Live shot #129!

 

Bob Marsh playing his self-invented Chairllo instrument. Community Music Center, San Francisco 8/2015.

The Big Drum In the Sky Religion-Entheogenocide; haveyousaidmidi Records, no date listed

 

The Big Drum In the Sky Religion is a project that has turned Disaster Amnesiac on for a number of years now. Just about everything that this person has done aesthetically just resonates with my ears and brain. No need to list out my subjective reasons for this, but it must be stated emphatically that The Big Drum In the Sky religion makes fucking great music. Music that is issued from a deeply personal and well considered place. I am only aware of the surface manifestations of said music, and that's more than plenty for this listener. Surely the person that conceptualizes and writes and performs this stuff must be experiencing a very fascinating creative inner world vision. Can you tell that Disaster Amnesiac digs this stuff to the fullest? Hope so, Jack. 

Lately Entheogenocide has been dug up over here at Casita De Amnesiac, my own labyrinth of Sonoran solitude, and it's burning the brain just as it did some time ago when it was acquired from someplace or other. This long form piece revolves around a bass guitar ostinato that gets wrapped up within increasingly deep layers of electric guitar, one that is processed and pedal'd deliciously. So much happens within the seemingly simple bass guitar riff over the duration of this piece. At points I've heard Heavy Metal, old Folk songs, Minimalist scrawl; as stated, there's a ton of information therein. The electric guitar layers get deeper and deeper and more crazed, like a giant fungus or lichen occupying the established space from the bass guitar. It's a real head trip as they used to say. Surely, they meant exactly that then and Disaster Amnesiac means exactly that now. It's Psychedelic, baby. 

If there hasn't been a reissue of this incredible piece of Shoe Gaze Appalachian Real People Music, one may have a tough time finding it. My copy is 17/60. And no, you can't have it. Holding on to this here copy of Entheogenocide for the duration! Go and spelunk someplace else for yours.

Live shot(s) #128!

 All photos taken at Screening Room, Tucson 6/21/2024.

Below: Valley Fever. Twin guitar Boogie action. A late edition as subs for the great Female Gaze. They got people out of their seats and into the aisles to move. 

Above: Class. Punk Rock 'n Roll. They had a Ramones concert film playing on the big screen behind, but I sensed more Los Angeles than New York City. Maximum Garage Energy, it still works.

Below: Wanda Junes. "....like a warm monsoon breeze..." A fine mellower modality with which to end the evening. 

Screening Room rocks!

KBD-III; eh? Records cassette #126, 2024

 

At eh? Records, KBD does not stand for Killed By Death. No sir. Instead it hearkens the Electro-Acoustic Music trio of Michael Kimaid on drums/percussion, Gabriel Beam on modular synthesizer/live sampling and Ryan Dohm on trumpet/sampler/tapes. Their third release has manifested, on cassette again, and goes by the title of III. 

Consisting of two side-long tracks, one performed in front of an audience (you can hear 'em at a certain point) and the other done in closed session. III's promo blurb touts KBD's ability to engage "listeners with deep and active" moves, and after several listens, Disaster Amnesiac is inclined to agree with this assertion. The well groomed men of KBD (no visible tats) each evince deep layers of facility within their extended techniques. That they are able to entwine their subjective moves into the greater whole required for compelling live group interactions is never in question on the tracks At the Threshold (the studio track) and On Waves, Under Stars (the live one). Going back to the promo, it's suggested that the former has more density while the latter is given to more sparseness. I have certainly experienced that effect at times, but have also perceived this dynamic to being essentially flipped 180 degrees at times, too. This has led to ruminations upon the very subjective nature of the listening experience, within all music listening really, but especially within the Improvised Music sphere of the realm. Disaster Amnesiac has also really enjoyed just hearing how KBD establish zones of call and response and otherworldly abstraction within this 90 minute plus or minus album. III features top flight Electro-Acoustic investigations sure to tickle the fancy of any connoisseur of that fascinating genre. 

Yo, Bryan Day, if you have any of those older releases from KBD laying around, my tape deck would surely accepting their spooling!

Live shot #127!

 

Miser, Wonder Valley Experimental Music Festival; The Palms Restaurant Twentynine Palms CA, 4/6/2024.

Live shot #126!

 

Hiram bringing on the sunset at Wonder Valley Experimental Music Festival. The Palms Restaurant Twentynine Palms CA, 4/6/24. It was a fabulous set.

Random guest shot!

 

Warsaw, 2024. Photo by and courtesy of David McCall. 

Caveat: neither David nor I know who this Wanda was, or what she was involved in. We both just like how this shot turned out, so I decided to post it here.

Live shot #125!

 

Galactic Pot-Healer. Free Oakland UP!, Oakland CA 2016.

