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RNR666 Rádió
Penitentiary Blues
In 1931, the Republic Bank of Dallas fails. Among the executives there is John Lomax (1867-1948). He lose his job, like many others in those days. Originally he is an English teacher and folklorist, previously he was full professor at Texas A&M University (Agricultural & Mechanical), later worked as a member of administrative staff at University of Texas, and was co-founder of Texas Folklore Society. He is a nation-wide known figure owing to his anthology of cowboy songs and folk ballads.
In sight of his father’s depression his eldest son encourages him to begin a new series of lecture tours about American folk music. In the course of this they go to New York and Washington. Lomax concludes agreements with a publishing house and the Library of Congress. For the latter he takes to make field recordings on him. In the summer of 1933 his expedition starts. His youngest son, then 18 years old Alan go with him. Go after sounds to plantations and farms, at juke joints and penitentiaries. At Angola Prison Farm in Louisiana he discovers twelve-strings guitar player Lead Belly, who has been sentenced for attempted homicide in a knife fight. In 1934, after his release he become driver and assistant of Lomax’s next round. He gets publicity and recording contract through Lomax, and finally become one of the most influential blues musicians. Just very few names who covered his songs: Abba, Nick Cave, Rod Stewart, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash, Nirvana, The Fall, Brian Wilson, Tom Waits.
And there is the infamous Parchman Farm in Sunflower County, Mississippi. There he makes recording with Bukka White (1909-77), who has been imprisoned for shooting assault. Parchman Farm Blues about the hard times was written by him, but this is „When Can I Change My Clothes”, because there’re old pictures from the farm
„Most of the guards were untrained men, employed because they knew how to ‘handle and drive niggers’. We saw with horror that there were sadists among them who took pleasure in persecuting, beating, and torturing the helpless prisoners. We did meet sincere, kindly men trying to better the lot of the prisoners, but they were hampered by the limitations of the institution itself. A report in the New York Post confirms my own impression of a generation ago: ‘The state penitentiary system at Parchman is simply a cotton plantation using convicts as labor. The warden is not a penologist, but an experienced plantation manager” – said Alain Lomax. Also here were inmates such famous murderers as Son House (self-defense, pistol, 1902-88) and R.L.Burnside (dice game, pistol, 1926-2005). And there were many nameless prisoners whose songs has been recorded by the two Lomax
1. Bama – I’m Going Home 2. Bama – How I got in the penitentiary (interview) 3. 22 and Group – When I Went to Leland
Bama – How I got in the penitentiary: Well, boss, the way I got in trouble the first time: the folks was barin’ me, and I cut and shoot a feller up. So, I just got in the penitentiary and just worked and worked and worked so much. I had to work. Cut up the fellow, shoot’um up. And then, when I got out of the penitentiary, I thought I had worked enough, and I decided I could make my livin’ without workin’. And I commenced with puttin’ pistols on folks. And that wouldn’t do. And I commenced to stealin’ everything that wasn’t hot and nailed down. And the polices commenced to runnin’ me every whichaway – every way I turn. So, after I got’um started runnin’ me, I just kept on doing wrong – fightin’, stealin’ – you know – an’ robbin’. And sometimes I wouldn’t (doing) be nothin’ but I’d been doin’ so much ’til that when they’d get me, I’d due to been got anyhow. An one, two time they ‘rrest me, an’ I told’um I hadn’t done nothin’, an they said, „Arrest you in egvance – you gonna do sumpin’.” So that way I just stayed in the penitentiary all the time, boss. In and out, in and out, for the last 18 years.
Alan Lomax (1915-2002) , after death of his father in 1948, continued his father’s mission. He introduced Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Pete Seeger and others on radios and in concerts and records. His big fish was Mississippi Fred McDowell (1904-72). He also went after songs to the Caribbean, Europe, and North Africa. “Neighborhood investigation shows him to be a very peculiar individual in that he is only interested in folklore music, being very temperamental and ornery. … He has no sense of money values, handling his own and Government property in a neglectful manner, and paying practically no attention to his personal appearance. … He has a tendency to neglect his work over a period of time and then just before a deadline he produces excellent results” – was written by an FBI agent, for Alan Lomax was observed as a supposed Communist between 1940 and 1980.
