THE CRADLE

THE CRADLE “Bodies Coiled Around Themselves Drink the Water” (self-released Feeding Tube)

Dear nerds. Question. What’s the point of sending two records by the exact same artist in the same batch? Because guess what – here’s the same review, except with some minor changes. What do you want me to do, honestly?

“Paco’s music is much more interesting than I expected it to be. Terrible moniker (The Cradle?), terribly produced “j-card.” better produced j-card than Bodies Coiled – that’s what not self-releasing will get you, I guess. What do you do? Hope it’s not another garbage fire that’ll ruin yet another cassette player. Well, I’ve got good news for all of you on the other side of this: my tape player still works. Still spitting out music, sometimes like a real jerk, like a jackass. That’s the stuff I don’t like. Paco – well, he somehow channels a wide-eyed innocent version of the brothers Kinsella, sometime before Joan of Arc, Dick Cheney, Mark Twain. It’s pleasantly indie, pleasantly low-key emo, and all around bookwormy in the neatest of ways. Get past the “book-by-its-cover” nonsense my undisguised cynicism if you really want to live your life like an American Football. An AMERICAN FOOTBALL. Get it? They just put out a new album not too long ago. Owen.”

Going to sleep now. In my man cradle, i.e. big boy bed.

https://thecradle.bandcamp.com/

http://feedingtuberecords.com/

--Kinsellas

GREAT VALLEY "Lizards of Camelot" (NNA/Feeding Tube)

"Lizards of Camelot" doesn't explicitly claim to be a concept album yet folds open like a pop up book, each page a vignette in the amphibian kingdom.  Multi-layered guitar and drumset (sometimes midi, sometimes real, always real cymbals...) pump and groove as one engine.  This piece represents a marked twist of style for GV throughout, no doubt influenced by Peter's fantastic 2013 solo EP "Peter's Window" and Joe's work in Blanche Blanche Blanche / Big French.

( ↑ lots of free music in these links!!! ↑ )

 The opening scene starts with climbing major/chutes and ladders to wild tremolo fantasies established in some odd meter or another, prodding flippantly at the notion of pop music.  In a midnight gesture, more tremolo blows through a snorkel underwater through wreckage of drums and into a deeper trench.  The whole thing somehow achieves buoyancy and floats to the top, up and over a moat of love.  Green angels arrive in the bath and there's a party goin' on, inviting all to a hard boogie-ing permanent x-mas.

An all star list of guest musicians makes itself known across the record: Chris Weisman, David Lineal, Christine Brown, Luke Csehak, Francis Carr, Zach Phillips and Ruth Garbus make time in this freaky sect of "The Brattleboro School".

Excellent artwork by John Broadley.

Available on cassette from NNA and LP from Feeding Tube

- -Matt Robidoux

CAUGHT ON TAPE "2x Cassette" (Manhand)

Though C.G.s is a beacon for the groundbreaking and often critically underrated, I have but one rap sheet from the "mainstream" and you will seldom hear a peep from me about it in the future.  This beautifully hand painted 2x cassette package comes from the duo of John Moloney/Thurston Moore documenting some of their best captured last year of free improv touring.  Like their s/t lp on Feeding Tube Records and lesser known Manhand releases "Acting the Maggot" and "Irish-American Prayer" the stuff is duplicated straight from cassette recordings of live shows. 

A bit about each side:

A1: Right out the gate with full frontal guitar musk, barrage dissolving into TM's patented tonal scrapings and knocks.  Later a rendition of "Staring Statues" from the Psychic Hearts LP.

A2: Frantic drums dissolve into what sounds like jamming on a no input mixer but is probably the tape recorder too close to guitar amp destruction through the tri metal pedal, then back into hc punx blast w hints of stoner riffs/full boogie/halloween vibrato in no set chronology.

B1: Floor tom wash under rat squall/heavy space fire from some far off place.

B2: Buzz and howl in continuance with side A1/crash decaying into next crash. Room noise and drones.  Drums to the front with an abrupt ending.  2/4 sides have an abrupt ending.

Check yr favorite record store for this and the Caught on Tape LP and look out for more undoubtably sporadic releases in the future.

- -Matt Robidoux

LOUDVILLE

Loudville is a new band from the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts with a first release rumored on Feeding Tube Records. I was completely blow away by their set at the release show for the Happy Jawbone Family Band Complete Hotel Double Tragedy 2LP which went down at the Feeding Tube HQ a few weekends back. You can hear all five songs Loudville performed below.  This is some pretty raw Zevon/Petty worshiping territory, but the lyrics are so strong and the band hangs together in a beautifully ragged way.  My faves are "Interzone" and "Heart of Coal."

