Doom & Gloom Dispatch #31: One Step Beyond
Aaron & The Alligators, John Cale & Brian Eno, The Velvet Underground, Frank Black, Sonic Youth
Aaron & The Alligators - Imperfectionism
As a trusted sideman, Aaron Morgan’s CV includes deep post-rock moves with Roots of Orchis, winsome folk with The Finches, chamber pop with Colossal Yes and heavy rock with Golden Void. His solo project, Aaron & The Alligators, isn’t much like any of those projects — except that it’s also fantastic. On this debut EP, Morgan emerges as a strong singer-songwriter in his own right, offering up six tracks of skewed power-pop, occasionally adding a tinge of country rock for good measure. The melodies soar with the easy grace of Robert Pollard and the guitars sparkle and jangle like early Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. Perfectly imperfect.
Oh and hey, there is a fresh Bandcamping column up (by me!) on Aquarium Drunkard this week.
In which John Cale and Brian Eno travel behind the Iron Curtain to record with the Orchestra of Symphonic and Popular Music of Gosteleradio. Filmmaker Rob Nilsson accompanied them in Moscow (and elsewhere) to capture what went down. His mostly black-and-white Words For The Dying doc was released on DVD a while back, but it’s hard to come by — so catch this (frustratingly incomplete) YouTube upload while you can.
In the late 1980s, Cale was getting back in touch with his classical roots; Eno was flush with Joshua Tree cash. Both appear to be quite grumpy. Eno in particular really doesn’t want to be filmed, which results in a lot of withering glares and “surveillance camera”-style techniques. Good times!
Whether they liked it or not, Words For The Dying is a revealing look at both John and Brian at this point in both their careers. There are a bunch of great scenes — the pair trying to coax something unnameable out of double bassist Rodion Azarkhin (whose face is pretty remarkable); Cale shouting “Fuck!!!” in frustration while working with a cherubic Welsh boys’ choir; John and his young daughter singing “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” while driving through the countryside. Priceless …
The Velvet Underground - The Playhouse, Edinburgh, Scotland, June 1, 1993 (Soundcheck)
Let’s keep it Cale-y. A short time after his Eno collabs, John had joined forces with some other old friends — a little band called the Velvet Underground. And just about 30 years ago this week, the reformed VU was playing its first shows. Together again and delighted about it.
To celebrate, we’ve got a total curio for true Velvet maniacs — a soundcheck! I don’t know if we really have any other instances of the VU soundchecking … so you know you’ve got to check it out, right? You have no choice! I assume what we’re hearing here is what the soundman was hearing as he monitored various levels and tones — throughout the 23-minute tape, other instruments drop out so that we can enjoy, say, Sterling Morrison’s sterling 12-string part on “Beginning To See The Light” or Cale’s isolated viola shrieks on “Venus In Furs.” Necessary listening? Probably not. But it’s neat anyway. We also get to hear Cale scold someone for smoking in the venue … those were different times, people! (If you need to hear the gig that followed the ‘check, here it is!)
Your friend and mine Dean Wareham was there. “They were strikingly similar to what I expected,” he said. “Some bands re-form and flesh their sound out with extra musicians. With the Velvets, it was just the four of them on stage. I remember sitting in our dressing room in the Edinburgh Playhouse, waiting to do a soundcheck, and hearing the band do ‘Venus In Furs.’ I realized then that for all the talk of the countless bands that the VU influenced, the truth is that no one else sounds remotely like them.”
Sounds about right to me! Dean and Luna were opening up for the Velvets during most of their UK / Euro tour, but I don’t have a tape of any of their sets — alas! But there is this very sweet audience recording of the band on a night off at the Borderline in London, uploaded via the great Head Full of Wishes site … they even perform a VU deep cut that the VU themselves left off their reunion setlists: the always beautiful “Ride Into The Sun.”
Frank Black - Electric Ladyland Studios, New York City, June 24, 1993
We’re staying in 1993 for the moment. And why not??? Pretty good year. I haven’t seen too many (OK, any) 30th anniversary thinkpieces on Frank Black’s eponymous debut … but I think it’s a very sweet record. Frank had just broken up the Pixies (By fax! A legendary 1993 move!), but he wasted no time getting his next phase rolling. Interestingly, he initially wanted to record a covers album — "Husker Du, Jimi Hendrix, The Kinks, My Dad Is Dead, Angst. A combination of mainstream bands and obscure little punk bands.“ Only one cover showed up on Frank Black: the Beach Boys’ "Hang On To Your Ego.”
