Ken Stringfellow--- Danzig in the Moonlight

The first time I saw Ken Stringfellow was on a Sunday morning photo shoot for The Posies' first press kit. The last time I heard from him, before this album at least, was when he contacted anybody and everybody about an album he had just produced for Aussie Hannah Gillespie (All the Dirt) for which I will be eternally grateful (the album is magnificent). Between those two times? Not much. Oh, I went down to their album release party for Dear 23, but that was to meet with old friend Gary Gersh who had been instrumental in signing the band to Geffen. I didn't see the band.

So I guess you could say that I knew Ken and didn't. I loved The Posies' early self-produced album which later showed up on PopLlama, liked Dear 23 and tolerated Frosting On the Beater, which had some pretty decent tracks, but completely lost track of the band from that point on. A handful of years ago, I picked up the trail again thanks to good friend Howie Wahlen who had been a huge fan from the beginning (and up to the present) and had helped the band during the early years. And I'm finding out now that it is a trail well worth following, backwards and forwards.

Both Stringfellow and fellow Posie Jon Auer have put out a library of music since those days, some as The Posies, some as members of a re-formed Big Star. Add to those the myriad of projects in which they each inserted a finger and trailing backwards becomes a monumental journey. I gladly accept Danzig in the Moonlight as the first stop.

Stringfellow worked on this (off and on, obviously) for eight years. Scoff if you want, but I hear a good eight years' work here. Eight years' hard work. Writing and separating and refining. Writing and adjusting and feathering. Re-writing and honing and and critiquing. Eight years! I hear every year!

Stringfellow includes fourteen tracks here, but you know he wrote way more than fourteen. There have to be riffs and themes and whole songs laying bloodied on the cutting room floor. Riffs and themes and songs that may show up in later Stringfellow projects but which I would give my left nut to hear right now. Stringfellow is a craftsman when it comes to writing. Occasionally, he is a true artist. Mostly what you get with Danzig is art.

Songs like History Buff, a slow rock ballad which builds to anthemic heights. By the time it gets to the harmonies, it becomes more than it is. I am always amazed when that happens--- when the song takes over the process. There are shades of Space Opera's Singers and Sailors which makes it more than just rock, and if you know the reverence I hold for Space Opera, you would understand what I am saying. Songs like 4 am Birds- The End of the Night, a densely layered, jazzy reach back to Strawberry Alarm Clock and Space Opera (and what a combination it is!). Songs like Drop Your Pride, dramatic and theatrical and powerful enough to have been included (in my mind) on another favorite album--- The Green Pajamas' Death By Misadventure (another album you should be checking out, if you haven't already). And the eighties-sounding (for some reason, my ears are screaming Squeeze) Shittalkers, as intense and dense as it gets, my friends. Listen to the music. Hear the words.

That's only four of the fourteen and I'm not even sure if they are the best. They are, though, the ones which caught my ear right off and will inevitably drag me through many many listens until, I am sure, the music will become part of my DNA.

Be forewarned, though. This is not an album for the initiate. This is intense, complicated and creative music which is well deserving of Linus's Several Hearings Award, an award given to only the best and only to albums which guarantee absolute enjoyment over many listens. You won't get this album right off--- at least, not how really good it is. There is just too much--- too many layers and too much to really hear, at first.

God, but I dearly love albums like this. I hear good albums all the time and some of them are way better than good, but few have the density which allows you to peel back a different layer each time. It is an adventure.

Top Ten for 2012? Easily, though I have to say that 2012 is turning out to be an amazingly productive year for topnotch music. Stringfellow did it right off, though, jumping in with both feet and implanting themes and songs in my head which refuse to leave. Right now, I'm looping You're a Sign and am taken by the flowing orchestral feel of the chorus. Next, who knows? Like I said, Danzig in the Moonlight is an adventure and when you listen--- I mean, really listen--- you have no choice but to go along. And it's worth it. Every time.

Michael Fennelly--- Gone Retro...

