SINGLES GOING STEADY

All Posts,event — Dan on October 23, 2014 at 12:08 am

Hello again. As part of their “Singles Going Steady” silent fundraiser week, I will be appearing on the WFMU program Burn It Down! with Nate K this upcoming Sunday, October 26th, from 6am to 9am, but forgive me if I don’t get there exactly at 6 and may start taking part closer to 7 or maybe even 8 or maybe I’ll just sleep in. I’ll let Nate describe the event:

To help work our way through three hours of nothing but seven-inch singles, Burn It Down! with Nate K welcomes Acute Records founder and newly minted recording artist Dan Selzer to the program. Since launching Acute in 2002, Dan has been rediscovering and reissuing various underground, post-punk, D.I.Y., and experimental treasures, including the Lines, Theoretical Girls, Ike Yard, the Trypes, and Happy Refugees, among others. In 2014, Selzer released his first album of his own music, under the name New York Endless, with Strategies, via the Golf Channel imprint. We asked Dan to join us and he said he was easy, he was cheap, and he would come and do it.

for more information, Nate wrote:

Hi folks,

Apologies for the mass email, but it’s time for WFMU’s fall silent fundraiser. “Silent” meaning we won’t talk about it on the air, and “fundraiser” meaning “fundraiser.” I’ve got some great stuff planned for this month, including live performances and a special guest DJ appearance by Dan Selzer for WFMU’s vinyl-only Singles Going Steady Week.

If you have some spare change hanging around please kindly consider pledging to my show, Burn It Down!, via the following link:

https://www.wfmu.org/marathon/pledge.php?pr=NK

My show airs Sunday mornings from 6:00 to 9:00 AM, but you can pledge at any time. And, hey, who cares about my show, a pledge to the station is all that matters in the end!

This fundraiser is largely geared toward improving and equipping the already amazing WFMU performance space, Monty Hall, which came to be in the first place because of the generous and gracious support of our listeners.

Some fun stuff to keep in mind: 

Anyone who pledges can enter their pet into our Mascot Contest, and we’ll choose a winner at the end of the month. Here is a link (also posted on our homepage) for you to check out the current pool of mascot candidates:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/wfmu/sets/72157648250932042/

For a pledge of $50, listeners can choose either our Illuminati Cat T-shirt or our Under(water) Dog T-shirt. For $100, you can get both tees, plus a DJ Premium.

Thanks friends,

Nate K

For those of you who don’t know, Nate and I were in a band together in college in Ohio. The band was called Jaguar Ride.

SOME RELEVANT UPDATES TO APPEAR RELEVANT

All Posts,event,New Music,Old Music — Dan on May 4, 2014 at 4:48 pm

Sorry it’s been so many months since a post. Acute’s been quiet since we knocked out three awesome vinyl releases right out of the park around the turn of 2013. We still exist and have a few releases we may get out there but have been been busy elsewhere. In the meantime just wanted to do a quick update to let you know about some news related to artists that have been or are of the Acute family. Where to start?

THE METHOD ACTORS
I should probably start here since I’m a few days late. Vic Varney from The Method Actors told me about Art Rocks Athens, a special exhibition running from May 1st through Dec 31 of artifacts related to the Athens music scene of the late 70s and early 80s. There will be displays, screenings, performances etc. Check out the website linked above and the facebook page here.

THE TRYPES
No Trypes news but plenty of action with Speed the Plough, the band the Trypes evolved into.  Late last year, Bar None released a beautiful retrospective, The Plough and the Stars, featuring a “best of” CD, a 12″ with 6 new songs and a live set, a large booklet and a digital download card with even more goodies. A great intro to the band or a great way to catch up with old favorites. Since then, they’ve been recording more new material and have a bunch of shows lined up, at the In the Pines festival in Beacon NY next Saturday the 10th, a gig at Tierney’s in Montclair NJ the following saturday the 17th, and a show in Brooklyn at the Fifth Estate on May 23rd.

