Nine Versions is out!

The newest Ear Candle release is a collection of cover songs by J Neo Marvin & the Content Providers, three of which are seeing the light of day for the first time.

Click the icon below to get yourself some spankin' new mp3s and help us recoup the money we paid the composers of these fine songs:

Heretic pride

Two masters of the Unreliable Narrator trope, together at last!

The Mountain Goats showed up on the Colbert Report for an interview and a song. Apparently, the new album is based on the Bible. Knowing John Darnielle, this will be yet another splendid opportunity to write some truly creepy songs and inhabit some truly twisted characters' psyches.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
John Darnielle
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Michael Moore

Is this song about the Tiller murder?

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Mountain Goats - Psalms 40:2
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Michael Moore

Not quite spring yet

After the madness of the last decade, it's just great to see Gil Scott-Heron alive and onstage again. After a great unannounced set by a young East Oakland poet named Ice Life (hope I got the name right...we need to hear more from this guy) and some energetic funk by Orgone, one of the greatest sharp-witted honey-voiced black protest singers of all time came swaggering casually toward his Fender Rhodes piano as members of the audience leaped from their seats and rushed the stage to shake his hand. It was a tremendous show of respect, and a good omen for what was to come. We had come to witness the dry humor and righteous anger of the genius showcased in the excellent documentary Black Wax, but I had some fear in the back of my mind that we might get something more on the order of Arthur Lee's final show, where the reverent crowd got a serious challenge to their reverence. (One day I'll write about that show. It was great drama.)

No need to fear. Scott-Heron, while showing some signs of having had a rough time of late (a slight slur in his speech, a touch of nervousness in his gestures), was all there and focused on his music and his message. Opening with a long monologue that began with a sincere tribute to civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer, then veered into 10 minutes of hilarious stand-up comedy covering everything from the internet ("I go online and I read about things I NEVER did"), rambling bits of autobiography, and his new plan to move Black History Month from February to May because everyone can pronounce it and the weather's nicer. Simultaneously cranky, quirky and warm, he had the whole audience in the palm of his hand from that moment on.

Sitting down at the piano and laying down his distinctive jazz-soul chord progressions and bringing out a group of veterans from his past bands, he ran through a string of classics, stretching them out with long improvised introductory monologues, improvisations and new choruses. "Home Is Where The Hatred Is" became an exorcism of his recent troubles, alternating an extended "kick it, quit it" chant with a mournful repetition of "I'm going home tomorrow". I wondered how, after being MIA through most of the Bush years, Gil Scott-Heron might comment on these times, where we actually have a black President, but real change is still frustratingly slow. Scott-Heron never mentioned Obama by name, but in a long prelude to "Winter In America", while telling a humorous parable about the seasons, he kept coming back to the lines "NOT. QUITE. SPRING. YET.", which seemed to sum up what a lot of us are feeling right now.

Some of the frequent instrumental breaks left me impatient after a while ("OK, you're great musicians, thank you, but I want to hear more Gil and less jazz showboating , please!"), but otherwise the show was riveting. Gil Scott-Heron is as vital, witty, conscious and soulful as ever, and you need to spend some time in a room with the man while he is still here. Thank you for coming back to share yourself with us, sir.

Ear Candle Radio's Top 20: September 2009

Our Top 20 is bookended with returning guitar wizards this month, the remarkable Kaki King on top and our Japanese pen-pal Takeshi Murata bubbling under. These are dread times, and dread times call for the dread sounds of Bunny Wailer, Trinity, Ranking Dread, Earth & Stone, and the Easy Star All Stars, whose take on Pink Floyd is no mere novelty act. The late Joe Strummer keeps the reggae groove going with a track from the stunning Global A Go Go album, which belongs on any "best albums of the Noughts" list anyone is cooking up right now.

