likegibberish

townes van zandt//DON'T TAKE IT TOO BAD

http://hypem.com/track/839240/Townes+Van+Zandt+-+D...

i used to be adamant in my disgust for country music. it was really ridiculous. it was music my grandparents liked, so why should i? i mean, come on, they're like uhh old. i heard johnny cash around 7th grade and didn't want to admit i liked him --i didn't think it would be cool to like johnny cash and pink floyd, so i kept it to myself. then in 9th grade i regressed and decided johnny cash was terrible and way too uncool to be on my ipod. it all changed when i bought a hank williams cd. then i got into merle haggard and buck owens --all the big ones-- and then guys like peter grudzien and lee hazlewood. i only recently got townes van zandt's self-titled. i couldn't believe it took me seventeen years to hear it. it was one that i instantly loved. i had read interviews with conor oberst talking about how great townes van zandt was. he wasn't lying.

haunted george//BLOOD ON THE MOON

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaRLscURSUo

when i was four or five i remember this old record we had. it was called "chilling, thrilling sounds of the haunted house". disney had put it out, and both sides were just creepy sounds and spooky noises from their catalogue of cartoons and movies. nonetheless, it scared me to death at the time. hearing it now, being scared of it seems totally ridiculous. if i was afraid of that, then i wonder how i would have reacted to hearing haunted george. holy ****. haunted george is terrifying. his voice alone is enough to give you the creeps...the voice of the devil himself. added with the shrieking fuzztone guitar, this sounds like something straight out of a 1980s horror movie. five year old me would have had nightmares for weeks.

golden dawn//MY TIME

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y8uiJXcp5A

austin, texas, circa 1966 had to be an awesome time to live in. the 13th floor elevators alone elevate austin to that level of coolness. psychedelic music from the lone star state has this certain vibe to it...much like texas summers, it's scorching and muggy and hazy. golden dawn were from austin, too. actually, george kinney, singer for golden dawn and roky erickson grew up playing music together. that may explain why golden dawn and the 13th floor elevators sound so much like one another. obviously, the elevators are forever preserved in rock and roll legend, while golden dawn were, for the most part, forgotten, left to fade into obscurity. nonetheless, "my time" is an absolute belter. kinney's vocals aren't as erratic as roky's, but the band is incredible. the fuzztone guitars, the drums... it's one of the best songs i've heard in a while. i may blast this tune before heading to ballpark tonight for the yankees/rangers game as a good luck measure. put a golden dawn curse on the yankees. i'm glad this song wasn't on "nuggets"...ten times better than anything on the comp, except for 'you're gonna miss me'. oh roky.

thee oh sees//ENEMY DESTRUCT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IteWej6W2n0

i remember the first time i saw the cover of "trout mask replica". just by looking at it, i figured it had to be a killer album. the same with "disraeli gears" and "the psychedelic sounds of the 13th floor elevators". i rarely base what i listen to solely on the artwork, but "help" was way too awesome not to look into...http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/515APw-5fnL.... . and thee oh sees and their lp, "help", are both rad. it's the kind of stuff i play with my car windows down to make myself feel cool. "enemy destruct" is the album's opener and it absolutely slays.

the neon boys//THAT'S ALL I KNOW (RIGHT NOW)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQWal2PoaxE

the neon boys were cool. really cool. like james dean cool. there's not much else to say.

ty segall & mikal cronin//REVERSE SHARK ATTACK

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCS4OI88vW4

my love for ty segall is no secret. if i had any kind of musical hero i'm almost certain it would be him. every single thing i've heard from him has been absolute quality...the endless amounts of tapes, 7"s, splits and lps he's released in the past three years. i don't think he ever sleeps -- he put out two full-lengths last year alone. so, i expected greatness when i got a hold of "reverse shark attack". the album is a collaboration between him and bff mikal cronin, who also plays in a number of other bay area bands. the seven songs on side a aren't too much of a departure from either of the guy's main bands -- six fuzzy garage tunes and a cover of "take up thy stethoscope and walk", all smothered in the usual healthy doses of reverb and echo. side b, on the other hand, is something completely unexpected. it consists of one ten and a half minute song. songs like "happiness is a warm gun" and "paranoid android" come to mind with this, as well as the second half of 'abbey road'. there are multiple parts and transitions in this title track: it starts off strangely with shaky voices before turning into a quiet donovan-esque folk ballad, then builds and builds until it turns into static fuzz before finally ending in a complete psychedelic surf meltdown. the second side completely makes the album for me because it's something so out of left field. speaking of left field, the texas rangers are up 2-0 in the playoffs, so things are awesome in texas right now. cool segue, dude.

