With full understanding that the only way to get anybody to read your blog is to post free music for people to download, I’ve been meaning to start doing that forever. However I am very busy. As you may have read, I recently did a whirlwind trip through the UK, which I hope to recap soon, but for a taster, it involved DJing in London, dancing at Optimo, going to a party in a cave, having a drink with some Fire Engines, etc. I’ve also been busy stateside, including finishing up the next Lines CD, “Flood Bank”, compiling both their LPs, doing a few Viva Radio shows I haven’t posted about here yet, and even DJing locally. For instance, tonight (Saturday, August 16th), I’m DJing at Rubulad, which will also feature a performance by the Homosexuals. For more info and the address, send me an email.

However, while I take a break from my hectic schedule, I’d like to post some mp3s, so I can join the exciting world of “mp3 blogs”, influence a new generation of music fans and maybe get hired by some dot-com 2.0 start-up funded by News Corp or Viacom or something. Actually, I’ve been excited to do this for ages now. There were a few years where I really wasn’t paying attention to new music. On one hand, I was too busy collected Desperate Bicycles records and reading the Phil Ochs biography. On the other hand, most new music was terrible. Things started to change though, mostly through the influence of people like myself teaching kids about the good musics of the past. All these amazing new bands have been popping up and now there is scene upon scene of awesomeness. Cool minimalist art-punk bands, cosmic disco rockers, psychedelic folk finger-pickers…you name it.

And wouldn’t you know, soon as I started the Acute Records myspace page, I got attacked by friend requests. A good portion of them are crap bands who are just looking for a label. But I listen to them all because some of them actually find us because they dig some of the same music we do, even some of the CDs we release. Or some find my personal page because I have such great taste. Eventually I started finding some on my own, just linking to people’s top friends and discovering the aforementioned scene upon scene of cool stuff I dig. So when I started this blog I mentioned my intention to highlight some of these bands/acts that I liked for whatever reason, and for no particular reason, I decided to start with these two recent myspace acquaintances.

Tony Underground – Mana Magic (album edit)
control-click to download
this has been removed because it’s coming out legit on Tirk! Congratulations! Awesome!

Tony Underground is a nu-disco (for lack of a better term) producer/DJ in England. His interests are pretty much the same of mine when it comes to dance music, italo, Chicago house etc. He’s got some pretty banging tracks on his myspace player, but the one that grabbed me was this one, Mana Magic. It’s a bit of a balearic groove with a bit in common with some early UK IDM, something Ultramarine or even AFX might’ve done. Beautiful piano tinkling and lush synthetic atmospherics, joined 1/3rd of the way through by some simple beats…really beautiful.

Rauschenberg – Sigue
[audio:sigue.mp3]
control-click to download

Rauschenberg is a duo located in Brooklyn, NY, easily the second coolest borough in the city. They pair an 80s electronic pop sound with a very digital/cut-n-paste aesthetic, especially to this song, with lo-fi casio style samples, vocal grunt samples and newscaster soundbytes that owes as much to Trevor Horn’s glossy Fairlight production as it does to the Severed Heads or Cabaret Voltaire at their most accessible, with female Japanese vocals. I think I was initially attracted to another song on their myspace player, Instrumental, and asked for this one by mistake. Instrumental starts with a digital piano and strings melody (I just love piano and piano-esque) before bringing in the italo-bassline and drum machines, though this has more to do with the way New Order would draw from italo and make more baroque pop songs then the type of post-electroclash italo revival we hear most often. Both songs have some great hooks and totally fascinating production.

So I hope you’ve enjoyed my foray into mp3 blogdom. I have a large backlog of new-ish bands I dig that I plan on asking if I can share (that’s right, I asked permission. It really wasn’t that hard.) I’ll try to do this as often as I can, but as I already said…I’m really busy. Better get back to work.