Seldom do I come across an album of music which satisfies the freak and the casual listener, so when Michael Fennelly's Love Can Change Everything (Demos 1967-1972 came through the door, I didn't expect much beyond the standard reissue of tracks from the sixties and early seventies buried for a reason. Retro compilations are notorious for containing music only for “completists” (as so many writers label them), people so deeply immersed in an artist's work or a period of music that they collect even the dregs. Most sweeten the pot with a hit or two and maybe some B-sides, but when all is said and done, much of it was left on the cutting room floor for a reason.

Recently, though, the handful of labels specializing in reissues have taken to if not letting the artists compile their music, allowing people who know the music intimately put albums together. The result? Compilations both historically and musically viable, meaning if you like the music (and you should, in the case of Fennelly), you're more than likely going to love the history.

If you have never heard of Michael Fennelly, I suggest a short tutorial from the Wiki guys, a short but sweet explanation of his timeline. If you have never heard Fennelly, well, perhaps you have and don't realize it. Fennelly was one of seven artists who formed The Millennium, a band in the late sixties who, in retrospect, have become somewhat of a musical legend. There is more than a little of the Pop infusion which made The Left Banke and The Merry-Go-Round successes, melody and harmony and a step into a little folk/psych keeping things light and airy and oh, so pretty.

When it came time to exit The Millennium, Fennelly seamlessly slid into Crabby Appleton and immediately scored with Go Back, a tune which made it all the way to #36 on the Billboard charts but which got airplay in my home state of Oregon way beyond that. Not only was I surprised that it topped out at #36 in Billboard Nation, I was a bit miffed. According to radio here, Go Back was Top Ten, easily. I never gave a shit about Billboard, anyway.

While Go Back gave Crabby air beneath their wings, there was no real followup (at least, as far as radio was concerned), more than likely due to AM radio's fall into the grasp of the devil (that would be Drake-Chenault, sports fans, which single-handedly disarmed radio by instituting the Top Forty format and turning it into the pariah of real music lovers everywhere). Fennelly would go on, but that pretty much covers the years covered in Love Can Change Everything, an album strictly dedicated to that period.

So what do you get, you ask? Outtakes from The Millennium? Crabby Appleton's cutting room floor leftovers?

Not at all. What you get is a collection of Fennelly-penned demos which, while recorded during the lives of those two bands, are pure Fennelly. True, many of the tracks utilize members of those two bands and probably more than one was recorded in hopes of being included in band releases, but none are, in essence, completed. Not in terms of release by those musical entities. And yet they are.

I find myself shaking my head over the quality of these recordings, which have spent decades in solitary confinement waiting just for this moment. Songs excluded from The Millennium recordings only due to the number of songs available (there were many songwriters, and damn good ones, in that venerable band). Songs which might have made the cut for either of the Crabby Appleton albums had it not been for the progress of the band and their music. Just because a song gets left behind does not mean it is unworthy. Sometimes there is just not enough space. This album proves it in spades. The more I hear this, the more I love it. Period.

Fennelly made comment about this album, hinting that he would have done this differently has he been given the chance. Well, to be more exact, he said:

“I did go back and forth with Sundazed over the content initially, primarily because I have archived tapes spanning 20 years, but they were interested in my 1960s and early 1970s material (which is historically interesting to Millennium fans and Crabby Appleton fans, but not inclusive of what I consider all my best work). Had it been left up to me, I'd have chosen the 20 best songs/recordings I have that no one's ever heard. But I do appreciate that Sundazed has a loyal customer base who are enamored with the era of sunshine and psychedelia, so I deferred to their judgment. My music grew progressively harder-edged, as time went by, so continuity was a concern, as well. I'm happy with the 24 songs that comprise this package, but look forward to an opportunity to issue the stuff I did in the 1980s, at some point.

“Doug Rhodes played keyboards for the Music Machine, and bass, keyboards and even tuba for the Millennium. Ron Edgarplayed drums for both groups. Keith Olsen played bass for the Music Machine and then became Curt Boettcher's production partner for the Millennium and other projects. Keith's contributions to the sound of the Millennium's recordings may be the most under-appreciated element of all. He was the mad recording genius who enabled Curt's mad genius to manifest itself on tape. (linking two 8-track machines together to record 16-track or being asked to find a way to 'make this sound like a jet taking off' - Keith was/is an amazing talent).”