IKE YARD
Ike Yard are working on a new album, “Rejoy” and also make an appearance on a fantastic new compilation from Factory Benelux called Of Factory New York, a benefit to assist Michael Shamberg, who ran Factory US. Lots of Factory favorites devoted tracks to this compilation, with iconic Lawrence Weiner artwork, including Ike Yard’s Kino. Do I have most of these songs already? Of course. Do I have them all in one place with killer artwork and for a good cause? Not yet. Vinyl has, along with Kino, such Dan Selzer dancefloor staples like ACR’s Do the Du, Quando Quango’s Love Tempo, 52nd Street’s Cool as Ice, Cabaret Voltaire’s Yashar (John Robie remix) a live version of New Order’s Your Silent Face, Konk’s Baby Dee, Section 25’s Looking From a Hilltop, Streetlife’s Act on Instinct, Marcel King’s Reach for Love, Thick Pigeon’s Subway, Arthur Baker’s Come On and Anna Domino’s Summer.

THE PREFECTS/THE LINES/THEORETICAL GIRLS
What a gig that would’ve been. Nothing that exciting! Following the release of the awesome book Punk 45: Original Punk Rock Singles Cover Art, edited by Jon Savage and Stuart Baker, Soul Jazz has started a series of punk 7″ compilations, organized by location/period/etc. Not unlike say, a Chuck Warner CD. The first volume is called Punk 45: Kill the Hippies! Kill Yourself! The American Nation Destroys its Young. Underground Punk in the United States of America, Vol 1. 1973-1980 and features U.S. Millie by Theoretical Girls, from the very first Acute release (and the Roir New York Singes Scene compilation before that). The second volume is Punk 45: There is No Such Thing as Society. Get a Job, Get a Car, Get a Bed, Get Drunk! Underground Punk in the UK 1977-81, Vol 2. and features no less (or more) than TWO Acute related tracks. The first LP ends with the cult-classic White Night by The Lines and the second LP (and whole shebang) ends with Going Through the Motions by The Prefects.

And speaking of the Prefects…lets talk about The Nightingales, the band the Prefects evolved into. They’ve got a new album out called For Fuck’s Sake, recorded at Faust Studio in Germany. Self-released, or as they say “No interference or outside opinions, no label, no distributor, no catalogue number, no bar code or logo shit, blah blah.” The record is killer and it’s getting great reviews and buzz. Once again and continuously they prove they’re not just some nostalgia act reunited to cash-in on those lucrative post-punk revival riches, but a living-breathing and evolving hard-working band just getting better and better. Killing it on tour and hopefully hitting the states soon. They’ve even got a proper video:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwQjkaeQhAw[/youtube]

But if you want a blast from the past…check out this old documentary on John Peel that’s been making the rounds, featuring a discussion with a younger Nightingales and a searing performance from them at the end of part 3.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bRi7nZBN9c[/youtube]

THE FIRE ENGINES
And talking about vintage footage…Innes Reekie, who contributed his Fire Engines notes to our Hungry Beat compilation, has posted “coming soon…” regarding the long spoken of documentary, The Sound of Young Scotland. So even though this teaser is from 2007,  let’s watch it again and cross our fingers that we’ll get to see it soon.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK8hdl02H2o[/youtube]

I think that’s enough for now. I have to go update one of my other blogs then maybe try to get some actual work done.

TRYPES UPDATE AND RECAP!

All Posts,event — Dan on May 30, 2012 at 1:56 pm

It’s been a little over a month since the release of Acute’s latest, Music for Neighbors by The Trypes, and there’s been a great reception. I wanted to share some of the press it’s gotten but first would like to let you know about a special and exciting show taking place next week.

The Trypes will be playing their second ever show since their original run in the 80s. If that wasn’t special enough, they will be joined by Yung Wu, another of the great Feelies sister bands, as well as their friends The Thousand Pities. And if THAT wasn’t special enough, the show is taking place at an Elks Lodge in South Orange New Jersey and is a “Rent Party” to raise money for local food charities in the South Orange/Maplewood area. The show is Friday night, June 8th at 8pm at South Orange Elks, 220 Prospect Street, South Orange, NJ. Minimum donation of 5$, facebook event page here.

