’…an album steeped in gritty boogie and even grittier attitude.’ 4/5 The Independent

‘…he continues to make up for lost time in irrefutable style.’ 4/5 The Mirror



‘…raw and true’ 8/10 Uncut

Seasick Steve has announced the release of his new single ‘Down On The Farm’, impact date June 17th, available to download now.

Hot on the heels of his sold-out headline UK tour, Steve is set to release album opener and fan favourite ‘Down On The Farm,’ another inimitably brilliant track that fuses all the best elements of rock n’ roll and bluegrass from a bygone time.

Known to his fervent fan base as an electrifying live performer, Steve was recently joined on stage by John Paul Jones at his rousing headline show at London’s Roundhouse, and fans can look forward to seeing Steve throughout the summer festival period, with appearances at Glastonbury and Lounge On The Farm amongst many others.

Hubcap Music, Steve’s 6th studio album and currently number one on the UK Record Store Chart, has been his most critically acclaimed to date and follows in the wake of Gold Certified album ‘You Can’t Teach An Old Dog New Tricks’.

As well as featuring in Steve’s incredible live show, John Paul Jones also worked with Steve and performed on the recording sessions for ‘Hubcap Music’, which features a roll call of incredible artists including Jack White, Luther Dickinson and Elizabeth Cook.

For more information on Seasick Steve visit http://www.seasicksteve.com

Subscribe to RSS headline updates from:
Powered by FeedBurner

Seth Faergolzia (from the band Dufus) has a new album called “Tin Wood Soldier”

1. Whenland 02:26

2. Ain’t No Way 02:26

3. Landscaper 04:32

4. Barrel of Monkeys 02:56

5. Sheep Song 03:08

6. Puke in Rides 02:54

7. Happened in the Morning 02:36

8. Animal Domiciled 04:20

9. Look at the Weird 02:14

10. Going to Meet (Songette, Part I) 00:21

11. Water Daughter 06:23

12. Icky Sticky 03:07

13. Going to Meet (Songette, Part II) 01:02

14. Mechanism 01:48

15. Going to Meet (Full Song) 06:54

Buy Dufus CDs here: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Iron-Man-Shop

Seth Faergolzia and the 23 Psaegz released their debut CD on April 28, 2012.

Founded by Seth in 2010 as the successor to his world-renowned 13-year project, Dufus, Seth Faergolzia and the 23 Psaegz carry on the warm, weird legacy by stretching the boundaries of musical experience with craze and care unmatched. The group originally gathered with the intention of performing Seth’s 23 Psaegz stream of consciousness puppet rock opera, and has since also become a collaborative backing for his complex web of musical delight. Front man Faergolzia brings his one-man-band skills (mastering simultaneously the guitar, glockenspiel, kick drum, and vocal antics) to a new apex of musical sagacity, as he leads the 23 Psaegz odd.

23 Psaegz pl. n. *say-jezz* An extensive, boisterous musical composition, derived from the 23 pages of Seth’s streaming mind waves

Seth conducts his rollicking 15-folk-grand orchestra with a “glock” mallet, booming kick pedal, frolicsome guitar, and far-reaching vocals. Designed with five moving parts, 23 Psaegz ignites a most profoundly human machine, a musical organism with propellers that blast whirls of free-thought, frequencies that both cut close to the bone and hug the heart; a true masterwork. Seth’s keen ear for harmony deftly channels the energies and talents of the human voice, flute, tuba, trumpet, violin, guitars, bass, piano and found and salvaged metal percussion. With the precision and release of flight, melodic instruments melt sweet cream harmonies with the bass section, lead and vocal choir, then muscle up with brain circuit cranking dissonance. The playful and seriously probing expanse of 23 Psaegz is kaleidoscopic-divine New Orleans marching band meets Peter & the Wolf in outer space. This intense conflation of lyrical imagery and sonic wonder is music to submerge in.

Seth & the Psaegz concoct music which remains outside the scope of particular genre-labels or classification. With their harmonic subtlety, poetically experimental lyricism, quirked-out energy, and of course, Seth’s soaring, roaring gurgling, whip-crack-acrobatic vocals, each Psaegz performance lovingly unweaves time, revealing moments honest & organic in their exploration of possibility. Spontaneously fusing performers with audience, Psaegz mingle into the crowd in fits of wild dance to Seth’s iPod-karaoke hip-jump samplegasms. They’re reshaping and reinventing musical forms to create new, relevant gestures forward. Whether a whistle-driven dirge, foot-stomping fable, or inspired improvisation, these are not songs that will attract only a novel-shock-response, but a growing body of music so dynamic and full, it can be approached with new ears every time: outlandish, wise, and fool-hearted. Copied by many, equalled by none.

Please Visit:

http://www.ironmanrecords.co.uk
http://www.23psaegz.com
http://www.dufus.tv

1. Devil In The Washtub 02:42

2. Murky Waters 02:54

3. Fabric 02:44

4. Scaredy 02:57

5. Habits Dissipate 01:03

6. Geezer 02:36

7. One Foot 02:59

8. Ivy, Rice and Moss 03:37

9. Curupira 04:24

10. Lah Lee 03:40

11. Bub 04:37

released 24 February 2013

FOREST CREATURE
Two friends, made through music.  Two musicians, charged with originality and virtuosity.  One album, made by these two fond creators of wonder.  What could be more meaningful?  FOREST CREATURE is the new project born out of a 20 year friendship and longstanding mutual musical respect between Seth Faergolzia (aka Dufus) from New York and John Ludington from California, who met while still in school.  Both have written and recorded countless songs, toured together and influenced each other, but not until now have they collaborated in the writing process.

