Doom & Gloom From The Tomb

James Elkington & Nathan Salsburg - First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, October 22, 2015

Head over to Aquarium Drunkard to read my conversation with six-string kings James Elkington and Nathan Salsburg, whose brand-new All Gist (out now on Paradise of Bachelors) is one of my favorite records of 2024 thus far. These guys aren't just extraordinary guitarists, they're also very nice dudes.

As mentioned at the tail-end of the interview, Jim and Nathan are planning some live Gist gigs in the coming months — their first real tour since 2015! To get prepped for that, check out the above video from back in those days, expertly filmed by Elkhorn's Jesse Sheppard. If you're a guitarist, it'll be fun (and perhaps frustrating) to see how casually Elkington and Salsburg dispatch these intricately detailed tunes. Unfair!

And how's about Aquarium Drunkard?! We're a couple weeks into the new age, with memberships rolling in fast 'n' furious. Tons of killer stuff going up on the regular, including terrific High Llamas and Shabaka Hutchings interviews, a Lagniappe Session from the Reds, Pinks and Purples, a fresh Bandcamping column ... and so much more! If this is the kind of thing you dig, consider pitching in.

Kevin Coleman - Imaginary Conversations

Absorbing and inviting explorations from Nashville's Kevin Coleman. The three lengthy tracks here are guitar-centric at first blush, but they take you in a lot of different directions, weaving fiddle, bowed banjo, pedal steel, synth, jaw harp, even wine glasses into the mix. Imaginary Conversations kicks off with the very earthy "Mammut Americanum" but Coleman isn't afraid to head into other universes; the album closes with a fairly miraculous kosmische workout. As Stefan "Golden Brown" Beck says: "If the Autobahn took you through a portal to Tennessee, this would be the soundtrack."

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - "Round and Round (It Won't Be Long)" (The Roxy Theatre, West Hollywood, California, September 20, 2023)

We'll finish up this week of Crazy Horse-iness with a glimpse of one of the most recent Crazy Horse shows. Last September, Neil, Billy, Ralph, Nils and Micah Nelson (the most recently deputized member of the band) all crowded themselves on to the tiny Roxy Theatre stage for two nights in a row to play not only Tonight's the Night in its entirety ... but Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, too! What a world.

Since he was uncharacteristically playing albums from front-to-back, Neil had to re-learn several songs that he hadn't played live much — or at all! As far as the ever-awesome Sugar Mountain database knows, Young had never performed "Round and Round (It Won't Be Long)" onstage prior to 2023. But he and the Horse tackled it in fine, faithful fashion, hitting those eerie Danny Whitten / Robin Lane harmonies, the 12-string guitar chiming beautifully, a sweet, sad sway. A lot of ghosts floating around as this one unfurls at the Roxy.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Control The Violent Side

Do we talk about Landing On Water enough?! Trans has been thoroughly rehabilitated at this point, but Neil Young's further dabbling in synth-iness later on in the 1980s still feels like an unloved outlier in the man's vast catalog.

Here's an entirely imagined mid-80s conversation between Neil and an A&R dude at Geffen Records, taking place in some glassed-in skyscraper high above the Sunset Strip.

A&R Dude: Haha, Neil, you got us — we asked you to record a "rock 'n' roll" album and you gave us Everybody's Rockin'. Good one.

Neil: Heh heh.

A&R Dude: But now that you've got that out of your system (and Old Ways), how about a rock album ... you know, like ... 80s rock?

Neil: ... 80s rock, huh? You mean, like ... Prince?

A&R Dude: Uhhh.

And scene! Landing On Water, released in 1986, is even more hermetically sealed within the era's production techniques than Trans — big drums, synthetic textures, overdubs everywhere. Neil called the album "the beginning — or the end depending on how you look at it. I just wanted to try somethin' else, break out ... I felt like I was dying. Felt like if I didn't do something, I was gonna lose it. Something had to wake me up." And yeah, the songs here are characterized by a certain uptight and nervy vibe that's unique in Neil's career. It's a weird record, but kind of great? Listening to it this week, my hot take is that it's actually better than Trans. Make of that what you will!

