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By Max Conroy

There are several definitions of the word scrummage.  It is synonymous to a rugby play called a ’scrum’, but also means ‘a general row or confused fight or struggle’.  A scrum can also, according to the Brits, mean ‘a place or situation of confusion and racket; hubbub’, which seems like the closest definition to the venue in Detroit.  Here is their mission statement from their site (do not click on this link if you have or might possibly have epilepsy): A psychedelic loft in Detroit’s Eastern Market district.  We achieve maximum fun.  We have giant parties with totally rad music encompassing all generas.  We teach you here at our university that no one is too stuffy to party.  This is the place where all your wildest dreams can come true.  There is apparently a market in Detroit’s Eastern Market district, but there’s no evidence of it at night; in fact, there doesn’t seem to be anything besides a graveyard, bombed out buildings, and the occasional liquor store and gas station…and this place. 

Scrummage University is a huge warehouse that must have been a toy factory at one time, based on the painted signage on the front of the building.  I drove by it a few times before coming to the conclusion that this must be the place.  There were several flyers that mentioned that it’s the large building that has ‘Toys’ painted on the front of it, but not the flyer that I had.  The flyers also stated that the event was to begin at 9PM, which is when I arrived, but there was no one there, except for a few people running the show and the performers.  Also, there is no mention of the Silver Apples playing at Scrummage on the venue’s site, so I’d seek other verification that a band will be there before driving through post-apocalyptic Detroit to get there. 

The Scrummage gate is barely wide enough for a car to fit through and is situated next to an operational junk yard; I deduced that it was operational based on the five rabid dogs hurling themselves at the fence, attempting to kill hipsters.  The parking lot is huge with weeds thriving in the cracks of the asphalt, an active train line in back, and several huge bonfire pits.  I walked around for a bit, soaking up the scenery, snapping photos, as other guests arrived.  After awhile, I noticed that everyone had 40s of beer, and asked the door guy Ian if it was cool to bring beer here: ‘Sure, man.  You should pick me up something.’  He gave me some shoddy directions to a liquor store, but I ended up finding a different one that had all the choice malt liquor and grabbed a 40 of Olde English and Ian a 24oz of Cammo XXX High Gravity for the shitty directions; he was thrilled.

By this time they were throwing huge pieces of furniture into the fire pit and igniting them.  When the fire would get low, they, presumably ‘official’ events organizers, would politely ask some people to get off of the wardrobe they were sitting on and then drag it into the fire.  This place is the ultimate in blind pigs, anything goes. 

You enter the warehouse through a defunct loading dock and enter into a wide open concrete room, piles of debris in the corners and outsider art everywhere.  There is a working bathroom that isn’t the worst that I’ve ever seen.  From what I gather, people live at Scrummage, so they probably rent the space, or maybe even squat there.  The electric hair trimmer in the bathroom also made me think that people live there. 

The opening act Benny Stoofy is kind of Scrummage’s house band.  They are some talented musicians that blend the low fi aesthetic with competence, much like Dr. Dog.  I dug a few songs and then went back to the bonfire with my 40 to chat up some people and enjoy the evening.

The Lotto Ball Show went on next.  They’re a synth-driven postpunk outfit from Chicago.  They seemed good, but the vocals were noexistent in the mix, so I again headed out to the fire after about two songs.

I went back inside after the music stopped to look at the unattended merch table and to watch people climb dangerously onto makeshift trapezes hanging from the ceiling.  Simeon, a perfectly normal looking fellow in his mid-to-late 60s, dressed in a bright green turtleneck, strolled across the floor to his rig and began calibrating or whatever one has to do to a pile of oscillators and beat machines to prepare them for a performance.

The Silver Apples are Simeon now.  He manipulates bass and melody sound oscillators over drum tracks, and sings: that’s the sound of The Silver Apples in 2008.  After listening to some of their records recently, I’ve come to really appreciate the late Danny Taylor’s drumming.  He lays down a hardcore breakbeat jazz style that really propels the monotonous vocals and bleeps and bloops.  But the music is essentially electronic music and the last thirty years of music has proven that a drummer isn’t absolutely necessary.  The lack of a drummer has actually transformed the Silver Apples sound into what it inspired: electronic dance music.  It’s fitting to see one of the pioneers of electronic music performing this way to the city that basically took what he was doing eons ago and went crazy with it. 

