the of mirror eye

* Joanna Newsom: Newsom Concert (86.0 mb)
*(for these files in FLAC, look below)*
From An Evening With Drag City : April 7th, 2005 : Munchen, Germany

Well, the end of the year is coming up soon. And again, I’ve been too lazy to make any year end lists. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind for me (alternately never thinking the year was going to end and not realizing how fast time had gone by) and I’m glad to be able to finally relax a little bit before the new year starts up again. This’ll probably be my last post of the year, as I’m going on a small road trip in a couple of days, so I thought I should make this one a doozy.

If you’ve been reading this blog for even a short time, than you probably realize how much I love this gal, Joanna Newsom. I think what gets me most is her voice, which I know is probably the most divisive aspect of her music. But I love that she just goes all out in her singing. Her voice isn’t “beautiful”, in the traditional sense, but she makes it beautiful by sheer will and passion. Plus, her harp work is just magical.

This concert, from early 2005 is absolutely magical. The recording, done for a radio broadcast, is fantastic and the performance is great. My only critique is that the presenter talks over the first song, and the last song was cut due to time constraints. But otherwise, this is a top notch recording and a top notch performance.

At any rate. Happy Holidays!

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A note about the downloads. I decided, because of the number of files, to just make one archive of the entire concert. The format of the archive is in *.RAR. If you’ve never used them before, these archives are super easy to deal with. You can either download the WinRar utility, which has a free trial period, or 7-zip, which is freeware. Download them and extract the files.

* Also, for those that deal with FLAC, I’ve decided to put that up as well, right here. *

* Nihilist Spasm Band: VIII (20.5 mb)
From Destroy The Nations : May 5th, 2004 : Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, France

For the longest time, I’d heard about this band, the Nihilist Spasm Band, from out of London, Ontario, but never had the chance to hear them. Formed in 1965, a bunch of no-good-nik artists and non-musicians decided to form a band, make their own instruments and play every Monday night for the hell of it. And 30 years later, they’re still doing the same thing. I just love the idea of a bunch of people getting together every week just for the hell of it. For nothing else but the love of creation and creating music.

The ultimate question is why do we do it? After all, most people do not like our music at all. First, some information about the members. The average age of the band is almost forty. Even Thirteen years ago we were not “a bunch of kids”. Each member of the band has his own separate career, and with one exception, each member is married with children. Further, each member is better known and more successful in his own career than the band as a whole is. So we do not do it for either fame or notoriety. We are not famous and never will be. The band is important to us but not the most important thing in our lives. Everyone puts his own career and family far ahead in priority. Certainly not for the money. No one have been counting, but we almost certainly have not broken even financially. Because we think we are creating great art? We don’t. It probably is music, because music is a very big word, but if you think it isn’t, that’s all right too. Maybe we feel we are the cutting edge of the wave of the future? Actually, we are very ambivalent about the wave of the future. Imitation may be flattery, but it is also sorta nice being unique. So there is no great message, no avant-garde crusade.

Why do we do it? No fame or fortune, nor in service of some artistic theory, nor to please or offend an audience. We do it because we enjoy it. Audiences are nice, frequently stimulating, but ultimately we play for ourselves, because it is fun. Is that all? Almost, but not quite. Sometimes everything seems to fall together into place. The band really starts to cook, to groove, to swing, to drive (words fail). When that happens there is a real rush, a genuine feeling of exhilaration. many bands need to get high to play well. We need to play well to get high. It is this “high” that takes it a bit beyond just fun, just another hobby. (Hugh McIntyre)

Unfortunately, their releases (mostly imports or out of print) are somewhat difficult to track down, and whenever I did see them, I couldn’t afford them. But luckily, the magic of the Interweb brought me this sample of a live show they performed in France in 2004. And by the strength of this sample, I’m wishing I had more of their stuff to listen to.

