hsu@UICSRD.CSRD.UIUC.EDU (William Tsun-Yuk Hsu) (11/14/86)
Miscellaneous rambling... Re: music for revolutionaries I heard this story about the popularity of Scriabin in the Soviet Union. Somebody asked your typical "comrade in the street" why he liked Scriabin (specifically the Poem of Ecstasy, which the PMRC should certainly look into.) The response was sth. like "I don't understand it, but it makes me feel like a young stud again." Re: Big Black Joe, where did you get the idea that Albini had an attitude problem? (He probably does, but that's beside the point.) Atomizer is one of the most direct and to-the-point albums I've heard. I don't see how complaining (albeit very loudly) about things we're angry about has anything to do with some "we're so cooool" attitude. Re: favorite *core album My favorite drugcore album is probably the Scratch Acid EP. I really like Beefeater's Plays for Lovers too... does that count as hardcore, Hof? Re: SPK I agree with Earle, that track with the piano was terrible. They could at least have prepared it or sth... Things I read/heard recently: 1) POOR innocent Greil Marcus. He gets so upset by Impotent Seasnakes' "too cool for rock n roll" he makes some vague remark about censorship and forgets to tell us it's great hardcore to skank/dance/slam/eat frozen dinners to. Maybe he should start reviewing Pampers commercials instead. (BTW, the Seasnakes album IS incredibly offensive... makes Mentors sound like Sally Fields and has great music to boot. I thought it was hilarious.) 2) zines: Chemical Imbalance has a free 4-song EP with Sonic Youth live doing Marilyn Moore. The sound is really thin and weezy; for completists only, I guess. The other 3 bands on the EP are pretty wimpy. The zine itself is great tho, with interviews with Naked Raygun, Minimum Wage (yawn) etc., lots of reviews, including Matt Howarth's record reviews in comic strip form. Non-stop Banter is a Chicago area semi-prozine with lots of reviews and interviews. The latest has a silly Meat Puppets interview (waste of paper, guys, tho I liked MP when they played hardcore) fun Squirrel Bait interview (tho I thought their album was not terribly exciting) and one with Jazz Butcher. 3) Bands for noise freaks: Boy Dirt Car is pretty raw, basic noise attack, without even a beat you can tap your foot to. The next Swans? F/i is actually less boring than some of their tracks indicate. Their better stuff is kind of like Jesus and Mary Chain but with grungy garage stuff underneath the noise instead of wimpy pop songs. Some decent guitar. These guys share an album from RRRecords. 4) Well, Hunters and Collectors was here. Club Crack opened, but I thought they mixed their sound badly because I couldn't hear the neat percussion and spacey synth because the guitars were too loud (I like loud guitars, but their guitarist and bassist weren't too special.) H&C played well, I guess, but it's so sad to hear them play this semi-commercial stuff after their neat first album. Bill
Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (12/01/86)
Really-From: hsu@uicsrd.CSRD.UIUC.EDU (William Tsun-Yuk Hsu) (Our mailer is working for the first time in days, so you guys will have to put up with my babblings again...) Re: the great Kate Bush covers conspiracy Yow! *This* Dada duck is definitely going to whip up something... no specific ideas that are sufficiently offbeat yet. I can only promise it will be weird... (is Doug doing something on his own already or...?) More music: New EP by Plan 9 is decent (I picked it up cheap so I'm not complaining.) This opium song on side 2 is good and comes close to the psychedelic haze of their 10-min. version of Frustration. There's some fake '50s stuff (is it a cover?) that I didn't care for. Finally found Talking Heads '77 by Peach of Immortality. These self-styled gods of the DC scene certainly can't live up to their own hot air. The album is close to 50 minutes of live noise-jam stuff. At their best they sound like a noisy delirious version of Christian Marclay. They make good use of dynamics and silence, but I have many more exciting records by DC bands. Pleasantly surprised by some old Venus in Furs. Usually I don't go for the dark, smooth euro-synth sound that's on their first mini-album, but it had a little noisy guitar and found tape stuff to give the songs just enough of an edge. Roxy Music fans should check it out. Agree with John: Severed Heads double-lp was boring. Kind of agree with John: I found both the music and lyrics of Nocturnal Emissions boring. Classic example of how NOT to write political songs. (Classic example of how to write political songs: Art Bears' The World As It Is Today.) Good music to study numerical analysis to. Latest Village Voice has a short snippet by Simon Frith, so browse at your local newstand. The movie section on trashy horror flicks is useless. Christgau's column is also pretty mundane; doesn't he listen to any interesting music these days? Bill
Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (12/02/86)
Really-From: hogge@p.cs.uiuc.edu (John Hogge) >[from Bill Hsu] >New EP by Plan 9 is decent (I picked it up cheap so I'm not complaining.) >This opium song on side 2 is good and comes close to the psychedelic haze >of their 10-min. version of Frustration. There's some fake '50s stuff >(is it a cover?) that I didn't care for. Ah, Bill is becoming a psych-head like yours truely. I just happened to listen to "Keep your cool and read the Rules" by Plan 9 the other night, and along with their new EP, have a fairly fresh view of their releases. First, "Keep Your Cool..." has about the coolest cartoon-like album cover I've ever encountered. It's a good album, similar to the EP in that the style is more in the direction of early progressive/later psychedelic than the standard psychedelic pop stuff everyone else does (which Plan 9 also does in fairly boring fashion on their album "Dealing With The Dead"). Plan 9's self titled first LP is also good, but has a mixture of styles from long psych jams to mindless psych pop. It has a better variety of vocal work than any of the other releases. Plan 9 isn't my favorite psych band, their main problems being: -vocalist is boring -They are too serious about their music, giving it a restrained, controlled feel (even on non-mellow material) which is probably the opposite of what most psych heads want. They never cut loose and get wild. There are good elements too; I'd rank the albums as follows: "Keep Your Cool" "Plan 9" "Anytime..." "Dealing With the Dead" However, The Fuzztones rule. --John
Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU.UUCP (12/07/86)
Really-From: "ROSSI J.A." <rossi@nusc.ARPA> Doug, your choice of verse reminds me iof PBS. Hofpersonn, you have neglected your true following. Sue, Even though you don't read this anymore, 'think YUGO' Hsu, I'l;l get to it eventually. IED, Maybe someday you will understand. Wicinski, all I can think of is 'White punks on dope' (This is a reference to a slightly old Tubes tune in case any NIS, CIA or other pro |Iranian mega- force is tuned in). At any rate, Deck the fucking halls etc. John ------
Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU.UUCP (12/19/86)
Really-From: hsu@uicsrd.CSRD.UIUC.EDU (William Tsun-Yuk Hsu) I heard a few cuts from the Pussy Galore 7", loved them, ran out and found the 12", and didn't like it that much. Is there some obscure mail order outfit where I can get the 7"? (The 12" has to be one of the worst pressings I've come across. So why is it trendy?) Two albums to get before you put together your "Best of '86" list: If you're going to buy one country album in your lifetime, get Eugene Chadbourne's Country Protest. Where else can you find a medley that includes country staples, John Lennon and Butthole Surfers? Skeleton Crew's Country of Blinds has to be the most fun I've had in a while (no, John, this has nothing to do with my recent steady diet of your Swimming Behaviour of the Human Infant albums and Brad's Swans albums :-) ). Rhythmically skewed mutant pop with deranged lyrics in the best Frith manner. BTW, I like what I've heard from Belew's new album. (I don't own it yet but he's from here so if you listen to the radio regularly you've heard like half the album. Local scenesters seem pretty supportive of him even tho he's too snobbish to show up at local events.) I wasn't bothered by the lack of tonality etc., but then I like noise, so... Bill
Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU.UUCP (01/28/87)
Really-From: hsu%uicsrd.CSRD.UIUC.EDU@a.cs.uiuc.edu (William Tsun-Yuk Hsu) Is anyone familiar with the mail order outfit from Zurich, Switzerland called Art Tape/Red West? They just sent me a mouth-watering catalog with tons of live tapes (I'm talking oodles of Joy Division, Cramps, Swans, Sonic Youth, Chrome, Art Bears etc). However, they have these cryptic numbers that look like prices for each tape, and it's not clear what currency they're in. Also there is no information on postage, and the note I got mumbled something about trading, but not prices. What's the deal here? BTW, what's the status on the Kate Bush covers conspiracy? I assume Greg Taylor's organizing this again (the hand of experience and all that)? I hope the deadline is not for a month yet... I'm working as fast as I can on Wuthering Heights (which will not be a hardcore version, Jonathan...) >Really-From: Mark Katsouros <KATSOURO@UMDD> >Give me a break. Please. I'm quite familiar with "the real thing", thank you >both. And the title of this piece makes it obvious that Emerson is not trying >to pass it off as a "new thing", but instead, a performance of the >traditional. That's exactly the point I'm trying to make. Emerson is trying to write a "real" piano