NEW MUSIC FRIDAY at TBONES!
Because even the day before RSD DROP TWO has so many new releases for you to check out as well.
Deftones
Ohms
Warner [LP./CD]
Sacramento's powerful Deftones are one of the only Metal/Alternative bands who possess the gift of making heavy songs that always sound fairly light. As all the Emo/Emocore bands move to embrace Shoegaze as a part of their milieu, "Ohms" presents a strong case that Deftones have been doing it for a long time. Here they build on both "Gore" and the mythic sound of "White Pony" with tracks that are both cinematic and brutal. The crushing groove at the end of "Genesis" and technicolor closer "Ohms" quickly establish that this could be as huge as their sound.
Idles
Ultra Mono
Partisan/Redeye [LP/CD/CS]
The best fact about Idles, the Bristol-based thinking man's Punk rockers, is that they never have to change their sound as long as they maintain their jackhammer thrust. Album three is strangely intimate and at times feels like lead singer Joe Talbot is screaming right into your face. Fortunately, Talbot has a lot to say and the give-and-take between him and the fierce band often results in songs coming at you like clenched fists ("Model Village" as repetitive as an American single needs to be.) "Ultra Mono" is tightly wound and elicts the same release as the last one. So again, nothing has changed - and let's hope it never does.
Bob Mould
Blue Hearts
Merge/AMPED [LP/CD]
The erstwhile Bob Mould has never been afraid to shout above the noise. Husker Du. Sugar. Even his own "Black Sheets of Rain." However, on "Blue Hearts," Mould seems to be shouting for everyone - not just himself. The songs all carry that similar buzz of the low-slung Flying V, but Mould has found how to sound angry (the very Zen Arcade "American Crisis,") prophetic (the crunch-meet-jangle "Forecast of Rain," and even hopeful ("Siberian Butterfly.") Mould is aided by his fantastic band bassist Jason Narducy and drummer Jon Wurster who know how to propel these rousing songs. After a few great albums, what is best about "Blue Hearts" is that it is not Mould trying anything out. Instead, he is confident in himself to just write and rock - all the verge of turning 60.
The War & Treaty
Hearts Town
Rounder [LP/CD]
Many Americana/AAA albums take music in a few different directions over the course of an album. The husband and wife duo The War & Treaty utilizes their ability to mix genre specifics in many of the songs on their sophomore album. While "Hearts Town" is less intimate than their debut, you are left with that feeling when powerful voices can fill an entire room ("Take Me In.") Where they dive into Soul (the Al Green-ish groove of "Five More Minutes") they sneak in a Rock chorus. While the title cut is a slow burner that begins like a Gospel song sung like a Country duet, it peaks with a guitar solo. "Hearts Town" is not what you would expect from the AMA awards winners and it only takes a couple of songs to hear that is exactly what they were after.
Yves Jarvis
Sundry Rock Song Stock
ANTI/AMPED [LP/CD]
On his third album, the Canadian singer/songwriter finds the right amount of smoothness and homemade recording charm. In his misty, hazy mix of his multitrack voices and instruments that do not sound like they should, Jarvis toys with Soul, Folk and even Prog until the blurry lines only need the warmth of his voice and words. “For Props” is one of those easy songs whose melody seeps in and chord changes add a few more rays of sun. “Semula” follows the same formula but sounds more percussive (even the lyrics he slurs make you wait for the soothing balm of “se-muuuuuuuuuuuu-lah.”) Finally, the wordy “Victim” rises above just words on a page due to Jarvis’ skillful laid-back Curtis Mayfield-meets-Fleetwood Mac pace. “Sundry” is just experimental enough for the thinkers, and just relaxing enough for those who want to float away.
White Dog
White Dog
Rise Above/The Orchard [LP/CD]
A lot of what we forget about Seventies Rock is that it was more spindly and less bass-heavy than it is today. Maybe that alteration of frequencies is what makes this Austin band stand out. “The Lantern” still has neat guitar trills and weirdly plonky bass, but it is not interested in sounding like a relic. Like early Psychedelia (think Moving Sidewalks but less bloozy) and early Thin Lizzy, White Dog is more interested in tangled webs of guitars and a driving beat then headbanging. Either way the quintet is on to something. The guitars while not distorted are never thin and White Dog seems more interested in tracks that chug along slowly building momentum rather than tight twists and turns. “White Dog” is a promising debut.