While I could get behind the project Fennelly mentions here, I am not unhappy at all that Sundazed stood their ground. The songs on Love Can Change Everything deserve to see the light of day and in exactly this form. Fennelly put this package together with a lot of love and care and it shows, from choice of songs to presentation (the package is exceptional and contains liner notes essential to understand the two bands and the times) to attention to sound.

Now, about that other project, Fennelly? Set up a crowdsourcing page. We're ready.

Eric Corne--- Kid Dynamite & The Common Man

Eric Corne may not be Kid Dynamite, but he sure as hell sounds like he is. He approached me a few months ago about listening to his album and I almost turned him down. I might have if I'd realized that Kid Dynamite & The Common Man had been released in 2008. I mean, I'm having trouble keeping up with the new releases (the real truth is, I'm not, there are that many) and don't relish stepping into the past unless there's a damn good reason. Well, Corne handed me a damn good reason.

What the hell happened in 2008 that made an album this good disappear? I hear really good albums which are and have been overlooked all the time, but Kid Dynamite is a step above. A big step. Not only are the songs solid (and I mean solid), the musicianship is as good as I've heard recently (and it should be, considering the names playing on the session). Add topnotch production and this should have been a hit--- even in a world in which the closest you can come is Lady Gaga or that Bieber kid.

I can give you ten reasons you should buy this album--- each an Eric Corne original. You want my advice, start with Kid Dynamite/Rancho Mirage, a two-parter which rocks and then, well, rocks. Kid Dynamite has just enough of that Black Crowes/Stones sound to please the palate and when the band slips into the instrumental Rancho Mirage, it's a time funnel of sound--- a modern version of Neil Young & Crazy Horse during the Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere era. I have yet to hear it enough to see if it will stand the test of time, but it put a barbed hook into me that I can't shake. I'm not sure if it is the Crazy Horse guitar sound which I love and hear all too little or if it is because it is the perfect tail on the perfect dog, but I dig it.

People are always saying that there isn't anything new in music anymore and I hear that, but only to a degree. Every time something really new comes along, those people would more than likely hate it anyway. No, Corne doesn't break new ground, but he doesn't break new ground in a way that impresses the hell out of me. The odd semi-Buddy Holly/fifties sounding I Know a Girl, for instance, with its over the top pedal steel and perfecto fifties style background vocals. The reggae-rooted Nobody Plays Here Anymore, the guitar deeply reverbed and echoed to just the right degree.

I suppose I could go on, but there is no substitute for hearing it. Corne has put the entire album on Bandcamp for your listening pleasure and you can stream all of the tracks at your leisure. If you prefer, try his MySpace page or just log on to his very own web page. Bandcamp allows digital downloads in a variety of formats, but if you prefer physical product, just head to CD Baby. See? I'm making it easy for you.

Look. I'm doing you a favor here. Do yourself a favor and check it out. What can you lose? A few minutes of your time? You guys spend too much time on Facebook and Twitter as it is. You say you like music? Put your ears where your mouth is. Eric Corne deserves that much. So do you.

Steven Casper & Cowboy Angst--- Topanga Ranch Motel

Angst ain't the half of it. These cowboys are dipped in everything from cowpies to cowabunga and have a country edge, but they don't stop there. Toss in a bit of Foghat, Motown (that's right--- Motown!), San Francisco (the early 70s, which you can credit to violinist-with-angst Ross Levinson) and a whole lot of South cushioned (thankfully) by the less-than-Van-Zant voice of Casper (in this case, less really is more and haven't we all heard enough of those lame Southern Rock clones anyway?). But let us be honest here, the South is not the key anyway. It is the mix.

That mix is intriguing, Through With You feeding on Motown and modern rock, the melody line following Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water and The Temptations' My Girl in short bursts. They sound nothing like either, so that may be a stretch, but the lines are there. It is straight up rock, no chaser, and when the violin and lead guitar duel, you get a small taste of what San Francisco gave us during those heady days of the late 60s and early 70s.

For sure there is cowboy in Cowboy Angst and they step in it on Takes Me Back, one of those modern country tracks that Nashville is pretending is country though it is really rock. The band makes the difference here, weaving their way around Casper's voice just enough to make a point but not get in the way. They do it again on I Want To Know, substituting a slowed down Foghat rhythm guitar and violin lead on the break. Maybe nothing groundbreaking, but impressive nonetheless.

