The Weird World of Old Records #2: Ken Nordine

Musical history is full of people who became famous for a brief, shining second, then rode that one second to a long career. Ken Nordine is one of these people, and his story is an interesting one.

Ken Nordine's career started not in music, but in voice work. In the 40s, he was doing voice work for radio stations in Chicago, then, in the 50s, he began reciting poetry over cool jazz. His style became known as "word jazz", a slick mix of spoken word and jazz. His album, 1957's Word Jazz, came out on the Dot label and immediately causes a sensation. His follow up records, 1958's Son of Word Jazz and Love Words, were equally as successful. Nordine was also lucky to be doing this style of music around the time the Beat Generation work of Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs became huge, and his style fit right in with those writers.

Nordine is known for his deep, resonant voice and he's still involved in music and radio to this date. His latest album was a DVD called The Eye is Never Filled, released in 2005. He's also worked with modern musicians like DJ Food and Shellac. He also hosts a radio show in the Chicago area.

I came across Ken Nordine thanks to the excellent Re/Search Labs book series, most notably the two volume Incredibly Strange Music set. The accompanying CD for Volume 2 of the Incredibly Strange Music book features three Ken Nordine tracks, including two from his Colors album from 1967. Anyone interested in weird and just plain bizarre music needs to check these books out. They're truly eye opening.

Concert Review - Liz Stringer at Music in the Park, August 21, 2016

Kamloops' Music in the Park is one of the cultural events in the city that really sets us apart from other cities. Every night at the Riverside Park Bandshell, we get a free 90 minute concert. Most of the time, it's a local or area act. On rare occasions, we get an international performer like Liz Stringer.

Stringer is from Australia and is touring on support of her new album All the Bridges. Her music is evocative of Joni Mitchell or Bruce Cockburn, personal and biographical, with a thoughtful acoustic guitar behind it. For this concert, she played several songs solo acoustic, which were wonderful folk songs with deep emotion behind them. She then brought out a full band, featuring fellow Australian Aurora Jane on bass and a drummer who's name I didn't catch. It was then that things kicked into a higher gear.

With a full band, Stringer plays great uptempo roots rock, reminiscent of Jr. Gone Wild or Spirit of the West. Stringer own full voice was a great compliment to the full band sound, and the live band never sounded forced. Everything seemed very natural and free flowing.

She also did nothing but original material, which is an oddity for Music in the Park. Almost always, every artist plays a cover song so the audience can sing along or at least be familiar with the music. Stringer's choice to avoid this was a bold one and it didn't detract at all from her performance.

DNTTA Playlist for July 15, 2016

Artist - Song - Album (Label)  * indicates Canadian Content 

Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca 

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Jean-Michel Blais - Casa* - II (Arts and Crafts)
Jon Balke - Bucolic - Warp (ECM)
Max Eilbacher/Alex Moskos/Duncan Moore - Can't Run Up the Score* - SEF III (Ehse)
Zhongyu - Tunnel at the End of Light - Zhongyu (Moonjune)
Vasil Hadzimanov Band - Tovirafro - Alive (Moonjune)
Dwiki Dharmawan - Whale Dance - So Far So Close (Moonjune)
Keefe Jackson/Jason Adasiewicz - Swap - Rows and Rows (Delmark)
Galkin - For the Life of Me* - Chagrin Seasons (Independent)
Kelly and the Kellygirls - Napoleon* - Play Us Something from Your Back Catalogue (Independent)
Colourbox - Just Give 'em Whiskey - Colourbox 82/87 (4AD)

Forgotten Music #21: Colourbox - Looks Like We're Shy One Horse (1986)

With the recent passing of Steven Young this past week, it seemed fitting to talk about his band, Colourbox, for our Forgotten Music segment this month,

Colourbox were a British band, active in the mid 80s. Like several electronic bands in the UK in the 80s, they seemed strangely prescient in their music, often predicting where electronic music would go in the 90s. Also like a lot of 80s bands from the UK, they weren't well known in North America outside of college radio. UK electronic music tended to drawn influences from a huge amount of diverse genres, and Colourbox were no exception to that. They were also one of the first bands to really use sampling as the basis for their music, and less as a novelty. Modern bands like Girl Talk and the Avalanches owe Colourbox a huge debt of gratitude for this style of music.

