This Strobe Talbot 'spin-off' spoken word project recorded in 2002, involving Mick Hobbs and Benb Gallaher, apparently has sunk without trace in the heaving mires of modern information overload. Ramming headlong into a flatulent Iceberg from the 21st century musical glacier that threatens to consume all noble vessels that sail beyond the middle 'c's' . It rested on the seabed of taste for 7 long years only to be discovered in perfect condition in my e-mail inbox, courtesy of one Benb Gallaher!
Like Sir Lew Grade's abysmal "Raise The Titanic" movie, the album has been raised from the depths in near mint condition to sail,but not for sale, again to a new audience......well probably the same old audience, but who cares huh, it lives?
This is rather good for the continuity of this blog, because I was looking for tenuous links to post some new 'This Heat' bootlegs. Mick Hobbs' Cold Storage links aside,the original backing sounds for these spoken word pieces were originally to be comprised of unreleased works from the late Gareth Williams.....of This Heat.
A reverence towards Gareth's work, led to that idea being dropped. So that task fell squarely on the more than capable shoulders of mick Hobbs, Benb and the usual suspects including Jad fair, R. Stevie Moore, and Rick Wilson.
Tracklist:
1. 99 Similes (for the Ploughman's Lunch)
2. Upon Waking
3. Sad Saturday
4. I Hate Text
5. After Driving A Considerable Distance Within A Short Time
6. Stock Exchange As Seen From Afar
7. Paintings Of Pears
8. Prompts and Replies (For Dr. Dexter -- My Physical, Revisited)
9. Attempted Definitions
10. Fun
11. The Death Of Dignity
12. New Math
13. Statements
14. Between
15. Bite My Knee
16. A Dozen Things That I Chose Not To Say Today
17. Yourself And Elsewhere
18. Business Is Brisk
19. Comme Tu Dis (Excerpt From The Memoirs Of My Mirror)
20. Someone's Birthday
21. State of Affairs
22. My Latest Theory
words: Benb Gallaher
sounds, Mick Hobbs, Benb Gallaher
aided by various pals:
R. Stevie Moore (1)
Jad Fair (2)
Alig Pearce (3)
Rick Wilson (14)
Andy Fisher (18)
Recorded May 2002 in London, UK
Released on Life and Living Records in May, 2011,
DOWNLOAD and bite someone else's knee HERE!
Erstwhile chum of Jad Fair and cohorts, R.Stevie is one of those great American eccentrics that I once thought the USA was full of......sadly this is very untrue.Unless one calls those Religious nuts in the liable belt 'Eccentric', which, in a way, they are.......like Charles Manson was eccentric.
Thats 'R.' on the cover, and I imagine it took some guts to prance around Nashville looking like that in 1974?
Our, R. Stevie, was doing DIY cassettes since the late sixties, and he's still at it today.
The music ranges from bizarre ballads, to proto-new wave rockers, to dysfunctional Adult Orientated Rock.At times sounding like Paul MaCartney and Wings if they we formed by out-patients at a psychiatric day-center, and other times like some US FM radio group....not an expert in this area so i'm struggling for comparisons!.......er........ Steely Dan(???).......on Mogadon.Well at least Neil Young coming up off tranquilizers?
All, of course, done with a dry sense of humour and the absurd.
I'm quite confident in saying that, there was sweet fuck all like this doing the rounds in 1974, everyone in America wanted to be Led Zeppelin or Jethro Tull, no-one knew there was something else.Now, we do, so you can finally delete 'Physical Graffiti' and 'Thick as a Brick' from your hard drives to make room for the 100 plus R.Stevie Moore albums that are crying out to annoy the fuck out of your sophisticated friends.
Tracklist:
A1 Adult Tree 4:20
A2 Wonderful. Wonderful 4:14
A3 World's Fair 4:21
A4 Topic Of Same 4:54
A5 Europe 4:18
A6 Stool Pigeons And School Teachers 3:28
A7 Hot Bloose 5:47
A8 Ballad Of Ethos 7:12
A9 Kookie Coma 2:47
A10 I Still Chase The Women 2:44
A11 Danny Newberry 3:05
B1 A Thirst 3:01
B2 Pop Music 3:24
B3 Mighty Short Piece 2:52
B4 Moons 6:00
B5 New Yorkus 5:18
B6 I Not Listening 3:33
B7 Rockets By Two 6:08
B8 Quarter Peep Show 3:07
B9 I Love All The Girls 3:39
B10 The Fight 5:01
B11 I Need Your Love 4:49
Everyone and their granny,in the known experimental pop universe, has done an 'ENO' collaboration it seems?
Running our Brian a close second in the 'Collaborations' ranking table is one, Mr Jad Fair, outsider rockist extraordinaire.
It only seems right that he should do one with original DIY outsider rocker R. Stevie Moore; who, as chance may have it, also guested on Strobe Talbot's 'Lets Born To Rock' album.
Musically, its firmly on the Outsider side of the Outsider Rock continuum, sounding like a Wesley Willis backing track as played by a Nashville cabaret band on a legal high kick. Jad Fair is on his usual form vocally and lyrically, streaming the consciousness of a child with no interest in attaining the trappings of maturity,at times approaching the logic of dreams.
Tracklist:
1 Stationary 2:11
2 That That Is This 2:00
3 Cotton Candy 2:57
4 Evil Eyes 2:24
5 Good Sign 1:58
6 Protected 2:33
7 Caramel Kisses 1:00
8 Cinnamon Roll 1:26
9 Leaders Of Yes 3:28
10 Opposite Of None 0:57
11 Supreme Beings 1:16
12 The Most 2:46
13 Two Of Us 2:21
14 Yeah, You Betcha 3:42
15 Your Theory 1:35
16 Lemon And Lime 3:11
17 Pow Pow 1:28
18 Beep The Horn Of Plenty 1:46
19 Red & Yellow Soda Cans 3:50
20 The Absence Of Trouble 2:24
21 We Are The Enhancers 2:43
