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On the Van Wyck Expressway with A Giant Dog

From the 
You're Commuting 
All Over Me 
papers, 

Wednesday 5/16/12: 

I suppose my fellow traffic choked southbound Van Wyck travelers are also cursing the reek of civilization's doom,  as rightly they should.  We all have places to  be, but here we is. Stuck! At best we're moving 10 mph, and everyone's late.  So I won't be the first or last to thank the Apple Corporation of Cupertino for delivering this magic device that holds, at present, 8679 links to serenity now. The mother ship holds 80,544 more and the internets, infinity! (Apologies to the underpaid and overworked of Suzhou, China.)

So who will save the world this morning? The Groundhogs? The Mighty Groundhogs? Nah, this ain't 200 Pound Underground. It's the southbound Van Wyck now, and now is A Giant Dog. We first got cozy with A Giant Dog via the piercing girl group siren skag of "The Grand" on 12XU's Casual Victim Pile II, a swooping, delirious and deceptively wicked velvet crush of harmony and swagger, all in 2 minutes and 46 seconds. Delish! As has come to be expected, 12XU continues to provide a crucial portal into the lux interior of the Austin metro area's most worthwhile practitioners of the combustible sonic arts.  Now, we know what you're thinking. A cursory tour through LOLOTD and it's easy to conclude we're just shills for the 12XU hobbyist behemoth.  We've gushed about the 12XU roster and associated alums for decades, so, perhaps it is true. But as someone older than us once said, what's good is great, so they got me in a corner. Oh no no no!

But this A Giant Dog,  hubba hubba. Today's rain and concrete drag allowed for two complete flights through Fight, and we are smitten - smoted! - by the sustained pow of their crunchy fever lix, tight tyrannosaurus action and, in yet another improbable cosmic confluence, great rocknroll songsterism - just like Literature, the Golden Boys, Flesh Lights, Kingdom of Suicide Lovers, Dead Space, Harlem, Dikes of Holland, et al.  A Giant Dog are as inspired and teetering as the New York Dolls circa '73, stoked on barbed wire girl group harmonies and  wrapped in strummin' mental rifferama. You best believe we're in luv  L-U-V.

But please do not mistake the notion that A Giant Dog  dabbles in some retronaut posturing.  It ain't so. References to past purveyors of the devil's music is our particular take on the underlying cauldron that lends form to A Giant Dog's version of dirty deeds done dirt cheap.   60tz girl groups, surf scales and trash punk all sound like they're burning unchecked through this trio's amps.  And yea, we know they have the same gender configuration of Cruddy. Maybe we're making too much of a perceived  Hullabaloo (the tv show) influence; perhaps A Giant Dog don't even know they're doing it! Hear us out: We dare anyone to deny the barely contained primal tension sparking  from the best of the classic girl groups, you know, the Crystals, the Ronettes, the Shangi-Las, et al.  Encounters with these golden era gems at the diner, supermarket or mom's 80th birthday party are rare snatches of  lust and depth from an otherwise sanitized landscape of popular culture. Yet they maintain their subliminal wallop, even when standing on line at the bank.  We hear that very same element in A Giant Dog. Barely containable, which is thrilling. Which is great rock music.

In fact, Fight is so good, we're only slightly annoyed anymore that their label, Tic Tac Totally, didn't even send us the record after our shopping cart checked out a combo package that included the OBN IIIs record and a grab bag surprise called "a package of slime" or some such. We now figure the slime part is this: TTT takes our  money and doesn't send the records.  Now, it is possible that the creepy guy on the first floor of our building just might've absconded with the package, but hey, everything else has managed to get through, even the Kim Phuc record (although we must admit, it was missing a download  code).  More troubling to our cultured countenance, howevs, is that our emails to TTT go unanswered. Desperate pleas, unheaded.  Now that's just plain rude.