44 songs from his Parchman Farm recordings between 1947-59 on 2CDs with 124-page hardcover book have been released this month by Dust-To-Digital. These Negro work songs are perfect for your everyday job.
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essence of delta blues by rnr666
OUT NOW!
1. American traditionalist: Luke Winslow King – Levee Man (Bloodshot Records)
2. Portuguese onemanband: Legendary Tiger Man – Dance Craze (Metrodiscos/ Sony Music France)
3. French Cramps: Vagina Town – Ecstasy (Kythibong)
4. Canadian chaos brigade: Odonis Odonis – Breathing Hard (Buzz)
5. San Franciscan eclectic pop: Deerhoof – Exit Only (Polyvinyl)
6. “It’s noisy, with keyboards, you wouldn’t like it”: Gentle Friendly – Autumn Nite (UK, Fat Cat)
7. Scottish electronic pop: Jonnie Common – Crumbs (Song By Toad)
8. Swiss funeral folk: The Dead Brothers – Black Mouse (Voodoo Rhythm)
9. Greek psych garage rock: Acid Baby Jesus – Vegetable (Slovenly)
10. English countryside doom surfers: The Wytches – Gravedweller (Heavenly/ Partisan/ Dine Alone)
11. American chamber pop: Saul Conrad – Bumbling Fool (Mountain of Leopard/ Cavity Search)
12. Experimental pop by Chinese American guitarist and Japanese j-pop diva: Dustin Wong & Takako Minekawa – She He See Feel (Thrill Jockey)
13. Swiss-Canadian art punk or not: Peter Kernel – It’s Gonna Be Great (free digital single)
14. Oakland punks also not dead (just all the Ramones): Hard Left – Ghosts of Princes in Town (Future Perfect)
15. Mix The Fall with Velvet Underground: Parquet Courts – Always Back in Town (US, What’s Your Rupture?)
16. Hungarian catch as catch can: Terrible Ted – Singularity (digital album)
17. Hungarian historicist and liturgic garage rock: Gustave Tiger – Mary of the Seas (digital album)
18. Aussie synthethic punks: Ausmuteants – Freedom of Information (Goner/ Aarght)
19. Canadian garage punk: Teenanger – Mild Survival (Telephone Explosion)
20. Almost forgotten English art punkers whit a French girl: Family Fodder – Savoir Faire (song from 1980, re-issue by Staubgold)
21. Notorious English art punkers: The Fat White Family – Touch The Leather (Hate Hate Hate)
22. Good old Swiss garage rock brothers: Roy & The Devil’s Motorcycle Club – I’ll Sing You a Song (A Tree In The Field)
From New Records
Easy Aussie pop music by Hierophants, their single will be released on such great garage rock and punk labels as Goner (US), Goodbye Boozy (I) and Anti-Fade Records
The members also are in Ausmutenats (synth-punk) and Frowning Clouds (psychedelic garage folk rock)
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Most fashionable garage rock from the end of the 60s. I can’t compare them to no one, so much not, that I have successfully discovered the Sex Pistols, the Clash, even the Joy Division in their music, but they haven’t to do with these, because they rather tell about Chuck Berry, John Lee Hooker, Rolling Stones or Jesus & Mary Chain (!?), but let’s say, you mix the Stooges with Black Lips, grate a Spanish male singer with twang in it, and sprinkle lot of vocals on it. This is the essence of Davila 666 from Puerto Rico. I have written it when they played in RNR666 Party in Budapest some years ago. Posthumous single collection on LP, CD and cassette on Burger Records (US)
From New Records
There’s an American experimental-rock duo Ahleuchastistas, which named himself from a Charlie Parker song, and a Swiss musician Antoine Lang, who works with human voice and electronic devices. They together are the Blind Thorns. Heavy listening
self-titled album on Cheap Satanism (Belgium), Tandori (France), Offset (Italy) and New Atlantis Records (US)
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Pastilla, Mexican guitar pop from Los Angeles
„Sentidos Saturados” cassette EP on Burger (US)
Content Nausea
Rock? Yes. Indie? Absolutely. Punk? Of course. Parquet Courts is a punk band, but an Exploited fan spits on it. The music of Content Nausea album is a mix of Velvet Underground and Fall under pseudonym of Parkay Quarts. It’s a Parquet Courts’ side project.
