Doom & Gloom Dispatch #43: Love Is Running Wild
Vague Plot, Pavement, Sloppy Heads, Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Sonic Youth
Vague Plot - Mama Tried 06.24.23
This one popped up with little fanfare earlier this summer — but it deserves a little fanfare! Vague Plot (Zachary Cale, Phil Jacob, Ben Lee, Uriah Theriault, John Studer) are a new NYC-based instrumental combo and as far as I can tell, this live EP is their first offering. Very sweet stuff, crisp angles and sleek styles, sweet twin guitar interplay, groovy sax and synth. Something about its mood and melodies reminds me of the self-titled Television reunion LP from the early 1990s. Hopefully this Plot will continue to thicken.
Pavement - Bogart’s, Long Beach, California, May 29, 1992
So long to the Plant Man! We said goodbye to the one and only Gary Young earlier this month — one of rock and roll’s great drummers and individuals. His time with Pavement was brief, but the band obviously wouldn’t have happened without his Stockton studio, his awesome fills and his dazzling onstage headstands.
“Gary loved tension,” Pavement wrote in their fond remembrance. “He wanted to make people excited and anxious. He accomplished both. We embraced him and he taught us myriads of things that we never thought about. He was an educator. In many ways, we were his apprentices.”
Louder Than You Think, a documentary about Young has been making the festival rounds lately, but I haven’t had the chance to see it. Until then, let’s listen to some Gary-era Pavement from back when Slanted and Enchanted was buzzing its way into our brains. This Long Beach audience tape via the Acid Casualties channel is fairly raw, but it hearkens back nicely to the scratchy vibes of those first recordings that Spiral and SM made with Young. Perfect sound forever, people!
Photo: Gail Butensky
Sloppy Heads - TV Eye, Ridgewood, New York, January 27, 2023
Is there a new Sloppy Heads record out? Yes, there is a new Sloppy Heads record out! Sometimes Just One Second just dropped on the Shrimper label and — dare I say it — it’s the best Heads yet! Ariella Stok, Bill the Drummer, and Jimmy Jumpjump (AKA your friend and mine Jesse Jarnow) have crafted a sprawling masterpiece this time around: 75 minutes of sweet jams, fuzzed-out pop, cracked balladry and even a delicious Dead boogie.
Extra props to Yo La Tengo’s James McNew, Ladybug Transistor’s Gary Olson, Pee Wee’s Playhouse artist Gary Panter and legendary animator Al Jarnow for making this a truly special collection. For a little more detail, check out this recent Jarnow + Jarnow Q&A on Aquarium Drunkard.
I like the RIYL that came along with the Sometimes Just One Second promo, so I’ll just reprint it here:
RIYL: WFMU, Mutant Sounds blog, Half Japanese, Yo La Tengo, The Fugs, Seastones, Kluster, Crazy Horse, The Godz, Yoko Ono’s Approximately Infinite Universe, Bonzo Dog Band, Pep Lester, Spotted Dick, X, Jefferson Airplane, The Vaselines
You like all that, don’t you?! I do. I also like this short live video via the great Roolin YouTube channel of Sloppy Heads out in Ridgewood. Loose as a goose, right as rain.
Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Hamilton Warren Amphitheater, Sedona, Arizona, October 22, 1994
One of the many surprises on Neil Young’s recent Coastal Tour was the inclusion of several rarely played tunes from 1994’s Sleeps With Angels. A great record, if I do say so myself — and a little bit of an outlier in the Crazy Horse saga. Unlike many other Horse-backed LPs, Neil didn’t take the band out on the road for an epic tour to support Angels. In 1994, he only played a smattering of benefits — Farm Aid, The Bridge and finally, this show out amidst the red rocks in Sedona in support of the Verde Valley Sanctuary.
The set, captured here on a stellar audience tape, gives us a tantalizing glimpse of what a Sleeps With Angels tour might’ve been like; something a bit more varied and moodier than the Weld and Year of the Horse trips, mixing full-band acoustic performances with passionate electric journeys. Neil and the Horse open with a torrential Arc-like barrage of feedback, only to slip into the delicate “My Heart,” followed by more new material: an ominous “Prime of Life” the “Driveby” dirge and a stormy “Sleeps With Angels.”
It all sounds killer, the quartet digging deep, showcasing a more subtle and sensitive side of their sound. A few faves from the back catalog are brought out — a roaring “Hey Hey My My” and a particularly mournful “Cortez The Killer” (FYI: On the latter, instead of “palace in the sun” Neil sings at one point about an “island in the sun,” which is the name of a Trans-era “lost” album slated for Archives Vol. 3. INTERESTING.) The highlight, however, is what I believe to be the very best performance of “Change Your Mind,” which stretches out to nearly 20 minutes and features some truly haunting guitar work from Neil. A Crazy Horse epic that earns its place alongside the rest of the classics. Destroying you, embracing you, revealing you.
Sonic Youth - Liquid Room, Tokyo, Japan, January 24, 1996
Lollapalooza 1995 was just the beginning of Sonic Youth’s time spent sailing the Diamond Sea. The band subsequently took Washing Machine all over the world — including several shows in Japan in early '96.
A very sweet audience tape from the Tokyo stop shows what a well-oiled machine SY had become at this point. Sleek and steady ... not words you would have used all that much in the past. But the professionalism just adds to the power. This is a band that has mastered the art of dynamics and texture, sculpting their feedback-laden songs into perfect forms, whether it's tightly coiled momentum of “Bull In The Heather” or the beautiful whiplashes of Washing Machine's title track.
Once again, you’ve gotta hand it to Steve Shelley, whose drumming feels almost orchestral here (in a minimalistic way, perhaps), blending abandon with focus, leading everyone fearlessly forward. The dude knows how to take a song to the next level.
And speaking of next levels, “The Diamond Sea” in Tokyo is reaching a state of transcendent bliss, sinking into the depths, luminous leviathan vibes. Love is definitely running wild ...
Bandcamp | Merch | Concert Chronology
From the Doom & Gloom Archives
And now for something completely different … by request, here’s a repost of four half hour BBC radio shows hosted by R. Crumb, wherein the cartoonist (and well-known 78 fiend) shares some choice gems from his “fabulous collection.” Lots of weird and wonderful stuff here – hot jazz, hotter jazz, German attempts at swing — but nothing weirder and more wonderful than the recitations from Survival In Auschwitz author Primo Levi’s deep inquiries into the origins of shellac. His descriptions border on the erotic — so much so that even notorious perv Crumb sounds a little bit unsettled. Which is saying something. Another show covers wacky French jazz “before Django,” another features what Crumb deems real New Orleans jazz from the 1920s. Some mind-bending tunes for sure! The final show is maybe my favorite of the series, highlighting some rare sides of American string bands from the 1920s. In particular, I love the banjo/fiddle duet, a rare-for-the-time interracial collaboration. Music from another planet [Oh, and if you’re interested, here’s the 1930 film footage of Whistler’s Jug Band Crumb mentions – so neat]. As always, Crumb’s asides and stories are wry fun, and he even attempts a little singing towards the end.
Currently Reading: Under The Eye of Power by Colin Dickey