Lenguas Largas

Live on 602 Radio 2009

Here’s a live radio set by an early incarnation of the live version of Lenguas Largas. They play songs that have all ended up on their records, but here they’re slow as hell and super dreamy and hazy. The drugged out desert rock tag always gets stuck on these guys, but none of them really even do drugs. Here you wouldn’t know it because it feels like their high as hell, like they each took a hand full of Quaaludes and tried to walk through knee-deep mud, only with noisy psych punk music. Add some booze, Mark Beef and Ricky Shimo and you got a pretty winning formula. Drummer on this recording, Chris Kohler (Sexy) was replaced by Levi Reyes (Swing Ding Amigos) who was recently replaced by Brian Bollt (Sabertooth Snatch, Line of Fire). Brian’s drum style is more crystal meth than Quaaludes so the latest incarnation should be interesting. Another great live set from 602 Radio in Phoenix.

Download here

the Fells

Fun Date 7” circa 1994

This is my favorite Fells 7”. The A side is exactly what you’d expect from the Fells—a noisy amped up garage punk party stomp with some weird Melt Banana-esque noise being made by the guitars and too-cool-to-be-bothered-to-actually-sing monotone vocals. However the B side, “Easy Rider”, is like no other Fells song I ever remember hearing. It’s still pretty raw, but there is a kind of psychedelic melodic feel that never entered their mostly 50s influenced sound. They’re actually playing chords rather than just pounding power-chords. Vocals are still monotone, but somehow smoother. The whole song feels smooth and that’s a term I wouldn’t normally associate with this band. This had to be one of Heath’s songs because I don’t think Jeff had enough soul to write a song this good.

Download here

John Polle

4 songs solo live at the Red Room 2011

The work of Idaho to Tucson transplant John Polle, reminds me of his fellow Idahoan, Doug Martsch. He’s the guy that actually replaced Martsch when he left the Treepeople before their last and worst, but not as bad as some people make it out to be album, Actual Reenactment. Since then, like Martsch with Built to Spill and Halo Benders, Polle has been refining his own unique brand of American indie-pop/rock with his bands the Solace Bros., Lenguas Largas and Discos. I think he might have played in the post-Treepeople band Stuntman too. Also like Martsch he does the occasional acoustic solo set. His guitar picking skills are really evident here and the songwriting is great. On these songs he sounds less like Martsch and more like The Tallest Man On Earth playing stoned. These four songs are taken from the “Live at the Red Room” CD series vol.2 (available at the bar). I think he has a two song 7” of him playing solo like this too. New records by Lenguas Largas and Discos have also just come out. John’s a busy man. Sorry no song titles, but the first song is a version of Discos’ “Up in the Air.”

Download here

the Resonars

Lunar Kit LP 2002

On Matt Rendon’s releases as The Resonars he goes to the trouble to present the Resonars as a band with four real members who share the instrumentation and four part vocal harmonies, but everything is performed by Matt. It wasn’t always that way. They functioned as a real band that played live shows in the early years, but Matt, like all great musicians, probably came to the conclusion that he could get more done quicker by doing it himself. Plus it’s probably impossible to find good players that have as deep an understanding and love of 60s psych rock and pop music as he does. Sure you can find guys that wanna cover Hendrix and the Beatles at any shitty bar in any town, but Matt’s dipping into a much deeper well of 60s rock for inspiration. He can reproduce it so original and authentic sounding that when Dirty Steve, who also has a great knowledge of 60s music, first heard this album he thought it was some obscure gem from the 60s that flew under his radar. He has recorded a lot of my bands and the man can work studio magic with 60s technology. Title track refers to Keith Moon’s drum kit, the same model and set up that was used to record this record. He’s recorded at least two other full lengths since this record, all worth hunting down.

Download here

Mike Pearson

untitled solo work, circa mid 2000s

For a long time I only thought of Mike Pearson as a blues/punk player because I had only seen him play with the Blacks and Ultra Maroon, but sometime in the early/mid-2000s he moved to France with his French wife, Cecil, and he started sending me CDs. They were mysterious and cryptic regarding their content. There was no letter that said something like “here is some music I recorded.” Listening to it I could immediately recognize a number of songs as his, but then there were some songs that had completely different sounds and came from such a different place that I thought they had to be performed by some local French musicians that he met. Turns out it was all Mike and his musical knowledge and talents stretch far beyond raw American blues punk (which he does best) and into French Cabaret sounds, Tom Waits style swank and film music. Jazz references (and sounds) show up with song titles like “Better Git Hit In Yer Hed” and an almost unrecognizable cover of Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman.” I doubt more than a dozen people have heard his solo stuff, but this stuff is so good that if the right Hollywood douche bag heard this stuff he could get every wanna-be Quentin Tarantino director lined up to suck Mike’s dick to score his next film.

Download here

Marty Dog Kubiak

acoustic demo cass. 1997

Ugstad played drums in Hobart, but the real creative force behind that project was Marty Dog. He would be an immense creative force on me during those eight years and by proxy everybody I’ve played with since. After Hobart had been together for a while Marty started to play some solo acoustic shows, usually with DJ Buttafly, opening for Waffle Butt at the Airport Lounge. Those shows were always great, but listening to this in retrospect Marty Dog’s mellow, somber songs seem like a strange contrast to Waffle Butt’s ass shaking party funk. Nevertheless these songs are great. Marty used two boom boxes that had recording capabilities to make a two track recording. The latencies and the way the melodies are layered give it a haunted feeling. These songs are very heartfelt and really sad in the most genuine way, because they were recorded during really tough times for Marty Dog. Two of these were Hobart songs, two were originals and one was an Evergreen cover. I think this release was limited to about fifteen copies.

