Steady Nerdin' Volume 2

Hey kids – I’m back for another installment of my column. Same rules apply this time – I set my i-pizzle to shuffle, listen to the first 15 tracks that come on and write about ‘em. Simple enough, right? Please send your comments to steadynerdin@gmail.com - that’s the e-mail address for my currently-on-hiatus radio show Steady Nerdin’ – the next incarnation of that is in the works but meanwhile, you can listen to my old shows from when I was briefly on neighborhoodpublicradio.org – just click on the blog and then search for the word “steady” – you’ll come up with all the broadcast days when my show was on the air including the one episode that guest MC Paul Barman insisted that we call Steady Coolin’ in respect of the fact that Paul steadfastly denies being a nerd. Also, while you’re there, make sure you check out Jason Shithead’s show The Shit Shack as our shows were on back-to-back and often bled into one another. More columns coming down the pipeline and (knock on wood,) other projects as well. Enjoy.

Kyuss - El Rodeo
From …And The Circus Leaves Town

Most Kyuss fans seem to have a preference for their two middle albums (those being Blues for the Red Sun and Welcome to Sky Valley.) I will agree that their debut Wretch leaves much to be desired but for me, their swan song, And The Circus Leaves Town really has a lot more songwriting chops and the beginnings of the masterful sugary pop sensibilities that make Queens of the Stone Age such a combo to be reckoned with. This track's no exception - it's the heavy desert rock that Kyuss and their various progeny helped to conceive, but it's definitely betraying the start of something a little more hooky.

KRS-1 - Brown Skin Woman
From Return of the Boom Bap

It always confused me that people consider KRS-1's "solo" career to be some tragic departure from the BDP years considering the fact that the last few BDP records were KRS-1 solo records in all but name. In defense of those people, albums like 1994's Return of the Boom Bap do have plenty of filler tracks. This is one of them. "Don't call a Black woman a ho" in patois stylee. KRS-101.

X-Clan - Heed the Word of the Brother
From To The East Blackwards

Wow, my iPod is showing its Afrocentricism today (well it is black.) There's a reason why X-Clan always played second fiddle to other late 80's Afrocentric rap groups (your PE's, your BDPs.) Their jams were funky enough and their lyrical skills fresh enough, but they didn't carry the sense of sonic urgency of those other groups. They still bring back memories and flip that style better than most groups of that era though. RIP Prof. X.

Agnostic Front - Your Mistake
From Victim in Pain

Not to be confused with the shitty metal version on Cause for Alarm. Ah, great fuckin' mosh part in the middle. If you don't already know this album, to quote Raybeez, "You're a new jack and a sucker."

Pink Fairies – Raceway
From Kingdom Come

The owner of this here blog introduced me to the music of the two great Motorhead predecessors, Hawkwind and Pink Fairies. The latter clearly brought a lot more of the boogie rock influence into Motorhead's punked out mix. This track is pure rock goodness reminiscent of all the early 70's greats - your Blue Cheers, your Purples and a little psych. More Motorhead (and Hawkwind,) fans need to know about songs like this.

Ill Bill - Darkness Deepens (Feat. Sabac Red and Slaine,)
From La Coka Nostra Presents Ill BIll

You'd think that a white rap supergroup including all of House of Pain (among others,) would be disastrous. However, with Ill Bill at the helm, La Coka Nostra have been known to bring that grimey Brooklyn shit that Non-Phixion pioneered so nicely on The Future is Now with a heavy Wu influence. There is nothing self-conscious or apologetic about these fuckin' dustheads and they're better for it. This isn't the best track I've heard from them or from Ill Bill, but if you like the aforementioned urban white boy MC's and are sick of nauseatingly sterile and innocuous suburbanite shit (you know who I'm talking about,) you should probably give these guys a listen. And Ill Bill is the fuckin’ man.

Red Alert - Screaming at the Nation
From We’ve got the Power

Not to be confused with Kool DJ Red Alert, this is the British Oi!/streetpunk band. I haven't listened to their album enough to give you a fair review, but great bass lines, strong pissed-off vocals, nice lead guitar make this one of those street punk records that are hard to resist. Jamie from Off Minor just put me onto these guys recently and I'm thankful.

Opeth - The Leper Affinity
From Blackwater Park

Well, considering how much black metal I've been listening to as of late, it was bound to happen - a 10+ minute track was bound to pop up. But I'm gonna be a trooper and sit through it...for you! For those not in the know, Opeth are the reigning Gods of prog metal. They come from a death/black/doom background but have always been "talented" trailblazers of one sort or another (I put the quotes in because "talented" is one of those words like "progressive" - it's got insidious undertones.) On the one hand, I can't see how you can spend ten minutes playing straight metal, proggy and experimental though it might be, without boring even yourself. Droning is one thing, but these guys are clearly different types of people from me (read: Scandinavian.) The "clean" vocals are uber-cheesy as are their accompanying acoustic guitar interludes. But there's some awesome, slow, duel guitar harmony laden heaviness right after them and I got more than halfway through this jam before I started getting impatient and if you knew how hard it is for me to sit still, you would be proud. I dunno, man. Opeth is not dark or evil sounding enough for me to put up with this long a song, but they're good enough songwriters that I can't complain. Does that help? Ugh, here comes a piano outro...

Butthole Surfers - Gary Floyd
From Psychic, Powerless, Another Man’s Sac

Ah, now that cleared the palette. The Buttholes at almost their most demented - this one's pretty tame by the album's standards as far as general acid-addled lunacy goes - it's sort of more of a send-off of feel good Freedom Rock era shit; a Butthole love-in if you will. Anyway, I shouldn't need to describe this shit for you - it's awesome and you should know about it and don't give me any of this shit like "The Butthole Surfers I've heard [i.e. their major label crap,]- sucked." NO FUCKING SHIT! When you check out an older band, you don't check out their newest album unless they're Tom Waits.

Al Green - Look what you done for me
From Greatest Hits

Speaking of shit I shouldn't have to educate you about, you can pick up pretty much anything touched by Al Green's beautiful hands and you will find that few voices are even in the same ballpark as far as range of emotion and subtlety. It took me a long enough time to get out of my Loud Fast Rules phase and embrace stuff like this, but take it from me, you can't go wrong with Al.

O' Brother Where Out There Soundtrack - Hard Time Killing Floor Blues
From O’ Brother Where Out There Original Soundtrack

Am I showing myself to be a total nincompoop with pedestrian old timey stuff like this soundtrack? I don't know but it's fucking beautiful and so was the movie. Maybe you'd be happier if I had some obscure Alan Lomax shit that no one but he and Bob Dylan himself ever heard of. Well, I'm not perfect. Why don't I go kill myself? Anyway, if you're one of the five people who aren't familiar with this soundtrack, it's gorgeous.

Organized Konfusion – Stress
From Stress

OK are one of the most criminally underrated groups of hip hop's golden age. Listen to their self-titled debut for some of the most insanely frenetically fast crackhead beats and rhymes that the early nineties had to offer. This is off their second album and they used to run it on The Box video network all the time and I loved it. Composed of Pharaoh Monche (of Simon Says fame,) and Prince Po, you need to hear this shit. It's dark and crazy and ill and contains the line "Why do you choose to mimic these wack MC's/Why do you choose to listen to R&B?" Why indeed? Buybuybuybuybuy.

Steve Earle - Ben McCulloch

For those not in the know, Steve Earle is the Dylan disciple who plays Bubbles' redneck narcotics anonymous sponsor on The Wire. Again, I'm no authority on country/folk/Americana but this is some really well-done melancholia and it seems to be made for people like me who like the darker side of said genres. Real pretty, sad song. I want to listen to this whole album and drink myself to sleep now.

Band of Horses - Lamb on the Lam (in the city)

This is one of those bands that I might've passed on due solely to their name and my prejudice against almost everything. But thanks to The Sound of Young America's interview with members of the Onion's AV Club wherein they highlighted and played clips from their top albums of last year, I came to realized that they're really quite pretty, solemn and have a great air of mystery surrounding them. What is it with bands/albums with horse in the name? They all end up having a similar vibe, me thinks - 16 Horsepower, The Dirty Three's "Horse Stories," Patti Smith's "Horses," Dan and my late project Horse Graveyard, Crazy Horse...I'm not so sure about Dead Horse, but you get the idea. This is a short interlude but it's nice and echoey and evocative and leaves me wanting to hear more, and that's never a bad thing.

