Dust Volume 5, No. 1

Idris Ackamoor and the Pyramids

Our first Dust of the year ties up loose ends from 2018 with several of our writers using the holiday break to rip through big piles of neglected discs, find the good and the great and share their observations. It’s an impressive haul with a little something for everyone from fusion-y Afro-jazz to twin guitar reveries (played by actual twins) to improvised percussion to a fascinating bandleader who reminds us of everyone and no one. This edition’s contributors included Bill Meyer (who wins this round), Isaac Olson, Derek Taylor, Patrick Masterson, Jennifer Kelly and Jonathan Shaw. Happy new year.

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“1, 2, 3, 4!”: Jennifer Kelly’s 2018 review

Jennifer Kelly is a frantic romantic.

Rock and roll forever, sure, but it’s hard to avoid the fact that the guitar/bass/drum idiom has been pushed way off to the side in the cultural conversation. Mainstream sites list “best rock records” as a weird, subcultural genre, with a slightly bigger audience, perhaps, than best cumbia records or top Hawaiian slack key recordings (but not much). Worse, to come up with a reasonable size list they include all kinds of things that don’t belong. I mean, really, is Mount Eerie rock by any definition?

Rock isn’t dead, but it’s been made to sit in the corner. The only time in 2018 when everybody thought at once about a guitar band was when Pitchfork’s Jeremy Larson dropped his scathing, hilarious review of the Greta Van Fleet. For a moment, we all snickered as one.

Big rock was terrible in 2018. It almost always is. Yet there’s something disingenuous about the genre of year-end write-ups that laser in on the absolute worst and most bloated of rock bands to make a point about the art-form as a whole. Sure, Imagine Dragons suck. Yes, “Africa” is a soul-destroyingly awful song no matter who sings it. No, I’m not wading into the whole 1975 thing. Who has time? Who has the heart for it?  

Because this year, against a tide of commercially viable horse shit, against a backdrop of monolithic indifference, rock bands of all configurations, from all countries (but really especially Australia), continued to make great punk and rock records. And, I, for whatever reason, heard more of them than usual, and it made me happy. And maybe that’s the secret to being happy in music, in any year…find your niche, listen to the best in it, forget about what the mega-corporations are trying to sell.

Also see it live. My big highlight this year was seeing the Scientists in October (with Negative Approach, too!), but it was a pretty great 12 months for live music. It started with a fantastic show comprised of Mike Donovan, the Long Hots, J. Mascis and his Stooges cover band and Purling Hiss (with J on board for one song) at the Root Cellar, a venue I’d never heard of before that show, and that ended up putting on a string of great events. I saw Marisa Anderson, Paul Metzger, Speedy Ortiz, Howling Rain, Trad Gras Och Stenar with Endless Boogie, that Scientists show and Gary Higgins at the Root Cellar this year, and I missed a lot of shows I would have liked to see. Other great shows happened outside the Root Cellar – The Thing in the Spring in Peterborough with William Parker, Bonnie Prince Billy and others, Amy Rigby and Wreckless Eric at the Parlour Room, Messthetics at the Flywheel. Western Massachusetts has been in a commercial chokehold for years, with one organization controlling most of the venues, but there were a lot of options this year.

So, here’s to the drummers with their sticks in the air, counting off the four. Here’s to the guitar player wrecking his knees jumping up and down as he/she furiously slashes away. Here’s to the sweat and muck and black humor of $10 shows with four bands on them, two of them still in high school. And here’s to the people (me at least and possibly you) who like these things. Eddie Argos of Art Brut, who used to top these lists and now merits a footnote, spoke for this tiny, beleaguered sub-cult when he urged “Wham! Bang! Pow! Let’s rock out.”

Indeed. Let’s.

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Harte 10! Tres! Traneninvasion! Peel Dream Magazine! Kudu! Eli Keszler! Tarkamt! Dwarfs Of East Agouza! Crazy Doberman! Sudden Infant! Handle! DUDS! Lithics! Italia 90! The Ex! No Babies! Patois Counselors! Noseholes! Ruby Karinto! Collate! LOX! Big Supermarket! Terry! Yves Bernard! Lavender Flu! Heavy Metal! Murderer! Snob! GOGGS! Warm Bodies! X-20! Gen Pop! Rolex! Scrap Brain! Borzoi! Dog Chocolate! Shux! Mosquitoes! EXEK! Exploded View! Chips For The Poor! Conduit! Bo Gritz! Miscomings! Scarcity Of Tanks! Razorlegs! Full Blast! Kuzu! Sympathy Nervous!

