List of Jazz Clubs

Vijay Iyer (don't ask, just click and check him the fuck out if you don't know him) has had a few posts on facebook regarding the number of jazz venues in the world or the lack thereof ...

To put it simply, this is an open invitation to help expand this Wikipedia list of jazz venues. If you've got some in your hometown that aren't on the list, please add them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_jazz_clubs

Rosemary Malign - The Violet Time

I just recently found a copy of Rosemary Malign's "The Violet Time" which I have spent a long time searching for. Much thanks to Tyrsson K at Revuelta Sonora for sharing this and granting me permission to pass it on. Rosemary Malign is (to me) one of the strongest voices in Power Electronics. Very serious brutally honest music and subject matter. This is the definition of sincerity in music.

An Excerpt from Plague Haus's Interview with Rosemary Malign on the album:

"I love the study of history, especially American History, and specifically folklore and the history of American history. I’ve managed collect many books over the years and there was one specific folk lore book written in the 1960’s which had a chapter on secret songs of sororities and fraternities. The language and outright dirty sexuality of the songs floored me. Specifically the songs “The Violet Time” and “Fascinating Bitch”. The Violet Time is a song about a girl wanting to be violated (deflowered) in a seemingly rape-like fashion, the second about a girl wishing she were a prostitute rather than a student. They’re cute, wonderful little songs. I started looking up sheet music and trying to find field recordings. I found a ton of great stuff, and managed to get some live recordings of little old men and women actually singing them! The whole project took about 3 years, and I’m still discovering new material. I absolutely love it and cannot wait for the second installment. You’d be amazed at what’s out there. The album is vulgar and lovely. We’re led to believe, as a society that “the state of things” are getting worse and worse, that everything is over-sexualized etc. But the reality of it is that men and women have always been obsessed with sex and have been expressing it in one way or another. That the human is a dirty, horny animal! The thing about the field recordings though, is although some of the language seems absolutely shocking by “normal” standards”, the tone of those singing is quite cute and innocent. Almost as if they were singing, “Mary had a little Lamb” or something. Of course, there are some seriously violent feeling tracks on that album, which is my misanthropy leaking through. "

Read the full interview at Plague Haus.

Rosemary Malign - The Violet Time

See the original blog post here.

Comfest '09

Although this is kind of late (Comfest being the last weekend of June ... ) there is an artist whose performance this year I wanted to mention.

One of the first groups I heard this year is a solo project by Garth Harrison Shack. The former Starving Goliath member has been writing and playing in the solo singer/songwriter vein since the collapse of his last band. With a couple years of working on his set and playing lots of shows (most notably a weekly stint at Victoria's Midnight Café) under his belt, his musical voice has naturally evolved into a very unique sound that still fits in the "singer/songwriter" bin at your local record store. I guess that's what happens when you take a great guitar player with lots of good writing and experience and put it in that box.

For his ComFest set. Garth was joined by drummer and also former SG member, Forest Christenson. It sounded like Forest was asked to play last minute, and was playing a stripped down drumset consisting of just a few items. After noticing a large amount of cueing during the first few songs, I realized that Forest was indeed improvising drum parts to Garth's songs ... not an easy task! It had been a while since I had last heard Garth, and his writing just keeps evolving with no signs of slowing down. He still has that novel harmonic approach that is hard to find in his style of music, which is one of my favorite aspects of his music.

Check out Garth Harrison Shack on the internet at these locations:

Home Page

MySpace

Sëptikkk kills people!

Oldfields on High was the epicenter of an earthquake of events last sunday night, with a soundtrack provided by Sëptikkk (with an umlaut and three k's). Bombs were dropped, people died, cars were towed, shit got stolen, more people died ... you get the idea.

Anyways ... Sëptikkk is a group from Columbus, Ohio, assembled by Billy Wolfe in the early summer of 2009. A few people in the group have definite plans to leave Columbus after the summer, so the group exists to play some challenging music and "hit it and quit it" so to speak ... They play mostly originals with a few other tunes thrown in, all of which might be called "Nü-Jazz" if you're into that sort of thing ... (I just said that so I could use another umlaut in the same post). The gig at Oldfield's was a success, as in they played music and stuff ... that's what's supposed to happen, right? It was packed, a bunch of hippy bullshit happened on stage, people drank too much, etc. And to celebrate Sunday night's victory, anyone who came to the gig on sunday night will get a free beer from Billy Wolfe if they go to the upcoming gig this thursday (8/20/09) at Scarlet & Grey. That's right! Free beer and weird music!

All jokes aside, the music was good the next couple gigs should be good fun. And yes, my car got towed along with three other people's cars that night (two of which are in the group). And considering my car was the ride for two people from the group, 4/6 septikk members lost their rides. Like I said, they caused a goddamn earthquake.

As far as I know, Sëptikkk has no web presence, due to the fact that they will no longer exist after a couple more gigs, but you can visit any of the individual musician's pages for info.

Billy Wolfe - Saxophones
Tom Davis - Guitar
Robert Holliday - Keyboard
Aaron Quinn - Guitar
Dan DiPiero - Drums
Larry Cook - Bass