SAM GAS CAN “Gone Doing” (Already Dead)

 

Lifer. That’s what Sam Gas Can is, a lifer in the outsider cassette underground. We hear from him periodically, and we rejoice in his release schedule. Listening to Sam Gas Can is like drinking milk: the calcium from the process helps promote strong bones. We feel that health determinant coursing through our bodies. It feels like every day.
 
Every day of our life this is needed. Gone Doing is the delivery system, and just when we thought we’d have Tascam-damaged shoegaze, we got speak-jazz rap. Just when we thought we got folk’d to the marrow, we heard the transmissions, we perceived the satellites. I remember the day I first heard Beck’s Stereopathetic Soulmanure, and Sam Gas Can’s Gone Doing hits a lot of those scattered-yet-cohesive-in-the-scatteredness’s spots. I loved Stereopathetic Soulmanure at first sight. I feel the same way about Gone Doing.
 
When you’ve done this for a while, you get comfortable – no, confident in the vision, the focus. Because even when it’s a bunch of crazy ideas tossed in a pot and stirred beyond recognition or intention (bah! Look at me talking about intention!), the result doesn’t have to curdle. The result can be the weirdly unified and secretly brilliant work of a dusty old treasure just waiting to be unearthed from the Northampton, Massachusetts, soil. Is Sam Gas Can a dusty old treasure?
 
No, we’ve been over this. He’s milk. Music milk for the bones. Life-giving, life-happening.
 
https://samgascan.bandcamp.com/
 
https://alreadydeadtapes.bandcamp.com/
 
--Ryan

SAM GAS CAN "The Nola Tape" C24 (Kerchow! Records)

Lower than lo-fi backyard-bbq-casiotone-psychedelia amongst non-judgemental friends. Plenty of major chord grooving and a few slower, somber psalms interspersed. Short tape- All over the place. I reviewed this one first, excited to hear who was playing down the street from me in a few weeks and I’m quite curious how they’ll go over amongst the noise-worship cult that LCM (venue) caters to. Pretty sure that if they play the Joy Division-tinged jams at the end of this tape, they’ll leave Oakland feeling pretty damn good!

http://kerchowrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-nola-tape

and/or

https://samgascan.bandcamp.com/

- - Jacob An Kittenplan

Joe Bastardo and Sam Gas CanWorcester's proud sons

Oh gee whiz, I've just got so much rad stuff here in my box from two of Massachusett's finest dudes. Here's a brief run down of what's available from Moss Archive and Faux Pas Recordings and their associated patrons. Moss Archive is run by synth master Joe Bastardo from the band Gay Shapes, and Faux Pas is run by prolific musician and artist Sam Gas Can.  These guys are real cross-pollinators, hence the double post.

Let's start off with a tape of Sam's on Moss Archive. "Life of a Dog" is the best and most accesible Sam Gas Can recording yet.  Check out "Time After Time" and "I Hope You Die."

Sam also has more new tapes of his own out on Hidden Temple, Don't Trust The Ruin and Feeding Tube





Sam's label Faux Pas Recordings has put out some really great new tapes since we last checked in. All of the following come highly recommended:

Bastardo's Bastian Void project is presented on a split tape with Three Fourths Tigers

Also the debut tape by Philadelphia's Suicide Magnets
Cassette Gods's favorite Anthro Rex (Dan Cashman) also has a new Faux Pas Release
  Also check out Cashman and Gas Can's duo, The Fribbles. A cassette exists, but I couldn't find anything to share with you, except the artwork:

Faux Pas is also still offering the last copies of Noise Nomads' "Menacing Bells" which I've already reviewed favorably.  The label is one of seven to co-release the debut LP by Tracey Trance

Moss Archive also has some new tapes out besides the Sam Gas Can keeper.  

Another spaztastic release by Boston's drum machine duo Bang! Bros, who recently broke a world record.

The current Gay Shapes EP is a generally representative of the trio's dense psychedelic noise.

Bastardo's solo projects are also represented by the new Bastian Void tape on Field Hymns and by the Homeowner tape on Moss Archive.






So much music!!!!

