29/10/2019
RIOT ON THE STRIP
Riot On The Strip from the Album "Behind The Shade" by
James Williamson & The Pink Hearts
HAPPY BIRTHDAY James Robert Williamson (born October 29, 1949) is an American guitarist, songwriter, record producer and electronics engineer.
He was a member of the iconic proto-punk rock band The Stooges, notably on the influential album Raw Power and in the reformed Stooges from 2009 to 2016.
Between his stints in music, Williamson worked in Silicon Valley developing computer chips. Most recently he has continued as a solo artist.
James Williamson’s story is one of the weirdest that rock & roll ever threw up. It was he who played guitar on the third Stooges album, Raw Power, a true punk-rock masterpiece that was shrouded in glamour and controversy as David Bowie held court over the Iggy show. Original guitarist Ron Asheton was switched to bass, they recorded in London, egos ran wild — it should have been a disastrous shitshow. And in many ways it was.
He was a member of the iconic proto-punk rock band The Stooges, notably on the influential album Raw Power and in the reformed Stooges from 2009 to 2016.
Between his stints in music, Williamson worked in Silicon Valley developing computer chips. Most recently he has continued as a solo artist.
James Williamson’s story is one of the weirdest that rock & roll ever threw up. It was he who played guitar on the third Stooges album, Raw Power, a true punk-rock masterpiece that was shrouded in glamour and controversy as David Bowie held court over the Iggy show. Original guitarist Ron Asheton was switched to bass, they recorded in London, egos ran wild — it should have been a disastrous shitshow. And in many ways it was.
Raw Power in 1973 was the last Stooges album until 2007’s The Weirdness (which didn’t feature Williamson) and then 2013’s Ready to Die (which did). The band split in February ’74, as the influence of heroin grew. Pop and Williamson recorded the Kill City album together in 1975, though it wasn’t released until late ’77. In 1979, Iggy’s New Values album reunited the pair again, Williamson producing and playing some guitar.
After that, though, Williamson slid away from music pretty much completely. In ’82, he graduated from California State Polytechnic University with an electrical engineering degree. He spent 15 years with Advanced Micro Designs in San Jose, and then, in ’97, was taken on by Sony as its vice president of standards. This wasn’t a “necessary day job” for Williamson. This was a real career that saw him win awards and earn great acclaim for his work in Silicon Valley.
He lived a full life, had a family and was a tech guy surrounded by colleagues who had no idea what he had done in his youth. During the recession in 2009, Williamson accepted an early retirement buyout offer from Sony. That same year, Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton died. The band had re-formed six years earlier with a lineup of Iggy Pop, Ron and Scott Asheton, and new-guy bassist Mike Watt, and played to huge crowds around the globe. Ron Asheton’s death rocked the remaining members and fans to the core. If the band were going to continue, the only valid option was to bring back Williamson.
He lived a full life, had a family and was a tech guy surrounded by colleagues who had no idea what he had done in his youth. During the recession in 2009, Williamson accepted an early retirement buyout offer from Sony. That same year, Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton died. The band had re-formed six years earlier with a lineup of Iggy Pop, Ron and Scott Asheton, and new-guy bassist Mike Watt, and played to huge crowds around the globe. Ron Asheton’s death rocked the remaining members and fans to the core. If the band were going to continue, the only valid option was to bring back Williamson.
That’s what they did. The guitarist returned, the Stooges were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and it was business as usual until Scott Asheton died in 2014. That, as far as a touring Stooges was concerned, was that.
“I got a chance to go full circle with The Stooges,” Williamson says. “I got the tail end of it, where really we were at the peak of our careers, and got all the validation, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the victory laps around to large crowds, arena-rock kind of stuff. So I did all that, and I think I saw the band to its logical conclusion. In the end, it was only Iggy and I left alive. That said, I really didn’t feel like I was finished quite yet with music. I just had the ability to sort of do what I wanted at that point. I didn’t need to prove anything anymore, and I didn’t need to really do it if I didn’t want to. So now it’s just a labor of love. Just enjoying playing with really great singers and musicians, going out there and doing what I want.”
When Scott Asheton initially became sick, some tour dates were completed with Toby Dammitt on the stool. However, no real thought was given to moving forward as a band without either Asheton brother.
“By the time Scott passed away, we were not in a cycle of concerts and stuff,” Williamson says. “At that point, I really didn’t want to continue. I felt like it was kind of ridiculous. I’ve done things just with Iggy, but we couldn’t really be The Stooges with just me and Iggy. That wouldn’t ring true.”
Williamson recorded the Re-Licked album in 2014 — new recordings of songs demoed and performed live by The Stooges in the mid-’70s but never officially released. Williamson used a variety of awesome vocalists, including Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedys), Bobby Gillespie (Primal Scream), Lisa Kekaula (The Bellrays) and Carolyn Wonderland. He played a few gigs, but Williamson needed a band. Enter The Pink Hearts, which sees the guitarist join forces with Frank Meyer of the Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs and Petra Haden of The Decemberists.
