(no subject)
When it rains it pours I guess...although this post is spurred on by 2 things: my inability to sleep, and the sad news in my inbox...
I'm sure this will be all over the messageboards later today, but since I've only seen it from an obscure source, here's a message from the Sun City Girls:
Hello friends, this is one of those e-mails you hope you never have to
send but.....
With deep regret, we must announce that Charles Gocher passed away on
February 19th in Seattle from a long battle with cancer at the age of
54. He went peacefully with friends at his side. He is survived by the
two of us who adopted him as a brother 25 years ago and his many
friends around the world. He will be missed more than most could ever
know. Our thanks to everyone for their support and encouragement
during the past three, very difficult years. Many of you were not
aware that Charles was ill and that's because he wanted it that way.
Knowing Charlie as we did, we're sure he's already working on new
material. We're sorry we can't talk to everybody personally right now
as opposed to a blanket electronic statement such as this...we just
need a little bit of time to deal with everything. Details of a
memorial in his honor will hopefully be announced soon.
Richard Bishop
Alan Bishop
(Sun City Girls)
warrenjabali, wasn't that last SCG tour in the spring of 2004? I guess that's when things started to happen if the message above was an indication. What sad news to start the day off with, although it must be a relief for the people who've apparently lived through this (and for Charles himself, finally released). This might explain why the band had splintered off into solo projects & Sublime Frequencies recordings. Sigh...
There's never really been another band like the Sun City Girls. I must admit that there are bigger fans out there than myself, because they were a hydra-headed beast of sound and I gravitated to some heads much more than others, but when they were on they were ON. The way they soaked in all of the most esoteric sounds from around the planet and regurgitated them into underground rock mode, at a time when Paul Simon was considered the last word on pop/world crossover by the majority of the music world - the influences are just staggering. I was just listening to Bright Surroundings Dark Beginnings the other day, that long opening piece where they do an ethnic forgery of Chinese opera, and I thought "I really really need to see these guys live one of these days." Ah well...
Somebody should do a 33-1/3 installment of Torch Of The Mystics. One of the acknowledged classics of underground music, and surely one with some interesting stories to tell. In the meantime, put it on the stereo, turn it up real loud, and send Charles off properly with the opening whipcrack of "Blue Mamba", surely an appropriate soundtrack to entering the next dimension...The world of music seems a little less strange this morning without the presence of Charlie Gocher and the Sun City Girls, but it would've been a lot less strange if they hadn't graced us with their presence to start. You will be missed, Charlie...
There's been a lot of music around the apartment lately. I just got 3 new albums today, 2 of them by Atlanta bands. The first one is by Hubcap City (From Belgium), a longrunning band that has only now issued their first proper CD. I've listened to it halfway through and give it a good thumbs-up. Atlanta is far from a perfect city in many ways, but honestly I don't know if Hubcap City could come from anywhere else. Like transient hobos riding around on the discarded railroad tracks of Cabbagetown, they clang like the dying sounds of the old mills before they got redeveloped as loft condos. Urban decay captured in musical form, they are atonal yet charming - at one point suggesting an old string band performing underwater, at another the aural equivalent of the Krog Street tunnel. I love these guys to death, and I hope this release (on Xeric, a subsidiary of the Table Of The Elements label) will get them some attention. But assuming I have yours, I'll reprint a review I wrote in Franks-APA of their debut 7":
"Hubcap City are not actually from Belgium, but from Atlanta (although they still reel in the curious from time to time with the subtitle). They're led by a guy named Bill Taft, who is the living embodiment of the Atlanta avant-garde scene even if he looks like your parents' friendly next-door neighbor. After playing in a series of noise bands in the 80s as one of the pioneers of Atlanta's "Destroy All Music" scene, he formed a proto-lounge band called the Jody Grind with a smoky chanteuse named Kelly Hogan on vocal (who has since gone on to cavort with Neko Case as well as a solo career in her own right). In the 90s he was the cornet/banjo player in the lauded Smoke [a band following a similar but more accessible path, led by the incomparable Benjamin who was the subject of a documentary entitled Benjamin Smoke that played the circuit rounds]. And since that time he's been leading Hubcap City, atonal but disarming, originally just him with another guy who would beat on a suitcase for percussion but they're now almost a conventional quartet. Always dressed respectfully with a smile, he is perhaps the most congenial oddfucker I think I've ever run across. This 7" contains two live recordings, one taken from a local theatre and the other from a cemetery. Hubcap City thrives on playing odd locations for acoustical reasons (best ever concert listing in the local paper, at the conclusion of an article on the band: "Hubcap City will be playing under a bridge in East Atlanta on Friday night. Contact Bill Taft for directions"). It comes off sounding like a surreal version of the Cheap Suit Serenaders. Byron Coley just gave it a shout-out in The Wire, which makes me feel good for mankind & I hope more can become aware of this fascinatingly strange band."
