Music: The Cherry Blossoms “Live in Amsterdam” LP

Well ya know The Cherry Blossoms are after all maybe the best band in Nashville, and they're certainly the most authentic, (whatever that means...) Like a scoop of ice cream on the porch of your grandmother's naïve wisdom, minus the latent racism, CBs kind of ramble on toward some nonexistent rustic ideal. It seems real enough that you assume the whole “Past” is just like it. Though it probably never was?

To a few older dudes it was, man. You've got your Holy Modal Rounders and maybe Yo Ho Wah or whatever. To be honest this is more enjoyable. For one thing CBs are designed for, like ideal live, which this record is. But the recording is spruce: nicely separated stereo image and clean. The acoustic guits and kazoos and everything are real crisp, and the drums sound great.

Chris Davis's drums are really crucial to any Cherry Blossoms jam, dude's playing is extremely disheveled, but realllly profound, which is about what conversing with him is like. Davis is adept at playing this kind of “pseudo-free” style, all off-kilter, loosey-goosey, but will chug-along too. “Bean Bag,” which closes out the record is a great example of The Cherry Blossoms' general M.O. of spacey traditionalism: the meat of it is a meandering chuga-chug beat, like Neu meets Graham Parsons or like how N.R.P.S. might sound, maybe they do? (It's been a while, ya know?)

If you're familiar with the CBs than you get that John Allingham's kind of the glue of the thing, or whatever, but Peggy Snow is the absolute show-stopping delight. Her quavering vibrato and goofball romanticism and general enthusiasm, (and kazoo,) are the focal point here, and elsewhere they shan't be. One can definitely appreciate this incarnation of the band, that finds CBs rolling as a full quintet. That Chuck dude who works at Bongo on righteously “out of it” bass and especially Taylor Martin's vocal harmonies and especially her angelic counterpoint on “Lay the Cloud Thin.”

I'm pretty sure a couple of these songs can be found on The Cherry Blossoms' equally compelling studio LP, but I'm too lazy to cross reference which ones right now. If you're familiar with the CBs and dig them, than you'll dig this record. Familiar with them and don't dig, then leave it alone, but if you're intrigued by the band, yet unfamiliar, this one should make for a decent introduction, on par with their OOP self-titled album. A nice shrink-wrapped package from Chicago label, Hairy Spider Legs. Recommended!

Music: Bad Friend "Let it Go" LP

"Throw away your first keepsake" is how this record begins, I mean, that is the first lyric, after some (eh, I hate to but yeah)-90s, semi-angular guitar riffage.

This is a record of solid to very solid "Big I" Indie rock. If these dudes knew the right people in 1998, they might be a big fuckin' deal. As it is, we're left with a record of tunes recorded too many years ago for the media cycle to take an interest.

It's some pretty great song-writing, at least at times. It's rooted in Matador tropes circa 2001, sure. But I haven't listened to that kinda shit in long enough that it's effective.

I used to have a serious emotional connection with "The Fruit That Ate Itself". If you did too, check out this record. Eight tracks of longing living room rock music. Recorded by Scott Martin. First full length LP on blossoming Nashville label, Hag Bloom too.

Music: Monsters on Television "Life is So Bizarre" LP

Well-travelled ground/bar chord garage rock/definitely has like that '95/'85/'75 feel, which is maybe to say this is that kind of "timeless" Rock, capital R, all that shit.

It's pretty charming, I guess. Front-man, Brad Sunflower's voice reminds me at times of David Thomas, but less weird, more slacker-stoned.

As far as good songs, there's "Comin' Down", "You Lookin' at Me Weird" and the title track, all of which you've pretty much heard before, which makes them stick in your brain even a little more.

The sound of a minimum-wage job, Mexican Strat and mid-grade marijuana. Really nice screen-printed art. Cleft Music label.

