Stream:

Download: Arthur Radio Voyage #9: Forest Dwelling with Overture

This week we arrived at the Newtown Radio studio to find it transformed beyond recognition… emerald green vines blanketed the walls, and a lush carpet of multi-colored mosses and swamp grass covered the floor. We pushed our way through a thicket of elephant ears into a sun-dappled glade, where our guests Jason & Aya (otherwise known as Overture, the minds behind the cover of the recent Six Organs of Admittance/Azul split LP), were seated on bed of soft purple and magenta leaves. We listened under the shade of a poplar tree as they read tales of fantastical landscapes where landslides, floods and rainfall had created a boggy wonderland full of dancing musical animals, rhubarb babies, and a wise old vegetable lady…

After the storytelling, we ventured into the glade to ask our enchanting guests more about these worlds they had woven before our eyes. The first reading, it turns out, was inspired by a spine-tinglingly beautiful animation that the the super-artist duo made for Múm’s song “Rhubarbidoo” from their 2007 album Go Go Smear The Poison Ivy.

The second reading was inspired by the following three animations, which the artists made for experimental piano maestro Hauschka’s 2008 album Ferndorf:

The third reading, a story in which “An old man confronts his fears, traveling across a personal landscape to realize and accept his path,” was based on an animation Overture made for the song “Bless” by Icelandic musician Kira Kira, which is featured on her 2008 album Our Map to the Monster Olympics. This video was just released to the world officially yesterday — Enjoy!!!

Learn more about Jason & Aya’s work and future escapades at http://www.opertura.org and on their blog.

This week’s playlist…

“the frog pond” – frog noises
jon hassell – chor moire
emunclaw – opening of the dawn
avey tare & kria brekken – was oniap (double reversed)
painting petals on planet ghost – side a
meredith monk – gotham lullaby
feathers – silver leaves in the air of starseedlings
lavender diamond – i want to rest my heart
micheal hurley – penguins
leo kottke – song of the swamp
john fahey – bicycle built for two
aphex twin – avril 14th
penguin cafe orchestra – the sound of someone you love who’s going away and it doesnt matter
masaki batoh – world of pain
brion gysin – “i am” machine poem
yahowa 13 – ho
pilgrims – spooky theme
pearls before swine – the surrealist waltz
fear itself – bobby gene / trad gras och stenar – live jam

…2ND HOUR…

STORYTELLING WITH AYA & JASON… FEATURING:
six organs of admittance – furnace
mum – rhubarbidoo
azul – campanella / momo / ocean / gnya gnya blues / a short tip along the way (for david tibet)
haushka – freibad
mum – sleep/swim / green grass of tunnel
life on earth soundtrack – side a

Stream:

Download: “Lion Dance” — Glass Rock (mp3)

One of ten beauties on Glass Rock’s debut, Tall Firs Meet Soft Location, out now via Ecstatic Peace (more info…).

Last Sunday Arthur Radio embarked on its eighth voyage, this time to the wind-swept deserts of Greece, Morocco, Arizona and beyond… Special guest Robert Damore (aka Bobby Bouzouki) graced the Newtown Radio studio with the warm, nostalgia-inducing sounds of his bouzouki, and even took the time to tell us some of the narratives behind the rebetika (Greek folk songs) that he played during his set.

Before your journey begins, dear listeners, we have the following message to deliver from ye olde writing desk of DJ Hairy Painter…

The sun is here and opens the curtains slowly! It brings the slow glowing dust! It springs the earth out of polar jail, the winds blow the desert sand to make for better traction. If you sit, it will make your hair look sexier! The tectonic plates are shifting all around us, their quakes make the planet spin faster, and change the pitch! If you jump, you can land in buttes, the plateaus, or the Isle of Cyros! Through our earth’s muzak, the winds blow Bobby Bouzouki up to the Arthur radio treehouse for a jaunt upon rebetika mountain. Happy trials!

Stream:

Download: Arthur Radio Voyage #8 with Bobby Bouzouki

This week’s playlist…

[HAIRY PAINTER & IVY MEADOWS LIVE MEDLEY]

Charlie Tweddle – Psychedelic Tears
801 – Tomorrow Never Knows / Sun Araw – Beams
Religious Knives – Luck
Visitations – S/T album, Side B
OCS – Oh, Babe, it Ain’t No Lie
Marika Papagika – The Dervish
Vengopal Chari – Laughing
Master Musicians of Jajouka – Teasing Boujaoud
Charles D. Speer – House of Gold
Omar Souleyman – Atabat (2) and Atabat
Lagu Kebiar – Gamalan Gong
G.U. Hsu – The English Sound Table
Henry Flynt – Echo Rock
Daniel Aliangana – Dada Margaret
Los Jaivas – Cacho
Willie Lane – Deep Space Raid
MV & EE – Anthem of the Cocola Y&T
Tinariwen – Desert Wind

[LIVE PERFORMANCE BY BOBBY BOUZOUKI @ 56:39]

[VISITATION RITES DJ SET]

Peaking Lights – All the Good Songs Have Been Written
Dashiell Heyadat – Fille de l’Hombre
Wilburn Burchette – Contemplation
Lucky Dragons – It’s Me / Restraint
Rhys Chatham – War in Heaven
Sun Araw – Harken Sawshine

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Download: Arthur Radio 2-28-2010

This week’s playlist…

Doug Mesner – Good and Bad UFOs
The Electric Prunes – Holy Are You / Clara Rockmore – Vocalise
Baby Grandmothers – Somebody’s Calling My Name
Ivy Receptor – Solar Flare In
Roland P. Young – Curls
James Ferraro – Blacktop Tumble Weed / Headlines (Access Hollywood)
Axolotl – Bonds II (Excerpt)
Growing – Innit
Chmmr When Agitated – Epsilon
Salem – Red Lights
Jah Division – Dub Disorder
Lee “Scratch” Perry – Underground
Men’s Recovery Project – Normal Man
Vibracathedral Orchestra – Wearing Quid Frock
Frank O’Hara – Ode To Joy
Tone-Float Organization – Tone Float
Mick Jagger – Invocation of my Demon Brother
Tart – The Rabbits of Magtarau Pt. 2
Kwaku Baah & Ganoua – Trance
Saddar Bazaar – Sukoon
Amen Dunes – Diane
LSD March – Empty Rubius Red
Michael Bloomfield – Gonna Need Somebody On My Bond
Forest Swords – Hoylake Misst
Congregacion – Arrebol

Stream:

Download: “Tell Me Thing” — Dios (mp3)

From the fellas’ new album We Are Dios, available in a large variety of formats from the band via topspin at http://www.wearedios.com/…

Sunday was a very special day for Arthur Radio. We never thought that co-host Hairy Painter would return to Brooklyn after spending a month building Mardi Gras floats and dancing to “sissy bounce” music in Nola, but he surprised us at the station door — out of breath, suitcase in hand — right when we were about to go on. And we never thought we would be able to cram one sound engineer, one baby, five DJs, half a dozen synthesizers, and all six members of Excepter inside the Newtown Radio studio, but somehow we pulled the whole production off without a hitch. Following the release of their new double album Presidence on Paw Tracks last Tuesday, (“Presidence Day observed”), Excepter graced the Arthur airwaves with a set so on point it caused unnoticed seismic shifts beneath a 24-hour techno-rave in Istanbul. Emilie Friedlander (Visitation Rites) engaged Jon Fell Ryan in a wobbly Q&A, and Ivy Meadows and Hairy Painter piled on layer upon layer of elliptical wax to set the scene…

Stream:

Download: Excepter on Arthur Radio 2-21-2010

This week’s playlist…

Dream Magazine Comp – The Radio is Dead
Martin Rev – Island
Medio Mutante – Another Land (played @ 33rpm)
Wicked Witch – Under Your Spell / Liquid Sky – Me and My Rhythm Box
COIL – Where Even The Darkness is Something to See
Sensations’ Fix – Astride a Vibration

[14:51 - LIVE INTERVIEW WITH JFR of EXCEPTER]

Birdsongs of the Mesozoic – Sound Valentine / Shits and Giggles – Spellcaster
Mazing Vids – Cowrie Bells (excerpt)

[32:23 - LIVE SET BY EXCEPTER]

Steve Hillage – Garden of Paradise
In Aeternam Vale – The Next Step
Shits and Giggles – More Valium on the Mellotron

Earth – Teeth of Lions Rule The Divine Part 1 / Moo-lah – terror is Real / Yat-Kha – Kargyram / Erzulie – Ti-jean (Spirits of Life – Haitian Voodoo)
Sounds of The Indian Snake Charmer
Tony Conrad / Genesis P-Orridge
The Congos – Fisherman
Yoko Ono – Mind Train
Voice of the Seven Woods – Fire in my Head
Edgar Broughton Band – Out Demons Out

The Advancement – Stone Folk
Fleetwood Mac – Albatross

John Fell Ryan (otherwise known as “JFR” of Excepter) on his ink drawings (shown above – click on view fullscreen to enlarge):

These are all from the Spring of 1998. I was living alone on the corner of Metropolitan and Driggs in Williamsburg, trying to merge cartooning and abstract design with concepts of American Folk mythology and Jungian sex magick. No real art world aim in mind; these were done for reasons of personal development.

