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By Max Conroy  

The co-founder of the great all girl rock/metal/punk/raunch band L7, Donita Sparks, has just released her first solo record since the band’s break up eight years ago.  The amount of time between break up and solo effort might make some fans a bit skeptical as to the quality of her new material, but a lot has happened to the music industry in the past eight years, and it’s a lot more difficult to make a record these days when it’s on the artist’s dime.  Allow me to assuage any trepidation that you might have regarding this record because of how long ago 2000 seems.

I first heard that Donita Sparks and her new band the Stellar Moments were releasing a record not by Mojo or Pitchfork, but on Fresh Air with Terry Gross.  The review was by Ken Tucker, their music critic, whose reviews I greatly admire.   

I hadn’t thought about L7 for awhile, but they definitely have a place in my subconscious.  Bricks Are Heavy and Hungry for Stink are several albums that came out at that magical time for me, where development goes into overdrive and everything was confusing, troubling and magical; the junior high, early high school years.  They were big players in that soundtrack of those awesome, yet horrible times for me and most people that I can relate to now whether they realize it or not.  For example: a couple of years ago, I met a new friend and we were hanging out at his place; he was into psychobilly music and I was into protopunk at the time; the first record he put on was Bricks Are Heavy and it was the perfect choice…we both knew that we had a lot in common at that point.   

Natural Born Killers was also a polarizing experience for me when it came out; looking back on it, it seems like the A Clockwork Orange of my generation.  I can remember smoking weed out of a pop can with my two best friends on an outcropping in front of the movie theater before attempting to sneak into the film because we were underage.  Shitlist is still my favorite song on that soundtrack and the scene where Juliette Lewis puts the coin in the juke box and slices up that redneck while it plays, the most memorable in the film.

I also was lucky enough to have seen L7 on the ‘94 Lollapalooza tour at Pine Knob in Detroit when I was fourteen.  I was lucky enough to have some college-age neighbors that I grew up with who knew I was into music heavy.  When L7 went on early in the day, I remember looking to my friends and saying, “Those are some crusty bitches.  I wouldn’t mess with them.”  And that’s been my impression of them ever since; intimidation based on their hardcore stage presence.

Nostalgia in art and literature is regarded as something to be avoided at all costs.  I guess that it kills the ability to think in the present and clouds memories in a grotesque rosy hue.  But I’m a nostalgic person at times and all of this history came back to me as Terry Gross’ intro faded and the first notes of Need to Numb came through my speakers.  I had to stop what I was doing and listen.  It’s a straight ahead NY Dolls style rocker that convinced me right there before the review even began that this record has to be good.  Tucker’s review was laudatory and included clips of Creampuff, a take on the 60s girl group sound, and He’s Got the Honey, probably the most commercial song on the album; a good overview of the record.

A little while later, I acquired Transmiticate (the album title is a made-up word, combining transmit and communicate) and am quite impressed by it.  Make no mistake, it’s a departure from L7, but the evolved sound is an appropriate balance of maturity and the best of what L7 had to offer: fuzz and great hooks.  The album incorporates modern electronic effects, particularly on layered backing vocals, and the classic human/band feel beautifully.  The production by Ethan Allan is par excellance and the drums played by Dee Plakas, the only other member of L7 on the record, are fantastic, tight and big. The record successfully jumps tempos throughout and ends with a ballstothewall rocker, Into the Hi Fi.  If you are looking for new music that’s provocative, a fan of L7, or interested in supporting people out there that still give a damn about rock and roll, you should find this record.

A few weeks after hearing the review of Transmiticate on Fresh Air, I was presented with the opportunity to interview Donita in conjunction with her show here at the Magic Stick on June 11th.  I jumped at the chance, but was a bit cautious based on my teenage impression of L7.  I did some research and watched some interviews that she’s done recently and was happy to learn that she’s a seemingly normal person that probably wouldn’t put me on her shitlist and knock my teeth out if I mumbled the wrong question. 