Coloubox were formed as a quartet in 1982, made up of a core of brothers Martyn and Steven Young. They were signed to the highly influential and often forward thinking British label 4AD Records, and cross-collaborated with with many of the 4AD roster, including The Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil. Their sound drew heavily from the dub style of reggae, adding in elements of rock, classic R&B and soul. They were pioneers in bringing in hip-hop style breaks to electronic music, a style that's still heard in modern UK grime artists like Dizzee Rascal.

The band is best known, ironically, not for their work in Colourbox, but with their collaboration with A.R. Kane called M/A/R/R/S, who were famous for their sample and bass-heavy 12" single, "Pump Up the Volume" in 1987. That song took dance floors by storm and could arguably be called the original of the house style of electronica.

After their break up in 1987, most of the members slipped into obscurity. Martyn Young was the most active and visible member of the band. He worked as a producer for bands like the Wolfgang Press and the Christians and worked as a session musician for other UK bands.

"Looks Like We're Shy One Horse" is from a 12" single released in 1986. You can pick it up on the band's best of compilation. Colourbox 82/87.

RIP Alan Vega

I'm not sure where to start in writing about Alan Vega. As a musician, he's an enigma. He toiled in obscurity since the 70s, but he was easily one of the most influential musicians in punk, post-punk and experimental music of all the time. His music was confrontational, bleak, wildly experimental and unforgiving. It's, frankly, difficult to listen to. But, without Alan Vega, there would be no John Zorn, no Sonic Youth, no Beck, no Pere Ubu and no countless other experimental and uncompromising forms of music seen today.

Having just recently finished ClaytonHeylin's "From the Velvets to the Voidoids", Vega's music and influence is still forefront in my mind right now. Even in the wilds of early New York's punk and experimental scene, which featured bands like Television, The Voidoids, Sonic Youth and DNA, Vega was considered an outsider, an artist that few paid attention to. But those who did drew much influence from his work.

Vega, born Alan Bermowitz in 1948, was best known for his work with Suicide, a noise/synthpunk duo he formed with Martin Rev. After seeing the Stooges in 1969, Vega was inspired to make music, forming his first band with Rev and performing publicly as Suicide for the first time in 1970. Vega was one of the first adopters of the term “punk music”, which he borrowed from the influential underground writer Lester Bangs.

Suicide played a ramshackle style of electronic music, with Rev's keyboards cobbled together from old organs and primitive drum machines, and Vega adding an inhuman growl and shriek to their performances. I've often heard it said, and I often say it myself: no one could scream like Alan Vega. Vega would often emulate Iggy Pop, brandishing a motorcycle chain on stage, wildly swinging it around, antagonizing audiences and sometimes wading into the audience with the chain. Like The Stooges, Suicide were often booed as soon as they hit the stage, and more than one concert degenerated into a full blown riot.

Suicide's first album, a self-titled effort, came out in 1977, to virtually no critical acclaim, but the album has remained a touchstone for punk bands, industrial musicians, art rockers, noise bands and hardcore bands alike. Today, it's considered one of the most important punk albums of all time. Their ten minute opus, “Frankie Teardrop”, a disturbing song about a factory worker pushed to the edge, is a seminal punk and post-punk track.

Suicide's discography is wildly sparse. Since forming in 1970, they have just five albums to their credit, the last, American Supreme, coming out in 2002.

Vega's solo and collaborative work is much more substantial. His first solo album, a self-titled album in 1980, had a lo-fi rockabilly feel to it. 1983's Saturn Strip saw him working with The Cars' Ric Ocasek and Ministry's Al Jorgensen. In 1985, he put out a failed stab at a more commercial accessible album called Just a Million Dreams, which led to him being dropped by his label. He followed that up in 1990 with a minimalist electronic album called Deuce Avenue, which he recorded with his new wife Liz Lemere. His collaborations with Finnish minimalist noise/electronic band Pan sonic as VVV are remarkable in their sparseness and disorienting screams. Together they released two albums, Endless in 1988, and Resurrection River in 2004.

In 2008, Blast First Records released a series of 10” records in tribute of Vega's 70^th birthday, tributes recorded by artists like Lydia Lunch, Primal Scream, Julian Cope and Bruce Springsteen.

Vega died in his sleep on July 16^th at the age of 78. His death was announced by Henry Rollins, who considered Vega a huge influence on his own work, and his Rollins Band covered Suicide's “Ghost Rider” for the soundtrack to the movie The Crow in 1994.