We've also got the twisted cabaret of Vinsantos; some sarod-filled goodness from George Harrison's best-ever record (featuring the artistry of Ashish Khan, son of the late Ali Akbar); a whole side of mad, enigmatic, decadent comedy from the Bonzo Dog Band's genius wordsmith Vivian Stanshall (Neo did promise to add this to the playlist, and obviously the listeners have given it the thumbs up; he says he finally heard this for the first time only this year and while he can recite "Rhinocratic Oaths" in its entirety, it will take him a lot longer to master this one); a little anatomical romance from Mose Allison, an awesome single by the duo of Sharon Cheslow and ex-Quail Julianna Bright, aka the Electrolettes; and just in time for our hat-tip to Drake Levin, a cool Paul Revere & the Raiders album track wherein Fang lays out his plans for an ideal community. Thank you, Fang. Hope you've kept your ideals after all these years.

Also: Judy Collins shows that she can kick ass on a Brecht-Weill tune; four guys from Liverpool slouch their way through "All You Need Is Love"; those boys from the Beards (new season starting soon!) lift their voices on the Leonard Cohen song that still packs a punch no matter how many times you hear it; Vomit Launch, another band we've paid tribute to recently, is here with the gorgeous ballad that made a surprise appearance on the soundtrack to The Wackness; 60s cult heroes the Move do a moving baroque-pop song about homelessness (one of the very few Roy Wood songs whose lyrics actually make sense); and Swiss post-punk goddesses LiliPut regale us with one of their greatest numbers, a convulsively stirring rocker about air travel fear.

OCTOBER 17, 2009 MARKS THE FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF EAR CANDLE RADIO! Our little station is going strong, and we're proud to be here, spinning the mp3s on the virtual turntable of your mind. Keep listening; we have so much more music to get to!

1. Kaki King - Close Your Eyes & You'll Burst Into Flames - Everybody Loves You
2. Easy Star All Stars - Us And Them - Dub Side Of The Moon
3. Bunny Wailer - The Monkey - Hook Line & Sinker
4. Vinsantos - Anger Makes Me Mad - A Light Awake Inside
5. Trinity - Mohammed Ali - Three Piece Suit
6. George Harrison - Gat Kirwani - Wonderwall Music
7. Vivian Stanshall - Sir Henry At Rawlinson End Part 1 - Sir Henry At Rawlinson End
8. Mose Allison - Your Molecular Structure - The Best Of Mose Allison
9. Electrolettes - Octane Lies - Octane Lies/Anxiety
10. Ranking Dread - Love A Dub - Greensleeves Most Wanted
11. Paul Revere & the Raiders - In My Community - The Spirit Of '67
12. Judy Collins - Pirate Jenny - In My Life
13. Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros - At The Border, Guy - Global A Go-Go
14. Echo & The Bunnymen - All You Need Is Love (The Life At Brian's Sessions) - Ocean Rain (Reissue)
15. Conspiracy of Beards - Hallelujah - Demo CD
16. Earth & Stone - Devil Wise - Kool Roots
17. Vomit Launch - Exit Lines - Exiled Sandwich
18. The Move - Mist On A Monday Morning - The Move
19. Liliput/ Kleenex - DC-10 - Liliput/ Kleenex
20. Takeshi Murata - Decipher - Decipher

"Oh, puh-leeze! That's amorphous nonsense!"

More Democrats like this, please. The pseudo-civil sanctimonious enablers on CNN don't know what to do with this guy. It's a joy to see Grayson refuse to acknowledge the frame they try to stick him in. Ridicule, people. It's a tool that can be used for good if you know how to wield it with skill and integrity.



UPDATE: More wisdom from Driftglass:

And that is what elevates this from mere farce to tragedy: the fact that our public discourse has become so arch, empty, encrypted and craven that after treating the simple act of telling the unvarnished truth with sneering incredulity for about nine minutes, our Serious Journalists eventually lapse into something that sounded quite a lot like...awe.

You can support Grayson's truth-telling here.

The Rude Pundit weighs in, in his inimitable style.

Steppin' Out

OK, I was late in discovering this news, but I am truly sorry to hear about the passing of Drake Levin. As lead guitarist for Paul Revere & the Raiders, he put his stamp on some of my favorite records that weren't by the Beatles when I was 9 or 10.

