Nora Keyes-Fancy Space People; 2023 via Amazon Music

 

How in the heck did it go down like this? Disaster Amnesiac is sure that I've seen Fancy Space People, the band, play live once. Definitely have purchased some physical product from same. It boggles the imagination as to what behind the scenes machinations transpired in order to make this music find what seems to be its final release in the form of Fancy Space People by Nora Keyes. Not that Disaster Amnesiac is complaining. Certainly not. How could a person complain when Keyes is at the mic, her fantastic soprano massaging the forebrain like some exquisite psychic balm? It's a voice that I've loved for many years now. Hell, it's tough to think back to 2006 or so, the first time that I heard Frankenstein (two versions included here!) and realize just how much time has transpired. Dude, Disaster Amnesiac was in my thirties the first time that song destroyed my consciousness! Here I am at 53 and the damn thing is kind of a new release! These are strange, strange times indeed, fancy space people and earthling compatriots. Fancy Space People features all kinds of compelling musical twists and turns: the Sunshine Pop of Candy, groovy Power Pop on Bongo's Key of Love, the sublime Los Angeles Psych of Frankenstein, Jimmy and Pyramids and straight up Boogie on Superet Light. Keyes was very astute in keeping those original performances for this full length. Fancy Space People the band were hot, hot stuff, featuring the deep talents of several inspired and inspiring musicians, and their playing is all over Fancy Space People. Added to Keyes singular lyrical vision and completely unique vocal delivery, it makes for a recording that Disaster Amnesiac knows will be played very often at mi casita de Tucson. I just really wish that I could be privy to the back story as to how it's taken this form, so unexpected to me. Still, what a nice surprise!

I went to Wonder Valley Experimental Music Festival and saw God.

 

And goddesses. And saints. And sinners. Pretty sure Queztalcuatl also touched my forehead. Beams hitting third eyes. Gorgeous early April Mojave day time sun. Like perfect. Hail fellows well met, yes, it's a lovely day for a hike. Interact with the desert. Let it speak its language, so subtle yet so attainable, to you. Careful with that wind gust, Eugene. Well at least you've got hiking boots on. 

Spent two days driving, one half day hiking and the other half listening to many Experimental Music projects. Most of them from the Los Angeles area, a handful from the San Francisco Bay Area. A wide array of sounds heard. Each has their recognizable dynamics and codes and subtexts ("your Hanatarashi t-shirt tells me things, as does that other act's singing bowl). I flashed again on how Noise and Experimental musics are truly Folk Forms of the most vital sort. During the drive over to Twentynine Palms, I listened to  earlier Folk music on a disc of songs by anthracite miners. It's on Folkways, go and find it, very much worth a spin or seven. A lot of peoples' worldly concerns are the same now as when they were when they were miners. Totally different granular details in most cases, I get it. But, still, people are out in the world making decisions, some of them very complicated in any number of manner. Some of these people will turn to sound making, just as those that came before them had chosen. Damn straight, it's a human need. A lot of us need it to cope with the rest of it all. Who knows, maybe it is all a distraction from more pressing concerns as we navigate our subjective mortal passage. Still, a lot of us choose to remain within its thrall, if thralls are what use distractions to ensnare the human consciousness. And would you believe that Disaster Amnesiac just spelled that word without a spell check? It's God's truth. Turning back to the need for cope, and how people often use music as a means for doing such, I still posit that Noise is a living Folk Form. Don't know if it's the last or the penultimate (thinking about Apocalypse porn here, and what will post-Apocalyptic people use for music makers?) Disaster Amnesiac does know that I saw and lot of cool weirdos and listened to their music at the Palms Restaurant in Twentynine Palms on an early April day and evening. 

If you've read this far: y'all should go over there next year. If you see me there, let's talk about ontology or whatever subject that you're feeling at that time.

Live shot #111!

 

Pianist and composer Andrew Jamieson, Berkeley Arts Festival Building, Berkeley CA 2015.

Random shot!

 

Li-Po Lounge, San Francisco CA circa 2018.

Glen Weyant-Transmissions: New Work For Electric Guitar, Amplifier and Effects; Sonicanta Records, 2024

 

Preceded by a kind of preamble in the form of an email, Glen Weyant's most recent release is Transmissions: New Work For Electric Guitar, Amplifier and Effects. The listener is presented with just under an hour's duration of solo electric guitar explorations. These are not shred guitar sounds that Weyant pulls for the guitar/amp/effects combination. Nor are they simply textures, an accomplishment of the raw field recording technique that Weyant used for their capture. Ambient sounds such as a foot engaging a foot pedal are present. Also present are Glen's melodic ideas, his layering ideas, his shards of sound ideas, his controlled feedback ideas (is that a Fender Twin you're using dude?), his ideas of space versus density in the sound field, and so much more. Recordings such as Transmissions are generally excellent windows into the creative approaches of their makers, and it is no exception. Disaster Amnesiac would like to recommend that one start out with Transmissions Pt. 2, for Weyant pulls out sounds that are a touch more approachable within the standards of "normal music" (not that I can really clarify what that is or is not), but I feel that to be the case. Transmissions Pt. 1 is a bit more initially stunning for its pretty much immediate jump into the abstracted bliss zone that is so coveted by weirdos like me and probably thousands of others (in some ways a secret society with Grouch Marx tendencies). Dig in and drop out, your tax dollars are being wasted on bullshit anyway.

Live shot #110!

 

Saxon, Cornerstone Berkeley ca. 2018.

Random shot!

 

Butte, MT July 2020. A long running restaurant in a very mysterious town. It felt like an entirely different dimension in Butte. Go there and work on poetry.