“Los Angeles” (Used 11 times)

The first time I experienced Captain Ahab was also the first time I experienced Friends Forever, Animal Collective, ZS, Rose4Bodhan, Mr. Pacman and Rubber-O-Cement at this totally epic festival dubbed Neon Hates You back in 2002 -- a truly life changing, epic event.

I honestly had only heard of like 2 bands on the bill and was just kinda along for the ride, but after being assaulted by a home made bass wielding alien fly in an animated cardboard world of sonic madness, then dodging flaming tennis balls thrown from guys paying synths in costumes stolen from the set of Power Rangers, trying to navigate the twists and turns of a militaristic flying V double jazz trio form hell, watching a dude with a dolphin on his head turn the venue into a ball pit and finally seeing 2 dudes in masks from Brooklyn in hold a room just by banging on some old pvc buckets and messing around with a broken guitar, this show without a doubt set my standard for what I want from musicians and performance artists, complete sensory overload, no matter your budget.

Smack in the middle of this was Captain Ahab. A dude with hair down to his ass that kinda looked more like he was headed to Ozfest than this DIY one. After apologizing for being sick he told us that he was going to have someone else dace for him that night. He proceeded to dive into hyper-intelligent, angry as fuck, slightly homoerotic, electronic grooves that included covers of Avril Lavigne's Sk8r Boi and J-Lo's Jenny on the Block. We had no choice but to dance, and if you had the balls to front and pretend that you didn't want to be a part of this party, his dancing sidekick, looking like he was straight out of a Tom of Finland sketch, wrangled the jaded stranglers to the center of the floor to be harpooned by Ahab's mighty beats. I was in love.

Almost ten years later, a few world tours, a concept record written as a 14 year old girl, song placements in The Office and Snakes On A Plane, Captain Ahab is still going strong and is not afraid to attack his audience's senses from all sides, but he is no longer content with making genre bending dance music that has the power to unite all walks of life in sweaty shirtless harmony. Ahab wants to end all of our preconceived notions of what is good or bad, wipe the slate clean, and start taste all over again. He bought some friends along to help, and they have created a shadow puppet/video extravaganza to help usher everyone in to The End of Irony.

So with that. I'll get out of the way and let you aboard that ship that will I am pleased to present. Captain Ahab live on WFMU complete with integrated video and puppet show:

Get the full story from their mouth with the post set interview here and check out more tunes from Captain Ahab here on the Free Music Archive

This week, Jason Forrest (aka DJ Donna Summer, former host of WFMU's Advanced D&D, proprietor of the Cock Rock Disco & Nightshifters labels), unleashes the first new material under his own name in over 6 years. Though in some respects it's a return to form, the Berlin club music & breakcore pioneer is also charting new prog-rock-inspired territory. Utopia glides from the expansive opening track ("Ciccone Youth") to a minute-long maxi-minimalist title track sequenced jab. Then these forces collide under the shadowy "Infinite Organ", and the irresistibly funky polyrhythmic "Goldbluff" brings down the house to close it out.

The Utopia EP debuted through the new Deathbomb Digital Singles Club, operated by Los Angeles noise rock/experimental pioneer Brian Miller (Foot Village, Rose for Bodhan, Back to the Future The Ride). The Club is inspired by Deathbomb Arc's Tape Club, but with no postage required, a mere $10 gets you a year's worth of weekly A & B side mp3s by FMA favorites like of US Girls, The Urxed (memb High Places), Blissed Out, rarities from the late great Yuma Nora, and many more names to get psyched on (like Juiceboxxx, Modern Witch and Pariah Carey -- full list here).

Jason Forrest broke the Deathbomb Club rules a bit because -- after six years of aliased musical growth -- he couldn't keep things contained to just two songs. In fact, he's got an entire full-length prepped for 2011, so this mini opus is just a hint at what's in store for the next year.