Vivid memory coming back: One night sometime in the late 80s or early 90s (I'd better start writing this stuff down now before my memory goes completely...Jeezus!) X-tal had just finished a set at the I-Beam on Haight St. As we were loading out I noticed the marquee across the street: Drake Levin was playing the Full Moon Saloon. Wow, I thought, it has to be the same guy. Should I go? Nah.

I've regretted not crossing the street that night for a long time.



Synchronized dance steps and Vox Teardrop guitars...those were different times. When my childhood friend and fellow Paul Revere & The Raiders fan George Galvas guested on the Content Providers' "How I Spent The Dark Ages", he brought along a Vox Teardrop bass AND 12-string guitar. (We refrained from breaking out the dance steps, however.) The lovely wall of sound on that track is the result.

UPDATE PT. XXX: OK, so in the sober light of day, I see that Mr. Levin is actually playing some sort of lovely double-neck job. It was bassist Phil "Fang" Volk who rocked the Teardrop. Still, Fang's Teardrop bass (which he would periodically flip around to show his nickname painted on the back---this was a band who loved their shtick) has forever been imprinted on my mind as the definitive "Raiders guitar". What's odd is that a group who were on TV so much have so little footage available on YouTube. Come on, Dick Clark, cough it up.

The real victims

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Word to the wise

Here's a good article on record production from Tunecorner, the blog of our digital distributor. You get a nice outline of a producer's responsibilities and rights, and how to intelligently prepare for a project.

Most important point to take away from this: don't embark on any recording until you've already sorted out the business side, whatever you decide that ought to be. It's possible to get so excited about a project that you jump into it without a contract or even a clear agreement, and end up getting burned by unscrupulous people. It's even worse when they call themselves friends. Don't let a fun thing turn into a bitter disappointment; it's bad for your biology.

This is not high school and I have no need to feel small now

One of my old favorite bands, Vomit Launch, have a posthumous website where you can download some of their rarer gems (like the long dub version of "Swelling Admiration") and even a video page where you can find clips like the one below.

Maybe their willfully goofy name kept some of the more faint-hearted fans away who might have propelled them to indie fame, but for those of us who were there, Vomit Launch were a special band. Each individual in the group was a vital piece of the puzzle, and they served up one great song after another with wild-eyed, absurd yet nonchalant glee. Larry Crane, who anchored the band with his eloquent, Peter Hook-like basslines, has gone on to greater fame via Tape Op magazine and Jackpot Studio. My former X-tal bandmate Mick Freeman and I used to tease Larry about his resemblance to Al Franken, but now that Al's a senator and Larry's a legendary recording engineer, I think the two of them can be proud of both their own and each other's achievements.

Meanwhile, Steve Bragg, their tall English drummer, was the muscle of the band, Lindsey Thrasher delivered the jangle, and Trish DeRowland fronted the band with a heart full of angst and mischief. They were true characters, and a brilliant, unjustly forgotten band. Let the revival start here.

Here's a time capsule from the early 90s with Vomit Launch plugging their final album not long before their breakup. I'm raising a glass to Trish, Lindsey, Larry and Steve tonight. Saw you about 10 times in the 80s and 90s (usually sharing a bill) and you never did a crappy show. Always poignant, funny and resolutely musical, Vomit Launch were twisting Joy Division's sound to their own purposes years before it was cool. Glad to get a chance to enjoy them again.

New song: Picking A Fight

Here is a sneak preview of the newest finished song by The Granite Countertops, Picking A Fight. Joining Davis and Neo here are trumpeter Junko Suzuki Parsons (of Cyclub) and saxophonist Mark Parsons (an alumni of the Conspiracy Of Beards and presently in Cyclub as well), a brilliant husband-and-wife horn section who add to the dub-licious surrealism here.

Enjoy, and add our work-in-progress to your Christmas list!

