Ian Curtis, the lead singer of Joy Division, died by his own hand some 33 years and 3 days ago. The recording above (from 18th December 1979: Les Bains Douches, Paris), which I’d never encountered before this evening, sounds – to my audio engineer and former DJ ears – to be pitched a bit forward from it’s original recording speed. So somehow that all makes it seem appropriate to post this gem here on May 21. Give us something to think about other than Sonny Terry and the dancing chicken in Strozek, as Ian contemplated his final moments.
Soul Brother Nate Powell posted the following to facebook yesterday and I hope he doesn’t mind me sharing it:
“In 2005, this book helped me start digging out of the hole I’d found myself in for 3 years, and helped change the direction of my life. The perspective I absorbed from Deborah: contrary to the notion that Ian Curtis’ disorders, wrecked family life, infidelities, and inability to handle success led to his death, she conveys that he fulfilled his own fatalistic narrative by choosing to give in to those factors, time and time again, needing their jurisdiction over his life.
“We all have control over our choices, and sovereignty over our sense of self. Sometimes we fight to keep other people from unfairly (re)defining us, but what can be more difficult is awareness of if/when we’ve redefined ourselves as hopeless/ monsters/ losers.
“RIP Ian Curtis, and love and respect to all those who struggle.”
Available for a mere dollar on Bandcamp today are the fragments that remain in all their noisy glory of the abandoned second CD release (There had been 3 cassettes and several compilation appearances) of my mid-90′s band Krebstar. “Barbara Bain” was a step towards a more beat-driven electronic musical collage after the Stockhausen-influenced process-based experiments of the previous CD “Barry Morse”. Apart from the titles, little direct influence from the productions of Gerry Anderson’s Century 21 productions is present. Steven Cerio is the guest vocalist on track three. Fellow Brown Cuts Neighbor and Krebstar member Robert Goodale contributes a bit to the sounds that are sampled. Enjoy.
Brown Cuts Neighbors “Channel 16″ – as presented by Jason Martin, with program materials selected and sequenced by Jason and myself – have been invited to be part of the latest edition of the biennial New York Electronic Art Festival. The talk and screening will be on Friday, June 28 at Harvestworks in SOHO. Full details, press release and website to be released soon.
Back in the early 00s I used to pass around an audio CD called “Pop” that I made containing “Words Disobey Me” and “We are Time” from the 1978 Pop Group Peel Session, Khalid of Space Part Two by Larry Young (featuring James Blood Ulmer), and either the 1995 or 1999 Autechre Peel Session (you get both here). The cover art was a street level photo of the 1999 Seattle WTO protests. Recreated here is the YouTube version. Enjoy.
Saturday, April 20, 2013 is Record Store Day. Go buy some damn records! You may be surprised to learn that we sell a fine selection of records and related musical media right here on Wow Cool, including many hard to find items by the likes of Steel Pole Bathtub, Helios Creed, Alan Moore, Hail Mary, God Hates Computers and Steven Cerio.
It’s a video response to yesterday’s post! Lady Starlight with her Aunt Theresa, Aunt Mary, Cousin Michael and non-performing 2nd Cousin Caidence perform a killer cover of her brother Jason Martin’s song Death Birth Death Birth Etc.on Easter Sunday.
Once upon a time there were these two amazing noise rock bands called Steel Pole Bathtub and Girls Against Boys. Each of their last records were among their best. Among the best records ever. After they were gone it was like rock and roll was fucking dead to me and it was time to move on. (OK GVSB are touring this year, even, but it’s been 11 years since the last record. Anyways, that’s not the point here.)
Many months ago I had put a ton of time in on creating the world’s most brilliant blog post about where the fuck SPBT had gotten to since they released the demos for their ‘Unlistenable‘ record. Then my daughter spilled water all over my computer. Here we are now an Easter weekend later.
Keeping it as simple as possible… Mike Morasky of Steel Pole went on to do all sorts of big Hollywood special effects work and then landed at Valve, where he had far greater musical success then SPBT ever dreamed of with the soundtrack for Portal 2, which has been in the top 20 soundtracks on Amazon for weeks now, many months after the game was released. This despite the fact that you can download all three disks of his material for free. You may enjoy this interview with Mike on GamesRadar. In the meanwhile, Dale Flattum – whose books with Chuck Sperry we regularly carried at Wow Cool back in the 90′s – released the definitive collection of his graphics with accompanying soundtrack: Tooth – co-published with Zak Sally’s La Mano 21. You can still get those right here.
Without David Hayes you would not have East Bay punk rock from the ass end of the last century as you remember it (or how it was for that matter). As of a few weeks ago the latest manifestation of his Very Small Records has solidified (or metastasized) into a three headed Mecha-King Ghidorah. The big news is the release of many hundreds of classic tracks on BandCamp from the label. That means lots of songs by Schlong, Elmer, Nar, Lizards, Plaid Retina, Sewer Trout, Logical Nonsense, Pounded Clowns, and Horny Mormons; and deep cuts from Jawbreaker, Nuisance, Buzzoven, Pinhead Gunpowder, Spitboy, Tit Wrench, Econochrist, Samiam, Sleep, Screeching Weasel, Soup, Fuel, Sewer Trout, Blanks ’77, Strawman, The Automatics, The Rhythm Pigs, Melt Banana, Voodoo Glow Skulls and many, many more. You can also get: the vintage “Race Mixing Is Cool” Hoodie in five sizes; the Very Small Records Punk “Discography” MP3 DVD Data 3.52GB 1986-2003; or – for seemingly much less money than buying them separately… if you are OK with a Large Hoodie – both together. Take a day and go hang out with these hella cool oldies, cheese.
