Mermen-Live at the Stork Club; Oakland, CA 11/23/12

Mr. and Mrs. Amnesiac dined on really great post-Thanksgiving Korean table top bar-b-q in Oakland's Korea-town before heading into the venerable Stork Club to chill out for the re-emergence of the Mermen, an SF Bay Area eminence. These guys have been playing for a long, long time now.
Their sound melds Crazyhorse grit with Surf and maybe even some Progressive Rock into a mid-tempo, swirling psychedelic ride.

Above: Mermen full and solo. The parts make for a sublime Whole

It was great to sit and drift to the Mermens' well played instrumental guitar sounds. So simple, so stripped down (relative to so many other current approaches to guitar-based Rock), so right!

Kilslug-Sins, Tricks & Lies; Limitied Appeal, 2012

On occasion, Disaster Amnesiac sees Ted Falconi in West Oakland, and this makes me happy. I don't know Ted personally, but I love his band, and I love that fact that he seems to have stayed true to his vision. Disaster Amnesiac imagines Ted working on sculpture or tweeking his amp to get that singular guitar tone of his.
I say this as Sins, Tricks & Lies, the 11" record by Boston's long-standing Kilslug spins on my turntable, not to draw comparisons between them and Falconi's Flipper, but simply to praise them. You have to hand it to them, that they've stayed true to their vision as well. This red slab of backwards playing vinyl has the band sticking to the mid-to-slow tempo Heavy Rock inflected Punk Rock. The drums sound thick and heavily played, the guitars stick to simple, heavy riffs, and Larry Lifeless's declamations go way beyond simple sloganeering. You can't deny that the man has his own vision.
Kilslug make great Heavy Rock. Dunno if Lifeless is a visible presence around his Boston environs, but his band sure sounds pretty viable, years into it.

Grateful Dead-Dave's Picks vol. 4; College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA 9/24/1976

Disaster Amnesiac has had his hears full of Grateful Dead throughout 2012, in no small part due to it being the inaugural year for the Dave's Picks series. Here we are, winding down what will surely be recalled as one of the more contentious years in recent memory, and here I am, digging into the last quarterly installment of the series's 2012 offerings, College of William &Mary, Williamsburg, VA 9/24/76.
In the world of the Dead, 1976 has often seemed to be regarded as the Year of the Re-set. It was a period in which the band picked themselves up after various "big picture" (no pun intended) fiasco, re-integrated Mickey permanently, and initiated their penultimate re-imaging (the last being Brent's arrival/the Godchauxs' departure).
Disaster Amnesiac has always heard the Dead's 1976 offerings as somewhat ponderous attempts towards their then-current goals of reviving themselves as a touring act and refocusing on the music, having handed the business reigns over to an actual record company (please note the sticker on Jerry's Travis Bean "The Enemy is Listening").  Aside from a soul stirring version of Mission in the Rain, an achingly raw evocation from Hunter on the lyrical side and Garcia on the performance side, I have rarely taken much time to listen to Dead recordings from that year. I admit to being somewhat surprised by Dead.net's choice of  a 1976 show to finish off this year's selections, but, having listened to this three disc set, I understand why they did.
The show starts off somewhat prosaically, even hitting an almost maudlin note during Looks Like Rain, but something happens during the late first set Tennessee Jed. Disaster Amnesiac has heard the simplest of elements, the quarter note pattern tapped on the hi-hat cymbals of Kreutzmann and Hart, as the auditory sign that the drummers are starting to mesh as a unit. The way that they lock in the early portions of the tune sounds pretty magical to me; the players out front seem to feel it, too, as Jed's slow shuffle is followed by a killer Playing in the Band.  This version of Playing is apparently legendary among Deadheads, and it's pretty clear why this is the case. All of the band's calling cards are on high display: Jazz-like inter-band interplay, quotes from other tunes (Jerry plays snatches of Let it Grow a few minutes into the song's lengthy instrumental passage, is this a signal of choices being made?), and an overall psychedelic spaciness endow its seventeen minutes with the kind of jamming flight that is so appealing to fans of the Dead's music. The fact that they partition the tune with a hot, tight version of Bob's Supplication (that's more like it rocker!) makes it all the more sweet for any Dead fan. 
The second set kicks off with a version of Might as Well that may be the best example of Garcia's innate soulfulness in the vocal department and Phil's booming bass punctuations, and blazes forward from there, mostly featuring the band's distinctive 1970's fare. It still strikes Disaster Amnesiac, how much Jerry loved the slow, ballad form; his renditions of Loser and Stella Blue here are fine examples of this. What were this man's shadows like? Perhaps the answer to that question lies in Hunter's admonition, "roll away the dew", and the Franklin's Tower in which that line resides is part of a so loose it's tight Help on the Way-Slipknot-Drums-Slipknot-Franklin's Tower-The Music Never Stopped-Stella Blue that again finds the band reaching  levels of instrumental/psychic interplay which only they could reach, in that and probably all other eras.  It's over thirty minutes of sweetly continuous prime 1970's Dead, moving from the mystery of Help on the Way, to the rudimental/tribal drumming entrainment of Drums to the jubilation of The Music Never Stopped, and the band sounds like they're enjoying and feeling every minute of it. The show's closing numbers, rocking versions of Around and Around and U.S. Blues wave spirited victory flags for the band as they seal the deal. Jerry's vocal delivery on the latter is particularly inspired, pointed in his peculiar, knowing cadence.
Within their grand scheme, 1976 proved to be a very important year for the Grateful Dead. It set the stage for the heights of 1977, and all of the subsequent strange developments for the quintessential band of misfits. Dave's Picks vol. 4 shows their wily beast  to have  been very much alive and kicking, sloughing off the cobwebs of "retirement" and kick starting the Good Old Grateful Dead into their storied second half.