Last week on Presidents’ Day, Excepter dropped their new album, “Presidence.” Two days later, a show of drawings by band member JFR came to a close at Fingered Gallery in Bushwick, Brooklyn. In light of these seemingly aligned (and undeniably cosmic) events, Arthur Radio is excited to announce that Excepter will be performing an unbridled freeform transmission, including a live interview session with Emilie Friedlander (Visitation Rites), this Sunday from 4-6pm EST on newtownradio.com. Hairy Painter and Ivy Meadows will be there, and we’re all invited to come along for the ride…

Excepter – “Teleportation: KAL” (Presidence)

Above: Sonny (right) and a Sunset

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Download: “Lovin’ On An Older Gal” — Sonny & the Sunsets (mp3)

Buy:

There’s something about this song… From an album full of Velvets-on-the-beach singalongs called Tomorrow Is Alright, released late last year by San Francisco-based Sonny & the Sunsets. A run of 500 on vinyl is gone already but CDs are available for pre-order now from the good folks at Soft Abuse.

Sonny & the Sunsets: http://www.myspace.com/sonnythesunsets

Sonny Smith: sonnysmith.com

Subscribe to Arthur’s iTunes Podcast and receive music automatically: click here

This past Sunday, Emilie Friedlander (Visitation Rites) joined Ivy Meadows in the depths of the Newtown Radio caverns to celebrate the first day of the Year of the Tiger. Zeljko McMullen of the music/visual/art collective Shinkoyo played us a live set via his solo musical vessel Wish, and we all took a moment to reflect on the dazzlingly multidimensional, many-mirrored, endless maze that is love…

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Download: Arthur Radio #5: Amor Apocalíptico 2-14-2010

This week’s playlist…

1. Gandalf – Golden Earring
2. The Incredible String Band – Creation
3. Psychic Ills – Meta
4. Conrad Standish – Diamonds, Fur Coat, Champagne
5. Crass – Could This Be Love?
6. Sonic Youth – Creme Brulee
7. Rhys Chatham – A Rite For Sahmain
8. Bryce Hackford and Victor Timofeev – 12€
9. Infinity Window – Internal Compass
10. Run DMT – Ramona
11. Universe – I
12. Led er est – Man With Tree
13. Moon Duo – Dead West
14. Stellar Om Source – The Source Pilot

[LIVE SET BY WISH @ 1:08:33]

15. Excepter – Teleportation LIL
16. Best Coast – Sun was High
17. Los Llamarada – I’m Sorry

Jack Rose passed away suddenly at home in Philadelphia on December 5, 2009. He was widely regarded as the most profound exponent of acoustic guitar playing of his generation. Jack grew to be loved and admired by a great many people through his live performances, electric personality, [serious] cooking skills and a general mastery in the art of friendship. This concert is a release party for his new album Luck In The Valley and an occasion to celebrate and remember the good Dr. Ragtime. The artists performing were all dear friends of Jack’s and admired by him musically.

Saturday, February 13, 2010 – 7:00 PM
Latvian Society of Philadelphia – 531 N. 7th Street

Tickets: $18
Available now: http://www.ticketfly.com/purchase/event/4067

Performers:
D. Charles Speer & The Helix
Thurston Moore | Paul Flaherty | Chris Corsano
Michael Chapman
Pelt
The Black Twig Pickers
Glenn Jones
Byron Coley
Meg Baird | Chris Forsyth
Megajam Booze Band
DJ Ian Nagoski
Video clips curated by Tara Young

Newspaper articles previewing this event:

“Blues for Jack Rose: Friends and fans pay tribute to Philadelphia’s lost guitar genius” by A.D. Amorosi (Philadelphia City Paper, Feb 9, 2010)

Remembering an acoustic artist: Philly guitarist Jack Rose seemed poised to reach a new stage in his career before a fatal heart attack in December. Two concerts this weekend will pay tribute to him.” by Joel Rose (no relation) (Philadelphia Inquirer, Feb 9, 2010)

Here is a new song from Jack Rose from Luck of the Valley, out next week, courtesy Thrill Jockey Records:

Stream:

Download: Jack Rose — “Woodpiles on the Side of the Road” (mp3)

“Kingfisher”: another new song from Joanna Newsom’s forthcoming tripler Have One On Me, via the good folk at Drag City of Chicago.

Stream:

Download: “Kingfisher” — Joanna Newsom (mp3, 10.3mb)

Previously:

Stream:

Download: “Good Intentions Paving Company” — Joanna Newsom (mp3)

Stream:

Download: “‘81″ — Joanna Newsom (mp3)

Previously in Arthur Magazine:

“Forty-Six Strings and Some Truths”: JOANNA NEWSOM’s first ever major interview, by Jay Babcock, from Arthur No. 10 (April 2004)

“Always Coming Home”: How California harper JOANNA NEWSOM’s masterpiece album Ys grew from a time of personal turmoil, ambitious collaboration and eating hamburgers again. By Erik Davis, from Arthur No. 25 (Nov 2006)

Subscribe to Arthur’s iTunes Podcast and receive music automatically: click here

Above: Sonny and a sunset

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Download: “Too Young To Burn” — Sonny and the Sunsets (mp3)

Buy:

Haven’t heard a California beach party bonfire singalong this ramshacklin’ good since Little Wings drifted out… On second thought: this song is plenty sturdy, isn’t it? From an album full of Velvets-on-the-beach singalongs called Tomorrow Is Alright, released late last year by San Francisco-based Sonny & the Sunsets. A run of 500 on vinyl is gone already but CDs are available for pre-order now from the good folks at Soft Abuse.

Sonny & the Sunsets: http://www.myspace.com/sonnythesunsets

Sonny Smith: sonnysmith.com

Subscribe to Arthur’s iTunes Podcast and receive music automatically: click here

Arthur Radio Voyage No. 4: SOUNDSCAPES. Ivy Meadows and Gustav Ernst meditate in the zen-like interior of the new Newtown Radio studio. Hairy Painter joins telepathically whilst building a float in New Orleans. We invite you to climb aboard the sonic airship…

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Download: Arthur Radio Voyage No. 4 SOUNDSCAPES 2-07-2010

Off their recent “Drop a Deuce” seven-inch single… self-styled “regressive rock” marijuaniacs Mighty High of Brooklyn reel off a primo green riffer for the masses. The centerfold for this single (see it on their site) is worth your remaining five dollars alone. Dudes play the Jan Kotik annual memorial concert this Sunday, February 7, at Union Hall…probably in the late afternoon.

Stream:

Download: “Hands Up! (Live N Nasty)” – Mighty High (mp3)

Quality blown-out garage rock (with all-important tuneage!) from EAT SKULL of Portland, Oregon—this via their new seven-inch out since January from the gentlefolk of (them again) Woodsist. Enjoyeth:

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Download: “Dont Leave Me On the Speaker” – Eat Skull (mp3)

This past weekend Newtown Radio shut down in order to prepare for its big move into a more spacious studio (with improved recording facilities) within the same warehouse in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Since we weren’t able to broadcast live, Hairy Painter and I decided to set up a makeshift recording studio in my living room. We invited musician Brooke Gillespie of The Holy Experiment (who also happens to be my neighbor) to join us there as our very first guest to do a live session. We are now happy to share this performance with you, in all its warmth and beauty…

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Download: The Holy Experiment live on Arthur Radio 1-31-2010

Psychic happenings appear to be abundant on Arthur Radio…this week we focused our psychic energies on a matter that is very pressing for all of us: the future. Friends Emilie Friedlander (Visitation Rites) and McGregor (Chocolate Bobka) joined Ivy Meadows and Hairy Painter to discuss Chocolate Bobka’s forthcoming music publication The Report (which will include contributions from Ben Chasny of Six Organs of Admittance, among and many other musician-writers). After a space-time bending hour of churchy-psych strangeness, we gathered together to play some retro-futuristic songs, dance very slowly, and attempt to visualize other realities that could have come about in 2010 if things had gone a little differently in the 80s and 90s…

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Download: Arthur Radio 1-24-2010

Off debut album “Smith Westerns” by band Smith Westerns from fantastic label Hozac Records of Chicago (also home of Arthur faves Wizzard Sleeve).

Not in the mood for a middleman? Buy it direct here.

Smith Westerns West Coast tour starts TONITE. Dates: Smith Westerns

Stream:

Download: Robert A.A. Lowe and Rose Lazar — “Fantomoj de la Vitro Domo” (mp3)

This lovely piece of still-time new age is off “Eclipses,” a new album by Robert A.A. Lowe and Rose Lazar, courtesy the good folk of Thrill Jockey Records. Available on LP with 12” x 36” full color double sided poster (!), which, they say, is “included to properly voice the images, which end up as a sort of storyboard to the music…”

You may recognize Rob from his work as Lichens, or as a member of 90 Day Men and Singer…or the mighty Om, who he played with on their recent North American tour. (He’s about to leave for Europe for more dates with Om.)

Buy “Eclipses” direct here.

Intrigued parties might also enjoy the tones of Enumclaw, previously featured in this space…

Arthur is excited to present ARTHUR RADIO, an all-new Arthur-sponsored radio show broadcasting over the internet via Newtown Radio out of Bushwick, Brooklyn. Tune in live every Sunday from 4-6PM EST, or listen to the podcast at any time, from anywhere in the world. Arthur Radio will feature an uninterrupted music hour followed by interviews, live performances and other special guest segments. Anything and everything is possible…

Listen to the first episode below, hosted by DJs Hairy Painter and Ivy Meadows with special guest Tyler McWilliams from the Naturalismo blog…

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Download: Arthur Radio Intro 1-17-2010

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Download: “Party In The Pines” — Woods Family Creeps (mp3)

WOODS FAMILY CREEPS, which is/are Woods in exploratory, long-form instro-mode mood, play two sets (8p, 1030p) in Brooklyn on January 18 at Monkeytown. Reservations at: http://www.monkeytownhq.com/reservations.html. Ooh, it looks like they’re sold out already. Well, lower the lights a bit, light one up and make do with the above jam. Healing tones for troubling times.