on What’s Your Rupture Records? (US). In Europe it’s available on Rough Trade (UK)
Parkay Quarts Euro Tour in Nov
NOISE HOP ATTACK
DTH GRPS R GONE BT CLPPNG S HR
“Clppng: make party music for the club you wish you hadn’t gone to,
the car you don’t remember getting in, and the streets you don’t feel safe on.”
from REMXNG album soon on Sub Pop (US)
CLPPNG N UROP NW!
From New Records
Danceable noisy electronic beats by Martial Canterel, aka Sean McBride, who is one half of synth-pop duo Xeno & Oaklander. His new album bears very strange title: „Gyors, Lassú”. For the majority of the Universe: it’s in Hungarian; pronunc: diorsh, lushew; means: quick, slow. Sean is a New Yorker, he also loves our hometown, and now living in a small town in Campania, Teano. The album is about these cities, and the wanderings between these. Funny that sometimes he writes in Hungarian on his fb page.
On the cover there is a figure from the so-called Hungarian deck of card: Stüszi vadász (Stüssi hunter), otherwise Tökfilkó, which means Blockhead in the vernacular. Strange fact that on the cards the depicted characters and scenes are taken from Friedrich Schiller’s William Tell. The Swiss figures substitute for Hungarian historical heroes and scenes, because at the time of birth of card (around 1835), Hungary was one province of the Hapsburg Empire, and there was hard censorship.
One of the seven fundamental principles in the ancient Hindu scince of health is the RAKTA i.e. Blood. This has been choosen by 4 Brazilian girls for their progressive deathrock band
debut 7″ by La Vide Es Un Mus (UK), Dama da Noite / Nada Nada Discos (Brazil), 540 Records (US)
I can’t find their Euro tour dates nowhere on the net, so here are:
Ex-Driver
Chris Imler was one driver of German satiric electronic duo Driver & Driver. He mix traditional one-man band guitar’n’drums sound with electronic music and some special instruments. „I Used To Too” comes D.A.F., Urban Junior and Quintron to my mind. His moustache is a broad hint at Boris Blank (Yello)
Nervös album on Staatsakt Records (Germany)
Alt Mus Nus
New York City is a world of shadows, thieves and con men, its chilling concrete landscapes are a fitting filmic backdrop for the aural futuristic pleasures of NOIR, a band whose deep electronic rhythms fuel darkened beats that conjure stark cinematic images from yesteryear merged with the cold machinery of the future. Conceptualized by vocalist Athan Maroulis, veteran of the pioneering electronic industrial act Spahn Ranch, NOIR is a sensuous electronic return to form for Maroulis, who also fronts dark cabaret legends Black Tape For a Blue Girl. The result was the 2013 critically acclaimed release Darkly Near. It all sounds like revealing his deepest inner thoughts transposed into electronic grace, musical poetry and simply finesse. NOIR’s latest release RE:MIT:TENT offers 20 remixes of songs from Darkly Near featuring a disparaging list of names from all over the electronic music field including ManMadeMan, Assemblage 23, Dead Voices On Air, Ludovico Technique, Decoded Feedback and many others. (Metropolis Records, US)
A read along 7” book/vinyl called ‘What Did the Hippie Have in His Bag?’ Internationally renowned sleeve artist and illustrator Nick Edwards (4AD, XL) went wild with Cornershop’s Tjinder Singh’s quirky lyrics & together they have created a wonderful world of mountains, spacecraft, dragons, Kurt Vonnegut… needless to say this is not your everyday journey. Original, Colourful, Educational, Singh-alongable, Memorable, Funkyful, and of course Collectable. (Ample Play Records, UK)
SCIENCE FICTION PARK BUNDERSREPUBLIK
West-German home recordings from the 80s. Compiled by German sound futurist Felix Kubin. This eccentric compilation features 25 rare and mostly unheard tracks by bands like Plastiktanz, Neros Tanzende Elektropäpste, chbb, Holger Hiller and Pyrolator, as well as several one hit wonders by the rural tape label Pissing Cow Tapes.