No doubt, these guys can crank it out or lay it back. They crank it on Down Home Girl, the heavy and chunky rhythm guitar riffs reminiscent of early ZZ Top on the rock side and the heavier side of The Charlie Daniels Band on the country. Topped off by Levinson's violin lead and Glen Lynskey's brassy lead guitar, it choogles its way through four minutes that you wish was ten at a minimum, but that is part of what makes you like these guys--- they don't overdo. There is taste and balance throughout and, man, it would be so easy to let Lynskey and Levinson take over because they are solid players, but the whole band is solid and the good ones know how to balance.

I'm doing you a favor here. The video above is short and a bit rough, but it gives you an idea of what these guys can do. Take a listen to the ripping guitar of Glen Lynskey and, though a bit in the background, Levinson's impressive violin. The rhythm is solid, the playing is solid and Steven Casper holds his own as a frontman. It gives me just enough to regret my not having been there.

But I'm not worried. Casper and Angst are ready to make their move, I think, and opportunities to see them will mushroom. I think. Well, I hope. Maybe. Hmmmm... I think I'm beginning to see where all that angst is coming from. Maybe we should all just start checking the local venues to see if they are playing anywhere near. Just in case. Or buy the EP. Either/or. Or both.

The DJ Bonebrake Trio--- The Other Outside

Holy Harry Partch, Batman! This ain't DJ Bonebrake! At least not the DJ Bonebrake who pounded out the rhythm for X and The Knitters. Hell, he ain't even playing drums! What the hell is that he's playing?

Well, that would be vibraphones, Robin, an instrument seldom used in disco, so you are probably sadly unaware, but DJ isn't. He steps out from behind the set now and again and makes actual music these days with a handful of groups like the Bonebrake Syncopators and Orchestra Superstring, but none as out there as the Trio. Knee-deep in jazz and tripping around the edges of the Twilight Zone, Bonebrake and partners in crime Paul Eckman (upright bass) and Danny Frankel (the guy whose name comes up when people ask, if DJ's not playing drums, who is?) have come up with an intriguing mix of--- and please understand that I am not lessoned in jazz--- themes and variations with elements of sci-fi and (I kid you not) Harry Partch, who evidently heard music in his head which could only be played on instruments he created.

Not that the Trio are that far out there. It is music and, at times, some pretty damn fine music, like when they lay down the Martin Denny-like Bernstein 007, a tune just this side of Quiet Village or the exotic flavors of Tango. This stuff my mother, who absolutely hated jazz, would have loved. Then again, these are the tamest of the tunes offered here. Waltz and its theme are a bit closer to modern classical in jazz format, repeating but not really building and yet... There is something definitely going on and it is very pleasing to the ear, but...

There are a lot of but's on this album, but (I included that one for effect) they are good but's. Bonebrake seems to enjoy dancing on the edge, his vibraphone a reverbed step toward the aforementioned sci-fi, especially on Orpheus and Abstract, at moments perfect soundtrack music for giant beetles and overgrown ants and even the slime of The Blob. Close your eyes and you can see Mickey Rooney growing while the room shrinks or the swamp folks sitting around the glass jar, not the girls head in the swamp water. If you have never heard Harry Partch and wondered, Orpheus and Abstract will give you an idea.

The Bonebrake Trio are bare-butt and recorded live--- vibraphone (and marimba on one track), bass and drums, which helps build the aura. No voice. No knobs and chambers outside of the resonators standard on the instrument. They don't need them. These guys step into their own world when they play--- at least, when they recorded this they did--- and gadgets would be downright superfluous.

One wonders where they will go next. I see a future for them in films. There is something downright eerie you can do with a vibraphone when you do it right and in a lot of thrillers, noise just gets in the way. Building tension through music and effects. Hollywood, you want to cut back? There's only three of these guys and they know what they're doing. Might even be an Oscar in it for you....