Pet The Tiger-Hail The Traveler; Public Eyesore Records #158, 2024

 

At least a couple of years have passed since Pet The Tiger have presented the public with (at least as far as Disaster Amnesiac is aware of) any physical product. Hail The Traveler has ameliorated this situation, with David Samas and his chosen compadres in sound production showing many and varied moves that will please discerning fans of creative composition and improvisation. The album is made up of four movements, each with its own characteristic flavor of sound. This is mostly due to the differing personnel on each of these movements (excepting Elegy for Victims of Gun Violence and Bardo, which share the same members). Hail starts off with a gorgeous Gamelan composition by Samas, Lunchroom Pet, wherein its composer shows himself to be on a level with the likes of Lou Harrison in terms of contemporary composition of sounds within the venerable Indonesian courtly form. Just lovely stuff here. Stare at the impressive cover image by Paul Winstanley if you feel lost, or maybe just enjoy getting lost within those beautiful resonant metallic tones. The mood gets heavier and more serious on Elegy for Victims of Gun Violence, pretty much scarily so within the throat sung vocals from Samas. Is he trying to convey the voices of the dead here? If so, he succeeds. Do not play this one when you've got your kids around, it'll only disturb them. Also within Elegy, there is a portion that hits on deep Neo Folk vibes. Disaster Amnesiac swears I hear the requisite acoustic guitar for that form, but only "invented instruments" are listed. These instruments go a long way towards having the timbre of traditional ones I say! Nicely played and creatively done! Said invented instrumental sounds emerge to the fore on Bardo, as a group of long time SF Bay Area improvisors show how and why their scene is worthy of documentation and appreciation. Tom Nunn and Peter Whitehead are familiar to me, Bart Hopkin less so; that said, these players, along with Samas, have been plying their craft for many years (sadly, Nunn's mortal coil has expired, RIP), and it shows as their interactions within the sound matrix of their performance develop. They go deep, listening while they play as a group. Bryan Day and Susan Rawcliffe pair with Samas and Nunn for Pahoehoe. Day adds his singular sounds in noticeable ways on the track. His sonic signatures alter any group in which he's playing. Rawcliffe coaxes raw and primitive tones from original ceramic flutes. It's her sounds that give Pahoehoe a kind of demented Exotica feel. Les Baxter Orchestra jamming with Elizabeth Waldo maybe? More likely it's Pet The Tiger just getting down to their own deeply rooted environments of musical expression. Hail The Traveler presents a San Francisco Bay Area micro-scene getting down to it in very singular, imaginative manners. Put this disc onto your sonic itinerary and hang out for a while once you've arrived there. Your musical brain will thank you for the time well spent with Pet The Tiger.

Live shot #124!

 

Poet and guitar player. Temescal Arts Center ca. 2017. Can't recall either of these peoples' names. Recall an interesting set of abstraction from them.

Live shot #123!

 

Candyass, featuring the great Michael Vullo on drums. Taken by Mrs. Amnesiac at a forgotten venue in San Francisco, 1996.

Live shot #122!

 

Kim Shattuck, the Muffs. Slim's San Francisco 1996. Photo by Mrs. Amnesiac.

KinAesthetic-The Pin Oak Sessions; Escshatology Records, 2016

 

Totally not odd at all, that this great recording from brothers Ben and Tim Cohen, on woodwinds and drums respectively, has floated its way to the top of Disaster Amnesiac's listening pile after some ruminations on the dynamics of brother bands. I have Tucson band Young Eucalyptus to thank for that. Tim and Ben thank their parents by way of Dedication on The Pin Oak Sessions. Mr. and Mrs. Cohen certainly did some kind of somethings that allowed their sons to evolve into compelling players of Jazz and Improvised Music, as evinced on this 2016 CD. Ben displays adeptness at pulling multi-phonic lines from his 'winds, and Tim always plays along on drums in ways that show sensitivity and also the needed brashness that enables a tune's drum arrangement to stand out. The Cohen boys hit on many different strains that can variously be grouped under the Jazz umbrella and all of them sound great and interesting on The Pin Oak Sessions. Ben and Tim were clearly inspiring each other to heights of improvisational flight on the date 4/20/2015. Here's to hoping that that's still a family dynamic over there. Excellent music to be found on this one.

Live shot(s) #121!

 Photos of live music taken at a backyard birthday party in Tucson, near the U of A!

Above: Chick Blundy on guitar, with Sean (sp?) on violin. It was the latter's birthday party. Chick interprets songs by the likes of Townes Van Zandt and Johnny Cash, along with performing his own troubedor forms. 

Below: 7th Ave. Some really inspiring changes within a twin guitar matrix.

Above: Young Eucalyptus. The intuitive dynamics of a brother band. Sad that this photo is too blurry. Their music was not.

Below: Maiiuwak. Drone performed at high levels. The winds of late evening in red light and purple insight. Kind of perfect.

Random shot!

 

Office building off of Market St., San Francisco. Sunset photo taken circa 2017.