Banana Nutrament NSFW Edition


In the next week or two we'll do the music of impropiety, promise. I have lots of weirdo vinyl to convert into digital, but it's going to have to wait for another day. Today we have a few things you don't want blasting on your work speakers unattended. I've always wondered if our modest audience is visiting from home or just trying to catch a tune in the middle of a boring desk job.

I mean no disrespect to the band; this Swamp Children song is wonderful, and they've somehow found a way to give The Slits a run for their money. But the orgasmic sighs knitted through the track should prevent you from blasting it in your workplace. Unless you're the bossman. In that case, please turn it up a touch.

Swamp Children - Flesh
**Yes, it's from that comp I've been constantly harping about, there actually is a CD edition here, and a 1982 rerelease from the Swamp Children here**


This is just, well, very wrong.

The Four Skins - Her Vagina
**From the Cool and Strange Music Magazine's Thrift Shop Compilation**

Rubbin' 'n' Tuggin' 'n' Lovin'


I like the sort of remix that betters the original, or at least breathes new life into a more commercial antecedent. I could get ahead of myself and tout this Rub' N' Tug remix as one of those superior sorts, except I've never heard the Beastie Boys original. Kind of missed that album, but this rework makes me want to find a copy. For about half an hour after hearing this I did all sorts of memory games to try to figure out the sample source. Instead of ruining it for you, here's the answer. The source vocals are a great rundown of all things New York, but really, if you're gonna do an A-Z, you can't leave out Dr. Zizmor.

Beastie Boys - An Open Letter To NYC (Rub 'N' Tug Macho Mix)
**Buy it at Cisco Records**

This kind of touchup is all we ask of anyone, loop the good parts and maximize the vocals by minimizing their repetition

Chicago Transit Authority - I'm a Man (Rub 'N' Tug re-edit)
**Buy it at Amazon**

First There Are Kisses, Then There Are Tears


Not too lucky this weekend. Having lunch at a local burger joint, our baby pulled a nearly full pint glass onto my wife's lap. Later that night I dropped a curry on the floor, it splattered all over the wall and into my eye. I teared up as it burned like the raging volcano on the cover of that Dianetics book. Good thing it was only a tikka masala, had it been a vindaloo, I might have required an e-meter clear session.

In an effort to not spend any money, we stayed home and roamed the cable channels. Settled on The Crying Game. A favorite of mine, mostly due to Stephen Rea. My mother took me to the original theatrical release of the film back when I was twelve, as she was a booster of all things Irish. What I remember most was not the awkwardness of watching dude on dude action in front of Moms but how the movie extinguished my youthful sympathies for the IRA.

Dave Berry - The Crying Game
**Buy it at Amazon**


Here's a little something from the Ichi the Killer soundtrack I've been listening to quite a bit lately. Ichi is scored by the Boredoms, err, Karera Musication. Gang's all there except for EYE. I promised no more EYE posts for a little while, and I'm keeping my word in a manner of speaking.

Karera Musication - San (Track 3)
**Buy it at Aquarius Records**


I never understood the rabid fetishization of Morricone's soundtrack work until I heard this from Danger: Diabolik. Many thanks to Bedazzled.

Ennio Morricone - Money Orgy
**More abut Danger: Diabolik Here**

GATAX at Gavin Brown's Enterprise

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EYE, of Boredoms fame, is a fairly accomplished artist, having put on a number of gallery exhibitions and doing cover art for Beck. His current show, running through December 10th, consists of talismanic mantles of fabric tacked to gallery walls alongside appropriated record albums with cover art redone by his own hand. A particularly abused copy of Eno's Music for Airports brought smiles to a few faces. As intimated yesterday, not only did EYE perform at the opening, but he was joined by Hisham Bharoocha for their GATAX project. Bharoocha handled drum and sequencer duties, while EYE broke out the motion sensitive light orbs again, piped through a laptop that looked like it was running Max/MSP.









GATAX created some feverishly hypnotic sounds, the crowd's reverie broken only by EYE's shaman walking and occasional grunting. Let's hope some studio time for GATAX is in the cards.

