Riot-Fire Down Under, Elektra Records, 1981

 

Prior to Metal and all of its varied branches, there existed a form called Heavy Metal. Heavy Metal occurred from the period of roughly 1977-1982. Granted there were references to the term "heavy metal" used as descriptors of certain musical acts and approaches, but the actualized form Heavy Metal happened during that time frame. Subsequent to that time frame what emerged and has since morphed into countless offshoots was Metal. The two are of course related as Heavy Metal set the subculture tones and basic sonic template for Metal. Still, it often feels important for Disaster Amnesiac to make the distinction. And no this is not a qualifier as regards quality, not that anyone, least of all the Metallic legions, would care that much. This has all been noted here because I want to enthuse about Riot, an American Heavy Metal band, and more specifically their 1981 masterpiece Fire Down Under. Riot were a foundational American Heavy Metal group. It always sounds to this listener as if they took musical influences from the Heavy Rock and Blues Rock a few years antecedent to them, acknowledged them as such and then worked up their own purely Heavy Metal style of song writing and performance. It must also be noted that Riot were young American men. Their lyrical topics and playing styles reflect that reality of their output, and output that Disaster Amnesiac posits having Fire Down Under as its pinnacle. The vocals of Guy Speranza are the most obvious reflection of the dynamic: higher pitched notes within the alto range are commonly on display within his performances on the album. Disaster Amnesiac was discussing this the other day with a peer that enjoys the heavier of the post Punk Rock/Hardcore style of singing and he made it clear that vocals of the Speranza type are not to his taste. Had to disagree with him: I like the singing that Guy did, and feel that it captures an emotional rawness that's largely been jettisoned in the wake of Punk Rock and even within Metal (but not within Heavy Metal). Moving away from the vocals, the style and approach to guitar playing within Heavy Metal can now be mentioned. As anyone familiar with the form will be aware, electric guitar and its sounds are a central, probably the most central, concern. As regards Fire Down Under, just put the needle on side one's first track, Swords & Tequila, and you'll hear a definitive Heavy Metal guitar riff and its timbre. One would be hard pressed to find a better crystalized example of Heavy Metal guitar playing than that. Same for the guitar solo on this tight album opener. The initial riff on the title track reminds me of a certain riff off of the Stooges Funhouse album until the drums add a bit more sophisticated syncopated flair. Kip Lemming on bass and Sandy Slavin on drums rage as they push the track forward with their tight, interconnected rhythm section merging. Guitarists Mike Reale and Rick Ventura play tightly intertwined arrangements on the doomy Feel The Same. This track has made Disaster Amnesiac think that Riot may have had a bigger hand in the formation of the Rock style that came to be known as Grunge about ten years later. The stutter stepping of the chorus and emotionally expressive guitar solo on the tune never get old for me, along with Speranza's emotive vocal delivery. An even more effective chorus is baked into Outlaw. For the past few weeks Mrs. Amnesiac has at times begged me to stop singing it, and for good reason as it's got very powerful ear worm potential. The song has road burn boogie shuffle and more of that creative twin guitar interplay. Its fade at the end would probably give a suburban dude a decent crash course in functional Español to boot. And them's some dusty desert boots as the outlaw gets no deal. Fire Down Under's more catchy, Pop-ish portions start off with Don't Bring Me Down and its lyin' lady lament: chick took his cigs fer cryin' out loud! Perhaps a bit more of an Aerosmith vibe happening here with the humor and good times seeking of that band's spirit inflecting Riot's approach. Joey Kramer's style informs much of Slavin's playing on the track, and that's alright because Heavy Metal in some ways insisted that bands give nods to important predecessor acts. Altar Of The King starts off with nods to Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow before pushing into a deep Prog Rock pocket. The bass and drums tightly intertwine and support the big guitar riff until everyone syncopates, unleashing 16th note blasts that crush. Guy shouts encouragement and Reale takes another blazing guitar solo turn. I'd call it proto Power Metal but really it's just purely Heavy Metal. Riot return to a bit more of a Pop feel on No Lies. The verses are tom tom driven before and the guitars remind Disaster Amnesiac of Todd Rundgren. The overall sound brings to mind the Washington, D.C. band Kingface, who were right in the mix with all of the other "Emo" bands from that town in the mid-1980's. Riot as an influence on Fugazi? Mark Sullivan must have certainly had a copy of Fire Down Under. The band get quickly back to their ragin', white line fever worthy sound on Run For Your Life. It's a track with the kind of manic pacing that always evokes images of the wheels of the tour vehicle turning endlessly upon some freeway somewhere far from home. It also features more hot action guitar solo turns and lyrics that are a feminist's nightmare, something kind of essential to Heavy Metal generally. This classic 1981 Heavy Metal document closes with Flashbacks, a noise guitar feature along the lines of Terry Kath's Freeform Guitar on Chicago Transit Authority to start off. After a few minutes of that bonkers action the rest of the band kicks in and they sound like a 1960's Beat combo blasting away in Swingin' London. Live recordings are spliced into this action and they allow us to hear audiences' enthusiasm re: Riot. Disaster Amnesiac is very much inclined to agree with that sentiment. Mention also must be made of Rod Hui's engineering of Fire Down Under. Excellent balance was achieved between all of the instruments and the vocals, as no element overpowers any of the others. There are so many sonic sweet spots to be heard on the album, and Hui somehow made them all audible. There's Metal, which encompasses a great deal of styles and methods to heavy music production, and there's Heavy Metal, which was a specific form of music produced within a specific time frame. Riot were of the Heavy Metal genre and time frame, and with Fire Down Under they produced a seminal statement of it. All of these years later it's still an essential listen.