Anyway, when it came time for Neil to hit the road again in '86, he didn't "try somethin' else." He took Crazy Horse with him — their first US tour since the Rust Never Sleeps period way back in the late 70s. They didn't exactly go heavy on the Landing On Water material though, mostly preferring to stick with the hits. But they did play a few of the tunes, so I've put together a kinda "What If?" collection — Landing On Water as played by Crazy Horse! Some songs here are actually from the 1990s, though ... why did Neil suddenly revive "Hard Luck Stories" (very briefly) in 1997? Who can say? But I'm glad he did.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - "Bright Sunny Day" (Pine Knob Music Theatre, Clarkston, Michigan, September 19, 1978)

From Homegrown to Hitchhiker, from Tuscaloosa to Toast, the last 10 years of furious archival activity have de-mystified many previously darkened corners of Neil Young's oeuvre. But some questions remain! Such as: what the hell is "Bright Sunny Day"?!

When I first heard this Crazy Horse performance from the Rust Never Sleeps tour (via a dubbed tape of the classic Archives Be Damned series), I assumed it was a random cover of some song I'd never heard before. But no, it seems to be a Neil Young original that was played once and only once in Clarkston, Michigan. Neil is generally not one to let songs fall completely by the wayside — even if it takes him decades to get back to them. But it appears that he's never returned to "Bright Sunny Day" since that night at the Pine Knob Music Theatre.

Has Young ever even thought of it since then? Well, someone did remind him of it a few years back in the Letters To The Editor section of the NYA Times-Contrarian. Here's what he said: "'bright sunny Day' is on our search list for Archives 3. It is listed as a poor quality cassette from Pine Knob rehearsal of the Rust show. We are looking."

They're looking! That's good, because even if the rehearsal tape is "poor quality," it's gotta be better than the crap-tastic audience tape that gives us our only evidence to date of "Bright Sunny Day." Still, it's worth a listen; the song might not be a lost masterpiece, but it sounds pretty nice, fully arranged, cool Crazy Horse backing vocals, a solid chorus. Maybe it wouldn't have fit on Rust proper, but maybe Neil should've revived it for Psychedelic Pill or something.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Festival Hall, Osaka, Japan, March 4, 1976

In a miraculous turn of events, I'll be heading out west to see Neil Young & Crazy Horse in a couple weeks. To say I'm excited is what you'd call a major understatement. What deep cuts will they play? Will Neil debut Greendale II: Sun Green Strikes Back in its entirety? Will Billy Talbot make it to the end of "Like A Hurricane"?! Who can say. But it's going to be good.

To get fired up, let's listen to some Crazy Horse this week. We'll kick things off with what is perhaps my favorite tour — Japan '76! I've written plenty about this era; there's something about the Horse's energy and purity during these shows that just grabs me every time. The audience tapes sound cool as hell, too; those polite Japanese crowds (though Neil has to ask them to hold off on clapping along until the electric set), Neil's unreal guitar work (vicious harmonics everywhere!) bouncing around the big open spaces, the intense thud of the rhythm section.

Over on the Dollar Bin, my brother details how we were introduced to Neil in Osaka via a shady cassette bootleg sometime circa 1993. I can remember listening to it over and over again — blown away by the fact that he was playing "Country Home" back in those days (and "Too Far Gone"!), blown away by the guitars, blown away by the moment when everything cut out and a Mexican radio station cut in for 10 seconds. I was blown away by Talbot's bass playing, too. I was just getting into playing music myself, and I listened Billy's caveman style and thought: "Maybe I could try to do that?" Thirty-plus years later I'm still trying.

What I've got for you here today is not in fact that Osaka tape — it's from the first of three shows that Neil and the Horse played at this venue. But even though it doesn't have the debut performance of "Let It Shine," it's a slightly better recording — and it has an absolutely stunning "Cortez The Killer" closing things out. Dance across the water with me, amigos!

Strapping Fieldhands - Gobs On The Midway (Singles 1991-95)

A necessary reissue of this odds-n-sods compilation from long-running Philly oddballs Strapping Fieldhands, helpfully gathering up some of the band's earliest material. The Fieldhands fall somewhere between the controlled madness of Sun City Girls and the dangerous stylings of The Frogs — but mainly they exist in their own category, happily plowing away all these years. Gobs On The Midway could be called "primal" Fieldhands; it's raw and occasionally unhinged (and sometimes infernally catchy), using classic Britfolk and solo Syd Barrett as a leaping off point to explore uncharted regions. Funny, strange, utterly bewitching.