That’s right…we’re getting the “band” back together. Ye olde DJ duo, Crazy Rhythms, featuring Mike Simonetti of Troubleman Unlimited and Italians Do It Better and myself, of Acute Records, Dazzle Ships and this blog, is back for the first time in many years, to play a classic williamsburg loft party. Just like the good old days of 2003 or so. We go on after 2 crazy bands. Quick details:

DATE: Saturday june 21st

TIME: Doors 9pm- music, 10 really!

LOCATION: 210 kent ave @corner of Metropolitan

Another self-indulgent, excessively long promotional email here…

Dazzle ships is back, after last months amazing Arthur Russell movie after-party. This time we’re doing a little CD release party for Memory Span by The Lines, which I’m sure you know all about, because you’ve been reading this blog. Jeremy and I will be joined by dj Ray Velasquez and we’ll be playing some post-punk funk, new wave dub, and all kinds of sounds from the era. The Lines stood on their own and were defiantly not part of any specific scene, but we’ll play some likeminded sounds, some influences and followers, some peers and bands they shared the bill with, and mostly, some more music by The Lines. For more information, see the flyer below and check out the event page on Facebook.

Start Time: Wednesday, June 18, 2008 at 9:00pm
End Time: Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 1:00am
Location: Heather’s Bar
Street: 506 East 13th St.
City/Town: New York, NY

So Memory Span has been out for a total of 2 weeks now and response has been fantastic. We’re selling millions and the press has been great. The Lines have also seen a great increase in the number of MySpace friend requests, which is the true test of a band’s popularity these days.

Anyway, just wanted to take this chance to say thanks and point interested people to some of the online activity, starting with this extensive interview/feature by our friend Rick from the We Fought the Big One night in DC. It’s over at BrightestYoungThings.com, definitely check it out.

Here’s a few other highlights, if you’re still thinking of buying the CD and don’t trust my judgement alone.

Kris Needs 4 star review in Record Collector.

8/10, staff pick in XLR8R.

Eye Weekly.

8 rating from Prefix Mag.

8 and interview at PaperThinWalls.

Post at Last Days of Man on Earth blog.

Review at Brainwashed.

I don’t have a link but there’s also a great 4 star review by Jon Savage in the July issue of Mojo, featuring the Sex Pistols on the cover. If that wasn’t enough, that issue features a CD of vintage 77 punk including a song from our Prefects CD. World domination, here we come!

Acute Records is proud to announce the release of our 10th CD, Memory Span by The Lines. A few years in the making, Memory Span compiles all of the singles and EPs The Lines released. We’ve also included 2 bonus unreleased tracks and a fancy color booklet with photos, flyers, sleeve scans and a band history. What more can you ask for? Their two LPs? Those are coming next! Let’s focus on the matter at hand, which is the incredible run of singles and EPs The Lines recorded between 1978 and 1981. Songs like this one…

Two Split Seconds
[audio:http://acuterecords.com/sounds/ACU010/TheLines_TwoSplitSeconds.mp3]
control-click to download

and this one…

Nerve Pylon
[audio:http://acuterecords.com/sounds/ACU010/TheLines_NervePylon.mp3]
control-click to download

The Lines’ music was unique in it’s subtle charm. Many reviewers didn’t give them a chance the first time around, leaving them and their releases to develop the smallest but most rabid cult audience. It’s the kind of music that will work it’s way under your skin and into your brain and stay there, for good, if you give it time. In all my years as a music fan, I can think of very few acts who managed to release so much consistently great music while achieving so little notice. At this point in time, with many fans and critics sure that the post-punk era has been so thoroughly mined for hidden gems that there can’t be anything left, The Lines stands as the ultimate challenge (of course I think there’s always more great stuff to find of any era!). Here’s a band who’s history shares much of the growth of their peers, as the punk rock impulse underpinning post-punk gave voice to more experimental leanings. Music ranging from 60s inspired rock, angular and taut post-punk, krautrock, dub and disco influences and underneath all of this, solid and catchy song-writing.

You can learn more about the release on Memory Span’s web page which includes even more web-exclusive unreleased tracks, such as…

Cat Bug Jeep
[audio:http://acuterecords.com/sounds/ACU010/TheLines_CatBugJeep.mp3]
control-click to download

and photos, flyers and other goodies. I figured I’d take this “blogging” oppurtunity to dig a bit deeper into my personal thoughts on the band, as well as some thanks. Back again in the background…

The law of diminishing returns…the first few times I posted about my Viva Radio shows, I included a picture of the record’s sleeve and a paragraph or 4 about each selection. The last time, I skipped the artwork. This time, I’m skipping the descriptions completely. I have more important things to do, including writing about Acute’s latest release, Memory Span by The Lines. However I thought I’d share the playlists to the last three shows, all of which can be streamed from my Viva Radio show page, Pyjamarama. Maybe if I have time I’ll come back and rant about each track, for the two of you that would care.

O.K. Let’s Go
This was a return to my UK DIY roots. Not that I was listening to the Scrotum Poles while in middle school, but during the period when I was first discovering tape trading on the internet and making my first internet radio playlists (on Supersphere, which I think is gone). I think I stopped making mixes of this stuff because eventually I could just say, “go buy some Hyped2Death CDs” Some of these tracks are on the Hyped2Death Messthetics CDs, some I discovered from the 2 volume Instant Pop Classics bootlegs, some I got turned onto by Steve at Low Down Kids, a few songs care of fellow fans Michael Train and Joshua Gabriel and the rest here and there. These are mostly DIY, lo-fi, low-budget UK post-punk pop gems. The music ranges from twee and quaint to arty and avant-garde, but it’s all quite catchy.

1. I Jog & The Tracksuits – Redbox
2. The Funboy Five – Life After Death
3. Bathroom Renovations – Intensely Henna’d
4. Thin Yoghurts – Girl on the Bus
5. Scrotum Poles – Pick the Cat’s Eyes Out
6. The Farmer’s Boys – Drinking and Dressing Up
7. IQ Zero – I Must Obey
8. Grow Up – Missing
9. Steve Miro – Smiling in Reverse
10. Slight Seconds – New Me
11. One Gang Logic – Who Killed Sex?
12. Metropak – O.K. Let’s Go
13. Desperate Bicycles – (I Make the) Product
14. Mud Hutters – Water Torture
15. Club Tango – FTN
16. Beach Bullies – Windowshopping
17. To The Finland Station – Betray
18. Happy Refugees – This is Cold
19. Beyond the Implode – This Atmosphere
20. Tronics – Baby’s In a Coma
21. Versatile Newts – Blimp
22. Graph – Drowning

The Crunch
This is more post-punk, mostly, and of a decidedly more “funky” style. I wasn’t trying to do a strict “post-punk funk” dance mix or anything, just picking some more of my favorite post-punk type tracks that you could possibly dance to, depending on level of inebriation most likely. Or angst. These aren’t floor-fillers or anything, though Carl Craig did steal one of these, but they’ll definitely get you shaking in your seat. I know all over people say they play “post-punk” at their dance parties, which usually means Bloc Party and the occasional Gang of 4 selection. This is one version of a post-punk dance party.

1. The Nightingales – The Crunch
2. Boots for Dancing – Hesitate
3. Manicured Noise – Metronome
4. The Tea Set – Tri-X Pan
5. Funkapolitan – As Time Goes By
6. Au Pairs – It’s Obvious (Peel Session)
7. The Raincoats – Balloon
8. Dislocation Dance – Roof is Leaking
9. Gist – Clean Bridges
10. Design for Living – Red Ribbon Day
11. Family Fodder – Silence
12. Flying Lizards – Steam Away
13. Camberwell Now – Speculative Fiction
14. Scritti Politti – P.A.S

Transparent Radiation
This was describes as “kinda 80s, kinda psychedelic”. Not the most specific theme, just some slightly spacey stuff, 60s influenced post-punk type stuff. Some not that 60s or psychedelic, but just stuff I thought would fit nicely. I think I did an OK job.

1. The Tea Set – The Preacher
2. The Stranglers – Let’s Tango in Paris
3. Psychic TV – Just Like Arcadia
4. Echo & the Bunnymen – I’ve Read it in Books
5. The Teardrop Explodes – Camera Camera
6. Clinical Noise – Venus Comes
7. Schleimer K – She’s Gone
8. The Servants – Transparent
9. Sun City Girls – Soft Fragile Eggshell Minds
10. Meat Puppets – We’re Here
11. Robyn Hitchcock – Acid Bird
12. Opal – Happy Nightmare Baby
13. Sonic Youth – Tom Violence
14. Swans – The Other Side of the World
15. Live Skull – Demon Rail
16. Spacemen 3 – Ecstasy Symphony/Transparent Radiation (Flashback)

I don’t remember how I learned about Arthur Russell or when I made the connection that the guy who did Is It All Over My Face? was the guy who did Go Bang! who was the guy who did that cello track on the Crepuscule comp who was that Arthur Russell who wrote World of Echo. I do know around the time the first Disco Not Disco comp came out, I was fully obsessed. Here was somebody who effortlessly sailed his boat through disparate oceans of sound, combining them at will, adding fair amounts of dub and art to his pop, great degrees of art and noise to his disco and cello to all of it. I hunted high and low for both 12″s of Dinosaur’s Kiss Me Again, and almost cried when Lee Douglas gave me a copy of Let’s Go Swimming for free. And even now after several years of digging in the tapes and crates, with a series of great archival releases on Audika records, there’s still wonderful music to discover. I’m excited to see Matt Wolf’s movie Wild Combination, and thrilled to be hosting the after-party at this rare Thursday edition of Dazzle Ships. We’re gonna hear some great music. Come on down thursday night, I want to see all my friends at once.

POSTSCRIPT/RECAP, THE FOLLOWING DAY
Where do I start? We arrived at the Kitchen for the first showing and found ourselves in the row directly behind most of the cast of the movie…Arthur’s partner Tom Lee, Steve Knutson from Audika, Ernie Brooks, Steve Hall, Bob Blank, Peter Zummo among others. In front of them sat my old Oberlin classmates Nick Hallett and Alex Waterman who are both involved in the Kitchen’s Arthur Russell performances this weekend, fellow Obie Peter Hess is performing as well, but I didn’t see him. The crowd was a who’s who of DJs, musicians, journalists, bloggers, downtown art types etc etc.

Anyway, the movie was absolutely fantastic. Just amazing. Beautiful, touching, really great. Lots of wonderful old footage, and a bit of newly shot footage excellently capturing and setting the mood. Director Matt Wolf picked a limited amount of people to interview, so you get in depth memories from people that knew Arthur best instead of the vague and irrellevant celebrity talking heads you get in so many documentaries. In addition to the names listed above, Arthur’s parents are interviewed, giving the film some of it’s funniest, and most touching moments, Will Socolov from Sleeping Bag and a few others appear.

The only real “outside” perspective is from David Toop, which is appropriate as it was an article he wrote in the 90s, perhaps for the Wire(?), that turned a lot of people onto Arthur’s music and for many years was the only resource available that I could find. Tim Lawrence, author of Love Saves the Day, mentions what I think was a later Toop article that was from the time of the first Audika and Soul Jazz reissues here, but I think there was an article he wrote more specifically about the World of Echo material and it’s relation to dub earlier on, I remember reading it around the time of the Disco Not Disco compilation.

The movie was followed initially by what was probably the longest round of applause I’ve heard this side of a Bruce Springsteen concert, then a great Q+A session, after which Jeremy, myself and friends shot over to Heather’s to start our first thursday Dazzle Ships. The bar was crowded already and just got moreso. At some point I was reaching for the most difficult Russell records I could find in the hopes of driving away the east village “little friday” drinkers and making more room for the after-party. Sure enough as the night progressed and the second screening finished, more and more people from the film, both filmmakers and filmgoers began to show up. Jeremy came up to me while I was DJing to tell me he just got beers for Peter Gordon and Ned Sublette. Tom Lee joined us a moment after and I reminded him that we had met 5+ years before, the last time I did an all Arthur Russell night, which he remembered. That felt appropriate, some kind of cyclical feeling, the wheel of life and all that. So come join us again in 2013 for another all Arthur Russell DJ night!

POSTSCRIPT POSTSCRIPT!
The question this post was started with was answered last night by Ryan Chowdhury. We were reminiscing over first hearing various bits of Arthur’s music…talking about the release of the Strut compiltion Disco Not Disco, which I bought right away and brought to Plant Bar and played Kiss Me Again (edit) by Dinosaur probably 3 times, having never heard that particular song before despite already loving Arthur’s better known disco songs as well as the World of Echo and Another Thought albums. He mentioned remembering somehow the July 4th at the house on Ryerson in Brooklyn where I first met Mark Morgan of the band Sightings. His friend Brian, from Mouthus, was subletting a room from one of the girls I went to school with. This was the house where Oneida would play acoustic sets…the Oberlin mafia in full effect. Mark and I discussed our shared love of DIY post-punk type stuff, though his tastes ran more toward the I Hate the Pop Group style aggressive/noise side of things and mine towards the twee scottish poppy funky side of things. I mentioned how it combined with my love of disco and how I was really into disco and Mark said the only disco he was really into was this guy Arthur Russell who made all these disco records and weird noisy records and ethereal pop records and etc etc. I remember thinking “what does this guy know about disco?” but it had to be some point after that that I put it all together. So thanks Ryan for reminding me and thanks Mark for kicking that off. Mark also made me a mix of crazy diy keyboard no wave skronk punk stuff and turned me onto Red Transistor and the Four Plugs but that’s another story…

Just thought I’d post the tracklists of my two most recent Viva Radio shows, both available in the archives of my show Pyjamarama. I’m gonna try to chill on the extended essays regarding each track, there’s gotta be some mystery in life, right? Actually I’m just too lazy.

The first show focused on the prettier side of early Detroit Techno and some likeminded sounds coming out of Chicago in the mid/late 80s/early 90s and some of the early UK IDM that drew so heavily from Detroit. This may not be “pretty” to some people, I guess one person’s ecstatic vision of a slightly-melancholic utopian future is another person’s mind-numbing repetition of bleeps and bloops.

I first got into techno via the likes of 808 State, the Orb, Moby and acts better left unmentioned, but the discovery in the summer before my first year of college of the just released Warp Artificial Intelligence CD, with massive US distribution thanks to Wax Trax/TVT, really blew me away. The concept of electronic music not made for dancing really jibed with my interest in the likes of Wendy Carlos and Vangelis, but the dance music influence was unmistakable. Within a few years, IDM as it would be titled, went further and further from it’s roots in more experimental, and to me less appealing, directions. No matter as my arrival to college lead me to the roots of this music…all the artists listed as influences in the very educational liner notes of the Artificial Intelligence CD. I knew the experimental/industrial/new wave side of things, but who was Rhythm is Rhythm? I soon found out and spent the next several years with a tape of Detroit Techno permanently in my car’s tape deck, driving back and forth between New York and Cleveland, Pennsylvania country-side flying by to the tune of what was surely the music of the future. Alternately, in my friends car with Black Dog’s Bytes and B.12’s Electro-Soma…he had a CD player. Not all of this is “dance music” but it’s all Techno one way or another and it all still sounds like the future to me.

SYNTHETIC EMOTIONS
1. Long Ago – A Relic
Derrick May and/or Carl Craig from the Transmat Relics comp

2. Model 500 – Infoworld
Juan Atkins techno perfection, also on Relics, from the Ocean to Ocean 12″.

3. Stasis – vcf
Early IDM, 1993 UK techno track from Steve Pickton, on the Redcell/Stasis compilation. Redcell was B.12.

4. Mr. Fingers – Stars
Chicago House god Larry Heard in 1987, I think it’s only available on bootlegs now. Stuff like this made me confused about what the difference was between House and Techno back then. Shockingly beautiful, surprisingly remiscent of Severed Head’s Dead Eyes Open.

5. Ron Trent – Altered States (Terrace Light City Mix)
Not sure when this came out, it’s been remixed and re-released about a thousand times. I think from 1990. The original version is pure minimal Chicago Techno House, this remix is from Terrace/Stefan Robbers from the Netherlands.

6. Reel By Real – Aftermath
Martin Bonds with Juan Atkins. This was on the Techno Two compilation, and thus made it onto my detroit techno tape, and along with Infoworld and many other classics, supplied the soundtrack to many 8 hour car trips along route 80.

7. B.12 – Telefone 529
B.12 were the purists of the IDM/Artificial Intelligence set, their CD Electro-Soma is about as perfect as Detroit Techno gets, no matter where it’s made. This track, released as Musicology, is on the Artificial Intelligence comp.

8. Fuse – Dimension Intrusion
Another classic from the early days of AI. Fuse was yet another project from Richie Hawtin of +8 records, at that point probably best known for Cybersonik. Most of Fuse’s tracks were minimal/banging techno cuts, this was like his ambient track or something. Has he done anything this good since? Has anybody?

9. Drexciya – Aqua Worm Hole
Even in the weirdest most experimental corners of the neo-electro revival of the mid 90s a group like Drexciya could still show that shimmering celestial quality of these heartfelt synthetic emotions.

10. Underground Resistance – Quadrasonic
Another group known best for noisier and more banging stuff, this is a relatively early UR track that creates and trippy, spacey atmosphere with a bubbly and yes, pretty, acid line.

11. The Black Dog – Techno Playtime
Another of the Artificial Intelligence/early IDM groups, the mysterious Black Dog were like the opposite of B.12. They mined the entire history of late 20th century dance music and threw it in a blender. Echoes of Detroit, Chicago, New York, breakbeats, disco, whatever, all thrown together with odd time-signatures and abrupt changes, defying you to actually dance to it, while still sounding like dance music. This is an early track. The CD Bytes is super essential, you can probably get rid of every other “IDM” CD ever if you have that.

12. 0733 – Synthetic Emotions
Far as I know there’s only two 0733 releases, both credited to one Casey Tucker. The first one, with production by Richie Hawtin and on Hawtin’s other label, Probe, features the songs Loner, which ended up on the ubiquitous Probe Mission USA CD which you’d find in the techno compilation section of every Sam Goody in America somewhere between Zoo Rave and Rave Til’ Dawn. It’s a pretty perfect song. The second release, without a Hawtin credit but again on Probe is the Intelligensia EP from 1992, which features this song, which gave this show it’s name, for obvious reasons. SO BEAUTIFUL!

The next show probably came from the urge to continue down an electronic dance path as I was feeling like I made too many rock playlists. I started with an old electro-funk playlist, got rid of some of the more obvious choices and made it more eclectic, grabbing some not quite electro hip-hop, some breakdance type stuff, even some techno and freestyle. Lots of vocoders of course. Some influence from a few classic compilations. Streetsounds Electro comps, the Beat Classic comp, etc.

SOMETHING FRESH TO SWING TO
1. Newtrament – London Bridge is Falling Down
UK electro-funk from the early 80s.

2. The Russell Brothers – The Party Scene
I don’t know anything about this more then what I read on the StreetSounds comp and quickly forgot. Pretty dope and slept on track.

3. Fearless Four – F-4000
Mike Simonetti used to play this all the time. I think electro-funk DJs don’t know this because it’s from a “rap” group. Some of the dopest vocoder rapping ever.

4. Kraftwerk – Computer World
They had to be in here somewhere.

5. Model 500 – Night Drive (Time, Space, Transmat)
Juan Atkins once again. He started with Cybotron which was New Wave meets Prince meets electro-funk. Night Drive, along with No UFOs and Future represent the transition from electro-funk to techno.

6. Freestyle – Don’t Stop the Rock
Pretty Tony electro-funk freestyle party jam. If this doesn’t get them dancing, it’s time to go home.

7. Rocksteady Crew – Rocksteady Crew
First heard this on Night Flight’s take off on dancing on USA cable tv late saturday night sometime in the late 80s. Pretty goofy but insanely infectious. Should they have stuck with their day jobs?

8. Fearless Four – Rockin’ It
Another from Fearless Four, rocking it to Kraftwerk’s Man Machine. They had another jam called Just Rock which is them rapping over an insanse version of Gary Numan’s Cars. This is one overlooked old-school rap crew due for serious hipster reappraisal.

9. Faze One – Get Buzy
I know nothing about this other then it’s from England and was on StreetSounds Electro 20, and is exactly the kind of weird shit that would never fly in America but ends up sounding like hip-hop from mars, and thus, pretty wonderful.

10. B+ – B-Beat Classic
1983 West End classic, Spyder-D re-arranging the Sessomatto break. This appreaed on the 1997 Beat Classic compilation, an awesome collection of hip-hop stuff that sorta fell through the cracks in the mid 80s.

11. Levi 167 – Something Fresh to Swing To
Getting further away from electro, more of a boom-bap hip-hop kind of thing but it seemed to fit fine. Levi 167 was a grafitti artist, this came out on B-Boy Records in 1987. The instrumental version appears on the aforementioned Beat Classic comp, but as usual, I like the rap.

12. Man Parrish – Hip Hop Be Bop (Don’t Stop)
I don’t think I need to say anything about this. How about another personal anecdote? First year of college, Sarge’s Records in Oberlin, Ohio was going out of business selling off all their vinyl for a buck or two a piece. Todd Hutlock, the same fellow who was hooking me up with Detroit Techno CDs said “go check out the sale, there’s some classic electro stuff there”, and I bought this 12″. Now I know it’s pretty ubiquitious, but I’d never heard anything like that before in my life. For what it’s worth, I like the flipside, Heatstroke, even better, it’s more electro-disco than electro-funk, but both sides are totally awesome.

UPDATE: Just got back from seeing the Nightingales second NY show on their limited tour of the states. They are perhaps the greatest live act in existence right now. Throw the Velvets, Captain Beefheart, Faust, Television, Link Wray, The Fall etc in a blender, pulse it on the “punk rock confrontation” and “post-punk angularity and angst” settings and you’re halfway there. They have one more show in Boston, so make the trip.

Believe it or not, when I’m not DJing or making amazing internet radio playlists, I sometimes find the time to work on a record label, and I’ve been meaning to post some sort of update about this so-called “record label” and catch up with some of the artists we’ve worked with.

THE LINES
If you want to know what we’ve been up to for the last few months…or years, the answer probably involves the Lines. We’ve mentioned here and there that this has been coming and now it’s finally happening. The first of our Lines CDs, Memory Span, compiling all of the band’s singles and EPs comes out in the end of May. It will also feature two unreleased tracks and a colorful booklet. If you’re unfamiliar, the Lines were a unique band who released an eclectic and continuously evolving body of work over several years during the late 70s/early 80s post-punk era, played with many of the great bands of the day, but always managed to fall through the cracks. From skeletal and taut post-punk scorchers to atmospherically recorded dubbed-out bliss, their music was consistently wonderful, yet they were criminally ignored during their own time, and outside of a rabid cult following, forgotten since. We hope this will change with our Lines reissues and you’ll be hearing plenty more about them. In the meantime, check out a few of their classic tracks online and be their myspace friend.