Here’s my stellar moment with Donita Sparks…

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By Cousin Justin

I started the day yesterday by putting on one of  my favorite shirts, an original  Wu-Wear T-shirt that I got in High School.  You see I am a huge Wu-Tang mark since 36 chambers dropped.  Good albums have been few and far between over the last few years.  That was until Ghostface dropped Fishscale.  I dug that album more than any Wu joint in a long time.  Normally a rap skit is a good oppurtunity to skip to the next track, but the Bad Mouth Kid Skit on Fish Scale starts by Ghost saying “that’s soul right there, don’t touch that radio” in the background a dope ass song is playing that the foul mouthed kid insists on changing, much to the chagrin of ghost.  As soon as I heard the song in the background I used my little Google fingers to try and find out what the fuck it was.  I was unsuccessful and this has been one of those musical obsessions for the last 2 years.  So when I started the day I had no idea my wardrobe decision would have any affect on the cosmos.  Max was comming over later in the evening to hang out and to take a trip to the Record Collector in Ferndale.  I went through the Soul section and picked out a few Soul, Funk, and Disco albums.  One that stood out was the Brother To Brother album.  I took it to the listening station and dropped it on the second track, something I never do, and there it was, the song I have looked for for 2 years.  Needless to say I was pumped.  To keep the karma going, Max and I ended the night with a screening of the underrated Ghost Dog.

Brother To Brother-Vibrations

 By Max Conroy

My struggle lately has been that I have way too much music to listen to.  In the past year or so, I’ve had some incredible resources and have acquired more music than I could realistically listen to.  It’s obviously the result of some sort of compulsion that I have to collect things.  But records are meant to be listened to, and I feel guilty about having some of the best records ever made lying around where I’m only able to dedicate a cursory listen.  Also, my interests wax and wane like the moon, so I’ll have some records that I’ve just purchased and my interest in that genera of music will fall by the wayside, the record filed to be stumbled upon when my interest in that music reawakens.  I guess the solution is to make it a point to try and not acquire anything new.  Don’t worry, readers, I’ll have plenty of stuff to write about.

For some reason, last night I actually went through my CDs and pulled out a huge pile and pretty much froze because it was late, past midnight, and I wanted to listen to everything, but I didn’t want to be up till sunrise.  I’ve been getting back into rock and roll, from jazz fusion and soul and funk.  I had also just hooked my DVD player up through my stereo, so I wanted to be able to watch a bit of something before I went to bed, so I had to make a tough decision, but I sure as hell made the right choice.

Starship, The MC5 at the Sturgis Armory June 27, 1968 is, in my mind, the best document of the MC5 live.  Don’t get me wrong, Kick Out the Jams is a hell of a record, but it doesn’t necessarily represent the 5 accurately with regards to their live show at the time.  They knew that they were going to make a record and had to trim parts of the set, like Black to Comm and various jazz and soul medleys from their set to make a digestible product for the masses (I’m not saying they sold out to the man or anything, they do say ‘motherfucker’ in the first five minutes, before their most commercial song).  The sound on Starship is obviously from someone in the crowd, so this is how it pretty much sounded if you were standing in the Sturgis Armory.  A lot of people don’t realize that soundboard recordings aren’t necessarily the shit because they just capture the sound that’s pumped through the system and not what comes out of it. 

Where is Sturgis you ask?  It’s in southwest Michigan, not far at all from where I, and Cousin Justin, grew up.  The area now is probably a ghost town, but back in the day when muscle cars were king the place was probably still out of the way.  This show catches the 5 playing their set in all its glory in a small town and displays perfectly their mettle.  They didn’t care where they were playing or who to; when they stepped on the stage it was all over; they were going to destroy any other band that dared share that stage, no matter who it was, Cream or Led Zeppelin.