concerto. Hence his piece should be judged by the standards of its genre. It fails because he clings to a traditional form without saying anything new, the same reason why late Bruch is not performed much anymore (he was very conservative and repeated himself after a few youthful "hits") and late neo-classical Stravinsky is not considered to be as interesting as early, young-turk Stravinsky. >Hell, Sting literally stole a Sergei Prokofiev theme for his >"Russians", but so what? It's a hell of a song. Have you really listened to >Emerson's concerto? I mean really listened? That's one complex, nicely done, >traditional piece of music. Hell, I wish I could sound a tenth as dramatic on >the piano. Perhaps I'm judging the piece from an entirely different >perspective. Perhaps I'm overwhelmed by how difficult it seems to play such a >piece. Just listen to the layers in the second movement. [This is not a flame. Repeat, this is not a flame.] OK, I've said this many times, and I'll say it one last time. 1) I have nothing against musical quotations, found sounds, etc. If you know my musical tastes, you'll know that I enjoy sound collage things. I think it's fine that Sting stole a Prokofiev theme. It's also fine that the Beasty Boys stole tons of Led Zep riffs. (This is not to imply I like Sting's song, but for the record I do enjoy BBs.) They took the musical quotation *out of context* and did something interesting with it. If the BBs had made a Led Zep-clone song, I doubt that I'd like their recent record as much. 2) I have nothing against building on old ideas. I feel that there are two ways of making that interesting. You can make a recreation of the original that's so perfect that it's scary. This is what Plan 9 does with psychedelia in their best stuff. Or you can totally pervert it, mangle it, take it out of context, and build something new from it. Emerson does neither in his piano concerto; he tried to write a piece in a traditional and possibly outmoded medium, without revitalizing it with new ideas. 3) Emerson's piano concerto is difficult. I would not dream of learning it, even back when I used to play outside the piano and not stick things inside the strings :-). However, there are many other extremely difficult piano pieces written decades before Emerson's, which are more innovative in terms of texture, technique, figurations, tone color etc. Technique is only one small component of the traditional classical musician's tools. Emerson's music does not speak with his own voice, in the way that Sorabji, Scriabin, and Crumb's piano music does. Sorry about boring all of you. We can all go back to working on our Kate Bush covers now... Bill
Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU.UUCP (01/31/87)
Really-From: hsu%uicsrd.CSRD.UIUC.EDU@a.cs.uiuc.edu (William Tsun-Yuk Hsu) No, this is not a response to IED, but just a suggestion that if he wants me to read his megaword rebuttals of my comments, he'll have to do better than sandwich them in the middle of 1000-line articles. I almost "n"ed his last one. Even though I saw it, I'm not going to respond because I've already said I refuse to comment further on Emerson, New Age, originality etc. However, since I'm not perfect (perfect people are boring :-)), I'll just make the aside that if IED complains about your grammar, writing skills, etc., just bitch that he can't spell words like "idiom". I even saved the article as proof. :-) Real stuff: I picked up this Mark Stewart and the Maffia thing (untitled black album) under the assumption that it's a rap/scratch/industrial hybrid. Well, kind of. Frankly, it didn't light my fire. There's still room for an industrial hiphop group out there, any volunteers? Bill
Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (03/15/87)
Really-From: hsu%uicsrd.CSRD.UIUC.EDU@a.cs.uiuc.edu (William Tsun-Yuk Hsu) My deteriorating memory fails again... maybe IED was not one of the Ameri-phobes in "American music does/does not suck" debate a year ago. My apologies... The Dreaming CD has been available in stores in Champaign for a few weeks now. Nyah nyah nyah... (I don't own one since I don't have a CD player) Bill
Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (03/16/87)