Kate Bollinger
A Word Becomes a Sound
PIAS/The Orchard [LP]
It would be easy to lump this Charlottesville, VA singer/songwriter in with the other female singer/songwriters. However once you digest the five songs on her debut EP, it is easy to see Bollinger is a gifted melodic singer/songwriter. While her songs are all at that midtempo “ballad” pace, she finds inventive ways of phrasing (the sing-song interplay of “Feel Like Doing Nothing,”) or slipping in doubt and confusion on the Brazilian-tinged title track while barely raising her voice. She even masters a beat-heavy Boy Pablo-esque love song (“Grey Skies”) that manages to turn moping into a jazzy vamp. “A Word Becomes A Sound” is that debut that leaves you wanting more.
Sylvan Esso
Free Love
Loma Vista [LP/CD]
In SynthPop today, many artists use too many synths to make these mountainous productions and forget that the subgenre’s beginnings were rooted in simple monosynth melodies and artificial beats. With a singer like Amelia Meath (also in the enchanting Mountain Man,) it would be easy to just hang a groove and melody on her to vocalize. Instead, producer/instrumentalist Nick Sanborn challenges her to fit in with his mix (“Ferris Wheel”) or give buoyancy to a spritely loop (the beautiful “Rooftop Dancing.”) “Free Love” works because neither Meath or Sanborn seems to even slightly care what is/is not a “hit.” It feels natural which is saying a lot for music created with synths and computers.
And our interview with Pat Fish from THE JAZZ BUTCHER
As RSD is a worldwide event, look for TBONES to pull in music from everywhere including this English artist who made several fantastic records in the Eighties. Record Store Day UK is reissuing all four The Jazz Butcher's albums that comprise the Fire boxset (on CD) "The Violent Years." Born in Northhampton, Pat Fish began playing music while in school at Oxford. By 1982, Fish and guitarist Max Eider began writing and recording songs for their own amusement. A few years, many albums and The Jazz Butcher albums became a favorite of the import bins here in the States.
Now, for RSD DROP TWO, The Jazz Butcher's four albums from 1988-1992 are back on wax for the first time in years. Whether you were a listener to this music in Eighties as it found its way to College and the burgeoning format of Commercial Alternative radio, or simply an Indie Rock fan especially drawn to clever lyricists = these four albums stand as a testament to revisiting the magic of the Jazz Butcher.
AN INTERVIEW WITH PAT FISH
TBONES: How did you get started writing songs? Was there a song you heard and thought - “I can do that too!”
MR. FISH: You can be hearing the most wonderful music in your head, but if, like me, you can’t write music, then inevitably you can only write what you can pick out on a guitar or a piano or whatever. I was particularly handicapped in this department as a youth because I could only play the flute and the tenor sax, which are hardly great composing tools. Only one note at a time, you understand. In the summer of ’81 I heard a surprise 7” release by Velvet Underground drummer Mo Tucker. She had banged out a version of the old classic “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?”, using multitrack recording to play everything herself. I thought, “Well, if Mo can make a record all by herself with some pretty rudimentary skills, perhaps I could manage it too one day.”
It was that kind of thinking that led me to learning a bit of guitar, and, from there, the songs came. Because I knew not what I was doing, any riff or chord sequence, however basic, felt like magic to me. I was blessed with a twin deck ghetto blaster which had a wonderful design fault: when you copied a cassette, the internal mics
remained open. Having discovered this by accident, I realised that I could bounce between two cassettes to build up primitive little arrangements on tape. In a dismal, lonely three month spell living in a village at the start of ’82, my silly experiments started to turn into the songs that you can hear on our first album, Bath of Bacon.
So it was a question of process and methodology, rather than any fancy “inspiration.” I followed my nose, made up silly words, because I never for a moment thought that anybody other than my closest friends would ever hear this stuff. I kept in mind Eno’s axiom about working within your limitations and I always remembered Mo as well. I
owe her a lot.
