Monthly Archives: July 2023

Jul 19 2023
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Ambient, CD

A Produce • Land of a Thousand Trances [2CD]

Ambient music is something I’ve never written about. I have been listening to it – or actively not listening to it – for a few decades now, ever since I was first turned on to one of Eno’s ambient releases (knowing me, I probably started with Ambient 1!) Trying to describe it really puts my writing and communication skills to the test, so when I saw that Independent Project was putting out a reissue of an ambient release by A PRODUCE called Land of a Thousand Trances, I decided to give it a listen. If I liked it enough I’d give it a go. And so here we are.

One thing you can say about ambient music is that it has the power to transport you to any number of places. Indeed, the more influences that seep into the music, the more likely you are to be taken out of your somewhat dark apartment with light blue carpet (hey, I’m renting this place!) and gently placed in a lightly breezy desert landscape, on top of an iceberg floating in the Antarctic, or among a large group of people beating out drums and other percussive objects to a heavy groove. Some ambient music I’ve heard is literally ambient: you almost wouldn’t know it was there if you didn’t see the record spinning or see the CD player’s digital counter showing the track and time info. But A Produce – the name Barry Craig used for his ambient projects – created music that could transport you somewhere exotic or put you in a trance right there in your living room.

Craig passed away in 2011 but this 1994 release (reissued and expanded in 2007) has continued to intrigue those who have come into its midst. Land of a Thousand Trances has now been re-reissued as a deluxe 2CD set with the full Independent Project treatment, including letterpress cover and a nice booklet giving you a little more information about A Produce and Craig’s philosophy about his music. What comes through listening to this release, including its bonus tracks like “The Dreaming Room” (both studio and live versions) is that there’s just as much room for Gilmour-ian electric guitar as there is for long, contemplative keyboard pads and textures or African drums and Aztec flutes. As attributed to Craig in this package, in relation to producing such music in the cacophonous atmosphere of L.A., “I like being near so many environments: the oceans, the desert, the mountains. These things influence me as much as the urban side of Los Angeles.” That all comes through on Land of a Thousand Trances. It’s highly worth your attention if ambient music floats your boat… or wisps you away on a desert breeze. – Marsh Gooch

3.5/5 (Independent Project IP090SECD, 2023)

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Jul 12 2023
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CD, Limited Edition

The Minus 5 • Calling Cortez (Neil Vol. 3) [CD]

“Don’t be denied” – it’s a line from the song of the same name, which also closes THE MINUS 5’s new album, Calling Cortez (Neil Vol. 3). (We’ll get to why it’s dubbed “Vol. 3” further on down the road…) Well, apparently my old friend Scott McCaughey won’t let himself be denied of releasing, what?, an album every other month just like his idol Neil Young! Granted, Scott puts his out under completely different names that keep you guessing a bit – Scott The Hoople, The Minus 5, The No Ones, The Baseball Project, Young Fresh Fellows, phew! – but still. The thing is (and I hate to say it), McCaughey’s stuff is sounding better than ever while Young’s releases aren’t as consistent. At least as far as I can tell, since I have not heard every single release Neil’s put out in the last decade (8 in 2022 alone, 3 so far this year). I haven’t been let down yet by The No Ones (see my reviews here), The Baseball Project (here) or Young Fresh Fellows (here). So I guess I’m not being denied, either. But I digress.

Calling Cortez is, apparently, an homage to Neil that started with Scott The Hoople’s Neil Vol. 1, which he self-released in 2020. (Neil Vol. 2 is MIA but slated for release sometime in the future, according to the Bandcamp page.) Only a handful of the tunes here are actually Neil Young songs, but they’re all quite good. I first found “Pocahontas” to be lacking the pathos of NY’s version, with its peppier, happier vibe. But it’s grown on me. And I really like the closer, “Don’t Be Denied,” a helluva lot. It appears to have been recorded live (you can hear some hoots and hollers near the beginning and end) and is solidly in the NY/Crazy Horse camp (though it appeared on Neil’s Horse-less 1973 album Time Fades Away). “Hitchhiker” has some nice, chiming piano chords and an excellent memoir-ish story (it’s from 2010’s LeNoise), and the others are pretty good, too.

Scott’s own tunes on Calling Cortez definitely fit in with the NY stuff, and sometimes are better than the man of the hour’s. Where Roky Erickson constantly heard white noise and alien planets in his head, McCaughey must channel rock ’n’ roll 24 hours a day. He’s certainly a big enough Neil Young fan that he probably has to be cognizant of his tunes coming out too “Neily,” and that may be why he created a “concept album” that could handle it. I really dig “Bad Fax” (with its punky Crazy Horse vibe and the chorus of “Everyone’s a work in progress”), “Empty Quiver” and “One Last Tank,” which laments those who have tried, flailed, floundered and failed while using up “one last tank of the American Dream.”