To further blemish this rave up for A Giant Dog, we continue: Whenever record hounds take our money and fail to deliver, we can't help but furrow our brows in cursed protest and ruminate about the fall of Circuit Records back when, cuz, you know,  skag heaven is in the alley behind the 7-11.  See, we're reduced to name calling, evil eyeing and rumor mongering.  Guess we're still pissed!  Well, we'll deal with TTT later and since we're forgiving types, maybe we'll have to allow for the possibility that the package is just delayed four months.  The USPS is having a hard time these days. But maybe TTT is so inundated with requests for A Giant Dog's Fight, they've buckled under the demand and have not the person power to honor our contract.  A Giant Dog's power is so riveting, it should be the only explanation; would that it should and could be true.

Suffice to say, A Giant Dog transcends. Yea, we were forced to finally procure the music via ruthless contemporary connects, but so be it.  A Giant Dog has our money already and if they don't, someone should pay TTT a visit.  In any case, we here at LOLOTD wholly endorse incessant rewinds of Fight whether one is trapped in a car or contending for the living room air guitar championship. The one/two knock out of "Too Metal"/"Dog Collar Blues" is as insanely great as Blasted Canyons' "Lasers Vs. Lizards"/"Ice Cream Man."  A visit to NYC in a trifecta of A Giant Dog, Call Of The Wild and the Flesh Lights, should the latter ever cleave themselves away from the June 2012 nipple of the Hives, would be swell.  Whether or not that ever comes to pass, we say to A Giant Dog (in full Kicks mag jive argot):  NYC oldsters and dragsters dig your hunch!

A GIANT DOG

on and off and on again

Mike Watt/Byron Coley/J + Murph/John Petkovic 

54 secondz of "L.A. Blues" 

at Watt's Book Release Signing 

5/2/12

LITERATURE in NYC with the ZOLTARS and ZARJAZ: Vessels of the heart!

Four months later and LITERATURE's Arab Spring remains 2012's sharpest cut so far. Who else writes paeans to aperture speeds as unfussy and elegant as this? 24 minutes of minty fresh and it’s done – crisp and to the point. 

We here at LOLOTD share our enthusiasm with the peoples of NYC, but the peoples, many of them stare blankly. Some, they complain about that name. Oy, that name. Given the nanoseconds available to hold anyone's tension these days, a name like LITERATURE perhaps fails to ignite upon first contact. Try convincing your neighbor in the yellowing Fetus Productions t-shirt that LITERATURE or A GIANT DOG or TUNABUNNY are as good as their names are dry. Ain’t easy. Kind of like how it used to be for WIRE, we suppose, but look at those guys now. Then again, maybe this LITERATURE is more shrewd than we know. The advantage of word as name is, of course, the potential to eschew previous associations and stamp their own splendid imprint. Can't do that with a name like IOWA BEEF EXPERIENCE.  So, given LITERATURE's way around a push up bra, it's possible they'll imbue their chosen designation with the potency of the ages and the cheap headlines will plague us indefinitely. Fer instance, check this lead in from the April 2032 edition of MOJO:  "12XU reissuing classic LITERATURE". LOLITF! (i.e.,  Laugh Out Loud In The Future).

Ahem. Anyway, enough about that. Arab Spring is excellent.  We said on 1/2/12: 

Who pulled the shades up?

Literature’s manic minute and fifty-nine second “Manmade Man” was an obvious nugget on Casual Victim Pile II - a compilation that should be rechristened Nuggets anyway - but in no way did it hint at the wowfully delicious filtering of sunny available on Arab Spring. I’ve owned this music – can’t say record, cuz it was downloaded from their bandcamp page – for about what, twelve hours?  Three full plays since the start of January 2^nd 2012, the first round concluded before I even reached the Grand Central Parkway/L.I.E. interchange, and I can’t help but spill in an attempt to share; I’m almost giddy. Could be reaction formation, because not everyone gets the privilege of enjoying a great sun drenched January day listening to whatever the fuck they want. In fact, this guy over at the Morton Report profiled Literature on 12/29/11 and wrote, “Literature is a band with a good future if they can but get their music into your hands.” No, Mr. Morton, Literature is now.  Who knows about the future?  We all suffer and while Literature’s music won’t necessarily forestall it, there’s a chance it will make good days even brighter.

