SPRING-AGAIN YOUTUBE RABBITHOLE PLACEHOLDER POST

Biz Markie, Hal Russell & the NRG Ensemble, Shaking Ray Levis, James Brandon Lewis Trio, Sun Ra, Anthony Braxton, Sonic Youth, Nine Inch Nails, Denny Dias, Waylon J., Hot Tuna, My Bloody Valentine

Hey, it’s been a minute. I’m sure you’ve noticed some stuff has been going on in the world, but hey, it’s spring again and here’s some other stuff, from some other planes of there, perhaps accessible only through music and meditation, where, for a short but bountiful time, none of that bullshit is happening. To wit, been going down respective rabbitholes on two different bands from the 1980s who seem like kindred spirits to me, Hal Russell & the NRG Ensemble (Chicago) and the Shaking Ray Levis (Chattanooga). Even got to thinking how they were kinda both fringe regional US hardcore bands, experimental/jazz/noise subdivision, not unlike Sun City Girls. Check out the two videos below and see what you think; first up, the NRG Ensemble laying down an 8-minute monster called “Mice in the Closet,” the core members of bandleader Russell, Steve Hunt on drums, Mars Williams on tenor sax, Brian Sandstrom on crazed guitar, and Kent Kessler on bass (and stealth kalimba) playing live at the 19th Moers International New Jazz Festival in 1990. (Was hipped to this video by a great interview with the late great Williams by Howard Mandel; you might also enjoy reminding yourself of Mars’s 1982 dance & sax moves as a full-time member of the almost-famous Waitresses.)

This Shaking Ray Levis video is from well into the 1990s, but Dennis Palmer with the shaved head and clutched-mic gallivanting is what makes me think of 1980s USHC. At least at a glance. Also pretty hardcore are Jessica Lurie and Amy Denio, ripping on sax and bass respectively:

Here’s the Shaking Ray Levis 12 years after that in 2009, chopping it up on Roulette TV with the one and only Shelley Hirsch, who really holds her own (and often outright takes the lead) with these goofballs:

Coming across this video with Hirsch was actually the first time I’d laid eyes on Bob Stagner and Dennis Palmer performing as the Shaking Ray Levis, rather than just listening to a recording of theirs. Again comparable to Sun City Girls, but also very much their own thing. Palmer’s live synthesizer playing and added “samples, loops, and various found sounds” is kind of staggering. You sort of take it for granted, especially on recordings, but he is indeed making it happen, in real time, almost constantly. It gives Stagner all kinds of space to just sort of be the jazz drummer, with trad approaches both rhythmic and free-form (much like, you guessed it, Charles Gocher of Sun City Girls), and as such he makes a great engine and conductor. Throw in frequent guest collaborator Hirsch being her inimitable self and you’ve got yourself a real treat. And one more SCG-esque moment: check out Palmer’s slow descent into complete silence soon after the 5-minute mark of the video; Alan Bishop or the aforementioned Charles Gocher are the only other (hardcore-adjacent) performers I could see pulling off something like that. Great interview segments too. “We don’t run out of things to say.”

And one more from this Shaking Ray rabbithole, from 23 years before the previous vid and 39 years ago from right now and 27 years before the passing of Dennis Palmer (RIP), a 1986 profile of the group on the local Chattanooga evening news. Again, this playful and mysterious approach to music and performance would fit right in on your hardcore-adjacent VHS copy of Cloaven Theater (1994, Abduction Records) and/or Eugene Chadbourne’s “Kill Him” (1987, Placebo Records). You can tell these square-john TV journalists expect to be making fun of the weirdos, but are just too charmed by their fearless awesomeness to be able to:

Let’s see, what else . . . oh shit, I was at this (killer) James Brandon Lewis Trio gig. On my birthday, no less! Lewis on tenor sax, Josh Werner on bass, and Chicago legend Chad Taylor on drums, more of a funk/groove band than a jazz/swing band. Werner has also played with Wutang Clan, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Bill Laswell, and CocoRosie, how about that?

And shoutout to the Chicago Jazz Festival in general, for being awesome, but also for indeed almost always falling on my birthday weekend. On 8/31/2014 the Sun Ra Arkestra played and it was probably the best birthday present I’ve ever gotten. It was so long ago, Marshall Allen was only 90!

And speaking of Le Sony’r Ra, move over Art Tatum . . . hell, move over Silent Tongues . . . right now this is my favorite solo piano album (gently poking and prodding and sometimes free-falling through other planes of there):

How about a little break where we listen to thee Anthony Braxton go off about “chess, math & music”? Hat tip for this vid to thee Sherri Cola over on BlueSky, she describes it well:

YouTube keeps recommending me O’Rourke-era Sonic Youth live vids, and I keep watching ‘em, all of their egregious high-static noise intros and outros sandwiching these super-moody Fleetwood Mac-style Kim haunters like “I Love You Golden Blue”:

Bonus awkwardly short 1983 interview with S. Youth, Kim in her inimitable dark hair and flip-up sunglasses era, and Lee, according to the comments, in his “hot young Italian dreamboat” era:

I don’t keep up with Nine Inch Nails or anything like that but Pretty Hate Machine was a dorm-room banger once upon a time, and it’s possible they might have always actually been pretty great, at least if their Twin Peaks: The Return appearance and this excellent recently algorithm-served song I’d never heard from 2013 are any indication:

Thee Denny Dias on his “Do It Again” solo (at the 8 minute mark of the Rick Beato interview below): “You know I get more questions about the electric sitar than anything else, and I’ve only seen it that once, and just for about two or three hours. It was a rental. It was a piece of crap. Basically a Danelectro with a special bridge that made it buzz and sound like a sitar.”

Bonus “Do It Again” content from the internet:

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Bonus bonus “Do It Again” content (h/t to commenter Jason Kirsch below):

And finally, have to revisit Hot Tuna “Funky #7” live at the Capitol Theater every year or two. Just the gnarliest. Give it a minute for the tape-speed and actual groove to stabilize, and away the Kaukonen/Casady/Steeler power trio goes. Trust me, you won’t find a single Hot Tuna record that sounds quite as raw as this video, not even the also-live version of “Funky #7” by the same trio on the Double Dose 2LP, although that one at least approaches it. Still always worth picking up Hot Tuna records for $2-5 wherever you may find them. (I don’t know, maybe even Hot Tuna and other various Grunts are $20 in the used bins now. Jeez, I hope not.)

Wait, one more, just because it’s “the sound of eternal love” and probably my most rewatched video this last month: