Jukebox Saturday Night: The Paragons Meet The Jesters

In Jukebox Saturday Night, Jukebox Heart takes timeout to go back to our roots. The earliest music I remember hearing was early rock n roll and doo wop as I shared a bedroom with my older brother. He’d play his records on the old Motorola in the corner of our room. It was then that the passion for music and records began, and it’s like the meatloaf and mashed potatoes of my musical taste – definite comfort food.

And there is no record for which this is more true than The Paragons Meet The Jesters. In fact, this is somewhat of a family heirloom harking back to the rarest of times when my brother, sister and I all still lived with our parents in our Brooklyn home.

As it turns out, this is more than just a family heirloom; it is one of those important nodes in rock history, defining a moment in music and propelling the careers of several key people and setting the stage for some of the most important evolution in rock and R&B history. Some back story…

Paul Winley Records Inc. was the parsent company Winley Records, a doo-wop record label founded in 1956 that in the 1970s became Paul Winley Records, one of the earliest hip hop labels. It was situated on 125th Street, Harlem, New York City. Winley released doo-wop by The Paragons and The Jesters, and hip hop records by Paul Winley’s daughters, Tanya and Paulette, produced by Winley’s wife, Ann. The label can lay claim to a number of firsts: one of the earliest rock and roll compilations, one of the earliest breaks compilations, an early solo female rap artist and an early instance of social commentary in rap. Winley was also the first label to record one of hip hop’s most important figures, Afrika Bambaataa.

There’s lots more details below, but first, the music.

The first thing is the legendary album, The Paragons Meet The Jesters, recorded from a first pressing of the vinyl. The original jacket is shown below. The Paragons Meet The Jesters, first released in 1959 with its street gang cover and vocal duels inspired by doo-wop’s street corner singing battles and live show group competitions, was one of the first rock and roll compilation LPs and the most commercially successful doo wop compilation ever released.

The Paragons Meet The Jesters, Side 1
[audio:http://www.jukeboxheart.com/jsn/paragonsjesters/PvJs1.mp3]

The Paragons Meet The Jesters, Side 2
[audio:http://www.jukeboxheart.com/jsn/paragonsjesters/PvJs2.mp3]

Side 1 Playlist:
The Paragons – Florence
The Jesters – Please Let Me Love You
The Jesters – So Strange
The Paragons – Let’s Start All Over Again
The Jesters – Now That You’re Gone
The Paragons – The Vows of Love

Side 2 Playlist:
The Paragons – Hey Little School Girl
The Jesters – I’m Falling in Love
The Jesters Love – No One But You
The Paragons – Stick With Me Baby
The Jesters – I Laughed
The Paragons – Twilight

Through his association with the Clovers, Winley met legendary figure, Atlantic Records mogul Ahmet Ertegün, who — unusual for a label mogul — himself wrote for The Clovers subsequent to signing them. Winley moved to New York City to work with Ertegün, where he wrote for Ruth Brown and Big Joe Turner. He then became one of the songwriters working in and around the Brill Building in the 1950s, along with figures he met and knew there such as Otis Blackwell and Jesse Stone. Winley formed a songwriting partnership with Davey Clowney, better known as Dave “Baby” Cortez, and the two began recording doo-wop groups for the newly-founded Winley Records.


A rare first press of the Paragons’ first
single, Florence, from 1957, on the
signature orange label.

Winley Records’ main acts were The Paragons and The Jesters, but they also introduced Little Anthony and the Imperials, then known as The Duponts. Then came The Jesters, students at Cooper Junior High School in Harlem who graduated from singing under an elevated train station near 120th Street to the amateur night contest at the Apollo, where Paul Winley discovered them. A brother group to The Jesters were The Paragons – described by Wiley as real hoodlums, real zip-gun, street-warring hoodlums.

Much less known is the Winley records follow-up to The Paragons Meet The Jesters, The Paragons Vs. The Jesters – WAR! as shown below. This features later, less successful sides, but with some wonderful songs nonetheless.