Animal Panic

So I'm seeing bus stop ads everywhere for a new animated movie called "Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs" with pictures of people standing under an umbrella with looks of wonder in their eyes as meatballs fall from the sky, and the ex-vegetarian in me immediately starts thinking, "what kind of animal is being butchered, ground and processed in the clouds up there, and what does this book entitled To Serve Man REALLY mean?"

Now I'm going to tuck into a nice chunk of Chateaubriand, if you don't mind.

(Title comes from another unfinished tune from the Granite Countertops album, which is coming along nicely. More to come.)

Quote of the day

The one line from Nuts In May that made me laugh out loud. (Context: this is in response to the question, "Do you mind if I smoke?")

If I could take one of your lungs, put it on the table and cut it in half, I think you'd be horrified.

I don't even smoke, but I certainly would be.

Won't you let me see?

One of my favorite Leonard Cohen songs. I had no idea he made a video for it. Check out these hot dancers:



Hat tip to A Tune For Today, a great new blog you all should be reading.

Nine Versions and the widget

You may have noticed that we have added a widget to the blog, located at the top right just above the links, blogroll, etc. Our digital distributor, Tunecore, is now providing these to its clients, which is cool; you get to turn it on and hear a selection of the various releases we've put out on our label through them. Great, huh?

We should let you know, though, that we have a new release by J Neo Marvin & the Content Providers called Nine Versions, which compiles six previously-released cover versions by the band plus three more we never put out before that we cut in 2005 and are happy to finally find a home for.

Nine Versions, with amusing Hollywood-Squares-esque cover art by Davis Jones, will be available very soon. HOWEVER, while you can enjoy tracks from this album on our widget right now, the "buy" link won't be functional until then. Since we have already paid the writers of these cover versions via the venerable Harry Fox Agency, we hope you will help us get our investment back by using the iTunes link. Now that the music business has evolved into a glorified honor system, we rely on the goodwill of our dear friends in the cyber-fog.

What, you say you want NEW material? Just you wait, darlings.

Dancing machine

A brief, elegantly minimalistic animated German tribute to Michael Jackson

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More animation: Leo's song

Here.

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Animation: Medium of choice? Sand.

Here.

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UPDATE (by J Neo Marvin): Davis, you are on a roll today!

Here's a sample of this amazing artist's work. The most mind-blowing thing is she is doing all of this live!
Click the link above for more info and movies of Ms. Simonova.

The Beatles: Rock Band

The Beatles: Rock Band

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Ear Candle Radio's Top 20: August 2009

The whims of our listening public never cease to fascinate, exposing little corners of our playlist to the light and giving the thumbs up. D.O.A.'s glorious 1984 cover of Edwin Starr's Vietnam-era classic has lost none of its potency over the years. War, ugh, good god y'all. It's still good for absolutely nothing, folks. A striking a cappella mix of vintage Beach Boys amplifies the existential teen angst that was already there in the original. We have TWO items from our good friend Jack Rabid of The Big Takeover: his old punk band, Even Worse, (Neo says they always were his favorite band on ROIR's New York Thrash comp; sorry Bad Brains, sorry Beastie Boys) and his more recent band Last Burning Embers.

Closer to home, we are a proud aunt and uncle to the gifted Trevor Simpson, who has put together a highly popular studio, Right Right Recording, outside of Baltimore, and fronts a hella-snappy power-pop band called Brighter Shades, who have made their new album available FREE via the Intertubes. Check it out.

We continue to salute our fallen hero, Chris Knox, with a track each from his bands the Tall Dwarfs and the Nothing. We have not one but two Patti Smith tracks, one from an absolute classic bootleg of a concert in Sweden in the 70s. If you have never heard Patti's take on the Velvets' "Pale Blue Eyes", well, you have two choices: seek out that long-lost bootleg any way you can, or keep your ears glued here! The other one from Patti is her take on "Within You Without You" from her recent covers album.