The Litter - Journeys

Early 70's fuzz/stoner rock, the likes of which I am a sucker for. Very garagey too. Got this off of Decibel Magazine's stoner rock special from a few months back wherein they provided a list of the genre's lost gems from the early seventies. This is far from mind-blowing but it's the type of thing that I can listen to in the background all night long without complaining. It's a nice way to end an overall nice mix from DJ Little Man Who Lives Inside My Ipod. Bye.

Until next time, kids!

New stuff coming; KUDU

Soon we'll have some new stuff up on here, starting with another installment of Mike IQ's Steady Nerdin' which I will be posting as soon as I can format it up here. He's working on some other stuff to post on Augenmusik as well, though I'm also hoping to get some more interviews and show reviews up here. Cause, why the hell not.

In the meantime, I'll just leave you with some videos of NY's KUDU. I started reading about them about the time I split from NY and also managed to get a CD sampler from Nublu, the club/ label on the LES that they were on, which had some hot-shit song on it by KUDU. They're heavy, the drummer is sick, and the lyrics are raunchy, and as far as I'm concerned this stuff is gold. They need to get their collective asses up to Montreal sometime. Anyway, some videos to share to convince you. And you can pick up their "Death of a Party" album here:

Heavy synths galore, this one is called Bar Star:

And this one's Boom Boom. The song's awesome and the fact that they're walking around my old hood makes me miss it.

Introducing Mike IQ!

So we're served with another post on Augenmusik blog; this one a little bit different from previous ones. First off, it's by a new contributor, my dear friend Mike IQ. Mike is a lifelong New Yorker and old friend who's spent time with me in all sort of musical pursuits, from various bands to checking out shows in dirty squats and swanky clubs, to DJ-ing Manhattan bars, to all other sorts of hijinks. He recently came off a stint at Neighborhoodpublicradio.org with his show Steady Nerdin'. His musical taste is informed and all over the place, so I thought he'd be an ace fit. He liked good tunes, doesn't mince words, and doesn't have much patience for hype or drama. As a way to introduce the readers to him, he thought he might just put his iPod on shuffle and muse about whatever tracks came up. It seemed fun for him, and made for a good read, so in addition to more contributions by him, we're hoping he continues with this format every now and again as well....

______________


Prince Buster and Judge Dread – Taxation
From She was a rough rider
The reggae/ska/rocksteady stalwarts talk about “Taxation without representation.” I’m a sucker for both these guys and you probably should be too. Go read about them on allmusic.

Big L – Size Em Up
From The Big Picture
I don’t think that L’s deification in true school hip hop circles is at all undeserved. Aside from his sick flow, his superb wordplay this is one of those tracks that really conveys his personality. He’s cocky, hotheaded and arrogant and he’s liable to eat your ass up. Throw ya L’s up!

Charlie Feathers – Stutterin’ Cindy
From This Little Show
I originally got into this cat thanks to the Songs the Cramps Taught Us compilation series that, not surprisingly, showcases songs that the Cramps covered. This is the guy who wrote “Can’t Hardly Stand It,” which is such an ill, infectious song and I think the first song I learned to play on guitar (which probably isn’t saying much since I’m no Ivy Rorschach.) Anyway, this one is live or a demo or something – it’s off his “This Little Show” record – I think it’s some kind of bootleg. It’s vintage rockabilly of the highest order.

Nick Cave – Omalley’s Bar
From Murder Ballads
This is 14+ minutes so I can’t listen to it right now. That doesn’t detract from the fact that Nick Cave is the best guy in the world or the fact that I, and not you, am going to see him again this Fall.

Prefuse 73 f/ Ghostface and El-P – HYF
From Surrounded by Silence
Highly infectious beat by Prtefuse and surprisingly El-P and Tony’s skills and egos don’t cause the track to kill itself, but rather work together. Great hook and El gets dirty, vintage Co Flow style (not to detract from his solo material but this proves that when he wants to, he knows how nod heads.) There’s clearly mutual respect and it doesn’t feel like Tony phoned this one in from his secret Wu Tang (or Theodore Unit) compound. There’s interaction on the ad-libs and that’s rarely a bad thing with MC’s of this caliber. It’s dirty, it’s street and it’s fresh. I could listen to this track 10 times in a row. Peep Ghost’s second verse – it’s classic Tony and yet another example of how he could probably read from the phone book and make it sound dope.