Music: Forrest Bride "Cats with Wings" LP

The centerpieces of this album are the instrumental tracks that open both sides. but there are vocal numbers too:

"Blue Tiger" is the most "pretty" track, vague pentatonic melody that Amy Marcantel's vocal harmonies fill out well, plus lifted moving-bass. Probably the best of the sung tracks. Next "Massacre at Ludlow" is pretty good Radiohead-pastiche but Ben Marcantel's singing is unfortunately muffled by gear affects that squash out the overtones of his voice. "String and Glue", lyrically, is as "twee" as the title implies, but the instruments are "gussied up" the way Adrian Belew "gussied up" Tom Tom Club's "Loreleai", all stuttering atonality and sound-effects, with a little more Folk-feel.

But the meticulously crafted instrumental tracks are where the Marcantels' strengths really lie. "Circa 1973", the sound collage that opens the album is wonderful, gradually building from skuttling noise loops into a two-piano Cosmic-assault with out ever feeling like it's "building" at all. This morphs, briefly, into a feminine kind of Fantasy-Simple xylophone interlude, before Scott Martin's drums first introduce themselves under cut-and-paste organ and slow-attack synth, interupted by these violin upper-cuts just before the denouement, real "feminine "narrative" kind of stuff that lacks an obviously climax but substitutes lots of little peaks in circular fashion.

Marcantel's production is great: it never sounds showy, (except maybe once on Side B where I noticed a tom-tom annoyingly drifting across the stero-spectrum,) but it's meticulous.

Side B's "Death Kit" is the first time the album ever really sounds at all like the "electric era Miles" suggested on the little paper insert that comes with the record. It's more like metal-fusion though; Scott Martin's drumming is especially unhinged with an insistent single-note bass line that charges everything into some super-charged future-war, saxophones wounded-wail, dissonant synthesizers buzz along and melt, and all the sudden there's this lifted lilting piano chord like "walk towards the light" type thing, but still, a glimpse of  the past as evil saxes dance back in, filtered and fading.

Closer, "Living Coral" has a dinstinctly M.O.R.-jazz deep-cut vibe like something on Side 4 of a mid-70's Chicago album, which is pretty fantastic if you ask me. It's interupted occasionally by buzzy angular asides on the organ, but for the most part it's lush and tacitly sensual.

Pretty well constructed album. Cover art is an owl, which I guess is what they mean by "Cat with Wings", probably because of the seing in the dark. Sebastian Speaks label. Approx. $12 at local retailers. Recomended!

Music: Coupler "America in the Coming Age of Electronics" LP

The title of this record sounds like an Epcot exhibit and that's pretty appropriate given the sound. All USA Futurism circa 1970 World's Fair: sloped white plastic walls, egg-shaped chairs, discreet control panels and it's, for the most part, strikingly gorgeous, patient music from Ryan Norris, who also plays a prominent role in Hands Off Cuba.

"The Valley of the Elders" opens Side 1 with a subtle drone before a warbling Melotron voice enters, lulling and plaintive and absolutely arresting. It's all, to some extent, "Ambient" music, but as the lead-off's title suggests, "Ambient" in the vein of Jon Hassell, Side 2 of "Low" or some of Joe Zawinul's more tasteful electronic outings, i.e. no New Age bullshit. Needless to say, Brian Eno is a major reference point, really a jumping-off point, because none of this is lazy emulation or overly derivative of his many experiments and collaborations from the 1970s.

Second track, "Ton" is especially affecting in its slow, one-finger/12-tone synth rumination but is curious for its lack of detail regarding instrumentation in the liner notes. While Moog synth, Acetone organ and Space Echo all get name checked on other tracks, some of the notes merely refer to "programming" or anonymous "synth bass", etc. Whether this is a symptom of Norris's dismissive/ashamed(?) attitude toward non-vintage/digital(?) instruments or a means-to-mystery is arguable. But this is the Age of Electronics Already Come, and the detuned oscillators on "Ton" and filtered buzz on "Swarm", be they from a VST plugin or 50-year-old wooden box, are among the most complex and invigorating here.