Woods: http://www.myspace.com/woodsfamilyband

Woodsist: http://www.woodsist.com

bloggy: http://rearhouse.blogspot.com/

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Download: “The Fire Of Love” — Terminal Twilight (mp3)

Here’s a slice of coldsweat disco funk from Terminal Twilight, a new project by multi-talented former Arthur art directors (Nos. 26-29) and contributors Molly Frances and Mark Frohman. It’s a cover of a song by rockabilly pioneer Jody Reynolds, released in 1958.

Terminal Twilight’s four-song debut, Black and Blue, is available as a 12-inch 45rpm vinyl record direct from Infinite Soundtracks.

Stream:

Download: Sade — “Soldier Of Love” (mp3)

Burned, but still somehow optimistic: from her forthcoming album, Sade’s first in ten years. Listen to the veteran.

More info: sade.com

Stream:

Download: Moon Duo — “Stumbling 22nd St” (mp3)

Nice new seven-minute numbing rumbler number from Moon Duo, a new band featuring Ripley from the sainted Wooden Shjips on guitar and vocals, and Sanae Yamada on keys.

“Stumbling 22nd St” will appear on the band’s forthcoming “Escape” record (pictured above), out in February via the good people of Woodsist.

A previously released EP, Killing Time, is available direct from Sacred Bones Records.

The Moons are playing January 12, 2010 at Cafe Du Nord in San Francisco.

Birdman Records’ David Katznelson writes:

World Boogie Is Coming: If you were ever fortunate enough to get a letter or package from legendary record man Jim Dickinson (November 15, 1941 – August 15, 2009), it would end with those four words.

 It is the way he ended his first note to me, which contained the recording plans for the Texas Tornadoes (the project that facilitated our meeting). It is the way he ended his last words to his constituency as a mortal on this planet (see his message at zebraranch.com).



World Boogie Is Coming: It was his motto, his mantra, his mission — something he’d developed through the decades, from when he was a young boy, witnessing Elvis and the merging of music cultures in 1950s Memphis; to his years as a working musician, blowing away boundaries with his jug bands and session work with The Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Ry Cooder and the Flaming Groovies; to his work as a producer for artists as varied as Big Star, Toots and the Maytalls, The Replacements, Tav Falco’s Panther Burns, The Sugar Cube Blues Band, Screaming Jay Hawkins and Mudhoney.



Jim Dickinson saw sound as the vibration that would and could bring us all together. He believed that some of the finest music is that which we cannot hear. He believed some of his best production was done in absentia. He talked about the red and dark green sounds that vibrated the warmest through the soul. Jim Dickinson literally saw music… smelled music, and created his own world—a studio in Independence, Mississippi—where he could capture the music….if only for a brief second….and revel in its piety. Over the past few years, as he felt the burden of his own finite time on this planet, he would weigh heavily every time he punched the RED button—that magic portal to recording the molecules vibrating in the room—because he had but a limited number of punches left, and each one had to count. Jim lived his life ferociously fighting for the truth and purity that well-intentioned music promotes; he did not have patience for anyone or any sound that did not fall in line with his mission.



In Jim’s final note, he wrote: “I will not be gone as long as the music lingers.” And with that, he has left an amazing body of work, a family that is continuing his pursuit of world boogie, wonderful stories (many of which can be found in Robert Gordon’s book It Came From Memphis) and the extensive memoirs that his wife Mary Lindsey, his son Luther and I will be compiling.



I became a disciple of James Luther Dickinson a long time ago, believing wholeheartedly that there would be FREE BEER TOMORROW and that world boogie was just around the corner. Working with him on records was such an incredible experience for me that I would contrive projects for us to do together, whether it was sending ex-Spacemen 3er Sonic Boom to Mississippi to collaborate (cf. Spectrum Meets Captain Memphis—”Indian Giver”)…or having him do a spoken word record where he read from passages written by his favorite Southern writers. And while the latter experiment might seem the most eclectic, check out the following track, a reading of American singing poet Vachel Lindsay’s “The Congo,” and hear the might of the man they called DICKINSON.



World Boogie IS coming, and when it does come, the mountains WILL come together and Jim will be the first soul to be flying towards the party…

Stream:

Download: Jim Dickinson — “The Congo” (mp3)

Purchase mp3: ilike.com

From Fishing with Charlie & Other Selected Readings by Jim Dickinson, available on cd direct from Birdman Records and Amazon

Stream:

Download: “Somebody’s Gone” — Bro. Theotis Taylor (mp3)

A 1976 Pitch Records 45 side by Bro. Theotis Taylor coming to us via The Pitch/Gusman Story, a 3xcd, 71-track set available for $19.99 (!) direct from the good people at Big Legal Mess Records of Oxford, Mississisppi.

A note regarding the song’s producer from the compiler at JustMovingOn.info after the jump…

Waymon Augustus Jones was born into a Bulloch County, Georgia farming family in June 1932. He moved to Washington DC after graduating from high school, spent five years in the Navy, and tried on several occupations before relocating to Savannah, Georgia to study accounting at Savannah State University. Waymon Jones was long interested in music, although his brother Furman says they both had voices that would prompt people to ask them to “sing solo – so low we can’t hear you.” In 1967 he abandoned his studies and opened the Gusman Co record shop at 1210 East Broad Street in Savannah. “Gusman” was his nickname since childhood, derived from his middle name. From the outset the Gusman Co was a gathering place for local gospel singers, and Jones built a recording studio attached to the shop. Not long after opening the record shop Waymon Jones purchased the Pitch label from an unknown person. Several Pitch 45’s had already been released, some of them probably recorded as early as the mid-50’s. Jones was soon releasing records on his revived Pitch label, and later on Gusman records. If all the numbers were used it appears that there may have been seventy eight 45’s released on Pitch, perhaps fifteen on Gusman, and five albums are known.The last Waymon Jones’ produced record was released in 1978. After several moves and weathering a flood and burglary, he closed the record shop doors for good in 2001 or 2002. He passed away in Statesboro, Georgia in August, 2004. The White Family Singers, the first group he recorded, sang at his funeral. Although not as well known today as some other small, independent gospel imprints of the time, the Pitch/Gusman output is as good or better than most. The catalog is varied and deep, featuring some of the finest gospel artists in the area, leaving a wonderful, lasting musical legacy.

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“These Flowers Never Die” (mp3)

Titular psych-stormer off The Phantom Family Halo’s new double LP, Monoliths & These Flowers Never Die, now available from the good people at Karate Body Records of Louisville, Kentucky.

The Phantom Family Halo are currently on tour. Remaining dates:

DEC 6 – Montreal QC, Il Motore
DEC 7 – Toronto ON, Lee’s Place
DEC 9 – Kalamazoo MI, The Strut
DEC 10 – Cleveland OH, The Grog Shop
DEC 11 – Louisville KY, Skull Alley

Stream:

Download: Naked With You (mp3)

Available on Turbo Fruits‘ debut Echo Kid from Fat Possum Records (purchase options here). Main Fruitie used to be in Be Your Own Pet.

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Download: “Pyramid of the Moon” – Shrinebuilder (mp3)

From Shrinebuilder’s debut album available now from the good people at
Neurot Recordings.

SHRINEBUILDER is:

Al Cisneros (Sleep, Om)
Wino (St. Vitus, The Obsessed, Spirit Caravan, The Hidden Hand)
Scott Kelly (Neurosis)
Dale Crover (Melvins)

Note: Al Cisneros’ 2009 Arthur CD “Transmissions From Sinai” is now available from the Arthur Store for $12US postpaid. Also, a few copies of Arthur No. 9, which featured Wino on the cover, are still available from the Arthur Store as well.

Subscribe to Arthur’s iTunes Podcast and receive music automatically: click here

The (apparently) musician-less 4:20 track that closes the new Tinariwen album, Imidiwan: Companions…

Stream:

Subscribe to Arthur’s iTunes Podcast and receive music automatically: click here

Stream:

Download: “Surf Solar” (edit) – Fuck Buttons (mp3)

This is an excerpt from “Surf Solar,” the final song on the Buttons’ newie…

…produced by Andrew Weatherall, who old beardheads will remember as the newvisionary who made Primal Scream sound like future/now geniuses during their Screamadelica period. Dudes are touring with Growing dudes across North America in a minute. Doobie duo dudes unite! ¡Muy bueno!

Fuck Buttons website: http://www.fuckbuttons.co.uk

Subscribe to Arthur’s iTunes Podcast and receive music automatically: click here

Stream—”About a Girl”:

Download: “About A Girl” – Nirvana (mp3)

Stream—”Scoff” (Live At Pine Street Theatre):

Download: “Scoff (Live At Pine Street Theatre)” – Nirvana (mp3)

Vintage bleak bubblegum (aka “grunge”) from Nirvana. Details on the Bleach deluxe release, out November 3, available from our friends at Sub Pop Records of Seattle.

Subscribe to Arthur’s iTunes Podcast and receive music automatically: click here

Stream:

Download: “Before” – Jim Schoenfeld (mp3)

Here’s the opening track off the new “Wayfaring Strangers: Lonesome Heroes” compilation, put together by the friendly cats at America’s most consistently high-quality “lost music” record label, Numero Group of Chicago.

“Before” is warm, spooky…and somehow un-precious even as sensitive Canadian Jim “Schony” Schoenfeld ventures into earnest ecologist territory. Hard to believe this was recorded by a professional hockey player—things were very different in the early ’70s, eh?

