RIP Jack Rose

I hate to start Pound for Pound back up on a sad note, but it is what it is. The music world and the city of Philadelphia lost one of its great ones on December 5, 2009 - Jack Rose. For those that don't know, Rose was one of the great guitar players and experimental musicians around. He was a founding member of the seminal noise band Pelt, then spent most of this decade making solo music on his acoustic guitar. He mixed country, blues, ragtime, ragas, avant garde sounds, all on his 6- & 12- string and lap steel guitars, taking the mantle from legends like John Fahey and Robbie Basho.

I want to take the first few posts of this return celebrating the man and his music. We'll touch on some of the earlier Pelt stuff, but mostly I'll be uploading material from his solo releases of the past 5 years or so. It is some of the most haunting, beautiful and interesting music of the last decade; I'm heartbroken that this new one will not get Mr. Rose's imprint on it.

Cabaret Voltaire - The Original Sound Of Sheffield '78/'82

Cabaret Voltaire, "Do The Mussolini (Headkick!)" (YSI link)

Cabaret Voltaire, "Nag Nag Nag" (YSI link)

Cabaret Voltaire, "Obsession" (YSI link)

Cabaret Voltaire, "Loosen The Clamp" (YSI link)

[Ed. note: Sorry for the m4a files. I uploaded this CD a long time ago and didn't realize I had done so in this format. I don't have access to the CD at the moment, but hopefully once I get back to Philly, I'll be able to give everyone a HQ mp3. In the meantime, this should give you a taste of CV.]

It wasn't all disco and cocaine back in the late 70s. There was also a parallel electronic music scene that took its inspiration from the avant garde and punk than soul and funk. Cabaret Voltaire are one of the best examples of this dark dance music. A trio consisting of Richard H. Kirk, Stephen Mallinder and Chris Watson that formed in the early 70s, the band was supremely influential in developing the industrial sound. They themselves were influenced by the work of Beats like William S. Burroughs and Bryon Grisin, who experimented with the cut-up technique in which they would cut up their work into pieces and reorder them at random.

Enough background, let's get to the music. These songs come from the 2001 compilation, The Original Sound Of Sheffield '78/'82, on Mute Records that collected some of the band's best songs from the period of 1978-1982, the period when things first got rolling for the group. This early period features some of the bleakest, darkest music ever, a whole disc of feedback, distortion, manipulated sounds, tribal drum machine noises. There's definitely a pulse and rhythm here, somtimes buried under the static, this ain't bleeps and noises; check out the final song, "Loosen The Clamp," you will clearly hear that these guys were responding to the dance music coming out at the time. This isn't oontz-oontz dance music, but it's there, stripped to the bone. The funky bass, the mechanical, almost tribal drums and space-y keys create a hypnotic track that would influence lots of our favorite music still to come.

The earlier songs like the awesomely titled "Do The Mussolini (Headkick!)" come more out of the punk ether, with the main comparison that comes to my mind is the electro-punk sounds of Suicide. "Nag Nag Nag" is similar, starting off in feedback and never giving your eardrums much of break from there on out. There's some distorted vocals, a massive rhythm section that would make a rock band proud and that layer of feedback that drifts over the whole thing. Awesome stuff.

Obviously, I highly recommend picking up this CD from the excellent Forced Exposure, a great introduction to the group. We'll take a look at part of the look back which covers 1983-1987 and hopefully a lot more down the road, as we're gonna focus a lot more on this darker side of the dance music world. Oh, and I am going to be a little more active with my myspace page, so add me if you'd like some extra goodies. Yes? Yes!

P4P Video - John Zorn's Cobra

Here's a new feature at Pound for Pound, as we're gonna get all visual on your asses. During my hiatus, when I was studying for the GRE, I spent much of the time scouring Youtube for cool music videos (and videos on cysts, big boobs and Flyers fights). I'm gonna try to give you the results of those searches once a week from here on out, hopefully everyone enjoys the videos.

Here's one of my favorites that I encountered, a part of the 1992 Channel 4 TV documentary On The Edge: Improvisation In Music. This segment looks at John Zorn and his game pieces. I can't say that I am an expert on these, but having had the fortune to finally see a live performance of the most famous game piece, Cobra, conducted by Zorn at the Music Under the (Brooklyn) Bridge series a month or so back with that hyphenated girl JH-B, I wanted to talk a little about it.

It was amazing to watch it live, as Zorn conducts the ensemble through note cards that indicate specific rules which denotes what a performer can do, in essence a set of rules that the performers must work with. The music almost becomes secondary, as the real thrill is watching people communicate with each other in order to create the small groups they want. There's a lot of pointing and eye contact, sometimes subtle, occasionally over-the-top. Zorn explains it much better in the video: "It becomes kind of a scary, frightening thing, to be in front of that band, to see these people, kind of, blossom and become the assholes that they really are." Check this wikipedia page for more info on Cobra and the game pieces. Most definitely watch the video, as it gives great insight to what the pieces are all about, what Zorn is trying to do with them, plus it's a great interview with the reclusive Zorn.

Most of all, the video will remind you of just how exciting it is to hear from someone who lives and breathes music, whose . I'll have a lot more to say about Zorn down the road, as he is a key figure for my own musical development and a big part of that early 80s downtown NYC scene that is at the heart of this blog.