Live shot #183!

 

Pio Gabriel Band. The Virgil, Los Angeles 7/17/25. Tight harmonies and Desert Psych guitar solo moves.

Live shot #182!

 

Small Drone Orchestra. The Palms Restaurant, Twentynine Palms CA 4/4/25. Participant in Wonder Valley Experimental Music Festival.

Hallway Five-Black Pits; eh? Records #131, 2025

 

 

Very mysterious and enigmatic, this cassette release from Hallway Five! Before one even has a chance to listen to Black Pits, one will surely catch that oblique feeling from the haunted looking chiaroscuro of the cover art. Additionally, the lack of instrumental credits within the liner notes and ambiguous bio on the presser sheet don't do much to give any kind of certainty as to who is doing what (to be fair, there is some given within the latter, but still). Perhaps more information is given at their Bandcamp page? All this being said, Black Pits is a music release and Disaster Amnesiac generally writes about music, so what's happening on that end of its spectrum? Side A, in starts off with an immediate cinematic feel in the sense that I am reminded of Hollywood soundtrack music within the post Schoenberg era; the 20th Century orchestral feel is in full effect, and it's pretty incredible that this type of sound was produced by three guys with much fewer resources at their disposal. Seriously, they get a pretty huge ensemble sound! Edgar Varese would have loved this recording! Woodwinds player Sequoyah sounds to this listener as if he's playing tenor saxophone, but it's his clarinet playing that Hallway Five member and "non-musician" (his descriptor) and Sterile Garden founder Jacob deRaadt mentions within the bio information. A guy named John plays the trumpet with all of the bleating gusto one would expect from this type of band. Disaster Amnesiac has absolutely enjoyed the non-idiomatic, very rhythmic playing from Sequoyah, especially within the zones of Side B. This portion of the recording features the group going into a bit more of a 21st Century aesthetic, with denser, electronics sounds and bewildered happenings. One can easily imagine them playing at warehouse full of art and ratty furniture here. Black Pits is a document of band that apparently no longer performs, but obviously deRaadt cared enough about their existence to take the time and give their recordings from some point in the past a bit of post-production love and a physical release. It certainly lets the sounds that the members of Hallway Five produced do the majority of the proverbial talking.

Live shot #181!

 

Priscilla Priddy And The Pretty Boys, Che's Lounge Tucson 7/4/25. Well, a few of The Pretty Boys. There are actually quite a few more of them. Roll out the barrel when you see them because they play good time music that will make drankin' a prime directive. A tight big band with an exceptional singer leading the vibes into those good times. And there ain't nothin' wrong with that is there.

Live shot #180!

 

 

Morphia Slow, Che's Lounge Tucson 7/4/25. Lyricism. Musical voicings. Charisma. All there. Like all all there. Winning.

Live shot #179!

 

Cellist with pedals. He was part of a group playing Sparklehorse songs. Hotel Congress Tucson, 6/28/25.

Eugene Chadbourne & Jair-Röhm Parker Wells-Fed Up With Bass; Public Eyesore Records #163, 2025

 

It must be admitted by Disaster Amnesiac that when upon receiving Fed Up With Bass, the new two CD set from Eugene Chadbourne and Jair-Röhm Parker Wells on Public Eyesore, there was a kind of daunting feeling. Let's face it: two compact discs worth of material is a lot, especially if one is expected to pay the close attention necessary for reviewing. Especially too in the case of these two dudes. I recall reading a career summation interview in Forced Exposure from Chadbourne in the 1980's for cryin' out loud! Parker Well's group Machine Gun was also active in that time frame, so yeah, they have decades of accumulated experience from which to show and tell. Chadbourne makes music, any music from any place/time, as much his as he needs it to be. Eugene moves from statements that are absolutely red dirt funky to completely Avant Garde abstract with great aplomb and ease on any stringed instrument that he's currently holding. One of the joys of listening to Fed Up arises when one hears the ways in which he approaches the strings. He's got a more seasoned player's control in full effect; even at his most vigorous the notes are on point and precisely placed. Parker Wells's bass playing is a clear equal to those six string sounds, as all of the time that the two have spent working together on musical projects would of course made it so. It's an album of very astute stringed instrumental interactions. Additionally, Parker Wells's modular processing and sound designs are truly things of wonder with bird sounds, traffic noise, etc. One would almost desire an extra two discs of just those sounds! Seriously, check 'em! The sound aesthetics on this album include Samba, Standards, Psychdelics, Gospel-influenced call and response, Folk, and so much more. As regards the Standards, Disaster Amnesiac has delighted at hearing some of those familiar quotations from the Jazz canon. Of course Chadbourne and Parker Wells are going to feature those kinds of moves along with all of the others. They know the context. Blues as in flatted notes within astute durations. The eccentricities of wide intervallic relationships. A guest appearance from Beat Poet John Sinclair that runs down the moral code of Monk, during which John sings as much as recites and also chants. If Disaster Amnesiac was to be asked to pick one track which best encapsulates Fed Up With Bass's appeal, I'd go with Inner Extremities Suite Part 2, which moves from classic era Psych to bombastic Free Jazz of its High Era, all placed as a piece within a larger, self-contained matrix that belongs to Eugene Chadbourne and Jair-Röhm Parker Wells exclusively. It's an album that rocks in the most unique and original of manners. Fans of truly free form musical expression, head's up, you'll want to grab this album from Public Eyesore.