Click here to visit Numero Group to find out more about this album.

Subscribe to Arthur’s iTunes Podcast and receive music automatically: click here

Here’s the lead loper off MV & EE’s new album “Barn Nova” (pictured above), out today (October 13, 200) via our friends at Ecstatic Peace Records of Massachusetts…

Stream:

Download: “Feelin Fine” – MV & EE (mp3)

Subscribe to Arthur’s iTunes Podcast and receive music automatically: click here

Stream:

Download: “Believe” – Famous L. Renfroe (1968?) (mp3)

Children is an album of electric gospel spirituals by a Memphis, Tennessee gentleman named Famous L. Renfroe performing as “The Flying Sweet Angel of Joy.” Famous wrote and produced all the album’s songs, played all the instruments except for the drums, and then released the album on his own sometime around 1968, without a label name. Long out of print, Children is available again on vinyl, the Lord’s preferred format for recorded music, thanks to the efforts of Oxford, Mississippi’s Big Legal Mess Records.

Click here for info on how to obtain a copy.

Subscribe to Arthur’s iTunes Podcast and receive music automatically: click here

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Download: “Sane Eba” – Zakee Kuduro feat. Anbuley (mp3)

Congotronics meets M.I.A., maybe? Nice and wicked.

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Download: “Storm Thru Mississippi” – Henry Green (1951) (mp3)

Here is the second of three songs we’re presenting this week from the forthcoming, eagerly awaited Fire In My Bones: Raw, Rare & Otherworldly African-American Gospel, 1944-2007, a stunning 80-song, triple-CD set compiled by Mike McGonigal of Yeti Magazine fame. Most of the songs on Fire are sourced from independent regional labels, and almost none have ever been widely available. These are some genuine lost treasures of American devotional music, folks. Mike has done some serious collecting, culling, and sequencing on this set, and we’re all the lucky beneficiaries.

Henry Green’s “Storm Thru Mississippi” is from the set’s opening disk, “The Wicked Shall Cease from Troubling.” From the liner notes: “['Storm'] was issued as a single on realtor Steve Chandler’s Chicago-based Chance label. The song, subtitled ‘Storm Thru Tupelo,’ might be about the devastating 1930s flood described in John Lee Hooker’s ‘Tupelo.’ Regardless, it’s one of many gospel songs which make an Old Testament styled interpretation of contemporary ‘extreme weather’ events.”

Fire In My Bones: Raw, Rare & Otherworldly African-American Gospel, 1944-2007 is being released on October 27, 2009 by the good people of Tompkins Square Records of New York City. You can pre-order now from Amazon.

Previously:
“How Long” by Sister Ola Mae Terrell (1948)
“Don’t Let Him Ride” by the Mississippi Nightingales (1971)

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Download: “Don’t Let Him Ride” – Mississippi Nightingales (1971) (mp3)

Here is the second of three songs we’re presenting this week from the forthcoming, eagerly awaited Fire In My Bones: Raw, Rare & Otherworldly African-American Gospel, 1944-2007, a stunning 80-song, triple-CD set compiled by Mike McGonigal of Yeti Magazine fame. Most of the songs on Fire are sourced from independent regional labels, and almost none have ever been widely available. These are some genuine lost treasures of American devotional music, folks. Mike has done some serious collecting, culling, and sequencing on this set, and we’re all the lucky beneficiaries.

The seriously Pops Staples-inflected “Don’t Let Him Ride,” adapted from the O.V. Wright composition, is from the set’s opening disk, “The Wicked Shall Cease from Troubling.” From the liner notes: “This song was released on a 45 on the Home Boy’s label, which might have the best logo artwork this side of Mingering Mike. H-B was one of a handful of labels featuring production by Bishop Bobby King Cole of Memphis, TN.”

Fire In My Bones: Raw, Rare & Otherworldly African-American Gospel, 1944-2007 is being released on October 27, 2009 by the good people of Tompkins Square Records of New York City. You can pre-order now from Amazon.

Previously: “How Long” by Sister Ola Mae Terrell (1948)

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Download: “Caroline” – Espers (mp3)

From the forthcoming ESPERS album, III, available October 20, 2009 from the good folk at Drag City Records of Chicago and Wichita Recordings of London.

Marvelous album cover artwork by Xavier Schipani of Baltimore.

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Download: “How Long” – Sister Ola Mae Terrell (1948) (mp3)

Here is the first of three songs we’ll be presenting this week from the forthcoming, eagerly awaited Fire In My Bones: Raw, Rare & Otherworldly African-American Gospel, 1944-2007, a stunning 80-song, triple-CD set compiled by Mike McGonigal of Yeti Magazine fame. Most of the songs on Fire are sourced from independent regional labels, and almost none have ever been widely available. These are some genuine lost treasures of American devotional music, folks. Mike has done some serious collecting, culling, and sequencing on this set, and we’re all the lucky beneficiaries.

“How Long” is from the set’s opening disk, “The Wicked Shall Cease from Troubling.” From the liner notes: “Sister O.M. Terrell recorded one 78 for the Playboy label in 1948, then cut six songs for Columbia five years later. Like many working within the ’sanctified blues’ tradition, she was an itinerant evangelical singer with holiness affiliations (hers being with the Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God).”

Sister Terrell died in 2006 at the age of 95.

Fire In My Bones: Raw, Rare & Otherworldly African-American Gospel, 1944-2007 is being released on October 27, 2009 by the good people of Tompkins Square Records of New York City. You can pre-order now from Amazon.

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Download: “No Mongo” – Wizzard Sleeve (mp3)

Sticky new one by Dave Reeves’ Alabaman glue-wave faves WIZZARD SLEEVE, off their debut LP Make the World Go Away (pictured above) out October 2 from the mighty HoZac Records of Chicago, Illinois. The Sleeve will be playing a record release party in Chicago at something called “Mortville warehouse” on October 2. You know what to do.

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Download: “Bitter and The Sweet” — Reverend Douglas Bell and the Stage Cruisers (mp3)

Between 1968 and 1978, a Memphis, Tennessee-based label called Designer Records label issued 400-500 singles and a few albums. One of them was Nuclear Blast, an album of electric gospel soul by Reverend Douglas Bell and the Stage Cruisers. Long out of print, with no surviving masters, Nuclear Blast is available again, on vinyl, God’s own format, thanks to the efforts of Oxford, Mississippi’s Big Legal Mess Records, who recently acquired the entire Designer catalog; Nuclear Blast is the third album they’ve reissued thus far.

More info on Designer, as well as how to acquire these limited edition reissues on vinyl here:
http://www.biglegalmessrecords.com/bell.htm

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Above: Page from article on Om in Arthur No. 22, published May 2005. Photograph by Lars Knudson, design by W.T. Nelson. Bassist/vocalist Al Cisneros on left. Drummer Chris Hakius, pictured right, has since left the band. Note Black Sabbath altar.

Ah! The closing instrumental cut from the forthcoming Om album, God Is Good, out September 29 via the great Drag City Records of Chicago. Emil Amos, of Grails fame, is Om’s new drummer…

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Download: “Cremation Ghat II” – Om (mp3)

Om are playing shows over the next couple of months, including a seven-date East Coast jaunt with Six Organs of Admittance, who also have a new album out on Drag City. (Listen to new Six Organs music here.)

Om’s Al Cisneros and Six Organs of Admittance’s Ben Chasny in conversation: The Way of the Riff, from Arthur No. 27.

A new song by Six Organs of Admittance, “Bar Nasha,” is featured on Al Cisneros’ multi-artist 2009 compilation for Arthur, Transmissions From Sinai, now available from Arthur’s easy-to-use mail-order store. Also featured on Transmissions is “Kopernik Trip Note,” a new song by Lichens, who will be opening for Om and Six Organs on the aforementioned East Coast swing, and “Acid Rain,” by Grails. Yeah!

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Download: “I Can’t Leave You Loving Me” – Tim Buckley (live, NYC, March 6, 1967) (mp3)

Here’s a live, stunning blister-on-the-fingers rendition of a previously unreleased Tim Buckley composition (or is it an adaptation of a traditional song? info please…), one of six such apparently abandoned tunes available for the first time ever on Live At The Folklore Center, NYC, March 6th, 1967 released a coupla weeks ago via the good folk at Tompkins Square Records of New York City. Who woulda thunk in 2009 that there was still some unreleased Buckley lurking in the archives? We are blessed…

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Wailing tough-funk first cut off Between My Head and the Sky, the new Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band studio album out September 22, 2009 through Chimera Music of New York City.

Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band is:

Yoko Ono: vocals
Sean Lennon: acoustic and electric guitars, piano, keyboards, bass, drums, percussion
Keigo “Cornelius” Oyamada: guitars, bass, Tenorion, programming, percussion
Hirotaka “Shimmy” Shimizu: guitars, percussion
Yuko “mi-gu” Araki: drums, percussion
Shahzad Ismaily: guitars, bass, drums, percussion
Yuka Honda: Pro-tools editing, sampler, e. piano, organ, percussion
Michael Leonhart: trumpet, vibraphone, percussion
Erik Friedlander: cello
Daniel Carter: tenor saxophone, flute
Indigo Street: guitar

Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band official website: http://www.YOPOB.com

Yoko headlined the second night of ArthurFest in 2005, and was interviewed at length by Arthur “Bull Tongue” columnists Byron Coley & Thurston Moore (and photographed by Eden Batki) in Arthur No. 26 (Sep 2007). (Read the whole article here.)