WEBLINKS:

FAUX PAS: http://fauxpasrecs.blogspot.com/

MOSS ARCHIVE: http://mossarchive.blogspot.com/

DON'T TRUST THE RUIN: http://dontrusttheruin.blogspot.com/

FIELD HYMNS: http://www.fieldhymns.com/

THE HERMETIC TRIO "s/t" c24DAIN DALLER "Tirehouse Tapes Vol.1" c48SAM GAS CAN "Life On Earth..." c24(Lighten Up Sounds)

The Minnesota based Lighten Up Sounds is run by the eminently likable Matt Himes (Shep & Me, Mole Hole) and is one of the spiffiest labels in the Midwest. From fancy lathe cuts, to beautifully designed cassettes, Himes really puts an artist's touch on the full color packaging of everything that the label releases.

The Hermetic Trio plays an occult form of free jazz known only to dwellers of basementdom's sub-sub-spheres. "Recorded beneath Providence, RI on April 25th 2011" as it states on the handsomely designed j-card. The two named members are reed players Bill Doob and Jefferson Zurna and a third "mystery" member who contributes percussion by gently pounding on basement air-ducts. The music is more in the vein of melodic instant composition, than total shriekfest. The clarinet and the zurna weave subtle patterns that recall both the ecstatic forays of the Master Musicians of Jajouka and the complexity of Anthony Braxton's best work while the percussionist lays down a framework of rhythmic echo. All in all, a very engrossing listen. Highly recommended.

Dain Daller, of the Chicago band Tiny Music, now lives in a self-constructed house of automobile tires in the desert of New Mexico (pictured on the artwork). This tape resonates with the unique vision one might expect from someone with such a hermetic existence. "Tirehouse Tapes Vol. 1" is an album length collection of thoughtful musique concrete constructions. Daller employs household objects, skipping or crackling records, snippets of radio and perhaps an instrument here or there to create 7 distinct compositions. A suite that shows the path toward a possible future for music in a post-technology collapse.

The full title of this tape is Sam Gas Can & The Charter Communications Defamation League "Life On Earth Is Pure And Golden, Life On Earth Is Hell On Earth." Our boy Sam has been working hard of late and this is my favorite thing I've heard from him so far. A really good overview of the Gas Can sound: casio jams, hypnagogabop, downer acoustic folk, humor. All in 24 minutes! Love the cover with it's "I'm standing in a corner" self portrait and the funny insert listing the negative characteristics of Pisces. Highly recommended. After 10-15 EPs, I hope I'm not the only one eagerly awaiting the arrival of the first Sam Gas Can LP, whenever that may be. For all things Gas Can, head over to here.

http://lightenupsounds.blogspot.com/

SAM PHILLPS / SAM GAS CAN "Sam's club" c30 (Yeay! Tapes)

This tape is a split by two dudes who flank the western mass scene, Sam Phillips to the north, a great dude who runs the space the Tinder Box up in brattleboro and Sam Gas Can who runs faux paus recordings, hailing from the outskirts of worcester in central mass. The concept has nothing to do with big box stores, low prices, buying in bulk or joining their 'club' of lowered labor standards, underpricing small businesses and cheap plastic shit.

The sam phillips side is more of a one man band, touring the alleys, trees and dumpsters of brattleboro. Lots of semi-processed (or not?) field recordings married to the tape hiss and wind mix perfectly with the intentionally 'musical' sounds that come off more as sound clips of weird instruments, sounds and voices. The messes mix and unmix with the sound of children, birds and the tape itself being manipulated, the tape reaches into itself with sam eventually shaking what sounds like a fence into a basic rhythm and singing joyfully along to his new "band" and his audience of a parking lot and stream. a nice ride for sure!

Gas Can's side opens with a similar tone of hand-held tape deck cutting into more 4 track recordings, whereas Phillips' side feels more like a leisurely stroll outside, almost as an invisible companion, this side has more of the feeling of looking in the window of Gas Can's bandroom. lots of jumping around from style to style, casio cruisers and keyboard jams with a real mellow feel jumps into some skittering electronics, then maybe to some sampled pieces (or not??) that sound like it could be a compressed piece of a bollywood soundtrack or something from konono no.1, then everything gets super weird as it sounds like sam sings black sabbath lyrics into a well for a while and the tape just slowwwwwwwws down.

comes if full color sleeve w/black and white backside.
still available from the Yeay! site:

http://yeay.suchfun.net/catalog.html