Really-From: hsu%uicsrd.CSRD.UIUC.EDU@a.cs.uiuc.edu (William Tsun-Yuk Hsu) >Really-From: think!haddock!chrisb (Chris Baxley) > Someone told me he had heard a rumor that within the >next few years the major labels are planning to phase out >all vinyl releases in favor of CD's [C'Disease?], which could >conceivably widen the gap between underground and above-ground >music (for lack of better terms). Kind of what people like Simon Frith have been predicting: there will be no "reconciliation" between underground music and mainstream music, unlike the late '60s and early '70s, when the underground bands/labels slowly became the major labels. Actually there are CDs of good material too, like Sonic Youth. It's just that there's less of it. >I naturally predicted their [Peach of Immortality] >album ""Johovah" My Black Ass - REM is Air Supply!" to be worthwhile. But >turned out to be 50+ of continuous noise. Did I miss something? Their earlier "Talking Heads '77" was pretty similar... a little monochrome in parts even for me. Nice use of silence and dynamics, but otherwise I think this band has yet to live up to its rhetoric. > The 6-song disk by Gray Matter should definitely qualify as a >great record of '86. Try to find a copy in blood-red vinyl. Yeah, this is great stuff! Buy buy! (I have a red-vinyl copy, heh heh) (BTW, there's a west coast dance(?) band called Grey Matter, so be careful.) There's this new tape from a hardcore-oriented band called Insurgent General (tape's called "Experiments in Reality") which is a little rough but has some good material. Other than some good thrashy numbers, there's satirical a cappella singing, tape noodling, tempo changes, odd meters and a few tasty guitar solos. Mail me a note if you're interested and can't get copies. Bill
Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU.UUCP (03/27/87)
Really-From: hsu%uicsrd.CSRD.UIUC.EDU@a.cs.uiuc.edu (William Tsun-Yuk Hsu) >Really-From: hofmann@nrl-css.arpa (James B. Hofmann) >The FCC ought to make a set of rules outlawing people on payrolls to record >companies to run non-commercial radio stations. Unfortunately the FCC has better things to do like make sure born-again Christians do not get offended when somebody says "shit" on the radio. :-) (Actually the FCC seems pretty laidback when compared to some of the other federal agencies.) >Really-From: rutgers!sevp@pwcs.StPaul.GOV (Sev Pearman) >fIREHOSE/Descendants 3/25 So we weren't the only ones to get Descendents after fIREHOSE. Oh well... Descendents found out they were playing here like the nite before the gig. They were great fun... of course the local campus rag ("we suck but we're the campus paper so we'll charge 25 cents anyway") gave them a bad review because they were, ahem, "hardcore". New Controlled Bleeding/Maybe Mental split lp from Placebo (these guys are really getting into the industrial music scene with the two Dry Lungs comps and this thing) is uneven. The CB side is very vocally oriented with chorus over synth-strings and ostinato bass. Ends with an industrial dance (!) cut. The Maybe Mental side is much stronger with the scratchy, grinding stuff that I like. If Lemos (Controlled Bleeding) is going to continue in this direction (mellowing out to ambient/ meditation music in his middle age) he should change the name to something more appropriate like, ummm, Controlled Wyndham Hill? :-) He's still quite a distance from wimpout new age music tho. Bill P.S. to Tom Erbe: I can't get mail to your machine...
Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU.UUCP (04/22/87)
Really-From: hsu%uicsrd.CSRD.UIUC.EDU@a.cs.uiuc.edu (William Tsun-Yuk Hsu) Various items... Boy Dirt Car was supposed to start on a West Coast tour a few weeks ago I tried to get tour dates but my letter probably didn't get to Eric Lunde on time. Oh well... There are rumors that Cause and Effect, the Indianapolis-based mail order thingie for extreme music (Viscera, Blackhouse, John Duncan, Merzbow, Human Flesh etc.) is calling it quits. Does anyone know? IDF stands for "I Died Fucking". They have a new ep out and a new album will be out in the fall. New video coming in June. Great slabs of noise industrial stuff, but done mostly with guitars and real instruments and heavily processed. When Hogge and I were up at the radio station last night, we cued up the new Current 93 album and took a power reading. What was the current reading? 93. If we get kidnapped by black leathery faceless things from a smoking pit in the ground, you'll know why. Mistake in Option review section (again): the cassette Clubcrack by Slip should really be Slip by Club Crack. Dark and raw danceable post-punk with good synth effects and sheet metal percussion. Other good Chambana bands which should eventually make their way to the review sections: the Shakes (excellent tight demented big guitar post-punk that thrash in weird meters; if you like wild guitar in 11/8 or 7/8 time this will more than satisfy you. New tape soon.), Tugrik Dhughugrik (lighter post-punk with good songs and searing guitar solos), Generic Error (these guys are beginning to sound like Urge Overkill when they're good; more power to them; great thick guitar/bass noise), Mr. Rogers Neighbors (monster funk 4-piece, noisy and thrashy, great live performers). Also Still Warm Stillborn (acoustic industrial performance group; we'll see if Dom ever gets interested in taping one of these shows) and Blood Brain Barrier (improv/noise/jazz; rumors that they're breaking up but they've always been a fragmented group). Bill