Simeon played for exactly an hour and politely declined an encore; this isn’t exactly encore-type music.  He performed a lot of the ‘hits’ like Oscillations and I Don’t Care What the People Say and did a handful of new compositions.  In the middle of the set, about twenty people got on stage a danced their freaky, uninhibited dances.  I went back to the merch table and bought the only Apples vinyl available: a limited press of 1000 called Selections from the Early Sessions.  I then went up to Simeon’s rig and snapped a picture of it just before he went up to it to tear it down.  I said, “Thanks, man.”  “It’s a pleasure,” said Simeon.

Click Below for information about the Selections record, some audio of the show, and pictures.

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By Max Conroy 

It’s finally summer here in Michigan, the sweat pouring down my back as I type this in a coffee shop, is proof.  The air is thick, it’s hot as hell and there are tons of music-related events going on in the area; I’ll try and keep all of you hipped to what should be worthwhile and, of course, my opinions and reflections of those events.  Speaking of which, stay tuned for my write up of the Raconteurs/Black Lips show, which should be posted by tonight, or maybe tomorrow morning if any SNAFUs arise. 

Here is a track I recorded earlier today.  My friend, who wishes to remain anonymous, dusted off his Telecaster and let it fly.

PS:  The Donita Sparks show is coming up on Wednesday, which I promise will be worth the $10.

By Max Conroy

Four years ago, I had the chance to see Bo Diddley play a concert at Fitzgeralds, a small bar on the outskirts of Chicago where they filmed some of the Color of Money, for his 75th birthday.  All I had to do was hop in my car or catch a train and go, but I got lazy and probably spent the night doing something very unmemorable.  Living in a thriving metropolis like Chicago numbs one to culture because you can do something great every night, all year round.  You have to pick and choose and I chose poorly here.  I was definitely into Bo Diddley at the time, and I think must have got a lot more heavily into his records shortly thereafter.  I didn’t read any reviews of the show and have no idea if he was good or not, but that would have been beside the point…it’s fucking Bo Diddley, man.  This ranks up there at the very top of my rock and roll regrets list, along with missing out on seeing Johnny Cash, pre-revival, in Kalamazoo and hearing about the last Pavement show in Michigan days after it had happened. I knew that I would never have another chance to see him live.

Bo Diddley died in Florida today of heart failure.  He’d had a stroke, followed by a heart attack a year ago and had been in poor health since.  He was 79 years old and one of the people that created rock and roll. 

When I realized, after years of seeing the name E. McDaniel listed as the writer of songs that were such blues and rock and roll standards that I thought that they must have been traditional arrangements and the name a ruse like Allan Smithee in the film industry, that it was in fact Bo Diddley, I gave him some serious listening attention.  A lot of people dismiss Bo Diddley as a one-trick-pony, and those people are missing out in a big way.  Sure, he did ride the wave of rhythm that he created on the track Bo Diddley for a long time, but the power and influence of that rhythm cannot be overstated.  EVERY garage band has used it, from Buddy Holly on.  But there was so much more to his sound than that rhythm.  He wrote some fantastic straight blues numbers and countless chugging rockers; take a handful of your favorite rock and roll records recorded in the 60s, flip them over and see how many times you see the name McDaniel.

Bo Diddley, sadly, doesn’t get the respect he deserves, but I’m confident that his importance to rock and roll will be realized as long as people continue to look back and question what is rock and roll and where it came from.  Here are four examples that made me a huge fan of his.  I don’t think I’ll ever be able to listen to his music without thinking about that show at Fitzgeralds…

Bo’s Bounce:

Keep Your Big Mouth Shut:

I Can Tell:

Road Runner, from Beach Party: one of the best live records of the early 60s:

 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 

If you refer to my post about the jazz flute, you know that I’m just getting into soul/funk-jazz/fusion.  I’m crazy about the stuff.  It’s also allowed my formerly tepid interest in hip-hip to expand slightly.  It’s like punk rock for me; not the music of course but how I view it.  Some of my favorite music, proto-punk, is the music that led directly to the development of punk rock, but I really don’t like straight punk all that much.  I love the Dead Boys and the Sex Pistols, but both bands were badass rock and roll acts before they were punk.  I love all of this music that’s been sampled a ton or could be sampled if it hasn’t but can take or leave the hip-hop that’s made it famous, so far at least.  As my obsession has grown for the (I’ll call it fusion, to incorporate soul/funk-jazz) fusion over the past few weeks, I’ve purchased a shit ton of great records and thank God some of it can be found cheaply. 