THE NIGHTINGALES
No, you didn’t read that wrong, we didn’t release any Nightingales records, but we put out the CD compiling the Prefects, the early UK punk band that would eventually evolve into the Nightingales. It’s a kick-ass CD and I think we still have some copies available.

Faults
[audio:http://acuterecords.com/sounds/ACT7/Faults.mp3]
control-click to download

Anyway, around the time of that CD release, Robert Lloyd hooked up with original Prefects guitarist Alan Apperly to form the latest version of the Nightingales and even brought them to the US for their first ever shows here. A year later they came back with a different drummer, and a new second guitarist, the teenage guitar sensation Matt Wood and they were totally awesome. Now they’re back in the states for a few shows. Anybody who saw them on their last visit, especially the show at Cake Shop, know they completely kill. Robert and Co. teach the kids how it’s done for the very best in post-punk angular skronk honky tonk kraut-rock and roll.

Thursday, March 6th
Club Midway, 25 Avenue B (between 2nd and 3rd), Manhattan
10$, 8$ in advance
Show has been mvoed to The Charleston, Bedford and North 7th, Williamsburg, 9pm, 7$
The Nightingales, Christy & Emily, Hotpants Romance, and Tatters and Rags (live debut!)

Friday, March 7th
Death By Audio, 49 S. 2nd St (between Wythe & Kent), Williamsburg, Brooklyn
8pm, $6, ALL AGES
The Nightingales, Hotpants Romance, and The In Out

Saturday, March 8th
Church, 69 Kimarnock Street, Boston
9pm, $8, 21+
The Nightingales, Hotpants Romance, The Konks, Apple Betty

IKE YARD
Another band reissued by Acute that’s back alive and kicking, New York’s Ike Yard, or at least 3/4ths of them, have been playing and recording steadily for the past year. Tons of recordings from recent sessions can be heard on their myspace page. They’ve also done a jam session or two with Sal and Dennis from Liquid Liquid, another great band from that great period in NYC music. They also remain busy with side projects including the continued existence of the Death Comet Crew and Ike Yard’s Stuart has cool events like the Dystopians movie night at Monkeytown, where Stuart will be joined by Bones and Norman Westburg of the Swans to provide a live socre to George Lucas’s THX 118.

FIRE ENGINES
Our most recent release, Hungry Beat by the Fire Engines continues to excite and amaze. After they reunited a few years back we were hoping to get the chance to have them come over to America for the first time and play some shows, maybe even in their spiritual no-wave home of NYC. I even had a pipe dream of setting up a tour of Subway Sect, the Fire Engines and the Nightingales. Alas, it wasn’t to be, but the guys from the Fire Engines have kept themselves busy. Singer Davey Henderson and drummer Russell Burns have recorded 2 fantastic singles as the Sexual Objects. Great, velvets-fueled rock, available from Creeping Bent and Aufgeladen & Bereit. Check out the latter label’s myspace page to hear a sample. Russell has another project called The Bum-Clocks, where he backs up his brother and proto-Fire Engines member Tam Dean Burn who essentially presents a Scottish poetry reciting of the works of Iggy Pop. They are joined by the amazing guitar of Malcolm Ross who previously played in obscure Scottish bands called Josef K, Orange Juice and Aztec Camera.

UPDATE 2: Check out Morgan and I on Viva-Radio Naked Fridays:

UPDATE: Check out the cool new radio bumper airing on Viva Radio:

[audio:BARMITZVAH.mp3]

The Environ Bar Mitzvah

SATURDAY 3/1/08

On March 1, 1995, Environ was born. Now, 13 years later, we invite you to come help us celebrate Environ’s passage into manhood… (details within)