Is it pretentious to put quotes around your own record review? Sorry about that if so...
Another album on today's list is a release by a local band called The Black Lips. They probably don't need my shouts for support, since this is their debut on Vice Records, which I guess is analogous to a major-label debut. I've never really followed this band although I've always thought I should. I did buy their debut 7" waaaay back when I was doing my old radio show Psych-Out (which is apparently still on the air - I don't stay up that late anymore to listen to it - but I unexpectedly ran into an old WREK friend when we went out to dinner tonight and he said "That show was so much better when you used to do it"), which I liked in its Seeds-esque appropriations but for some reason I never followed through. I didn't go to see any of their live shows either because their penchant of getting banned from local clubs via their firecracker-throwings didn't exactly get me wet. That, their stupid-ass name, and a too-cool attitude that seems to prevail (although at least they can back it up, unlike Deerhunter who must have either improved significantly since I saw them a few years back or else Kranky Records has reached a new low), but maybe that's a bit unfair to say. They were the last-ever band signed for Bomp Records, a pretty cool piece of trivia, and now they're ready for the big time. We'll see what it sounds like tomorrow.
In the meantime, are you familiar with a "music"/"fashion" magazine called Fader? There was a stray copy lying around in the kids' section of our Barnes & Noble the other day so I decided to pick it up while A-chan was playing with the train set. If this is what is considered cool to the kids these days, thank goodness I came of age in the 90s (OLD MAN ALERT, OLD MAN ALERT). Spin Magazine, even Details was better than this! There's a little questionnaire in it for both Deerhunter & The Black Lips, describing them as the new sound of Atlanta. And there's also reviews of the Black Lips' labelmates (!) The Boredoms in the back, in perhaps the most obnoxious record review I've ever read (and that includes my own!). The context described nothing at all about the music but instead was some commentary by the reviewer on how "Seadrum" was his favorite song of 2005 (hey hipster, it was released in Japan the previous year!) but when he went to see them live (grrr) he was so upset by Yamatsuka Eye playing an organ instead of a piano that he left for the bar to commisserate (GRRR). He then dropped the hint that supposedly a new Boredoms album featuring 77 drummers will be released on 07/07/07, but that he's going to pack "a flask and a pouty-face" just in case. If you have never seen me in HULK SMASH mode, you should have been there at the Barnes & Noble that day. It was all I could do to restrain myself from ripping apart the nearby Dora display with my bare hands...I'm even getting worked up about it again...must calm down, its not even 5:30am...So anyway, Fader? Fuck it. But not the Black Lips. Not yet at least.
I also saw that the 33-1/3 book of My Bloody Valentine's Loveless finally came out. And while I haven't satisfied my requirement of reading 5 books before purchasing anything...I went ahead and got it anyway. Hey, if its the worst thing I do all year etc...
Man, I've been writing in here a lot longer than I expected. In fact news about Charlie Gocher's passing has just now hit the routeslist, thereby making this post mostly unnecessary other than as my public eulogy. So I'll stop now and enjoy this remaining hour of solitude before I leave for work. RIP Charlie.