And hey, there's a fresh Bandcamping column over on Aquarium Drunkard right now — have you subscribed yet????

Another Bummer :: Neil Young's On The Beach At 50

“Here’s another bummer for you,” Neil Young joked when debuting “Ambulance Blues” at the Bottom Line in NYC in May of 1974. The song provided the doom-laden finale for On The Beach — an album that over the past half-century has risen from a somewhat obscure corner of Young’s discography (famously, Neil refused to reissue it until the early 2000s) to what many consider to be amongst the mercurial songwriter’s finest efforts.

Set amidst Young’s so-called Ditch Era, its eight songs are shot through with devastating heartbreak, numbed-out grief, nightmarish countercultural visions and pure, relentless loneliness. “Probably one of the most depressing records I’ve ever made,” is how Neil summed it up back in the day.

To celebrate 50 years of On The Beach, dig into an alternate version of the record over on Aquarium Drunkard, made up of rare live renditions and fireside sessions. Neil didn’t often return to many of these tunes onstage, but when he did, he gave them his all. Some of it is solo — “alone at the microphone;” elsewhere, Young is joined by CSN, Ben Keith and, most interestingly, Britfolk legend Bert Jansch, who shows up on a 2006 version of “Ambulance Blues.” 

The Modern Lovers - Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, February 23, 1974

The end of the Original Modern Lovers? This might've been the band's final official gig — thanks to Jesse J for passing along a recently surfaced tape. Jesse calls the recording's quality "atrocious," and he's not wrong (though it's as much the fault of the venue's cavernous acoustics as it is the tape's). Whatever, atrocious quality audience recordings are what Doom & Gloom is all about, am I right? So adjust your ears and take a trip back to a bitter New England winter just about 50 years ago.

Historic/interesting stuff! The set sees the Modern Lovers attempting to bring together their older, more VU-inspired material with the quieter, more innocent songs that Jonathan Richman was writing. There are tunes that will certainly be familiar — "Roadrunner," "Government Center," "Pablo Picasso," etc. And then there are several strong songs that — as far as I know — don't appear anywhere else in the Modern Lovers' discography (officially or unofficially). And hey, it all works pretty well; in some alternate universe, the band might've been able to reconcile their two sides and finally record a proper debut LP. It was not to be, alas — soon, Jerry Harrison would head back to Harvard to get his master's degree in architecture. And today, he is renowned as one of the world's greatest architects ... right???

Of course, we have to note the truly bonkers lineup — a heretofore unknown alignment with the Velevet (sic) Underground and George Thorogood galaxies. Though if the description below is correct (though the source says the date was Valentine's Day), Moe Tucker didn't even get to play because of George. That's truly b-b-b-b-bad. But, as Jesse pointed out, Jonathan and Moe did make it into the studio a few days later to record their charming rendition of the VU's "I'm Sticking With You." Was Moe's band really called the Bloody Virgins?! Hmmm, further investigation is warranted.

An eyewitness account? Although the Modern Lovers broke up in 1973, they reformed in '74 (maybe late '73) with a different drummer but that didn't last long because the drummer hated Jonathan. They did at least one concert: Valentine's Day 1974. I was there early with Jonathan so I got to see all the sound checks for all three bands. Unfortunately, the idiot promoters let the mediocre opening band, George Thoroughlynogood and the Delaware Destroyers, play for one hour and 45 minutes. They should have had 25 minutes max. Thus, the Modern Lovers could only play one hour. And the second band couldn't play at all, which is very unfortunate, as it was Mo Tucker's excellent (and totally unknown) all-girl band the Bloody Virgins (but me and Jonathan got to watch their excellent 25-minute sound check). Seven or either years ago, an internet music forum was discussing Mo, and I talked about seeing that band. A noted music critic (and friend of Mo) was pissed off and said that Mo never had any such band and that I was a liar. Luckily, I still had the concert ad and uploaded a photo of it to the forum.