“Cheetah Chrome [The Dead Boys] recommended Frank,” Williamson says. “I had met Petra Haden through Mike Watt, [and had used her] on the last Stooges album, Ready to Die, on a number of different things, both as vocalist and as a violinist. So I knew about her talents. I knew I wanted to use her again. The only thing I didn’t know is what the combination of Frank’s gravelly voice and Petra’s super-pure voice would be like. So I decided, once we had written a few songs, I came to L.A. and recorded them with the two of them, and it was immediately magic. So it’s been a great thing having this arsenal of different vocal capabilities, and I think they’ve enjoyed it as well.”
Behind the Shade, The Pink Hearts’ debut album, is released on June 22 and, while Haden’s voice does add a new element, the combination of Williamson and Meyer, the latter a longtime Stooges aficionado, results in a trademark raw, rock & roll noise. After all, the name of Meyer’s other band, The Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs, is a reference to the Stooges song “Search and Destroy” from that Raw Power album.
“It’s like, OK, so I don’t have to explain The Stooges to him for sure,” Williamson says. “He’s just generally a good guy to work with. His lyrical capability is amazing. That was one of the biggest things I was looking for — somebody who could write lyrics, because I can’t. I was so impressed immediately. He was turning around lyrics overnight, and good ones. That part of putting the band together has been really straightforward.”
The Mothers Of Invention - Live In London 1968
With over 60 studio albums in a long 30 year career – but in a short life – a top 100 would have been possible, a top 10 merely impractical.
Yes! A genius who has recorded some utter crap. Brown Shoes Don’t Make It is well crafted but its subject matter is apalling. Zappa was deliberately provocative and offensive and many of his lyrics are sexist, trite, meaningless and sneering but most of his music is both sublime and groundbreaking.
BANDA DO CASACO canto de amor e trabalho
Às 16h e 21 mns do dia 11 de Julho de 2001 os Bombeiros de Queluz receberam uma chamada para acudirem a uma mulher com aparente paragem cardíaca. Quem fez a chamada foi uma amiga que estranhado ela não atender o telefone se dirigiu para a casa da amiga de que tinha a chave. Quando os bombeiros lá chegaram já encontraram a mulher morta, perto do corpo uma embalagem de comprimidos. Vazia.
De seu nome Cândida Maria Soares Coelho, iria fazer 52 anos a 12 de Novembro. Desistiu antes.
E deixou uma legião de admiradores que foram mudando ao longo da sua vida.
No seguimento da euforia do 25 de abril de 1974 surgiram em Portugal uma série de grupos musicais que se dedicaram à recolha e divulgação da música de expressão popular, na senda do que havia começado a fazer anos antes Michel Giacometti, um corso a viver em Bragança devido a uma tuberculose persistente. Alguns desses grupos não se limitaram a transcrever o que ouviam, optando antes pela construção de novas formas musicais. De fusão, dizia-se. Rock progressivo também . E de Vanguarda. E Experimentalista.
Entre esses grupos surgiu um cujos elementos, além dos tradicionais bombos e violas e pianos, usavam os sons de latas de desodorizante em spray e caixas de fósforos. Banda do Casaco era o nome do grupo. O seu segundo disco, editado em 1976, com o sugestivo nome de Coisas do Arco da Velha fez o ponto de viragem na música portuguesa.
Deste grupo fizeram parte algumas das vozes, poetas e músicos que iriam anos depois promover nova revolução com a chegada do Rock falado em Portugûes, porta aberta por Rui Veloso e Carlos Tê.
Nesse álbum de 1976, uma das músicas, a terceira, tinha o título de Romance de Branca Flor.
Nesse album , a voz feminina era ... da mulher que os Bombeiros de Queluz iriam anos mais tarde tentar socorrer. Que nessa tarde trágica já só era conhecida por esse nome de Cãndida Branca Flor.
É dela a voz nesta linda Canção de Amor e Trabalho.
Banda do Casaco - Geringonça
After all there was already a gerinçonça (it was a name by which it was called the coalition of 3 political parties (socialism) that ruled Portugal, in the last 4 years in Portugal .... In the 70s there was the BAND OF CASACO, excellent band, who made good music at the time were avant-garde, mixed the roots of Portuguese popular music.
And one of the Portuguese bands that we will be talking about in the future.
Great song, band and album cover
27/10/2019
Elliott Smith, Jealous Guy, Live Performance on the Jon Brion Show
Kill Rock Stars has posted five previously unreleased videos to YouTube of the late Elliott Smith performing five songs on New Years Eve 1999 at The Knitting Factory in New York City.
The singer-songwriter plays solo acoustic versions of “The Biggest Lie,” “Say Yes,” “Last Call,” “Coming Up Roses,” and “The Ballad of Big Nothing.”
In 1998, Smith released XO, his first real foray into a full band sound. The Knitting Factory set, however, draws from his mostly-acoustic albums Elliott Smith, Either/Or, released by Kill Rock Stars, and Roman Candle, from Cavity Search.
