Scott Williams (FMA Admin)

Somewhere in the cold grey spaces between Amen Dunes and Kurt Vile live the faraway, mournfully woozy guitar ballads of Terrors, the home-recording project of Elijah Forrest, whoever that is (I'd like to know).

Lagan Qord is a CD & vinyl issue of 2 years' worth of cassette releases.  Check his take on "God Bless the Child," which sounds almost like John Cale demoing tracks for Nico's Chelsea Girls sessions.

>> Terrors - Lagan Qord @ Weird Forest

(via Recent New Bin Faves at WFMU's Beware of the Blog, August 2011)

Brooklyn's Oneida has long occupied a large engorged chunk of the collective heart of us freeform freaks in Jersey City, so it's with much excitement that we're finally able to share with you three full sets (and then some) that the band has performed over the years on WFMU.  I'll introduce you to the two I was fortunate to host.

Oneida's first appearance, on my show in June 2000, introduced us to their homebrewed blend of minimalist no wave, kraut jams and freedom rock.  Overheated farfisas and squalling guitars collided with the most propulsive and exciting drumming since Keith Moon, while the singers mined the classic lyric canon of rock music.

FMU history buffs take note of the answer to the question "who was the first band to play live on WFMU after 9/11?": Oneida, on my Sept 17, 2001 show.  When you need a heavy fog-lifting and blast of clarity, you call Oneida.  They delivered.  Set opener "To Everything There is a Tyme to Remember Aaliyah" rescued the recently deceased singer from the historical black hole that swallowed Gary Condit and sharks, while "Sheets of Easter" provided the necessary peeling back of the sky and release of a lot of anxious, nervous, just plain bad feeling.  Fittingly, when the radio show was over, the band kept playing, as you'll hear on "Double Lock Your Mind".  This set, by the way, was one of my all-time personal favorite WFMU experiences.

Five years later, Oneida returned yet again, performing on Terre T's Cherry Blossom Clinic, and we've got that set here as well; then there was that amazing collaboration with Alan Vega, doing Suicide's "Rocket USA" at one of our FMA launch shows in October 2007.  Annnnnd, we've got their May 2009 performance on the banks of the ol' Mediteranney, at Barcelona's annual Primavera Sound Festival, recorded and broadcast by WFMU.  Whew... Dig in!

Oneida's artist page on the FMA, containing full downloads of everything discussed in this post, is right here.  Thanks to Oneida and Jagjaguwar for allowing to share this treasure trove.

Melbourne, Australia's Fabulous Diamonds have haunted the periphery of my consciousness from the get-go.  Too subtle to beg or demand notice, their charms are more a natural ooze that works, without trying, to irrevocably attach itself to the listener at the chromosome level.  Which doesn't tell you dick about what they sound like, which is... let's say repetitive, rhythmically propulsive, melodically and harmonically static music that nevertheless is vertically dense and ever-evolving texturally.  Does that help?  Alright, my friend Sarah astutely said "they should've been on that (tribute to the Oneida song) 'Sheets of Easter' compilation"; last.fm compares them to Sun Araw and Gary War; and several publications have drawn lines to Blues Control and Naked on the Vague; all of these bands do ring in sympathy with Fabulous Diamonds.

Fabulous Diamonds are actually Nisa Venerosa and Jarrod Zlatic, drummer/singer and keyboardist/saxophonist, respectively.  They've been at this game since about 2007, when they released a 7" on Nervous Jerk, & Mistletone Records and toured the U.S. with longtime FMU faves Psychedelic Horseshit.  By 2008, they'd signed with underground Philadelphia stalwarts Siltbreeze, who have so far released 2 full-lengths by the band - a self-titled slab o'wax, and a CD called "II" on Chapter Music (song titles have yet to enter the picture, and we’re not holding our breath).

WFMU recently returned from Barcelona's annual Primavera Sound Festival with a briefcase full of blues, beats, rocks, and yes, punky reggae.  While it was a joy to share so much of this very 'FMU-friendly festival over the airwaves, we were sadly forbidden by federal language restrictions from airing much of the amazing set by the class of '76 all-stars, The Slits.  Happily, words like "poom poom" still manage to travel unmolested in blogolandia, so it is here that we thrill to share their entire set with you, full blessing of the band in tow.

The Slits were formed in 1976 by mainstay Ari Up and future Raincoat Palmolive.  Guitarist Viv Albertine and bassist Tessa Pollitt joined shortly after; soon enough, they were on the road with The Clash and gaining the attention of John Peel, but it wasn't until 1979 that their first record was released.  Cut, produced by Dennis Bovell, introduced the long-lasting prominence of reggae to the Slits mix.  The trio of Ari, Tessa and Viv remained more or less intact until 1982, when the band called it a day.

In 2006, Ari and Tessa reformed the band.  The current lineup includes German drummer Anna Schulte, American singer Michelle Hill, and guitarist Hollie Cook (daughter of Sex Pistol Paul, as a matter of fact).  By 2009, they'd released a new album, the far more dub-heavy Trapped Animal, on Narnack Records, who are also curating a label portal here on the FMA.

