The Great Adventures of Kool Keith

[Kool Keith Sweat]

This seems like it's gonna replace all my activity on the music forum, 'cause all I ever do is catalog what I'm listening to or who I'm seeing or exchange recommendations. In these early stages, expect a lot of skeletons of posts to go up; I'll fill them out soon. I'll provide hot links to key posts that'll serve as cairns along the adventure and provide my thoughts on shows or albums or why I'm doing some concerted listening effort, and then there will be plenty of random posts about what I'm listening to. I'll rearrange the OP as needed. Any recommendations, particularly for 2015 albums or based off of what I'm listening to most recently (see below), are highly welcomed, so long as you provide a little blurb on why you think I'd like it.

Shows:
2015
2016

Concerted listening efforts:
2015 AOTY search

Currently listening to a lot of:
Roy Montgomery, Morphine, Bill Callahan, Bill Laswell, Fred Chalenor, Lol Coxhill, Don Cherry/Codona, David Pajo, The For Carnation

[Kool Keith Sweat]

2015 Shows

This won't include smaller, purely local shows that I've seen over the year, including my girlfriend's group and all the bills she played with, as well as Flesh Lights, Daniel Francis Doyle, etc.

04/11 - X @ The Mohawk
They've still got it. John Doe is a cowboy now, and he doesn't croon the same as he could, but his basslines are even more nimble and energetic than on record in his old age. Billy Zoom is the centerpiece of the band. Looks like a Korean War vet trying to father a dysfunctional family; stares of into the distance with a offset, fake-looking smile while pulling off ridiculous riffs. He started to get angry with the guy controlling the monitors, to the point that he was glowing red by the end of the show, went up to the stage manager and whispered in his ear, and the stage manager had a look on his face that was equally "what the fuck" and "oh shit."

04/22 - Jandek, Sir Richard Bishop, Robert Millis @ Red7
Millis is a local (?) avant-garde guitarist that I haven't had the opportunity to see since this show, but was probably my favorite performance of the night. Improvised blues with a modulator and occasionally a backing track of drums or other sounds. The first half hour of Jandek was a dramatic performance about tempatation, with Jandek and some girl in the band I guess he brings along now. Very strange. She was teething his pants zipper at one point and he could not have looked less detached. They performed five songs with a rotating band after the performance, only one of which Jandek played his distinctive guitar on (the other guitarist blew in the setting; think classic rock style). Jandek did have this very cool way of playing the piano though where he kind of randomly hit notes but everything seemed like it should have been played that way, and he even repeated melodies, even though he was lifting his fingers too high to feel out the keys and he never once looked at the keyboard. Bishop was good. Just sat on a bench and played his new mix of primitivism, Spanish guitar, and other stuff.

05/01 - Sleep, Pinkish Black @ ACL Live
Sleep is easily the greatest live show I've ever seen. Pike of course is walking around shirtless with his upper ass cheeks and cottage cheese beer belly hanging out of his pants, pacing around like he's tying to hype up a hair metal show, but he's playing these incredibly slow, sludgy riffs. Cisneros is pretty still most of the show but every now and then he does this nerdy little neck pulse like Bootsy Collins in that one gif. The best thing though is watching the drummer. I saw Roeder rather than Hakius, but goddamn everything he does is amazing. No words can describe. Simply the best drumming performance I've ever seen.

05/08 - 05/10 Levitation Festival: The 13th Floor Elevators, The Flaming Lips, Jesus & the Mary Chain, Thee Oh Sees, Lightning Bolt, Earth, The Soft Moon, Follakzoid, Ringo Deathstarr[/b]

05/15 - Acid Mother’s Temple, ST37 @ Red7
I can't recommend an Acid Mother's Temple performance enough. They're talented, have tons of energy, are all over the place musically and physically, and most importantly they communicate pretty well when they do improvise. At a previous show the guitarist set his instrument and the cymbals on fire while they did they're ritualistic crescendo that they do at the end of (I'm guessing) every show. Just, if you like winding, rowdy, free form psychedelia, they're a must-see.