I had to put the headphones on for this one as it was late and I needed volume, so I recommend that you do the same.  Find your headphones and brace yourself…

Rama Lama Fa Fa Fa:

James Brown’s Cold Sweat:  Dig Dennis Thompson’s drumming on this track.

PS:  In my opinion the only other live performace by the 5 that rivals this is Thunder Express, a live set in a European studio.  Go figure, Cub Coda gave it two stars in AMG, haha.

I don’t just listen to dark, doom funk!  Actually I spend a lot of my time, mostly while active, listening to happy bluegrass music like these dudes from Kentucky - Tom Bledsoe and Rich Kirby.  If it’s a good mood you’re seeking, play this:

by Cousin Geoff

I’ve talked before about Detroit psych/funk artist Fugi, and his unreleased 1968 Chess LP that was reissued on Tuff City.  As what usually happens when we’re digging something, more stuff sort of turns up.  So I wasn’t too suprised when his promo copy of Red Moon Part 1 and 2 on Grand Junction came out of recent collection, but I was excited.

Fugi is backed by Detroit funk-rock group Black Merda (play on black murder) on these cuts.  The history of the connection between Fugi (real name Ellington Jordan) and Black Merda is shakey.  Some people say that they were a part of the same band, others say that Fugi was the front man on this and the other 45s he put out, which were backed by Merda.  Others say that Fugi wanted to join Black Merda but they turned him down but backed him on the stuff he wrote.  I’ve also heard that Fugi was a promoter for Chess and helped sign other Detroit talent, and this may have played a factor in Fugi getting them to play with him.  Whatever the relationship was, it was Fugi who wrote this psychadelic brand of funk-rock that was considered too out-there at the time to sell to the masses.

Fugi had problems with drugs and legend has it that he wrote the song Red Moon as he drove around Detroit at night while high.  Max described Fugi’s music as “dark, doom funk.” In Detroit in the late 60s, with all that was going on, it’s no wonder that music was produced like this.  It’s quite the opposite from the happy, feel-good Motown sound, but it’s perhaps a more accurate picture of the gritty, grimy, racially tense city.

Red Moon, Part 1:

Part 2:

Cousin Justin 

It is easy to forget, with the Pistons and Wings marching towards the title and the Tigers giving the rest of league some hope, that the Bobby Layne curse is over this year for our beloved Detroit Lions. So to remind everyone the ovens will be super hot this year I present a new Cornbread Song:

P.S

This comes from the upcoming Christian Xian Auction that should be posted tomorrow!

 By Max Conroy

This past week has been one of the most eventful/busy of my entire life.  In seven days I saw Jandek, wrote about it, interviewed Donita Sparks, saw Blind Mellon in Flint, crashing that night in East Lansing, saw Solomon Burke in Detroit and motored immediately after to Grand Rapids to hang out with Uncle Fucker.  I got back to Ann Arbor last night around midnight.  I had a real good time, but I’m glad to be convalescing here on this beautiful Memorial Day.  In my travels to East Lansing and Grand Rapids, I picked up some great records at some great shops.  If you’re anywhere even close to Grand Rapids and like records at all, you have to go to the Corner Record Shop, just outside of GR.  It rivals Encore and is about to become an entirely analog recording studio and venue as well!  Another surprise is that Uncle Fucker dusted off the Telecaster this weekend in a moment of clarity, and I recorded some of it for you.  I have also edited some of what I recorded at the Solomon Burke show.  Featured here are Lay My Burdon Down, performed by the choir before he went on, and Diamond in Your Mind, the song that Tom Waites wrote for him on his first comeback album.  The choir provides an accurate representation of the enthusiasm of the crowd, along with a healthy dose of ecstatic joy in loving Jesus.  Diamonds is just a great song and was recorded by Burke recently, so it captures his sound now.  The third track is Uncle Fucker shredding All Down the Line, the Stones song.