To tide us over in the meantime, I'd suggest catching up on Cock Rock Disco's latest free releases by Debmaster, dj Skull Vomit vs Singaya, and Los Angeles' own Captain Ahab (who'll also be contributing to the Deathbomb Digital Singles Club)

A couple weeks back LA noise titans slash cultural lynchpins Robedoor did me the honor of recording a live session in WFMU's studios during a rare and excessively brief East Coast tour. Although Robedoor began as a two-piece drone band with dozens of releases on just about every cool noise label out there, the recent addition of Geddes Gengras as a drummer has brought the band closer to the unholy realm of doom metal.

Alex Brown supplied (among other things) keyboard riffs that form the backbone of the jams - his rig is so bass heavy that I actually couldn't tell whether he was up too loud in the mix or whether the floor was just shaking. Britt Brown played guitar and vocals, with a slew of pedals to throw off any semblence of the concept of a "song". The track "I thought you were the Devil" is off Robedoor's recent LP on Important Records, Burners. Parallel Wanderer, by far the longest track in this session, will appear as a full side of a yet untitled upcoming LP. This seems to be following Robedoor's usual method of writing songs: jamming it out with live improv until the completed song idea emerges from the murky depths.

Or maybe the secret to Robedoor's success is putting beer in every meal they eat? Alex runs an excellent and hilarious food blog called Hot Knives that seems to indicate a predilection for hoppy breakfast dishes. Speaking as somebody who loves nothing more than the rhetoric of high end menus, the Hot Knives archives are great because you get classy dishes with rock and roll commentary. For god's sake, he teaches you how to make the "über pre-choucroute", Kimchi from scratch!

Then again, Robedoor's ability to touch on a hundred genres at one is probably because Robedoor members are so involved with underground noise culture. Britt Brown runs Not Not Fun records, which has released a ton of material from many perennial WFMU favorites. I'd explain more, but there really aren't words. I'd recommend blasting this live session over your best sound system while nerding out to lists of releases from Not Not Fun and Robedoor on discogs.

Thanks to Jason Sigal for these photos and for help with engineering the recording.

Beloved for their concise blasts of sing-along drum/guitar noise-pop, the duo of Randy Randall and Dean Allen Spunt decided to try something a little bit different for No Age's first-ever WFMU session. And we're incredibly psyched to debut the L.A. duo's immersive, multi-sectioned, cinematic drone-ambient beast of a piece:

"Local Submissive" isn't a total departure from the No Age we know and love; this is No Age prying open the shoegaze-y layers of noise and timbre that've always been a part of their sound -- ever since their evolution from the weird-punk hardcore band Wives back in 2005. It's about time Dean and Randy expanded their knack for dense soundscape into a new cohesive entity.

Today also marks the release of Everything In Between (Sub Pop), No Age's 3rd full-length. You can stream the whole thing here or after the jump, and -- for those in the Los Angeles area -- there's a release party at Amoeba where Randy & Dean'll be spinning tunes that inspired the album (for a hint at some of their deep influences, they've backed Bob Mould and covered The Nerves' classic "When You Find Out"). Then they'll hang out at The Smell which is the all-ages art space that nurtured No Age and myriad other artists.

Details for all that and more on the No Age blog (poignantly titled "No More R&R"). No Age also run the Post Present Medium label, and they're about to set flight on an epic tour throughout Europe and the US.

About a month ago, John gave me an album entitled Follow The Music: A Commemorative Sampler of Elektra’s Pre-Rock Era. Essentially a collection of folk music, I quickly became enamored with a number of different elements of these recordings. The intentional: the simple forms of the songs, the directness of the lyrical meaning. As well as the elements inherent of the time period in which they were recorded: The fuzzy, consonant-shy vocal sonority, the time constraints of recording vinyl, the hiss and scratch of vintage technology. Using all these elements as criterion for the composition, I began. This simple song encapsulates an entire relationship in three and one half minutes, and features one of Los Angeles’ most creative musicians, Mia Doi Todd.

I hope you enjoy “New Farmer”.

gabe