DNTTA Playlist for July 8, 2016

Artist - Song - Album (Label)  * indicates Canadian Content 

Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca 

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Yenta - Handstyle is Dust* - 1 (Independent)
NIck Fraser Quartet - Starer* - Starer (Independent)
Tord Gustavsen - Imagine the Fog Disappearing - What Was Said (ECM)
Anat Fort Trio - It's Your Song - Birdwatching (ECM)
Jack DeJohnette - Blue in Green - In Movement (ECM)
Carla Bley - Camino al Volver - Anando el Tiemo (ECM)
Parkland - Lost My Heart* - Affiliates: 1 (Offseason)
Alex Stooshinoff - Moths* - Stasis (Independent)
Talking Heads - Found a Job (live) - Stop Making Sense (Sire)

Canadian Indy Band Roundup, July 2016

Three new bands you should check out

1) Motherhood

Post punk in Canada is on the upswing, and here's another great band making great post punk music. Motherhood are from Fredricton, New Brunswick, and the band has just released their first album, called Baby Teeth.

2) Lying Light in the Quiet

LLitQ are from Saskatoon, SK. They just came through Kamloops about 6 weeks ago and played down at Barnacle Records. Their sound is a droning post-rock style, mostly instrumental. They make a pretty full sound for a 2 piece band. One member, Alex Stooshinoff, also has some solo work out. Their debut album is called Recovery.



3) Timing X

From Victoria, BC, Timing X are a fine and noisy electro-punk band. They're huge Devo fans (no surprise since their name comes from an early Devo song) and they sound like it too. Their latest album, called Timing is Xverything, is out on the mighty Shake! record label, a tape only label also based in Victoria.

DNTTA Playlist for July 1, 2016

Artist - Song - Album (Label)  * indicates Canadian Content 

Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca 

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Yenta - Handstyle is Dust* - 1 (Independent)
Uniter - Under the Gun* - EP (Manitou)
Each Other - Tongue Tied* - Taking Trips (Fixture)
Loic April - Fantome* - DIV/SION (Independent)
Marleana Moore - 24 Hour Drug Store* - Gaze (Sweetie Pie)
Choir and Marching Band - Bachelor* - So-Duh-Pop! (Independent)
Bellflower - Cyclone Waltz* - The Season Spell (Universal)
Family Plot - The Crush* - Last Call (Zulu)
Tiffany Moses - Facade* - Listen to Our Heartbeat (WAVS)
The Famous Sandhogs - Whittico Pox*
Gender Poutine - Cashier* - Whatever Dad (Shake!)
Re/Gen - Patterns* - Re/Gen EP (Cherry Tapes)
Iko - Model Type A* - Iko '83 (Manhattan Formula)

Video Playlist #6: Oh Canada!

Celebrating Canada Day with a playlist of bands named after places in Canada!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yha0QkNFztA&list=PL0QOmyo1JgZdflFvMuL8ngH2qu-02j5AI

1) Vancougar* - Distance
2) The British Columbians* - In the Leaves
3) Chilliwack* - Whatcha Gonna Do (When I'm Gone)
4) The Golden Calgarians* - Vladivostok Rock
5) The Albertans* - The Wake
6) The Rural Alberta Advantage* - Drain the Blood
7) Whitehorse* - Nadine
8) Yukon Blonde* - Como
9) The Wilderness of Manitoba* - Leave Someone
10) Flin Flon - Swift Current
11) Toronto* - Your Daddy Don't Know
12) Of Montreal - It's Different For Girls
13) Torngat* - You Could Be
14) Halifax - Sydney
15) Canada - I'm Too Punk for That

DNTTA Playlist for June 24, 2016

Artist - Song - Album (Label)  * indicates Canadian Content 

Listen to Do Not Touch This Amp every Friday 8-9 PM Pacific at www.thex.ca 

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Russian Futurists - Our Pen's Out of Ink* - Our Thickness (Upper Class)
Daniel Ouellette and the Shobijin - Melodramatic - Tokusatsu! (Independent)
Washed Out - Echoes - Within and Without (Sub Pop)
Villas - Life Jacket* - Medicine (Independent)
Ancient Shapes - Navigator* - Ancient Shapes (New West)
Little Scream - Love As a Weapon* - Cult Following (Dine Alone)
Yann Perreau - A L'Amour et a La Mer* - Le Fantastique des Etoiles (Bonsound)
Bibio - Why So Serious? - A Mineral Love (Warp)
Pantha du Prince - In an Open Space - The Triad (Rough Trade)
Low - No Comprende - Ones and Sixes (Sub Pop)
Tetrix - Baskets* - Tetrix 14 (Independent)