08/22 - Daniel Johnston @ The Mohawk
Very disheartening show. Everyone was there to say they saw the "Hi, how are you?" man. Daniel Johnston was so bent out of shape that he had someone else (his manager, the superfan from The Devil and Daniel Johnston) turning the songbook pages for him for much of the time, even had him telling him which songs to sing at some points. He was a puppet. Meanwhile, he had a full band playing normally. The authenticity of expression through amateurism was lost. Everything was lost.

09/14 - Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Xylouris White @ The Mohawk
So about eight years ago, I saw Jane's Addiction and Nine Inch Nails on tour and opening for them was this group called the Street Sweeper Social Club. The entire time I watched the opener, all I was thinking was, "wow, this guitarist is really trying to go for Tom Morello" to "sweet jesus, this guy needs to get off Tom Morello's dick" (it was stadium seating and I had shitty seats). Tom Morello was one of my favorite guitarists at the time. Turns out it was Tom Morello. So back to this show, the entire time I was watching Xylouris White, I was thinking "Wow, this guy really moves like how Jim White does in videos I've watched" and "this guy even has Jim White's style" and it briefly occurred to me that I might be witnessing one of my favorite drummers play, but I didn't believe it. Mohawk outdoor stage has tiers and after the show he even passed below us, a few inches from me, and my girlfriend said "great show!" to him while I thought he must be some old Greek or Turkish man due to the lute player he was with. Turns out it was Jim White, one of my favorite drummers ever. Anyways, GY! BE was good. Not so much the guitars, which I suppose provided the correct atmosphere, but it was most fun witnessing the bassist (who I guess typically stands towards the back, and kind of reminded me of how Saiorse looks from afar), the violinist, and the first of two drummers, I don't know which one's which. They played mostly stuff from their last two albums, with a song each from F#A# and Lift Yr Skinny Fists. Only complaint is that it dragged on a bit; I was fully expecting that though, as well as the monotonous dynamics I know so well from there albums since the 2000s.

09/16 - Jenny Hval @ Holy Mountain
The openers were Cross Record and Briana Marela (?). Cross Record is an up-and-coming duo from Dripping Springs, TX that actually have a great sense of composition and a great dark, brooding, trodding through a mire atmosphere; however, they are so amateur that they had to stop a song minutes in because they got confused, and unfortunately one half of the duo doesn't know how to do anything other than sing, but she's in the group because she's the musician's sister or wife, I don't remember. Anyways, good enough for me to want to catch them again. Briana Marela (?) is trash and I suppose was on this bill because she largely focuses on gender issues, /spoilers/ which Apocalypse, girl is about /spoilers/. Jenny Hval was very good. She travels with a person that seems to improvise with the melodies and noise that comes from the album. Hval herself performs exactly as she does on albums. Great performance art in music, which Jandek (and Pharmakon from the same label) might take some cues on. She came out wearing a red wig and presumably vaginally bloodied slip (Saiorse was so hot for the wig), and she took the wig and dress off to reveal herself by the end of the show; I'm led to believe she's done this at most shows for this tour.

09/19 - Chelsea Wolfe, Wovenhand @ The Mohawk
I'm not a fan of Wovenhand's new Nicklebackesque sound, but they were interesting to watch, particularly the mannerisms of Dave Edwards, which seem to recall religious rituals from an old Jerusalem, both Muslim and Christian. He moves like a serpent, a prophet, and Robert Longo's Men in Cities. Chelsea Wolfe is trash live. She has interesting moments on albums, but those don't translate in the least in the live setting. Very boring to listen to and to watch. Too melodramatic and too much teenage angsty movements.

09/21 - Swervedriver @ The Parish
The opener was a Canadian band called Dearly Beloveds, I think. They were actually more interesting than Swervedriver to be honest, simply because despite all the guitar noise, they were actually led by a very strong rhythm section, particularly a very good bassist. Swervedriver was what you'd expect from Swervedriver, but not as loud as I'd expect it to be. Not much gained from the live experience over the albums; nothing at all actually.

09/23 - Thundercat @ Holy Mountain
Thundercat is always a treat to see. It's less fusion/r&b/whatever he does on his albums and more a virtuoso bassist, a virtuoso drummer, and a virtuoso keyboardist all totally in tune with each other improvising off the basic chords and melodies from the albums. It's one of the best, if not the best, improvisational groups I've had the pleasure of seeing, simply because everyone communicates so well.

