The Rising Storm were a garage group that stayed active for two years in Andover, Massachusetts during the ’60s. They recorded their most well known LP, “Calm Before,” in 1967, while they were still teenagers in prep school. This record has since become a highly sought after collector’s item among ’60s garage enthusiasts, gaining notoriety for the astronomical price tags copies were given as they changed hands. The first song off the album is fantastic! Extremely tight organization, a no nonsense tempo and abrupt, arresting vocal harmonies. Wonderfully spirited performances from everyone involved, crunchy guitar stomp and organ to accentuate the moody, quieter verses, lending a pronounced psych feel to them. A lot of variety and swinging from mode to mode within the 2 minutes and 50 seconds this track encompasses. Quite a passionate and epic little cut. Apparently it is a cover of a relatively obscure Remains composition.
Crash Normal are a noise-based garage revival band from France. They put out an LP on S-S Records in 2004 called “Heavy Listening,” and their debut single, “Baa Baa Fun,” came out in 1996 on Sabotage Records, a German label according to their myspace, with whom the likes of Japanther are signed. They have a new split EP with Cheveu out now on Rococo Records! It just came out! These guys are off the wall. Their songs employ an electronic effect which makes the vocals sound like they are coming through a megaphone, something akin to what the Coachwhips do with their vocals. They also use electronica sounds in their songs that are reminiscent of early Detroit techno and old-school industrial. Melodic, pounding old-school industrial revival. The at times lilting and hip-hop influenced beats with growled French lyrics give some of their songs a sensual, rave sort of feel.
Vivian Girls are a female vocals, droning punk pop threesome from NYC. They have an LP out on Mauled by Tigers, a 7″ on Woodsist and a 7″ on Plays with Dolls. They appear to be on tour at the moment, with show dates all over the states and in Canada, continuing into mid-August and playing with names like Pocahaunted, Little Claw and Home Blitz. Their sound is a bit like the Vaselines, but with more noise and less self-consciousness about their punk influence. They employ some nice vocal harmonies underneath the murky bog of badly recorded guitar fuzz on some of their songs. Some of their tracks are inflected with a poppy flavor, while others churn out oppressively sinister black country beats and guitar pedals, calling Gun Club or Mr. Airplane Man to mind. Check out their myspace!
Amanaz formed in Africa in 1973. They recorded a full length album titled “Africa” in the city of Kitwe which is located in northern Zambia. On the tracks which have vocals, some are in English and others are sung in “Bemba,” a Bantu language that is spoken primarily in Zambia by the Bemba people. These are some groovy, psychedelic sounds being produced here. Good for driving, watching snow fall outside your window, or lazing around outside on a hot summer’s day. The guitar tones are fuzzy, the beat is syncopated and relaxed, and the vocals are somehow reminiscent of les Rallizes Denudes. Is this an unreasonable comparison to draw? Listen below and draw your own conclusions then!
Thought listening to Metal Urbain made you sophisticated? Well here is your chance to turn it up a notch, pretentiousness-wise. Lucrate Milk were an art-punk group from France that formed in 1981. Lizzy Mercier Descloux-esque vocals, accompanied by tribal, pounding, no wave sound from the rest of the band. The addition of a saxophone into the mix makes it smack a bit of James Chance and the Contortions. They are also reminiscent of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, not to mention their similarity to post-punk female vocals deconstruction outfits like Kleenex/Liliput, Raincoats and Slits. Their output was rather meager during their lifetime, but apparently a collection of their stuff on CD and DVD surfaced in 2006. Check it out, if you can read French:
Dr. Spec’s Optical Illusion formed in New Orleans in 1965. When they started performing they became infamous for how incredibly loud their sets were. At one point the volume level of one of their live shows was measured by an uptight old fogey as 140 decibels (is that loud?). Recorded their first single, “Tryin’ to Mess My Mind” / “She’s the One,” in 1968 for the Flambeau label at Cosimo Matassa’s Jazz City Studio. Flambeau’s owner’s wife, Joyce Harris, came up with the band’s name for them. Their single was extremely rare until Crypt Records reissued it in the late ’90s sometime. The songs on their single have been described as “incredibly pounding” (Crypt Records) and as “wailing, organ-driven slab[s] of proto-punk crunch” (allmusic). Order the single on 7″ vinyl from the ’60s punk section of the crypt site.
Cripple Bastards are a hardcore band from Italy who formed in 88 and are still touring. When they were starting out they wanted to create a sound that combined the raw energy of early Italian thrash punk and hardcore with the extreme new standards of speed and volume that were being set by the emerging generation of grindcore bands in the UK and America. Their first full length album, “Your Lies in Check,” came out in 1996 on E.U. ‘91 Produzioni. They played live for the first time outside of Italy when they performed in Croatia in 1992. Loud fast and oppressive, vocals consist mainly of deep demented growling. Check it out, their influential debut LP is available on vinyl from Ecocentric Records.
Dead Ghosts are a garage revival foursome from Vancouver, BC. They have one 7″ out on Milk ‘n’ Herpes. Their sound is grainy, strung out and satisfyingly 60s-esque. They can make off-key guitar chords sound pretty good. Their up-tempo numbers are spirited and rollicking, and their slower songs are very effective. They can adopt a girl group charm, a demented surf wail or straight up 60s garage a la the Sonics. It is also apparent they are not uninfluenced by the feedback assault tactics of glue wave bands like Times New Viking and Hospitals. There is not a song on their myspace profile that I don’t like.
The Imperial Pompadours consist of Barney Bubbles, Nik Turner, Robert Calvert, and perhaps others. They recorded one album, Ersatz, in 1982. It is mostly just covers of 60s garage and surf tracks, but the final cut is an original 20-minute exploration of various weirdness and harsh psychedelia. Barney Bubble organized this band and their album, picking all the songs they were to cover from his favorite mix tape and showing them to his fellow musicians for the first time in the studio. Bubble was most well known because of his sleeve designs for Hawkwind albums, and this is the only album he ever made. This is some pretty outlandishly rudimentary sludge punk. It’s like Pussy Galore’s cover album of Exile on Main St, except messier, more offensive, more paranoid and more schizophrenic. An undeniably hardcore and unwarrantedly extensive exploration of the dark side of mankind. Get it here accompanied by a more thorough description than my own:
Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy were the two main composers of the impressionist era of 20th century classical music. Impressionism was essentially the first movement to emerge from the 20th century style period. Its abandonment of traditionally logical chord progressions in favor of a more intuitive and free harmonic pattern influenced the bebop, cool and avant-garde jazz musicians of the 1950s and ’60s. Ravel became influenced himself by jazz and the blues, incorporating elements of these styles into his violin sonatas and piano concertos. His most famous impressionistic works include the ballet Daphnis et Chloe, the Spanish rhythms and melodies-influenced Rhapsodie Espagnole, and the ballet for orchestra, Bolero.