The side closes with the buzzing arpegiation of the afore mentioned "Swarm", the album's first beat-oriented track and in between is every manner of electronic "treatment" (the liners' term) of haunting vocal samples courtesy Forrest Bride's Amy Marcantel, sparkling acoustic guitar, horn and synthesizer.
Side 2 which opens once again with Melotron Voice and, Jesus Christ, that sound is just so good. Fucking Melotron, man. The world would be more beautiful if every Goodwill and Southern Thrift had one or two of these instead of cheap church organs, but I suppose their scarcity adds to the allure. Norris and compatriots blend the aching tape-keyboard with lush drones and sinewy organ sounds perfectly. Nothing sounds out of place.

The rest of the record feels a little less deliberate, a little more "Ambient for Ambient's sake" perhaps, with trem-panned Rhodes piano, Moog Opus and heavilly tremoloed guitar all getting features, though album-closer "Sehnsucht" develops with a rather nice chord progression and old-worldy organ that reminisces slightly of Norris's contributions to noir folkers, Lambchop.

Ultimately a really beautful vinyl debut from one of Nashville's best side-experimentalists. Made in Canada label. Classy art work. Highly Recomended!

Music: Unicorn Hard-On / Container split 12"

This one cropped up on quite a few people's best of 2011 lists, (along with Container's also-great deput LP on Spectrum Spools,) for good reason. This is three tracks of precisely controled machine-music. The power of organization is, to some degree, allowed to the humans. But the sounds are all Terminator fucking metal and plastic.

Unicorn Hard-On's side starts hardest. Stomping digital kick and hi-hat sounds open as digitally destroyed vocal-wailing smears all across the top. We assume it's Valerie Martino's voice, but it's so removed from anything human, wordless and desperate. Maybe it's the hungry "Persian Cat" of the song's title. When the sequenced bass and Hoover-esque lead synths creep in, they are welcome, orienting devices, familiar tropes. But as they repeat, nasty lazer blasts and pink noise bury them, creating a crazed din of mechanized sound.

"Wildfire Girls" is a little less punishing as far as overall noise levels go, but it features similarly disorienting vocals, (really, Martino's trademark and forte,) and squiggly synth dollops that sound far-removed from pre-Skynet Earth-music.

On his side, Container (Ren Schofield) plays with the classic Techno "Boom-Chick" sound, but bubbling echo-synth and syn-tom syncopation prevent you from entering that hypnotized state associated with Minimal Tech. The sounds are penetrating from the begining, and at the track's climax, they're downright pulverizing. Like a robot using your head as a speed-bag, the effect is disorienting and brutal up to the track's denouement.

The robot's voice has been repeating for a while now: "Cauter-i-i-ize," smearing downward. Its granular, inhuman provocation is insulting or encouraging, one. "Do it. Hold the red-hot metal to your open wound." It knows you can't go through with it. You are a human, weak, un-evolved. This music is the Singularity on wax. It is a fucking breakthrough man.

The sleeve art is mesmerizing and acts as a perfect foil for the abbrasiveness found on the wax. This woman is just taunting you through some psychedelic Women's Magazine haze. Valerie and Ren are taunting you. They are at the finish line. The singularity. The machines have accepted them and allowed them to release this harbinger of the future. The machines are in charge from this point forward. Get used to it. Highly Recomended!

Music: Frothy Shakes "Killed by Death #11" LP

First the history: ostensibly a collection of South-Eastern US punk singles recorded between 1977 and 1982, from such never-knowns as Sexy Fits, Orgy Poppers, Curly Fries, Horny Toads, you get the idea... from Redrum Records, Norwegian curator of the original "KBD" compilations. Essay on the back describes the bands via session recording anecdotes from the (supposed) Producer of every track, one Bill "Smackroot" Jackson.