Four years ago I released this video for Pi Day from my band nickname: Rebel. I was going to try to get a remix together for this year’s non-event, but with 10 minutes to go by the time I could have gotten started, it seemed pointless. So, here it is again: Ouroboros. Filmed in Barcelona, Paris, Mexico and elsewhere. Enjoy.
Readers of this site will occasionally be exposed to coverage of music by Radiohead, Led Zeppelin and, of course, Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band. Since Don Van Vliet’s passing we’ve been a little light on the Beefheart coverage, so we now offer you this.
There is also an audio commentary to the record by Tim Kerr (guitar) and Chris Gates (bass) that you can listen to.
Seven paragraphs down in the NPR article we come to an incident that has unfortunately loomed large in the lore of American punk culture. When I first heard about it, many years after the incident, it went something like “HR from Bad Brains beat the crap out of the Big Boys for being queer.” Getting past the improbability of that, given the relative size of the participants, I’d never bothered to dig up any kind of facts in the case, despite the availability of search engines, facebook friendships and the like. As mentioned in the NPR article and described by Tim Kerr in his blog (scroll down to the 12/March/2012 entry – I trust Tim Kerr in all things, a greater man has probably never lived) something did happen, involving most of the Bad Brains being homophobic assholes who treated their hosts in Austin like shit and made their beliefs well known. Ugly stuff. I hope this clears things up for other people as well.
In the meanwhile… I’ve always loved this live clip of the Big Boys.
St. Louis, Missouri’s Euclid Records is moving from 601 E. Lockwood to 19 N. Gore and are documenting the process on a blog. You must go look. We thought we had problems when we moved 25 pallet-loads of Alternative Comics books here. This is just nuts. And, yes, they made their new floor plan with Legos – as shown above.
Steven Cerio will be presenting his film The Magnificent Pigtail Shadow at two events in New England this weekend – first, at the Jack Kerouac Literary Festival in Lowell, Massachusetts on Friday. Steven will also read from KEROUAC’s “Big Sur” during a premiere of his new short filmed in Big Sur, Ca this past summer. He will also be presenting the film at Portland, Maine’s Zero Station on Saturday. The trailer is below.
Sal Canzonieri has released the first volume in his A Fistful of Rock & Roll Art Books series – From Here to There and Back Again: 100 Years of Rock Art Influences – and I strongly urge you to pick it up. A quick look at the Amazon “Click to Look Inside” preview will quickly convince you that this one is a ‘must-have’. This impressive tome has been in progress for some time and was slated to be released by a certain established publisher, perhaps best known for its comics based on popular licensed properties. After too many years of nothing going on with that, Sal has released this book on his own. Sal is very close to our musical, artistic and martial arts family here at Wow Cool and we highly recommend this book. Steven Cerio provided the wrap-around cover art (an unpublished poster for the Residents) and an introduction.
244 pages of amazing full color Rock & Roll, Heavy Metal, Hard Rock, and Punk Rock record cover and concert poster art by all the very best artists! This is the coolest looking art book you have ever seen! Featuring such great posters and record covers by Johnny Ace, Coop, Kozik, Art Chantry, Alan Forbes, Steven Cerio, Jack Kirby, Jack Davis, and hundreds more! Wraparound cover art by Steven Cerio!
First section is a very informative and insightful history of illustrative art that influenced today’s poster and record cover artists, explaining how the early poster artists and illustrators from the 1890s to 1990s influenced today’s gig poster artists. Shows how styles changed over time and developed into today’s styles.
The remaining section has rare and amazing art, of record cover and concert posters from 1940s to 1990s, some never published before and are EXCLUSIVE to this book!
EVERY great illlustrative artist known is in this book! Hundreds of great artists from around the world and from all 20th century time periods. Curated by Sal Canzonieri, of Electric Frankenstein fame.
I had a long and far ranging talk with Steven Cerio last night… He mentioned many video and audio memories that were new to me. I am now sharing them with you. Sadly, I could not find anything for Syracuse-area children’s show “Eddie Flum Num”.
Hodge Podge Lodge – 1970′s PBS
John Cage: Thirteen Harmonies (1985)
The Miracle of Flight. A cutout animation by Terry Gilliam
After a long silence since Cometbus 54 – On the Road with Green Day – Aaron has returned suddenly with two new publications: Cometbus 55: Pen Pals and 45 Volume 7: Radon with Travis Fristoe. Pen Pals is a return to the quasi-autobiographical novellas that made Berkeley famous and Radon is a return to writing about music and bands, something Aaron does really well.
Print
and Drumbo’s 
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