I can’t imagine a better experience than getting to see these bands play at such a unique venue, away from NYC. And one of my favorite things about The Trypes, Yung Wu and the Feelies is that beyond being amazing bands, they are proud and great cover bands of the first order. Especially Yung Wu, who’s originals are totally fantastic of course, but it’s always fun to hear what they’re going to cover. From classic renditions of Neil Young, to surprises like Into the Valley by The Skids…you never know what these bands will cover (but you can always guess a few!). And while the Feelies may be the best known band and aren’t playing, almost all their members are involved in Yung Wu and the Trypes, so this is a great way to get the full picture.

For a sneak peak, check out this video footage of the first Trypes show since the 80s, opening up for one of Yo La Tengo’s famous Hanukkah nights at Maxwells.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puLZnUYdvUs[/youtube]

And what a great reception the Trypes have been getting! Thanks to everyone who’s written about the release, here’s just a few.

Most recently, some kind words from Pete at Flowering Toilet, who deserves credit for writing about The Explorer’s Hold a few years ago.

Over in the UK, the webstore Boomkat, a great resource to pick up The Trypes as lossless files, wrote a great review on the release page. They end the review by writing “We just can’t enough of it, frankly; overnight The Trypes have become one of our favourite bands and we’d recommend them to fans of Young Marble Giants, Talking Heads, Felt, The Wake and other practitioners of the finest 80s art-pop.” It’s always appreciated when retailers take the extra step to actually listen to and review what they’re selling, especially when they speak so highly of something!

Likewise, our good old friend (and new father) Doug Mosurock covered the release for Other Music’s digital store.

Another retailer from the other side of pond, Norman Records, gave a 5 star review that had to use the lord’s name in vain in it’s excitement.

And there were nice words written by people not trying to sell you anything as well.

The essential blog Doom and Gloom from the Tomb wrote “…easily one of the best, most necessary reissues of 2012”

The Trypes were included in the Agit Readers excellent series or reissue reviews, Past Perfect. Though I do disagree about the worth of Bruce Springsteen!

Prefix gave it an 8.0!

Pitchfork gave it a 7.5. Which must be why I like Prefix .5 better.

Dusted went deep and included a link to one of the unreleased tracks on their review.

FACT listed it as one of the 10 most important reissues of that particular month. May not seem like a huge deal, how many reissues are there a month? Well there’s a lot! And they’re in good company with Talk Talk, Cleaners From Venus, David Kilgour, General Strike and others.

So that’s just a taste of the response. Some good links to check out if you want to hear some other mostly unanimous opinions about the releases greatness.

 

TRYPES ALBUM AND FREE DOWNLOADS!

All Posts,Contact,event — Dan on April 17, 2012 at 9:48 am

Pleased to announce the release of number 15 of Acute’s series of reissues/issues with Music For Neighbors by The Trypes.

The full release page is HERE. It contains promotional verbiage, vintage photos, ordering information (also below!) and links to a few sample songs–2 from the LP, one that’s included with the digital download, and two completely unheard exclusive downloads only available here. To save you the trouble, I’ll post them here as well.

Free sample tracks for previewing and sharing. Control/right-click names to download individual songs.

From the LP:

(From the) Morning Glories
[audio:http://www.acuterecords.com/sounds/TrypesFree/01 The Trypes-From the Morning Glories.mp3]

Belmont Girl is Mad at Me
[audio:http://www.acuterecords.com/sounds/TrypesFree/06 The Trypes-Belmont Girl is Mad at Me.mp3]

From the bonus downloads:

Hard Friend to Keep
[audio:http://www.acuterecords.com/sounds/TrypesFree/13 The Trypes-Hard Friend to Keep.mp3]

Not available anywhere else!:

Blue Jay Way
[audio:http://www.acuterecords.com/sounds/TrypesFree/19 The Trypes-Blue Jay Way.mp3]

People Unintentional Soft Tomorrow Hospital
[audio:http://www.acuterecords.com/sounds/TrypesFree/20 The Trypes-People Unintentional Soft Tomorrow Hospital.mp3]

Vinyl (temporarily) out, check back soon or visit other fine retailers!

iTunes all territories:The Trypes
Lossless files available from Boomkat next week.