Glen Weyant-Helicopters Over East Montpelier Rag:a; self released via Bandcamp, 2026

 

Black helicopters in the sky are for some people at minimum intriguing and for others disturbing. Black helicopters in the sky can feel ominous to certain types of American citizen. Can you imagine how veterans of Vietnam must have felt for a certain amount of time after that era? Disaster Amnesiac sees them on occasion, floating over Tucson. There's a major Air Force base here, so in some ways they just feel part of the scene, regardless of what my subjective feelings about the Military Industrial Complex are. For Vermont-based composer Glen Weyant, a recent sighting of (presumably black) helicopters in the sky over his head in East Montpelier inspired a musical action. It is documented on Helicopters Over East Montpelier Rag:a, an almost fifteen minute composition for guitars, percussion, and electronics. Weyant essentially pairs his noisy musical sounds with the whirring of said helicopters as they worked out some kind of maneuver. It's a righteous blast of chaotic electric guitar overload, enhanced by some sort of resonant metallic object, eruptions of feedback scrawl (the electronics element probably), a dog, and the helicopter blades. It sounds as if Glen was really inspired and worked quickly to document a duration of possible mental instability, turning it into art and thereby winning a small battle against a force that is so much more well funded and in some ways omnipotent within this realm. Those helicopters' sounds are still present at the conclusion of Helicopters Over East Montpelier Rag:a but then again I imagine that Weyant is as well, having taken instruments of mostly destructive nature and utilized one of their features towards a more creative vision. Dig in here to help this peaceful art warrior.

EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert; dir. by Baz Lurhrmann, 2025

 

Back in 1977 the great music critic Lester Bangs, in his epitaph for Elvis Presley, wrote something along the lines of "people will never agree upon anything in the way that they agreed upon on Elvis". In some way that insight was probably true; in the ensuing years American society has definitely fragmented in ways which make any kind of united stance increasingly less possible. Bangs himself, in concluding that piece stated "I bid you farewell", a very prescient declaration indeed. Over the years Elvis has become some kind of figure of projection: he's been used as a signifier for many and varied stances, something that, had he known to have been the case, probably would have felt insulted by. Pure projection there, so perhaps Disaster Amnesiac is also guilty of using the King, but the fact is that I always love his music and tend to agree with the late David Thomas that Elvis fans are just nicer people in general. This being the case, when I saw the preview for EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert I was excited at its existence and made sure to catch in the theater. Having done so, it must be stated that there are mixed feelings on my part as regards to the film. On the plus side, there are several minutes of wonderful live footage of Elvis and his band in rehearsal and performance. These scenes show how much he loved music, and musicians, along with his deep skills as a band leader. The man really knew how to tune a band, and a very large one at that, in to the audience for very effective results. His goofy humor and resultant asides made for a very down to earth atmosphere for everyone. Many frames show his men Scotty Moore and Ron Tutt in obvious delight as they follow along with E's spur of the moment cues. Audience shots show just how much regular people responded to him. Elvis's charisma is undeniable. He drove people wild and it was fascinating to watch frames of some of these people as they shook off their inhibitions and went there. EPiC also shows how much of a talented singer Elvis was. Frames during which his tenor voice concluded the endings of various songs prove that, along with sequences during which he belts out Gospel tunes to stunning effect. Again, Presley loved what he was doing, and that shines through within the film. Getting back to Moore and Tutt and the other band members, Disaster Amnesiac was completely stoked to be able to see and hear clear live footage of them as they rocked the deep repertoire that they drew from during a stretch of over 1000 shows in the period 1969-77. Tutt especially is shown as one of the great drummers of the era. Why do so few talk about his playing? Director Baz Lurhmann utilized interesting, almost Dub effects at times in order to let Presley's voice emerge from live recordings, which struck me as very astute and creative. On the down side, a lot of the film's duration was spent on more nostalgic aspects, with clips from home movies and voice overs culled from interviews with Elvis. Surely some people will enjoy those frames, but I just wanted longer sequences and full pieces of the King and his band as they rocked the house. Perhaps a physical release of EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert will be forthcoming and feature extended live clips? Hail to the King!