✰ BEST REASONS TO WRITE FUCKIN’ RECORD REVIEWS IN 2018 ✰

✰✰✰✰✰ 6th ANNIVERSARY  ✰✰✰✰✰

It’s time to feast from 2018′s Grapevine That Is Never Pruned with 123 (+ 162 more) of the BEST REASONS TO WRITE FUCKIN’ RECORD REVIEWS IN 2018!

A prefatory note: The Best Reasons campaigns of our first five years endured critiques from far and wide about too many damn records listed.  Well…we can no longer countenance such reproach.  Every single one of these nuggets is an essential thread in the tapestry of 2018′s combustible sonic arts!  We here at FRR stand for ecumenicism and as such, consider the breadth of our listening parameters: Feeding Tube Records issued 74 items in 2018 (!), Clean Feed released about 80, and Astral Spirits about 30…that’s a lot potential gold in those three labels alone. Sure, it’s too much for any one person to absorb, but still… 

We all know that some combination of easy access to home studio tools, world wide web streaming, social media delirium, legacy record industry collapse, and artistic resistance to creeping authoritarianism has (somewhat paradoxically) unleashed a tidal wave of idiosyncratically great music during the past decade, so it should come as no surprise that such a list as this would contain nearly 300 essential items. Yea, it seems nearly everything gets recorded and released these days (especially the zonked improv/collagist /noise/outer limits realm), but whether or not we listen to such items as frequently as we consumed Exile On Main Street or Cosmic Tones For Mental Therapy back in the day is irrelevant…the time is now, and as far as wild sounds from the outer dimensions goes, now has unprecedented bounty…listen heartily, for tomorrow, who knows?

(…all long playing records unless otherwise noted…also, the list was made complete with links, but grrr they don’t show up, so point your browser as they used to say and happy hunting!)

✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩

✰ ROSALI  Trouble Anyway (Scissor Tail) ✰

✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩

✰ BRIDGET HAYDEN  Pure Touch Only From Now On, They Said So (Early Music, Sweden) ✰

✰ YUZO IWATA Daylight Moon (Siltbreeze) ✰

✰ L$D FUNDRAISER  Witness Disco (CocoMuse, New Zealand) ✰

✰ MAXINE FUNKE  Silk (Feeding Tube) + Eternity 7” (I Dischi Del Barone, Sweden) ✰

✰ LONG HOTS  Monday Night Raw cassette (self-released) ✰

✰ BASIC HUMAN  Cassette (Meatspin, Australia) ✰

✰ LOOSE-Y CRUNCHÉ Unruly Top  cassette (Altered States, Australia) ✰

✰ ETHERS  Ethers (Trouble In Mind) ✰ 

✰ UNHOLY TWO  The Pleasure To End All Pleasures (12XU)

✰ ZAÏMPH  Rhizomatic Gaze 2LP (Drawing Room) ✰

✰ ALLISON COTTON  All Is Quiet At The Ancient Theatre (Feeding Tube) ✰

✰ CONSTANT MONGREL  Living In Excellence (Anti Fade, Australia / LVEUM, U.K.) ✰ 

✰ OTHERWORLD  (aka Kay Logan) Mad Wee Light  cassette (Kit, UK) ✰

✰ DUSK  Dusk (Don Giovanni)  & “The Pain Of Loneliness (Goes On And On)” 7″ (Dirtnap) ✰

✰ WENDY EISENBERG  Its Shape Is Your Touch (VDSQ) ✰

✰ THALIA ZEDEK BAND Fighting Season (Thrill Jockey) ✰

✰ EN ATTENDANT ANA  Lost And Found (Trouble In Mind) ✰

✰ MARK MORGAN  Department of Heraldry (Open Mouth) ✰

✰ MORE KLEMENTINES More Klementines (Twin Lakes/Feeding Tube)✰

✰ PATOIS COUNSELORS Proper Release (ever/never) ✰

✰ ANNE GUTHRIE Brass Orchids (Students Of Decay)