No more EYE this week, so have a listen to this:



Grizzly Bear - Campfire (Hisham Bharoocha & Rusty Santos Remix)
**Buy it from Kanine Records**

Been meaning to write up Mr. Santos for a while now. Until then, have a look here.

EYE Love New York


Someone surfed into the blog yesterday by Googling "yamatsuka eye passerby". I guess we talk about EYE quite a bit, and I think a Gang Gang Dance performance at Passerby was once mentioned here. Paid it no mind until I saw this press release:


EYE ONGALOO

November 18th to December 10th
Opening Thursday November 17th, 6-8pm

GBE@Passerby
436 W15th Street
New York, NY 10019
Wednesday-Saturday 12-6

Gavin Browns enterprise is pleased to present "Ongaloo", an exhibition of new work by Japanese artist/musican EYE. This show follows on from "WEYEW", his genius show at the now defunct Transplant Gallery earlier in the year.

EYE has been deeply involved in the underground Osaka music scene since the early eighties, and has performed in countless bands, among them Hanatarash, Audio Sports, UFO or Die, Noise Ramones and MC Carhouse & DJ Hellshit.

He is also a founding member of that scene's most famous export, The Boredoms - who have continued to wow and surprise, and release exclusively excellent music.

His grounding in music and the transformative power and chaos it can yield are ever-present in his drawings and collages. But unlike the collaborative process of making music, EYE describes his method of making art as a "private activity, an almost half-automatic visualization of my impulses.".

Like his music, this work is full of pure energy and a feeling of total artistic freedom. Much of the imagery used is seemingly culled from all over the place, but done so in a sincere, intelligent and inclusive way. All these things combine to from a parallel universe, and everything looks happier for being there. It is this clash of EVERYTHING - symbols, techniques, color, the planets - that make his work truly psychedelic.

Rumored solo performance by EYE at the opening (around 7pm), and possibly a collaboration with a few friends. Or there will be no performance and it will just be a crammed sweat lodge with pretty pictures on the wall. RUMORS RUMORS.

Yamataka Eye & John Zorn - Bar Time With Eno
**Buy it from Amazon**

The Lift Boys (EYE's tribal house project) - Anarchy Way
**Buy it from Tower Records Japan**

Sting Like a Bee


Licking my wounds from last weekend's WFMU record fair, I wasn't actively look for any new music this weekend. Funny thing though -- as luck would have it, this opera singer guy around the corner from me had a record sale, if you could call it that. He put three cases on his stoop, trusting us to use the honor system and stick two dollars through his mailslot if we took anything.

I knew the guy was a singer because I had met him flipping through his stuff at a sale of his back in July. None of his stock had changed at all, I was looking at the same records. Except now I eagerly grabbed something I didn't know about on the first go round, a copy of Sting Like a Bee by Bumblebee Unlimited.

Lots of blogs have recently salivated over Bumblebee Unlimited's "Lady Bug", particularly Fluxblog and Daughters of Invention. The reason for this is that it's not only prominently featured on Annie's DJ Kicks, but also shows up on other compilations this year by Rub 'N' Tug and hipster catnip Colette No. 7. "Lady Bug" is an incredible disco oddity, it's one of those songs that makes you scratch your head and wonder why it wasn't resurrected sooner. What happened here, did a good bootleg pressing circulate or did some influential BBC DJ start playing it all the time? It's strange that something would lie dormant and then get picked up on by everyone simultaneously.

"Lady Bug" is definitely the highlight of the album. It's the second track, preceded by another oddity, a rework of Donna McGhee's "Mr. Blindman". Hearing the pitched up novelty bee voices on "I Got a Big Bee" led me to first think it was some sort of parody remake, though I know it isn't. Its saving grace are some excellent bongo breaks peppered in the middle.


Bumblebee Unlimited - I Got a Big Bee
**Buy it at Vinyl.com**


Donna McGhee - Mr. Blindman
**Get it from Tigersushi**

New York, What Happened To You?


Submitted:

1) Mayoral re-election assured, Bloomberg shells out $66 million plus just to buy a mandate. Remember this in two years when legislation passes closing bars at 1am.

2) The Nets are moving from New Jersey into my neighborhood. Eminent domain abuses and land grab aside, mostly I just don't like the idea of Jason "WIFEBEATER WIFEBEATER" Kidd anywhere near my family.