Newcleus – Auto Man
From Jam on Revenge
If you don’t know who Newcleus is, you better axe somebody. You can axe me. If you were born in the mid-seventies and lived in New York, there’s a good chance that their classic “Jam On It (wicky wicky)” was one of the first rap songs you ever heard. It certainly was for me. But it wasn’t till a couple of years ago that my man Karun played me the whole LP. It’s got a super dope Funkadelic-looking comic strip cover and is full of electro hip hop goodness. I’m not crazy about the sung vocals on this joint but the instrumental sections and the beat as a whole are quite fresh.

Redman – Can’t Wait
From Ego Trip’s Best Hip Hop Singles of ‘94
Youngins who think that Redman is just a character actor or inextricably linked to Method Man would be wise to check out joints like this. It’s got that nice, warm early nineties vibe that makes you feel so young and good. Almost brings a tear to my eye. There’s a 21 Jump Street reference too. Also, for all you true rap nerds, he drops a line that Kriss Kross later used as a hook when they tried to come thugged out in the mid-nineties – "Please/My whole crew’s making cheese/tonight’s the night baby/so suck up on these.” If you never heard that track, consider yourself lucky – being So So Def OGs does not allow a little kid novelty act to make a G record work.

Dwarves – Blast
From The Dwarves must Die
What can be said about the Dwarves? They’re raw and nasty hardcore from the Pacific Northwest and they have an album called “Thank Heaven for Little Girls.” What’s not to like?

Witch Hunt – Life in a Box
From …As Priorities Decay
My homegirls out of Jersey/Philly, they’ve been at it for a while and on tracks like this one you can hear how they manage to make passionate and original-sounding anarcho-punk that synthesizes disparate influences. This is one of their older records. Theyv’e done a lot since. Go check ‘em out when they come to your town. They tour a lot and they bring it live.

Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – You Made Me Love You
From Voodoo Jive: The Best of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins
This song is performed by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.

Black Anvil – 777
From Test Mixes
Another friend of mine – you may know Paul from Black Anvil from his other band, Deathcycle (one of the only New York area hardcore bands worth a piss these days,) or from his previous projects, Long Island hardcore stalwarts Kill Your Idols and New York hardcore pranksters Down Low (known for penning songs with titles like “Crack Bitch.”) Here Paul branches out into black metal of raw, dirty and ferocious kind. I swear, Paul is the only person I know with whom I can carry an infinite e-mail conversation about Von (http://www.myspace.com/von666). This one’s got a lot of dynamics and character and a big Celtic Frost influence and that’s never a bad thing.

John Fahey
From Volume 6: Days Have Gone By
Another gentlemen, who like Mr. Cave, could do no wrong. Pretty much anything you can find by the late Mr. Fahey is guaranteed to be great and he put out 364,023,405 records! No shit! His shit basically remained meandering, strange bluegrass/folk instrumental guitar pieces (with the notable exception of his later electric period which approached atonality yet with its feet firmly planted in blues and bluegrass and, for some reason, awesomely reverb-laden surfish guitar tones,) and this is no exception. This one’s a slow, short somewhat somber number

Material – Upriver
From Memory Serrves
I’ve been meaning to listen to these guys forever – they’re part of the post-punk canon apparently. This is a Bill Laswell project and Bill Laswell’s got the Midas fucking touch, baby (check out his record with Jah Wobble or his Trojan Dub Massive Volume 2 comp.) They play extremely strange , extremely funky instrumental new wave with violin and other idiosyncratic instrumentatuion. It’s also quite fucking awesome. I need to listen to more of this. I am a sucker for sleeping on Material. Don’t be like me. Don’t sleep.

Celtic Frost – Dethroned Emperor
From Morbid Tales
I love On to Mega-Therion and (especially) Into the Pandemonium as much as the next hessian, but for my money nothing lays down that slow, clunky brutality that the Frost is known best for like Morbid Tales. You’re not metal if you’re not at least acquainted with this record.

Acid King – Dry Run
From Zoroaster
I tried unsuccessfully to immerse myself in the burgeoning stoner rock scene a few years back. Like any other style of music, there’s a lot of chaff for every one piece of wheat (or vice versa – I’m assuming you want the wheat, unless you’ve got that allergy which I think I kind of have. Also I don’t really know what the fuck “chaff” is – don’t warplanes launch it to confuse enemy radars?) Any way, Acid King are an exception because they keep you hooked in with truly psychedelic jams and great female vocals.

Until next time, kids.