Ernie Brooks: At one of the last gigs we did, when we played “Roadrunner,” we still didn’t have a record out, but that was always a catchy song, and we actually got some applause—and then Jonathan said, “People like that song too much; I don’t think we should do it anymore….” I think it was just part of Jonathan’s natural inclination that when things seemed to be going well—to go against it. He was very contrary. He was very difficult. I mean, anybody who is on to something new has some element of being a contrarian, because they’re rejecting the status quo. They’re doing something in the way they’ve figured out how to do it—and they don’t want to hear something different, even if it could make things better. When Jonathan said, “I won’t play 'Roadrunner' anymore,” it was pretty much the classic case—you can’t really get any more contrarian than that.

Aquarium Drunkard :: The Shape Of Things To Come

Some news from the mothership! Aquarium Drunkard will be shifting over to a membership based model on April 8. If you would like to get a jump on things you can go ahead and sign up by joining us right here.

Do people have too many online subscriptions these days? I don't know, I guess we'll find out. What I do know is that AD has been a haven for music lovers for close to two decades now, a beacon in the ever-lengthening night. If you feel like it's worth your while to help keep it going, get in on it.

There's a longer explanation of the situation here and Head Drunkard Justin Gage joins the dude Jason Woodbury on this week's Transmissions for an illuminating chat. Only the good shit!

The Breeders - The Palace, Los Angeles, California, April 1, 1994

April 1994! Bill Clinton was in the White House, Kurt Cobain was (barely) still alive, Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult was in theaters — and I was a freshman in high school, on my way to see The Breeders at the Palace with my pals Ryan and Sean and my older brother Nathan, hurtling towards Hollywood in a Ford Tempo. A momentous occasion, 30 years ago, jeez louise.

I was just talking to Ryan about this show and we both remembered that it was, up to that point, the most high-energy, packed-house, Alternative Nation-style event we'd attended. Previously, we'd seen gigs that were either big arena affairs or mellow sit-down kinda things. This might not've been an insane crowd by any stretch, but there was light moshing and so forth. And the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion opened! We had never heard of them before and let me tell you we were confused. And thrilled! Pretty sure we all went out to get Orange immediately that weekend.

I haven't tracked down a tape of the JSBX set, but I just recently came across this recording of The Breeders' Last Splash-heavy performance that evening. The previous fall, I had fallen heavily under the spell of The Breeders, Frank Black and the Pixies, so getting to see the Deal Sisters was a big deal. And they did not disappoint. Hearing it back all these years later doesn't disappoint, either — though there is some hilarious/cringe-y audience chatter ... the dude being an idiot near the taper is not any of us, I promise you.

Yellow Swans - Left Behind

Yellow Swans — the unearthly duo of Gabriel Mindel Saloman and Pete Swanson — made their triumphant return to live performance last year with shows in Austin and NYC. While there hasn't been any new YS material announced just yet, there is this very sweet collection of previously unreleased jams from circa 2008 when the band went on hiatus. Whenever/wherever it was recorded, Left Behind is a deeply awesome set, with strangely seductive tones, whirring rhythms, unclassifiable textures. The highlight is the 14-minute closer "For NB," which feels both heavy as hell and barely there.

Duke Ellington - The Cotton Club, New York City, March 18, 1937

Coming to the end of what has been an extremely challenging week ... so let's say goodbye to the bullshit with some very vintage Duke Ellington, recorded live with his orchestra almost 90 years ago. An instant balm for whatever might ail you.

"The Cotton Club was a classy spot," Duke wrote in his Music Is My Mistress memoir. "Impeccable behavior was demanded in that room while the show was on. If someone was talking loud while Leitha Hill, for example, was singing, the waiter would come and touch him on the shoulder. If that didn't do it, the captain would come over and admonish him politely. Then the headwaiter would remind him that he had been cautioned. After that, if the loud talker still continued, somebody would come and throw him out."

You definitely would've been an idiot if you had been thrown out — because then you wouldn't have been able to experience one of the greatest bands of the 20th century. Throughout this 30-minute radio broadcast, Duke and co. are undeniably brilliant. It may have been just one night of many for them, but the sounds they make are pure magic.

Muddy Waters & his Habitual Band - The Ash Grove, West Hollywood, California, July 30, 1971

A nice little trip back to the Ash Grove, a legendary southern California club. Your host? None other than the mighty Muddy Waters. This hour-long doc is a treat from start-to-finish, featuring Muddy in live performance, hanging out backstage, answering a few interview questions, generally being cool as hell.