A rare, strange artifact from the Rolling Stones is culled from the exhaustive Satanic Sessions, an intriguing look at the making of their woefully underrated psychedelic classic Their Satanic Majesties Request. Hearing these bare backing tracks, you notice that Keith was very much in charge of the sessions despite his later misgivings about the whole project (it's hard to tell what Mick Jagger is doing, if anything), that Brian Jones played even more mellotron than what ended up on the album (often you hear him trying to play heavily syncopated, rhythmic parts on the beautiful but clunky instrument, which really doesn't lend itself to such things), that they relied heavily on Nicky Hopkins to hold everything together, and that it sure took that band a LOT of takes to get warmed up. Once they did though, amazing things happened, and it's a revelation to hear how the backing track for "Sing This All Together" sounded before the song was split in two pieces. Keith Richards heads into free-jazz territory here. It's a delight.

Our friend and supporter Peter B shows up in the charts this month on a Kirtan blowout recorded live at Harbin Hot Springs. Be not fooled, idren and sistren: this is not esoteric religious babble, this is pure joyous singalong release. It's good for you, and as fun as thumping the table along with Ras Michael. Lose yourself in the trance. We may be releasing video footage of Peter and his cohort somewhere down the road. As Lord Buckley's character the Nazz shouted out so memorably, "DIG INFINITY!"

Ear Candle Radio: You dug it before, re-dig it now.

1. D.O.A. - War - War and Peace
2. The Beach Boys - I Just Wasn't Made For These Times (a cappella) - Pet Sounds Sessions (Early Mix)
3. Last Burning Embers - The Vacillator - Pink Frost/Big Takeover Sampler 2008
4. Kaki King - Close Your Eyes & You'll Burst Into Flames - Everybody Loves You
5. Brighter Shades - You Shine So Bright - You Shine So Bright
6. Tall Dwarfs - Rorschach - Weeville
7. Paleface - Stupid War Movies - Paleface
8. Nothing - To The Sun - A Warm Gun
9. The Fall - A Figure Walks - Dragnet [Bonus Tracks]
10. The Dirtbombs - Fire In The Western World - We Have You Surrounded
11. John Coltrane - My Favorite Things - My Favorite Things
12. Roxy Music - Pyjamarama - Street Life - Greatest Hits
13. Robert Forster - It Ain't Easy - The Evangelist
14. Even Worse - Last Nights Blimpee - Pink Frost/Big Takeover Sampler 2008
15. The Rolling Stones - Sing This All Together (Take 7) - The Satanic Sessions Vol 1 [3 of 4]
16. Patti Smith - Within You Without You - Twelve
17. Patti Smith - Pale Blue Eyes - I Never Talked To Bob Dylan
18. Peter B & Friends - Radhe Sham - Harbin Temple Kirtan
19. PJ Harvey - This Is Love - Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea
20. The Gossip - Listen Up! - Standing In The Way Of Control

What a sick, strange little man.

Wonder how many of his followers even noticed this?

An awesome title for a country song

Please Politicize My Death!

The history of misdirected indignation

Rage is all the rage, in the 90s '00s, rage is money
The righteous fury of a baby who won't share his toys
It's so easy to climb those charts
It's so easy to win those votes
Selling pointless, phony, blind, cheap, stupid powerless anger!

X-tal, "A Lemon Song" (1996)

Apparently, things have not really changed all that much. Adlai Stevenson knew how to handle these cretins back in the Sixties. Today's politicians could learn a thing or two from him.

UPDATE:
Then there's the Barney Frank approach, which is fairly awesome in its own right. Arguing with a dining room table, indeed.

R.I.P. Les Paul

We bid a fond farewell to the guy who not only designed a classic electric guitar but who, along with Mary Ford, was a pioneer of overdubbing. (Hmmmm...take a married couple and multiply their voices and instruments until they sound like a full band...sounds like a useful concept!)

Also, here's a guy whose commitment to his craft was such that, when his right arm was shattered in a car crash and doctors told him his elbow would have to be set in one place for the rest of his life, he insisted that it be permanently bent into a guitar-playing position. How did the poor man sleep, one wonders?

Here's a little sunshine from Les and Mary:

Oh say can you see?

Best idea yet. Congresscritters, pay attention!