The Paragons Vs. The Jesters WAR! Side 1
[audio:http://www.jukeboxheart.com/jsn/paragonsjesters/PJWs1.mp3]

The Paragons Vs. The Jesters WAR! Side 2
[audio:http://www.jukeboxheart.com/jsn/paragonsjesters/PJWs2.mp3]

Side 1 Playlist – The Jesters
The Wind
Sally Green
Come Let Me Show You
Down In Uncle Henry’s Basement
Tutti Frutti
That’s How It Goes

Side 2 Playlist – The Paragons
Kneel and Pray
Just A Memory
Florence Don’t Leave Me
Don’t Cry Baby
So You Will Know
Two Hearts Are Better Than One

Several tracks from the Paragons and The Jesters never made it to either compilation, but were included on this one, and are presented here, along with some great tracks from the labels other groups, The Quinns and The Collegians.

Selected Tracks from Everybody Digs The Boss Record Hop

The Jesters – The Plea
[audio:http://www.jukeboxheart.com/jsn/paragonsjesters/ThePlea.mp3]

The Jesters – Oh Baby
[audio:http://www.jukeboxheart.com/jsn/paragonsjesters/ohbaby.mp3]

The Paragons – Doll Baby
[audio:http://www.jukeboxheart.com/jsn/paragonsjesters/paragonsohbaby.mp3]

The Collegians – Zoom Zoom Zoom
[audio:http://www.jukeboxheart.com/jsn/paragonsjesters/zoomzoomzoom.mp3]

The Collegians – Let’s Go For A Ride
[audio:http://www.jukeboxheart.com/jsn/paragonsjesters/letsgoforaride.mp3]

The Quinns – Hong Kong
[audio:http://www.jukeboxheart.com/jsn/paragonsjesters/quinnshongkong.mp3]

The Quinns – Oh Starlight
[audio:http://www.jukeboxheart.com/jsn/paragonsjesters/quinnsohstarlight.mp3]

Winley Records resurfaced in the 1970s with a series of releases which—like the street corner practices of doo-wop foreshadowing those of hip hop — would in their different ways presage the advent of commercially recorded hip hop even as that movement blossomed in the Bronx and spread to the streets of Harlem. Winley released a series of speeches by Malcolm X, tied into a tradition of black oratory and to be sampled a decade later by Public Enemy and others. The label also recorded Harlem Underground Band (featuring a young George Benson), whose “Smokin’ Cheeba Cheeba” (1976) would furnish a break for hip hop’s burgeoning breakbeat culture.

A “break” was a short percussive passage in a record which hip hop DJs would loop (using two copies, one for each turntable) in order for it to be rapped over and/or danced to. By the late 1970s, “b-boy” sections were appearing in some small New York record stores, catering to “b-boys”, followers of this yet-to-be-named new subculture, who would buy 45s, 12″s or complete albums, old or new, of funk, rock or indeed any genre, as long as they were satisfied that each contained at least a few seconds worthy of being looped.

Paul Winley’s daughter Tanya was such a follower. Paul began collecting songs containing popular breaks and compiling them on a series of records called Super Disco Breaks, beginning in 1979 and eventually running to six volumes. The first of these therefore was one of the earliest records released with hip hop culture in mind, and probably the first breakbeat record in history.

Harlem Underground Band, augmented with the organ of the seemingly ever-present “Baby” Cortez, would function as the house band backing Winley’s hip hop releases, hence having the same function, if not influence, as “Jiggs” Chase’s band at Sugar Hill Records, or those of Pumpkin at Enjoy Records and elsewhere, i.e. solving the problem of how to translate the backing to raps heretofore provided live by DJs.

A new generation of acts appeared in the early to mid 1980s on labels like Def Jam, Profile and Cold Chillin’, with a tougher image, musical style and lyrical delivery than their predecessors Thissignaled the end for labels like Enjoy, Sugar Hill and Winley. After releasing “Street Rock” by Rap Dynasty in 1984, the label folded, though two discs appeared in 2007 bearing the imprint’s name and purporting to contain Bambaataa material from the 1970s. A collection of Winley hip hop, Death Mix: The Best of Paul Winley Records, was released on Landspeed Records in 2001.

Ultimate Analog: People In A Position To Know, Part I

With this entry in the the Jukebox Heart blogcast, I am launching a new category called “Ultimate Analog”. As the name suggests, this category will celebrate what has now become a very interesting niche in some very interesting circles. Essentially, we are seeing some uniquely talented people exploring and exploiting old analog media in some extraordinary ways.