The intimate performance is casual, a seemingly relaxed Smith playing beloved older songs. “The Ballad of Big Nothing” is a highlight: slightly faster than the Either/Or version, but no less cutting when he sings, “Getting into the back of a car, taking candy from some stranger/ Watching the parade with pinpoint eyes, full of smoldering anger.”
Elliott Smith would die less than four years later, when he committed suicide on October 21, 2003, by two stab wounds to the chest. His death has continued to have a profound impact on fans and artists, and even these amateur videos of him playing a few songs are both beautiful and a little chilling.
Since his death, there have been many posthumous releases, including Smith’s last official LP, From a Basement on the Hill, in 2004, and New Moon, a double album of songs Smith recorded between 1994 and 1997. There have been biographies, a greatest hits compilation, memorial concerts, and a documentary.
His story is an incredible one, captured in the 2014 documentary Heaven Adores You. Fourteen years after his death, ephemera like these videos are still popping up. You can watch them, and his fantastic appearance on the very short-lived “Jon Brion Show,”
26/10/2019
Swans "Jim" ("My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky" Full Album P...
After a prolific run during the ‘80s and ‘90s, experimental group Swans called it a day in 1996. However, 14 years later, they were back with a vengeance, releasing the otherworldly experience My Father Will Guide Me up a Rope to the Sky. The sense of foreboding is always present on this moody affair, with an atmosphere and aura that is on another level when compared to their peers. Incorporating elements of post-rock, industrial, avant-garde, and noise rock, the group’s 11th LP picks up right where they left off. It was met with critical adoration, but not so much from a commercial standpoint. Regardless, this is one visceral ride you don’t want to miss.
20/10/2019
Purple Mountains- Nights That Won’t Happen
rest in peace...DAVID BERMAN
Haunting lo-fi country outfit from Virginia that is essentially a vehicle for poet David Berman.
Efterklang - Told To Be Fine- Piramida album
Efterklang It has been more than 14 years since the release of debut album Tripper (The Leaf Label) and nearly seven years have passed for their fourth LP, Piramida (4AD). A constantly innovative and evolving trio, Mads Brauer, Casper Clausen and Rasmus Stolberg created an album based on sounds from an arctic expedition, produced films, co-founded festivals and a radio station, and they have performed all over the world including an iconic performance at the Sydney Opera House.
Now, with Casper Clausen living in Lisbon for the past two year’s and with so many great Portuguese memories in the past, Efterklang look tremendously forward to these two concerts, set to happen in LAV - Lisboa ao Vivo and Porto’s Hard Club. Save the dates: October 23 and 24.
First Breath After Coma will be opening for Efterklang playing their new album "Nu" in full
19/10/2019
Twilight Circus - The Groove
Twilight Circus is the dub and reggae project of multi-instrumentalist Ryan Moore, former bassist and drummer of the Legendary Pink Dots.
With Twilight Circus, Ryan Moore has worked with a wide range of respected figures from the dub, reggae and electronic genres including: Sly and Robbie, Dean Fraser, Luciano, Michael Rose (Black Uhuru) Big Youth, Mikey General, Big Youth, Skully Simms, Vin Gordon (Bob Marley), Earl "Chinna" Smith (Bob Marley), Eddie 'Tan Tan' Thornton (Aswad), Buttons Tenyue /Matics Horns (UB40), Ansel Collins, Style Scott (Dub Syndicate), Bobby Ellis ( Studio One), Admiral Tibet, Jah Stitch, Sugar Minott, Queen Ifrica, Lutan Fyah, Fred Locks, Gregory Isaacs, Mafia & Fluxy, Cevin Key (Skinny Puppy), DJ Spooky, Gaudi, Adrian Sherwood and The Mad Professor.
Moore's fascination with dub began in the early 1980s inspired by the nexus of punk rock and dub which film maker Don Letts forged in London, along with the futuristic possibilities hinted at by cyberpunk author William Gibson in Neuromancer. Throughout the 80's he obsessively collected every dub LP he could find, which included Jamaican dub from legends like King Tubby, Prince Jammy, Lee Perry and Scientist as well as 2nd-generation figures operating from London like Adrian Sherwood, Mad Professor, and Jah Shaka.
Since being the opening act for Skinny Puppy side project Download on their 1996 World tour and several tours billed with the Legendary Pink Dots, Twilight Circus has maintained a busy schedule playing all over the World on nearly every continent, including major festivals like Dour Festival (Belgium), Summerjam (Germany), Fuji Rock Festival (Japan),,One Love Festival (UK), Asagiri Jam (Japan), & Sierra Nevada World Music Festival (USA).
The Legendary Pink Dots
The Legendary Pink Dots 40th anniversary tour 2019
-Plutonium Blonde Tour 2008
North American Tour 2002 -The Legendary Pink Dots / Edward Ka-Spel / Origami Galaktika
-Perfect Mystery Tour 2000
-North America 1998
The Legendary Pink Dots / Twilight Circus Dub Sound System
-North America 1997
The Legendary Pink Dots
-North America 1995
The Legendary Pink Dots
-Golden Age Tour 1989- The Legendary Pink Dots
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