(Working on a new song inspired by this summer's astroturf riots against health care. It may be called either "Tool Revolution" or "There You Go, Astro Boy!")

J Neo Marvin performs SOLO at Hotel Utah

Have you seen my guy in action?



More coming!

Make it so!

I like the way this guy states his case.

Ear Candle Radio's Top 20: July 2009

The Art Ensemble of Chicago shoots to the top this month with a funky free-jazz number voiced by Fontella Bass (of "Rescue Me" fame): "Your love is like an oil well/dig, dig, dig it!" Chumbawamba's great conspiracy theory anthem comes from the last album by the definitive lineup; whatever happened to Alice Nutter? Return visits from Matthew Grasso (with the Nada Brahma Music Ensemble) and Takeshi Murata (our Japanese virtuoso friend) join the late Johnny Thunders for a symposium on what defines a guitar hero. Chris & Cosey appear with a sexy duet from their 80s debut, Slim Gaillard clucks it up, Harry Belafonte throws a party, and the Buzzcocks take a trip. Big Brother and the Holding Company contribute a whimsical 60s garage-band love song. Check out that girl doing backup vocals...I think we may be hearing more from her. Also, a first-time appearance for local artist Deborah Crooks, return visits from the Damned, Kevin Ayers, and our own Experimental Bunnies, and Lou Reed's amazing Frank Sinatra impersonation.

Don't touch that dial!

1. The Art Ensemble of Chicago with Fontella Bass - Theme De Yoyo - Les Stances a Sophie
2. Chumbawamba - Everything You Know Is Wrong - Un
3. Nada Brahma Music Ensemble - Papamagama - The Five Deadly Talas
4. Johnny Thunders - Pipeline - So Alone
5. Chris & Cosey - This Is Me - Heartbeat
6. Slim Gaillard - Chicken Rhythm - Vout For Voutoreenees
7. Harry Belafonte - Angelina - Jump Up Calypso
8. The Buzzcocks - Are Everything - A Different Kind of Tension
9. Big Brother And The Holding Company - Caterpillar - Big Brother And The Holding Company
10. Kevin Ayers - Run, Run, Run - The Unfairground
11. John Cooper Clarke - The Day My Pad Went Mad - C81
12. The Experimental Bunnies - Our Just Rewards Are Right Around The Corner - Biology And Physics
13. Eater - Outside View - The Album
14. Takeshi Murata - Decipher - Decipher
15. Deborah Crooks - Living Proof - Adding Water To The Ashes
16. The Damned - Lovely Money - Smash It Up: The Anthology 1976-1987
17. The Clean - Twist Top - Anthology- The Clean
18. Bonzo Dog Band - Rhinocratic Oaths - The Doughnut in Granny's Greenhouse
19. Lou Reed - Broadway Song - The Raven
20. Yo La Tengo - Spec Bebop - I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One

(blank): The band

In response to the continuously growing plethora of bands around the world who share our conviction that The Blame is a great band name, we have decided that the duo project of Davis Jones and J Neo Marvin (with occasional honored guests) needs to be renamed.

After coming up with a whole list of clever handles and finding a Myspace page has already been created for just about every one of them, we racked our brains and scratched our heads until Davis suggested, what about The Full Disclosure Principle, which had been the title of the first Blame release? The more we kicked it around, the better it sounded, and no one else is using it. (Accounting jokes are not very big in the rock & roll scene in general, so we have staked out some new territory here.)

With a fresh name and a fresh attitude, The Full Disclosure Principle continue to piece together their first full-length album in their kitchen studio; Change Is All There Is will be the next digital release on the Ear Candle Productions label. It's gonna be a humdinger, we promise you.

UPDATE: Still working on a name. Don't think it'll be this one. Watch this space.

You can't please everyone

A bittersweet comment passed on from an Ear Candle Radio listener:

I'm new to your station, started listening about a week ago and have really enjoyed it. But is this "Spoken Word Friday"? No, thanks

We've been playing the Firesign Theatre's I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus in its entirety (with musical breaks between Side 1 and Side 2) for a few months now. Is it time to give it a rest? How about the bits from Eddie Izzard, Lord Buckley, Beyond The Fringe, and excerpts from The Prisoner? Share your opinion in the comments.