✰ STEFAN CHRISTENSEN  City Code (Knotwilg, Belgium) & Two Live cassette (The Loki Label)

✰ BB & The BLIPS  Shame Job (Thrilling Living)

✰ SAMARA LUBELSKI / BILL NACE Samara Lubelski/Bill Nice (Relative Pitch)

✰ The SEDIMENT CLUB  Stucco Thieves (Wharf Cat)

✰ BEAT DETECTIVES  Rhythms & Edits Volume 1 cassette (Altered States, Australia)

✰ The COWBOYS Live At Tony’s Garage  7″ ep (Feel It) & The Cowboys [3rd Album] (HoZac - 2017)

✰ SUSANA SANTOS SILVA  All the Rivers – Live at Panteão Nacional  cd (Clean Feed, Portugal)

 ✰ DIRE WOLVES Paradisiacal Mind  (Feeding Tube/Cardinal Fuzz, U.K.)

✰ SPECIAL INTEREST/S Spiraling  (Raw Sugar)

✰ JANUSZEWSKI & SZLAZAK Split cassette (Czaszka, U.K.)

✰ NYLEX  Nylex cassette (Tenth Court, Australia)

✰ CHARALAMBIDES  Tom And Christina Carter 2 LP (Drawing Room)

✰ CHRISTINA KUBISCH/ANNEA LOCKWOOD The Secret Life Of The Inaudible 2 cd (Gruenrekorder, Germany)

✰  HEAVY METAL Heavy Metal ep 7″ (Total Punk)

✰  LUJIACHI  Invisible Hands cassette (Altered States, Australia)

✰  OBNOX Templo del Sonido (Astral Spirits/Monofonus Press)

✰  PINEAPPLE RNR  Pineapple Rik N Roll 7″ (Lumpy)

✰  WILLIAM PARKER Voices Fall From The Sky 3 cd (AUM Fidelity)

✰  RON JONS SURF SHOP  Ron Jons Surf Shop Sampler cassette (Ron Jons Surf Shop)

✰ LUCY MILLER Lion’s Heart : Demos & Early Recordings cd-r (Soleils Bleus, France)

✰ BLUE CHEMISE  Daughters Of Time (Students Of Decay) 

✰ EKIN FIL Maps (Helen Scarsdale) & “Windblow”  download (Longform Editions, Australia)

✰ COUNTER INTUITS Vietnamese Lighter 7″ (Total Punk)

✰ CHRONOPHAGE  (Minneapolis) Prolog For Tomorrow (Cleta Petra)

✰ HOBBS-WHITE DUO Hobbs-White Duo at Whitechapel Gallery, 10 June 1973H download (EMC, UK)

✰ CHRONOPHAGE (Austin) Give Chance A Peace download (self-released)

✰ CIA DEBUTANTE  Waves (Czaszka, U.K.)

✰ WEEPING BONG BAND  Weeping Bong Band (Feeding Tube)

✰  COOLIES/The FUTURIANS Coolies/The Futurians split cassette (Uniform, New Zealand)

✰ QUIETUS Volume Four (ever/never)

✰ New Centre Of The Universe (Anti Fade, Australia)

✰ LISA CAMERON/SANDY EWEN  See Creatures cassette (Astral Spirits)

✰ BRUTAL BIRTHDAY “Commotion” + 2 7” (Total Punk)

✰ DE PONTI/MORETTI Before We Were Foam We Were Unbridled Waves cassette (Dinzu Artefacts)

✰ DAVID NANCE GROUP  Peaced And Slightly Pulverized (Trouble In Mind)

✰ CRAMMM  Crammm cassette (Brainplan) &  Live 2018 (Brainplan)

✰ NERVE BEATS Nerve Beats (Fine Concepts)

✰ WILLIE LANE  Known Quantity reissue (Feeding Tube)

✰ The WAY AHEAD Bells, Ghosts And Other Saints cd (Clean Feed, Portugal)