Also! Yoko does a great wisdom-flow on Twitter: twitter.com/yokoono

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Live CRAMPS at City Gardens (Trenton, NJ circa ‘81 maybe ‘82) show, courtesy the network of Cramps fans and the folks at Tequila Sunrise Records of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Original source is unknown.

“WHAT I GET FREE/YOU HAVE TO BUY”

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Download: “Primitive” – The Cramps (live at City Gardens) (mp3)

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Download: “Bumper Up Raw” – White Rainbow (mp3)

Adam Forkner aka White Rainbow sez:

“this is something i recorded on monday august 24th live in the marriage studio just letting it roll. no edits. raw as fuck. i had just downloaded all of these hip hop drum sample packs on http://4thehood.blogspot.com/search/label/Samplez got the manny fresh, polow da don and three 6 kitz, hence all the killer hand clap samples”

White Rainbow’s next release is New Clouds, a 2LP/1CD/MP3 via Kranky out October 19, 2009.

White Rainbow blog:
http://urbanhonking.com/whiterainbow

White Rainbow myspace:
myspace.com/whiterainbowwhiterainbow

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Download: “Bonds II (excerpt)” – Axolotl (mp3)

Karl Bauer of Axolotl writes:

“This is an except from a track from my forthcoming Catsup Plate LP, Of Bonds in General. (The track is 15 minutes long in its full form…) It’ll be available in October/Novemberish as a vinyl LP with some complicated packaging courtesy of Mr. Rob Carmichael of Cplate/SEEN, and will come with a download card. It will also be available for download via Catsup Plate. No CD, the world doesn’t seem to need them anymore.

“This record has been in the works for a long time, the title coming from a text by Italian heretical monk/philosopher/magician Giordano Bruno on the doing and undoing of erotic bonds through magical manipulation of images. The record is the result of three years, two bad break-ups with Gemini women, a sample of 15th century Franco-Flemish composer Josquin Desprez, and massive consumption of Steve Reich, Theo Parrish and Metal Machine Music, all mixed in the Central Fire.

“I have also formed a band with poet and 50 Ft. Women member Elaine Kahn, who I accompanied last summer on the No More Bush tour. We’re called Coelom. We’re working on our first two records right now.”

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Download: “You’re a Target” – No Age (mp3)

“You’re a Target” from No Age of Los Angeles, California: My Bloody Valentine smear plus concise punk at a Husker Du tempo. Nice!!!

Available now as stream, next month in real world from Sub Pop of Seattle, Washington on thee new “Losing Feeling” EP.

Extra bonus: NO AGE live at the L.A. River – film

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Download: “Now That I’m a Man Full Grown” – Jack Rose (mp3)

A long song off Kensington Blues by Jack Rose of Philadelphia, released this year by the good folks at VHF Records (buy it from them direct if you can’t find it a local record shop…)

Jack Rose info always available at the man’s site:
http://www.myspace.com/jackrosekensington

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Download: “Motorbike” – Wooden Shjips (mp3)

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Here’s “Motorbike” from Wooden Shjips’ latest album Dos brought to your ears byone of America’s finest record labels, Holy Mountain of Portland, Oregon. Buy Dos from a local LP vendor. If you don’t have one, they’ve got it at Amazon

Wooden Shjips are tourin’ the East Coast in October. Dates here:
http://www.myspace.com/woodenshjips

And then there’s the second Frisco Freakout benefit concert, on October 10, 2009, which Arthur is proudly presenting. Info here:
http://www.myspace.com/friscofreakout

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Download: “Dear One” – Pisces (mp3)

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Lead track off A Lovely Sight, a buried co-ed psychedelic mid-tempo burner from 1969 finally issued this summer by the lovely gents at Numero Group of Chicago, Illinois.

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Download: “Trouble” – Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions (mp3)

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Another glamorously doomed blues serenade, with a rare chord change, from Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions’ forthcoming second album, Through the Devil Softly, out in late September from the good people at Nettwerk Records.

• MORE AWESOME TAPES (AND 7-INCHES) FROM AFRICA: Frank lived in West Africa from 2005 to 2008, and he tells us all about it at Voodoo Funk, a collection of stories, MP3s and awesome record store art. He’s also DJing a “Lagos Disco Inferno” party this weekend in Brooklyn, and you can get a preview of the heavy grooves from his crates with this kinda sloppy and totally delightful downloadable mix. [Voodoo Funk]

• MEXICAN JOURNALISM 101: Tucson-based writer Charles Bowden is by far the best guy when it comes to reading about drugs and Mexico, partly because in Mexico you are not allowed to write about drugs and Mexico. In last month’s Mother Jones he wrote this terrifying story of a reporter who wasn’t even trying to do that, but Mexican Army psychopaths decided to try and kill him anyway. He fled to the United States looking for asylum so we put him in jail and took his kid away. [Mother Jones]

• CHILEAN ELECTRONICS: Arthur pal Raspberry Jones is adding a bunch of tunes to Newly Lost Edge, including some interesting electronic music from South America. Jones is a regular go-to guy when it comes to this stuff, helpfully directing our attention to mixes such as this one from Matias Aguayo, a Chilean dude “putting on his various friends from around the world – artists from Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Cape Verde, etc. – who aren’t just doing the local thing, so much as mixing that local thing with a (for lack of a better term) minimal techno vibe.” [Newly Lost Edge]

• ENDGAME TIME AGAIN: The Guardian UK joins the Financial Times in shoring up the British mainstream press’ reputation as a hub for radical anarcho-primitivist thought, following the Jared Diamond interview we wrote about last week with this pleasantly archaic exchange of letters between two dudes, one of whom is like “The writing is on the wall for industrial society, and no amount of ethical shopping or determined protesting is going to change that now” and another guy who’s like, “you’re just horny for the apocalypse.” [The Guardian]

• NEW ANIMALS: Did you see the new animals yet? World Wide Fund for Nature has all kinds of information about the 350 different species of plants, amphibians, reptiles, fish, birds, mammals and invertebrates that humans have recently discovered hiding out in the Eastern Himalayas (so not exactly “new,” so much as “new to us”). Including this flying frog that glides around from tree-to-tree with its webbed feet. That guy is most likely on the anti-industrial society side of the debate. [WWF via Science Daily]

P.S. Happy Birthday Joe Strummer! You can read Kristine McKenna’s beautifully sprawling Q&A with the dearly departed Clash frontman and all around inspirational hero from Arthur 3 (March 2003) by clicking here. We’ve also got plenty of hard copies left in the Arthur Store. Click here to go see about that.

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Download: “Networking” – Pens (mp3)

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From the British misses’ zero-fi party jamz debut hey friend, what you doing? out next month on LP and CD via De Stijl Records of Minneapolis. Pens have made it into the USA and are right now touring the West Coast … all info at the amusingly addressed http://www.myspace.com/penspenspenis.

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Download: “Colossus” – Lightning Bolt (mp3)

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From forthcoming new album—a bit more info here

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Download: “Commonwealth” – Brendan Murray (mp3)

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A shimmering excerpt from Brendan Murray’s Commonweatlh, released last year (and still available) via 23five.

More info on Mr. Murray, including show updates, order links and other stuffs, are available at his blog: http://buttonpushing.wordpress.com

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Download: “Freeway In Mind” – Kurt Vile (mp3)

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“Freeway in Mind” by Kurt Vile of Philadelphia is off last year’s Constant Hitmaker — LP still available on Woodsist of New York City, CD on Gulcher Records from somewhere in Florida. Kurt’s new album is forthcoming momentarily from Matador Records…

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Download: “Cocaine Wedding” – theusaisamonster (mp3)

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Opening clockcleaner off the final theusaisamonster opus, last year’s criminally underheard Space Programs, available via Load Records of Rhode Island.

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Download: “Her Death” – Loren Connors

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From the “Juliet” album, released a few years ago by the good people of Family Vineyard Records of Indiana.

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Download: “King Richard TLH” — Masters of Reality (mp3)

Here’s the opening salvo off Pine/Cross Dover, the new studio album out later this month from Chris Goss’s MASTERS OF REALITY, via the Mascot Records label in Europe—pre-order info here. The band willbe touring in Europe, check their dates and more at the October tour in Europe, more: official Masters of Reality page on myface.

Chris Goss: beloved Masters of Reality mainman for twenty-plus years—a storied New York City band whose debut album was produced by Rick Rubin and released on American Records, which was followed by a move to California and some time on the record label that brought us Tone-Loc. For two years, three tours and a studio album, Masters of Reality’s drummer was legendary fierce redhead Ginger Baker of Cream. Pine/Cross Dover is the band’s first studio effort in five years, and finds longtime drummer John Leamy once again on skins, joined by Brian O’Connor on bass, and Dave Catching (Eagles of Death Metal, Earthlings, QOTSA, etc) and Mark Christian on guitars.

Goss is also known as: Kyuss producer, occasional Queens of the Stone Age/Desert Sessions member/collaborator, UNKLE contributor, and, with Twiggy Ramirez and Zach Hill, one-third of Goon Moon. As one-half of the pictured-above The 5:15ers (QOTSAer Josh Homme was the other half), he headlined the second night of ArthurBall in Los Angeles in spring 2006.

And, of course, Goss is the author of arguably the best piece of neighborhood/cooking writing to appear so far in the pages of Arthur: check out his super-porkout Immigrant’s Sauce recipe/reminisence from the Brian Eno cover ish of Arthur (No. 17, July 2005—still available, collectors!).

Bonus dish: Here’s a profile on Goss that I wrote for the LAWeekly from August 2004…

Download: “Troubled Hand” – Meercaz – Meercaz

Courtesy the so-cool-they-don’t-have-a-real-website-but-you-can-still-buy-stuff-from-online Gulcher Records.