It’s a privilege to laze in Literature’s unfettered vessels of the heart and if a comparison fits, the one I’m coming up with is Orange Juice filtered through Harlem, with a dash of those Magic Kids even.  Apparently they have a 2009 record that possibly sounds like Arab Spring, who knows.  But despite this being released on 12/21/11, it’s not going on the 2011 list. I’m saving it for 2012. Literature – if you make it to NYC, I know some geezers who’ll be waiting.

And so NYC, we wait no longer. LITERATURE are finally here this weekend of 4/21/22 and sharing a classy bill at Cake Shop, courtesy of What’s Yr Rupture, with the ZOLTARS, whose great new album is up on bandcamp. As for the Zoltars, their new one is a dizzying  tap of haunting into the realm of spiritual dislocation. ZARJAZZ -  a reputable force in tronic circles - are headlining.

(4/22/12 at Shea Stadium too)

Forging unforeseen connections between Grouper at the Guggi versus Secret Project Robot, income distribution in NYC and Nipsey Russell

As denizens of Manhattan's Upper East Side, we here at Left of Left of the Dial are painfully aware that nothing valuable happens in these parts outside of the Fifth Ave Museum mafia. Sure, we stumbled across a tribute to Václav Havel at the Consulate General of the Czech Republic at 72nd and 1st on 3/30/12, and were pleasantly surprised to soak in mannered sets from Ivan Kral and some of the Patti Smith band, the Fugs' Ed Sanders, an original member of Plastic People of the Universe with accompanying video from the late 6Tz, David Soldier, Jonathan Kane and assorted poets and essayists. We missed Lou Reed, though. It was free, however, and that rarely happens 'round here! So until the apocalypse drives rents southward, bracingly worthwhile entertainment from live humans on the UES results solely from locals egging Gossip Girl location shoots. 

Okay, okay, enough about me.  There is one other occasional source of good vibes on the UES -  the aforementioned establishments of REALLY EXPENSIVE AND IMPORTANT ART (REAIA). Periodically, REAIA curators steal a peak at their interns' iPods and suddenly, there's a performance series from worthy practitioners of the combustible sonic arts, the likes of whom we here at LOLOTD really dig.  We fondly recall one July 2009 Friday evening at the Whitney, courtesy of Titus Andronicus. While we're not necessarily big fans, we sure felt the heightened tension TA capably wrought when, during the Dan Graham retrospective, throngs of kidz blitzkrieg bopped such a frenzy in the concrete basement (right next to the gift shop, adjacent to the really big glass window) that management became unglued and knew not how to handle it. Surely Dan Graham is some kind of diabolical whiz to've convinced the Whitney to green light that event.  

As for Friday 4/13/12, the Guggenheim, as part of the John Chamberlain: Choices  exhibition, presents presented Julianna Barwick and Grouper. The following week it's Cold Cave and on 5/10/12 Thirwell scrapes foetus with Zola Jesus. Damn if that doesn't rhyme. You never know when the Nipsey Russell in you will strike. Here's some Nipsey from an episode of Match Game '74: 

In this terrible recession

When our businesses will not thrive

Give us our social security now

And we'll work at 65!

Ahem. Anyway, as we were about to share, LOLOTD  is pleased that such worthwhile practitioners of the combustible sonic arts as Julianna Barwick, Liz Harris, et al are being recognized for their idiosyncratic awzumness and that it is indeed happening within the boundaries of the UES. Having said that, damn if $27 plus credit card fees isn't a bit much. Now, should that $ end up in the pockets of these performers, then rejoice.  We contacted the Guggenheim to ascertain the route of the money trail, but unsurprisingly, their response was that it was none of our goddamnfuckin'  bizness. The nurve. So we're conflicted, as usual. On the one hand, we're complaining that nothing ever happens 'round here and then, when it does, we're all excuses. To add insult, the Guggenheim is probably a great setting to bask in this sort of element, what with the audience being all hushed and rerspectful. This would be in stark contrast to the last time we saw Grouper, at the horrible Public Assembly in November 2011 with hundreds of lunks blathering on during her set and dubstep creeping through the walls of the adjacent room. 

So, after all the hand wringing, we say, go see these artists at the Guggenheim!  They deserve the $ to match the marquee. However, we also suggest a ready made alternative for Liz Harris, should you be so inclined.  

It was recently announced that Liz Harris will be one of three dee jays spinning for Secret Project Robot's 4/14/12 BBQ Fundraiser and garden growing thing. SPR is located at 389 Melrose in Bushwick, Brooklyn, which is in New York City, about as demographically far away from the UES as can be imagined. In fact, according to the 2010 census - as probably somewhat misreported at Wikipedia - the Guggenheim's 10128 zip code (along with surrounding zips) is believed to contain the highest concentration of wealth in the world.  In contrast, SPR's 11237 zip is the seventh most impoverished community in NYC, according to the NYC Center for Economic Opportunity's 2010 data. 

If you're going to spend $27 on Liz Harris, then, why not consider doing so at Secret Project Robot? Let SPR's proprietor Rachel Nelson make you a mint mojita, tip her handsomely, and drop some $ at the restaurants around the corner on Irving Ave. Everyone wins! And the Guggenheim?  They'll be fine, trust us.  Did we mention that Mayo Thompson will be performing at the Whitney with the Red Krayola and The Familiar Ugly on 4/13/12 and 4/14/12?

Next episode: We compare the art at 389 Melrose in Bushwick with the art at 389 Melrose in Los Angeles, which may or may not exist.

A Time Before This: ATPJR on WPRB 7-24-91

While LOLOTD prepares hundreds of sides from 1986-1991 for release, we foreshadow the ATPJR klangraum of 1992-2008. 

get it here

By July 24, 1991, ATPJR's transformation was nearly complete. The evidence? Gaze thusly: once cherished scumbait and underground rock appears all but eclipsed and, despite Joe Carducci’s cautions, folk forms, radiant fire music, noise and associated anti-rock conceits are in the ascendant. On the Vertical Records front, it was goodbye Cop Shoot Cop, Royal Trux and Sebadoh and hello Suckdog, Caroliner and Merzbow…and Squirmbo, natch. 


The International Pop Underground Convention is one month away, and we are all informed that this is the year punk breaks.  I decline to attend, even though the party is about to launch. What better time to disembark? Gaze thusly twice: The only contemporary (as in 1991ish) rock in the first 45 minutes of this set is from Dutch weirds LUL, in stark contrast to the 1987-1990 sets posted elsewhere on Left of Left of the Dial. 


And so, despite perfunctory overtures toward union with the zeitgeist as I hang in there for a while, my self-imposed exile from this great rock music continued apace, sustained with passionate detours into noise, hillbilly, beard, fire, disco, house and that other garage until…early 2009!  

"Now so,

Now you know.

Here and now,

They come and go."

The real treat here, though, is an unadulterated air check from Trash Flow Radio's Ken Katkin, minting a midsummer guide for the independent thinker ("indie" as yet to be established as the default term for the denizens of different), as he muscles in on my air time.

"Affection is out, affectation is in."

A Time Before This: 

ATPJR on WPRB 

7-24-91

Air check gaffes are listed

 after the jump.

• KEN KATKIN Back announcing MUDHONEY/ FLIPPER/ MISSISSlPPI FRED MCDOWELL
• uncertain as to why Ken is referring to me as Jim Romeo

• KEN KATKIN On the "ins" and "outs" of July 1991
• ATPJR  Heinie Manush hello, Katkin goodbye

• ALICE SHIELDS  "The Transformation of Ani" (edit) Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center Tenth Anniversary [LP box] (CRI - 1972)

• ATPJR Heinie Manush Air Check [with Alice Shields bed]

• MEMPHIS MINNIE "My Strange Man" (1936) Hoodoo Lady 1936-1937 cd (Columbia - 1991)

• BARBIE GAYE "My Boy Lollypop" (1956) Black Rock 'N' Roll, Volume 2 LP (Savage Kick, UK -1988)

• BLIND JOE TAGGART "God's Gonna Separate The Wheat..." (1927) Negro Religious Music - Sanctified Singers, Part 1 LP (Arhoolie - 1969)

• DEREK BAILEY/GEORGE LEWIS/JOHN ZORN  "The Warning Track" Yankees  LP (Celluloid - 1983)