These two well-matched musicians have been sending pieces of songs back and forth and recording bit by bit an extraordinary work of art which will first take to the stage in performance, February 2013 for a NE US tour.  March 2013 promises a European tour through Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, Italy and perhaps a few other countries!!  Seth Faergolzia has been touring Europe at least once a year, for the past 7 years, and in this past year toured Europe four times!  This will be John Ludington’s first tour through Europe, and being Seth’s long-time influence and musical guru, it is a momentous occasion.

FOREST CREATURE fuses two profound poets known for their unusual song structures, while writing great melodies with a popular appeal.  They are strange but in a warm way.  Their voices out of the ordinary and quite elastic yet akin to one another.  Both have their virtuosic tendencies, but maintain a folk appeal.  Exchanging instruments amidst performance in a 2XOne-Man-Band acoustic experience including electronics and foot percussion.  No matter what genre you try to put them in, be it Folk, Alt-Folk, Anti-Folk, Freak-Folk, Experimental, FOREST CREATURE is unpredictable, unexpected;  you really can’t pin them down;  they will dodge your pin at the last moment and have you guessing again what will come next.

Seth Faergolzia Biography

Seth Faergolzia takes to the wind again on a European tour, that’s sure to put a spring in the step of his ever-growing global audience. As the mastermind behind Dufus, possibly the most creative and well-loved underground band in the Anti-folk / Freakfolk communities of New York City, and with a likewise respected solo career, Seth is now stacking up more than ten albums
and playing in over 20 countries with such acts as The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Jeffrey Lewis, Regina Spektor, The Moldy Peaches, Animal Collective and others.

Keeping in tune with the warm and weird legacy of his renowned former project, Seth continues to stretch the boundaries of musical experience with craze and care unmatched by the contemporaries with whom his style has been compared (including Frank Zappa, Deerhoof, Devendra Banhart, The Moldy Peaches, and The Dirty Projectors), with an increasingly honed wisdom & intimacy.

Faergolzia brings his one-man-band skills to new levels of musical sagacity, mastering simultaneously the guitar, kick drum, electronics, vocal acrobatics, and various melodic instruments, concocting music which lives free beyond the scope of particular genre labels. With harmonic subtlety, poetically experimental lyricism and all around dynamic song writing, each of Seth’s performances lovingly unweaves time to reveal moments honest & organic in exploration of possibility.

Seth’s new album, Tin Wood Soldier, reshapes and reinvents musical forms to create new, relevant gestures forward. His recent solo sets draw together new songs, electronic samples, improvisations, and a couple from the Dufus vault, exhibiting a growing body of work so dynamic and full, it can be approached as if with new ears every time — outlandish, wise and full-hearted.

John Ludington Biography

John Ludington, alt-folk out of Arcata, Ca., has been called “…the lovechild of Beck and Frank Zappa…who has to be considered one of the most daring and interesting songwriters on ye olde North Coast…” Andrew Goff (Northcoast Journal).  John has been writing and performing since his father taught him his first chord at age 9. By 14, he had formed and fronted his first band, Barefoot Gravediggers, who performed to consistently large and devoted audiences. Their full length release, Chewing Lessons De España is still a sought after favorite. John’s travels have led him to busk the subways of Boston, compose the score for a stilt walking piece for The Carpetbag Brigade, and play bass for Absynth Quintet, a critically acclaimed gypsy-grass band of which he is currently a member.  Ludington has acquired a huge cache of material including four full length albums. His latest release, Finn, is being met with great enthusiasm.

SETH FAERGOLZIA PRESS:

BROOKLYN VEGAN – FINAL DUFUS SHOW  W/ REGINA SPEKTOR & MOLDY PEACHES

New York Times – “Fiber art going punk.”

Vice - “They took that saucepan and spoon and wrote a textured and intense opera… 9 of 10.”

The Onion - “Dufus plays frantic fever-dream folk slashed through with rock stabs.”

Village Voice - “As giddy and inventive as it is pissed off, it’s the 21st-century equivalent of the Fugs at their finest.”

New York Press - “Tender calm and epiphanistic lyrics.”

Pop Matters - “I have never heard anything like this before or since.”

KUSF/MTV  San Francisco - “Whip-smart pop song writing, intricately clever wordplay.”

Relix - “This is folk rock twisted and distorted into compelling new structures.”

NME, UK - “Fourteen members strong and phenomenal live.” National Student Newspaper, UK  - “One of the most prolific, original and influential bands to emerge from the anti-folk scene.”

SPEX - “Kind and Scary.”

JOHN LUDINGTON PRESS:

“My very talented friend John Ludington just finished a new record. It’s called Finn. He is one of the most creative and unique writers! Some other friends participated in the art/music on this record too- it’s very special…” - Regina Spektor

“Catchy, drunken, stein-sloshing chanteys whose high art lies in the way they string together non sequiturs and invite the listener to sing right along.” – Creative Living in the Hudson Valley

“Most distinctive is his signature fractured whimsical chord progressions and surprising sung sound effects.” –  ‘Art-rag’

Seth Faergolzia:  www.23psaegz.com
John Ludington:  www.johnludington.com

Buy Stuff by Dufus and Seth Faergolzia here: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Iron-Man-Shop

https://www.facebook.com/forestcreaturemusic

Hello Dear Friends

We so hope you can forgive us for neglecting you for so long.