ONO-Albino; Moniker Records, 2012

As has been the case with so many other bands, it was Joe Carducci's Rock and the Pop Narcotic that first brought Chicago's ONO to the attention of Disaster Amnesiac. While ostensibly falling outside of the scope of that absolutely essential tome, ONO was mentioned therein, albeit briefly, along with having been given a page or two in the appendix. Needless to say, I was pretty thrilled to finally hear them in  the late 2000's, when downloadable versions of their early LP's began to appear at various blog sites. I can recall one rain-drenched walk from a birthday party at Fisherman's Wharf to Embarcadero BART station, with Machines That Kill People providing a particularly unsettling soundtrack on my headphones, singer travis' deep tenor voiced incantations providing a surreal verbal soundtrack to said shuffled drenching.
Skipping forward three or so years, Disaster Amnesiac is pleased to be able to listen to all new recordings from ONO, in the form of Albino. Pleased, because the re-upped ONO essentially continues on with the same sound that they developed and honed all those years ago; a sound that draws from elements as ancient as shamanism or as current as post-Gangsta Rap (listen to travis to the album's ending track for that particular vibe), as earthy as Delta Blues or as Industrial as Neubauten post-Motorik beats. Head ONO musician P. Michael Ono seems to be able to amalgamate just about any stream of music, pushing out a heavy, heady, personal music, one of deliciously synergistic energy and flavor as regards influences. Disaster Amnesiac finds himself particularly moved by the greasy electric guitar intro to the album's title track and the brilliantly programmed beats and percussion throughout. The way Ono paced the music, never too fast, always throbbing and sensual, makes for an arresting, compelling listen. While not exactly Dance Music per se, Albino can no doubt inspire one to any type of movement. It is truly Body Music.The front body and human voice of the band, travis, croons his rich spells with such powerful phrasing and gesture. Do be sure and read Roctober #50 for a great interview with him. The man has lived, and his performance on Albino gives ample proof of that fact. He enriches and gives new depth even to Nico on All Tomorrow's Parties, giving this listener new food for thought on that chestnut of the Underground.
Disaster Amnesiac has read the Moniker has recorded more ONO since the tunes on Albino were tracked. I look forward to hearing more of their auditory spell workings. Here's to hoping that they can bring their ministrations out West.

