Scissor Girls, “Mr. Poison”. I always forget how great Chicago no-wave was.
Don’t remember where I downloaded this from, which are the best downloads. The band is called Population, and the album is called “Practice”. So Google is not much help. Anyone know anything about this? Fucked up post-punk jam. Seems like the internet made us all forget we are on the brink of annihilation.
UPDATE: I still haven’t shed any light on this band, but WFMU reveals the original of this cover Eisbar. Categorized as Swiss art-punk. Works for me. The original has some funny saxophoning at the end.
Will I use any excuse to post a video of the Ex? Why yes I will. Nothing could be more appropriate anyway, the Ex are big football fans. The Dutch style is based on a freedom of movement, and incredible individual virtuosity (though you wouldn’t know it from this year’s team). Improvisation seems to inform all of this. Anyway, this particular lineup of the Ex was my favorite, I remember seeing those solos live, and it would give you goosebumps.
As for Brazil, they are all set to culturally take over the world. I’m not too impressed with Dunga’s team, but there is no doubt they are the most likely to win the World Cup at this point. When the Netherlands & Brasil face off this year it won’t be as impressive as this:
In high school when I heard the Nation of Ulysses’ crazy guitar feedback, horn riffs from the aggressive side of jazz, and the crazy recording style on Plays Pretty for Baby I was a changed man. I wanted to hear more like that. Of course, there is nothing else that sounds like that album. As a result, I ended up drifting away from listening to a lot of punk rock, and got more into things like free jazz, dub, and house music. In other words, a great development. This video footage is from 1992, so it was towards the end of the band’s life, and they were just a four piece.
U.K. post-punk from 1984. I consider myself fairly knowledgeable about post-punk, but this one existed below the radar for me for until the mp3 blogosphere came into existence. This tape has everything going for it: stark, vaguely funky, and the track Finsonda Baxter sounds as good as This Heat. Wish I knew more about this band.
This is footage from the Ex’s second show as a band. They’ve been all over the place since then. On their first U.S. tour instead of renting a van they just bought a completely broke down used one that they constantly had to work on, maybe they thought it would be good for their morale? Stranger things have happened, I’ve even heard of American bands touring Europe without hiring a driver. Luc injured his leg at some point, and so he had to perform while sitting on a stool. By twists and turns this stool ended up in Barrington, IL somehow. The first time I ever saw them play they were opening up for Fugazi at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC. At one point Terrie was playing his guitar with a spoon, and it sounded like a violin and that blew my mind, and was probably the start of my obsession with people playing instruments in a way that sounded like some other instrument. The Ex are a band that are at their best when they are playing with other people though. I wish I could have seen them play with Tom Cora, their records with him are my favorite, and Mississippi Records recently reissued the Scrabbling at the Lock on vinyl.
The last time I saw the Ex was at Millennium Park in Chicago. They were performing with Getatchew Mekuria, and a couple of other Dutch dudes with a dude on bass playing in the Dog Faced Hermans style, and then the rest of the dudes were playing horns. I was on my lunch break so I didn’t get to see the whole set. I was grumpy the rest of the day from not having eaten, and not having been able to watch their entire set. A week later I was driving a car across the country to go live in San Francisco.
That last picture is them playing something no doubt crazy & intense sounding to a bunch of Ethiopians. The great thing about the Ex is they have no ideology, they just do what they want, and collaborate with all kinds of awesome musicians. That’s how it should be.
Not at all different from old hardcore punk footage, really. Although around the 1:31 mark it looks like someone is throwing money around, which I guess is not something you would really see at a punk show. Anyway, kind of amazing.
