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.

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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 …

Jams of the day: Pavement / Live At Maxwell's (08.12.1990)

This is apparently Pavement's 2ND SHOW EVER. Holy fuck. And it is finally surfacing now, thanks to a Soundcloud upload of a cassette tape recording by Maria T (current WPRB DJ), who was at the show. A Crush mag review of the show has also surfaced here. The recording itself is lo-fi and fuzzy, and the vocals are hard to make out, but I like to think that this is just part of the early Pavement aesthetic. I only saw them a couple years ago on their reunion tour, and it felt more like a "play these special songs" show, which was absolutely great the time (my fave show of 2010, actually), but this show feels much more like a live "experience", and makes me yearn to see them in the early days. Enthusiasm was high and predictability was low, and that's potent. Listen in here:



The false-start with Malkmus cursing at the 15:00 mark is fucking priceless.

Get more info from P4k, if you so desire.

Jam of the day: "Antenna"

Artist: Sonic Youth
Album: The Eternal
Song: "Antenna"
Released: June 9, 2009
Label: Matador Records

Consider this my first entry in an attempt to get back to an actual "jam of the day", as in a daily sharing of a jam. I played The Eternal on my mini-speakers in my bathroom while showering earlier this evening. Usually, I play something upbeat and poppy that I can sing along to (or at least try to, before realizing I can't sing at all) but this time I felt like something more ... I don't know, sprawling, less "sing-songy". I picked Sonic Youth's latest studio LP because I can kinda sing along to some of it, like "Sacred Trixster", but also because it would be fun to blare in a tiny, tiled room. I definitely belted out the verses of the pop-punk speed-ride of "Sacred Trixster" and did my best to mirror Kim Gordon's husky "uh uh uh uh" during "Anti-Orgasm", then struggled with the lyrics to "Leaky Lifeboat" (I haven't quite picked those up yet) but then "Antenna" came on and I pretty much blissed out while rinsing out the conditioner from my lengthy locks. It's not often that a song comes along and stops you in your tracks. In particular, I thought back to watching Sonic Youth play some of these songs for a Pitchfork.tv session a couple years ago when the album came out. I remembered the way that Thurston Moore alternates some foot pedals during the "uh huh -- uh huh" part of "Sacred Trixster" and mimicked that part with my feet. I remembered the overhead view of Steve Shelley's drum parts during "What We Know" and the way Lee Ranaldo leans back during the rising guitar riffs and then leans back into the mic to sing. (Yeah, I really like that song. A lot.) And then I thought of "Antenna" when it came on my iPod. The album version of the song is 6+ minutes, stretching out some noisy guitar effects over a lovely melody, with slow crescendos and plaintive singing all about ... the effect of technology on society? The inevitable singularity? The disconnect between human contact and intercontinental communication? Hard to say. What I can say, though, is that this song is a true jam. It has the ability to steal my thoughts away and wedge my mind into the spaces between the notes and carry me along the undulating sound waves to wherever they're going. And then I'm back where I started, sitting here at my kitchen table with headphones on. And then the journey starts all over again.



Buy The Eternal: Matador Records / SYR Store / Insound / Amazon / iTunes

Some old, some new: British Sea Power

Okay, the holiday season is wrapping up, students are getting back into the swing of classes, musicians are warming up and starting to tour again, and labels have awakened from the sleepy late-December doldrums and have started to release the first candidates for "Best Music of 2k11". And by that I mean there's going to be some good new stuff coming out in the near future, after a few (relatively) agonizing weeks of pretty much nothingness.

The first promising release of the year, I think, comes from British Sea Power. Maybe you've heard of them? Maybe not. I first got into them in college thanks to a couple of friends who were fans. The songs on Open Season and The Decline of British Sea Power were pretty quirky and fun to my uninitiated ears and I listened to those albums periodically over a year or so after hearing them. A couple years later, I went to visit a friend in D.C. and was lucky enough to catch BSP playing at the Black Cat club one night, and that was pretty sweet. I hadn't listened to them recently enough, and the only song I actually recall them playing is "Apologies To Insect Life", but that was also before they put out Do You Like Rock Music?, so I imagine they played a few songs from that. My answer to that question was a resounding yes, by the way; the album is totally bombastic and sagging with guitar solos, which led some folks to rag on it (the infamous U.2 rating!), but I thought it was perfectly fun and listenable, so fuck p4k. I have honestly yet to listen to Man of Aran, their 2009 release that doubles as a soundtrack to a 1934 documentary film, but it seems interesting enough that I'll go back and watch and listen (maybe simultaneously!) at some point.

In the fall of 2010 they put out the Zeus EP, a not-so-unexpected departure from the aforementioned "straightforward rock" of the-album-with-the-inquisitive-title. Its eight songs span 34 minutes, which is rather long for an EP, and the ideas contained therein are expansive, as well; feedback on the guitars, tinkly piano, reverb on the vocals, languishing drones, squealing synths, and some kinda strange digital/autotune effect on the final track. It's strange and fascinating. It's BSP trying to get back to what they did best way back when: fuck with the standard rock formula. And they're doing this after they "perfected" it enough to get Pitchfork to equate them with the most "modern rock band"-ish of all "modern rock bands", these days.

And now, there's Valhalla Dancehall, officially released today, January 11, 2010. I listened to it (streaming on the AV Club) once through and found it be an interesting hybrid of these two paradigms they've embodied thus far in their career: quirky, classic-rock-inspired yet decidedly new and modern, guitar-heavy but vocally-driven indie-pop songs and over-the-top, can-you-possibly-squeeze-any-more-anthemic-guitar-riffs-and-choruses-in-there rockers. I'm looking forward to buying it (somehow). Will it be my favorite record of 2011? Seems unlikely. Will it be in my Top 10? Maybe, but that's hard to say. Will I enjoy listening to it in the meantime? Of course. So give it a shot. Maybe it'll be your favorite!

Here's a song from the new album:

and for completeness' and interest's sakes, here are some of my fave songs from their older albums (that I've heard), chronologically backwards:

blogging blogging everywhere

The internet is a strange and wondrous place. I envision that the content and structure is asymptotically approaching the vision contained within Jorge Luis Borge's incredible short story "The Library of Babel" and that n is tending ever faster to infinity. Here is an ostensibly random amalgamation of blogs that I have encountered recently and found seemingly-endlessly readable:

• Pitchfork reviews reviews: This is just what it sounds like, with some added (and remarkably astute, I might add) social/musical commentary. (In case you've never heard of Pitchfork, check it out, but don't read too much into it.)


• Firmuhment's tumblr: A smattering of literary musings scrawled on tangible objects and scanned onto the web, plus some scanned excerpts from novels. I only just discovered this earlier tonite (via the P4k reviews reviews site, actually) and have already read halfway thru the backlog. I'm particularly fond, thus far, of these one two three entries


• People I'm Next To: Also just what it sounds like, short descriptions of the wacky cavalcade of commonly crazy characters that one encounters in life.


• Largehearted Boy: Not entirely new to me, but a great website nonetheless. It compiles (daily, during the week) free mp3 downloads of popular indie bands, links to articles about good music/movies/TV/books and features occasional interviews with and guest writings by great artists and writers. Follow along for just the "daily downloads" feature and you'll be hooked.


• Hugh Shows Redux: A local music blog I've mentioned before, featuring professional photographs of local Pittburgh area concerts and bands.


• Graduate Student Blog of the American Mathematical Society: Self-explanatory, too, with interesting discussions on math, teaching, and the academic lifestyle.


• Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD): Daily blog with fascinating photos from the cosmos, and sometimes time-lapse video of space-time phenomena. Super cool.