The LP is lovingly packaged in a hand letterpress printed chipboard sleeve with a composite photo of the bandmembers attached to the front with homey photo corners. The LP and digital downloads also come with a deluxe booklet with photos and liner notes from Trypes John, Marc and Glenn as well as their first fan, Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan. There may also be a live show or two…something that’s only happened once when they played at Yo La Tengo’s Hanukah fundraiser this past December. Keep your eyes peeled here, and check out the Speed the Plough site for more updates and news.

ROCKET FROM THE TOMBS AFTER PARTY

All Posts,event — Dan on December 12, 2011 at 12:29 am

Just a quick break from all things Happy Refugees, who’s successful visit to NYC is now done (recap and links soon). Tonight I’ll be joining South Brooklyn’s finest BYOV music selecting/listening party Monday Night Vinyl Club to celebrate a visit from another bunch of old-school rockers, Rocket From the Tombs…better known as the pre-punk prior to the post-punk of Pere Ubu (and punk of Dead Boys). Me and my old Jaguar Ride bandmate Nate the K of the Burn it Down parties will be playing records up front sometime around after the band, probably 10 or so. We’ve got a whole bunch of proto-punk, mid-70s longhaired weirdos, Cleveland stuff, Akron stuff. San Francisco stuff. New York stuff. MC5 to MX-80. Blue Cheer to the Bizarros. Mirrors all the way to the Styrenes. Come on down for the show, or if you’re cheap, hang out up front and celebrate monday the only way you can, with anger and frustration.

Bell House, December 12th, 8pm-1am, 149 7th st, Brookland

 

HAPPY REFUGEES NYC

All Posts,event — Dan on December 8, 2011 at 2:28 am

Happy Refugees are here in NYC. Here’s a partial itinerary, and since some of the events include the electronic broadcast of sound and vision, this should be of interest to people worldwide. I’m going to try to make this concise.

Thursday, December 8th
Kev and Max’s Pizza Party on EVR will be celebrating the release by playing some selections, plugging some shows, and hosting Happy Refugees themselves…in one form or another, unless they can’t make it, in which case they will come up with something entertaining. Tune in online from 4pm to 6pm.

Friday night, December 9th
Knitting Factory Brooklyn 361 Metropolitan, Williamsburg
Crystal Stilts
Happy Refugees
McDonalds

Happy Refugees set will be broadcast live (est. 9pm) on livestream, and streamable from there afterwords.

Saturday afternoon, December 10th
Live set to be broadcast on the radio on Terre T’s Cherry Blossom Clinic on WFMU, between 3pm and 6pm. Tune into 91.1 fm in NYC, 90.1 in the Hudson Valley or check it out online at www.wfmu.org.

Saturday night, December 10th
Cake Shop 152 Ludlow St, L.E.S.
Happy Refugees
Regal Degal
Sapphire Mansions
Suspensors
Special guest DJ DJ iDeath, playing late night tales with Kevin Pedersen and Dan Selzer (this guy.)

So that’s it. Come on out to one of these shows. I KNOW you didn’t see them play in 1984.

DISCO ZOMBIES RELEASE PARTY AND REISSUE MADNESS

All Posts,event — Dan on September 22, 2011 at 1:16 am

As you can see above, we’re having a little record release party as part of my monthly party Dazzle Ships. We’ll be joined by Kevin from What’s Your Rupture?, who used to DJ with me at Plant Bar on monday nights back “in the day”. We’ll be playing tons of awesome punk/post-punk/DIY/art-punk/new wave madness. More vintage late 70s/early 80s 7″ singles than you can shake a stick at. And be careful with that stick, some of these records are expensive. I’ll also have a handful or pre-release copies for sale, so get one before everybody else can…when it comes out a few days later.