Due to a combination of commitments and personal circumstances we haven’t had any opportunity to post our usual monthly updates.

Top of the shop we need to thank everyone who contacted us in the last few weeks asking about the M25 Spin and we are pleased to welcome one and all at the weekend.

Gimpo’s M25 25 Hour Spin
Starts: 12 noon Saturday 23rd March 2013
Ends: 1pm Sunday 24th March 2013
Venue: The M25 London Orbital Motorway

If anyone would like to join us then please do come along.

If you are coming along and need our contact info then please drop us an email and we will sort that out.

The more Ancient of our friends will be aware that we promised a new t-shirt for March along with a Free CD featuring a previously unreleased track GVSCFOF13 – 3am Eternal (London By Night… All The Way Round).

We still intend to go ahead with this but it will have to be after the Spin… so keep looking forward.

In The Spirit Of MU
Liberate & Communicate

Love Peace & Happiness

Tim & Gimpo

Gimpo’s 25

: Gimpo starts to reveal his vision. He wants this thing, this Gimpo M25 spin, to become an annual event. The closest Saturday night/Sunday morning to 21 March each year, to mark the opening of the rave/festival/drug-taking/banging/techno/hippie thing that Gimpo and his weird mates know all about. He wants loads of other people to join in, come out in their cars, vans, trucks, loaded up. A non-stop 25 hour party, road to nowhere sort of thing; car stereos cranked up, people screaming, pumping horns, blowing whistles. Hundreds, thousands, pouring out of Clacky services. Not a race, but a celebration of this broken down modern world, where the M25 would get clogged up, grind to a standstill, the authorities could do nothing – and Gimpo would be king. 

From 45, by Bill Drummond

The Juniour Insurgent Transmitter Ensemble is accepting music for the Spin’s outside broadcast. Email a track (Under 25 MB) to voodoomagikfm@gmail.com All sounds received will be played on the 2013 M25 Spin.

http://www.gimpogimpo.com

Steve Fly’s first ‘live’ gig was drumming with ‘Surgery’ at Thorns School in 1991, and went on to play with local Stourbridge garage punk band ‘Indigo Jane’ at such venues as J.B’s Dudley, The ‘Source’, ‘The Mitre’ in Stourbridge, and support for Babylon Zoo and Fret Blanket in Kidderminster.

In 1993 Steven briefly played with Kinver based band ‘Taxi’ and recorded and album together and supported vocalist ‘Sam Brown’ at the Robin Hood R n’B club. In 1994 Steve played drums for a short time with the Birmingham based ‘live’ drum & bass band ‘Plutonik’, featuring vocalist Chrissy Van Dyke.

In 1994 fly bought his first pair of turntables, and was instantly attracted to scratching and spinning vinyl, and began buying and playing a mixture of old Jazz, new electronica, drum & bass, break-beats and other soul/funk/jazz oddities. This led to him playing records with local DJ crew’s ‘Lowlife’ and ‘Lifted’ (94-2001) and by 1998 starting a successful ‘soul/jazz/funk/breaks’ night in and around Stourbridge called ‘Pass the peas’.  Other gigs included dj slots with Craig Fields and the ‘Nazareth’ DJ crew,  and gigs at the Q-club Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Dudley, Wales, and the Glastonbury festival 2000.

In 1998 Fly Agaric was billed with Fuzz Townsend on the bill for Graffiti Bastards 2, an art and music exhibition featuring and produced by CHU. This collaboration led to fly travelling up to York, and Finsbury Park studio’s to record a ‘live’ drum track for the first full album from UK left-field hip-hop crew New Flesh. (Part2, Toastie Taylor, Juice Aleem, DJ Weston) The resulting track ‘Quantum Mechanix’ turned out to be fly’s first release, launched in 1999 on Big Dada Records 0013, and stands as a testament to alternative UK hip hop at the turn of the millennium.

In 1999, together with Indian composer Surrinder Sandhu, Steve played drums and turntables on three tracks recorded at Birmingham’s D.E.P international studios and that were subsequently pressed onto 200 10” vinyl discs, all of which were stamped with a rubber ink stamp depicting the ‘Mayan Tzolkin’. Out of 200 records I probably sold 2, but it has made 2000 people smile since.