As an opener, I’m entering the first of a two-part series looking at the label “People In A Position To Know”. I first landed on the label while tracking down some out of print records from a recent obsession, the now defunct “Casiotone for the Painfully Alone,” Owen Ashworth’s one man project that accomplished the near-impossible. And yes, with almost everything mined and redefined by now, it seems like an impossible task to come up with something new, but Owen managed to bridge all of the gaps between street-level folk music, contemporary sugar-pop, minstrel shows and the broad scale of electronic music. But Owen, upon completing his final tour as CFTPA, is the subject of another upcoming entry.

At one of Owen’s shows, I picked up a copy of the record he did with his brother of Bruce Springsteen covers. It was pressed onto a square slab of brown swirly vinyl that looked like it could have been a recycled linoleum floor tile. It isn’t, but as it turned out, that was somewhat of a prescient thought. Intrigued, I looked up the label “People In A Position To Know”. I noticed they also released one of CFTPA’s out of print singles, recorded specifically for the Laurel Nakadate film, Stay The Same Never Change. It collects all of the short instrumental tracks that were used throughout the film, plus a few that didn’t make the final cut, including some bonus ringtones for some of the characters’ cell phones.
Being as OCD as I am, I wanted those ringtones for my own phone.

Anyway…

So I wrote to Mike Dixon, owner of PIAPTK, asking begging him to hold a copy for me if he indeed still had one. And Mike came through, as I came to learn that he always does. Sweet guy…

So part two of this series will be appearing later, under one of our Label Spotlight entries. But for this virgin voyage of Ultimate Analog, it is most appropriate to feature his “Songs of Love” package.

But first, some brief background. People In A Postion To Know (henceforth PIAPTK) is a teensy label based in Olympia Washington. Already a city with lots of lineage for intellect-forward music, it’s no surprise that this happens to be there. His label is a limited edition vinyl only record label run out of his bedroom, garage and living room. PIAPTK offer two types of records: full press (traditional records made in a pressing plant) and lathe cut records (one-off, SUPER low run records made one at a time in New Zealand by Peter King and now with his own set of lathes, by Mike himself). The current emphasis is more on lathe cuts and less on full-run records. PIAPTK uses recycled, found materials (no garage sale or thrift store is safe around Mike) when possible, for cost and environmental reasons, and does everything possible to make their records affordable to the consumer, provide some nice merch for bands, and recoup enough money to make more records. Talk about a mission statement!

OK, so that having been said, This entry will focus on a specific release. Songs of Love: The Wedding album.


This is the cover.


This is one of the 15 specially hand-made records contained within. Read on for the details.

So here’s the back story…

On June 26th of this year, Mike Dixon married the love of his life. The wedding featured several PIAPTK bands entertaining the assembled masses. One of those bands, Golden Boots, travelled all the way up from Tucson. Originally, they were planning on touring up to Olympia, allowing them to (hopefully) pay for gas. However, Dmitri’s day job playing with a little band called Dr. Dog has meant that the band could not do the tour. Any lesser band would have said “Hey, sorry, but we can’t make it, D’s got this thing, and it’s just not going to work out…” But NOT the ‘Boots. They said “see ya at the bachelor party!” and spent $1600 of their hard-earned money on plane tickets. He couldn’t pay for their tickets. And they were playing at his wedding for free. He felt *bad*.

So, his solution was a fundraiser for the band. Being the vanity label owner/professional schmoozer that Mike is, he has a lot of friends who are great musicians. He asked a lot of them to record a love song (cover or original) that could be lathe-cut onto picnic plates and given away at the wedding as party favors. He only expected a handful of bands to be able to meet the request, but he got a total of 15.

Yeah, you read that right. The songs recorded for the wedding were lathe-cut into red plastic picnic plates, each record individually lathe-cut by Mike and hand-cut into the shape of a heart by his wife, Beth. (That’s the happy couple, below. Aren’t they adorable?)

Each guest at the wedding got one of the plates as a favor. Additionally, ten complete sets of these fifteen plates were assembled and packaged in a silkscreened portfolio and made available for a donation of $100 to the “Fly the Golden Boots to P(dx)aradise!” fund.