Download here

Mr. Chatterbox

The next grip of posts will be solo recordings by Tucson musicians whose bands I’ve already written about here, some of whom I’ve had the opportunity to play with.

filmworks circa early 2000s

Mr. Chatterbox is the solo work of Brandon Ugstad. He was commissioned to do this music by San Francisco filmmaker Edward Rosenblum for some of his short films. Like all good film music it is sometimes quite, moody and sparse. Other times it’s loud and heavy (in a Spill Blanket way). Other times it’s neither of those. A huge array of instruments and electronics were used. I know he loves David Lynch and John Zorn and those influences show up sometimes. I’ve been seeing his bands since the late 80s, so to me it sounds like he took all the best elements and experience of those bands and projected them in a calculated manner to make great film soundscapes. He really shines without somebody like me fucking up his riffs. We’ve been in a bunch of bands together and he’s been in a bunch more w/o me (Rhythm Squids, Spill Blanket, Absinthe, Hobart, Birds Ate My Face, Chick Cashman and the Countrypolitans, Jane Doe and the Decomposers, Staircase Wit, Found Dead On The Phone, the F.A.N.S.S, Mascaron, Kamikaze Autopilot plus me and him just started a new project with Pathos/El Creepy/Mascaron drummer, Andy Bell and I’m sure there are some I’m forgetting* or don’t know about). He has been one of my favorite persons to play music with for the last 15 yrs. because his skill and taste are impeccable and he has the patience of a saint. Somehow he squeezes all this musical output between a wife, two kids and a more than full time job. Sorry no song titles and I had to dump the last song, a beautiful piano and cello piece, because of skips.

Download here

*he even did some studio bass work on a Machine of Loving Grace album!

Run-On Sunshine

Memory Game cass. 2011

If you’ve been to a show in downtown Tucson in the last 10 years and there wasn’t a short skinny guy with a funny hair cut named Mullarkey dancing right in front of the band it’s because there was a better show going on that night and Mullarkey was at that show. For many years at shows he was mostly a spectator, but he has recently had an explosion of creativity that first manifested in his karaoke displays, then the band Monster Pussy, then Run-On Sunshine and now every time I run into him he tells me about some new really unconventional project he has in the works. Run-On Sunshine is extremely unconventional consisting mostly of Mullarkey singing. There is sparse instrumentation consisting solely of acoustic children’s instruments provided by Autumn Bree (Kamikaze Autopilot), a fine singer in her own right, who actually has a much larger range than Mullarkey’s mostly monotone approach, but she doesn’t sing here. This is pretty strange music that is not for the causal listener, but there are some catchy melodies and Mullarkey’s love of Calvin Johnson is evident. The lyrics are as intimate as the delivery and are mostly autobiographical and very heart-on-sleeve, with moments of brilliant insight, like when he is reminiscing about his recollection of the old days and thinks “…these memories could be altered to fool myself” which is a thought that has entered my head many times since I started this blog. 

Download here

Young Hunter

two song demo cass. 2011

Here is a newer Tucson band I recently saw that is made up of members of other Tucson bands that I haven’t heard and only scarcely heard of. Some of their sound is heavy and really full (two drummers!) and other times it’s real quiet and sparse, but it flows smoothly between the contrasting sounds. It’s a fairly dark take on indie rock and sounds like a bunch of Brooklyn or Portland hipsters were pumped on the Canadian indie bands (Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown, Frog Eyes etc.) and tried to interrupt the sound in the desert setting with a desert vibe, like they smoke a lot of shitty pot and don’t leave home when the sun is out. Lo fi approach works pretty well for demo cass., but I hope they can keep it together long enough for a proper studio release which would allow the many layers to shine through.

Download here

Doo Rag

Hussy Bowler 7” 1993

Working in a blues bar has renewed my hatred for the blues*. Really, how many people playing the blues do it in an exciting original manner? That’s not a rhetorical question. The answer is somewhere around four or five and at the top of that list would be Bob Log III. The legendary Doo Rag finds him between Mondo Guano and his solo mayhem and is some of his most fun music. The first time I remember seeing them play was unannounced in the bathroom at the DPC. When they blew up and were reaching bigger audiences I couldn’t help but wonder how they could have a large appeal, but now I can’t help but wonder why they weren’t bigger. A drunken rant by Lou Barlow at a recent Sebedoh show at Club Congress may explain why. He said they toured with Doo Rag back in the 90’s and after a few shows in Doo Rag just started wandering off, blowing off shows and ditching Sebedoh because, according to Barlow, they were “too cool” to tour with Sebedoh. It’s true, Doo Rag were too cool.  

Download here

*have you ever seen middle aged white people dance to the blues!?!? Holy shit it’s the funniest thing I’ve witnessed in a working situation. I’ve had to train myself not to look directly at them because I burst out in loud laughter sometimes.