Pere Ubu-Ray Gun Suitcase; Tim/Kerr Records, 1995

Disaster Amnesiac finds the 1990's to be pretty interesting, in terms of music culture, especially music from the era that involves electric guitars. It seems to me that the decade's Rock culture can be triangulated: 1) Immediate post-1980's period, with same old story up above and volcanic activity down below; 2) Nirvana explosion, with paradigm shift in tastes occurring and subsequent major label feeding frenzy; 3) Inevitable "back to business" model in the wake of diminishing returns up above and final fragmentation and music identity/cult formations up above.
I mention all of these factors because Ray Gun Suitcase, which was released smack dab in the middle of the decade, is the work of band that had a huge hand, explicitly or implicitly, in all three of stated points, and yet rises above all of them in its aesthetic grandeur and vision.
For example, take Head Ubu Man David Thomas, and his lyrical style. Disaster Amnesiac recalls reading press from Pere Ubu at the time of Ray Gun's release, in which Thomas described his overall conception for the record's lyrics to be an evocation of a Cleveland that remained only as a strong memory in his mind, a ghost town inhabiting a long-gone past. I can hear that in certain songs, such as Memphis and Electricity. There are also complex and insightful evocations of human lives in tunes such as Three Things and My Friend is a Stooge for the Media Priests; these tunes' lyrics paint pictures that remain far and away superior to most, in their era or others. Of course, Rock lyrics don't have to be poetic, but Thomas's writing on this LP seem to rise to that level. In terms of the stated triangulation, they remain superior to efforts from all three time frames, especially in their deceptively simple approach. They are the stuff of layers, as regards words. Listen, and be awed. As for Thomas's singular vocal style, one either loves it or hates it. Disaster Amnesiac is firmly in the former camp. One knows Thomas when one hears him, and, at the time of this recording, he had been sticking to his aesthetic guns for twenty years. His vocal approaches on Ray Gun Suitcase are indeed many and varied; his "horse snorting" sound on Electricity has always brought up Deleuze/Guattari-ian thoughts of "becoming animal" in this listener. He whispers, howls, yelps, and even croons his way through the tunes, all the while staying firmly planted within his own, unique, performing identity. Compared to the form fit front men so predominant of the three points of the stated triangle, Thomas sounds so much more compelling, and his performance on Ray Gun is high even within that standard.
Although Pere Ubu had been in existence for several years before Ray Gun Suitcase, the band therein was essentially new. Stalwart Thomas was joined by Jim Jones on guitar, Robert Wheeler on synths and theremin, Michele Temple on bass, and Scott Benedict or Scott Krauss on drums (founding member Krauss left mid-recording, I believe). The Raygun iteration of Ubu, rooted in pre-1990's Rock outplays most then-contemporary bands, twisting and turning in all kinds of ways. Their touch, a physical one, though quite removed from the demonstrative bashing that had become de rigour post-Nirvana, is heavy in a rhythmic way. Jones' guitar solo in Beach Boys and his high octane riffing in Red Sky are executed with such graceful command, yet also such simultaneous rawness. Wheeler's creative, spacey theremin and synth parts add great, surreal accents on top of it all. Almost twenty years later, their playing veritably leaps out of the recordings, from all sections of the band.
The overall feel that Disaster Amnesiac gets from Ray Gun Suitcase is the same one that Lou Reed got from Loaded. The album is chock full of songs that could have been hits. Listen to Beach Boys, with its catchy as hell chorus (and compare it that '95's summer jam by Everclear; you tell me which one is better), or Memphis, with its smooth motorik groove and stuttering riffage. More examples include Thomas' paean to populist America in Turquoise Fins (in Pomona!) or the almost Breeders-like (or should that band be described as Ubu-like?) Down By the River II. Even the more experimental pieces like Horse or Ray Gun (Thomas on plastic ray gun) have grown accessible over time.
To get back to the tripartite conception of the 1990's, and its relation to Ray Gun Suitcase, Disaster Amnesiac is just trying to say that it is an album that transcends such divisions, is transcendent of the simple categorization that is ubiquitous within the music industry. I guess, as such, its chances of wider success within that world were somewhat slight. All  that said, the album remains, in a word, timeless.

Then me and Mick are gonna wing it on over to London and jam with the Stones

Well, Paris actually. This jam was waxed in the City of Lights.
Disaster Amnesiac currently has the new Rolling Stones single, Doom and Gloom, pretty much on endless repeat in the iPod.
It's a great, pounding 2/4 boogie from the World's Oldest Band, and it sounds invigorated as hell, energized and energizing in that sweet way that only the Stones can do it. Keith and Ron are ragin' on guitar, riffing with that fine interplay that features on their best work together. Dig on that drop at the end of the chorus for ample proof of this. Ron's been a Stone for almost forty years now! Hard to believe! Keith and Ron can lock, for sure, and on Doom and Gloom, they lock massively. Speaking of locked, gray eminence Charlie Watts pushes the proceedings with his characteristic uncluttered tidiness, sticking to a propulsive kick/snare/hat pattern that grooves and shuffles with a motive force. As for front man Mick, he sounds equally inspired, ranting, and rapping the kind of darkened, somewhat cynical lyrics that the public has come to expect from a world class Rock Star and Original Bad Boy.
Maybe it's true that all they see right now is doom and gloom, but all that Disaster Amnesiac feels when this tune is playing is raw excitement. Who knew they still had it in 'em?

Pain is the stimulus of pain, but then of course, nothing is cured.

 Over this last weekend, Mr. and Mrs. Amnesiac walked over to Oakland's historic Grand Lake Theater, via the lovely Trestle Glen Ave., to take in a viewing of Paul Thomas Anderson's new film, The Master.
The film has been treated by some as a controversial telling of the early years of L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics, but Disaster Amnesiac does not want to reflect upon that aspect. Instead, I would like to opine that the story of Freddie Quell, the film's main protagonist,  reveals the necessary aspects of violence that any type of movement needs to harness in order to take its initial steps into the greater world scene. For this viewer, the L. Ron Hubbard figure was essentially incidental, compared to Quell's greater meaning. To wit, any movement, political or religious or media, needs the violence of shadowy figures such as that of Quell, needs their brute force and "thoughtlessness", if for nothing else than to act as foot soldiers as they gain ground within the world. Whether they actually physically assault real or perceived enemies, or simply provide the requisite intimidation, their harnessing and use by these movements is critical. Of course, once a given movement finds these mute, shadowy, violent forces to be of no further use, they are cast aside. The Movement can now begin the task of filing down its sharper edges, the better to seduce the greater mass, for profits monetary, psychic, or both. Hubbard, the man, is neither the first nor the last to have engineered that kind of action.