In Germany especially, that neurotic country whose dark Nazi past and subsequent East/West division filled its closet with skeletons, the electro-industry’s advance falls on fertile ground. The four-track tape studio becomes the medium of the collective unconscious; becomes the embrasure, the lighting rod and the magnetic witness to the fears of an imminent nuclear war. They are eruptions out of the crater of a society that had reached a deadlock during the so-called German Autumn with its failed RAF movement. Everyone was waiting… But for what? For the end of the world, approaching via an insane arms race? A new youth movement? A new kind of ice cream?
In their freshly established home studios the protagonists practice the new underground music, the “undirected aggression of liberated sounds”. Everything that isn’t nailed or riveted down is used as an instrument: baking trays, cartons, room lamps, toys, wooden flutes, whistles, cans, trays, record players, televisions, a doorbell, a telephone. Out of the living rooms of the nation drones an obsession with noise, sparing not even the children. (Finders Keepers Records, UK)
The debut LP of The No Tomorrow Boys (<< listen!) from Portland. Wild’n’frantic rock’n’roll. Sounding like the rabid love child of Little Richard and The Cramps with a healthy dose of Rip Off Records garage gunk shot straight to the jugular. (Hound Gawd Records, Germany)
Dark Entries and Honey Soundsystem (US) present Patrick Cowley and Jorge Socarras „Catholic” 2LP. Featuring over 80 minutes of music, never before released on vinyl, this compilation contains two bonus tracks not on the CD.
Perhaps one of the most revolutionary and influential people in the cannon of disco music, Patrick Cowley created his own brand of HiNRG dance music coined „The San Francisco Sound.” He moved to San Francisco and met Jorge Socarras in 1973. Patrick, who played drums, guitar and keyboards, provided the perfect match for Jorge’s vocal talents. Between 1975 and 1977 they recorded an album’s worth of material. In 1979, the duo would rerecord some of the “Catholic” songs with Patrick’s newly accumulated equipment. “Catholic” is a genrebending concept album that ranges from minimalistic prototechno to synthdriven postpunk, predating the dance punk acts LCD Soundsystem and The Rapture by almost 30 years. Influenced by Tomita, Wendy Carlos, the Velvet Underground and Roxy Music, “Catholic” fills in the gaps between these artists and preempts bands like Talking Heads, Units, The Human League or Chris & Cosey. Patrick forges his unique electronic sound from his collection of synthesizers, modified guitars and selfconstructed equipment while Jorge’s vocals go from hypnotic to camp, singing about gay love juju and tackling classics by Donovan and Stoller & Leiber. Soundclips
From New Records
Meatbodies. Is Chud Ubovich’s „fast & loud” garage rock band. He is touring guitarist of Mikal Cronin, and bassist of Fuzz. Is a Ty Segall band. He plays drums and bass on some tracks on Meatbodies’ first album
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Live digital album of British psychedelic rock band The Oscillation
Best of Slim Twig
Slim Twig is a Canadian film director who also makes music (like David Lynch, or John Carpenter ). It’s meaningful for his pop musical orientation that he made some split releases with US Girls, Dirty Beaches and Ela Orleans.
His latest album will be re-issued soon by DFA. „A Hound At The Hem” is a concept album, thematically and musically it based on Serge Gainsbourg’s Melody Nelson. Significant disparity that the story of Melody Nelson was the reality of the two main characters’ life. That is so good owing to this specially reason. And because of Gainsbourg’s genius, of course. So good…it’s gem in his amazing life-work. Naturally „A Hound At The Hem” is far from it, but perhaps non-irrespective of it, this is the best work of Slim Twig.
All This Wanting
directed by US Girls