I'm sure this will be all over the messageboards later today, but since I've only seen it from an obscure source, here's a message from the Sun City Girls:
Hello friends, this is one of those e-mails you hope you never have to
send but.....
With deep regret, we must announce that Charles Gocher passed away on
February 19th in Seattle from a long battle with cancer at the age of
54. He went peacefully with friends at his side. He is survived by the
two of us who adopted him as a brother 25 years ago and his many
friends around the world. He will be missed more than most could ever
know. Our thanks to everyone for their support and encouragement
during the past three, very difficult years. Many of you were not
aware that Charles was ill and that's because he wanted it that way.
Knowing Charlie as we did, we're sure he's already working on new
material. We're sorry we can't talk to everybody personally right now
as opposed to a blanket electronic statement such as this...we just
need a little bit of time to deal with everything. Details of a
memorial in his honor will hopefully be announced soon.
Richard Bishop
Alan Bishop
(Sun City Girls)
warrenjabali, wasn't that last SCG tour in the spring of 2004? I guess that's when things started to happen if the message above was an indication. What sad news to start the day off with, although it must be a relief for the people who've apparently lived through this (and for Charles himself, finally released). This might explain why the band had splintered off into solo projects & Sublime Frequencies recordings. Sigh...
There's never really been another band like the Sun City Girls. I must admit that there are bigger fans out there than myself, because they were a hydra-headed beast of sound and I gravitated to some heads much more than others, but when they were on they were ON. The way they soaked in all of the most esoteric sounds from around the planet and regurgitated them into underground rock mode, at a time when Paul Simon was considered the last word on pop/world crossover by the majority of the music world - the influences are just staggering. I was just listening to Bright Surroundings Dark Beginnings the other day, that long opening piece where they do an ethnic forgery of Chinese opera, and I thought "I really really need to see these guys live one of these days." Ah well...
Somebody should do a 33-1/3 installment of Torch Of The Mystics. One of the acknowledged classics of underground music, and surely one with some interesting stories to tell. In the meantime, put it on the stereo, turn it up real loud, and send Charles off properly with the opening whipcrack of "Blue Mamba", surely an appropriate soundtrack to entering the next dimension...The world of music seems a little less strange this morning without the presence of Charlie Gocher and the Sun City Girls, but it would've been a lot less strange if they hadn't graced us with their presence to start. You will be missed, Charlie...
There's been a lot of music around the apartment lately. I just got 3 new albums today, 2 of them by Atlanta bands. The first one is by Hubcap City (From Belgium), a longrunning band that has only now issued their first proper CD. I've listened to it halfway through and give it a good thumbs-up. Atlanta is far from a perfect city in many ways, but honestly I don't know if Hubcap City could come from anywhere else. Like transient hobos riding around on the discarded railroad tracks of Cabbagetown, they clang like the dying sounds of the old mills before they got redeveloped as loft condos. Urban decay captured in musical form, they are atonal yet charming - at one point suggesting an old string band performing underwater, at another the aural equivalent of the Krog Street tunnel. I love these guys to death, and I hope this release (on Xeric, a subsidiary of the Table Of The Elements label) will get them some attention. But assuming I have yours, I'll reprint a review I wrote in Franks-APA of their debut 7":
"Hubcap City are not actually from Belgium, but from Atlanta (although they still reel in the curious from time to time with the subtitle). They're led by a guy named Bill Taft, who is the living embodiment of the Atlanta avant-garde scene even if he looks like your parents' friendly next-door neighbor. After playing in a series of noise bands in the 80s as one of the pioneers of Atlanta's "Destroy All Music" scene, he formed a proto-lounge band called the Jody Grind with a smoky chanteuse named Kelly Hogan on vocal (who has since gone on to cavort with Neko Case as well as a solo career in her own right). In the 90s he was the cornet/banjo player in the lauded Smoke [a band following a similar but more accessible path, led by the incomparable Benjamin who was the subject of a documentary entitled Benjamin Smoke that played the circuit rounds]. And since that time he's been leading Hubcap City, atonal but disarming, originally just him with another guy who would beat on a suitcase for percussion but they're now almost a conventional quartet. Always dressed respectfully with a smile, he is perhaps the most congenial oddfucker I think I've ever run across. This 7" contains two live recordings, one taken from a local theatre and the other from a cemetery. Hubcap City thrives on playing odd locations for acoustical reasons (best ever concert listing in the local paper, at the conclusion of an article on the band: "Hubcap City will be playing under a bridge in East Atlanta on Friday night. Contact Bill Taft for directions"). It comes off sounding like a surreal version of the Cheap Suit Serenaders. Byron Coley just gave it a shout-out in The Wire, which makes me feel good for mankind & I hope more can become aware of this fascinatingly strange band."