On April 10th 2000 Fly travelled to America to hear Dr Robert Anton Wilson lecture, while on his visit he had a synchronistic meeting at ‘The Planetwork’ conference with virtuoso bassist and composer Kai Eckhardt. This led to a steady flow of collaborations and gigs across the US during the next  5 years,  most notably with Jazz Funk Jam band ‘Garaj Mahal’ featuring Kai, Fareed Haque, Eric Levy and Alan Hertz, since replaced by drummer Sean Rickman. Steve Fly can be heard playing turntables on 3 cuts from their album ‘Mondo Garaj (2001) and 3 cuts from ‘Blueberry Cave’ (2005). He performed over 30 live shows in more than 10 different states including the cities New Orleans, New York, San Francisco, Portland, Oakland, L.A, Saint Louis and Santa Cruz. The band have received worldwide acclaim, reviews, and praise from fellow musicians and fans alike.
(see www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondo_Garaj  www.kaizone.com/Garajmahal/pages/storyoftheband.html)

Fly also performed as DJ with the Gregory James Band, and can be heard on the albums ‘Reincarnation’ and ‘Come to me’ the latter with Bassist Benny Rietveld (Miles Davis, Carlos Santana) and a large cast of heavyweight players: Deszon Claiborne, Celia Malheiros, Tom Coster, Rasaki Aladokun, Karl Perazzo, Rita Theis and poet Craig Easley. Steven performed with Gregory at Yoshi’s Jazz club in Oakland, and other venues in San Francisco (2000-2005).
(See www.gregoryjames.com/come-to-me)

Fly played in many other jams and musical configurations during his 5 years in America, notably with Alan Hertz and Friends, No Parking (Alan Hertz and Liam Hanrahan) A Modern Fairy Tale (with Kai Eckhardt) Geo Trio  (Eric Levy, Hertz and Bobby Vega) The Fareed Haque Band. And DJ fly shared the stage at festivals and shows with artists such as Ray White, Bernie Worrell, Leo Nocentelli, Brian Jordan, Reggie Watts, Robert Walters, Tal Morris, Carlos Washington, Al Howard, Rasaki Aladokun, Skerik, Benny Reitveld, Peter Horvak, and many others.
(see:  www.archive.org/details/GarajMahal  (Search DJ Fly Agaric 23)

In October 2005, Fly flew back to the UK and temporarily put down his drum sticks and records in favour of picking up his pen, partly due to the fact he had no drums or turntables in the UK and no shows were on the horizon. By early 2006 fly had been busy over the last year mixing, remixing and creating music using Reason and sample based music on his Mac-book, his first computer since an Atari 900, some samples of which can be heard at his soundcloud account here:

In March 2007 Steve Fly moved to Amsterdam where he settled into a new life there, writing and  working at the coffeeshop 420, that happens, by chance, to be the preferred coffeeshop, and poets residence of Poet/activist John Sinclair. Over the last six years John Sinclair has had a massive influence on Steve’s musical directions and output, plus on his writing and avid reading habits. Steve lived together ‘on and off’ for 3 years with John, and has toured England, Holland, and Germany as John’s drummer and co-pilot, featuring on several recordings and dozens of live shows with fellow Amsterdam blues scholars such as: Mark Ritsema, Leslie Lopez, Vicente Pino, and Tom Worrell from New Orleans.

Late August 2010, Steve Fly hosted some of the band in who were travelling from the recent 101 runners tour of Europe, including Tom Worrell, artist Frenchy, and John. Steve quickly seized the chance to record a session while Tom and John were in town, and with the help of some friends: Leslie Lopez, Larry Hayden, and Mau we managed to get two days of recordings that turned into the album ‘Let’s Go Get Em’ on No Cover Records (2011) with artwork by CHU and Frenchy.

On 1st March 2011 Fly visited John in London to record drums along with Youth, George Butler, Brian James, Angie Brown, Alan Clayton, for 3 cuts on the new Beatnik Youth album, out on Track Records.

Since 2009 Steve fly has also been jamming with guitarist Vicente Pino, and together they have performed over 50 shows mostly in and around Amsterdam, but as far afield as Ghent, Belgium, under the name Dr Marshmallow Cubicle. The duo now have three unreleased albums, (Marshy, Sod The Rich, John Sinclair and the Amsterdam Blues Scholars) they have over 50 ‘live’ videos available on youtube (flyagaric23 – playliists). Their unique improvised guitar and drum music has captured the imagination of many people, and they’ll return to the stage in spring 2013.

Steven recently signed an album deal with Iron Man Records to produce the latest John Sinclair album due for release this summer. It features fly on drums, brushes, turntables, Cello, and production along with his star engineer Tim Egmond (Senior Modulator). The album titled ‘Mohawk’ is fly’s interpretation of John’s poems that are all taken from a suite dedicated to Thelonious Monk, and that feature tales of Be-Bop, Bird, Dizzy and Monk. The album will be crafted and designed in collaboration with Graffiti legend CHU, and together with Iron Man Records we are poised to release a total new audio/visual experience, nicely tying together the John Sinclair/Steve Fly synergy produced over the previous few years.

Seasick Steve has a new album to be released on April 29th 2013 on Fiction (Available to pre-order now as limited edition signed digipak CD, CD album or Vinyl)

It’s called ‘Hubcap Music’ – as some of the guitars that feature on the record are made out of old hubcaps. The album features Dan on drums as usual, plus friends John Paul Jones, Jack White and Luther Dickensen.

You can get the record on 180gsm vinyl, download, standard CD or Digipak CD. First 300 Digipaks will be signed by Steve himself so get ‘em quick: http://bit.ly/13OQAXg

Track Listings

1. Down On The Farm
2. Self Sufficient Man
3. Keep On Keepin’ On
4. Over You
5. The Way I Do
6. Purple Shadows
7. Freedom Road
8. Home
9. Hope
10. Heavy Weight
11. Coast Is Clear

Seasick Steve Gig Dates updated here: http://www.seasicksteve.com/gigs.htm

Trust me, you are going to like this…..more news to follow as it happens…..