I’d heard of the Ramsey Lewis Trio, but that was probably from hearing them mentioned by NPR DJs a split second, before I slammed the radio off in disgust before my appreciation of fusion.  I totally thought that they were venerated by jazzbos and that they were classic bop, but how wrong I was.  Justin hooked me up with a rough copy of the In Crowd, which is apparently an early soul-jazz classic.  After digging the album, I also noticed that reissues of it are advertized in Waxpoetics, and have noticed the record at numerous shops and online.  I thought that the record would be pricey, but since it obviously sold well for a jazz record and was on Chess’ Argo imprint, it’s insanely cheap.  Like you would pay three times what an OG copy would cost to get the reissue.  Dig the ‘In’ Crowd…

I also recently picked up Ramsey Lewis’ Sun Goddess for cheap.  The cover alone is worth the money, but the music could have been sold in a paper bag and it’d still be sweet.  It’s ten years after the In Crowd and the funk had dropped in the meantime, and it’s obvious on this record, that Lewis was hip to it.  Check out Sun Goddess, Livin’ For the City (the S. Wonder jam) and Jungle Strut…

On the Blue side of things; some Blue Note records from the periphery of their dark days can be got fairly cheaply too.  Some of these records sold very well, which makes them easy to find and cheap, but not bad at all.  For instance, Donald Byrd’s Black Byrd (the best selling record in the entire Blue Note catalogue) and Byrd’s Best are about $10 records; the cover of Black Byrd, depicting a black wedding or hoedown of some sort, ca. 1890 is worth it, and the music’s funky as can be, slightly dated, but that’s a large part of the appeal for me.  I recently acquired Grant Green’s Alive! album, which is a live gig recorded in a small club with Idris Muhammad tearing the place up on drums, for $10.  I’m not as much of a purist as the Cousins and will pick up a reissue or a comp here and there, and found a Grant Green record that was part of the Blue Note Breakbeats series for under $10.  Sometimes on these records, as with every record, there are bum tracks, but it seems more common for jazz records to me, so a comp with six of the most notable tracks by someone can be a good thing.  But I don’t necessarily think that’s true for Grant Green; I’m willing to bet that anything he did in ‘70 and ‘71 with Idris Muhammad on drums is good throughout.  Ronnie Laws‘ Pressure Sensitive must have also sold a shitload because it’s everywhere and it’s cheap.  One of my dad’s buddies gave me his record collection when I was about fifteen.  There were about fifty or so records, all early 70s stoner rock…and Pressure Sensitive.  It’s like the fusion Frampton Comes Alive, but way cooler.  Here are Grant Green’s Sookie Sookie (the Don Covay song) and Ronnie Laws’ Nothing to Lose…

 by Max Conroy:

Until very recently I’ve not really paid much attention to jazz.  As a matter of fact, jazz has almost bothered me for about the past decade.  I used to listen to it back in the day, from about sixteen to nineteen.  Man, reading the Beats and playing the Bird and Diz, that was it.  Also, throwing on 102.1 FM to hear Bob Parlocha, after dropping off my last friend that needed a ride home, for the hazy drive back to the nest was also pretty great.  But I got into rock and roll heavy.  And my girl can’t stand jazz and I am ashamed to say that I kind of didn’t want to hear it if I were to get into it.  NPR also ruined jazz for me for a little while there too.  I know every NPR station is different and some have very well rounded programming, but not the ones that I’ve listened to in the past, 90.5 FM WKAR in East Lansing and 91.5 WBEZ in Chicago.  Both of these stations when not playing classical or the typical syndicated shows like Car Talk, Fresh Air, and All Things Considered, play jazz exclusively.  WBEZ would play like six hours of jazz on a Sunday afternoon, starting at 11 AM, right when I’d want to hear some talk radio or a comedy show.  And they wouldn’t play any of the shit that I’ve been getting into lately at all.

Justin turned me onto Waxpoetics around Christmas time and I’ve devoured the last few issues.  I’ve, as a result, come to the realization that there is more jazz out there than bebop and free jazz.  Soul-jazz and funk-jazz are legitimate categories that I’ve been blind to as a result of my prejudice.  That’s where all the badass samples came from in the heyday of hip-hop.  I had no idea what Blue Note turned into in the late 60s: a jazz label that put out soul and funk records.  I also had no idea that there were people like Eddie Harris out there: check out the article about him in the latest Waxpoetics and also check out Swiss Movement and Silver Cycles, two of his albums.  I read about Blue Note’s Droppin’ Science record somewhere in Waxpoetics, a double record best of Blue Note’s records sampled by hip-hop artists, and ordered a copy.  I’m obsessive when it comes to learning about music, so I’ve been taking some stabs in the dark based on the list of guys on Droppin’ Science in the time that it’s taken to get here.  I found Grant Green’s Alive! at Encore and got a reissue of Lou Donaldson’s Alligator Boogaloo, which the Sugarman Three’s Sugar’s Boogaloo (one of the records that launched Daptone, the first one featuring Gabriel Roth) pays homage to.  Both kick ass to be sure. 

