Ken with his sweetie.
Texas-based scribe
Since I no longer get to vote in the Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll — my Yahoo e-addy having gone the way of all flesh (I didn’t log on for so long that I forgot my password) and the Voice’s interns having ignored my change of e-mail address two years in a row — and since I’m no longer pubbing in the FW Weekly or the I-94 Bar (unless the Barman sends me something I absolutely can’t resist chiming in on), this is my one oppo to do this for 2010, if anybody cares.
It’s been a light year, writing-wise, but I’m more satisfied with what I’ve done than in previous years. Started writing some stuff about family junk, purely for the younger members, if they have any interest, which surprisingly they do. Did an interview with 1971 Stooges bassist Jimmy Recca for Easy Action Records and one with Nervebreakers frontguy T. Tex Edwards that may eventually run in Maximum Rocknroll. Also did liner notes for the recent Up release on Easy Action, and may be working on another project for them in the new year.
Played a scant ten shows with the li’l Stoogeband, same as last year, and wound up enjoying it more than when we had a busier sked in 2008. We’ve gotten to the point where we can go for a month without seeing each other and still play well sans rehearsal, although we have added a few new items to the repertoire this year, and hope to do more before we play again in January. Just concentrating on playing interesting shows and venues.
HIO played a whopping 17 shows and did a lot of evolving, from multiheaded hydra to a smaller, more focused unit. By October, we’d reached the point that PFFFFT! had by the time it folded the tent, in terms of audience acceptance at least (from slim to none), and opted out of live performance until we have a chance to do some retooling and rejigging. Still feel like this project hasn’t exhausted its potential, but want to take it in a different direction. Film, as they say, at 11.
My sweetie ‘n’ I have become such homebodies this year. Besides HIO drinkie-talkie, I basically go out when I’m playing, and try to book shows with bands I want to hear. Anyway, bombs away:
1) Mark Growden – Saint Judas. Mark’s been my favorite performer for several years now, and the opportunity to see him bring his end-of-the-world cabaret to venues ranging from the Kessler Theater in Oak Cliff to my living room in support of his great “Saint Judas” album on Porto Franco Records has been a rare treat. San Francisco-based, Mark was originally a saxophonist before having all his instruments stolen and reinventing himself as an accordion-squeezing, banjo-plunking modern-day troubador. Writes great, powerful, emotional songs (not without a flash of humour here and there) — think Bertolt Brecht meets Blind Willie Johnson — and sings ‘em in a voice like Eddie Vedder’s more soulful (and clearly-enunciating) brother (he’ll occasionally go off-mic for a song and demonstrate a gift for voice projection seemingly lost in this Age of the Non-Singer). He’s got a new album, “Lose Me In the Sand,” ready to drop in February. One to watch fo’ sho’. (markgrowden.org)
2) Pinkish Black. When The Great Tyrant’s bassist Tommy Atkins committed suicide in February, his bandmates Jon Teague (who’d been on every gig Tommy ever played in his life, the two having first partnered in Yeti back in the ’90s) and Daron Beck (ex-Pointy Shoe Factory and one-time “American Idol” contestant) didn’t miss a beat. Rather, the Fort Worth-based duo changed their name to Pinkish Black and wrote an entahr new set of material in two weeks (subsequently discarded) for a memorial show at the Kessler Theater. (They’ve got two albums as the Tyrant in the can which should see the light of day in 2011; prolific fellas, these.) Since then they’ve continued transforming themselves, keeping the dark, Gothic, and heavy basis of the Tyrant but adding pop and even prog elements. Jon’s playing synth as well as drums, same as he did in the last days of Yeti, and Daron’s singing more in his natural voice rather than “trying to sound like a monster” — a good thing, methinks, having heard him in his “country” guise as D. Wayne Grubb, singing an Orbisonic version of the Motels’ “Only the Lonely” the last note of which’d have made you weep, if you’d been there. More here.