Lay My Burdon Down:

Diamond in Your Mind:

All Down the Line:

Stay tuned for the Donita Sparks and the Stellar Moments review and interview.

By Max Conroy

The deacon Solomon Burke played a free show in Detroit last night (refer to the previous post).  It was a fantastic show and one that I’ll remember forever.  He’s still got it to be sure.  A gospel choir performed Lay My Burden Down before he went on.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to stay for the entire show, but I saw a little over an hour of his set and caught a lot of classics: Cry to Me, If You Need Me, Down In The Valley, the Tom Waites penned Keep a Diamond in Your Mind, Sittin’ On the Dock of the Bay, and many others.  I recorded some audio of the show and will work on getting that posted.

Soul legend Solomon Burke will play a free show tomorrow at Campus Martius park on Woodward In Detroit. Call 313-962-0101 for more details.

Freep.com had a great mini-interview with Burke, with the 68 year old discussing his love for Detroit, his time spent working with Aretha, and his upcoming album, where he performed songs written for him by various artists including Cousin Geoff favorite Ben Harper:

Q: Your collaboration with Ben Harper, “A Minute to Rest and a Second to Pray,” is easily one of the best moments on the new album. What was it like working with him?

A: The first time I met him was right in the studio, and I was intrigued and excited. Ben said, “I’ve only got the first verse done. I ain’t finished with it yet.” So I told him to finish the song right now and then we immediately recorded it. As we speak right now, some folks don’t even have a home. In the last 48 hours, how many people have (only) a minute to rest and a second to pray?

Read the rest of the intereview here.

Check out some Solomon 45s we have in the store here.  We did come across a copy of his hard to find Rock and Soul LP a few years ago, and we regrettably sold it as Justin and I could not hustle the other into letting one of us have it!

Notes:

-We’ve got all kinds of records waiting to be listed, as we’ve bought several new collections and we’ve got more in the works.  The amount of listings will also increase in the next few months. 

-Max has an interview lined up this week with Donita Sparks, to be featured here soon.  And be sure to check out his latest post and video footage of Jandek’s visit to Ann Arbor.

-Kind of a big deal, and still preliminary, but it looks as if sometime this summer or fall we may be adding an actual physical store to along with our offices and warehouse spaces that we have in the Plymouth Industrial Center.  We’re imagining a diggers paradise, with long rows of crates to thumb through, filled with all kinds of sweet stuff, all for the same cheap price.  We’ll keep you updated on this site as to how that’s progressing.

Syl Johson moved to Chicago at an early age and wound up as Magic Sam’s next door neighbor, as Syl’s brother was Sam’s bass player.  Syl learned to pick the guitar hanging around the west-side Chicago legends and also played a mean harmonica, even briefly touring with Howlin Wolf.  Syl cut a few sides for Federal and later Twinight/Twilight, but after recording with The Hodges Brothers from the Hi rhythm section in Memphis in 1970, he signed on with Hi.  

Johnson’s first record on Hi was this one, 1973’s Back For a Taste of Your Love.  You can definitely hear the classic Memphis Hi sound, as this was put out right around the time when Al Green was the Hi superstar.  Johnson had a slightly edgier, harder sound than Al Green, though still very much in the same genre.  The track Feelin’ Frisky is a good example.   

by Cousin Geoff

Wendy Miller & Mike Lilly recorded this album, Country Old Country New on Brighton, Michigan’s Old Homestead record label in 1975.  A really strong album throughout, it features a great original spiritual roots song, My God’s Not Dead.  The song was written by Mike and his mother, Betty Lilly.

I’m drawn to this type of music because of it’s honesty.  I’ve been increasingly into bluegrass music the past few years, and it’s roots music at it’s finest.  My dad and I drove up north this past weekend and we listened to XM’s bluegrass junction station the entire way.  So in my quest to dig deeper into the genre, I’ve naturally found some wonderful local records, as this overlaps with my love of long-lost Michigan recordings.