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Download: “Sandy Babe” — Little Wings

A new song from Little Wings, courtesy the wonderful folks at Marriage Records.

Little Wings is Kyle Field and whoever he’s collaborating with at the moment. He’s part of the West Coast’s New Energy movement, profiled by Erik R. Bluhm (of Great God Pan fame) way back in Arthur No. 13.

A song from Little Wings is also featured on Devendra Banhart’s 2004 Arthur compilation, Golden Apples of the Sun, which is still available for $12US from Ye Olde Arthur Store here.

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Download: “Blanchard” — Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions (mp3)

New dark lullaby from the woman who’s been whispering us off to dreamtime for two decades now. From Through The Devil Softly, out in late September from the good people at Nettwerk Records.

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Download: Sunburned Hand of the Man — “Serpent’s Wish” (128kbps)

The above “punishingly rhythmic heart-punch” is taken from from Sunburned Hand of the Man’s No Magic Man, the band’s 2005 release on Arthur’s own Bastet imprint. The colorful quotes are from The Wire’s review, which you can read in full down below.

Chambo the Arthur Vaultkeeper would like to chime in and say that it looks like there’s only about 150 of these suckers left, so click here to stop by the Arthur Store and get your copy before this second edition is sold out …

Sayeth The Wire:

“We’ve got the closest thing to a high fidelity release here from the confirmed kings of the under-the-counter-culture, Sunburned Hand Of The Man. No Magic Man comes courtesy of Arthur magazine’s new audio imprint and it bundles a selection of some of Sunburned’s most punishingly rhythmic heart-punches to date. There are pieces here that sound like Pete Cosey-era Miles cut up with Lhasa street song and stand-up stonerskits, while others make out like the logical Heavy Metal extension of Tony Williams’ experiments with electricity as part of Lifetime alongside guitarist John McLaughlin and organist Larry Young. Guitarist Marc Orleans can generate kandy korn cartwheels as well as The Magic Band’s Jeff Cotton and combined with Rob Thomas’s bass, the two provide a steam-rolling backline that various drummers — John Moloney, Phil Franklin — work to bolster and undermine. Much of No Magic Man is possessed of a uniquely squelchy analog bottom end and between tracks there are some wowing cut-ups from various found sources that add a beautiful veneer of mystic shit to the already precariously dosed proceedings.”
— David Keenan, The Wire (May 2005)

It’s 2009. Do you know what Sunburned Hand of the Man is doing? Go here — http://www.myspace.com/sunburnedhandoftheman — to find out.

In keeping with the Grateful Dead thread that happily resurfaces every so often here on Arthur, I’m offering up one of the heaviest bootlegs in my collection: A soundboard recording of October 12, 1968 at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco. It’s a show that came up in our “Listen to the Dead” story from 2005, and it’s my favorite single-disc representation of how monstrously weird this band used to be. Legendary taper Dick “Picks” Latvala is quoted on Deadlists saying that this is among his favorite performances, calling it “primal Dead.”

It’s a short show by Dead standards — just about 80 minutes — comprised entirely of CRUSHING jams. No folky “Sugar Magnolia” sing-a-long first set, not much noodly Phish bullshit and almost no sign of the gentle rainbow twirly groovin’ bear nonsense. Instead it’s near ambient passages that slowly gather speed and intensity before exploding into massive psychedelic earthquakes of rhythm that leave aftershocks of cosmic guitar lines shimmering through the air. This is the fearsome and messy STEAL YOUR FACE sound that people who compare the Dead to Royal Trux or Comets on Fire are talking about. A Dead show where you can see why Greg Ginn and the Black Flag dudes were into these guys.

Check the annotated setlist below. FYI the “>” is taper shorthand for songs joined together by “a defined jam or contiguous transition” so you get the idea how loose things get:

Set One (1) [0:23] % (2) [0:37] ; Dark Star [14:53] > Saint Stephen [4:51] > The Eleven [9:58] > Death Don’t Have No Mercy [7:#52] ; (3) [0:31]

Set Two Cryptical Envelopment [#1:28] > Drums [0:10] > The Other One [7:08] > Cryptical Envelopment [8:30] > New Potato Caboose [3:28] > Jam [3:11] > Drums (4) [1:35] > Jam (5) [7:12] > Feedback [7:15#]

A couple notes: Some Deadheads like to talk about how maybe Jimi Hendrix was hanging out in the wings during the show. As rumor has it he snubbed the band’s invite to check ‘em out the night before — there was this girl and she had some acid and yadda yadda — and so they failed to invite him on to jam or something. Who knows if it’s true, but like the shows these guys played with the Allman Bros later in the ’70s, it’s fun to imagine such a ridiculous gathering of guitar avatars in one place.

People also complain about somebody who is just cold goin’ bananas with some kinda wood-stick percussion thing on “Dark Star,” all “ritzy-rit-ritzy-rit” outta rhythm with the rest of the band from time to time. Whoever it is walks up to a mic at some point and it gets really annoying in the front of your speakers for about 25 seconds but then it fades out, so just chill about that. It’s also a show where beloved keyboard slob Pigpen is not on stage — probably off getting wasted with Janis or something. Good for him!

You can stream the show over at Archive.org, or download it by clicking below.

The Grateful Dead – Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco, CA – 1968-10-12 (320kbps)

More Dead on Arthur after the jump …

• Drone artist Greg Davis’ massive Dead mix
• Headneck Bonanza: Doug Sahm live in 1972 with Leon Russell and the Dead
• New Riders’ Marmaduke, RIP
• Listen to the Dead: An Arthur primer featuring Ethan Miller, Animal Collective’s Geologist, Erik Davis and more
• Uncle Skullfucker’s Band: Daniel Chamberlin explains the discreet charm of the Grateful Dead

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Download: “Little Sadie” – Jack Rose and the Black Twigs (mp3)

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Jack Rose & The Black Twigs’ self-titled longplaying newie is available on CD from VHF and vinyl from Klang Industries.

Jack Rose gig schedule: http://www.myspace.com/jackrosekensington

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Download: “I Ain’t Hiding” – The Black Crowes (mp3)

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A slice of unapologetically dirty disco from the forthcoming Black Crowes album(s), out September 1, which feature cover and gatefold artwork by longtime Arthur contributor Arik Roper. More info, of course, at http://www.blackcrowes.com/

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download: click here

From the forthcoming revised edition of Tracks & Traces, culled from the ‘76 Harmonia & Eno sessions in “the rural hamlet of Forst in Germany’s Weserbergland,” just before Eno went into the studio to work with David Bowie on what would become Low. Info on the new Tracks & Traces, which will be out in October, is available from UK label Gronland Records, here.

Download: “I Want You to Know” (mp3)

Perfect guitar tone. Two verses, cool, then they give you the big chorus–and a ear-blistering solo that the next cubicle will enjoy emanating from yr podlings. Get some ointment from HR. From the album with the year’s greatest cover, Farm, issued recently by the clearly fine folks at Jagjaguar. Acquisition info here.

Download: “Choral” – Mountains (mp3)

Title song off Mountains’ Choral album, made possible through Thrill Jockey Records, who have the double-LP and CD on sale direct to you from them here.

Download: Grateful Dead Mix, Vol 1 by Greg Davis mp3 (large file!)

the grateful dead
vol.1 mixed by greg davis
june 28th, 2005

1. feedback (live-fillmore west – 08/21/68)
2. china cat sunflower (from ‘aoxomoxoa’)
3. seastones (live-palace of fine arts – 11/28/73)
4. the main ten (from mickey hart’s ‘rolling thunder’)
5. ripple (from ‘american beauty’)
6. spidergawd (from jerry garcia’s ‘garcia’) + its good to be god rap (live-SF state acid test – 10/02/66)
7. that’s it for the other one (from ‘anthem of the sun’)
8. seastones (original fe. 1975 version) + what’s become of the baby (from ‘aoxomoxoa’)
9. new potato caboose (from ‘anthem of the sun’)
10. late for supper (from jerry garcia’s ‘garcia’) + nirvana army rap (live – SF state acid test – 10/02/66)
11. uncle john’s band (from ‘workingman’s dead’)
12. prankster sound collage #2 (live – SF state acid test – 10/02/66)
13. attics of my life (from ‘american beauty’)
14. prankster sound collage #3 (live-SF state acid test – 10/02/66) + fire on the mountain (mickey’s barn 1973)
15. st. stephen (live – harpur college – 05/02/70)
16. rolling thunder / shoshone invocation (from mickey hart’s ‘rolling thunder’) + seastones (live – 06/06/75)
17. we bid you goodnight (live-berkeley community theater – 08/15/71)

GREG DAVIS is a working musician. Here’s what he’s up to:

out now : ‘mutually arising’ cd on kranky
out now : ‘primes’ cd on autumn records
out now : sun circle ’s/t’ lp on lichen / autumn

http://crystalvibrations.blogspot.com
http://www.myspace.com/gregdavismusic
http://www.myspace.com/suncircle
http://www.myspace.com/cwgd

Download: “The Lost White Brother” – Headdress (mp3)

There are few more appropriate sounds than these for that part of the night when you’ve been working the old beer/greens combo and the couch seems like a great place to go visit.

Buy this whole goddamn record (called Lunes) from these guys here. This record was made possible by No Quarter Records of New York City, home of Endless Boogie, The Psychic Paramount, Circle and Doug Paisley.