vulcan//HIGH C

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tIH701LWJk

the back of this record cover reads "dedicated to jimi hendrix". after listening to "meet your ghost", that makes a ton of sense. vulcan was lyle steece, just a kid from iowa recording psychedelic guitar music. pretty much all that's here is guitar and drums. the sound is primitive and the guitars are overloaded with massive amounts of distortion. this stuff really came from iowa? lyle's album "meet your ghost" was released in 1978 to local record shops. it's a shame no one really cared or paid any attention to it. there isn't much when it comes to melody or lyrics, but that doesn't matter, the guitar is the real star here. yeah, i think jimi hendrix would have approved.

os mutantes//BABY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--uRcXZQcoI

when i think of psychedelic music, the first band i think of is os mutantes. not the 13th floor elevators or syd barret-helmed pink floyd and especially not anything on "nuggets". they were simply more out there than any of these bands. when describing music, i hate the term "experimental". it's the sort of label that is placed on pretentious artists who take themselves far too seriously. but, oddly enough, "experimental" is just how i would describe os mutantes. they aren't necessarily experimental in that sense though, they were more like mad scientists in a laboratory mixing together every sound and musical style. they knew of. there's fuzztone guitars, organs, french pop by the way of a brazilian jacques dutronc, doo wop melodies, swirling production. i can't really think of any way to describe it. brazil's bizarre answer to "the piper at the gates of dawn"? i don't know, but i absolutely love it.

indian wars//JUST CAN'T GET ALONG WITH YOU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKVltVAUf8c

garage music is supposed to have low fidelity. i wouldn't really want to hear it any other way, because then it just turns into something like the strokes. that being said, the genre is overflowing with bands with a similar aesthetic, and a large portion of them are particularly uninspired. not all though. there's a music scene in vancouver that is consistently putting out some of the coolest stuff i've heard in the past year or so. indian wars are one of those bands. last september i heard their demos --their only recordings at the time-- and was hooked. their sound was piercing, all treble and hiss, unbearable at high volumes. so i was surprised when this one came out. for one it was a country song...and a damn good one at that. the hiss i expected was almost nowhere to be found, the sound was as clear as could be. but don't worry, they aren't the strokes.

dean carter//JAILHOUSE ROCK

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FcO8SChJSc

i remember the first time i heard "i heard her call my name". it was the most erratically intense thing i had ever listened to. since then, nothing i've heard has really been on that same level...until now. dean carter was an absolute maniac. he wails and howls on 'jailhouse rock'. this is one of the most insane, manic, raw, incredibly over-the-top songs i have ever heard in my life. he screams and hollers and beats the **** out of his poor guitar --i've read it was a dobro though, which just makes it even more awesome. the songs speeds along at 1,000 miles an hour, destroying everything in its path. a nervous breakdown caught on tape. it's just too much for words.

peter grudzien//THE UNICORN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ymvgh-tcobs

peter grudzien has allegedly recorded over 900 songs. it's a shame only two albums have been released. this past july i searched "psychedelic country music" on google, curious too see if there was more to it than lee hazlewood. i came across the name peter grudzien. a review i read described him as an "outsider psychedelic johnny cash"...that is just begging for me to give it a listen. i got "the unicorn", an album he wrote, recorded and released all by himself sometime in the mid '70s, and was stunned. it was bizarre...these were songs about unicorns, the apocalypse, dying and religion --not the typical country music subject matter. sadly, the strange sounds, in addition to the lyrical references to his own homosexuality, almost guaranteed peter grudzien's continued obscurity. this record, considering the time of its release, had to be a test for most country music fans who had grown to love the good ol' boy charm of merle haggard and the aching heart ballads of buck owens. "the unicorn" is an astonishing listen, a record honestly unlike any other i have ever come across. what a surprise.

jim ferraro//MOONSHOCKED DUDETTES

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LTsxqk5aas

james, jim, it's all the same. it's easy to imagine the sounds of james ferraro's childhood...he re-creates them. these are what his memories sound like, like sitting in the family station wagon listening to the top 40 when you were little. it's still there in your brain but it's all a bit fuzzy, hard to re-imagine exactly how it was. ferraro takes everything cheesy about '80s movies and tv shows and mtv music videos and jumbles them all together into a thick cough syrupy mess. it's all here: saturday morning cartoons, "friday the 13th" movies, teenage mutant ninja turtles, nickelodeon game shows. this is a track from one of his most recent releases, "on air"...pure spaced out, laser beam zapped, fried a.m. radio buried in radioactive muck. it's a shame only 100 copies were pressed.

pocahaunted//OH WOE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUlPv7Y2zu0

r.i.p. pocahaunted...yeah it kind of sucks.