• ATPJR Enos Slaughter Air Check [following Lewis/Bailey/Zorn]

• GONG "The Pothead Pixies" Flying Teapot - Radio Gnome Invisible, Part 1 LP (Virgin, UK - 1973)

• KRYSTAL KLEAR & the BUELLS "Like, Latin/Synapse" Ready for the 90's LP (K2B2 - 1980)

• some HUTU MUSICIANS "Take Me Back To Mabayi" (early 1960s) Music From Burundi  LP (Nonesuch - 1974)

• JANDEK  "Think About Your Lady" One Foot in the North LP (Corwood - 1991)

• Hutu Musicians  "Bernadette II" (edit) (early 1960s) Music From Burundi  LP (Nonesuch - 1974)

• ATPJR ATPJR Air check [with Hutu bed]

• the CONTROLLERS "Killer Queers" "Neutron Bomb"/"Killer Queers" 7" (What? - 1978)

• ATPJR Brief  aircheck with WFMU trash talk

• LUL "Stiff Chicken" Autolocation LP + 12" (Eksakt, Holland - 1989)

After the Jump

Uhs and hmmms On this episode, ATPJR's embarrassing air checks include the following: 

• My initial attempt at on air cleverness ("Jim Romeo has been killed. Heinie Manush is taking over") falls flat.

• Erroneous dismissal of Gong during a tentative prog moment.

• Inexplicably pronouncing Jandek as Jaaaaandek.  Only I laughed.

• Find the others and win an Easter egg!

Brian Turner delivers two candidates for best song ever

If you're at all connected with any of the mersh pimped on these pages, then you've wondered, no doubt, about the best song ever. As if some absolute rendering of anything actually exists, in a civilization defined by bounded points of light at every nano turn, one's got to wonder, right? Well, we here at LOLOTD would like to share our delight that WFMU's Brian Turner, he of "found audio detritus," unwittingly or not, proffered two candidates for such a designation on his 4/3/12 broadcast. No, not the Primitive Calculators' "Pumping Ugly Muscle", although we understand the misapprehension. No, we're talking the MOOVERS' "Someone to Fulfill My Needs" and THIN LIZZY's "Whiskey In The Jar". 

While greatness is available in all strains of the combustible sonic arts, transcendence is rare. Via methodical analysis, we've narrowed the essential components of transcendent greatness in song to their fundamental necessaries (and yes, tactful redundancy is one of the characteristics). Beyond the sweep of themes involving love and loss, the exquisitely rendered collective idiosyncrasies of a band in full flower, and the need for a damn good song, there must be longing on the verge  - the essential ingredient. 

Both of these songs can barely contain the universal bittersweet. For the Moovers, it's the pathetic yearn of a man who has so much to give, but is relentlessly spurned until he can contain it not longer. Chicken scratch guitar and deep deep burns, abetted by razor snare rolls, bring it home.  Thin Lizzy's version of the whiskey tale sparks memories of my father, ten years gone now, with "Whack for my daddy-o, Whack for my daddy-o, There's whiskey in the jar-o." I'm not sure what these lines mean, but as Phil's voice cracks, tears invariably fill my eyes. Eric Bell's riffs seal it. 

So there you have it. Two candidates for the best song ever. As for the Brian Turner radio program, while he champions the devilish, the skronk and the wave, he always returns to longing on the verge. It's why his show stands the test of time. He's a man's man, after all, and he endures. We all do. Sometimes the best we can do is channel it with the bards.

Nice live sets on the 4/3/12 episode by the Twerps and feedtime too.

"I never had a love to call my own

I've been a lonely, lonely man since the day that I was born 

So here I stand with open arms

Waiting on your loving charms 

Cuz baby, I need someone to fulfill my needs 

(someone to fulfill my needs)

And baby, baby, I (I-I-I) neeeeeed you."

Brian Turner show on WFMU 4/3/12

the Moovers "Someone To Fulfill My Needs" (1967) Eccentric Soul: The Deep City Label (Numero - 2006)

Thin Lizzy "Whiskey In The Jar"/"Black Boys On The Corner" 7" (Decca, UK -1972)