Great Valley - Continental Lunch LP (FEEDING TUBE RECORDS)

howdy! this is my first review for the fabulous cassette gods.. however, i'm not reviewing a cassette, but instead a FINE LP by the ever so delightful GREAT VALLEY from brattleboro, VT. 

First off - brattleboro fucking RULES right now.. it is perhaps the best place IN THE WORLD to find genuine weirdo (avant?) pop music (or whatever you wanna call it). great valley, happy jawbone, chris/kurt weisman, blanche blanche blanche, ruth garbus,  ETC - i mean C'MON.. how all of these far out people ended up in the same place is a mystery to me, but it seems to be working out for em. 

ANYWAY… great valley… YES… CONTINENTAL LUNCH is their newest release on the mighty FEEDING TUBE RECORD label from northampton (a fine label indeed). this record is just utterly fantastic from start to finish.. i can't even count the amount of times i've listened to it since i bought the record at GV's release show in boston last weekend. SANDRA'S RAGE is perhaps my favorite track on SIDE A - a whacked out psych pop ditty with a gary wilson-esque psycho babble section followed by a beautifully orchestrated minimalist, ambient sort-of jam… a TASTY cup of tea for sure. SIDE B - opens with a wonderful pop tune that ends with an ADORABLE shout out to all of GV's brattleboro homies. I could easily go into each song individually, but you get the point, and i'm running out of stokey adjectives .. but long story short - this album is a MASTERPIECE if you're into this kind of stuff. 

GV has released a TON of albums and ep's in the last 5 or so years, all of which are definitely worth checking out, however I consider this record to be their finest achievement thus far, in that they have really found a UNIQUE formula and aesthetic to their ever evolving sound. check em out live (currently on tour for a few weeks) and visit them and everyone in brattleboro… not only are the people there making awesome music, but they are totally RAD and HUMBLE folks .. and JOEY PIZZA SLICE just moved there so YEA.. go visit and give em all hugs if you can… and go sledding or something

BUY HERE: http://www.feedingtuberecords.com/

MARS "Live At Irving Plaza" LP/Book (Feeding Tube / Negative Glam)GARY WILSON "Lisa Wants To Talk To You" LP (Feeding Tube Records)

New reissue of the late 70s band Mars who practically invented music.  Way, way ahead of their time these gals and guys were.  The record is produced by Feeding Tube, but brought to the light by Byron Coley and Thurston Moore (AKA Negative Glam) who also wrote the highly informative history of Mars that's included in the booklet.  For the uninitiated: ever hear a band with guitars, drums and vocals in a basement making noise and think to yourself "man these folks are really tearing apart the rules of rock"?  Well, more likely than not, Mars was there first. So first it's not even funny.  While this fine sounding live recording (made by Brian Eno) and it's companion "Live At Artists Space" (also on FTR/Negative Glam) won't make you through away your copy of the absolutely essential discography comp "78+", they are both very interesting windows into the band's creative process.  What might have come across as kind of random, is actually show to be rather composed, as both of these live sets bare striking similarity to the studio material.  The Artists Space LP was made in a run of 1000 copies and is now sold out, so act fast on the Irving Plaza record, cause they only made 500.  And if I didn't say so above, the included booklet is really essential and will probably remain useful for many years. Buy here.


Another fine reissue currently available from Feeding Tube is Gary Wilson's "Lisa Wants To Talk To You."  Many of you might be familiar with Wilson's creepy stalker porno funk, but this album, released on CD only in 2010 might have flown under your radar.  This listener thinks it's among his finest work and it sounds absolutely fantastic on vinyl.  Limited to 500 copies.

Lastly, Feeding Tube has also reissued one of my favorite cassettes of all time, "Dagger Magic" by Vapor Gourds.  Read the Cassette Gods review here. Don't pass this one up when ordering the two higher profile titles above.

SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN meets BYRON COLEY "In Orbit" c45(Feeding Tube Records)

A live recording of music writer and poet Byron Coley reciting text as a handful of Western MA regulars conglomerated under the Sunburned moniker jam out behind him. I believe Byron is reading from the recently published book "This Planet is Doomed: The Science Fiction Poetry of Sun Ra", a collection of writings by the late great bandleader that reads as much as an admonition of earthlings as it does a paean to the joys of space travel. The writings reveal a deep paranoid streak in Sun Ra, which comes across less in his music, but makes perfect sense when considering the life and work of that celibate monk of the astral spaceways. I'm not sure if Byron adds any of his own words to the Sun Ra material, but if he does, it all blends seamlessly. At times his reading conjures up the psychedelic fury of the wild-eyed Kesey. Pretty fun stuff. Check out the sample of the live set on youtube. If you like what you're hearing, go "glank" this "scozz". If you're only going to buy one object today, you might get the Sun Ra book instead. More info on that here. Actually you might want to write Feeding Tube and see if they have the book in stock and kill two birds with one stone. Now that's an idea I like.