Is it pretentious to put quotes around your own record review? Sorry about that if so...
Another album on today's list is a release by a local band called The Black Lips. They probably don't need my shouts for support, since this is their debut on Vice Records, which I guess is analogous to a major-label debut. I've never really followed this band although I've always thought I should. I did buy their debut 7" waaaay back when I was doing my old radio show Psych-Out (which is apparently still on the air - I don't stay up that late anymore to listen to it - but I unexpectedly ran into an old WREK friend when we went out to dinner tonight and he said "That show was so much better when you used to do it"), which I liked in its Seeds-esque appropriations but for some reason I never followed through. I didn't go to see any of their live shows either because their penchant of getting banned from local clubs via their firecracker-throwings didn't exactly get me wet. That, their stupid-ass name, and a too-cool attitude that seems to prevail (although at least they can back it up, unlike Deerhunter who must have either improved significantly since I saw them a few years back or else Kranky Records has reached a new low), but maybe that's a bit unfair to say. They were the last-ever band signed for Bomp Records, a pretty cool piece of trivia, and now they're ready for the big time. We'll see what it sounds like tomorrow.
In the meantime, are you familiar with a "music"/"fashion" magazine called Fader? There was a stray copy lying around in the kids' section of our Barnes & Noble the other day so I decided to pick it up while A-chan was playing with the train set. If this is what is considered cool to the kids these days, thank goodness I came of age in the 90s (OLD MAN ALERT, OLD MAN ALERT). Spin Magazine, even Details was better than this! There's a little questionnaire in it for both Deerhunter & The Black Lips, describing them as the new sound of Atlanta. And there's also reviews of the Black Lips' labelmates (!) The Boredoms in the back, in perhaps the most obnoxious record review I've ever read (and that includes my own!). The context described nothing at all about the music but instead was some commentary by the reviewer on how "Seadrum" was his favorite song of 2005 (hey hipster, it was released in Japan the previous year!) but when he went to see them live (grrr) he was so upset by Yamatsuka Eye playing an organ instead of a piano that he left for the bar to commisserate (GRRR). He then dropped the hint that supposedly a new Boredoms album featuring 77 drummers will be released on 07/07/07, but that he's going to pack "a flask and a pouty-face" just in case. If you have never seen me in HULK SMASH mode, you should have been there at the Barnes & Noble that day. It was all I could do to restrain myself from ripping apart the nearby Dora display with my bare hands...I'm even getting worked up about it again...must calm down, its not even 5:30am...So anyway, Fader? Fuck it. But not the Black Lips. Not yet at least.
I also saw that the 33-1/3 book of My Bloody Valentine's Loveless finally came out. And while I haven't satisfied my requirement of reading 5 books before purchasing anything...I went ahead and got it anyway. Hey, if its the worst thing I do all year etc...
Man, I've been writing in here a lot longer than I expected. In fact news about Charlie Gocher's passing has just now hit the routeslist, thereby making this post mostly unnecessary other than as my public eulogy. So I'll stop now and enjoy this remaining hour of solitude before I leave for work. RIP Charlie.