Stanley Brinks sets the bar high when it comes to artistic independence, freedom, tradition and avoiding fashionable trends. In 2006, André left his band, Herman Düne. Now based in Berlin he releases timeless albums, playing them live in small venues and private apartments where he can remain true to his musical ideals.

Stanley Brinks (fka Andre Herman Dune) + Freschard will be on tour from April 22nd to May 5th. Please email radicalbaboon at gmail.com if you’re interested in organising a show in your area.

Here are links to some audio and video:
www.stanleybrinks.bandcamp.com
www.freschard.bandcamp.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRUqSTNwLX0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I75XEq-P1M

John has been a major contributor to the Culture of New Orleans and one of its most enlighted experts….particularly found of the “Black culture” of New Orleans, so rich in extraordinary talents…John guided me through the back streets of New Orleans, so to encounter the Mardi Gras Indians….” Gilles Riberolles

Click the link http://vimeo.com/47967644 to play the Documentary We love Big Chief from Gilles Riberolles on Vimeo.

Coming from Paris I joined John Sinclair in New Orleans during the Mardi Gras time….John drove me through Black New Orleans up to the Mardi Gras Indians…

You can find more John Sinclair in the Iron Man shop here: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Iron-Man-Shop

JS: Let’s talk about the music….

RT: Well, as I see it, the real music scene in Detroit is doing all right. But the whole—the population of all the musicians—and there’s an awful lot of young musicians in town—the percentage of these people who are really into it is so low that you never get to hear any of it. I mean if there is somebody in town who is really into it, you know, in the straight teeny-bopper scene, we never get to hear them. I’ve heard very few bands in this city that I can even listen to—like, there’s Billy C. and the Sunshine, I have to mention those cats—but the whole thing is very appalling. Because being a musician, I’ve lost all my sense of being entertained. You know, I can’t be entertained at all, because I’m an entertainer. I know that this Isn’t like, AH! A SHOW!, but just guys up there working a job like I work a job, and I’ve lost my concept of that. But to see somebody get up there and actually work, like work on a musical plane, to get onto these planes and just drive and work like a motherfucker, you just don’t see it. Except, of course, when you’re listening to the three or four good bands in town, or in the area—the ones I’ve heard. And I hope to God there’s more people, you know. And there will be. Because the real people are getting good, so the people who copy them will have to get good. So pretty soon it’ll be…well, I have no worries about the scene, let me put it that way. Because it’s just going OVER THERE, you know, from all the contact. Like, you go to the Grande Ballroom and what do you see? You see, like, Billy C. and the Sunshine three times—there are bands who are Billy C.; or who are the SpikeDrivers or the Southbound Freeway, you know, you find that even now there’s a small amount of hereo-worship going on, and copping different numbers and things. It used to be that you’d go to the Grande and there’d be 4 or 5 MC-5 bands, 2 or 3 Billy C. and the Sunshines, the Back & Back Boo Funny Music band…and those people used to be sort of a driving influence there, but it’s gotten so far now that we can’t even play there anymore. At any rate, the musicians who do copy, who’ve got it down, you dig, and they’ll be getting into it pretty soon. Because every band comes, you know, you get five people together, or four people, in a band, who have got it, and you’ll just come. One night you’ll be up there on the stand and you’ll just come, and the people will just flip out, and it will be together, I felt in my group, you know, like “unhhh, unnhhh, I’m coming,” and then POW!–one night we EXPLODED. We didn’t care if the people dug it or not, and musically we just exploded. We used to do our “avant” numbers as sort of unleashing a monster on the crowd—we didn’t care if they liked it, we hoped they hated it, because we were killing them, we were shooting them down with these monstrous amplifiers and we just didn’t care. We were obnoxious. We’d get up and do all of our tunes, and then at the end, we’d come.

JS: “Black to come,” yes. That always makes me think of William Burroughs, you know, “People of the earth to come out….”

RT: The job is getting rougher every day, getting more and more demanding, on the part of singers in general. There are people in the world who are shooting the scene farther and farther, and it’s going so fast that you have to RUN to keep up with it. A year and a half ago, back in the early days of Mick Jaggerdom, that’s when a singer didn’t have to DO anything but be a singer and do his act—and he didn’t even have to sound good, because that was hip back then—sound a little raspy, sing a little flat, and that was cool, because a little farther back it was Sinatra, you know, and he didn’t do anything either. But nowadays, singing…I mean listen to Spencer Davis for a minute, and you can tell that he’s obviously IN IT. He took a left turn at Ray Charles and…

JS: Disappeared….

RT: Right. He shot it right out there. You just can’t be a “singer” any more, you got to DO IT! You got to be together musically…your voice has got to be so good, man, because the people demand it. They won’t let you shuck anymore. Listen…I’m no longer talking to John Sinclair, I’m talking to the public: people of the world, the next time you see a live band, and they go up there and do top ten material, you oughta turn on them and say PLAY THE MUSIC—either play the music or GET OFF THE STAND. Tell them that…. The lead singer of the future will have to be the most versatile cat in the band, because he has to be THE solo instrument. The lead singer and the lead guitarist are the ones who do actual note-run solos. The rhythm guitar player does feedbacks and keeps the sound up. The rhythm guitar is no longer just a-chink a-chink a-chink, it’s an art all in itself. Anybody can go the note-run route, you know, like lead singers and lead guitar players—you can express yourself beautifully with note-runs, you hear it all the time—Jeff Beck, Mike Bloomfield, they can run it down with notes. But it takes more to play a different game—the rhythm guitar has to carry the band’s sound all by himself. He’s got to BE THERE. And I haven’t heard too many of that kind of player yet…