✰ BADSKIN  Where Was I  (Brierfield Flood Press, Australia)

✰ The ANCIENTS Frozen Aisle (Tenth Court, Australia)

✰ METTE RASMUSSIN & CHRIS CORSANO A View Of The Moon (From The Sun) cd (Clean Feed, Portugal)

✰ SYLVIE COURVOISIER TRIO  D’Agala cd (Intakt, Switzerland)

✰ MOSQUITOES Drip Water Hollow Out Stone (ever/never)

✰ CHARLOTTE HUG Son-Icon Music: Orchestra And Choral Works cd (Fundacja Słuchaj, Poland)

✰ RUSS WATERHOUSE  Amaro cassette (Gertrude Tapes)

✰ RICHARD PAPIERCUTS  Twisting The Night 12″ (ever/never)

✰ The COOL GREENHOUSE  “London”/“The End Of The World” 7” (Market Square Recordings, Spain)

✰ SANDY EWEN & CHASE GARDNER Transfusion cd (Marginal Frequency)

✰ AMEEL BRECHT  Polygraph Heartbeat (Kraak, Belgium)

✰ SUCCHIAMO Mani In Fuoco (Antinote, France)

✰ PORTRON PORTRON LOPEZ De Colère Et D'Envie (PoiL, France)

✰ TOM SMITH & MARK MORGAN Bones Sound Shipwreck cd (KSV, Germany)

✰ CIVIC New Vietnam 12″ (Anti Fade, Australia) & Those Who Know 7″ (Famous Class)

✰ CARLO GIUSTINO Non Uscire cassette (No Rent)

✰ DONALD MCPHERSON & TETUZI AKIYAMA The Kitchen Tapes, Volume 1 cassette (God In The Music, New Zealand)

✰ HORNE & HOLT Wires (Self-Sabotage)

✰ WOLKOROTS Don Treppenwitz cassette (Dinzu Artefacts)

 ✰SAVAK  Beg Your Pardon (Ernest Jenning Record Co.) 

✰ The BALKANYS The Balkanys  (Toddi Records/Another Records, France)

✰ ANTELOPER Kudu cassette (International Anthem Recording Company)

✰ CLAIRE POTTER & BRIDGET HAYDEN’S I Am Come From A Place) cassette (Fort Evil Fruit, Ireland)

✰ LAURA LUNA CASTILLO Laminaires (Genot, Czech Republic)

✰ RST  Spectra  (\NULL|ZØNE//)

✰ TORI KUDO ガラ刑GALAKEI  2 LP (bruit direct disques, France) 

✰ SIGNE DAHLGREEN  Kunki Snuk cassette (Astral Spirits)

✰ PIOUS FAULTS  Old Thread  (Feel It)

✰ MELFI  Four Concerns  cassette (Czaszka, U.K.)

✰ The EX  27 Passports (Ex Records, Netherlands)

✰ J.H. GURAJ Steadfast On Our Sand (Boring Machines, Italy)

✰ KUZU Hiljaisuus (Astral Spirits)

✰ WUSSY  What Heaven Is Like (Shake It)

✰ BORZOI  A Prayer For War (12XU)

✰ RAYS  You Can Get There From Here (Trouble In Mind)

✰ DELPHINE DORA  Eudaimon (three:four, Switzerland)

✰ LAKE MARY & M. SAGE  Lupine Deluxe cassette (Patient Sounds (Intl))

✰ ART GRAY NOIZZ QUINTET  “A Call To You”/”Won’t you Say It To My Face” 7″ (Robelion Music)

✰ VANILLA POPPERS I Like Your Band 7″ ep (Feel It)

✰ SOURDURE L’Espròva (Les Disques du Festival Permanent/Pagans, France)

✰ LOGARDECAY (Leslie García and Paloma López) FRGL cassette (Umor Rex, Mexico) 

✰ DE KLUMB  Con Pimiento cassette (U-Bac, Germany)

✰ MIDWIFE  Prayer Hands cassette (Antiquated Future)

✰ SALAD BOYS  This Is Glue (Trouble In Mind)

✰ RAMBLE TAMBLE Outlaw Overtones cassette (Eiderdown)

✰ ABBY LEE TEE  Imaginary Friends I cassette (Czaszka, U.K.)