3) I spend 5 minutes writing drivel about some au coraunt indie band and a grillion page views are directed my way. I spend four hours crafting a political screed, and no one reads it. Yes, of course the Markowitz clown wins again. Brooklyn loses.

Niagara - City Walk


Miroslav Vitous - New York City


Man, I don't know what happened.

WFMU Record Fair Redux


So I got over to the WMFU record fair a bit late, close to 8pm on Friday. Not that I was gunning for the pre-7pm option. Although, it would be tempting to pay $20 just to be allowed to witness a lineup of sweaty collector pigs sprint from the door and trample over each other for a mispriced psyche record. I'd buy a video of that.

I veered right and lost half an hour rummaging through overpriced, slipshod collections. Plenty of Beatlemania. Started to lose hope until I saw a real crowded table, so I figured they must have the goods. I wriggled my way in between the hungry piglets fighting for the record box teats and was stunned to encounter my White Whale.

Now, I didn't have a "list" per se, but I was reluctantly hoping to score The Fruit of the Original Sin. It's an early eighties compilation where we got the Paul Haig post from, and as a collection of unsorted mp3s, is bewildering to listen to. Described as "a collection of afterhours preoccupations", it really does work much better as a late night record, the continuity from track to track and the logic of how each of the four sides (2 records) was compiled reveals itself. I see now it actually has been reissued on CD, and is available here.

Finding my prey marked at $25, I began to think it over, until I was interrupted by the dealer, who was none other than Jim O'Rourke. He offered it for $20 before I even got a chance to negotiate, so I took it on the spot. Later on I saw another dealer with a copy for $35, and I doubt he would have been so generous on the first night. I now realized why this section of tables was so crowded, and why everyone was working so hard to pretend to ignore the dealers; O'Rourke was manning a booth, and to his right was Thurston Moore. I looked through Moore's stuff and picked out a Ken Ishii project called Echo Exit 1, which looked promising. When I tried to buy it he worked the upsell and rifled through his stuff to find its companion piece. Felt pretty weird haggling with him over the price.


O'Rourke is leaving or has left Sonic Youth already, due to other commitments. I'm guessing he'll be back in a production role in the future, or in the periphery somehow. Here's a track from a collaboration with the band before he became a full-fledged member. Elegiac and unsettling in its quiet rumblings.

Sonic Youth and Jim O'Rourke - Hungara Vivo
**Buy it at Tonevendor**


I picked up Daniel Johnston's 1990, priced lower than a CD would have been. Had "True Love Will Find You in the End" and a nice cover photo of him with one of his paintings, so I caved.

Daniel Johnston - True Love Will Find You in the End
**Buy it at Artist Direct**


Gal Costa - Baby Gal
Probably the only dud. Record back listed many songs of hers I recognized, but had I looked closely or known better I might have realized they were discofried cheesified rerecorded versions with tepid beats.


Big Stick - Crack Attack
Another good table I found was this guy with a lot of synth, industrial, and avant-garde records. Much of it was Nurse With Wound type collector bait, though fairly priced, not cheap in the least. I had some great luck in his dollar bin, I picked this up solely on its album art. The cover had a coupla punky bohos posing with black kids from a New Jersey project. Large type print announced the title as Crack Attack. If this commenter is to be trusted, it's worth $30 or so. Sounds like Death Comet Crew type beats with an overlaid monologue by a drug dealer or something.


Material - Red Tracks
Had "Ciguri" and "Reduction" on it, so definitely worth rescuing it from industrial dude's dollar bin. Curious to hear what the other tracks would sound like, it starts off real proggy and noodly, but then gets better in the middle. Particularly charmed by "Secret Life".


jyyyyyy 77 ty hnud7vyguhn

Sorry, the baby wanted to do some typing.

WFMU Random Songs Generator


Functioning like recombinant DNA strands gone amok, a random playlist generator has been put up on the WFMU site. It's a pretty fun tool, it mixes and mashes selections from recent DJ playlists and creates new ones in RealAudio or mp3 streams. Keep hitting refresh to see unintended continuities or contrasts; I'm still waiting to find Iannis Xenakis bump up next to Big Boi.

Random Playlist Generator at WFMU