Our radio station's special flavor comes from the fact that we play whatever we please, and we reserve the right to keep it that way. At the same time, we are interested in what our listeners have to say. Talk to us.

UPDATE: If we don't hear anything from you all out there, we will assume our listeners have granted us tacit approval for MORE spoken word on Ear Candle Radio, and add all 50 or so minutes of Vivian Stanshall's Sir Henry At Rawlinson End album to our playlist. Consider yourselves duly warned.

Seen some videos

We've decided to end the DVD review feature in the blog after a year's worth of posts, because we've ended up hanging on to the same Netflix DVDs for a month while I decide what to write about them. Way too much effort put into something that was supposed to be for fun.

That said, here's what we've been watching since that decision was made, with a few brief comments:

Don't Need You: A Herstory Of Riot Grrrl: Turned out to be the same movie I caught at ATA Gallery in 2001. A sketchy, 35-minute documentary that someone else will need to flesh out someday. Some of the principals come off a lot better than others. Let's leave it at that.

Dream Of Life: Could be subtitled "Hanging Out With Patti Smith", as this is essentially what this sprawling, charming, non-linear documentary is like. Lots of fun.

Happy Go Lucky: Mike Leigh's character study of a relentlessly upbeat woman surrounded by snarky North Londoners. Poppy Cross gets an incredible amount of hate in the IMDB, but I thought she was all right. She means well, and the comedy and drama of the movie lies in how she and the other characters try to interact, and ultimately raises the question, can someone this "happy go lucky" function effectively in the real world?

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: The gossipy movie version of the gossipy book about the "New Hollywood" of the '70s. Censorship was eliminated, directors had the power to tell any story they wanted, and society was being questioned on every level, which made it possible to re-examine all the old tropes the movie biz had taken for granted. A lot of great work came out of this wave, though it's easy to walk away from this account thinking the end result was mostly just ultraviolent nihilism spewed out by cocaine-crazed egomaniacs. One thing you get to see here is how fast one year's counterculture rebels become the next year's new establishment. Roger Corman gave a lot of the directors here their start, which made me think: four decades later, most of the movies that come out of Hollywood are basically Roger Corman exploitation flicks with a big budget and state-of-the-art effects that take themselves far more seriously than Corman ever did. Nowadays we don't really need to break any more taboos, but we could use some soul. A LOT more soul. It's hard to find a new movie these days that's even remotely interesting. If a "New Hollywood" came along today, what would it look like?

Man On Wire: This will give your acrophobia a workout. I had to keep reminding myself, he made it, he didn't fall, look, there he is on the screen getting interviewed. Half the suspense lies in the crew's meticulous planning to pull off this highly illegal stunt. After 9/11, they'd have been labeled "terrorists" and thrown into Guantanamo. Here we get a reminder that a sense of wonder can be worth taking a risk.

So will we have to wait for "Archives, Vol. 2" before we can see the whole movie?

When The Human Highway, Neil Young's rarely-seen 1982 film, was being shot sometime in early 1978, an announcement was made at the Mabuhay Gardens that they were looking for extras for Neil Young's movie for a scene where they played the audience at a Devo show. A lot of San Francisco punks showed up as extras (including my late girlfriend Maati, who was also filmed shooting pool in another scene that may or may not have been used), and I always wondered whether their antics made the final cut. Anyway, this is the first time I've seen the Devo vs. Neil rendition of "Hey Hey, My My". Neil's messy intensity meets Devo's kinetic stiffness in an exciting way. We need to see more footage of this odd clash of scenes.

UPDATE: Aw gee, Neil pulled the video.

Behold a pale horse

Because the blogging has slowed down while we hunker down in the kitchen to finish the Blame album, to keep y'all from being bored I give you:

THE FOUR LITTLE PONIES OF THE APOCALYPSE!

Hey Ian, have you ever heard this?

