Throbbing Gristle played their first U.S. gigs in over 30 years last week in NYC. It was their first east coast gig ever. Photos and videos can be found here:
http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2009/04/throbbing_grist_4.html
Chris Carter's personal photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chris_carter_/sets/72157615982120660/
Chris' rigs are only ones that give me gear-gasms. Some folks are grumblin' a bit, but no matter how much they paid for a ticket they had to know the NYC shows were just reversals for Coachella. A festival of that size has to be the largest audience TG has ever played for. I hope they used the opportunity to do something terrible. Something shocking. Maybe Gen will commit suicide on stage.
Regardless of the group's intention, its amazing an act I like when I was 15 is still making new challenging music. TG continue to challenge themselves, each other, and their audience. Few artists with a history as long as TG, as influential as TG, can make that claim. It also makes my day that my guitar hero is a female over fifty years old whose entire oeuvre has nothing to do with blues.
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Since TG is touring the USA, it might be a good time to have a midyear music round up. Here's a list of what is laying around my headspace in various analog and digital formats:
Blackalicious - The Craft
Captain Beefheart - Safe as Milk
Chris Liebing & Speedy J - Collabs3000: Metalism
Coil - Megalithomania!
Coil - Selvaggina: Go Back into the Woods
Current 93 - Dogs Blood Rising
Dabrye - Two/Three
David Bowie - Black Tie White Noise
Doubting Thomas - The Infidel: 20th Anniversary Edition
Ellen Allien - Sool
Exxos - Dune Spice Opera
Frank Zappa - Jazz From Hell
Front 242 - 05:22:09:12 Off
Front 242 - Pulse
iNDEX01 (DiN label sampler)
Get Hot or Go Home: Vintage RCA Rockabilly '56-'59
GZA - Pro Tools
Harold Budd & Brian Eno - The Pearl
Iggy & the Stooges - Raw Power
Iggy Pop - The Idiot
Jessica Rylan - Interior Designs
Jocelyn Montgomery with David Lynch - Lux Vivens
John Cale - Artificial Intelligence
John Cale & Terry Riley - Church of Anthrax
Kool Keith - Spankmaster
Lil' Wayne - The Carter III
Lou Reed & John Cale - Songs for Drella
Lucinda Williams - Little Honey
Mahavishnu Orchestra - The Inner Mounting Flame
Maja Ratkje - Stalker
Mantronix - Mantronix
Matmos - The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of the Beast
Matmos - Supreme Balloon
Meat Beat Manifesto - At the Center
Muslimgauze - Emak Bakia
Not Breathing - Old Black Pueblo
Nurse With Wound & Cyclobe - Paraparaparallelogrammatica: Angry Eelectric Finger 2
Nurse With Wound & Irr.App.(Ext.) - Mute Bell Extinction Process: Angry Eelectric Finger 3
Nurse With Wound & Jim O'Rourke - Tape Monkey Mooch: Angry Eelectric Finger 1
Odetta - At the Gate of Horn
Ornette Coleman - The Art of the Improvisers
Pauline Oliveros - Primordial Lift
Peter Brontzmann Octet - Machine Gun
Scott Walker - It's Raining Today: The Scott Walker Story (1967-70)
Skinny Puppy - Ain't It Dead Yet?
Skinny Puppy - Rabies (remastered version)
Skinny Puppy - Back & Forth 2
Skinny Puppy - Brap: Back & Forth 3&4
Skinny Puppy - B-Sides Collect
Skinny Puppy - Puppy Gristle
Skinny Puppy - Doomsday: Back & Forth 5
Skinny Puppy - Back & Forth 6
Soma - Stygian Vistas
Speedy J - Public Energy No. 1
Speedy West & Jimmie Bryant - Stratosphere Boogie
Squarepusher - Maximum Priest
Steve Earle & Del McCoury Band - The Mountain
Sun Ra - Nothing Is
Throbbing Gristle - 32nd Annual Report
Thurston Moore - sensitive/lethal
Vangelis - Bladerunner
Venetian Snares - Horse and Goat
Viktor Vaughn - Vaudeville Villian
Xiu Xiu - Knife Play
Xiu Xiu - Air Force
When I look back over this list and compare it to a list I made about a year ago, I'm struck by the similarity. Maybe I need to expand my horizons a little more. Stylistically, I'm not sure where else I could go without devolving into ethnographic "world" music cataloging. Such a practice which strikes me as somewhat racist. Perhaps I have it all backwards. Look above at all those anglo saxon white people making noise.
My clichéd closed mindedness aside, I've had some pleasant surprises this year. Coil's Selvaggina was well worth my personal wait. On that live set you can hear more proper versions of Black Antlers / Ape of Naples tracks which (I don't care what anyone says) were just demos. The Carter III is as good as everyone says it is. Reed & Cale's Warhol bio rock opera Songs for Drella brings me to tears every time I hear it. Jessica Rylan remains one of finest living sound sculptors. Everyone should seek out hir work. I've also be listening to a lot of Front 242 the last months. Far too often are they lumped into the regrettable secondwave of industrial bands. Their work has its own formal agendas that should not be ignored. European electro doesn't get much better than them. The best surprise for me though is recent months was Dabrye's Two/Three. I picked it up on a whim because it was release by Ghostly International, a label I respect but regretfully had paid little attention to recently. It's a slab of wicked minimal off-kilter hip hop. It's everything El-P was trying to do a few years back, and despite failing miserably at it, got heaps of praise for anyway. I'm glad someone else got it right. Not knowing of Dabrye before, I was pleasantly surprised to learn the guy has critically tongues wagging all over the place for the past few years. Other honorable mentions: Zappa Jazz from Hell, Xiu Xiu The Air Force, and Mahavishnu Orchestra The Inner Mounting Flame. (I'll be writing a separate blog later about Scott Walker who is someone who I'd shrugged off in past years as just another "rediscovered" singer songwriter.)
Then there are the disappointments: Ellen Allien's Sool, Matmos' Supreme Balloon (the first album of theirs I haven't loved), and Throbbing Gristle's 32 Annual Report. The last was a good concept as a live happening but should never have been released as a recording. TG's original work simply does not translate via the digital equipment they now utilize. That being said, TG's new recordings of all new compositions are wonderful. The single disc version of their reinterpretation of Nico's Desert Shore is one of my most anticipated releases. Another thing I seem to have to teach myself over and over is that Nurse With Wound and Current 93 simply do not resonant with me despite the penetrating vibration brought about in my psyche by their kissing cousin Coil.
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