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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 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.

Fuck the man. Mark Farner once said don’t worry about no jury.  The night time is the right time.  At the end only god can judge.  He is a super sweet partner in crime.  Bust up into a jewelry store and shoot them all.  I can see you mama you are movin down the line.  She is a hot movin momma.  She’s got heels like a youngin’, lord have mercy on you’re woman and you’re wicked soul.  She is gonna live until she is 104 years old.  Let her in my door and don’t look back no more.  All the haters will one day recognise how sweet Grand Funk brought it.  Should a man give up his rock and roll dream.  When so many men before him have lived it or died during it?  You keep on talking to me until your face turns blue.  I’m gonna leave what is behind me behind.  I saw an old high school friend the other day and he did not ask me how I was doin’ but how was my pay. Is this a good friend.  Fucking Grand Funk goodness.  Were is the railroad.  Guitar love!!!!!!!!!! Rock and fucking roll!!!!!!!!!!!One more time and another side!!!!!!  Squeeze that rock juice out of it!!!!!!   Can he still play that solo??? God fucking damn.  Now it is time for side two.  I can not believe I saw that Standells record that was too thrashed to buy.  What is the best record you saw that was too trashed to buy?  If you live your life as if you were still young do you really stay young?  Life is too short for a dog growing old.  Wow a Guitar is floating through my head.  Someone is waiting on the other side of the door to take you away.  God keeps smokin that thing.  Ice cold water through my veins tryin to get me to work again.  Work all day to make a burlap bag.  Talk to me guitar.  Guitar solos are fucking whup ass!!!!!!!!  I need you right now baby!!  You better get up and get down with me.  Pull out my harmonica and play along.  Make me feel all right.  Fucking Grand Funk Railroad-Grand Funk 5 Crunchy Tacos out of 5!

Cousin Justin

jsREVIEW: 

I can only imagine how weird it would have been to be an avant garde band in Hamburg, Michigan during the early ’80s. I suspect, first of all, that the Inserts were not just an avant garde band, but rather THE avant garde band of 1983.

Sounding heavily influenced by the No Pussyfooting collaboration between Eno and Fripp, this quartet plays mostly guitar synthesizers (and note explicitly that there aren’t any keyboard synthesizers on the album), with a Rhodes for a touch of jazz fusion.

From tracking down Marc Taras, who is thanked in the credits and now works at local shop PJ’s Records, the main halmark of the band was its spontaneous and improvisational nature. They’d roar into the studio, start the tapes and jam, splicing anything that worked back together post hoc. Rather than ending up disjointed, the album feels spacious and anxious with broad washes of taut guitar tones playing over jittery post-punk bass work.

Clean and “modern” sounding, there’s a fairly dystopic sci-fi sound to the ordeal, like Vangelis’s Blade Runner without the plot. Still, for fans of bands like Cluster, Eno & Fripp, or even Psychic TV, there’s a lot to love about The Inserts, and you’ll never see this disc for sale again.

(Having learned that one of the members of the band, then going by birth name Mark Murrell, is now WCBN DJ Ed Special, look to this space once Cousins Vinyl can get him to talk about the album!)

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jsREVIEW: 

Aside from the obvious East-West divide, ’70s Germany also seemed to (at least to my American ears) have a significant divide in their art rock.

On the one side, there’re bands like Can or Faust, the druggy, woozy titans of Krautrock, which didn’t sound so much Teutonic as otherworldly.

Then there were the more terrestrial (though sometimes just as spacey) bands like Grobschnitt, Popul Vuh and Trimverat, who played music that had more of a rock influence to it.

Of these, Triumverat is probably the one that would fit in easiest with prog bands from around the world, occassionally to their detriment. Sometimes derided for similarities to ELP, mostly because of the instumental line-up (Jurgen Fritz’s keyboards are the main attraction), the comparisons are a bit unfair. First off, Triumverat really sounds closer to a hybrid of The Who (”This Song Is Over”) and Yes, and second because the songwriting is brighter, more adroit and less ponderous.

While the album is technically only two songs long, each has been broken into suites, and the 2003 remaster included radio edits (as if to show how easily these could have been pop hits). The addition, for this album, of Cologne Opera House strings and the Kurt Edelhagen Brass Band gives a welcome depth and allows more of the Moog virtuosity to shine through.

When listening to the album, and noting the strong, clean compositional strength, it’s a bit of a wonder that Triumverat never really cracked through to the level they should have. Maybe there was just too much other prog at the time for them to be noticed. Not so anymore— this album is a great addition to any prog library.