10/03 - Golden Dawn Arkestra, Think No Think @ The Mohawk
A local bill but an "almost famous" local bill. Think No Think are a mix between Black Sabbath and White Stripes, among other metal and feedback/distortion-driven rock acts. Nothing too special, but very fun to watch; dirty sleazy, and nihilistic. We went to go see Golden Dawn Arkestra, which we had heard was heavily influenced by Sun Ra, but rather than an improvisation-based jazz or funk band, all we got was a poor funk-rock band in elaborate, gaudy costumes with lots of performance art and incense. Hated it simply because of its association to such a great musician, and honestly it wasn't very good; think Mighty Mighty Bosstones horn sections and any hopes of complex rhythms (their rhythm section is at least four strong) muddled by traditional rock guitar.

10/07 - James “Blood” Ulmer + The Thing @ The North Door
Ulmer was amazing, and is still a master of his instrument, and the rhythm section of The Thing is very good, but Mats Gustaffson really muddied this show. Lots of communication between the bassist and Ulmer, and the drummer would typically follow suit well, but Mats will be Mats and he just fucking blew into his reed no matter what was going on. Mats is technically gifted, but there's no soul in there.

10/13 - Autechre @ Vulcan Gas Company
Opened up with a couple of off-kilter, but largely traditional techno acts which served as a nice contrast to what Autechre would be. We were front and center, which unfortunately would mean all we saw of Autechre was two speakers which they set up in front of their bodies (had we chosen to go to an otherwise shitty side-balcony section, we would have seen everything they did). Autechre was incredibly interesting but it did drag on a bit. I was thinking during the show, due to the contrast of the first two acts, how Autechre's primary mission (beyond exploring rhythm and timbre) were to come from a culture of body music, and make it non-body/intellectual music. This was made concrete when we saw the fans' '90s era techno dances during the first two acts stopped in their tracks by Autechre's sound, to which they didn't even know how to shuffle.

10/14 - Battles @ The Mohawk
My first time seeing them. And well, we all know the crash cymbal thing is ridiculous. Rather than having it as high as on the cover of Mirrored, it is only so high that the drummer has to extend his arm about two feet upward to reach it. The whole point of that was to play the crash less, but the drummer still plays the shit out of it, and has several other crutches he relies on. Anyways, it was a fun show to see nonetheless. Particularly Ian Williams, who is in top form on his multitasking fame here, hammering his guitar while playing keyboards and a Kaoss pad (probably the most proficient use of the kaoss pad I've seen ever). A truly jaggedly groovy band. (The drummer isn't bad honestly, just not great either).

11/06 - 11/08 Fun Fun Fun Fest: Viet Cong, Babes in Toyland, Drive Like Jehu, Bill Callahan, Joanna Gruesome, Fucked Up, Fuzz, American Football, Ride, Wu Tang Clan, Watain, Mayhem (Peaches, Nothing, Think No Think, Chvrches, Cheap Trick, Bayonne, Grimes, Jane's Addiction)

[Kool Keith Sweat]

2016 Shows

01/22 - The Soft Moon @ The Parish

02/09 - Low @ The Parish

03/02 - Ethnic Heritage Ensemble @ The North Door

(?) 03/05 - Slomo Drags @ The Mohawk

03/08 - Freakwater @ Sidewinder

03/23 - Abbath, High on Fire @ Emo's

03/31 - Napalm Death, The Melvins, Melt Banana @ The Mohawk

04/12 - Savages @ Emo's

(?) 04/23 - Eleanor Friedberger @ Sidewinder

04/29 - 05/01 - Levitation Festival: Sleep, Sunn O))), Boris, Flying Lotus, Slowdive, Oneohtrix Point Never, Royal Trux, Nicolas Jaar, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Shabazz Palaces, Lee Ronaldo

05/04 - The Residents @ Marchesa Hall

05/06 - Tortoise @ The Mohawk

[Kool Keith Sweat]