Real talk: this LP is the work of (and sole vinyl artifact of) 90s-Nashville, non-touring out-punkers, Frothy Shakes. Three of the twelve tracks on the LP are credited to them, but, like the other, fake bands, their description in the liners is the kind of inflated drug-babble you get from a Harmony Korine art opening.

Here's the thing: this record has been maligned by some of the three-chord, Chuck Berry-worshipping purveyors of "KBD", who also have gotten the facts wrong, but this only gives new credence to the trashily bizarre fucking music these guys were making circa 1996.

Side 1 is three songs: first one is tape-warp rambling, last one is simple Noise "Rawk", but in the middle is "Stay in Shape with the Orgy Poppers" (by the Orgy Poppers, duh,) a high, Fausty, pretty lengthy track of subdued maniacal spirit. It's all rambling drudge-chorded while singer David Russell convinces you completely of things he really isn't even saying. All nonsense insanity, your nodding in bewildered agreement turns into head-bobbing groove-getting-along-with. It's twisted waste-rock.

Side 2 starts with those "official" Frothy Shakes tunes. First (like with Side 1) an a capella loop titled "Sad Clown". "Pickup Truck" gets into the fiery 90s skuzz you probably love too, but "Benzene" is where we really hear the Shakes command of their potty-punk forte. Subdued four-beat and palm-muted power chords interfere with your brain waves while the bass adds dissonant commentary. Russell's vocals are conversationally (albeit party-conversation/ drunker than you,) sing speaking until the song's only hook: "Eh eh eh eh eh eh eh eh" falsetto God-gibberish. It's unspeakably beautiful.

The rest of the record continues in the same vein. Only "Ladies Home Urinal" (by Betty Binns, ostensibly) grips to some post-dated rock trope. Everything else is pretty much beauty-scuzz/true punk/non-rock.

The actual details about this release are fuzzy, but you can definitely still buy these directly from the Shakes here... Edition of 500(?) Highly Recomended!

Music: Various Artists "The Neighbors are Dead" double LP

God couldn't strike Murfreesboro lower than it already is, but from the depths comes this compilation of alternating beauty and pure obnoxiousness thru lo-fi live recordings.

All in all a pretty good summary of the music you could find most weekends on the Murfreesboro house show circuit pre-2009, (or whenever Animal Collective caused a bunch of would be out-musicians to turn Pop and ultimately sound just like Animal Collective.)

The recording quality is pretty uniform, (shit,) and suits most of this music fairly well. It's all in-your-face nastiness, (save a couple diversions into folk and delicate found sounds on side 1,) and hits you with the all-nite party vibe that went hand-in-hand with these shows.

Listening to the whole thing can get a bit tedious but there are some really amazing highlights, especially Who is Jackie Sheets' busted drum machine racket, Brown Swarm's ridiculous mess of wheezing electronics and drums, and the heady fuzz-wash of Lazer Slut's "White Sands."

There are solid cuts from Terror'ish, Deluxin' (circa "No Shit" left-feild hardcore), Most Amazing Century of Science (serious Naked City-worship), German Castro, High on Life and Meth Dad too.

The photo-collage outer sleeve depicts such images as Lazerslut's side-scrotum, Terror'ish smoking a cigarette and Meth Dad demonstrating questionable fashion sense via hat, (or more specifically, upturned bill.)

A really good listen/well-done archival release from Private Leisure Industries, a label dedicated to preserving the sounds and sentiments and loose architecture of Murfreesboro's glory years. Recomended!

Music: R. Stevie Moore "Advance" LP

This 14-song-wax item, a little too studied over, is just a drop in the bucket...

Of songs since then and around then, we're lead to believe. Fair enough.

There are in fact some gems here: for some of them you have to hold your nose and dig in cause they can be pretty sugary, see "Runny Nose, Money Woes", "Pop Music". But these are sort of your "Classic RSM" jams that I guess are what the money pays for. Unfortunately, we get no examples of the dude's preoccupations with performance art and impromptu poetry, that've been on display at recent live gigs around town. I'd also suggest there's a little too much respect paid to the influences, i.e. it's sometimes kind of derivative-feeling.