there are two things i won't listen to in the dark: the jonestown death tape and pocahaunted. pocahunated is the only band that scares the hell out of me. they spook me out to no end. there's a scene in "race with the devil" where peter fonda and warren oates are spying on the satanists dancing and chanting and howling psychotically around their fire. these people are dressed in black robes, blending in with the shadows. this sums up pocahaunted for me. their music is trance-like -- songs often drone on and on for over ten minutes. it's easy to get lost in the haze. the voices are drenched in reverb and delay, sounding almost like a group meditation...21st century pow wows. i remember this time a friend of mine was telling me about how he did acid and spent his entire night listening to "dark side of the moon" in total darkness. he then explained how it somehow changed his entire life. i thought it was the corniest thing i had ever heard. next time he should try pocahaunted...

the war on drugs//ARMS LIKE BOULDERS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq6SBMI_c28

i've always liked the idea of bruce springsteen more than his actual music. sure i can hum along to "born to run" if it comes on the radio but that's pretty much where my affinity for bruce ends. i bet he's a nice guy though; he has that working class blue collar common man attitude...his songs are distinctly "american", like a modern day woody guthrie, which i think is the reason for the loads of imitators and wannabes. the war on drugs definitely embrace bruce's signature americana sound, but they're something completely different. they don't try to imitate bruce, they more or less pay homage to what came before them. as a band the instrumentation here is about as simple as it gets -- drums, bass, guitar-- but there's a bright, reverb-induced, spaced-out haziness to it all -- but don't fear, they're no spacemen 3. the lyrics on the other hand aren't as simple...they're absolutely incredible. upon hearing "arms like boulders" i was stunned with the songwriting. i then spent the next forty minutes taking their whole debut album --"wagonwheel blues" -- in. and since then i've listened to it many, many more times. the words simply flow with the music so effortlessly...line after line for five whole minutes. unlike many of the modern day 'serious' /singer-songwriter types there are no pretensions here. it's honest and familiar and that's what makes it so engaging. it's strange that a band that can seem this familiar upon first listen can create something so completely different than anything else out there.

the elite//MY CONFUSION

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xn64y2tKec

holy cowtown! fort worth was seriously bopping back in '60s! it was by accident that i stumbled upon the "fort worth teen scene" comp, a three volume set of rebellious teenage kids from north texas doing their best mick jagger snarls and james brown yelps. it's surprising to find out that this kind of stuff was going on in my hometown back then, fort worth simultaneously acting as a home for the cowboys and their stockshows and the kids and their dance halls. this track by the elite is probably my favorite on the whole comp as well as one of my favorite garage tunes ever. i can only imaginge kids hip to these bands back then absolutely losing it on the dancefloor. cowtown definitely isn't what it used to be, but, boy, this gives us something to be proud of. god, i love fort worth.

the beattle-ettes//ONLY SEVENTEEN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15XXOW8qNlo

the identities of the beattle-ettes are unknown. rumor has it that they were an early incarnation of the shangri-las but that's only speculation. jumping on the beatles bandwagon, this 7" was put out to cash in on beatlemania. it would be easy to dismiss this song as a novelty without even hearing it. even after hearing it, you could call it a blatant rip off --the "she loves you" chorus is right there as the centerpiece of this song-- but there's something about this song. it bursts with energy, it's incredibly catchy --it was stuck in my head for days-- and it's a million times better than most of the boy's who actually tried to be the beatles.

lee hazlewood//PRAY THEM BARS AWAY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLm0yIY1XlQ

lee hazlewood was no ordinary country western singer. sure he wrote cowboy tunes about love and loss and crying and prison but his production is what set him apart: lush string arrangements, that haunting baritone voice, rolling guitars...all buried in a deep chamber of reverb and echo, which results in an eerie listening experience. this is definitely not ernest tubb's "walking the floor over you". this is the first tune from his hazy, dreamy, druggy "cowboy in sweden" lp. the lyrics are typical of any country artist around that time, but the sound of it all is like nothing else. accessibly avant-garde. hmm not bad for the guy who wrote "these boots are made for walking"...

superstitions//I'M COOKIN' DINNER

self-described "no talent country music", san francisco's superstitions make it cool again. all from the mind of one man, seth densham turns out warped, fuzzy country songs about running from the cops, ufos, the fbi knocking at his door and dead girlfriends...21st century outlaw stuff, buck owens bakersfield twang wrapped up in a ball of barbed wire.

nerve city.//JUNKYARD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ERshm3PLJg

i'm finally gonna get my **** together, proper reviews and stuff starting back again tomorrow even if no one cares about these

list em

<3 sic alps, black lips, strange boys, dead ghosts, nobunny, ty segall