✰ INGRID LAUBROCK Contemporary Chaos Practices / Two Works For Orchestra With Soloists cd (Intakt, Switzerland)

✰ PATRICK SHIROISHI  Sparrow’s Tongue cassette (Fort Evil Fruit, Ireland)

✰ FIA FIELL  All In The Same Room cassette (Nice Music, Australia)

✰ PREENING  Nice Dice 7″ ep (Fine Concepts) & Greasetrap Frisbee 7″ (ever/never)

✰ SABASABA  SabaSaba (Maple Death, U.K)

✰ HEADROOM/DIRE WOLVES Split (Pome Pome Tones/Centripetal Force)

✰ APOLOGIST  Houston  cassette (No Rent)

✰ The SITUATIONS  The Day After The Night Before cassette (Melted Ice Cream, NZ)

✰ WONDERFULS  Voices Like Rain cassette (Round Bale Recordings)

✰ TASHI DORJI & TYLER DAMON  Leave No Trace: Live In St. Louis (Family Vineyard) & Soft Berm cassette (Magnetic South)

(this is a pic of DIRE WOLVES with their eyes closed)

Best of 2018

A handful of favorites from what seemed like a particularly strong year for music. Rest in peace to Yuzo Iwata, who had the album of the year the second I heard it. I Dischi Del Barone was my label of the year; everything Matthias released could’ve gone on here. Most releases listed below are readily available via any links provided: support the artists, and let’s keep this thing rolling.

LP

Six more:

12″ / 7″ / cassette

Reissues? My research was scattered and lacking, but my top picks would be the Nightcrawlers’ Biophonic Boombox Recordings 2xLP, a much-needed reissue of Corrupted’s Se Hace Por Los Asesinos (buy that here or here), and Cut by Bill Direen/Bilders.

Above: Mizmor at Migration Fest 2018, Mr. Small’s Theatre, Pittsburgh, PA

Shows

Migration Fest at Mr. Small’s Theatre, Pittsburgh, PA: So many great sets, bolstered by the best company I could ask for and a multitude of trips to the nearby Grist House brewery. Mizmor, Mournful Congregation, Hell, Yellow Eyes and Fórn were my favorite performances of the weekend.

Primitive Man and Spectral Voice at the End, Nashville, TN

Bill Direen / Bilders at the Pilot Light, Knoxville, TN

Tashi Dorji at the Pilot Light, Knoxville, TN

Best of 2018

A handful of favorites from what seemed like a particularly strong year for music. Rest in peace to Yuzo Iwata, who had the album of the year the second I heard it. I Dischi Del Barone was my label of the year; everything Matthias released could’ve gone on here. Most releases listed below are readily available via any links provided: support the artists, and let’s keep this thing rolling.

LP

Six more:

12″ / 7″ / cassette

Reissues? My research was scattered and lacking, but my top picks would be the Nightcrawlers’ Biophonic Boombox Recordings 2xLP, a much-needed reissue of Corrupted’s Se Hace Por Los Asesinos (buy that here or here), and Cut by Bill Direen/Bilders.

Above: Mizmor at Migration Fest 2018, Mr. Small’s Theatre, Pittsburgh, PA

Shows

Migration Fest at Mr. Small’s Theatre, Pittsburgh, PA: So many great sets, bolstered by the best company I could ask for and a multitude of trips to the nearby Grist House brewery. Mizmor, Mournful Congregation, Hell, Yellow Eyes and Fórn were my favorite performances of the weekend.

Primitive Man and Spectral Voice at the End, Nashville, TN

Bill Direen / Bilders at the Pilot Light, Knoxville, TN

Tashi Dorji at the Pilot Light, Knoxville, TN

LADIES & GERMZ, MERRY XMAS AND A SAFE HOLIDAY SEASON TO YOU ALL…IT’S TIME TO TRADE IN THOSE LAME GIFT CARDS AND SPLURGE FOR THE REAL DEALZ…AS WE PRESENT TO YOU THE 2018 VERSION OF THE…

✰ FUCKIN’ RECORD REVIEWS HOLIDAY SHOPPING GUIDE!✰

As previously noted in these here dead mall tumblr pages, we acquired these 80s/90s zine antiquities one way: we went shoppin’! Sure, most of the original fare pictured above is loooonnnggg gone, but many of the original content creators continue to blast forth far into our era of networked ether…so gaze into your handheld digital marvel with your gift card/credit card in hand and support the current perspectives and endeavors of aging scribes and contemporary writhing chives…and then some…

AND NOW…OPEN UP THY CREDIT!