JS: Well, I think you’ve found one…(IN UNISEN): Fred Smith…(sigh)

RT: Yes…I’d like to thank all the cats in my band for getting as far as they have, and I wish them luck for the future. (Laughter) But as far as being a lead singer goes, in another year and a half the lead singer will have to be the most multi-instrumentalist person in the band. Lead singers should be in there playing tenor saxophones, and alto, and bassoon, oboe, everything else…harmonica, which is like a sanctioned instrument for rock&roll. I got onto that the first time I heard Mick Jagger, Gary Grimshaw brought the record over and I knew the second I heard it that I had to be a singer. So I had this harmonica I’d picked up a couple weeks earlier, and I got right down in there with that. I tried for months and months but couldn’t do anything with it. Then one night I was at a beer party and some cat told me that all blue notes are “in” notes—draw notes—and that did it. That straightened me right out. Every lead singer should have a whole range of instruments, like say, Joseph Jarman has…belles, wind chimes, gongs, and anything else that makes music. I’ve been playing organ, auto-harp, chromatic harmonica, Japanese flute, recorder, and something else…I can’t remember what it is. (Laughter) That’s why I began going into the realms of the sonic…playing feedback off the microphone. Hey, singers! You’ve got an instrument! Anyone who’s got a sound system has got an instrument. You can play the microphone.

JS: I’ve always wondered how you picked up on that. Did you hear someone doing it, or did you just discover it?

RT: We were playing at a party at Betty Conn’s house one night, a wild beer party, and we played “Hang on Sloopy” for 45 minutes, and I said to myself, “there’s got to be something else we can do,” because my voice was gone, and I’d been playing harmonica until my mouth bled, you know, and I felt that there was something else we should be doing—because I had to keep the level up there, we were using guitar, bass and drums at that point and we just kept going and kept going. That was when we were first getting into it, getting farther than what comes out of the radio speaker, and it was a question of what could we do to take it even farther. So I told everyone, in the course of the song, to listen because something really spectacular was going to happen. And they wanted something spectacular, you know, everybody was just sweating and screaming, because if you take a tune like that a drag it out, it gets so much power, like a mantra, you just say it until it’s got so much power that you can’t hold it any more and it explodes, and it HAPPENS. So I went over to my line speaker and shoved my microphone into it, and some glorious and beautiful sounds came out of the speakers and the amps. So I began doing that profusely.

JS: When was that? Who was in the band then? Were they working on feedback by that time?

RT: That was about two years ago, and we had just begun to break into it. That was a few nights before we actually did it on stage. We did it in Dearborn, and we just EXPLODED out there. The first night we did “Black to Come,” we wrote it down in Kramer’s basement, and Fred Smith discovered that you could turn up the Super-Beatle amp until it was unbearable, right. And started playing the opening chords to “Comm” spontaneously and smashed a jar! At that time our group—we had Pat Burroughs and Rob Gasper on bass and drums. Gasper now has a really beautiful, very tight band—the Endless Chain—really together. Gasper’s a tight drummer anyway. Burroughs elected to go to the Marin Corps.

JS: Is that when Michael Davis joined the band?

RT: Right. And we picked up Dennis Thompson from Lincoln Park—he played in a bar with us a couple nights, and I guess we just scared him into being our drummer.

JS: The powerhouse….

RT: You see, the thing is that Dennis amazes me…I don’t want to say anything about Dennis—I’ll just embarrass him… (Laughter)

JS: You have a lot of trouble with the technology, right? I know I’ve talked with people about this, like Marion Brown, the saxophonist, we were talking once about the arrest pushing the technology to make them come up with adequate tools….

RT: Yes, soon there will be an amplifier that can take….

JS: The MC-5….

RT: That can take sustained feedbacks. Oh, incidentally, I have to mention…if you singers want to play the microphone and the speaker, you’re doing it at your own risk. Because you can melt down your whole system that way. It isn’t a good thing for your speaker, but it sure is groovy. And I don’t want some cat coming up and telling me that I made him blow his set up, you know, so make sure this part gets in, OK? That too is an instrument. Like one night I dreamed I vomited on stage…think about that one! But I feel that it’s the duty of every lead singer to seek and find Joseph Jarman, and watch him! Because Joseph Jarman is the best lead singer that took the multi-instrumentalist route. In fact, most tenor players would make good lead singers.

JS: Yeah, they do, in fact, like Archie Shepp has said. Pharaoh Sanders, Archie, Albert Ayler, Roscoe Mitchell…Trane, all those cats.

RT: We saw Joseph Jarman out at Cranbrook last week and it was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. Now, seemingly there’s no connection between rock&roll music and “avant-garde” jazz—they seem to be totally unconnected—but they aren’t.

JS: Right. These days most of the players come out of rock&roll, or rhythm & blues, anyway, like Archie Shepp says his biggest influence was Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis and all those old screaming cats. Or Albert Ayler used to play with Little Walter’s band. Like Pharoah Sanders, on MEDITATIONS, right in the middle of “Consequences,” playing way up in the fifth register of his horn, screaming his ass off, and all of a sudden you hear him throw in “Hold On I’m Coming” by Sam and Dave. Blows your mind.