Download: “Hadha Mu Insaaf Minnek” – Salaam (mp3)

A rendition of a longtime favorite tune in Iraq from Salaam’s new, self-titled album, available from the band themselves, here. Salaam are based in Bloomington, Indiana.

Download: “Little Bit of Heaven” — Cheval Sombre (mp3)

Pure narcotic space bliss/blues, like a missing Spacemen 3 song, newly revealed…which is funny, cuz it features Sonic Boom (ex-S3) on organ and effects. With Britta (of Dean & Britta fame) on bass and keys. Available on Mr. Sombre’s self-titled debut, available via Dean & Britta’s label, Double Feature Records.

Above: The Entrance Band (pictured: Guy Blakeslee and Paz Lenchantin; not pictured: drummer Derek James) in electric power trio formation at the Arthur Magazine benefit at Cinefamily in Summer, 2007. Photo by JENNIE WARREN

Download: “Lookout!” —The Entrance Band

Here’s the opening psych-blues jam off The Entrance Band’s loonnnnng-awaited new LP, set to finally arrive September 1, 2009 from our friends at Ecstatic Peace! Records+Tapes of Massachusetts. Tomorrow, the Entrance Band embark on a North American barhopping tour supporting Nebula. Dates here.

Two cuts from last year’s Motion to Rejoin:

Download: “Oppressions Each” – Brightblack Morning Light (mp3)

Download: “Hologram Buffalo” – Brightblack Morning Light

Motion to Rejoin is available in all formats from Matador Records of New York City. Arthur recommends vinyl.

Download: “Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog” (excerpt) – Wolves in the Throne Room

“The extra cuts [California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger] made today took nearly $80 million that pays for workers who help abused and neglected children; $50 million from Healthy Families, which provides healthcare to children in low-income families; $50 million from services for developmentally delayed children under age 3; $16 million from domestic-violence programs; $6.3 million from services for the elderly; and $6.2 million from parks.” — Los Angeles Times, July 29, 2009

“Schwarzenegger reclined deeply in his chair, lighted an eight-inch cigar and declared himself ‘perfectly fine,’ despite the fiscal debacle and personal heartsickness all around him. ‘Someone else might walk out of here every day depressed, but I don’t walk out of here depressed,’ Schwarzenegger said. Whatever happens, ‘I will sit down in my Jacuzzi tonight,’ he said. ‘I’m going to lay back with a stogie.’” — New York Times Sunday Magazine, July 5, 2009

Punishing the weakest members of any society—poor, sick children—in a time of economic turmoil is simply immoral.

Californians should think deeply about what they have allowed to happen. Maybe this excerpt from a song on Wolves in the Throne Room’s Black Cascade, released earlier this year through Southern Lord Records of Los Angeles, will give them guidance and strength.

Our celebration of recently departed hippie-country music pioneer John “Marmaduke” Dawson of the New Riders of the Purple Sage’s legacy started a conversation about the history of “headneck” music: tunes beloved in equal measure to cowboys, hippies, bikers and all varieties of stoner hicks, country heads and longhaired rednecks.

Beyond the New Riders and the Dead, the consensus seems to be that Commander Cody, Asleep at the Wheel and Doug Sahm (in his many incarnations, from dusty Texas boogie, accordion-flecked Tex-Mex and sun-dappled Mill Valley country) represent some of the pinnacles of this rowdy sound. After a bit of digging around in the Google crates, we found one of the holy grails of headneck history over at The Adios Lounge: a bootleg recording of an impromptu 1972 Doug Sahm, Leon Russell, Jerry Garcia and Friends show at the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin, Texas.

On Thanksgiving weekend in 1972 the Dead were in Austin, on tour of course, and they joined Sir Doug and country-time piano genius Leon Russell — you know his rollicking keys from session work with The Byrds, The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan, his oft-covered song “Superstar”; and you really should seek out the riches of his 1971 solo album, Leon Russell and the Shelter People, as the psych-out cover art is just the beginning — on stage for a couple hours of once-in-a-lifetime country grooves.

Genuine Texas groover Sahm with spliff and brew

At our request, Lance — the gracious proprietor of The Adios Lounge — has re-upped the whole two-and-a-half hour jam session full of songs from Merle Haggard, Kris Kristofferson, Robert Johnson, Bob Dylan and Hank Williams, among many others. It’s a soundboard recording (A-/A for the tapers out there) full of Garcia’s lush pedal steel, Phil Lesh’s noodly bass, and fiddle duties handled by Marty Mary Egan and Thirteenth Floor Elevator (!?) Benny Thurman. Vocals are traded between Sahm, Garcia, Russell and what sounds like a room full of rowdy Texan headnecks having the time of their lives. “Holy shit” is right.

This is music for hot afternoons, sitting shirtless in the sun, chasing shots of green dragon with econo-brews and popping off at the empties with your “blaster of choice.” Many thanks to Lance for the re-post. Click here to go download yourself a copy.

Now who’s got the hook up on some vintage Commander Cody bootlegs? And “muchas Garcias” once again to longtime Arthur compadre Michael Simmons for initiating my search for this music.

Also: BONUS HEADNECK JAM after the jump …

We highly recommend that you grab Doug Sahm’s overlooked 1976 classic Texas Rock for Country Rollers while you’re visiting the Adios Lounge. Lance has done a song-by-song annotation of the whole album that establishes its reputation as a standout in Sahm’s already overflowing back catalog. It includes such gems as “Cowboy Peyton Place” and “Texas Ranger Man,” the story of a stoned Texas gigolo pining after a “lonely-looking Pisces” in some honky-tonk, his affections kept at bay by her father, the cop of the title. Get it here.

“Mr. Taxman” – Nathaniel Mayer

“Money’s gone
Taxman at my door
What you need my money for?
To feed the poor, or start a war?
I’m BROKE!
I’m broke!
I’m broke
I’m going to the bar
You know why

My money’s gone
I lost my home
I’m all alone
Help me!
Help, help
Help, help
Help me, help me

From Nathaniel Mayer’s forthcoming posthumous album Why Won’t You Let Me Be Black?, released next month on vinyl and cd through the good people at Alive Records of Burbank, California, and available now in digital format from Other Music of New York City. Buy it if you like it. More info here: Alive Records

Download: “Sand” – Hush Arbors

From the Hush Arbors album, released last October through Ecstatic Peace Records + Tapes of Massachusetts. Go there, get it cheep!

Download: Here To Fall – Yo La Tengo (mp3)

From Yo La Tengo’s forthcoming album Popular Songs, here’s a classy slab of orchestral pop that somehow merges Loren Connors deepstar guitar tingle with Curtis Mayfield keys-and-strings and typical YLT laidback vocal cool. Spacious, yet intimate! More info from Yo La Tengo’s record label, Matador Records of New York City.

Download: “Broken In Two” — Doug Paisley

Kinda country, kinda folk, totally great: this number is from Mr. Paisley’s first album, released last year and available now from No Quarter. Doug is quite possibly North America’s finest new singer-songwriter. And what a voice!

New Riders of the Purple Sage, live at Fillmore East, April 29, 1971. Click here for the setlist, or to download the whole thing as MP3s

Dilettantes dabbling in the genre of country music have always had a hard time, from hippies like Gram Parsons to his modern day alt-country hipster inheritors. There’s almost always an inevitable anxiety over class privileges and the fetishization of working class experience by cultural elites. That combines with the classic rural versus urban divide and adds up to an awkward night sitting in a bar in Silver Lake listening to delicate, good-looking dudes in fancy vintage Western shirts singing about CB radios and old pickup trucks. It’s airless tribute at best, unaware cowboy drag at worst.

John “Marmaduke” Dawson was the lead singer and main songwriter for The New Riders of the Purple Sage, the best of the hippie country bands that emerged from the West Coast psychedelic rock and rustic folk scenes, and one of the only bands — along with Commander Cody, Doug Sahm and Asleep At The Wheel [thanks for reminding me, Michael!] — that managed to merge roper with doper without apologies to either camp. He died on Tuesday in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where he’d been teaching English as part of the city’s established community of American expatriates. He was 64, and stomach cancer was the culprit.

Travel to Mexico is the subject of one of the New Riders best-known songs, “Henry.” Marmaduke often dedicated live performances of the song to anyone in the audience who “smuggles dope for a living,” and given that most of the New Riders best shows were during the early ’70s opening for the Grateful Dead, there were no doubt plenty of audience members who appreciated such recognition.

“Henry” is about the titular drug runner on his way down to Acapulco to find out why all the marijuana has stopped flowing to the United States. After navigating a series of twisty mountain roads, he finds his supplier’s farm and proceeds to get thoroughly obliterated on freshly trimmed crops. The song is about the drive back, as told from the perspective of an unnamed passenger, who is continually beseeching the seriously faded Henry to keep the brakes on as they careen through the mountain passes.

It’s a song that, like so many New Riders tunes, conveys a distinctly hippie experience using the language of country music. The band was an outgrowth of Jerry Garcia’s pre-Dead unit, the wacky bluegrass band Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions. The Dead did plenty of country-leaning material, but Garcia still wanted an outlet for his pedal steel licks, and thus the New Riders of the Purple Sage came to be.

Garcia does indeed lay down sublime steel guitar on their first two albums — as a band member on the eponymous 1971 debut, and a guest on 1972’s mellow Powerglide — and joined them onstage frequently when the two bands toured together throughout the early ’70s. It’s here that Garcia really opens up on the foot pedals, unleashing sinuous lines of guitar twang; a perfect complement to Marmaduke’s dopey, nasal voice.