I’m not sure if any of you have seen the Anchorman with Will Farrell, but it illustrates what my thoughts are regarding the flute perfectly.  I tense up whenever I hear a flute on a jazz, soul or funk record no matter how appropriate to the song it seems.  One of the guys on Droppin’ Science that I looked for around town in the past week was Jeremy Steig.  I found a couple of his records at Encore, pulled one up out of the bin and quickly dropped it and piled the records on it hoping no one had seen me even looking at it.  First off, he’s a flautist (I feel strange typing that word); second he looks like a weasely, mustachioed, Yoga instructor.  I’d have to wait to get the comp in the mail to hear this guy.  When I got the record today, I was shocked to hear the hook from the Beastie Boys’ Get It Together and how raw and primal the actual song was, how rock and roll.  Based on the intensity of his playing, he sounds like he could go ten rounds with Hemmingway.

Jeremy Steig’s Howling for Judy from Droppin’ Science, originally off of Wayfaring Stranger/Legwork

Eddie Harris’ I’m Gonna Leave You By Yourself off of Silver Cycle

by Max Conroy 

I’ve been getting into 45’s lately.  Up until about six weeks ago, I didn’t really get the idea behind buying singles.  Usually they are chewed up even though I think the fidelity is supposed to actually be better than 33 1/3 rpm records.  You pay for two songs; sometimes 45’s are free and sometimes they go for thousands, just ask The Cousins.  But for the majority of rock and soul’s existence, the single has been where it’s at, what made or broke artists.  Not until the mid-sixties did groups start making LP’s (Long Players) with the idea of making a work that had obvious continuity, with the car accident apex in the late sixties with contrived rock operas.  R & B records never really successfully mastered the album format in the vinyl era for the most part.  In the fifties and sixties, most R & B records were by and large compilation albums, consisting of a group of singles.  Often a hit would be on many different albums by an artist; see how many Wilson Pickett albums contain Midnight Hour for example or check out some Ray Charles hits.  There are definitely some exceptions to this point to be sure.  Justin recently hipped me to Millie Jackson’s Caught Up album, and the theme of that album is as subtle as a crowbar to the teeth: cheating and she’s not talking about political elections, but getting love at the dark end of the street.  Also, Curtis Mayfield records are albums.  Getting back to the point, even as records became albums, the single was king.  If an album didn’t have a hit, the record company wouldn’t provide advertising and the band or artist probably is one of your favorite cult bands now, but the artist has probably slept in a few gutters along the way.  The idea of a single has faded away and mutated over the years.  I can only remember buying a single on tape or CD a few times in my life.  But commercial radio has stayed the same over the years, playing singles, but instead of attempting to sell the single, they’re pushing album sales and concert tickets and lunch pails and everything else.  Payola has to still exist; I can’t think of any other reason for a radio station to play a song three times in an hour, which some do.  iPods, iTunes and iEverything are probably changing it all over again.  Shit, at that Sharon Jones show, Justin and I observed a DJ ’spinning’ tunes from his iPod.

I’m trying to figure out what it is about 45s that I’m suddenly attracted to.  As I write this, I’m coming to realize that I have been more into records lately that were either albums put together either entirely of singles or built around a few singles with some filler, so the jump to buying 45’s probably isn’t that large of a leap.  A 45 is the first appearance of a song, which gives it a certain cache, like somebody’s rookie card.  Also, a lot of music from the 50s and 60s is only available on 45 unless you want it digitally and if you’re reading this, chances are you’d prefer it on record.  Here’s an example that has fueled my appreciation for 45s and illustrates this point.  I got a copy of the latest Wax Poetics and read the Bobby Byrd obit. and was really interested in getting some of his music as I’ve been into James Brown heavily lately.  Byrd never released any studio records back in the day (he did put out an amazing live album called I Need Help), they were all singles produced by James Brown and so I went out and found the I Need Help single pretty cheap and was blown away. 