Burning Star Core-Operator Dead...Post Abandoned; No Quarter Records, 2007

 

For music fans such as Disaster Amnesiac, the late 1990's to late 2000's were a very intriguing and interesting times. On account of how the music industry had really started to splinter in earnest coupled with faster information dissemination via the 'net, the vast and varied micro-scene landscape started to become much more easily accessed; it was kind of thrilling to be able to become more easily appraised of and even gain access to sounds from so many different corners of so many different scenes. The American Noise situation from that era was one of those that began blowing minds and showing vastly different perspectives to more and more people, myself being one of them. Can you recall the Wolf Eyes cover of Wire magazine and their high profile signing to Sub Pop? I recall seeing Black Dice at the Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco and realizing how impactful this burgeoning group of sound artists had become. It was clear that bands such as these and others were going to be setting the tones for music making going forward: that scene trail blazed mightily, and pretty much of their own accord. 

Chief among the American Noise environment was and is C. Spencer Yeh, the long term Cincinnati-based violin and electronics musician. If you've not read the extensive interview that Bananafish conducted with him and you're in the slightest way interested in development of American Noise from the 1990's onward, you've absolutely must seek it out and spend some time with its deep glimpse into Yeh's thoughts on aesthetics and such. Along with being a kind of primer for the scene in which he was an important figure, it's also at times hysterically funny. Seriously check it if you've not already done so. Disaster Amnesiac did, and has done so repeatedly since acquiring a copy of the issue one evening in Oakland. I've also sought out the varied musical releases from Yeh's groups, prime among them being Burning Star Core. It's a project that has multiple releases, and they're all worth hearing. That said I want to enthuse about Operator Dead...Post Abandoned here as it's been heavily in the rotation for a few weeks now. If memory serves correctly, that title is taken from a line in George Romero's Dawn of the Dead, which kind of makes the thing legendary right there. Is this four track blast of gooey Noise a kind of concept album based upon that Horror classic? I don't know if that's the case but I do know that it starts off with some kind of hardcore Noise frequency from Yeh's violin and a sort of sign wave sound on When The Tripods Came. This sets the tone for the entire release and its murky and mysterious heaviness never fails to draw this listener in. Electronic voices summmoned from Robert Beatty and Mike Shiflet bring dramatic, foreboding sounds until drummer Trevor Tremaine sets up a steady percussive pulse. Often when Operator Dead...Post Abandoned gets played at my place it's Trevor's playing that is the real highlight. On this and the title track he blends Free Jazz scattering with a more motorik pulse in ways that never fail to delight. Trevor's playing pushes the other sound producers into realms of surreal caterwaul and storming while giving them a genuinely grounded field from which to make their noisily conversation flights of doom. These two opening tracks alone account for well over thirty minutes of bliss for any fan of Noise and they are truly high water marks from the genre, American or anywhere else based. If one were to desire a musical analogue of post NAFTA United States scenario, one might want to play this album for its rusted and decaying sonic tableaux work with visuals from those types of corroded industrial scenes. That said they have also been the evocative soundtrack for an imagined Sci-Fi film in my mind. They rock like that, always have and always will, especially on account of Trevor's ass kicking drum skills. I'd imagine that the rest of the Burning Star Core dudes were equally stoked on his playing. Me & My Arrow, the third track on Operator Dead...Post Abandoned hits a bit more mellow for most of its duration, a tambourine setting a pulse from which percussive voices arise. Eventually things start to blow out a bit more while Tramaine plays a kind of break beat. A quick cut leads into the concluding piece The Emergency Networks Are Taking Over, wherein Burning Star Core quickly achieve lift off into an elevated Post Prog conversation between their varied rigs. Trevor goes nuts around his drum set, spinning out looming weaves of drum speak while C. Spencer Yeh waxes eloquent on his violin, showing traces of the conservatory training that he had as a youth. Beatty and Shiflet offer pulses and drones that Tremaine blasts over and among. The ensemble sounds eventually morph into one towering Noise voice, all of the elements combining into thicket of unified strains which tickles the ears until dissolving into a single drone to match the album's initiatory sound. Then a quick a cut and the listener finds themself in silence like they did with the final scene of The Sopranos. 

