The Twin Atlas - Double Shot video

Rad new jams from The Twin Atlas

Acid Mothers Sunday vol 16: Shogo-Nari & Kawabata Makoto

For this volume of Acid Mothers Sunday we have a rather obscure CDR that I got through Eclipse Records a few years ago and seems to have gone out of print rather quickly. This one was on Zakuro Records and I can't find much info beyond "limited edition, available only at gigs" on discogs.com. Shogo-Nari is a male/female folky duo and this live CD features Kawabata from Acid Mothers Temple on some sublime and gorgeous electric guitar coloring. Some real acid folk! Finally! Somewhat intense vocals and a mellow base of fragile keyboards and guitar round out a rather full sound, with Kawabata not hogging the spotlight at all, but still totally making his presence felt.

This is also the same band known as Syogonari who put out two CDS, both produced by Kawabata. I am not sure the difference in name, but their second CD, Black Blues is fantastic. That said, this live CDR recorded Jan 11 2004 at Kaccyo-buu, Matsusaka, Mie is a more... real listening for me. The recording is excellent and the vibe is very confident and psychedelic as well.





Also, check out this awesome interview with Syogonari/Shogo-Nari with long time Nice Pooper pal, Kevin McCaighy from issue 5 of his awesome and highly recommended fanzine SALT!

I am still trying out the FLAC stuff here, so this one is gonna be in multiple parts...

Shogo-Nari & Kawabata Live Jan 11 2004 part 1
Shogo-Nari & Kawabata Live Jan 11 2004 part 2
Shogo-Nari & Kawabata Live Jan 11 2004 part 3

Hurang - Nice To Meet Me 7"

Hurang were one of the best bands in Central PA in the late 80s, even though they played infrequently and were kinda ragged live... But this 7" and a national tour (Stuless 88 y'alls) kinda put them above the uh... competition. Regardless of the shambling live deal, this record is a fantastic representation of the regional post hardcore kinda thing, without being Slint, ya know? Rock and roll leads mixing it up with some frenzied drumming and pace, maybe it was from seeing them, but even now, 20 some years later, I keep expecting them to fly off the song when I hear these jams. Anyway you cut it, they are great songs and Christian Osgood had a fucking awesome old school emo voice, ya know, about to break, spazz soul. Feeling it! Like how that stuff was influenced by Husker Du, Die Kruezen and all the DC Revolution Summer bands and shit. Luckily this is before the Fugazi influence killed so many good bands, everyone got slower and had those simple bass line songs and pseudo profound lyrics, loud quiet parts, yeah you get it.

So I guess this came out in 1988 on Hurang's own label, Self Serve Records. These guys were all a few years older than me and had been seeing shows for ages so I was not particular tight with these dudes, though I recall they had the edge back then, but not like super in your face or anything. They had a party house in Harrisburg that I hit a few times and we wrote about them in Desperate State fanzine back then, gave them a glowing review if I do recall... Plus the Foundation played at their house or something. That was a big deal in Central PA in the late 80s. They came back from the tour and broke up and I went to college (where I met and became pals with one of the dude's sisters) in Philly. I would see Stu around in Philly on occaision and Osgood was actually my TA in geology. Crazy shit. I know Osgood kept up the music thing for awhile, but I haven't seen him in ages. Landers was also in the band Lucky who had a 7" on Skene. In weird small world news, a coworker sent me this link today about Stu doing a book about Black Flag tattoos.



Also related around this time was Central PA's best band, the short lived but incrediblely awesome The Homecoming. These dudes succumbed to the Fugazi worship and ditched the kick ass guitarist, Hans and became Admiral. Anyways, here is an interview with Joe from the Homecoming, Crown Hate Ruin, Sacred Hate, etc here... Joe posts a link to the still totally fucking awesome Homecoming demo in the comments. It is unreal how good that holds up. I will do a separate post on that demo one of these days.

Here are some crappy live pics of Hurang. I am pretty sure this is them opening for Ignition at Studio One/The Dark Room in Harrisburg, PA in either 1987 or more likely 1988...





Also, I did these as FLAC files, please leave a comment if you prefer I go the lossless route or if you have any problems with the download etc. Thanks. Sorry for the skips and pops, I played the shit out of this record over the years.

Hurang - Nice To Meet Me/Conjugal Visit 7" (1988 Self Serve Records)

Sky Saxon Memorial

Djin from Yahowa 13 is playing a solo set at the Sky Saxon memorial on Friday July 24th at the Echoplex in LA. Some others playing include Nels Cline and The Simon Stokes Band (thus bringing together Antiseen and Yahowa 13 in a weird way...) and a super group of sorts featuring Billy Corgan and members of the Electric Prunces. RIP, Sky/Arlich.

Japrocksampler Jams

Kudos to the awesome Allegory of Allergies blog for posting one of the hardest to find albums in the Japrocksampler top 50; Metempsychosis, the album from Stomu Yamash'ta & Masahiko Satoh that everyone has been looking for... enjoy!