TBONES: During the years on Glass Records, you seem to be trying everything you can out. Was songwriting and recording in the beginning this sort of “land of opportunity” for you?
MR. FISH: I think it’s fair to say that, yes. The recording studio was a great adventure, nothing was off-limits. We were lucky enough to be learning on the job, so, of course, we made a few “schoolboy errors” along the way.
TBONES: In 1986, your music makes the American transition to Big Time (distributed by the major-label RCA,) how did that feel to suddenly find listeners and even fledgling Alternative and College Radio support over here?
MR. FISH: We spent most of ’85 on the road in Europe, so we were already used to a certain low level of media interest: radio, TV and so forth. Well into ’86, however, it never crossed our minds that we would ever go and play in America. That seemed unimaginable. When Dave Barker, the boss of Glass Records, told us that we were
going to play there, we didn’t really believe him.
We arrived in New York in the middle of the CMJ conference. It was only when we got there that we discovered that we were in the top ten on the various independent charts of the time. We were entirely unready. “What’s a station ID?” I would say to the legions of trendy young things with fancy recording gear who seemed to pop up
everywhere in our path. It got worse in Canada. Nobody had told us, but we were on a major label up there. I
found out when somebody handed me a sheet of paper with “Mercury” printed at the top and an interview schedule that began at 9:00am. It all seems to come together when you move to the greener pastures of Creation. “Fishcotheque” builds on “Sex and Travel” while revealing that you are never devoting yourself to one “style” of music.
TBONES: Is it safe to say that the song you wrote was more important than meeting any similarities to the songs of that period?
MR. FISH: Both Dave Barker at Glass and Alan McGee at Creation had sufficient faith in us that there was none of that record company nonsense about trying to make us sound fashionable, or like somebody else successful. They left us to our own devices. There was none of that insidious “You know what we should do?” stuff.
Dave, Alan and I are interested in making beautiful records rather than “hits.” And sometimes, of course, as Alan has proved, you can do both at once. Our band had friendships with other bands, most of whom sounded nothing like us, but who shared a certain aesthetic and perspective. We didn’t identify with any kind of “movement” or anything like that. We weren’t trying to make records to cause a stir that week. We were trying to make records that would last the listener a long time, that would repay his or her investment.
From the second LP on, our production values had as little in common with the rough, cheap, just-learned-to-play “indie” sound as they did with the big, clattery, soulless cocaine sound of the major record company bands. We weren’t fashionable then and we aren’t fashionable now. But you can put just about any of our records on
today and they’re still listenable, still comprehensible to the modern ear. Unlike, for example, Bogshed. But then, if you want to make a record, it helps if you have an actual song, yeah?
It is possible, of course, to make a classic single more or less by accident in a few frenzied hours in a cheap studio. But something to which people are going to sit down at home and pay attention for half an hour at a time? Give me a break. All the music on Fishcotheque has its roots in Africa. There are obvious things, like
some of the rhythms and the pretty, chiming guitars. And there is also the fact that all the music that we listen to – on our side of the planet, at least - comes from Africa.
TBONES: Where did the idea for samples come in? They really make the songs stand out
further from the pack?
MR.FISH: The biggest influence here was a single by Steinski and Mass Media called “The Motorcade Sped On”, a stunning assemblage of radio commentary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, brilliantly manipulated into something that can only be described as a great pop song. We played that constantly on the tour bus. Long before I even knew that samplers existed, I used to mess about with tape edits. Late at night in my little music room I would pull off a particularly nice edit and drunkenly declare myself the Prince of the Pause Button. Out loud.
By 1986, thanks to Big Audio Dynamite, Public Enemy and the JAMMS (deranged forerunners of the mighty KLF), we knew that samplers were out there, but we didn’t actually encounter one face-to-face until we made Fishcotheque. You only have to listen to “The Best Way” to know how delighted we were about that.
After that, it was samples all the way. We still used to collect them on cassettes and then feed them into the sampler when we arrived at the studio. By “Condition Blue” I was getting into using musical loops as well, something that developed more and more with Sumosonic and ultimately Wilson. I think that – be they loops or voices – nice, scuzzy samples can add real excitement to a mix. For me, dropping cool samples is as much a part of the recording process as a lead guitar overdub, a backing vocal or a tambourine, and, well used, it can play
just as important a role.