The Slits' set at Primavera Sound was a freewheeling and crowdpleasing mix of old faves like "Typical Girls" and "Shoplifting" and new tracks like "Babylon" and "Lazy Slam", plus some nuggets from Ari Up's solo career.  Ari's charisma, onstage costume changes, audience come-ons and dreadlocks-as-dance-partner defined the vibe of their enchanting Saturday evening set.

setlist:

The long-standing open relationship WFMU shares with Genesis Breyer P-Orridge just survived another milestone, as Gen and fellow ranking experimental music legend Tony Conrad joined with Psychic TV drummer Edley O’Dowd for a couple of gorgeous sets of string and percussion based improvised music on Fabio's show.  That performance, along with some words from Fabio, is now permantly branded upon the interwebs here.

Previously on WFMU, Genesis has sat for several long interviews with Fabio, once with Throbbing Gristle during their 2009 reunion tour.  And in 2006, Gen brought the PTV-3 incarnation of her hyperdelic pop group Psychic TV down for a live session.  Three songs from that session are now on the FMA here for your  downloadable pleasure. 

The day after that session, I posted what follows to WFMU's Beware of The Blog.

Austin, Texas has got a lot to love if you're a music, bbq and concrete gorilla garden-gnome lover like me.  And the assorted distorted musical minds of ST 37 measure their Austin roots back to the 13th Floor Elevators.  Tapping into the future with furrows into gardens also visited by the Buttholes and Scratch Acid, ST 37 has arguably now achieved the status of greatest working surrealist psychedelic punk band in Texas.

ST 37 formally came together in 1987, as a collaborative project between several other Austin bands.  Scott Telles, Joel and Carlton Crutcher, and Jon Torn (son of Rip) laid down the blueprint: a heavy devotion to Hawkwind, Chrome (from whose Alien Soundtracks they took their name), and the original Krautrock band of 5 (Neu, Kraftwerk, Amon Duul, Can, Ash Ra Temple).  Lest the beards get too long, live sets always included covers by the likes of the Urinals and Aussie deviant Pip Proud.  By the summer of 2000, Telles and the Crutchers remained, with new guys playing Theremins, guitars and more synths, to make their first visit to New York.  While here, they stopped off at my WFMU show to play a set that was wasted, shambolic and visionary.  They've agreed to freely share these tracks with us.  Enjoy!

ST 37 live set on Scott's show, August 11 2000, here

ST 37 home page here

If you're in, or can get to, the NYC area this weekend, do whatever you have to to get to the 2009 edition of the WFMU Record Fair.  Sell your spleen, your sibling, your self-respect- hell, sell your soul - just be there.

Inducements are many: 10,000 sq. ft. of dealers, pizza, DJ petting zoo, amusements, cigarette girls, celebrity sightings, beer, you name it.  But today we're gonna focus on the live music.  God DAMN, there's been a lot of amazing live music over the years going on at the WFMU Record Fair.  The FMA's here and happy to give you a (downloadable) preview of some of the artists we've got lined up for this year, as well as representatives of Record Fairs past (and undoubtedly future).

Among the acts performing live this year are Chris Brokaw, veteran of Codeine + Come + a thousand support & collab spots; WFMU's very own queen of media manipulation People Like Us; Jon Spencer's new rockabilly project Heavy Trash; and the ultra-dramatic (and unspeakably weird) new broadway-piano project from electronic cut-up superstar Kevin Blechdom; and more!

Continue reading for many hours of past live performances at the FMU record fair, and much music from artists who've performed there.

When I first saw the lineup for this year's Catskills edition of the All Tomorrow's Parties festival, all my excitement centered on one thing: the prospect of seeing the near-mythical NYC duo Suicide perform their (your-favorite-superlative-here) first album on the bizarre spaceship stage in the corrugated metal galaxy that is the famed Stardust Ballroom at Kutsher's Resort.  Such glory having come to pass, we're thrilled that Alan Vega and Martin Rev have consented to our sharing two tracks from their set with you.

Suicide were in a playful mood for this show, with Martin Rev gleefully pounding tonal fist-clusters on his synths, and Alan Vega doing a slow menacing prowl in his track suit and twitching along to his every echo-laden howl and yelp.

There were certainly bigger rockstars than Bradford Cox running around banging into things at Kutsher's Resort the weekend of Sept 11, but if you were at this year's Catskills edition of the beloved All Tomorrow's Parties fest, I'm sure you would agree that neither Wayne, Buzzo, Jon, Cristina, Steve, Sufjan, Nick, Eye, David, nor Bob totally pwned the weekend quite like the man behind Deerhunter and Atlas Sound.  A quick cataloguing of his ATP antics is here called for:

• - Jumping onstage with Bob Mould and No Age to howl along to "Chinese Rocks"
• - summoning the ghost of Lindsay Buckingham and spitting water out his nose during a particularly hilarious interview with our Brian Turner on WFMU,
• - leading a surreal (and mostly impromptu) piano-lounge karaoke session with a gaggle of wasted Australians hours after the Flaming Lips had closed out the festival on Sunday,

and an utterly compelling, always on the brink of collapse solo acoustic set at Stage 2, full of stream-of-conscience banter that was anything but "banter", and a stage manner reflecting that weird netherworld between Total Self Posession and Complete Doubt.  Dude's got it down.  Hear it for yourself, here, now, below the jump.

Atlas Sound on the FMA here

Atlas Sound live at ATP-NY 2009 on WFMU here