At several years' remove from the release of Operator Dead...Post Abandoned it feels safe to say that it's a defining document from an artist (C. Spencer Yeh) and a movement (American Noise). It damn sure holds up over time. Seek it find it dig it.

LIve shot(s) #208!

 

 

All shots taken at Music Box Lounge, Tucson 2/13/26.

Below: Girl Slime proving that Punk Rock needs more hollow body guitar tones. Singer gots moves.

Above: The Ultramatics bring energy from Phoenix and aesthetics from Orange County. Great Ramones cover to end their set. Catch them in Bisbee tonight! 

Below: Wanda Junes. Electric guitar and bass slow jam ecstasy. To close out the night. Current drummer is a keeper. If you live in Tucson and haven't seen them it's your loss pal. 

Music Box Lounge is pretty much across town from mi casita but entirely worth driving to. A great spot for live music. Can someone please explain curling to me.

RAIC-Lamentations; Arachnidiscs Recordings, 2019

 

During the period of the mid to late 2010's, Disaster Amnesiac was pretty deeply immersed in listening to Improvised Music in as many of its varied strains as could be found. Any and all forms of delivery were veritably gobbled up by this fan, the more the merrier, really. Blessed by having a house with a sweet sound room, easy access to live venues which showcased improvising musicians and additionally a relatively low stress commute for jamming CDs, I spent tons of time enjoying the myriad sounds to be discovered from the form. RAIC (Richmond Avant Improv Collective) was one group that was discovered during that time, and Lamentations is one of their releases that shuffled into the rotation. It's a really lovely boxed CD document of the music or RAIC, which was (is?)  guided by drummer/composer Samuel Goff. This sumptuous package comes not only with a disc's worth of musical ruminations but several post card sized photos, mostly of rural southern abodes but also a few of the musical participants. The one in Disaster Amnesiac's possession features banjo master Paul Metzger looking quite severe and barefooted guitarist John Saint Pelvyn mid-exploration. All that being said, RAIC primary mission was clearly musical exploration so let's dwell upon that aspect for a spell. Over fourteen tracks, the collective do indeed explore within the macro group matrix along within their micro subjective experiences. Goff leads the group not so much by declaration as by suggestion: his drumming throughout does not so much push as it does murmur. He's very adept at coaxing rounded or fluffy tones from mallet press rolls upon toms and cymbals. These pulses offer aspects of shade and discrete drama which are hugely present and at the forefront of Lamentations. Goff keeps the wailing to a minimum throughout and it's a testament to his taste as a leader save excepting parts of Possession O The Spirit and Cancellation Reversal which close the proceedings. Mostly he sticks to his own singular free pocket explorations. The strings of Zoe Olivia Kinney on cello and Robert Andrew Scott on violin are also notable timbres on the album. They skitter about within the pieces, at times percussive and at others more tonal, but always spinning out mysterious tones and semi-tones that give the entire album a delightfully Avant tone. Erik Schroeder brings controlled alto saxophone bleats and beat howling to the mix. He pairs particularly well with Goff's drumming. Passages wherein the two feed off of each other's playing give the most heated moments on this mostly cool sesh. Over the years and listens, Metzger's banjo has mostly been opaque to this listener. Disaster Amnesiac has often thought that he may have just stuck well to the background, physically, not wanting to overtake the other players. That said, there are some interesting, ghostly moments on Baptism that sound guitar or banjo generated. Ditto for Possesion Of The Spirit. Or is that six string chiming coming from Pelvyn? The real musical wild card on Lamentations is vocalist Laura Marina, whose naive soprano utterances go off into wildly, very innocent places. It's her approach that gives the performance a veneer of childlike overall tone. When she steps to the mics it's almost as if the entire group (hello Jacob Courington on bass and Brandon Simmons on flute) is made of people that are only just now using their given instruments. I am an appreciator of that, as it seems to me that one of the goals of extended techniques and improvisation is to get to those types of places, where every note and gesture feels like a newfound discovery. Was Goff cognizant of that effect that Marina's style would have on the rest of the group? Whether or not that was the case it's testimony to his astuteness as an assembler of musical personnel. Is RAIC still a working unit? Do they still present their freely improvised sounds to people in and around Richmond, the Eastern Seaboard, or even further afield? Here's to hoping that this is the case. My copy of Lamentations came with a thank you card. Wanna say thanks right back to Samuel Goff and his crew for all of the beautiful, otherworldly sounds that they pushed out into the sonic world.

Random photo!

 

Lawrence Hall of Science, Berkeley CA circa 2010. Ugly beauty with San Francisco Bay fog.