Jams of the day, band name stories, and the many projects of J Mascis: Heavy Blanket / "Dr Marten's Blues" & Electronic Anthology Project / "Tarpit"

I've heard about two musical projects in the last couple of months and just about the only thing they have in common is one man: J Mascis. This guitar wizard has played in so many great bands and released so much awesome music into the world, and there's clearly no end in sight. Dinosaur Jr. is amazing, of course, and I was really wowed by last year's solo LP, Several Shades of Why. Great songwriting, and that growly voice of his still holds up in an acoustic setting like that.

I saw on Pitchfork last week that J and some pals will release an LP of instrumental psychedelic rock tunes in May. They've shared one track, "Dr Marten's Blues", and it is an absolute scorcher. Well, it's actually just a catchy bass rumble and a pounding beat that almost serves as an excuse for J to shread a massive guitar solo over the whole thing for four minutes. Yeah. I mean, it's an awesome solo. I literally can't stop listening to it. I'm pretty sure the whole LP will be like this, which … actually intrigues me.

Another part of this story, besides the surprising and weird nature of it all, is that the band apparently has a crazy, wild, pretty much unbelievable story. I'm sure it's rooted in some truth, but … it's hard to say. You can read the whole thing on their record label's website and see for yourself, but here's a choice selection:

He remembered a couple kids from his early high school days – stoner kids he’d always admired for their “who gives a shit” attitude. Those kids, Johnny Pancake and Pete Cougar, had been kicked out of marching band for smoking weed out of a tuba. Way better musicians than the marching band deserved, they’d formed a duo that was all rhythm section – no vocals, no guitar, a sick, punchy brew of Band of Gypsies and Japanese hard psych (Johnny’s uncle was a US Marine stationed on Okinawa in 1973. From his frequent visits to Tokyo, he brought home a killer psych record collection. And a mean dose of the clap). These were the guys he needed. He rounded them up and it soon became obvious that the heavy rhythms they created were the perfect backdrop to young Mascis’ insane, fluid ability on the guitar. The trio came up with six blistering tracks, named themselves Heavy Blanket, and set a date to record.

I imagine that the Heavy Blanket moniker has something to do with the thick, sumptuous slab of sound these guys produce, or something about what this type of music does to your brain … you get the idea. But it makes me think about how bands get together, decide on a name, name some tracks and an album. There's a lot of naming. My favorite band name story is far-and-away Yo La Tengo, though; here's a great video of Ira Kaplan (and special guest!) describing the story.

---

The other musical venture I heard about recently is one by Built To Spill's bassist, Brett Nelson. His Electronic Anthology Project … er, project … covers entire albums of rock music in a more electronic/synthified way. His description sums it up nicely:

I truly love bands like Talk Talk, Men Without Hats, and Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, but I also love bands like Dinosaur Jr., The Replacements, and The Pixies. So what if I merged my two loves together?

An upcoming LP—set for release on Record Store Day—will have nine Dinosar Jr. tracks, with J Mascis singing on each one. (He might have re-recorded these vocals for this release? Not totally sure.) Have a listen to the old and the new versions here and see what you think. I'm intrigued but probably not enough to actually buy anything …

Jam of the day: Ultimate Spinach / "Ballad Of The Hip Death Goddess"

Psychedelia epitomized, that is the name of the game for Ultimate Spinach. This Boston band put out three LPs in the late 1960s, full of awesome psychedelic rock gems. You might hear a few strains of their songs and write them off as too "typical" or something; they really do make in-your-face druggy jams, which isn't exactly inventive, but these jams are such perfect examples of this style, and who are we to not give them credit and laudation for epitomizing an epic style of rock music? Ultimate Spinach songs are generally languid yet mind-expanding instrumental adventures, with some female/male vocals peppered in, and they are endlessly listenable. They make you want to turn on the lava lamp, slouch into the couch, and drop out, and this is strongly encouraged, but not necessary. They have some poppier psych-rockers, like "Funny Freak Parade" and "Dove In Hawk's Clothing", but Ultimate Spinach should be recognized for their powerfully evocative jams. This song, "Ballad Of The Hip Death Goddess", is the example I've chosen, but don't let that stop you from exploring their catalog.

The reason I bring this song up now is because of a couple of random occurrences related to this song from a couple weeks ago. I just had to share. First off, though, I should say that I found this band also randomly, on the internet (via eMusic, I believe) and really dug the two albums of theirs I heard, Ultimate Spinach and Behold & See. I listened to those mp3s quite frequently for a while, and when I saw a used vinyl copy of Behold & See at Red Onion Records in D.C. over New Year's this year, I had to buy it. I spun it a number of times right after buying it, but kinda forgot about it until recently. Comedian Andy Kindler tweeted some random hashtag stuff about #BadCoffeeShopNames, which morphed somehow into #badbandnames and #comedianbands and #confusingbandnames and #badcomedyclubnames and so on. Silly stuff, but that's the Twitter-verse for ya! Anyhow, Andy sent out this tweet that mentioned Ultimate Spinach as a #badbandname and I "politely disagreed while not really disagreeing but merely qualifiying the claim" by saying this back to him, and he deemed it worthy of a retweet. Huzzah! And it was about this jam I'm featuring now, in particular. Double huzzah huzzah! Thus far in my short Twitter life, I've been retweeted by Todd Barry and Andy Kindler, both funny comedians and Home Movies voice actors! Now I just gotta track down Brendon Small, Ron Lynch, Jon Benjamin, Laura Silverman, Mitch Hedberg, . . . uh oh.

Anyway, the other coincidence with this song involves a compilation album I just bought (on eMusic, even, whaddyaknow?) last week. I had been looking through the Dungen catalog (trying to research/listen to write a New Classic on Ta Det Lugnt) and saw they had an instrumental version of "Satt Att Se" on a compilaton album, called A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding In Your Mind. I saw this album had a gigantic amount of music for a cheap price, and was intrigued by ... well, the title. I downloaded the whole thing and listened through most of it in one inspired and lethargic sitting. It was great for that mood. And somewhere in the middle, I heard Ultimate Spinach come on! How could I mistake those opening chiming bells, so melancholy yet enticing, for anything else? In a way, the tune is kinda formulaic—repetitive bass groove, reverby vochals, ethereal lyrical themes, tinges of feedback on the lengthy guitar solo—but this song is so much more than the sum of its constituent parts. It's about a mood, a sense of existence, and powerful emotions. It's evocative, it's scary, it's groovy, it's psychedlic, baby. Check it out.



See the glazed eyes
Touch the dead skin
Feel the cold lips
And know the warmth of the hip death goddess

---

On an only slightly related note, the guy who put the compilation together (and whose band, the Amorphous Androgynous, also has a couple songs on the compilation, strangely enough) seems to be really ... interesting. While reading about the band I stumbled on this video of his featuring a crazy religious lady at Speakers' Corner in London. If you've never been there, and you're in London, you have to see it. Somehow, the northeast corner of Hyde Park has been designated as the spot where anyone can just show up and start shouting at the world. It's weirdly fascinating.