Now as “Big Planet Scarey Planet” you grab for an intense worldview, the songs all play differently and you draw some great character sketches in your stories like “Bicycle Kid” and “Line of Death”. Was the goal to broaden your horizons and maybe appear more of a storyteller to your new audience?To be honest, I didn’t know that I had a new audience. We were trying to broaden our horizons, but more in a musical sense. We weren’t very successful, as it goes. The record was made at the start of 1989. We’d been listening to Public Enemy, KRS-1, NWA, DeLa Soul. We were aware of the growing dance scene and not unfamiliar with ecstasy. So we only wanted to make a
psychedelic hip-hop folk-rock protest album for the dancefloor: nothing fancy!
In the end, we collapsed between a number of stools, so I don’t think the album really works particularly well. The most “old-fashioned” songs came out best, I think; simple pop like Bad Dream Lover or The Good Ones; easy African style tunes like Nightmare Being or, rather more frantically, The Word I was Looking For. I’ve never really had the knack of story-telling songs. I’ve tried, but it’s usually pretty clunky stuff. I guess Bicycle Kid was a bit of a lucky one-off in that department, but it was based on a real individual, so no imagination was required, happily. I don’t really “do” imagination. I see myself more as a maker of short, noisy documentaries.
TBONES: How was that first American tour? Did it influence your writing in ways you could not
foresee? Do you still conjure up memories of it when you write today?
MR. FISH: On our first tour in 1986 I think my brain was fully occupied with trying to come to terms with what was happening and cope with the strangeness of it all. We were already familiar with a number of different countries, languages and cultures, but America and Canada were something entirely new to us. Because we appear to speak the same language (we don’t, of course), a lot of British people think that America is just like a big, hot, prosperous Britain. It’s not. It’s a foreign country and it takes a lot of getting used to. So on that first tour I wasn’t really up for too much observation; it was more just a question of keeping one’s head above water, getting the job done and getting out alive.
Then, of course, came all the other tours. I was a bit more comfortable by then, and I had made some friends “on the ground”, as it were. I was a bit more able to open my eyes and take in what was going on around me. As early as 1989 I had already formulated the idea that all I really did was to observe the weirdness of Americans,
Write it down, set it to music and then sell it back to them. I guess “Hysteria” is a good early example of that. It’s about our experiences on the West Coast on our 1988 tour with Downy Mildew and Alex Chilton. I really did sleep through an earthquake.
TBONES: Into the Nineties we go. What changes from “Scarey” to “Cult of the Basement?”
You had done ballads before, but “Basement” is somewhat muted compared to the
previous albums. “The Onion Field” is just stunning. For all its ease (and familiarity
with the return of the saxophone) “Daycare Nation” mixes the sardonic with
wistfulness.
MR. FISH: I could easily write a book about the year between the making of “Planet” and “Basement.” Perhaps one day I might. The Second Generation JBC (Paul Mulreany on drums; Laurence O’Keefe on bass;
Alex Green on tenor sax; Kizzy O’Callaghan on guitar; and me) had been together for some time now. Tour-hardened, we had developed our own collective personality and style; in marked contrast the to the well-intentioned but aimless thrashing-about of “Big Planet.” We had our own vibe now. We didn’t have to try.
In September ’89, on the way home from a gig in Sheffield, Kizzy went into a fit, which turned out to be a manifestation of a brain tumour! Kiz was hospitalised a week or two before we were due to start a nine week US/Canadian tour. We were lucky enough to snare our great friend Richard Formby to play guitar on the tour and
by the time we came home, just before Christmas, we were a tight-knit little group, routinely dangerous on stage and almost entirely impenetrable off it. When we left for America in the autumn, Kizzy had had some surgery and seemed on quite good form. We had no doubt that he would be joining the rest of us in the studio to make the next record in early ’90. When he joined us at the studio it was a terrible shock: he was heavily medicated and obviously struggling badly. We had all been freaking out since Kizzy’s diagnosis, but we had always had faith
that he would survive his ordeal. Here, in the studio, in the middle of the countryside in the middle of the winter, we saw what had become of him. Then we started really freaking out.
