Doom & Gloom Dispatch #39: Trade Mark Of Quality

Chuck Johnson, Jim O'Rourke, Lake Mary, Frank Zappa, Jane Birkin, Sonic Youth

Chuck Johnson - Music From Burden of Proof / Jim O’Rourke - Hands That Bind (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

I’ve been enjoying the recent HBO miniseries Burden of Proof (no spoilers, please! I’m not finished yet). I’m not always comfortable with the icky, voyeuristic tendencies of the recent true crime boom, but director Cynthia Hill seems to have a lot of empathy for and a genuine connection with her subjects. And it helps that the great Chuck Johnson provides the stellar soundtrack. Even if you aren’t watching the show, Music From Burden of Proof works just fine on its own, with Chuck often finding the haunting middle ground between Terry Riley and Angelo Badalamenti, mixing in some gorgeous string arrangements and lonesome pedal steel. Subtle at times, deeply dramatic at others.

And hey, there’s another excellent recent soundtrack by another genius musician. I haven’t actually seen Hands That Bind, Kyle Armstrong’s “prairie gothic” film starring the ultimate duo of Bruce Dern and Will Oldham. But I love the sounds that Jim O’Rourke has dreamed up for it. Vibraphone-like textures, brooding acoustic bass, spare percussion, distant piano, disquieting drones. Not too far off from the abstract Steamroom situations that Jim has been getting us into over the past several years, but maybe a bit more approachable. Give this guy an Oscar, Hollywood!

Oh and finally, today is Bandcamp Friday, so there’s a new Bandcamping column on Aquarium Drunkard, naturally. Fill up that cart!

Lake Mary - Elastic Arts, Chicago, Illinois, November 12, 2021

Extremely psyched that Prairiewolf (the band I’m in) is playing a show tonight with Lake Mary. If you’re not familiar, Lake Mary is Chaz Prymek’s ongoing project — one that has taken on many forms over the years, but has always been a rewarding and transportive galaxy to visit.

The gig is being put on by the Floating collective, which has been organizing al fresco musical happenings in Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, NYC and now, Colorado’s Front Range. The setting for Friday’s show will be quite beautiful and relaxing — hopefully we can do it justice with some sweet sunset soundtrack (and hey, Dustin “Golden Feelings” Krcatovich will be spinning tunes, too!). All the details are here. Come on out!

In the meantime, get revved up with this sweet video of Chaz and co. in Chicago a few years back. The trio conjures up a 30+-minute lucid dream, lap steel, synth, electronics and spoken word all coalescing into something undeniably magical and meditative. Feels like floating.

Oh and hey, here’s a good place to mention that the second run Prairiewolf vinyl will be available on Friday, Aug. 4! Some of that groovy colored vinyl, too. If you weren’t able to grab a copy the first time around, this is your chance … point yourself here.

Frank Zappa - Olympic Auditorium, Los Angeles, California, March 7, 1970

Over on Aquarium Drunkard, Roz Milner wrote up the latest archival Zappa haul — Funky Nothingness — which is kind of a lost Hot Rats follow-up. Kind of! As a bonus, Roz passed along this eeeeeessential bootleg from the same period. Take it away, Roz!

After breaking up the Mothers in 1969, Frank Zappa spent a few months away from the road. He sat in with a few bands — Captain Beefheart, Pink Floyd, Archie Shepp — but didn’t play any gigs until Feb. 1970, when he put together a pickup band and played a show in San Diego. About a month later, he road-tested a group he’d been recording with in the studio: Max Bennett, Aynsley Dunbar, Sugarcane Harris, and Ian Underwood. They played a set of mostly new, mostly blues-based material: “Chunga’s Revenge,” “Directly From My Heart to You,” and “Sharleena.” These would all get released later in the year. But “Twinkle Tits,” a waltz built around some themes he’s repurposed for other songs, fell through the cracks. With a name like that, it’s not hard to see why Reprise balked. But it’s a nice vehicle for Zappa and Harris to stretch out on — it’s too bad this one’s got a tape flip right in the middle of Frank’s solo. 

A few weeks ago, UMe released Funky Nothingness, a look at this period and an unreleased record that sat on the shelf for over 50 years. But for almost that long, the only glimpse fans had of this band was this audience tape. Indeed, I’ve heard it was the first Zappa bootleg — and there’s more than a few of those. It’s got a lot of ambience and with headphones, you feel like you’re right in the room. Make sure you stick around for the encore — a (Beefheart-less, alas) jam on “Willie The Pimp.”

Histoire de Melody Nelson (1971)

Sad to see the magnificent Jane Birkin go … another icon gone. No matter what she did over the decades — music, fashion, film, etc. — Jane was the absolute coolest. Histoire De Melody Nelson, her classic 1971 LP with Serge Gainsbourg, is well established today as a valuable touchstone for countless artists. But have you seen its accompanying film?

“Melody Nelson is a dream, you know,” said arranger Jean-Claude Vannier. “But I don’t think it was a good thing to put pictures on the music. If you see the girl, it is dead. The film is not very good, I think, and I believe that Serge felt the same way as me.”

Well, it might not be very good, but it’s definitely got a good vibe, Gainsbourg glaring moodily behind the wheel of his Rolls-Royce, Birkin shimmying to those orchestral funk grooves. Goodbye to Jane …

Sonic Youth - Mather Campus Center, Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, July 1, 1992

For our 1992 installment of the #SonicSummer, we’re back in Connecticut and back with another killer tape unearthed from deep within the Alex Butterfield Archives. After several years of hard touring, Sonic Youth had actually taken a fair amount of time away from the stage in the first half of 1992. But they were back on the road on the riot trail come summer.

This Trinity College gig comes right before the band’s legendary Independence Day double bill in Central Park with the Sun Ra Arkestra — and also right before the release of Dirty, which hit the compact disc racks a few weeks later. With Nevermind producer Butch Vig twiddling knobs, Dirty was perhaps Sonic Youth’s biggest grab for a commercial breakthrough; the LP didn't exactly burn up the charts like Nirvana, but it certainly brought the group to a wider audience.

In Hartford, the band warms up with some old faves — “Teenage Riot,” “Burning Spear” and “Dirty Boots” — before offering the crowd a big helping of the Dirty stuff. Some of it is a little shaky, with a false start on “Drunken Butterfly” being the main offender. But otherwise, the new tunes are rad: the majestic swells of “Theresa's Sound World,” the glam-noize of “100%,” the sleazoid crawl of “Swimsuit Issue” ... Interestingly, Lee Ranaldo doesn’t sing at all throughout the show. Was he still licking his wounds after his awesome “Genetic” was wrongly relegated to b-side status? Maybe! (That tune would be a regular setlist inclusion later on in the year, though.)

The evening ends with a roaring/soaring “Expressway To Your Skull,” a tune that the band would soon retire for a few years. But it still sounds so good, that molten feedback flowing into your ears. The meaning of feeling good ...

Bandcamp | Merch | Concert Chronology

From the Doom & Gloom Archives

The Velvet Underground - Hilltop Pop Festival, Mason, New Hampshire, August 2, 1969

This year, we’ve been blessed with miraculous footage of the Velvets playing an outdoor festival back in 1969. Alas, it’s just fragments, and with only a little bit of audio. But at least we have a well-traveled audio document from a few months earlier, giving us a better idea of what the VU sounded like in the great outdoors. 50 years ago today! 

It’s a pretty solid recording – the last of the so-called Professor Tapes, I believe. And the performance, naturally, is awesome. We’ve got the longest version of “What Goes On” on record here. Maybe it’s not quite as sublime as on Matrix/Live ‘69, but it is still totally sublime, dudes, with Lou and Doug dueling ferociously. And then there’s maybe my favorite live “Run Run Run” which features a demonic Reed vocal and a series of even-more-demonic Reed guitar solos. For a minute there, Uncle Lou turns a pastoral New Hampshire field into a scuzzy lower east side alley. Take a drag or two, my friends.  

And hey, Van Morrison played this festival too! Sister Ray vs. Madame George?! There’s no recording of his set that I know of, but you can check out a bit of video from Van’s Newport Folk Festival set a few weeks earlier … 

Currently Reading: The Names by Don DeLillo