current favorite words:
putative
omnibus
raisin
kale
nutbush
flatulent
fancylad
origami
recalcitrant

People, and I'll admit I'm one of 'em, just keep on looking for 'the lost great psychedelic folk album.' Well, I've just found one from 1997, already lost, and definitely great: Eddy Detroit's Jungle Captive. I had passed him off as one of the many "fourth Sun City Girls," and the only other thing I'd heard, the fun-but-basic live percussion jam/Alan Bishop gabber-fest on the Muckracker #9 comp, did NOT prepare me for this album's majesty. The first two-three tracks are damn good psychedelic/mystic folk songs, with good singing (ladies singin' backup!), pretty parts, Hawaiian guitar, African drum, sitar, sunny "pixiephone" playing, etc. The second song, "Who Knows The Land," sounds like it could've come straight off of Carnival in Babylon for gosh sake. Then, and only then, after the song card has been so triumphantly played, Mr. Detroit plays the jick with a subdued and very nice percussion jam, and despite some 15 or so musicians being credited, there are no Sun City Girls named and no Alan Bishop gibber-fests. (I mean Lord love Alan Bishop, but I don't want him gabbering over all of the percussion jams I listen to...)

At first I wrote off the new Dead C album when I heard it was two 70-minute CDs without a single vocal at all. The Sub Pop 7-inch, with its two very short and random practice space instrumentals, seemed kinda like treading water. And now 140 more minutes of instrumentals? C'mon, I wanna hear Michael Morley sing something classic again, something equal to "I think I prefer the grass...to the fuckin concrete..." or "I don't remember...I don't remember...", and I wanna hear Bruce Russell's occasional distinctive mutter again too. I decided I wasn't gonna buy it, but naturally, when its run of 500 copies sold out in about three weeks I decided I wanted it after all. It's going to be repressed soon, but a connection just sent me a copy of it, and in the three days since I've gotten it I've listened to the all of it -- both discs -- at least four times. That's over nine hours spent with this record, and I only wanted vocals for about the first six minutes. On the second time I listened through, I noticed the "hooks": certain drowsy noise tones that buzz/wind/sing in and out of focus over each particular dank gtr+ stew, and those incredible subliminal-then-liminal loops that these guys are getting so adept at. When the whole thing was over, I couldn't wait to hear it again. I was hearing those drowsy noise tones and bleary loops in my head like they were off of an Abba song or something, and I was just jonesin' to hear 'em again. This album is definitely the soundtrack to a hazy dream about a grey day on a desolate coast. Oh yeah, and disc two's "Tuba is Funny (Slight Return)" is a funk jam, with actual chicken-scratch guitar...now if only Morley would sing something like "I got a Rolls Royce...'cause it's good for my voice..." -- oh, never mind, I wasn't gonna go back to that...

Christian Marclay/Otomo Yoshihide Moving Parts (Asphodel Records). Pretty good! Really noisy! At 62 minutes, maybe a little long. Okay, I wrote that before I'd listened to the whole thing, I just predicted it would be too long because all records are these days, but the last track turned out to have 15 minutes of silence in it because of some "hidden" stuff at the end. Still, take the best 15 minutes and release it on White Tapes under some assumed name, and I'd be sayin' "as good as Fukktron." Know what I mean? Vern? Key track: "Derailment." Track four, "Elephant Memories" is really obnoxious with its overt use of really loud old symphony orchestra records -- but its fairly short, and the next track "Blood Eddy" (ouch) starts with a nice chill tone due to a jazz brush pattern put on crude loopmode and then calmly builds into a very heady varisound scramble. Also includes a brief and joyfully terrible attempt at actual hip-hop scratching! And nice subtle use of a drum solo from a bebop record...and lots more...great track, too bad that name won't give it much radio airplay.

From: iyiotipltli@msn.com [iyiotipltli@msn.com] Save Address - Block Sender
Subject: Time will tell

Have a XXX Encounter with a Babe of your choice!
Admire the fine art of True Beauty!
CLICK HERE

This was in the inbox of one of my many spam-laden hotmail accounts. I know we've all seen this type of thing before, at least all of us who use hotmail...but does anyone else find something ineffably odd about the first two haiku-like lines? I mean, what kind of sex industry sales-pitch is "Admire the fine art of True Beauty!"?

The B.S. "hook-of-the-month" club

This issue, two Fred Neil hooks
The tremelo guitar on "The Dolphins", and then the chorus, "I've been searchin'...for the dolphins...in the sea-ee-ee..."; and also the way Fred is joined by background singers for the single "ba-da-daaahhhh..." that leads into the each chorus of "Ba-De-Da".

next: a l'il bit about Bill Dixon