Doom & Gloom Dispatch #3
Earth Room, Low, Public Image Limited, Richard & Linda Thompson, Bob Dylan
A new and outstanding project from Robbie Lee, Ezra Feinberg and John Thayer, Earth Room’s debut long-player is an immersive sonic environment. The band takes it cues from the good stuff — klassic Krautrock, electric Miles, deep drone — to develop a bitchin’ brew of sounds that are elemental, experimental and downright celestial. The album’s six tracks feels open-ended but they never lose the thread entirely. Instead, Lee, Feinberg and Thayer travel the spaceways with purpose and an eager sense of discovery. Plenty of room in here.
Low - Johnny Brenda’s, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, February 1, 2016
Feels as though you can’t go more than a day these days without hearing that another great musician has passed away. Mimi Parker of Low is a particularly tough one, since she was so young.
“I’ve always imagined Parker singing as if she can see everyone and everything all at once, like she’s performing from atop the clouds—not so much a deity as much as a guardian angel,” writes Nina Corcoran. “No wonder she had such a level-headed approach to it all. When you zoom out far enough, your perspective shifts. Worries are still worries and pain is still pain, but in the context of everything around them, the things that stress us out become less urgent. Patience becomes a grounding tool. Understanding becomes a great unifier. And love, in all of its forms, reinstates itself as the reason we’re alive in the first place. It’s the roadmap of where to go next.”
Where to go next? Well, Low fortunately left behind a sizable legacy of amazing music — including a healthy collection of live recordings on Archive.org. But here’s something that’s not up there just yet: Sebastian Petsu’s tape of the band a few years back in Philadelphia. A terrific show overall, highlighted by the Parker’s encore performance of Al Green’s classic “Let’s Stay Together,” an oddly perfect choice. Maybe she wasn’t a soul singer in the typical sense of the term, but Mimi was a Soul Singer.
Public Image Limited - Toad’s Place, New Haven, Connecticut, April 4, 1983
Another farewell, this time to pioneering Public Image Limited guitarist Keith Levene. In 2022, it might be hard to fully appreciate how seismic his approach was back in the day — Levene’s style has been absorbed fully by the underground (and perhaps the overground, for that matter). But he’s still downright thrilling on those first few PiL records, perhaps not sui generis (because what really is?), but pretty damn close.
Simon Reynolds: PiL’s chemistry came from the merger of Lydon’s muezzin-meets-Celtic approach to expressionistic singing, the usurpation by Jah Wobble’s bass of the primary melodic role, and Levene’s harmolodic-in-all-but-name guitarwork. Indeed, in homage to that famous exponent of Ornette Coleman’s theories, Levene calls his signature technique, “the James ‘Blood’ Ulmer Effect.” Basically, this involves the deliberate incorporation of mistakes. When Levene would hit a wrong note, he’d immediately repeat the error to see if the wrongness could become a new kind of rightness. “The idea was to break through conditioning, take yourself out of one channel, and into another space.”
For a rarity, here’s a very nice Alex Butterfield Archives recording of PiL towards the end of Levene’s run with the band (perhaps his very last show?). A confrontational gig — maybe all of this band’s gigs were confrontational. But in between the gobbing, Levene, Lydon and co. kick up quite a dust cloud of musical synergies, a wild and inventive sound. Like Johnny sings at the end of “Swan Lake”: “Words cannot express, words cannot express …”
A summer show but an autumnal vibe — doom & gloom all the way. I was drawn to this rough-n-ready audience tape because it features a very tasty rarity: that classic Henry the Human Fly heartbreaker “The Poor Ditching Boy” in an electric arrangement and sung by Linda! Hey now. It doesn’t disappoint. Richard unleashes a gorgeous solo and Linda effortlessly conjures up the storm and wind that cuts through to your blood. Plenty of other good stuff here, too, including a slightly rocked-up rendition of “The Great Valerio,” a rollicking version of Jerry Lee’s “It’ll Be Me” and a few sweet Morris dances. With a band that includes Fairport Conventioneers Dave Mattacks and Dave Pegg plus accordion master John Kirkpatrick, Richard and Linda sound ready to take on the world. But they’d actually drop out of sight for a few years after this tour …
And hey, for something to read while you listen, check out Liquorice, a rad folk-rock zine from 1975, featuring some important RT info and interviews. Thanks to Queen City Jamz for the heads up!
Bob Dylan :: Pretty Good Stuff | Ep. 15 – Live Time Out Of Mind
After months (years?) of rumors, subterfuge and hearsay, it looks like the Time Out Of Mind-centric Bootleg Series will finally hit in early 2023. Fragments! The 26th anniversary! The most interesting stuff to me is, as usual, the unheard studio sessions, featuring plenty of alternate takes and so forth — you can already check out an unreleased version of "Love Sick," which sounds nice. But it looks as if there'll be a live disc as well, which will be nice, too.
Of course, James Adams (AKA Bob Notes) already put together a great mix of timely TOOM live performances earlier this year, stretching through the decades, from the live debut of "Love Sick" in 1997 to that haunting "Not Dark Yet" re-make in 2019. Very much worth your time, if you've yet to check it out. How weird is that "Cold Irons Bound"?! Confusing. But good. Pretty, pretty good stuff.
From the Doom & Gloom Archives
The Feelies - The West End, Chicago, Illinois, September 26, 1986
A thrilling set by the band that should be officially named the Garden State’s greatest group. No, not Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band; I’m referring to The Feelies. Even with their recent reunion, I’ve still never had the chance to see them live, so I’ve lived vicariously through amazing live recordings like the one linked below. I was having difficulty deciding on what to post — an early Crazy Rhythms-era show, a later Time For A Witness gig? Every period is wonderful. I settled on this 1986 performance in Chicago, during the Feelies’ tour in support of The Good Earth, an album I prefer slighty to the more feted debut. There’s something incredible about the Feelies live, a sort of single-minded propulsiveness that’s both wildly abandoned and mind-meltingly precise all at once. There are guitar solos, lead vocals, etc., but it all comes across as one solitary slab of awesomeness. This show also is jampacked with plenty of the band’s legendarily asskicking covers, including tunes by The Beatles, The Velvets and Neil Young. Bow down, ye mortals, before the mighty Feelies!
Currently Reading: HOT, COLD, HEAVY, LIGHT, 100 ART WRITINGS 1988-2018, by Peter Schjeldahl
Hot shit thanks for the Feelies show! Was lucky enough when I lived in DC to see them twice at the 9:30. It really is too bad they don't do more than a handfull of shows.