Also, as mentioned in the comments in that post is Bixobal issue #4 with has a full run down of Stomu's career, as well as stuff from Muckracker's Patrick Marley, still one of my fave music writers ever. You can get it here. I see issue 5 is out and has Djin Aquarian on the cover!? Ordering now... not sure how I missed that!

Acid Eater

User fykfyk has lots of cool videos.

More 90s stuff... Live Royal Trux

Been going through a bit of a Royal Trux phase lately, rediscovering the joys of air conditioning, ice cream and that first RT album. Anyways, dug out a CDr of live jams that I got from Mike Chaiken from Halana and Dance Chromatic and the computer.

The first show is an in the red audience recording of 4 live songs in Ann Arbor, MI on Nov 10 1990. In spite of the crackles and tape hiss and such, this is a pretty crazy representation of Royal Trux live back then (I mean, I guess, the first time I saw them had to be 1992 at the Khyber Pass with Smog. Nice Pooper!), Jennifer really laying it on, the weird percussion, everything seeming speedy. Still a pretty listenable recording and fairly rock and roll as well.

Then we have Royal Trux live on the U of Delaware's college station WXDR (now WVUD), jamming away for about 45 minutes. I am not sure what the first jam is, but damn, does it get trippy, about halfway through Neil Haggerty becomes totally San Francisco'd out and coaxes trails and shit from the deal... which is fitting as it leads into a cover of Moby Grape's "Motorcyle Irene." Unfortunately I cut this up a little crappily so you get the first verse of "Irene" to end the first jam. Sorry about that! Play it all together, it sounds fine and awesome. After that comes a cover of the Godz' "Radar Eyes" that just sounds like Can's "Yoo Do Right" until the main riff/vocal comes in... Amazing. Takes off again with some spacey keyboards invading the riff... Things eventually fall apart, but not for like 15 minutes. This is probably around the time I saw a trio version of Royal Trux at the Khyber, if that was possible. Oh my memory.

I am not sure of the lineage or any of that other taper stuff, though I think Mike went to Delaware, so maybe was close to the source of the FM broadcast? I don't know who the players are, nor do I know the first jam of the WXDR show. I see both of these shows listed on a Royal Trux bootleg page. Anyways, any hints, etc, drop me a line in the comments. Sorry for the fade outs, crackles, pops, all that jazz.

Royal Trux - Live Oct 1992 WXDR U of Delaware FM (this got pulled, sorry)

UPDATE: In the comments Mike hips me to the fact the first jam on the WXDR portion is a cover of the Byrds' "Why." Thanks!

90s... Pork Queen... Strapping Field Hands

Weird baked 90s lazy Sunday here in the Nice Pooper mansion, spent a day watching the Phils beat the Bucs whilst reading an old issue of Browbeat, that one with the big Metal Machine Music run down and such... which in turn made me dig out some old Pork Queen stuff on Trackshun Industries. The scrape and weirdness and all that jazz... found the vinyl I was listening to at WFMU's blog, with an interesting "what the fuck?" nugget about Trackshun/Pork Queen mastermind Justice Schanfarber was/is a marriage and relationship counselor. Also, check out the Noggin/Pork Queen split LP here at X Ray Barbecue. This in turn led me down one of those internet rabbit holes that dumped me at what may be thee album of 1991-1998 Philadelphia, the Strapping Field Hands' debut Discus found here at the You Shall Know Our Discography blog. Rumors abound about the Fields Hands reforming and man, that would be awes, let's break Dan Gill out, ship Wayne Nagy up, and hit the Khyber! Here is an interview with the Field Hands from the original Nice Pooper zine from 1994.

MORE: And keeping with the theme, here is another huge fave from that same 91-98 Philly era... the Temple of Bon Matin's debut LP on Siltbreeze, Thunder, Feedback and Confusion at the Decrepit Tapes Blog. No secret that this is my fave version of the Temple, saw them countless times back then, at the Punk Haus, Khyber, Pi Lam... yep. Anyways, this is the lineup with Mark Lux who now basses it in the Plastic Crimewave Sound. Their most Hawkwindy and grunge record, for sure... they never quite sounded like this again, alas. Awwright, tune in WKDU, turn up the A/C and bust out the new issue of Muckraker!

Happy Fourth...

as is the tradition... stoked overalls guy for all!

Happenings!

A few things in the next few weeks... tonight is Sonic Youth at the Electric Factory in Philly. I am really digging their new album, so sneak some pot in and find me. Thanks!

The Photon Band and Pink Skull and Black Landlord and a bunch of other bands are playing that Piazza in NOLIBS were those two people got executed the other week. That one is July 4th starting at 2 pm. I will be at the Phils/Mets game. F the Mets. No shit, right?



Outside of Philly, on July 9th, in Chicago is Plastic Crimewave's Million Tongues festival featuring none other than the most incredible band in the land, Yahowa 13!

Yahowa 13 are also rocking the Ottawa Blues Fest on July 11 too.