Spiritualized

The other night I pulled out a copy of the Spiritualized album Lazer Guided Melodies for the first time in a long while. I found it just as good as ever. I started thinking about J. Spaceman's reputation and wondered how a strung-out junkie could have such a methodical approach to his music with such attention to detail. When I hear Chinese Rocks I don't doubt that Johnny Thunders was living from one fix to the next but Spiritualized has always sounded like the work of someone who is more together than his image suggests. In this interview, Jason Pierce shines a light on his current state.

Astronomy Domine - December 2nd

Thoughts on How the Music Business Sucks

The Wall Street Journal ran an article today about a PlayStation game called Guitar Hero. The game is sort of a karaoke approach to guitar playing where the player presses buttons on a little guitar to hit the notes of a song. The WSJ piece talks about how musicians such as Korn, My Chemical Romance, Incubus and other crappy bands play the game so much that they miss recording sessions and sound checks. If these guys were really into music, if they were really musicians and not manufactured celebrities, they'd spend their time furthering their craft, not playing a PlayStation game.

Also speaking of the music business, The Register ran an interesting interview with Peter Jenner, former manager of the Clash and Pink Floyd, where he talks about the stupidity of the current major labels and his ideas for new ways to make money making music in the new era.

And in this interview Ian Mackaye (Minor Threat, Fugazi, The Evens) share some interesting thoughts on the business of establishing ticket prices for shows and why playing shows in bars (or seeing shows in bars) is such a drag.

Jason Diemilio of Azusa Plane, R.I.P.

What if you were a musician and you lost your hearing? Jason Diemilio experienced this and made a sad choice. Michael Chaiken remembers him:

There are a few people in my life whose existence alone protects me somehow. Jason Diemilio was one of them. In the last years of his life he had become subsumed by underground, electronic, dance music. He traveled the world--visiting clubs in London, Spain and Ibiza. We spent several delirious nights together at a now defunct afterhours spot in the Tribeca section of New York City called Arc. Totally consumed by this music, Jason had envisioned carrying on the Azusa Plane--but in a totally new direction. He had begun teaching himself how to mix and produce, but his ensuing health problems forced him to stop, which was absolutely devastating for him. Not only was he unable to make music, but was also eventually deprived of his greatest single pleasure--simply listening to music. Jason suffered from a chronic and seemingly incurable pain. He had a seriously debilitating condition known as tinnitus and hypercusis that was brought about by extreme sound exposure; a result of playing in bands most of his life without protection for his ears. The nerve damage was severe and irreversible. Recently it had become even more acute. He held out for as long as he could and lived as he died. With grace and indefatigable courage. Jason was open to the simplest beauties of the world and never could stop being enraged at what fouled it. I loved him to the very core of my being. He will be missed. By many.

R.I.P. (listen to today's Drug Music set of his work)

And Climbing the Charts at Number 35 is...

me!

free103point9 Online Radio
August 2006 Top 40

1. Scanner with MCs from the New Horizon Youth Centre, Night Jam (Bette)
2. Edmund Mooney, The Eight Nerve (self)
3. Shawn Onsgard, Pachyderm (self)
4. Lycaon Pictus, Personal Disaster (Avant-God)
5. Various artists, Montreal Sound Matter/Montreal matiere sonore (Pogus)
With Chantal Dumas, Tomas Phillips, Francisco Lopez, and others.
6. Fluorescent Grey, Lying on the floor mingling with god in a tijuana motel room next door to a veterinary supply store (Isolate Records)
7. Fortner Anderson, Six Silk Purses
With Chantal Dumas, Christof Migone, and others.
8. Anla Courtis, Tape Works (Pogus Productions)
9. Sabir Mateen's Shapes, Textures, and Sound Ensemble, Prophecies Comes to Pass (577)
10. Judy Dunaway, Mother of Balloon Music (innova)
With Damian Catera, Flux Quartet, Ryuko Mizutani, and others.
11. John Blum Astrogeny Quartet, John Blum Astrogeny Quartet (Eremite)
With William Parker, Denis Charles, and Antonio Grippi.
12. Dan Joseph, Archae (mutablemusic)
13. The Khan Jamal Creative Arts Ensemble, Drumdance to the Motherland (Eremite)
14. Carnival Skin, Carnival Skin (Nemu Records)
With Bruce Eisenbeil, Klaus Kugel, Perry Robinson, Peter Evans, Hilliard Greene.
15. Bitrate, NF3 (db Recording)
16. Bhob Rainey, Two Bites of a Bitter Sweet 7" (Evolving Ear)
17. Matt Rogalsky, Memory Like Water (XI Records)
18. Prana Trio, After Dark (Circavision)
19. Insects with Tits, Insects with Tits (804noise)
20. Lily Gottlieb-McHale, Car Harp '05-'06 (self)
21. Kidd Jordan + Hamid Drake + William Parker, Palm of Soul (Aum Fidelity)
22. Dual, Pyroclastics (Quodibet Recordings)
23. Michael Evans + Jeff Arnal, MEJA (C3R)
24. dreamSTATE, Between Realities (espace)
25. Peeesseye, commuting between the surface & the underworld (Evolving Ear)
26. Andy McWain + Albey Balgochian + Laurence Cook, Vigil (Fuller Street Music)
27. Rothkamm, Astronaut of Inner Space (Flux Records)
28. The Moglass, Sparrow Juice (Nexsound)
29. My Fun, The Quality of Something Audible (thelandof.org)
30. Pee in My Face with Surgery, Damnation Road (Chocolate Monk)
31. Various artists, Electricity is Your Friend (3pinrecordings)
DisinVectant, Sara Ayers, and others.
32. Laura Ortman, Tens of Thousands (self)
33. Ground Monkeys/Mouthus/Dosdedos/Tan as Fuck 7" (Heat Retention #7)
34. a.m. salad, toporific cd-r (Sloth Jinni)
35. Leafy Green, Leafy Green (self)
36. George Steeltoe Ensemble, Church of Yuh (Heat Retention)
With Michael Barker, Daniel Carter, Thomas Clark, Jay Dunbar, Lathan Hardy, Trevor Healy, Brian Osborne, Jeffrey Hayden Shurdut, and Marc Zajack.
37. Jeff Arnal + Seth Misterka + Reuben Radding + Nate Wooley, Transit (Clean Feed)
38. The Sky Drops, Clouds of People (Fridabear)
39. Various artists, 8 Sound Works (New York Society for Acoustic Ecology)
Works from free103point9's "Tune (Out)))side" show July 4, 2005 at Wave Farm from EA, Andy Graydon, mpld, Michelle Nagai + Mike Hallenbeck, Ben Owen, Andrea Polli, Vatic, and Edmund Mooney.
40. Negativland, It's All in Your Head FM (Seeland)