( 2018 Unholy Two pic above by Michael O'Shaughnessy…lifted from 12XU without permission).

(Yuzo Iwata video above from  3/31/18 performance at the Philadelphia Record Exchange)

Wipers! Wire! Ragtime Frank & The Drivers! Witch! Oh Sees! HOGG! Nurse With Wound! Claire Potter & Bridget Hayden! Chips For The Poor! Lubricated Goat! Conduit! Mosquitoes! Peter Evans & Weasel Walter! Sediment Club! Boy Dirt Car! Bo Gritz! The Contemporary Jazz Quintet! plus Alice Cooper live in ‘69!

Dust, Volume 4, Number 7

Young Widows  

It’s been some time since we published a Dust, and, as anyone’s mother will tell you, this stuff accumulates if you don’t keep after it. This month’s edition includes the usual smattering of metal, jazz, rock, folk and a healthy dose of our favorite genre, “unclassifiable.” Contributors include Bill Meyer, Patrick Masterson, Jennifer Kelly, Derek Taylor, Justin-Cober Lake, Jonathan Shaw and Isaac Olson

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Hardly ten seconds into “Disconnect Notice,” the opening track on Patois Counselors’ debut LP Proper Release, and I’m struck by how much this sounds like Pere Ubu - specifically their Modern Dance/Dub Housing period, though the last two or three LPs wouldn’t be bad reference points, either. I don’t take the comparison lightly; 6 out of 7 days a week I’d probably say Pere Ubu is my favorite band, and it’s a resemblance the band can’t shake as the album rolls on. There’s the rubberband bassline in “Get Excitement” (and the rhythm section in general), the constant electronic interference causing the grooves to become seasick, and the barbed lyrics largely focused on the human condition. The lyrics, in particular, are precise without any trace of ostentation, designed to be pored over - ”What are you doing with your hands?/They are wasted,” on “Too Many Digits,” or the chorus to my favorite track, “The Modern Station,” where screen addiction is taken to task. Lest you think the whole thing is some scolding, slogging narrative, there’s the self-deprecating “Terrible Likeness” (”I thought I was more handsome/a regular raging bull”), and, more to the point, the album whips by in a flash. Each song here is trimmed and elbowing for space among any number of art-punk welterweights. The catchiest moment is saved for last, and if there was any justice in the underground, “Target Not a Comrade” would be a hit by summer’s end. Make your own justice, immerse yourself in Proper Release, a dizzying trip and one of the year’s top contenders.

ever/never records brought us Proper Release - you can buy it from their Bandcamp. The LP comes with a lyric sheet, perfect to satisfy your meager summer reading needs. Between the Preening 7″ and the upcoming Mosquitoes 12″ (out July 13), the good folks at e/n are on a tear this year.

Allen Paulino

Listening to the recent Real Kids records from Crypt brought back such a flood of memories from my time spent with the crazy, irrepressible, ultimately lovable (sometimes infuriating) person named Allen Alpo Paulino. No one knows much about that time period except for me, David and Dana. We were an island unto ourselves in the Boston scene. We all worked at Rounder records in Cambridge. David and Dana and Allen worked in the warehouse, and I worked upstairs in the computer department. Rounder was a crazy place, even though it was a folkie label. JJ Rassler worked upstairs with me as did Glenn Dicker and Tor Hansen (later of Yep Roc label fame). We listened to music all day and were generally pretty unruly, undisciplined types who drank a lot (at least not at work, most of us anyway).