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jsREVIEW:
“These previously unissued sounds from the drag strip represent a selection of the finest recoding ever done on those fantastic machines which emanate from the back yards and garages all over the country. Perhaps the builders of these machines are never put to so severe a test (or at least, so concentrated a test) as they are on this record. For here, the results of their tuning and designing are clearly and openly heard, without the benefit of a flashy pain job, or a snazzy crash helmet festooned with red, white and blue foxtails— or anything else that might distract attention.

That most of these builders and designers are successful is obvious in listening; and the ones who fail to do so, we hope, in good spirits and share our laughter at the peculiar sounds made by their goofs.

At any rate, here are the unabridged noises of a fantastic collection of automotive machinery. They deserve some careful listening.”

— From the back of the LP jacket, Riverside Records 5517.

There’s no date on this album, though my guess (based on the rest of the dates for the Riverside label) is that it came out in the late ’50s, when hot-rodding was a growing concern. The album promises “Hot new sounds from the drag strip,” and that’s what it delivers, in beautiful hi-fi mono.

In its most literal sense, this is a “noise” album. There are no songs there, no real intended sounds as such. Nothing that can really be recognized as intended as music. This was, first and foremost, an epistle to America as low media, a record for kids and gearheads to listen to as they dreamed of their own hotrods. The liner notes make it seem like there’s some way for me to tell which of these are the gallant and which the gufus based on the tunings, but I grew up too late for that. This is essentially sounds of machines.

There are three types of noise albums, and I tend to think of this as the third. The first would be those albums that sometimes get called “noise rock.” Merzbow or Nurse With Wound or Throbbing Gristle. They tend to have discrete tracks and show the evidence of being listened to as music, even when they attack the traditional signposts of music. Sounds are often layered and distorted in unnatural ways in the first type of noise album.

For the second type, there’s the sound effects put out for commercial and educational use. Think those blings and boings of a radio ad, or the Wilhelm scream. I could see an argument being made to place Rods ‘N Rails in with these, as it would be handy if I ever had to convince someone that I was at a drag strip over the phone. But for the most part, the engines rev for too long and there isn’t necessarily a good cut point between the cars. Certainly, this would be a pain to cue from.

The third type is the field recording. This isn’t that either, strictly, but it falls closer than any of the other categories. Like a birdsong guide for the freeways of the late ’50s, it reminds me more of sleeping in my grandmother’s house on First Ave., North Riverside, Il., than anything else. The surge then disintigration of cars passing a single mic, then dopplering out, is strangely soothing. It’s a lullaby imagined by Depero.

A beautiful burst of nostolgia for futures past, Rods ‘N Rails is worth listening to both as a document and as an album.

-js

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jsREVIEW:

In 1980, Jamaica was a hot musical touchstone. From Police to Clash, Joe Jackson to 10cc, even Robert Palmer, the 2/2 skank and “ska” guitar noise seemed to reach everywhere. Even Detroit, apparently.

Black Market’s debut album, Air Freight, could be just another genre exercise (they do cover “No Woman No Cry,”) if not for the phenomonally deep bass and sharp rhythmic chops of Black Market.

Larry Duncan, who wrote the songs, sings and plays guitar, apparently spent time in the late ’70s in a small fishing village called Negril in Jamaica, falling in love with the sound of the island, and his tunes are sharp and mercifully lacking the insulting patois that too many of his contemporaries felt was necessary when singing reggae. Tracks like “Rescue You” and “Bossman” legitimately feel like they’re his voice, not some aping.

But really, the standout here is Nolan Mendenhall’s phenomenal bass work, recalling Robbie Shakespear’s easy mastery. Full and rich in a way that only vinyl can provide, this album cries out for dubplate treatment (and if it exists, Cousins’ll be the place to find it). And since producers Jim Dudek and Marc Beznos know how to space out the instruments, this would be killer sampling material for beatmakers.

A surprisingly good album that’s more fun than most of the accepted reggae canon, Air Freight is heavy low beauty.

-js

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jsREVIEW:

Jean Michel Jarre’s Equinoxe, his second album for Polydor, isn’t that hard to describe. Lover of the sci-fi soundtrack and of synthesizers, Jarre runs analogue synths through the pan and surge template that recalls the proggier side of Kraftwerk. No doubt intended to be a serious album, and indeed the compositional rigor is there, the stereo tracking and endless bouncing, skittering and burbling of his keyboards make this better suited for getting way high and slapping on those headphones.

For that stoner-tastic enjoyment, since if you’re reading any further you’ve already absorbed the dire warning that this much conceptual Korg-ing is likely to induce giggles in the unaltered, side A is infinitely better, especially the last track, “Equinoxe 4″ (yeah, he titles ‘em all with numbers). With the swirling spacescapes redolent with swooping starships and chirping critters, it’s nearly impossible to avoid the “Wow, man,” reaction.

Which is, you know, a good thing.

-js

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