mountain are on tour right now in the Northeast US, making their way to Mexico in March -- tourdates here. More Teeth Mountain on the FMA here

Service sans shirt and shoes.

I ran into this guy today who named his dog Adolphus, which is pretty weird and slightly offensive.  But Volcano The Bear's Aaron Moore is definitely weirder since the bear is a bizarre pet and Volcano is no kind of name for any animal.

I first heard about Volcano The Bear through an old issue of Bananafish, which already billed Volcano The Bear as a prolific, well established band.  At this point, Volcano the Bear is downright legendary, having collaborated and intermixed with dozens of other prominent avant gardists.  Their eclectic, bizarre soundscapes blended experimental with pop long before Animal Collective brought freaky ass folk music to the general public.

Often loosely tied in with the Weird New America movement (despite being from England...), Volcano The Bear exercizes musical sophistication and a vocabulary of extended techniques on par with much more pretentious avant gardists.  Their surreal, Jodorowskian moods made them prime candidates for collaborations with Nurse With Wound's Stephen Stapleton.  After VTB ringleader Aaron Moore came to WFMU for a live broadcast on Daniel Blumin's show last August, the FMA was able to fanagle a whole mess of mp3s from Volcano The Bear and its many sideprojects.  Click here to download a handful of classic Volcano The Bear albums and read below in this post for more information on each of the side projects featured on the FMA.

Once you've heard the ADDified noise collages of Computer Jesus Refrigerator and read the "Revolutionary, rulebreaking haiku" on their FMA profile, you might start thinking about Weasel Walter's science fiction prog-noise epic band, Flying Luttenbachers.  But while every Luttenbachers CD I've heard has like 20 minute long walls of noise, Computer Jesus Refrigerator takes the opposite approach.  Completely condensed, mile-a-minute scraps of trashed out sounds make MTV cinematics seem patient and slow paced.  And not unlike "16 and Pregnant", these songs may deter you from ever giving birth so as to end the soiled race that produces such nonsense.

Also, it really ought to be mentioned that this band does GREAT music videos, that you NEED to check out on their Youtube channel.

I first ran into Kyle Bruckmann's oboe shredding insanity while listening to the (recently uploaded on the FMA) comp of Chicago avant-gardists, Winter Construction.  Turns out Bruckmann's garnered quite the reputation for his improvisations. 

As of late, I've been really enjoying the free saxophone improvisations of Kang Tae Hwan, and Bruckmann's solos are definitely in that vein - tons of reaching through overtones (especially the highest reaches of the instrument) and exploring the extended faculties of the oboe.  I always used to kinda scoff at circular breathing because of the Kenny G connection, but listening to music like this makes me realize how crucial it can be to give proper space for an idea.  You can find Bruckmann's homepage here and listen to his other tracks on the FMA here.

Full disclosure, most of what I've been listening to on the FMA is from the Old-Time/Historical section.  I feel like our ADDified culture has almost completely forgotten about what popular music was in the first half of the 20th century.  The result is that old music sounds completely fresh to my ears.

But by the same token, when I came across Singing Sadie in the Historical section of the site, she sounded...a little fresher.  The music sounded typical enough, but those slightly shrill vocals...And I never expected a lyric like, "You went out and caught the clap. penicillin for you.  Come now, don't be so upset, just 'cause your doggie's dead."  And does that off-kilter tap dance interlude sound quite right?

And then I realized it was a hoax.  Singing Sadie is a post-modernly leaning Aussie in league with the Dual Plover label.  Get it?  Good, right?

I wasn't aware that Foot Village was at that point of their career where a tribute album was called for.  Granted, members of the band have garnered respect as members of Friends Forever, Gang Wizard and International Voice of Reason, but the "Chicken and Cheese" covers album (listen here) surprises me more than, say, a band called Sack Blabbath.