3) Gorillaz – Plastic Beach. HIO’s record of the year (yes, I am susceptible to influence by people I drink with). The pump was primed for me to dig this “cartoon band’s” latest opus by extensive listens to RJB2′s “The Colossus” earlier in the year, and like that album, this one’s processes are hip-hop based, but the final product is a finely-honed pop record, employing guest artists as diverse as Mos Def, De La Soul, venerable soul man Bobby Womack, and lovable curmudgeon Lou Reed.
4) Joe and the Sonic Dirt from Madagascar – And then…. Latest album from my HIO compadre Matt Hickey’s solo project. Since abandoning the punk rock of his earlier bands The Fellow Americans and Rio Grande Babies, Hickey has proved himself ever more adept at crafting beguiling ambient soundscapes. Another prolific individual; this was his third full-length release this year. (jatsdfm.bandcamp.com)
5) Wanz Dover. Long-time mainstay of the Denton-Dallas underground scene, this year guitarist-singer-DJ-producer Mwanza Dover (ex-Mazinga Phaser/Falcon Project) formed a relatively straight-ahead noisy post-punk outfit, The Black Dotz, with drummer Clay Stinnett (ex-Ghostcar/History At Our Disposal), and released a brilliantly realized techno opus, “Kliks and Politiks,” under his Blixaboy pseudonym. (astroblaque.com)
6) Elvis Took Acid. Dallas-based E.T.A. are the most exciting live band I’ve experienced in many moons. It’s rare in these days and times to see a band where all four members appear to be competing for your undivided attention at all times, but such is the case with this foursome. They’re fronted by Brooks Holliday, who has the same normal-guy-gone-off-the-deep-end vibe as Tony Perkins in “Psycho,” with guitarist Johnny Trashpockets, a dreadlocked, pierced “Predator” lookalike, and Philly the Kid, a flashy, fiery drummer as his major competitors. Their sound is fierce and feisty punk-rock ramalama. See more here.
7) Jeff Beck – Emotion and Commotion. Guitar-wise, I’ve been quite taken lately with the masterwork of all-rounder Nels Cline, but then I got around to watching my old standby’s “Live At Ronnie Scott’s” DVD and then this thing arrived to eclipse any other axe-slingers’ efforts o’ the moment. At this point, Mr. Beck is laying down six-string artistry that’s both subtler and more highly evolved than anyone else around, whether the grist for his mill is Harold Arlen, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, or Italian opera.
The Stooges. By now, they’ve been reunited for longer than they were a band back in the day, and I have to like the fact that Iggy (who’s getting close to retirement, one hears) had the decency to give the Asheton boys a real nice victory lap and in the current touring incarnation employs everyone still sentient who was ever a Stooge (with the exception of ’71 bassist Recca, Mike Watt by now having more than earned his Stooge stripes). Even after RON checked out in January 2009, they missed nary a beat, stopping only long enough to work recently retired Sony exec James Williamson back into the lineup. Recordings of their subsequent tours have raised hopes that when they finally make it into the studio, they’ll cut some of the Williamson-era gems that were never legitimately recorded, rather than trying to essay new material a la “The Weirdness.” I’ve heard “Open Up and Bleeds” from over in Europe this year that sound damned near definitive, and the “Kill City” reish opened my ears to a postscript to the Stooge saga that I’d heretofore neglected. The Stooges always win.
9) Various Artists – Tweenage Shutdown. The brainchild of You Am I/Radio Birdman drummer Rusty Hopkinson, this neat compilation documents tee-tiny Sydney kiddos playing versions of Nuggets-era classics on vintage equipment, and is surprisingly hot and worthy of repeat spins on a more-than-”novelty record” basis.
10) The Up – Rising. Sure, I wrote liner notes for this, but even without the personal connection, I’d still think that this complete career retrospective of underappreciated (compared to their White Panther “house band” predecessors the MC5) late ’60s/early ’70s Detroit despoilers the Up — remastered and packaged with the loving attention to detail we’ve come to expect from Easy Action — was worthy of inclusion in this list. So there. See you in 2011.
Joss Hutton from Bath, UK, is a (very) occasional I-94 Bar contrib, part-time DJ and supposed guitarist in The Stripchords (if and when).
Eric is vocalist in French rock and roll band Holy Curse