Down in the warehouse all kinds of weird shit was going on. Dana and David would keep me abreast of all the delinquent activities, people shitting in bathroom sinks etc. One day we had a new recruit to the warehouse staff- Allen Paulino. I don’t know how he ended up there. Probably through Howie Ferguson or maybe JJ Rassler. Alpo was in rough shape but he was doing the best he could to fight his demons, which were many…and not just alcohol related. I don’t remember how I personally met Alpo. But we worked together for a couple months and he came out to see us play at Bunratty’s. We had a woman named Dina Perleman playing bass with us. She was our first bassist. Allen watched the show and said something to the effect that we could use a better bass player and that he would be willing to play with us. So we unceremoniously booted Dina out. Cruel, but we wanted to get better, and we had A LOT of improving to do at that point. We were all just beginning to play instruments, let alone be playing out in clubs in a competitive Boston scene. But we were playing primarily original songs and Alpo liked what he heard.

So we started practicing together. We would ride down to our practice space from Central Square in Cambridge down to the south end of Boston near South Station. On the way down Alpo would want us to stop at the liquor stores to pick up some “nips”, little bottles of vodka usually. During the trips to the space and to shows we would hear so many stories about the Real Kids. I hate to say I did not know anything about the band at at that time- literally nothing. Their records were hard to find, no internet googling, 1977 was ancient history in 1989. Although I knew a lot about music from earlier periods. I was still pretty young and had been in college with no exposure to most things important ( except literature).

When we played with Allen we became much more cohesive as a unit. He taught us to be a band. He had experience and great taste, and always played the right notes- and he swung like a bastard. Full forward propulsion. None of that “on the beat” shit that I hate.

I will never forget going to his family house on the north shore (Peabody, I think) and seeing where he grew up. It was so amazing to me. And learning about his mom naming the Nervous Eaters because they ate so fast at the dinner table. And learning about Jonathan Richman’s dastardly deeds as a homewrecker. And all the things he found in the trash (the family business was trash collecting. We were big trash pickers too.) Fucking endless great stories that blew my mind.

Allen not only was in our band he lived with us for a period of time. He loved us like another brother. We tried to help him, but it was too much too take on. He lived in our basement and he had a friend that would sneak nips and drugs in pizza boxes and deliver them to him downstairs. I was a very naive person and thought he could cure himself if he had people who cared for him. It did not work. He went from bad to worse and we finally had to split ways. It was very sad and we were hurt and he was hurt also. I remember after he left he listened to us do a radio broadcast with Merle Allin who replaced him and he said something like “that guy isn’t right for you” and he was right (soundwise).

I will always look back fondly listening to music in our little living room in Allston. We would listen to Love “Forever Changes” and Modern Lovers “Hospital”. He would steal David’s prescription cold medicine and chug it. We would laugh incessantly at all that was ridiculous around us. He could be a real charmer. Then he could be the darkest demon you ever met. But I will never speak badly of him because I love him to this day, and am very happy he had a few years of peace in his life toward the end.

Alpo was a rock star in Boston. He was very brave to play music with us. Everyone thought he was crazy to play with us because his crowd thought we were terrible. They would tell him that right in front of us at shows we played. Often times we were  terrible. But Alpo shared the same love of crazy fucked up rock n roll and he treasured originality. And he saw that in us. We were from different worlds but he related to us. He knew we were raw and just beginning our journey but he was never condescending. His playing with us took me to another level of creativity at that time. Thank you Alpo- and long live the Real Kids!

Patois Counselors — Proper Release (Ever/Never)

“I’ve got a new dance called smashing the fingers. Why don’t you gather round?” posits Patois Counselor’s Bo White, as a no wave sax whinges mosquito-like somewhere in the vicinity of his head. A pause intervenes, about the length of a deep, calming breath, and the band kicks into a chaotic, upheaving, jumping-straight-up-and-down frenzy. The song, “Too Many Digits” comes about halfway through the band’s full-length debut, and if it’s not the high point, it’s one of them. Recorded live with an appreciative audience in a bit over a minute, the cut encapsulates everything that’s great about this ragged post-punk band, the way slack drawled observations give way to rock hard rhythms, that chaotic blurts of detuned keyboards frame insidious fragments of anthemry, that a clanking, wandering bass anchors everything, keeping encroaching chaos at bay.  

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