At the same time, Foot Village has broken pretty much other rule of music, so why not this one.  They've eliminated the need for guitars in their drum and scream rock band.  The process of composing went like this: "These covers were edited into “It’s A Small World” style collages where the song is passed from band to band every few measures."  The "covers" of the Foot Village song you'll find on this album are not conventional covers at all.  It's more like a chance for many bands to experiment with slight restrictions.  Or maybe it's just a chance for Foot Village to say, "these are the bands we think are cool."  Either way, this comp digs deep into a lot of the smallest and most punk-fucking-rock noise acts out there right now.  Oh, and while you're at it, check out our full album download of Foot Village's album Fuck The Future.

Even though grindcore has evolved drastically over the past twenty years, my favorite stuff is still the incredibly brutal, low-brow stuff that was coming out in the early nineties and documented in compilations like Fiesta Comes Alive and Cry Now, Cry Later.  There are few remaining survivors from that era.  The Locust are one, and certainly the most famous example.  Another too often overlooked example is Suppression.

But I'm actually not trying to talk about grindcore right now, so please disregard everything I just said.  Jason Hodges, an member of Suppression (OK, don't disregard that little bit) and founder of C.N.P. records has recently started curating for the FMA.  Although C.N.P. started primarily as a grind label, it has moved on to includes all kinds of noise and avanty freakdom beloved by us at WFMU.  Many of the projects Jason has uploaded are his own, such as the Bermuda Triangles.  The track below, "Melting Your Brains" was actually created with a Drum Buddy synthesizer, pictured above and invented by none other than Quintron.  Make sure to check out Jason Hodge's contributor page to see all of his submissions.  And friend him too!  This is a social network too, after all

Speaking as a music writer, I've found the FMA helpful for research purposes on several occasions.  The most recent help came while working on an article about Chicago's band of psychedelic gypsies, Bird Names.  I didn't own too much of their stuff and jerks were banning me from downloading their albums on soulseek.  Luckily, Bird Names has a whole lot of mp3s on the FMA. 

Fans of newer acts like Psychedelic Horseshit, Times New Viking, Wavves, and like lo-fi-ness should definitely check Bird Names out.  You're also invited if you're a fan of Trout Mask Replica era Captain Beefheart (the opening guitar riff from "She Works" sounds directly snagged to me) or earlier Zappa nonsense.  OK, I guess you're still invited even if you don't listen to that stuff.  We've got a full live set from FMA chieftan Jason Sigal's WFMU radio show, a few tracks from their awesome recent record "Open Relationship" and a bunch of other tracks.

Their new album "Sings the Browns" is out next month on Upset! the Rhythm. Also, Bird Names are swinging back thru the East Coast on tour, with a tour-only cassette of new tunes, titled Recession Vacation

When I first invited Lucas Abela (AKA Justice Yeldham) to join the FMA, I expected to get a few mp3s from him and his Dual Plover label and call it a day.  Lucky for us, Abela is totally feeling the site and has submitted approximately 1,000,000,000 mp3s. 

Dual Plover Records releases Australia's finest music for and by freaks (not to mention a few excellent international freaks).  It really runs the gamut from avant-folk to spazzy dance music to straight up noise to a million of other things you could never dream of.  Come for tracks from well known faves like Melt Banana, Deerhoof, and Kevin Blechdom and stay for artists you might not have heard like Alternahunk, The Spazmodics, and Nora Keyes.  If it's all a little overwhelming, a good place to start might be the Rebirth Of The Fool Vol. 1 compilation.  The Alternahunk mp3 I'm listing below is one of the catchiest tracks - if you wait for that guitar to come in at about :45 in, you WILL agree with me.

Justice Yeldham himself is, in my humble opinion, the finest live act in noise.  If you browse his artist page, you'll quickly find out just what act he's most famous for - if you don't already know, you'll never guess...my hint is it's not for the sqeamish or faint of heart...Also make sure to check out Abela's newest CD, released with his band Rice屎Corpse.