The Holy Modal Rounders - 'The Moray Eels Eat The' (Sundazed)

The Moray Eels Eat the Holy Modal Rounders is a great record; it's fun, doesn't go on too long, and manages to convert its 60s-drenched anarchy into something that still feels meaningful. That's not to say it isn't clearly a document of its time, but just that the 'fuck it' approach to folk music was already rooted in something much older than the psychedelic rock at the time, and even though this is a heavily psychedelic record, it feels remarkably present today, even compared to classic rockers like Hendrix or Sgt Peppers. Of course, there's nothing like the Rounders being made today, at least not that I'm aware of; the folk-noise hybrid stuff that happened about a decade ago often verged towards absurdity but never with such reckless abandon, and anyway, the context was all different. One of the nicest things anyone ever said to me was years and years ago when I was playing them some of my solo music, which was somber, delicate and spare post-adolescent minimalism. My friend remarked that my personality seemed so different than the music I was making; he then put on 'Bird Song', from Moray Eels, and said that he expected my solo work to resemble something more like that. I haven't seen Easy Rider since before I was in straight-legged pants so I barely remember its moment of fame, but there's no better song to put on and dance around to, flopping my arms and moaning the mostly wordless vocal parts. The overtly drugged out songs like 'My Mind Capsized' and 'Half a Mind' have outlasted their era, and this version of Michael Hurley's 'Werewolf' is so drained and sparse that it's genuinely frightening. You have to squint to hear the residue of the American songbook, but it's there just as surely as I mix my metaphors. 'Duji Song' is like the world's most frightening, inside-out jug band; 'Take-off Artist Song' is deconstructed vaudeville at it's finest. I wish I had a copy of Indian War Whoop to complete the classic Rounders collection but it's been reish'd enough times that I'm sure it will pass by. In the meantime I'll consider this to be the pinnacle; even the cover art is beautiful, magnificent, lush and appropriate. 

Car Commercials - 'Judy's Dust' (Cenotaph)

This is the new sound of New Jersey, and a pretty carefully cultivated one at that. Half of these guys are in Home Blitz and the other half was affiliated with Ladderwoe, so the resulting mix is pretty accurately a blend - a freeish rock group with a real anti-aesthetic and a particular velocity. The opening track is a long warbling instrumental with noodling casio and scraping, and it never even closely congeals into anything tangible, though with an exactitude and deliberation missing from most free-form ensembles of today's world. When the rock riffs creep in, first heard on '190' and most effecively on 'Babe's out of luck' (which actually approximates a traditional rock song), it's cathartic. A satisfying release to tension and it makes you think the whole mess was quite deliberate. Is it hard to connect to the expressions here? Surely 'Mechanic's yelps and mumbles bear no resemblance to sanity, but then it's hard to deny those rough songforms, when they turn up. 'Collida and Jimmy' begins with an anthemic strum, though soon after the singing starts (an off-kilter warble, of course) it proceeds to follow it's own musings down dark corridors and never comes back. The drumset is used throughout the record with maximum imprecision, but it fits the faux-nostalgia that the sleeve artwork (and liner "notes") create. It's park Jandek, of course, with a smidgeon of Pere Ubu but also a good helping of Kenneth Higney. Just blazing on through in a cavern of one-take songbash, Judy's Dust somehow overcomes it's limitations and communicates. There's no inertia here. The slowly melting, unfolding of 'The Devils' hints at a grand vision, and the occasional intrusion of tape-player speed adjustment or feedback squeal all seems like part of it. Maybe 'The Investigation' is their 'Murder Mystery', I don't know for sure. It's rock music, deconstructed and reinvented yet again. And it ends with a Boomtown Rats cover.

Camper Van Beethoven (Pitch-A-Tent/Rough Trade)

You'd think by the psychedelic cover and classic-style riffings that these boys are outing themselves as neo-hippies for the third album. I mean, they're noticing Jerry's daughter (and using a firstname basis with Mr. Garcia) and soon they'll probably start hanging out with Poi Dog Pondering if they're not careful. But flip it over and look at the amateurish scrawl of the Bic pen, and it all makes sense. The target of Lowery's seemingly endless bucket of bile is just being refocused - except it's not endless, it's pretty much the last gasp before major-label recognition and Dennis Herring production. So the sixties return with a vengeance (like herpes), though actually there's so many Led Zeppelin references here maybe we should include the 70s as well. Of course these guys are deconstructing retro/revivalism in their usual way and why not? As long as that shadow is going to loom over rock music, it's fair game. 'Good Guys and Bad Guys' was one of the iconic CVB tunes for this teenager, but now it sounds just a bit too trite for me. Though the triumphant keyboard/violin part and feelgood lyrics are certainly delivered with tongue embedded firmly in cheek, I think their edge is gone. Political satire works best when you don't dig too deeply, or maybe that's the point. I still love this third album, just in different ways, and largely due to the more progressive and experimental edges on the surrealism. Case in point - 'The History of Utah'. Yeah, it's inherently as nonsensical as any of the Telephone Free jams, but with a relentless minor-key sawing and bizarre song structure. 'We Love You' is the best version of 'Devil Went Down to Georgia' I've ever heard, and 'Shut Us Down' continues their "last song on the album" style - simple, anthemic, and self-mocking. Some of the instrumentals are a bit tempered - the cover of 'Interstellar Overdrive' notwithstanding that this heretic believes to surpass the original - there's more of a tendency towards folk and country exaggerations, and why not? Eugene Chadbourne is billed as a full band member here and if you listen to 'Hoe Yourself Down' you'll hear why. But 'Stairway to Heavan (sic)' is a dysfunctional, overstudio'd fuckup of 'Mao Reminisces' and it's kind of awesome. If you want to hear beautiful songwriting you're going to have to wait, cause apart from maybe the beautiful (perhaps misplaced?) 'Folly' and 'Une Fois' (which is brief and unintelligible), the lyrics are staying distinctly distanced from human emotions. Jonathan Segel's 'Still Wishing to Course' is maybe the exception, but it's a bit of a dud, which would have been better suited to his Storytelling solo album. 'Peace + Love' is also a winner, though it's really the CVB version of 'The Murder Mystery' (or 'The Gift') with Victor Krummenacher (I think) narrating this dark tale. But I always like experiments like this, and there's some great backwards guitar soloing here that I assume are Mr. Chadbourne in action. There are times when I forget that this is supposed to be a rock band, and this is the album that most reminds me of that. But maybe I want CVB to be something else?