Such hippie experiences aren’t just limited to running drugs: Marmaduke was also quite adept at celebrating the natural beauty of California wilderness with songs like “Rainbow,” and wrote environmentalist ballads like “Last Lonely Eagle,” which managed to be as unapologetically corny and gorgeously heartbreaking as George Jones. Later, less well-known albums like Brujo continued to convey Marmaduke’s interest in South American adventure through his songs and collaborations, my favorite being the Kim Fowley-penned “On The Amazon,” the story of a thief who flees the city to become a river bandit.

The New Riders made great country music because they came off as goofy and brokenhearted as real country musicians, not urban folkies poor-mouthing their way through ballads of small town heartbreak or long nights of hauling freight; in other words, I believe Marmaduke because he wrote really dumb, beautiful songs.

Marmaduke and his band sound just like what they were: hippies who loved country music. Even when they dabbled in Bakersfield classics or pulled out their gloopy psychedelic version of the speed-chomping anthem “Six Days on the Road,” it always sounded like stoned tribute, rather than like they were really trying to come off like actual truck drivers, roughnecks or fence-mending cowboys. That puts Marmaduke’s body of work — which also includes co-writing credit on the Dead classic “Friend of the Devil” along with guest spots on American Beauty, Aoxomoxoa and Workingman’s Dead — closer to cowboy storytellers like Robert Earl Keene, Jerry Jeff Walker or Commander Cody than either the San Francisco acid rock scene from whence he sprang, or the alt-country players rocking vintage NRPS gear procured from eBay collectors.

There’s plenty of studio work from the New Riders that’s worth tracking down, but the first two albums are the best, IMHO. What’s more the New Riders still have plenty of soundboard and audience bootlegs available for download at Archive.org — unlike the Dead, who true to their unfortunate legacy as profiteering yuppie douchebags, pulled all the soundboard recordings from the Archive site several years ago. Marmaduke continued playing with the New Riders until 1997. He supported, but neglected to join in with, the 2005 revival of the band. It sounds like he was pretty content living a low profile, low cost, low impact life down in Mexico; an idyllic existence well in line with the loveliest of New Riders ballads.

FURTHER READING:
• Uncle Skullfucker’s Band: Daniel Chamberlin explains the discreet charm of the Grateful Dead
• How to Get Into the Grateful Dead

Download: “Hall Of Pure Bliss” — Greg Davis

Excerpt from “Hall of Pure Bliss,” the second of the two lengthy pieces that comprise Greg Davis’s new album, Mutually Arising, just out on Kranky. Use as often as needed—it is impossible to overdose.

Album purchase info: http://kranky.net/

Download: “Love Comes Close” – Cold Cave

Title song from the debut longplayer from Philadelphia’s Cold Cave. Yeah, the mimicry here is pretty thick—New Order’s “Your Silent Face,” sung by Joy Division’s Ian Curtis—but the chorus achieves enough of a pop lift-off to make all the quoting worth it. It’s the mid-’80s, you’re a KROQ devotee on your way to Melrose with the other kids from high school that dare to dye their hair. The sun is brutal, the smog is thick, you’re wearing black and feeling like anything can happen but probably won’t. This is your song.

Ordering info here: http://www.theheartworm.com/store.php

Download: “By the Rippling Green” – The Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound

A warm, almost mournful slice of archetypal West Coast psychedelic guitar rock off When Sweet Sleep Returned, the new album by The Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound, which finds the now San Francisco-based quartet really stepping up their songcraft.

Purchase info at the Tee Pee Records website.

Download: “Mind Herb Gardens” – Willie Lane

“Mind Herb Gardens” is a spooky beaut off Known Quantity by Philadelphia-based guitarist Willie Lane, which was glowingly reviewed earlier this year by Arthur columnists Byron Coley & Thurston Moore in Bull Tongue Top Ten No. 3. They wrote:

“Great new guitar record out by William “Willie” Lane, called Known Quantity (Cord Art). Willie lived up here in Western Mass. for a good long while and was involved in lots of weird musical shit. Not much of it got proper documentation, however, although Child of Microtones did issue a fine CDR, Recliner Ragas , a few years back. Anyway, Willie moved down to Philadelphia a couple of years ago, and we get a chance to hear him now and then when we’re down there, or he chooses to hit the road with one of the MV & EE traveling carnivals. But his solo work has always been amazing and rare. Well, not so rare this week. There’s this new LP, and it was recorded throughout 2006-2008, and is a total blast. Willie’s mostly solo (save for some licks by Samara Lubelski) and his playing ranges from Wizz Jones power-pluck at its cleanest to Michael Chapman electro-smear at its phasingest. But Willie knows his stuff cold and this instrumental slide through the gates of Neverland is one of this year’s great rides.

The album is available on vinyl only, directly from Mr. Lane. Email the good man at silversleeve@gmail.com to arrange delivery of a known quantity of Known Quantity.

Download: Desolation Wilderness – Boardwalk Theme (mp3)

“Boardwalk Theme” is a lovely song off New Universe, Desolation Wilderness’s marvelously mellow second album from the dearies at K Records. More info here. And here’s a promotional film for the album…

Download: “Cross” – James Blackshaw (mp3)

“Cross” is the opening song on The Glass Bead Game, the new album by James Blackshaw recently released by our friends at Young God Records. More info here.

Download: “The Ballad of Charley Harper” – Six Organs of Admittance (mp3)

Who was Charley Harper? Ben says: “Charley Harper was this incredible artist from Cincinnati. He did all sorts of nature screen prints and basically took nature’s organic forms and made them into very basic geometric forms. He saw the complexity of nature and explained it in the simplest of forms. Charley did a lot of art in science books for elementary school children and you might even recognize his stuff from way back then. He also wrote some really beautiful thoughts on man and nature. In his book Birds and Words he has a whole chapter on birds that were either going extinct or were already. On the Eskimo Curlew, across from his beautiful depiction, he wrote:

In Autumn the Eskimo Curlew fueled up on berries and snails and flew the Atlantic non-stop, from the New England Coast to South America; in spring the breeding instinct drew him back to the Barren Grounds of Canada via the Mississippi Flyway, where he fueled on insect pests. Both ways he ran the gauntlet of a hunter army, which stalked him from state to state to provision meat counters by the wagonload. One hunter downed 28 Curlews with a single blast to become the 20th Century’s Man of Extinction.

“Charley Harper passed away on June 10, 2007.”

The Ballad of Charley Harper appears on Luminous Night, the new Six Organs of Admittance album out August 18 through the good people of Drag City — more info here.

Chasny has been featured in Arthur many times over the last five years, including a profile by Tony Rettman in Arthur No. 7, a cover feature in Arthur No. 15 and in a special dialogue with Al Cisneros (Om, Shrinebuilder, Sleep) in Arthur No. 27. All issues are available from the Arthur Magazine Store.

Whoa. Stop the presses and grease up the download slide… Howlin Rain/Comets on Fire bro Ethan Miller has posted lost electric Six Organs album recordings at his Silver Currant blog:

It was made during the ‘Field Recordings From the Sun’ rehearsals. Ben Chasny decided that he wanted to do an electric project with some of the Six Organs songs. He wanted a mellow groove oriented backing band as a platform and a foil for wild guitar and the Six Organs narrative and asked Comets On Fire to be the band…. MORE MORE MORE

ROIO of the Week [Recordings of Indeterminate Origin]

Kraftwerk
K4: Bremen Radio 1971 [SEIDR 026]
Live at Gondel Kino, Bremen, Germany, June 25, 1971.

“There isn’t any extra information about this unofficial release either in the liner notes or on the interweb thing – however, as you listen it becomes obvious that this is indeed a recording of the rather short-lived lineup of Kraftwerk that includes Michael Rother and Klaus Dinger in its ranks! That’s right – Neu! as part of Kraftwerk!!!

“It’s basically a whole CD of extended “side-long” jams in the style of the first Kraftwerk albums performed in front of a small but enthusiastic audience and broadcast on Bremen Radio in 1971. The members of Neu! really take a forward role here, with Rother’s guitar driving things for most of the time and sounding quite rocking, with glimpses of his future soaring melodic sound in the extended jam passages. The guitar and drums are backed up by synth and I believe organ bass, with notable exceptions of flute taking the forefront on the great version of Ruckzack (from the first Kraftwerk LP) and is it distorted electric violin on K4? Maybe just Rother taking a violin bow to his guitar strings! Proto-Kraftwerk and proto-Neu! It’s exciting stuff, and on top of that the sound quality is excellent – a professional radio recording.

“How has this recording not become better known over the past 35 years since it was made?! I don’t know. It appears to be a newly released CDR edition with good-quality (but privately printed) packaging. Maybe it has stayed in the Radio Bremen archives until now? If you’re sceptical about the authenticity I’m sure a listen will persuade you… and hearing someone in the crowd shout “Michael!” in the last second of the recording is the icing on the cake.” – Little Bear [who shared the recording on the internet]

This isn’t the motorik, some might even say monotonous, electronic sound of Kraftwerk. Early Kraftwerk were more experimental with sounds and effects – not quite dance music.
- The Little Chicken

Click on the highlighted tracks to download the MP3s (these are high quality, stereo MP3s – sample rate of 192 kibit/s). As far as we can ascertain none of the tracks have been officially released.

Track 01 Heavy Metal Kids (07:54)

Track 02 K1 (15:39)

Track 03 K2 (Ruckzuck) (19:20)

Track 04 K3 (15:19)

Track 05 K4 (11:30)

Lineup:

Ralf Hutter [organ]
Florian Schneider [woodwind]
Michael Rother
Klaus Dinger

A+ Stereo Soundboard Recording taken from a recently issued R.O.I.O.