There are also plenty of examples where finding a bunch of singles by someone is easier and cheaper than finding the rare album that was released compiling these singles.  Case in point: Dyke and the Blazers.  

I’m working on finding the rest of the Funky Broadway album. 

Some 45s are also cool to have because they represent something historically, an era changing or the birth of a type of music or a record label.  Last Night by the Mar-Keys was the hit that launched Stax.  The record isn’t valuable, but I’m in awe of it every time I look at it for what it represents.  It’s also a great jam.

Some records have an interesting story.  Stagger Lee by Lloyd Price is a single that’s been written about in Greil Marcus’ Mystery Train and by Dave Marsh in The Heart of Rock and Soul.  It’s a traditional song that most likely dates back to the mid 19th century about a gambler named James “Stacker” Lee.  The song is essentially about a gambler getting caught at cheating and blowing his accuser’s brains out.  The meaning of the song went from a cautionary tale about leading an evil existence to one celebrating the outlaw here.  Traditionally the song would include Lee being hung for his crime, but Price cuts the song down to stay in the single format and, in turn, deals only with the crime.  After this Stagger Lee represents, to use a quote from Marsh, “a bad motherfucker not to be trifled with.”  The song went on to become a black power anthem, covered by many R & B acts.  At the time Price was kept from appearing on American Bandstand because of the message and the song was also finding difficulty getting air play, so Price went back into the studio to clean it up and it went to the top of the charts.  Here’s the unedited version where Stack pops a cap in that sucker Billy’s punk ass. 

Some 45’s can also be incredibly valuable, but you’d have to ask the Cousins about that.  I’ve only recently got the bug and am content in finding records that I dig for some of these reasons.  I’m sure greed will play a part here soon.  Most of all, I like 45’s because you have that song, you truly own it as it was marketed and how these people recorded it, and sometimes the B-side is just as good.

A-Square Records

jsREVIEW:

The fashionable take with the Rationals is to point out how Jeep Holland, their manager, rooked ‘em, and how they coulda been contenders. They’re perpetual rock also-rans, lamented more than listened to.

But the Rationals DID make it, at least at the time. Sure, with a little more responsibility on Holland’s part, they coulda been as big as The Standells or the Electric Prunes, but some forty years on, would that have been a huge improvement?

While they predated The Stooges and The MC5, they certainly existed contemporaneously in terms of the scene, if not aesthetic, and Bob Seger’s band learned a thing or two watching them. But frankly, the Rationals were just too good to ever really fit in. Lead singer Scott Morgan had pipes that no other white boy could touch, and had more in common with Van Morrison than with Iggy Pop, which is readily apparent on this early single.

This is the best version of Goffin/King’s “I Need You” ever recorded, hands down, and Morgan belts like a more refined Otis Redding (who was a huge, maybe evven primary influence— it was The Rationals’ cover of “Respect” that led to Aretha Franklin covering it).

The b-side, “Out in the Streets” is a treat too, though it’s more of a go-go goof than timeless classic, but one timeless classic should be enough for any 45. It’s a lyricless r&b bit better suited for interstitials in the Electric Company than repeated listening (though that’s not a knock on it).

Far from one of the lost, forgotten dregs, The Rationals are a touchstone for a generation of Detroit artists and I refuse to treat ‘em any other way. This single shows why.

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b/w You’ve Got To Pay the Price (inst.)

Ric Tic 127

jsREVIEW:

“Oh God, when it starts, memories of my broken heart.”

Al Kent was signed to Ric Tic, which became a Motown subsidiary when Gordy decided that he wanted Edwin Starr’s catalogue without negotiating with the artist directly. Along came Al Kent, who then worked primarily as an arranger for the Motown machine.

Those arrangement chops show on the nominal a-side (at least, the eBay convention seems to be listing it as such), an instrumental version of “You’ve Got To Pay The Price,” which was a minor hit (with vocals) for Gloria Taylor. But Al was also a singer, with a deep, warm tenor that would sound perfect in a church. He brings that to bear on the post-breakup “Where do I go From Here?” which incorporates a gospel choir backup and some revelatory organ over a decidedly secular bassline and bongos rhythm section.
“Do I fall apart or make a brand new start?” asks Kent, though I think we can tell through the swelling sounds what the answer is. This is the type of song that made me love Motown to begin with, maybe not the best known one, but solid songwriting combined with excellent production leave this as one of those songs that you should know. You can keep your Beatles, gimme the third-string of Motown any day.

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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

SOLD OUT

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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