RT: What I really dig is the new resurgence of the Memphis Sound—that’s beautiful, man. Carla Thomas and Otis Redding. Um um. Joe Tex and Aretha. Yeah. Aretha Franklin, if you read this, I love you. I wonder if you need a band to back you up. I’ll just play the harmonica for you if you want. (Laughter)

JS: Yeah, you know Aretha started out as a jazz singer.

RT: Naturally. I started out as a jazz freak. So did you, so did…I mean shit, you have to have your chops together before you can do it.

JS: That seems to be the difference, actually, with the new rock&roll, and that’s the thing that seems to me to be the most exciting thing about the new rock, outside of the music itself—that the rock players are becoming musicians now, not just plastic guitar strummers, bouncer up and downers….

RT: Well, yeah, I mean, what else are you gonna do? I’m sure everybody who digs rock&roll will thank the British cats very much, because they’re the ones who started the whole thing, they made us into musicians….

JS: Right. And the British got theirs from the r&b people over here.

RT: They just turned it around, they just gave it the emphasis….I think they ought to be rewarded for that.

JS: Well, they have been….(Laughter)

RT: I think we oughta erect a shrine to them, to say “thank you very much.” Because, see, rock&roll began, and then it was perverted immediately—because of the American radio scene. Perversion. You know, it just became Connie Francis, and Bobby Rydell, and Fabian and those cats….

JS: That’s what drove me away from rock&roll back in 1959. Like, I’d been a rock&roll freak in high school, and then when those other cats came around I started listening to jazz and just wasn’t interested in what those people were doing at all.

RT: After rock&roll became perverted, I watched it go down. And I was glad to see it go. Because it started off so beautifully, man, and it wound up so fucking malignantly corrupt, you know, that I was glad it just sank. Because after it sank, man, I turned my face toward Cannonball naturally and all those cats. And then a young man by the name of John Coltrane took over my heart and soul for a while. And just at the point Coltrane was about to come, see, and I could have been there to see it happen. But by then I was watching Mick Jagger and people, and getting my head tore up by cats who were doing the same type thing as the Adderleys were doing, only a little glossier because for me jazz had remained a static thing…Cannonball and the people of his genre, Herbie Hancock, the Jazz Crusaders—remember those cats, “Young Rabbits” and all that shit.

JS: You talked about the American radio system, which was responsible for all that shit being popular, and it wouldn’t let people know what was really going on in jazz at that time—Cecil Taylor, Ornette, Eric Dolphy, and all that beautiful music….

RT: Right! Radio stations ought to be bombed, right off the face of the earth. They’re a malignancy on our growth. Phew. I mean there are some parts of this cancerous corruption, man, that are OK. But then…then there’s radio stations. Any part of a cancer is still a malignancy, and you can’t sacrifice everything for just one part that isn’t so corrupt. But the AM radio scene is just ridiculous.

JS: It’ll change, though….

RT: Oh, sure it’ll change. It’s got to change. If it dosen’t, then nobody’ll believe it. We just won’t stand for it.

JS: Like what you were telling the people at the Love-In-Sunday, when the Seventh Seal and Billy C. were playing, that the people would have to demand to hear this music on the radio…because they don’t even know that the music exists, unless they hear it on the radio.

RT: Right, right….Anything that comes out of the box—any air disturbance or turbulence that comes out of the speaker—has to be made by somebody. And it can always be made better. Always. Any sound you hear can be made better. Remember that, man, because the depth and range of human musical ability is endless. Totally endless, man. You can do anything—ANYTHING—you can make the most fantastically gorgeous, soul-stirring beautiful phantasmagorical music, or you can make bullshit. You know!

JS: All bullshitters must be prosecuted! Semark had a beautiful story about that—did you see that? “The Judgment of Edmund Zwingy,” it was in CHANGE/2 I think.

RT: Yeah, I saw that! It burned into my skin! In fact, that was what turned my eyeballs to the malignancy, that story did. Read it, people—lead singer musicians, pick it up and take a good look at it. Also, for your convenience, the quotation at the top of this interview—you can clip it out and carry it in your wallet and look at it every time before you go on. Because John Tchical wouldn’t steer you wrong. That’s it! That’s the rules to the game.

JS: What about material? Like some of the things you’ve been doing lately that’ve been blowing my mind, making up lyrics as you go along that come out of the specific situation. Like at the Guerrilla Lovefare happening this winter, with all those beautiful vibrations flowing and throbbing in the room, and in the middle of “comm” you started singing., “Here we are people, / Look what we can do”….Amazing….

RT: That’s because the situation was amazing. It has to do with the situation, that’s all. Don’t forget—people listening to live music jump into a game situation and it becomes magic—and it’s beautiful, man, because while the vibrations are flowing all around you and it’s magic, you’re still living in the real world. So during the magic, if somebody tells you where you are in the real world, it burns home. It hits you outside of the magic of the music…it burns right through the magic of the music and hits you in the real world. The real world is terribly imporatant—don’t get hung up in the amphetamine-mouthed rapping, the real world is beautiful, and the music is magic.

JS: Singers and musicians were always, in ancient cultures, and in our own Western culture it’s especially true, before “literature,” in the oral culture all learning was passed on through the poets and the musicians.