So I don’t personally see “Cult of the Basement” as “muted” at all; quite the opposite. For me, it’s a mad, sprawling, scrabbling, desperate thing, simultaneously frightened and belligerent, prone to sudden, unpredictable mood swings. Even the things on it that might normally be expected to pass for humour have a funny eye and a bad attitude. And, like an old English folk song, things only get worse as it goes along, finishing
with Sister Death. What else?
There was a real “us against the world” feel to the recording sessions, which took place almost entirely in the hours of darkness. The unassuming little tune “Daycare Nation” is actually one of my favourites. It was
cooked up in the studio, inspired by Mulreany just hitting that soft little drum pattern. We got it down in one or two takes, Alex added the three tracks of saxophone and then, finally, I improvised and honed the lyric. Your estimation of the balance between ”sardonic” and “wistful” strikes me as spot-on. Some of the phrases
deployed in the lyric may well have begun as hard-hearted, cynical remarks, but I feel that the context, both sonic and lyrical, pushes those phrases to the point of being almost heart-breaking. And it has a Tube train on it. For me, the sound of a London Tube train is one of the most evocative imaginable. Lonely old men in a vast, uncaring city; that was our theme for this one, and I feel that we gave it a decent shot. We should have programmed it after Mister Odd, though. That, if I’m honest, was a schoolboy error. To make matters worse, I didn’t even spot it until almost thirty years after we made the record! Doh!
Not long ago I was rather alarmed to realise that this LP has two songs on it about murder. I had never really considered myself homicidal. The Onion Field is that rare thing, a moment where I exercise the thing that passes for my imagination. Rubbish piano by me, deeply disturbing guitar wailing by Richard. Came fifth in a Nick Cave impressions contest.
No, but I love “Cult of the Basement”, me. It’s the first record that really captures the sound and spirit of the band at that time. It’s not entertainment; it’s a genuine dispatch from the front line.
TBONES: Now we wind up with “Condition Blue” where your whole sound comes full circle. Lyrically, you are putting the pieces back together - which is a beautiful thing. I know there is a lot of emotion wrapped up in this record. Looking back on it now as the end of this sequence, if you will, how do to respond to it today?
MR. FISH: Can I be honest? I think it’s an astonishing record. Everybody thinks their kid is a
genius and their cat is the prettiest creature that ever lived, but I genuinely do think this is a proper good record. I still play it in order to try and understand it, and it often catches me out or blows me away, just like a “real” LP by a “real” artist. There are some stellar cameos from the likes of Pete Astor, Peter Crouch, Richard Formby, Joe Allen, Alex Lee and Sumishta Brahm.
I didn’t see “Condition Blue” as the end of any sequence at the time; more like the end of the entire fucking universe. But making “Waiting for the Love Bus” some nine months later was a very interesting “Where do we go from here?” sort of challenge, so I guess there is some virtue in seeing things that way. Fortunately, I had Richard Formby there as my producer. He and I see eye to eye on so many things. Moving on into the “space beyond” was a pleasure with Richard at the controls.
TBONES: What are your plans for the remainder of 2020, could we see some new songs from
you coming soon?
MR. FISH: My chief objectives for 2020 are to remain alive and solvent. I’ve not really left home since the beginning of March, so I rely on the kindness of strangers to put a dollar or two in the hat when I play one of my little solo sets Live From Fishy Mansions on the Facebook. Those who tune into my little broadcasts will already have heard some new, unrecorded songs. There are more coming along and it’s definitely my intention to make at least one more LP before I hang up my boots. The process is already underway, in fact.
TBONES: Will there be more reissues on the way? Maybe a rarities package or live highlights?
MR. FISH: December will see the release of the third Fire Records box set, “Doctor
Cholmondley Repents”, a 4 CD set featuring singles, b-sides, compilation tracks,
demos and a really rather fabulous 45 minute live radio session.
Thank you so much to Pat Fish for this insightful interview. Be sure to check out all The Jazz Butcher's music and look for "Fishcotheque," "Big Planet Scarey Planet," "Cult of The Basement" and "Condition Red," all released by Fire Records for this celebration of Record Store Day.