Kevin happens to be working on a really cool reissue, which I may not be able to talk about, but it’s another in an amazing list of awesome reissues from that period. You know, when Todd and I started Acute, there weren’t many people reissuing this kind of music (LTM being the major exception). It was too recent and there wasn’t much interest. By the early 2000s there was a sort of post-punk revival, which meant lots of hardcore kids discovered Gang of 4. In a short period of time there was a flurry of activity and interest and many of the big acts were reissued and compiled. Soul Jazz, DFA, Domino and other great labels helped bring back some of the sounds. But by 2004 people were saying it was all over. Everything of “worth” had been rediscovered, the trend passed and people moved onto new sounds. Psyche-folk revival! (e.g.). I remember standing in the basement of a NY bar/club talking to Simon Reynolds about his soon to be published book Rip It Up and Start Again, and our long in the making Fire Engines compilation Hungry Beat. We both worried that the time had passed. That’s not to say we were concerned with following trends or that these subjects weren’t still worthy, just that the marketing “buzz” of being tied into the “hot” post-punk revival of the early 00s might not exist anymore.

Surely his book created a bump of interest, and somehow more labels were getting involved, more essential records were getting released. We continued to release a CD every year or two. Some got written off as yet more barrel scraping, while others were proof that the barrel was deeper than previously suspected (by some). There’s often an amazement that there is/was something so good that had become so obscure. There’s a fine line between cult favorites of appeal to fanatics and stuff that could be said to be just quality music all around. I’m glad both get’s reissued, I’m just surprised at the incredulousness of some that there’s still stuff worthy being (re)discovered. Maybe people have to dig deeper, maybe the gems need a bit a more polishing, but people are still digging up folk, soul, rock etc, stuff that’s way older than this period we’re talking about. Combine that with the simple fact that there was an absolute EXPLOSION of releases following punk, that between 1976 and 1984 or so the amount of records that came out is mind-boggling, you’d have to dedicate a lifetime to come close to becoming an expert. Why that happened, and why it died down (if it really did..it did, but also changed, is another topic for another post).

And “post-punk” cycles in and out of trends and spotlights. For a while everything seemed to be going minimal-synth, and if you could call it cold wave maybe you’d get a couple bucks for it on Discogs but nobody wanted to hear disco basslines and funky guitar and art-school angst! But then it seems to turn back in this direction. Maybe the synth stuff was getting too expensive! And you suddenly have a younger generation drawing on C86 sounds, which I think contributes to yet another wave of interest in the late 70s/early 80s stuff, because C86 is a pretty clear continuation of that stuff.

Now we’ve got our first vinyl releases coming out shortly. Disco Zombies next week, Happy Refugees late November, the Trypes after that and even more stuff. In the meantime there’s been great reissues coming from all kinds of places, including some new ones this week and past and upcoming releases I just learned about, enough to have me excited for the reissue scene in general, excited enough to want to list a bunch of them and suggest everyone check them out. Here’s a few. I started out describing each one then WordPress ate that draft(I blame Safari in Lion) so i gave up.

Social Climbers-Social Climbers on Drag City/Yoga

Art Yard-The Law/Something In Your Eyes on Ride the Snake

The Embarrassment-Sex Drive/Patio Set on Last Laugh Records

The Styrenes-Drano in Your Veins/Circus Highlights and The Mirrors-Shirley/She Smiled Wild on Violet Times

UV Pop-Just a Game on Sacred Bones

The Distractions and the Wild Swans on Occultation

Martin Newell’s Songs for a Fallow Land on Fixed Identity

Jeff & Jane Hudson, The Servents, Nick Nicely, Charles De Goal, The Wake and the Monochrome Set all on Captured Tracks

The Raincoats reissuing their own records.

That’s just a few recent releases. What am I forgetting or don’t know about yet?

Plus all the great more synth oriented stuff on labels like Medical Records, Dark Entries and Minimal Wave. The occasional relevant reissue from DFA or Soul Jazz, And there’s the longer running labels like Cherry Red, Overground, LTM that continue to put out great stuff. And of course Hyped2Death, where some of us learn about this stuff in the first place. Point being…there’s still a lot of great stuff out there, some that people have been waiting years to be released again, some deserving of reappraisal and some nobody’s ever heard in the first place!