RT: Magicians….

JS: Poets were magicians.

RT: Of course. Poets are magicians, everybody’s a magician, man.

JS: And all learning was passed on that way. And now we’re talking about a return to an oral culture, less and less people read, and people are getting what they know off the radio, off the records…you can hear it, and that makes it more immediately REAL.

Mail to the SUN,
4857 John Lodge, Detroit, 48201.

You can find rare stuff by MC5 and also John Sinclair in the Iron Man shop here: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Iron-Man-Shop

A.O.S.3 DATES FOR 2013

Feb 23rd – London Pipeline with Citizen Fish, fighting Fiction and the Drones

March 15th Lancaster tbc?
March 16th Doncaster tbc

April 19th Brighton Punx picnic

May 17th- Belgium tbc
May 18th- Dijon Les Tanneries
May 19th- Paris tbc

Rogues picnic- exact date yet undisclosed

The band have also offered to come and play for the Horsedrawn Camp- but have’nt heard anything else back yet…believe this will be on Beltane…

July 12- Breton, tbc
July 13th- Breton, festival more details soon
July 14th- france/ belgium tbc

September 6 and 7th

Dirty Weekend Festival in Wrexham, with Citizen Fish, Oi Polloi and many many more…

September 20-21-22- Alchemy festival, Lincolnshire (highlight of last year for us, hands down…)

The band are actively seeking gigs again, and are talking to promoters in Liverpool and many other spots- if you want us to play near you, get a promoter to get in touch- there is still space!

https://www.facebook.com/AOS3official

Sounds Like: Bad Brains, The Doors, Rage Against the Machine, Black Sabbath, Sly & The Family Stone

Group frontman, Creature, is a virtual General on New York’s alt-scene. His packed and sweaty Fire Your Boss and Coffee Grind showcases have acted as the true vanguard of alternative urban arts in recent years. A haven for those who are about the band…not the bandwagon. He’s single handedly created a scene that thrives outside the scope of the hipster dreamland…yet manages to flirt relentlessly with it…sizing it up for a cheap date. This is raw music for real people. Its unrelenting, brutal and touching all at once.In 2012, the boys are poised to have the coveted break-out moment every band dreams of, with the release of their upcoming album “Elephant Amnesia” The band’s attitude is that of the heady NY rock scene of the 80s and 90s when everyone had a ‘zine, Williamsburg didn’t matter, and Thompkins Square Park was littered with rocker kids who had either completely tuned out, or believed in something more tangible than the politics of a Facebook post. Rock bands cared about making records that mattered, not Youtube clips they prayed would go viral.The lead single “Native” is a paranoid-schizophrenic’s romance tale about a city that both loathes and loves the inhabitants who waste themselves away just to say they might be alive. The track plugs along like an early 70s proto-metal tune. Its like a crew of derelict A train psychotics growling to the nervous delight and passive fear of those trapped inside the car…but curiously everyone stays on after the train screeches into the next station, and the doors open offering an easy out.

Those learning about Rebelmatic now, come after folks like the late Ari Up of the Slits and Mike Patton both of whom have plucked Creature off stages of dingy dive bars to work with them on projects. They fall behind NY subculture gods like Ricky Powell who sing their praises. They marvel at the chops of group member Alkatraz after Eminem signee Joell Ortiz (of Slaugtherhouse) has already tapped him for production. The Press haven’t been late to the party either. The Rebelmatic crew have earned kudos from Frank 151, Cool ‘Eh, Globalgrind, and of course Afropunk among others. After consistently entertaining the growing throngs of alternative-urban music fans, decimating hipster loft parties, Afropunk festivals, and releasing self-produced CDs that get feverishly snapped up in the post i-tunes era, Rebelmatic is on a path towards the top of New York’s sprawling music heap…right where they belong.

A possible Euro-UK mini tour (Amsterdam-Birmingham) is being considered towards end of April/May 2013. Anyone interested in helping with shows or anything else get in touch…..

http://www.reverbnation.com/rebelmatic

Contact: Creature (Creech) coffeegrindmedia@gmail.com

Have a listen: Top of the Mourning  Here I GO

We the new banalists, have formed an orchestra to proclaim our manifesto.

TASTE IS A FORM OF PERSONAL CENSORSHIP.
DENY THE POLITICS OF ENVY
TECHNIQUE IS A REFUGE OF THE INSECURE
SHADOW WAR

JOHN SINCLAIR
MARK STEWART
YOUTH
DAVID TIBET
ZODIAC YOUTH

released 01 May 1997
Produced by Al Houghton.

Guests include Chris Rael, John Linnell, Ron Caswell, Jennifer Charles, Julia Douglass, Jane Young.

You can buy all sorts of Life In A Blender CDs in the Iron Man Shop here http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Iron-Man-Shop

released 02 October 2002
Produced by Al Houghton, mostly.

Guests include Ed Pastorini, Chris Rael, Arcady Annisimov, Deep Singh, Julia Douglass, and Olivier Conan.

You can buy all sorts of Life In A Blender CDs in the Iron Man Shop here http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Iron-Man-Shop

released 28 February 2007
Produced by Al Houghton. Guests include Andrew Solin, Chris Rael, Raquel Bell, and Jason Parker.

You can buy all sorts of Life In A Blender CDs in the Iron Man Shop here http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Iron-Man-Shop