This time the Minus 5 isn’t noted explicitly but McCaughey and Peter Buck (who’s also a sometime member of The No Ones and The Baseball Project) are listed first, and then come guest appearances from everybody from Mike McCready (Pearl Jam) to Debbi Peterson (Bangles). (Oh yeah, for those keeping score, yes, Kurt “I’m Gonna Be Ubiquitous If It Kills Me” Bloch is here.) Calling Cortez is a real fun album and worth repeated listenings. Problem is, getting to know any one of McCaughey’s releases is difficult unless you just keep a stack of his various projects next to your stereo and shuffle through them and only them. But it can be done and this is one I’d definitely keep toward the top of the pile. – Marsh Gooch

4/5 (YepRoc YEP 3082, 2023)

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Jul 05 2023
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CD

The 3 Clubmen • The 3 Clubmen [CD EP]

XTC’s Andy Partridge always seems to have a new project cooking. This one, THE 3 CLUBMEN, is a trio performing what I would call posh pop. The four songs on their EP, The 3 Clubmen, are smooth and kinda quirky. Think of the early, experimental XTC of Go 2 merged with the end-of-life XTC of Apple Venus and you’re getting close. Andy’s mates on this one are multi-instrumentalist Stu Rowe of The Lighterthief and singer/guitarist Jen Olive, who does the bulk of the singing. (Andy supplies supporting and backing vocals, among the various instruments he plays.)

Right from the start there’s a dreamy vibe to The 3 Clubmen, as evidenced on opening track “Aviatrix” (is that like a dominatrix-slash-flight attendant?), with its sing-songy verses and chorus of “Straight into the sun you shoot me like a gun/I’m flyyyyying, flyyyying, I’m coming undone.” Track 2, “Racecar,” has a definite Go 2 thing going on – I can hear hints of “Battery Brides” and its off-kilter, kooky time signature throughout. (Traces of the guitar slashes of latter day XTC “Wake Up” are also detected.) Following track “Green Green Grasshopper” sounds like it could almost be a Dukes of Stratosphear outtake, as if the Dukes were trying to tame their psychedelic tendencies and make them safe for the world of 2023. “Look at Those Stars” is a showcase for Olive’s mod, affected vocals, which border on being twee but with a decidedly more adult sound. The song’s message is a good one (things aren’t so good in my life “but, hey, would you look at those stars?”).

Don’t know if we’ll ever get another XTC album but at least Andy’s keeping busy with his “solo” releases. Something from him is better than nothing, and anything is at least something. Something/anything? Yes, The 3 Clubmen is really something. – Marsh Gooch

3/5 (Lighterthief TAB001, 2023; available via Burning Shed)

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Jul 04 2023
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biography, book

Steve Turner • Mud Ride [Book]

I love books “written” by rock ’n’ rollers. STEVE TURNER (with Adem Tepedelen) has authored one called Mud Ride: A Messy Trip Through the Grunge Explosion and it’s not unlike most of its predecessors. In common would be: Co-writer who probably acted more as (first) editor, story wrangler and memory coaxer; light ’n’ breezy conversational tone that makes it seem like it was spoken into a tape recorder (or voice memo on a smartphone) and then transcribed (hence the quotations around “writer” above); and lots of photos with sarc-y captions. Check, check and check.

Mud Ride is Turner’s story, he being a “guitarist and founding member of Mudhoney,” the legendary Seattle band that very well may be the father and mother of grunge. The book is, indeed, a very first-person look at the birth of the PNW music scene that spawned a whole lot of monsters, including Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Nirvana – all bands that are considerably better known than Mudhoney. Yet, these guys (Turner and his eventual Mudhoney bandmates) were all there as it was happening, and Steve frequently humbly notes that none of them ever thought things were going to go as far as they did. But if anyone was qualified to tell the story, this guy’s one of a very few.

You definitely get a lot of inside info about what was going on in Seattle and environs in the mid ’80s in this book. And you’ll hear about bands that even those of us who were there had long forgotten about (and whose names I can’t even remember now after having just read the book). Curiously, Turner never mentions Alice In Chains once. Not sure if there’s some animosity there or if maybe Turner & Co. just never really had much to do with them… or if it’s something ultra personal that the author didn’t want to share with Joe Public. Regardless, Turner is respectful and doesn’t dish out the kind of salacious details that some would hope for. (Anything he notes like that is already public knowledge.)

Mud Ride isn’t revelatory. But it’s worth a read if you’re curious about Mudhoney and other bands of the time and how this unique scene became such a celebrated – and sometimes derided – phenomenon. – Marsh Gooch

3/5 (Chronicle Prism, 2023)

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