Format:
ARTIST -- "TRACK TITLE" -- ALBUM TITLE (LABEL, YEAR)
Horizontal lines denote microphone breaks.

* Moe! Staiano's Moe!kestra -- "Conducted Improvisation Piece No. 11: Two Orchestras in Separate Rooms (2004)" -- Two Rooms of Uranium Inside 83 Markers: Conducted Improvisations Vol. II (Edgetone, 2007)

More on Moe!kestra here (with pictures, even!) This 40-minute piece has a gimmick: It was playd by two orchestras in ... well, you can read it above, but the idea sprang from the shape of the Black Box, an Oakland venue Moe! was curating for some time. (It's since turned into a live-music haunt for baby boomers; don't bother.) The music was performed in a relatively narrow space, with a reasonably sized stage at the end. Next door was a similarly shaped space that served as a lobby and an art-exhibit area, IIRC. Given the setup, it seems natural to put two bands in the two spaces and have a conductor running back and forth between them to deliver pantomimed instructions, doesn't it?

This piece came out really well. It does have pre-arranged instructions, as all of Moe!'s conducted improvisations do, but it's still satisfying to hear it wind down to a well constructed conclusion. As for the music itself, it's big and noisy, except for the quieter parts -- not much of an answer, but it's really worth checking out the CD for yourself.

Acoustic drone, a pair of lengthy one-chord tracks with a calm, zen serenity to them. Played on acoustic instruments, not necessarily gently but with a kind of Asian-music influence.

Jonathan Fire Eater -- "When the Curtain Calls for You" -- V/A: Dead Man [soundtrack] (DreamWorks, 1998)

Snappy '90s rock with gleefully careless vocals. Chizzy's played these guys before; that's my main point of reference here.

Angular, punkish rock. The Gang of Four influence that gets cited so often. Cool stuff.

Pop with a morose sound, almost like Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields. Meant to reflect the musical tradition of France; Chizzy says it sounds like it could be a soundtrack to a whimsical French film.

* The Protomen -- "Hope Rid es Alone" -- The Protomen (self-released, 2007)

Rock with a big, dramatic flair, an action-packed track with a monologue having something to do with arming up for a battle against The Robots. Kind of a cross between futuristic rock and superhero music, if there is such a thing.

Previously noted here.

Previously noted here.

* Lee "Scratch" Perry -- "Shazam" -- The End of an American Dream (Megawave, 2007)

Dub from one of the old masters, rolling mellow stuff. The first track I'd sampled, "Uoba Skooba," was really sparse, and consisted of the title repeated occasionally over a lot of nearly blank space. Odd; then again, I was listening on our cue speakers, which are small and sometimes don't catch the background of a track. This one was more substantial -- plus, it starts and ends with '80s video game sounds. Who could resist?

Pop punk/ska band from Grand Rapids, Mich. Very poppy sound, radio friendly. Liner notes come with a shout out from Mike Park of Asian Man Records, so they've got cred. I heard this in Boise at the Record Exchange and fell in love with this particular track. "This is your brain/This is your BRAIN ON SKA!" Awesome. They ask in the liner notes whether anyone remembers those commercials...

More on Boise here. Mustard Plug, by the way, re-formed and put out a new album in 2007.

Brighter, upbeat girl-sung ska. Mustard Plug's on this compilation, too.

The Miracles -- "What Have I Done?" -- V/A: Ska All Mighty (Heartbeat, 2002; orig. released c.1960)

Some really old-school ska, from what I guess would be the first wave. A compilation of old old stuff, much of it instrumental and jazz-driven.

Previously noted here. Took advantage of the funky, near-reggae tones on this one to sneak it into the mix. This also officially ended the ska/reggae phase of the show.

* Pony Pants -- "White Palace Remix" -- V/A: Danger! Danger! (self-released, 2006)

Tough girl rock, with some electronics embellishments that I guess warrants the "remix" in the title. From a West Philadelphia compilation previously noted here.

Controller.Controller -- "Sleep Over It" -- (Paper Bag, 2004)

Haven't listened to this whole album yet, but this track is a straight rocker featuring big-blast guitars for an atmospheric kind of hard-driving sound.

Finally out on CD! These are deadpan Byrne monologues, weirdly conceptual, backed by slow horn lines written for the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. (The band balked at having to stick to a formal score, so other musicians had to be hired for the performances.) Every other track is a slowish instrumental, with some tangible ties to New Orleans jazz but keeping to a restrained tempo. The monologues ... well, this one is about a woman choosing the clothes for an important occasion. Another, "Social Studies," muses on the possiblity that by eating the same diet as another person, you become that person. "In the Future" is a riot, a succession of predictions that run the gamut between sly social commentary and unsubtle absurdity.

No, wait, it gets weirder. This music backed The Knee Plays, a series of pantomimed Kabuki-theater "joints" meant to connect the larger segments of The Civil WarS [sic], a big long conceptual piece by Robert Wilson. I don't know what The Civil WarS was about, but the Knee Plays consisted of pantomimes having to do with a tree's "life" after it was cut down. It gets fashioned into a boat, lands on some other shore; a woman picks up a grain of rice and studies it ... No, I don't understand it, but I wish I'd seen it at U.C. Berekely, because they presented the Knee Plays as a standalone show while I was attending school there. Note that this Knee Play story has nothing to do with the Byrne words, at least on the surface. (I wonder if Byrne's words were only for the benefit of the recording, and not part of the stage production.)

The CD reissue includes a DVD of the Knee Plays and a booklet that unfolds into a poster showing the "action" of each play, with some of Wilson's sketches. Byrne adds detailed liner notes about how the project came about -- he did struggle with deciding what kind of music to put to all this theater.

Coincidentally, Byrne is being talked about a lot this month for his in-depth analysis of the music business, published in the most recent Wired. Go ahead and read it. You might disagree with some of Byrne's conclusions, but his overview of the six business models facing musicians today is a worthwhile study.

Previously noted here.

* Jerry Fels -- "Shake It Around" -- Live in Your Bedroom (Nobody's Favorite, 2006)

Singer/songwriter stuff, but snide and cynical, a bit like the Mountain Goats but less poetic and more jokey. This one's about sticking your head in the oven (you have to "shake it around," apparently).

* Gino Sitson -- "Wailin'" -- Bamisphere (Polyvocal, 2005)

A Cameroon-born jazz singer who's doing a falsetto vocal over music that combines Afropop and straight jazz. Great band: Ron Carter (bass), Jeff "Tain" Watts (drums), Essiet Essiet (bass), Helio Avles (piano, the one guy I haven't heard of). Poppy stuff with an exotic feel, thanks to the Afrojazz influence, and the occasional straight-jazz soloing break. Some tracks are just a capella overdubs showing off rich, gentle harmony. Very interesting project; I'll have to play it more.

Released 'round these parts in 2007 by an imprint of Allegro.

Previously noted here.

* = Item in KZSU rotation
? = Item not in KZSU library

-- Go back to Memory Select playlists.
-- Bay Area free/improv music calendar: http://www.bayimproviser.com.