Buzzcocks - 'Time's Up (Featuring Howard Devoto)' (Smilin' Ears)

I never thought about this until I pulled out Time's Up, but bootlegs are another casualty of our digital Internet age. I know there's still semi-legitimate reissues going around, but that's not the same as when these were mass-produced and a serious source of revenue-theft. You can distribute anything, anytime, anyhow. I remember Pearl Jam's stunt releasing all of those live concerts from that one tour, which was only what, like 12 years ago? It feels like a million. Time's Up isn't a live recording though, but all of the studio sessions with Howard Devoto on vocals. This is a somewhat nastier, attitude-heavy Buzzcocks than when Pete Shelley totally takes over, but the title works because there's something timeless about these tunes. This particular bootleg of Time's Up is a beauty - the black and white cover gives away it's shadyness, and the "All Rights Reserved/All Wrongs Reversed" line on the back was stolen by Matador years later. Hooray for Smilin' Ears records of Valencia, Venezuela. This pretty much opens and closes the door on Howard Devoto in the Buzzcocks, I think, and it's been available in a zillion different ways and levels of legitimacy. This one is dirty sounding, as if the stolen master tapes were quickly pressed to vinyl and then returned. There's a few times the audio drops out -- more than a few times, really -- but this accentuates the edgy snarl of Devoto's pissy delivery. The famous Spiral Scratch tunes are here - 'Boredom', 'Orgasm Addict', etc. -- but it's the Sex Pistols-like dirges such as 'Drop in the Ocean' and 'Love Battery' that stand out the most to me. There's points when I wonder how much more ass-kicking this would sound if it was a decent mastering job, but in a way I like the Devoto era this way -- save the big sound for the next few records. It's dust on the stylus, but that's the sound -- the Northern dream, melted, and recalibrated through the lens of the time. Does 'Love Everybody's opening lyric of "I love you, big dummy" directly reference Beefheart? The guitar solo is pretty soaked in Zoot Horn Rollo so maybe that's that. The Buzzcocks were never one to quibble their approach; the strength is in the songwriting , the iconic anthems, and the 'tude. I'm actually more of a Magazine fan myself but that doesn't mean this is without merit. The final cut is also labeled as 'Boredom', but it's done in a retro 60's pop-psych style with bleeped lyrics - it sounds like a different band so I'm a bit curious what the deal is with this. But Smilin' Ears ain't exactly reknowned for their liner notes. And it's only listed on the sleeve, not the label, so we'll have to keep wondering about it.

Anthony Braxton - 'New York, Fall 1974' (Arista)

This radio statio promo copy fails to put the graphical notation of the titles on the label, so I will use the same standards here. This is Braxton's move to a major label, and from listening to side one you'd think it was a blatant stab at commercial success. The three cuts here are based around a traditional rhythm section (Jerome Cooper and Dave Holland) and it swings quite nicely in post-bop quartet mode. The chord changes are somewhat golden, and it goes quite well with the ghostlike autumnal walk in the woods on the back cover. "Side One, Cut Three" gets the most intense, with a mind-numbingly repetitive bassline over which Braxton's alto and Kenny Wheeler's trumpet can scratch at each other. It's remarkably Apollonian but then again, Braxton is generally somewhat Apollonian (at least compared to other "difficult" composers). Side two introduces some crazyness -- a Braxton/Richard Teitelbaum clarinet/Moog duo opens up, and it's slow and exploratory, with lots of bubbling, gurgling sounds and fast/slow clarinet doodles. It's more of the push/pull we heard in the album with Jarman, but they occasionally lock into sync and make some amazingly mindmelded tunes. Overall, it's the highlight of the record and a nice entry into the Arista catalogue. "'Side two, cut two' is a predecessor to the World Saxophone Quartet, but with Braxton subbing for David Murray. The piece is kinda goofy, almost like an experiment of what they could get away with, with four saxophonists. Braxton's on soparino (which is even higher than soprano), leaving Hemphill to play alto and Oliver Lake on tenor. Hamiett Bluiett's baritone is quite restrained but occasionally it blasts a jarring jolt that makes me sit upright and pay attention. By the end it's an exercise in repetition with everyone playing staccato notes at the same time, and it's not the most enlightening of the man's works, to put it mildly. 'Side two, cut three' returns to the quartet of side one, but with Leroy Jenkins added. It's now 6 years since his contribution to Braxton's 3 Compositions of New Jazz and I daresay it shows a new sense of resignation. It's as slow as the duet with Teitelbaum, but this time there's a full band to enforce the misery. Maybe this bird gets unhappy when he leaves Chicago, or maybe he's anticipating the financial pressures that would virtually kill avant-garde jazz a few years later. Maybe I'm reading into it too much, but, my point is, it's a sad and oblique ending to a mixed grab bag of an album.

Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band - 'Ice Cream for Crow' (Virgin/Epic)

Don's so earnest on the cover photo, as if he knew this would be his last record. There is some feeling of things winding down here, perhaps most evident in 'Evening Bell' and it's internal headbutting. It's a dismantling of 15 years of music, which in retrospect, doesn't feel very long at all given the journeys taken. 'Ice Cream for Crow' had a great video that MTV rejected for being 'too weird' although it's relatively standard for 1982 rock video - the band playing in the Mojave desert, a place that infects Ice Cream for Crow throughout. Go find it on YouTube if you haven't seen it. I don't think the Captain was looking for any more mainstream success after his flirtation with accessibility in the mid-70s; that video just looks like fun. Ice Cream for Crow is a fun album despite the ticking clock. The band's different yet again, with a few holdovers from Doc and Gary Lucas staying on, but sadly no John French. New drummer Cliff R. Martinez holds things down well and this one is produced well again. DVV's inspired too -- listen to 'Hey Garland, I Dig Your Tweed Coat' which has a melting mudsicle of his best imagery, touching back to the inspirations from the days of the dust blowing forward n' back, but without being in retrograde orbit. The lyrics sheets lays it all down, including the purely prosaic '"81" Poop Hatch". I can't help but feel like DVV had fallen into some sort of gently avuncular role by this point (as the video testifies to, too). Maybe Uncle Beefheart's wisdom by this point is what makes this such a nice departure point - with moments allegorical ('The Thousand and Tenth Day of the Human Totem Pole'), rhythmic ('Ink Mathematics') and strangely wistful/wistfully strange ('Cardboard Cutout Sundown'). Many have mourned the departure of Captain Beefheart from the world of music but I'm happy with what he left us.

Captan Beefheart and His Magic Band - 'Trout Mask Replica' (Reprise)

It feels like the Underbite has hit on a bunch of classic/infallible/etc. albums lately but looking back it's really just this and Pet Sounds. But I should stick to my policy of trying to actually say something new, worthwhile and (I guess) personal about these rather than repeating clichés and foregone conclusions. So what can I actually draw from listening to this, for the millionth time? The words flow by like a river, albeit one very familiar; pause button edit techniques recall Gyson but i think of Anton Bruhin dancing with Charles Olson. I used to listen to this and be amazed at the logical patterns that emerge, for example the ending rodeo of 'Pachuco Cadaver'. Now I just try to feel it - it's all about Drumbo for me tonight. The Captain may have been pissed off at John French (leaving him off the credits) but at least he was smart enough to keep him prominent in the mix. The date printed on the back of this cover reveals this to be a late 70's reissue, and it's in great shape so I can hear every wispy cymbal flick and thud-thud. About midway through you need a break, which is why I can't imagine listening to this on CD. It's not the most demanding record ever made - I am listening to it quite casually - but it's such a complete vision that it feels like one complete symphony in 28 movements. Yeah yeah yeah, this'll get the "changed music forever" tag of course, but what's remarkable is listening in sequence cause I just did Strictly Personal and Mirror Man - even though those are 'transitional' works, blending between the edgy 4/4 stomp of Safe as Milk and more open, damaged compositions -- it's still a giant leap forward from that stuff to Trout Mask Replica. It helps that everything gel'd into a summit of personal expression and power - not just the utterly demented approach to rock songwriting, but the artwork and lyrics have stepped it up a few notches. 'Martian blues' is what they always call this stuff right? Sure, you can hear the remnants of that tradition especially in stuff like 'China Pig' but really, entire genres of music and thousands of musicians have still never progressed past this album. And no one has ever really equaled it as an accomplishment either. The raw sexuality of Beefheart's lyrics has always seemed like the perfect fit for music at least somewhat based in the blues - and it's pretty flagrant here, like 'My Human Gets Me Blues' and 'Big Joan'. The soprano sax that spits out all over this album makes sense too - I mean, that's the load he's shooting right? Also, 'Veterans Day Poppy', with it's awesome half-time bridge and Vietnam-era lyrics is a hell of a closer, and one of the most underrated Beefheart songs in general. Raw, primitive, insert whatever adjectives you usually read here -- it's all true, and it's maybe one of the pieces missing from earlier records. The story that's emerged from Drumbo and the others, about how this record was created through a brutal cult-like regiment, should make the bleeding hearts among us reevaluate Trout Mask's greatness, but I don't really care. Does anyone believe something this intense could be created through normal conditions? I like how certain songs reveal more traditional music characteristics, for example 'She's Too Much For My Mirror' has chord changes that remind me of Steely Dan or something. This is probably not the point, but rather a bad habit that I gravitate towards when trying to re-evaluate the very familiar.