Teksti_TV_666--- From Finland, With Love & Guitars

Has anyone checked on Finland lately? Something terrible has happened! Maybe something wonderful! The land that once gave us such artists Tasavallen Presidentti and Jukka Tolonen is once again exploding musical myths, such as how many guitars you need in a band and how much coffee is too much. How many guitars do you need? One? Two? Three? How about five, like the infamous Blue Oyster Cult who prided themselves on at least one song which had five guitar playing ducks lined up on stage? Well, in a fit of Finnish pride, Teksti_TV_666 sometimes lines up six. And when they do, it has to be like one of those tuba playing fests where 100 or so tubas blanket the town square for Christmas carols or marching band music. Oompa's all around, eh?

These guys prefer to storm the stage with guitars and amps, sawmilling their way through outlandish pieces of surf tunes, buzzsawing their way through bits of metal, thrashing their way through a plethora of proto-punk (don't ask me what that is, I just read it somewhere), post-punk, modern post-punk, and punkety-punk-punk, for all I know. The sound is dense, the music intense and the feel ranges from rocking to uplifting to downright oppressive.

https://soundcloud.com/teksti-tv-666

It has taken me awhile to absorb what they are doing, probably due to the way it was recorded. At first, I thought they might have blown the session all to hell, the sound dense enough to drown a person on a foggy day, the vocals subjugated and guitars on overdrive, but multiple listens have me realizing that they meant to do it. They wanted a wall of sound. They wanted to bowl people over. They wanted people to dance and go crazy and immerse themselves in the moment. It is their thing... their charm, even if it is Maxell man crazy. And at moments it truly is, five guitars wailing, a couple sounding like screeching cats in an odd avant-garde way. But it is cool. There is a pulse and it gets beneath your skin. Sometimes you feel like shaking and sometimes you feel like dancing and sometimes you just want to line up and bang your head. Yes. It is way cool.

Makes me wonder what else Finland has to offer. Gary Heffern was born there and is presently on the frozen tundra. He talks about the cold a lot. Maybe headbanging is a way to stay alive. Maybe the lengthy days and beyond-freezing nights make you a little crazy. To listen to Teksti, you might well think so. Think of it. Minus-degree temperatures at night, a Quonset hut and a hundred of your best friends and enemies awaiting the coming onslaught. You know those shots of bands and dancing crowd in a steamy environment you see all the time? You don't need dry ice or smoke machines to get that effect in Finland. Just plop Teksti in there and let the crowd go. It will get plenty steamy in no time.

And, in case you're interested, their latest album is titled 1,2,3.

Sam Marine--- Rockin' the Big Dark City

You need more than five songs to dent ears when you're playing mainstream rock but five is all Sam Marine had and for most it will be enough. The approach was a simple as it gets--- guitars, bass, drums and organ--- “just about as meat and potatoes as it gets,” according to Marine. A lot of guitar, one played by Marine and the other by Brian Whelan, who also tossed in some organ here and there.

While Whelan has had recent success as both an artist and producer, he is smart enough to get out of Marine's way to let him do his thing. His thing is crunch and hook, not unlike artists such as Springsteen, Bon Jovi and the like--- not formula but familiar. You want to rock, Marine will give it to you, pulling out the acoustic to break the monotony (as on “I'll Soon Be Gone, where the guitar finds a loping groove to ride--- with extremely tasteful slide work by Whelan).

There may be only five, but they are a solid five. “Big Dark City” sets the pace with midtempo guitar crunch, “Dawn Come and Gone” powers up the beat, “Freeze em Out” rides the thin line between Springsteen and the Hi-Fi period of ex-Pavlov's Dog David Surkamp before giving way to the tasty acousticity of “I'll Soon Be Gone.” Marine saved a special song to end the EP, a tribute to a friend known as “Mike Lee,” who I would have loved to have known. “He died of an overdose,” Marine said on his one-sheet, “but it's not about that. This song is about what a good guy he was and how he always had your back. He was who I would like to be, the lyrics embracing the man (“If you get along with him, you'll get along with me--- and if you got time for one, we got time for three--- now to the other side of town, with the solitude you found, and all the way back again, Mike Lee”).

In a world in which you might think mainstream rock has all been done, Sam Marine makes it that much better by playing it simple, honest and true. Maybe five songs is enough. Maybe I'm just wishing for more. Five will do for now. Let's hope it is long enough for music fans to adjust their ears. You can hardly find a song out there these days without a fiddle, banjo or mandolin. This is good enough, though, that it might just break through.