So, it's nearing the end of 2015, and though end-of-year lists are a great way to find things I missed during the year, I like to take my own survey that probably covers what isn't going to be covered in end-of-year lists. The last four years or so, I've typically had a handful of albums that I really enjoy, and that's what I take with me from the year until something is rediscovered years later. This year, so far I've mostly enjoyed Low's Ones & Sixes, Sun Kil Moon's Universal Themes, Jenny Hval's Apocalypse, girl, Viet Cong's Viet Cong, and Exploding Star Orchestra's Galactic Parables, Vol. 1. Though I adore each one, I feel that none of these releases are particularly strong, or blew me away, are something very new, or anywhere near the best work in any one of their discographies (including Women for Viet Cong). So, as part of my search, I've gotten this list of albums released in 2015 from four of my favorite record labels with the additional criteria being that they are all four stars or greater on allmusic. I use allmusic because I believe they hand out four stars rather generously, as long as the album is decent for its genre. I'll be filling in blurbs of what I think of each one as I familiarize myself with them. Any recommendations from this year are welcome, but please include a blurb as to why you think I'd like it. This is pretty much what I'll be listening to through November and December unless logged otherwise. Ill be giving each album I listen to a star rating until I build up the motivation to write something about it; they're subject to change. If you'd like an explanation, just mention it.

Thrill Jockey
Dan Friel - Life ★★★☆☆
Lightning Bolt - Fantasy Empire ★★★☆☆
Jan St. Werner - Miscontinuum Album ★★★☆☆
Evan Caminiti - Meridian ★★★☆☆
Eternal Tapestry - Wild Strawberries
Colleen - Captain of None ★★★★☆
Circuit des Yeux - In Plain Speech ★★★☆☆

Cuneiform
The Kandinsky Effect - Somnambulist
Schnellertollermeier - X
Henry Kaiser - The Celestial Squid ★★★☆☆
Sonar - Black Light

Kranky
Steve Hauschildt - Where All is Fled
Benoit Pioulard - Sonnet
Christina Vantzou - No. 3 ★★★☆☆
Valet - Nature
Dissappears - Irreal
Ken Camden - Dream

Constellation
Eric Chenaux - Skullsplitter ★★★★★
Sarah Neufield + Colin Stetson - Never were the way she was ★★★★☆
Matana Roberts - COIN COIN Chapter 3: River Run Thee ★★★★★
Siskiyou - Nervous ★★★☆☆

I still need to listen to what's not rated here, as well as some more Nicolas Jaar, Follakzoid, Kode9, and a bunch of other stuff, but here's a current version of what my 2015 top 10 is shaping up to be so far:

1. Eric Chenaux - Skullsplitter
2. Jenny Hval - Apocalypse, girl
3. Sun Kil Moon - Universal Themes
4. Joanna Newsom - Divers
5. Rob Mazurek, Exploding Star Orchestra - Galactic Parables: Volume 1
6. Matana Roberts - Coin Coin Chapter Three: River Run Thee
7. Low - Ones and Sixes
8. Colleen - Master of None
9. Colin Stetson and Sarah Neufield - Never Were the Way She Was
10. Kode9 - Nothing

[Skinny]

[benpaco]

[Kool Keith Sweat]

Thanks! Will eventually get to each of those recs. Now listening to Cory Arcane.

[Kool Keith Sweat]

I've been enjoying Skullsplitter so much these past few weeks that I'm actually inclined to check out Chenaux's previous albums. Now listening to

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[Kool Keith Sweat]

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Nothing by Kode9

First listen. Absolutely loving these first few minutes. Was expecting this to be a favorite when I heard it was coming out. We'll see.

[Kool Keith Sweat]

Currently going on a Bill Callahan binge while updating some of these skeleton posts I put up. This was spurred on by burning a bunch of Callahan CDs for my girlfriend to listen to in the car; she had previously only heard some songs off of Knock Knock, but was deeply moved by the short set we saw from him a few weeks ago (as was I). Now on

Red Apple Falls by Smog

and will go through his earlier period later, including

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Julius Caesar by Smog

and


Wild Love by Smog

and will likely turn back to this, as I've been enjoying it a lot lately

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Apocalypse by Bill Callahan