I’ve always found a similar connection to bluegrass and reggae.  Both are music of the people with similar themes thoughout, including their own sources of spiritual strength: Jesus with bluegrass and Jah with reggae.  My God’s Not Dead reminded me of the Bob Marley song Jah Live, written in response to the negativity towards Rastas after the death of their profit, Etheopean Emporer Haile Salassie I.  Bob put out this song a day or two after his death, with an incredible response by Jamaican Rastafarians.

Fellow Wailer and devout Rastafarian Peter Tosh’s first solo album (although he was backed in the studio by many members of the Wailers-but not Marley) was the epic Legalize It.  The track Igziabher (Let Jah Be Praised) remains a Rastafarian classic, and displays Tosh’s amazing songwriting abilities. 

By Max Conroy 

On Saturday, May 17th Jandek played a free concert at the University of Michigan’s Lydia Mendelssohn Theater.  The show was sponsored by WCBN-FM (88.3 on your FM dial), the student-run station of the University, booked by Brendt Rioux, and featured James Cornish on trumpet, Christian Matjias on harpsichord, and Biba Bell on vocals and improv dance.  Apparently this was the first Jandek performance to feature live improv dancing.  Jandek played hollow body bass and sang.  This is what’s known.

This is what’s unknown:  the identity of Jandek, the aim of his endeavors, and virtually everything about the production and meaning behind his music.  Jandek has put out fifty-three albums in thirty years.  The records range from atonal bluesy folk to thirty minute vocal-only tracks and some feature other musicians most likely (even though he does overdub tracks).  The lyrical content of his songs are most definitely poetic in nature, possibly autobiographical, and definitely surreal, causing people to speculate as to whether or not this is a sort of diary of a person suffering from mental illness or records to be enjoyed as such, art for art’s sake. 

There are only a handful of people who have ever spoken to or communicated with Jandek; and in these instances, the person is known only as a “representative of Corwood Industries.”  Corwood Industries is Jandek’s record label and in his only recorded interview, by John Trubee for Spin in 1985, featured on YouTube and as an extra on the Jandek on Corwood DVD, he discloses that he is the “sole proprietor” of Corwood, which has maintained the same PO Box in Houston since 1978.  All of his records and DVDs are purchased directly from Corwood/Jandek, cheaply, and none are sold to record stores or libraries. Jandek also mentions in that interview that at the time he was working as a machinist and living in Houston, Texas.  The name on the copyright information for Jandek’s records in the Library of Congress is Sterling Richard Smith, born in Rhode Island in 1945 (he mentions Rhode Island in several songs).  He originally recorded one record under the name The Units and sent his record to radio stations and record stores, and was forced to change the name when a guy whom he sent the record to in San Francisco threatened to sue him as that was the name of his band.  As a result he wanted to find a name that no one could possibly have, so he ended up speaking to a fellow named Dekker in January and came up with Jandek. 

The more that I research Jandek, the more his history or what he’s illuminated for us seems to be the creation of a highly intelligent, very sane person, very similar to the way a novelist comes up with material culled from his past, subconscious, and ability to tell a convincing story.  Before his days as Jandek, he allegedly wrote seven novels, which he burned after being rejected by publishers.  He tells Trubee that, “I put out a product, and that’s it.  I don’t want to get too involved.”  This smells like bullshit to me, but very good bullshit.

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FOR SALE

This is the first of the Psych 45s I chose to Highlight because it is one kick ass tune.  Great story of the band here.  “Sing For You” almost has a Hip Hop type flow to it. 

Sing For You

R.I.P.

FOR SALE

This one was left out of the Soul auction along with a couple others so I put it up today.  Bob Kee is one of the credited songwriters of “Ferris Wheel”.  1608 Argyle st, which is really close to the corner of Hollywood & Vine,  is now home to Outlaw Sound.  The tune itself is pretty fun

Ferris Wheel