At this point, Waters had seen the electric Delta blues sound that he'd helped create hit the big time amongst white kids all over the world — Ten Years After was probably selling out the Great Western Forum across town on the same night. But if Muddy felt even a trace of bitterness, you wouldn't know it here. He knew he was still the king.

The Ash Grove co-stars with Muddy — I've heard many live albums and tapes recorded at the venue (which launched the careers of many a great artist), but I don't know if I've seen much footage of it. The early 1970s vibes are impeccable. Soak it in.

The Incredible String Band - Philadelphia Folk Festival, August 24, 1969

I've been digging into the appropriately big/huge Be Glad For The Song Has No Ending: An Incredible String Band Compendium lately. Like the ISB itself, the newly revised & expanded book is sprawling, messy and awesome, going into exquisite/excruciating detail about all aspects of the band's life and afterlife.

As a soundtrack, I'm checking out some rare-ish live tapes; this Philadelphia Folk Fest gig came hot on the heels of the Incredible String Band's infamous Woodstock set, during which they tried and failed to win over hundreds of thousands of muddy hippies. Oh well! But it's interesting that the ISB was such a big band at this point — they were headlining the Philly Folk Fest and had topped the bill at Flushing Meadows Park in Queens immediately following Woodstock. An only-in-the-1960s crossover? Maybe!

In his foreword to Be Glad, the freaking Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams (2002-2012) writes: "For those of us who fell in love with the ISB, there was a feeling of breathing the air of a very expansive imagination indeed. It was all right to be enchanted — but not bewitched — by colossal and antique symbols; all right at the same time to be thinking about the experiences of 'ordinary' first loves and first betrayals; and all right to find the earnest nonsense of real hallucinogenic maunderings funny. There was no one quite like them; we liked to think it was a very grown-up taste, but that makes it sound too serious."

World Party - Warfield Theatre, San Francisco, California, September 10, 1990

Over on the Dollar Bin, my brother Nathan paid tribute to the recently departed Karl Wallinger — the multi-instrumentalist Svengali behind World Party. I hadn't listened to much World Party in the past two decades or so, but when I fired up Goodbye Jumbo a few weeks back, I was amazed at how familiar it was, instantly taking me back to Nathan's room in the early 1990s, hearing those unusual sounds for the first time.

Of course, 30+ years later, those sounds don't seem so unusual — Wallinger was a musician who proudly wore his influences on his sleeve, and as I got older, those influences became fairly obvious (as Nathan writes, even our dad was ahead of us in this respect here). But I think World Party served as a nice gateway drug to a lot of worthwhile zones.

So! Here's a nice SBD from the Goodbye Jumbo tour, with Wallinger leading his band through some of his finest tunes, from the Prince-tastic "Private Revolution" to the left-field hit "Put The Message In The Box." You're invited to a World Party.

Karl says: More and more, I just believe that songs are where it’s at. In the ‘90s, I used to get told, “You do too many different styles on your records. You should concentrate on one kind of thing.” And I was just like, “Why would I want to do that?” The attraction is the song, and the song can be any kind of song. There’s all kinds of music that I like. And now I really believe that songs are just amazing things because they go off and they have their own life. They get played at weddings and funerals and births and deaths and everything. Happy moments or moments of doubt or moments where it just seems to be the friend you want. It’s a strange thing, the way they have their own life. I love that about them. They’re like kids. They’ve gone off and experienced more of life, probably, than I have. They’ve been in the background when two people are making love, or they’ve been on a car journey to Alaska. All these scenarios where they’ve been experiencing our lives, as well as we are experiencing them. It blows me away. Songs are incredible things. I love them.

Lake Mary & pinyonpine - it's okay, you can open your eyes now

Chaz Prymek (AKA Lake Mary) can be tough to keep up with, whether he's on his own, with Fuubutsushi or collaborating with a wide array of talented artists. This latest release falls in the latter category, finding the multi-faceted Prymek teaming up with pinyonpine (AKA Tj Nelson, a Salt Lake City-based filmmaker). Together, Lake Mary and pinyonpine have created some seriously blissed out sounds — two sidelong reveries that drift into the heavens. Gentle lap steel, harmonious electronics, some kinda instrument called a Cocoquantus ... it's okay, you can open your eyes now is music that feels uplifting and restorative, embodying its title perfectly.