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* Dawn McCarthy & Bonny Billy: Then The Letting Go (6.5 mb) | God Is Love (6.5 mb) | I Called You Back (7.5 mb) |
From Wai Notes : Sea Note : SN14

Long one of my favorite performers, Bonny Billy (aka Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Palace Brothers, Palace Music, etc…) has been taking an increasingly polished studio approach with his latest releases. And while the results have still been amazing, I’ve still longed for the stripped down efforts of his earlier albums. Luckily, I happened to go to the local record mart shortly after this limited edition release on Bonny Billy’s imprint, Sea Note, that completely satisfies my jones for old school Bonny Billy.

Released as a kind of companion album to his last release, The Letting Go, these are some “warts and all” demos of the songs that would later be fleshed out. While I made the mistake of saying earlier that The Letting Go benefited from the cleaner production (look here), I’m willing to admit that I was wrong. Weirdly enough, along with first name billing on this album, Dawn McCarthy’s beautiful vocals are, to great effect, featured much more prominently as well. These songs, in all of their stripped down glory, are absolutely amazing.

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* Sonore: II-II (28.0 mb)
From Live At The Goethe Institute : Sept 03, 2004 : Toronto, ON

Sometimes I feel like such a complete lame ass. Over the course of one and a half weeks, Brotzmann was in town celebrating the 10 year anniversary of his landmark group, The Chicago Tentet (look here). And for some reason, I couldn’t get it together enough to go see them. With a variety of small groups, big groups and everything in between, it really promised to be an incredible opportunity to see the best of the free jazz scene in Chicago. And I didn’t go to a single concert.

One of the groups that I really wanted to see was this one, Sonore. Composed of Peter Brotzmann, Ken Vandermark and Mats Gustafsson on various reeds and wind instruments, this line up has long been a favorite of mine. All three are at the top of their games and are master improvisers. They create amazing, long-form textures with their instruments and absolutely blow my mind. So here’s a song from a concert back in 2004 to remind me to get my act together and see shows when I can.

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* Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings: Intro (1.5 mb) | I’m Not Going To Cry (4.0 mb) | Keep On Looking (3.5 mb) | Be Easy (4.0 mb)
From Live On KCRW : Dec. 03, 2007

Here’s a nice little segment from the recently aired concert by Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings (look here). I’m not sure why this band isn’t so hugely popular that the President has to declare a special Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings day. Full of spit fire soul, Sharon Jones sings her heart out and makes it clear that she is soul sister number one! The backing band, The Dap-Kings are perhaps better known as the backing band for Amy Winehouse (please don’t hold that against them), and can seriously play some bad assed soul. At any rate, put on those dancin’ shoes, ’cause you’re gonna need to boogie when you hear this soul lady.

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* Dalek: Hold Tight (5.5 mb) | Black Smoke Rises (16.0 mb)
From From Filthy Tongue Of Gods And Griots : Ipecac Recordings : IPC-030

One of my roommates does some after school video workshops with teens and she showed me what they’ve been working on the past semester. Entitled, “This Is Hip-Hop”, the video is a short documentary style piece about what Hip-Hop is/means to the kids in the class and various people that they’ve interviewed, and the video got me thinking about what Hip-Hop means to me.

For the most part, I wouldn’t say that I “live” Hip-Hop, but I definitely have an appreciation for the genre and culture, and listen to enough of it to know what I like. My problem with about 99% of popular Hip-Hop is that they’re doing nothing to extend the art form. The lyrics are tired, the music is uninspiring and, in general, everything sounds like itself. To me, Hip-Hop is all about extending and reinterpreting what came before. And I personally respond to the experimentalism that occurred when Afrika Bambaataa started mixing hip-hop beats with Kraftwerk and Ennio Morricone, the lyrical prowess of Rakim and Public Enemy, the DIY ethic of Grandmaster Flash who created his own mixing decks when none were available and the political nature of the Furious Five who rapped about “White Lines” and “The Message”.

And to me, Dalek (look here) is one such group that combines all of those attributes. Just one listen to their epic, beatless “Black Smoke Rises” should convince you that this isn’t your normal, radio friendly style Hip-Hop. Dalek create an enormous sound that really blows my mind. This is my Hip-Hop.

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