However! On this very cool live-in-the-studio promo thing-a-ma-jig that Elektra released in extremely limited quantities, we get to hear a couple more: the theme song from One Step Beyond (“The poor man’s Twilight Zone,” Frank quips) and the Kinks’ deathless “This Is Where I Belong.” Both very nice. And the originals sound great too, with Black backed by a wrecking crew of Beefheart / Ubu sidemen, including Tony Maimone and Eric Drew Feldman. And hey, who’s that on lead guitar? It’s Joseph Alberto Santiago from the aforementioned Pixies. I guess Frank and Joey were still cool after the breakup. Rock us, Joe! Also appearing — They Might Be Giants, who pop up to play a few of their own tunes. I believe Maimone was also playing with them at the time … and hey, about a year later I saw Frank open for TMBG out in Los Angeles. Weird Al was there, too!
Frank Says: As detailed as virtual reality gets, I don’t think that it can ever replace what once was. In the end, people are just going to have to put down whatever it is they’re doing—like watching fucking “Nick at Nite” like I do, or sitting at their computer terminal, or reading books, not by candle light, but by artificial light. Eventually people are going to want to have that old connection. To just walk out there and look up. Hopefully, there won’t be so much light pollution that they won’t be able to. Of course, you *can’t* do this in most urban centers. I just think the solar system is awesome! As awesome as what your magazine might discuss. To me that’s more awesome, that something that has been part of human culture for thousands and thousands of years is just gone like that! [snaps fingers]
Sonic Youth - Danceteria, New York City, June 30, 1984
Let’s see what’s happening on the first floor! After a few years as a band, Sonic Youth didn’t play a ton of shows in 1984. David Browne’s Goodbye 20th Century bio gives us the extracurricular details from this era: Kim Gordon brushed elbows with Basquiat and Jarmusch at Todd’s Copy Shop. Lee Ranaldo worked as sculptor David Klass’ assistant in Chelsea. Bob Bert was employed as a silk-screen printer, often helping out some dude named Andy Warhol. Thurston Moore, meanwhile, wasn’t traveling in such elevated circles: he was slinging Chipwiches on the mean streets.
But Sonic Youth was still a working band, slowly but surely coming up with the songs that would make up Bad Moon Rising. And, shortly after Kim and Thurston tied the knot, they played a bunch of those tunes at the legendary Danceteria. This is a rough/raw audience tape, but that’s not a bad thing; it perfectly illustrates the heart of darkness that the band was driving towards at this point in their development. Listening to the set this week, it sounded to me like a primal/feral version of On The Corner, all forward-momentum and relentless malevolence — sometimes hard to take, but hard to look away, too. Society is a hole, but it’s a hole this music is trying desperately to get out of.
In a recently published interview on the Walk On The Wild Side newsletter, Bob Bert recalled: “The funny part about that show was, there was a $1,500 guarantee for all three acts, which back then was a lot of money. But Ruth Polsky was drunk, and she paid Lydia twice, so every [band] made $1,000 each. Sonic Youth [used] that money [to go] into the studio and record the Kill Your Idols EP.” (Not sure if the chronology works there, but it’s a good story anyway.)
The Danceteria gig is historic — at the end (after what seems to be a long delay), Lydia Lunch descends to join Sonic Youth on the live debut of “Death Valley 69,” which is appropriately terrifying, with Lunch’s extreme ululations threatening to bring the walls down. Scary stuff, sure, but it might be the first SY song to flirt with real pop hooks. I can imagine many in the audience going home that night only to find themselves humming that riff, craving a Chipwich …
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From The Doom & Gloom Archives
Black Francis - McCabe’s Guitar Shop, Santa Monica, California, March 22, 1990
Here’s a fun one — Black Francis, AKA Frank Black, AKA Charles Thompson IV on Pico Boulevard. The Pixies frontman was out on the west coast at the time recording Bossanova, and he takes the opportunity to debut a bunch of that LP during the course of his 80+ minute set, plus a wide range of old faves and obscurities. Interesting that Black says he used to go to McCabe’s as a kid to see children’s folk concerts. The first half is solo, but he’s joined midway through by none other than Joey Santiago. Very cool to hear Charles and Joey in this stripped-down mode, probably not sounding far off from the origin of the Pixies back in their U-Mass Amherst dorm in the mid-80s. Alas, I was too young to see this show, but a few years later I caught Frank a couple of times at McCabe’s …
Currently Reading: The Philosophy of Modern Song by Bob Dylan
Excellent read and lots of listening to do