The first side feels lonelier and more interesting on the two left feild collaborations/covers. The lead off track is a tune by fusion/late-jazz guitarist, Ralph Towner called "Icarus", done alone, with computerized everything: MIDI keys and my-first-drum-machine, it's odd and fogey-ish in a good way.

There's also a Lennon-esque co-writership called "Theorum" with Lane Steinberg and Roger Ferguson, whoever they are.

Side 2 begins with some bubblegum/doowop pastiche but really hits its stride with the one-two-punch of album highlights "Kix Tarter Sauce" and "Me, Too". "Kix" is a subdued instrumental that really showcases Moore's talent for precise, efficient songwriting. It kicks around for like four minutes on just a few restrained guitar riffs and eventually, suddenly turns into "Me, Too", one of the most fantastically maniacal RSM pop numbers since "Schoolgirl". It's a lust-fueled Rhodes-rocker with quick drum-work that occasionally misses the changes, fully punk. (It's also one of only two tracks here recorded alone at home in classic RSM fashion.)

The production is a little off-putting. Gone are the multiple reel-to-reel recorders, in their place, clean, uncompressed digital recording that comes off a little un-nuanced. Still a pretty decent entry into the catalogue. Those unfamiliar with Moore have their work cut out. Don't start here.

Crowd funded, non-recycled material.

Music: Big Nurse "Temporarily Unavailable" LP

Bludgeoned non-music/stoned "Noise" jams. Side 1 is pretty bliss/fluxed out computer sound, though all instrumentation is straight out of Rolling Stones circa 1973, +Bobby Keys.

Saxophone, a nasty little bitch-snake on Side 2, is spare and buried on Side 1, eliciting the Jazz-pathos, liberal-punk, and it works in the studied disdain-dissonant-drudge, add serpent a little at the end...

There are becoming, quieter moments on Side 1... By the way, I'm calling one side of the unmarked vinyl "Side 1" only because it appears (superficially) to be comprised of two tracks, versus only one track on "Side 2," the traditional one-track-side.

High Density Headache, nice brown paper inserts with screenprinted art.

Music: The Cherry Blossums LP

Not everyone in Nashville is a sucker for that rustic, historic-gaze folk sound. I'm not. But Cherry Blossums only border that naivety-blessed semi-vacant genre/zone. Their zone is a non-archy, but settled, comfortable and understanding.

While dreadnaught guitar and harmonicas ramble away, underground tom-toms gallop and plod with an Almost-Eastern feel, rippling under the folks' songs above. And so the Folk convention is lulled into a deeply hipnotic, throbbing trestle.  Odd percussion and things like whistles and suddenly-remembered mandolins appear, and seem pleased, and take their leave. They run across the tracks. The band is constantly churning and buzzing beneath the unfettered minstrelism.

You're told to "Sell your love for rocks and stones... and money." All irony of course, then they warn about getting weighed down, and killed man. It's a lattice of Pure Goodnature. Rolling along, repeating.

"History shows agian and again, how Nature points out the folly of Man." I'm not sure if this is a theme in the film, Godzilla. It may well be. Whether it is or isn't, Cherry Blossums bend and mend their eco-psychic lyricism with a cover of Blue Oyster Cult's "Godzilla", a song loosely based on the film probably. They also cover-sort-of the Old Dirty Bastard at the begining of "Glow, Jesus, Glow", a song that pops rhythmically at first, then sort of dissolves in hippy-vamp whacked-outness and liquidity. Then the end of the song becomes a sort of revival: John Allingham's grunts like Tongues and Peggy Snow's flirty wailing becomes the wild-afro'd preacher. Glow!

Collaboratively released, thoroughly replayable Old Weird Nashville. Recomended!