ZOOVOX BZZZ BZZZ

All Posts,event,New Music — Dan on April 25, 2011 at 10:13 pm

Not an Acute release, though there will be a LOT of Acute releases to talk about soon. Zoovox Theme by Zoovox is the exciting first release from my Dazzle Ships DJ partners Tropical Jeremy and Ben Gebhardt. You’ve surely seen Jeremy’s name on this blog since he’s probably DJ’d with me more then any other lucky person on the planet. These guys have been working hard in their waterfront studio (for real, you should see the view) and knocked out this classic slice of cosmic bliss. They let me design the art, a generic record label branded label with an empty space for the specific details. I got to specify 2 colors with overprinting for the first time. Didn’t quite get that magic third color but it was still pretty cool. Anyway, this one-sided 12″ vinyl (or digital download) release is hopefully the first of many. You can listen to it and purchase it here. You can also hear it this thursday here:

I will be DJing with Arp and Safety Scissors this thursday at Zebulon, 258 Wythe in Williamsburg. Arp is one of the busiest guys in the business. I met him as a member of Tussle and writer for XLR8R many years ago. Since then he’s made waves as a member of The Alps, solo releases as Arp and a great collaboration with one of my personal heros, Anthony Moore. Safety Scissors I first met when we both DJ’d at Luxx opening up for Martin Moscrop of A Certain Ratio’s first DJ appearance in NYC, but he’s better known for his various techno/electronica/proptronica releases and remixes. We will be playing a no doubt stunning collection of weird and wonderful sounds for vibing and or dancing.

It’s worth noting that Jeremy, Arp and Safety Scissors all used to live in San Francisco and now they all live in New York City. Make of that what you will.

p.s. new york rules

p.p.s. except its too expensive

BLANK CITY Q+A+ME

All Posts,event — Dan on April 22, 2011 at 2:18 pm

Blank City has been held over for a third week. There will be a bunch more Q+A sessions after showings with people like Debbie Harry, Thurston Moore, Pat Place, Susan Seidelman etc, but saturday (tomorrow’s!) 2:25 showing will have a Q+A with Sal P. from Liquid Liquid and the music “supervisor”, me.  Come down and ask me difficult questions and make me look like a fool, or ask Sal about his awesome band. Tickets here.

THE UNDERWATER DISCO

All Posts,event — Dan on October 25, 2010 at 7:53 pm

Another not quite Acute themed post, but important enough to me to disregard all self-imposed rules in an attempt for maximum exposure. For 6 years now, I’ve thrown a disco halloween party that also serves the purpose of being a birthday party for my girlfriend, roommate and crafts partner Nicole. Starting as part of the long-forgotten Alldisco party, these parties have moved around Williamsburg and have had many different fun and silly themes. Dancing In Space, Wild Kingdom, The Haunted Disco, Night of the Living Disco Dead and last years 80’s Prom of Horrors. This year we also wanted to celebrate the first year anniversary of Nicole’s online literary and arts journal, Underwater New York.

So that brings us to this years theme…THE UNDERWATER DISCO. You can dress up however you like, but water themed costumes are encouraged! For instance, I am going as a Music Pirate. Like the notorious 18th century pirates of the west indies but instead of stealing barrels of wine and gold coins I steal music and share it illegally on the internet. Arrrr that’s a low bit rate, matey!

As usual, I will be joined by my erstwhile DJ partner Tropical Jeremy, who’s already halfway there with a name like that. And as a very special guest, we have none other than Morgan Geist of the pioneering and influential Metro Area and his label Environ. He knows a thing or two about water…just ask him about the fountains of Wayne. It’s a rare opportunity to hear a world-class DJ playing such a fun local down-to-earth party, so don’t miss it!

This may also be the last time we ever do this! We’ll be out of town during Halloween of next year and after that? Who knows, we’ll be too old by then…or DEAD (oooh, spooky)

Here are the details in case you’re too lazy to look at that flyer up there….

Underwater Disco

Underwater New York’s 1st Anniversary Party

+ Dan, Nicole and Jeremy’s 6th Annual Halloween Dance Party

The Loft above Public Assembly

70 N. 6th St., Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Saturday October 30th, 10pm

DJs Dan Selzer, Jeremy Campbell and special guest Morgan Geist

Underwater Costumes Strongly Encouraged

$7, proceeds benefit Underwater New York

underwaternewyork.com

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