One of those great, gloomy yet infectious post-punk singles that came out of nowhere and went straight back there, Clock DVA's "4 Hours" has haunted my ears for decades. This is the first time I've ever seen any footage of the group live. They're pretty faithful to the record, except for the weird sort-of harmonies on the chorus. First time I heard this on the radio, I wondered "how do you even begin to write a song like this?" It must have fallen into place unconsciously. Certainly the band themselves never came up with anything else like it again.

Please stand by

Not much activity on the blogging front, partially due to technical considerations. A very important external hard drive bit the dust, taking with it much of our vast music library, including several hot new acquisitions we were about to add to the radio station. Fortunately we had the smarts to back most of it up on disc, and Davis used her formidable skills and patience at problem-solving to free up a huge amount of disc space, which Neo has been filling with music for the last week.

In the meantime, the Blame are busy concocting some very special tracks for their first full-length album. While we wait for the upcoming magnum opus, here is another taste of Atlas Wept.

We've sorted out the credits on this one, and here they are:

ATLAS WEPT (Marvin-Grasso-Borden)
Vocals and instruments: J Neo Marvin and Davis Jones
Plus guests:
Matthew Grasso: 7-string guitar and vocals
Lizzie Borden: Vocals

P.S. Our CD by Chris Knox and the Nothing arrived, and it's a good 'un. The voice and brain of the Tall Dwarfs combined with a full-band backing, rolling through many moods and styles, with the usual Knox gift of melody, heart and caustic wit. Visit the Chris Knox blog and support Chris by ordering a copy. You'll be doing a good turn for a deserving artist who needs our help, and you'll be getting yourself some great music too.

Ear Candle Radio's Top 20: June 2009

A nice show of solidarity from our listeners, who put Chris Knox at number 1 with this Tall Dwarfs classic. The late Ali Akbar Khan gets some props, as does his former student, Matthew Grasso, whose "Papamagama" makes a return showing here. The newest Blame recording, "Atlas Wept" (a sneak preview of our album-in-progress which made it to #15 this month. Woot!), also features a guest appearance by Matthew on 7-string guitar and vocalizations. Last month we met a Japanese trumpet player named Junko, who gave us a CD of her band Cyclub that impressed us so much, we had to immediately add "Diabolo Chatan" (a multi-lingual play on words, protesting the US military presence in Okinawa) to the playlist, where you gave it a nudge to #18. Elsewhere we have everything from Tinariwen to Porter Wagoner to the MC5 to Suicide.
Keep listening, dear friends.

1. Tall Dwarfs - Bodies - Weeville
2. Wanda Jackson - Rock Your Baby - Rockin' With Wanda
3. Tinariwen - Afours Afours - The Radio Tisdas Sessions
4. Porter Wagoner - The Rubber Room - The Rubber Room
5. Dengue Fever - Sober Driver - Venus On Earth
6. Davy Graham - Blues Raga - Mojo Presents: The Quiet Revolution
7. Booker T. & The MG's - Slum Baby - The Very Best of Booker T. & the MG's
8. The Wild Magnolias - Smoke My Peace Pipe (Smoke It Right) - The Wild Magnolias
9. Suicide - New City - The First Rehearsal Tapes
10. Sly & The Family Stone - You Can Make It If You Try - The Essential Sly & The Family Stone
11. MC5 - Back In The USA - The Big Bang! Best Of The MC5
12. John Cooper Clarke - Beasley Street - Snap, Crackle & Bop
13. The Magnetic Fields - Washington, D.C. - 69 Love Songs, Pt. 2
14. Lou Reed - Broadway Song - The Raven
15. The Blame - Atlas Wept - Change Is All There Is
16. Ustad Ali Akbar Khan - Raga Chandranandan - Traditional Music of India
17. Incredible String Band - A Very Cellular Song - The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter
18. Cyclub - Diabolo Chatan - Science Future
19. Nada Brahma Music Ensemble - Papamagama - The Five Deadly Talas
20. Slim Gaillard - Chicken Rhythm - Vout For Voutoreenees