The tape is an edition of 90 and will probably sell out fast.

Feeding Tube webzone. Look under the "tapes" heading.

CHARLIE McALISTER "Turn of the Century Photograph"(Unread Records) C30

UPDATE: 3/10/10 - I am pleased to announce that a handful of songs from this cassette will be coming out on Charlie's first release for Feeding Tube Records: "Country Creamed/Victorian Fog" LP.

I first heard Charlie McAlister on a mix tape. "What is this demented rockabilly jam with all that fucked up banjo"? Sounded straight out of a "God knows when" time vortex. "A Hasil Adkins outake"? "Oh this was made last year"? Cool! The next encounter was the song "Sleep Walking" from an obscure 7" from the once published Whump Magazine that also featured Caroliner and a bunch of other great 90's stuff. Even cooler! Pop music with absolutely crucial organ sound and reedy vocals. Thus began the search to aquire more of the records and tapes McAlister has made throughout the years, and continues to make to this day. Many of these remain in print.

I'm choosing to review the decade old "Turn of the Century Photograph" tape because it offers a solid introduction to the McAlister catalog. It doesn't go as far out as some of his more collage-based recordings, but it has some really amazing skewed-pop gems. "Bog Man" has a mummy coming back to life to terrorize a small village, "Girls in the Big Parade 1917" has a wonderful WWI feel, and "Plantation of Pain" is just pure postbellum magic. If you haven't figured it out yet, McAlister creates true American folk music. It is the way he twists old stories and symbols into nearly incomprehensible new versions that has made him a legend of underground music for the last couple decades. The tape also has a very long and bizarre play about fried sandwiches at the end of the B side.

When I finally met the man, outside of his "Fire Ant Mound" in Charleston, SC, he took me 45 minutes down some railroad tracks and then told me and my compadre that he was going to cut our heads off. C. McAlister has a thirst for blood and it shows in his desperate recordings and works of art, which all come highly recommended.


"Turn of the Century Photograph" available from
http://www.unread-records.com (catalog #12)

You can get much more of Charlie's work at his website:
http://www.zen-grafix.com/charliemcalister/

COUCHIE POOCHIE (Feeding Tube Records) C10

The opening of this live acoustic set taped on a couch in Easthampton, MA is one of my favorite recordings in recent memory. That's not surprising seeing as Couchie Pouchie (a band with an ever-shifting moniker -- see Creepy Pee Pee, Crappie Pappie, Drippy Hippy) is comprised of D.B. Russell (The Frothy Shakes) and Tim Sheldon (Fat Worm of Error, Rack Rash - see review of the excellent "National Felt" in these pages) and the song is the Phil Phillips penned "Sea of Love". This much covered song is delivered completely straight and it's a soulful and heartfelt version, if maybe a tad creepy.

The rest of the tape veers into diffuse improv with Russell's high pitched and mongoloid singing/intoning accompanied by Sheldon's acoustic guitar and the singer's abstruse Casio sounds. The third piece is also a real winner; an ad lib with the lyrics "I wanna live in America, where the sun shines every day. Here in this real hell". A national anthem for these times if there ever was one.

Overall, a very deranged, yet surprisingly melodic tape of retarded half-songs. A reel winner! First edition of thirty or so still kicking, and I believe this will be reprinted by the label too.

the tape is available from feedingtuberecords.com

This is the band that later developed into Western Mass. super group Egg, Eggs - Ed.

NO SOUND: “Gay KK” dbl-cs (Feeding Tube Records)

No Sound’s Ted Lee self-releases the soundtrack to his new movie, “Gay KK”, a menacing onslaught of cut-ups and reflections with the ongoing symbol of a pink triangle-shaped mask. Lee is an incredible documentarian, taping nearly every live show in Western Massachusetts, but here we find him picking up on the subtleties of the everyday objects that surround him and showing how an idea as simple as talking on the phone next to a lake can be made into compelling filmmaking. This double cassette covers most, if not all of the ground covered in the movie, starting out with hypnotic accordion pumps and rapid-fire sound clips that are impressively epic in their arrangement, like a lo-fi “2001”. This is followed by a somewhat exhausting live set, only because of the calamitous recording not fully capturing all of the subtleties of his set-up of demon-fast drumming and ring modulated vocals. The guy really does have an incredible amount of energy.
Tape two takes more of a “straightforward” approach with Lee playing quizzical pop songs while jumping from instrument to instrument, including organ, guitar, drums, and even layered vocals. A satisfying portrayal of a confusing mind.
Comes in a white cassette album with color cover and sticker in an edition of 35. This might already be sold out, but he has a new GOLD vinyl LP, and you can see most of the film here, as well as an endless amount of other interesting footage. You can probably throw out your TV now.

http://www.myspace.com/nosounddelights