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

* ROVA Saxophone Quartet -- "Obvious" -- Morphological Echo (Rastascan, 1994)

* Kali Z. Fasteau, Kidd Jordan, Newton T. Baker -- "Sound Tranceport" -- Live at Kerava (Flying Note, 2008)

Previously noted here.

Crazy Bay Area guitar band featuring Bruce Anderson. I'd been meaning to try out their stuff for some time. Chunky, rocking stuff that's got too heavy a punk/metal dose to appropriately be compared with King Crimson. This track was fast and catchy; I like it.

Previously noted here. Yeah, this particular show got dark pretty quickly.

Continuing the series that delves into Zorn's Masada songbook. Lucifer puts forth a strings-led band (bass, guitar, violin, cello, plus drums and percussion) for a nice chamber-music sound. Plenty of sparks fly, though, since you've got a band consisting of Marc Ribot, Joey Baron, Greg Cohen, Erik Friedlander, Mark Feldman, and Cyro Baptista.

* Peter Brotzmann and Peeter Uuskyla -- "Ain't Got the Money" [excerpt] -- Born Broke (Atavistic, 2008)

Previously noted here. Played the first half of this gruffly aggressive 21-minute track. Brotzman and Uuskyla just rev it up and don't let up.

One of Szemzo's strange concept experiments involving voices, this time done like a play, with overlapping snatches of dialogue from characters who might belong to one German family. It's got something to do with 1945 and the Holocaust; the CD booklet includes a lengthy explanation of everything that's going on. There's a bit of music in the background too, in the form of sparse rhythms. The other two tracks on here are closer to "regular" classical music, one being quite symphonic, actually.

I could swear I've played this one on-air before but can't find it on Zookeeper (it would appear under the "Find It!" link, appropriately enough). I feel bad about that; I'm a big fan of the Alas no Axis ethic of dreamy melody, hazy noise backgrounds, and the occasional rock-out. Their fifth album is in the works, and I'll have to work at getting it on the air more quickly.

The Nels Cline Singers -- "Suspended Head" -- Instrumentals (Cryptogramophone, 2001)

I could have gone for a jangly, indie-rock track that's immediately catchy; every Nels Cline Singers album has at least one of them. But this one better showed off the aesthetic of the band, pointing to how they might mesh with ROVA for that May 28 concert. It's a darker sound that does get into a rock beat but in a less obvious way.

The 'Singers, of course, have no vocals in them. It's Cline on guitar, Devin Hoff of Good for Cows on bass, and Scott Amendola on drums.

ROVA Saxophone Quartet -- "Ascension" [excerpt] -- John Coltrane's Ascension (Black Saint, 1996)

From an orchestra-sized, 50-minute reading of the Coltrane classic, appropriately colossal and loud. Since ROVA/Cline plan to play Coltrane's "Meditations" and "Living Space" as part of the May 28 program, it seemed appropriate to slip the first 10 or so minutes of this one into the show.

A very pretty, gentle piece that closes out this album.

The latest from old-time Lloyd, a good mix of accessible jazz and creative soloing ideas, including some squirrelly sax and intriguing piano on this one. Most tracks on here are nice and long (14 minutes for "Prometheus").

*! The Pirate Band -- "Sea of Phlegm" -- Nautical by Nature (Rodent, 2008)
*! The Pirate Band -- "Drunken Sailor" -- Nautical by Nature (Rodent, 2008)

To a college radio DJ, the words "The Pirate Band" are code for "Oh Come On, You Have to Put This on the Air." Then I discovered the band, based in San Mateo, was having a CD release show at the Hemlock Tavern this coming Sunday night. At that point, no force in the universe was going to prevent me from playing this CD.

It's definitely a rock band, but of course with pirates! They do traditional shanties like "Drunken Sailor" but some originals, too. "Sea of Phlegm" isn't as gross as it sounds; it's the tragic tale of a pirate band that goes to sea even though they've all got horrible colds, and, well, somehow they all die.

OK, so it's not a concept that's going to lead to a 20-album career. But come on -- you gotta support stuff like this.

Previously noted here.

Oddball instrumentals led by organ, maybe with shades of The Residents in there, but not quite as weird musically. Conceptually, yes, they're out there; the liner notes detail some story involving homunculi and the bodies and mouths of mountains. The "greater-than" sign in the name is, well, part of the name, not some typo.

Mostly Other People Do the Killing -- "The Hop Bottom Hop" -- Shamokin!!! (Hot Cup, 2008)

A humor-packed session that you could call mainstream jazz, but it sprinkles in all sorts of styles and goes for the jugular with some warp-speed soloing, particularly from trumpeter Peter Evans.

Edmund Welles: The Bass Clarinet Quartet -- "Asmodeus: The Destroyer, King of the Demons" -- Agrippa's 3 Books (Zeroth Law, 2005)

Previously noted here.

Crazy Belgian rock group that played the Knitting Factory back in the days when the Knitting Factory meant something. I've known the name for some time, just remembering it off old Knit calendars, basically. Finally gave them a listen and realized that yes, they rock. I'd first previewed a track that featured five minutes of fuzzy experimental guitar sound, too bumpy to be called droney. That was cool, but this track just goes for the jugular and rocks out more. We've got three of their CDs, and they've gone unplayed for years. I'll be out to rectify that.

* Don Cherry Quintet -- "Cocktail Piece" -- Live at Cafe Montmartre, 1966 (ESP-Disk, 2007; recorded 1966)

Previously noted here.

Previously noted here.

The remainder of the show was related to a book release event being held at 21 Grand for No Wave, a book by Marc Masters on that heavily influential phase of NYC music. It's got an introduction by Weasel Walter, who's a scholar of the music. The event included rare movies of the bands in question, probably taken from Walter's own collection, and live performances from not-necessarily no-wave bands that at least capture a similar spirit: Death Sentence: Panda! and Ettrick.

I've only recently gotten into no wave myself, having developed an interest in the real underground that coexisted with the more famous CBGB's scene of Blondie, the B-52s, etc. I've only scratched the surface. My main roadmap is the compilation N.Y. No Wave from Ze Records, which hits on names like James White, James Chance, Lydia Lunch, Mars, Arto Lindsay, and Teenage Jesus & the Jerks. I'd been meaning to drop something from the era into a setlist sometime anyway, so this seemed a good chance to do it.

! James White and the Blacks -- "Contort Yourself" -- Off White (Ze/Arista, 1979)

Pluses: Great attitude, deadpan female vocals singing "Contort yourself" just a little off-key, strong beat, saxophone flittering about like it's elbowing its way through a department store, overall coolness. Minuses: Dated '80s drum-machine-sounding beat like a metronome. So while I wouldn't call the music "timeless," it's still worthy of listening today, and it makes me pine for my romanticized dreams of lower east side cool.

Previously noted here. From a demo CD they sent us before they became big and famous.

Previously noted here.

* = Item in KZSU rotation
! = Pop anomaly
? = Item not in KZSU library

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