The package contained one record from each of the following bands, performing the songs listed.

1. Golden Boots: The Man In Me (Bob Dylan)
2. Lazer Zeppelin: A Song For You (Gram Parsons)
3. The Blank Tapes: Islands in the Stream (The Bee-Gees)
4. Firs of Prey: This Will Be Our Year (The Zombies)
5. Castanets (feat. Golden Boots) – You Are My Sunshine (Traditional)
6. Edmond Lapine: Words of Love (Buddy Holly)
7. Amo Joy: Do You Take This Man? (Nirvana (the 60’s psych band))
8. Graves: Sea of Love (Phil Phillips)
9. Wooden Wand: Love Me Tender (Elvis Presley)
10. Lake: Sudden Whim (LAKE)
11. Carcrashlander: Lovesong (The Cure)
12. Jad Fair: Blue Moon (Rodgers and Hart)
13. Casper and the Cookies: That’s Love (Casper and the Cookies)
14. Lee Baggett: Thank You (Led Zeppelin)
15. Miniature and Presidential: I’m Your Man (Leonard Cohen)

At the time of the release, Mike was offering the full set of songs as 320kbps mp3s for only a $10 donation, but I’m not sure if that offer is still valid. As i’m sure you are aware, the hard copy is totally out of print…

Seriously, this is one of the most romantic, creative and environmentally sound projects to emerge from the independent music scene ever. Because these were so expensive, and Mike wanted the donors to have exclusive specialness to the music, he only gave me permission to pick one track to use in Jukebox Heart. Click on the video image below to see and hear the record play. It’s decidely low-fi, which is a major part of this whole project’s charm.

I’m utterly surprised at my total buy-in of the unapologetic mushiness of this whole thing, but it is so
genuine and so sublime that I just can’t help myself. Were this anyone else, I’d probably be joking about chopping down trees with couples’ initials carved into them, as featured on the cover art. Instead, this just makes you wish you could have been at the wedding to help them celebrate.

I guess that feeling is a common characteristic of each of the releases on PIAPTK, and we will explore that more in Part II, when we do a full up Label Spotlight on People In A Position to Know. Meanwhile click on the video below to hear Lake’s track, “A Sudden Whim”. The audio link below that gives you a cleaner non-analog mp3. Anathema!

[audio:http://www.jukeboxheart.com/ultimateanalog/weddingalbum/lake.mp3]

Watch this space for part two of this series, which will feature more information about the label and more music…

FM Broadcasts: WMFO 1985

1:34:23 | 86.4 MB
[audio:http://www.jukeboxheart.com/fmbroadcasts/wmfo85.mp3]

While you can always find an archival FM broadcast up on the Press To Play button, Jukebox Heart periodically features one here in the main page. And this is a classic from 1985. These are among the earliest surviving cassettes. Shows from 1978 through 1982 or so were recorded sporadically on reel to reel, and were always victim to a finicky Otari in the BU AM studio. These early cassettes are spotty and have a lot of drop out, but still sound surprisingly good for 25 year old cassette tapes.

Some features on the show you’ll have to search for:

Heny Cow, The Camberwell Now, early Sonic Youth, WZBC’s own O-Positive (with the final mix of With You which we were playing off a demo for years…finally on Chuck Warner’s Throbbing Lobster label…), Regressive Aid (which turned out to be an important node in indy rock history, whose band members featured three artists before they went to play in popular national acts: Andrew Weiss – bass (pre – Ween, Henry Rollins Band, Butthole Surfers, Yoko Ono, many others) Sim Cain – drums (pre – Rollins Band, Ween, Eliot Sharp, many others) E. William Tucker – guitar (pre – Scornflakes, KMFDM, Ministry, Pigface, Revolting Cocks, Chris Connelly, 16 Volt, Foetus, many others) You probably heard that first on *my* show. Ha! And lots more…

Download it for your very own here

You hardcore types will notice that some of the now very rare records in the table in front of me include records by Pseudocode and Jules Baptiste. Easy question: Can you name the record I’m holding in my hands? Yes, that’s me in the photo…just a kid. *wink* That glazed-over look in my eyes? Notice the clock says it’s almost 4 o’clock — AM. My show ran on WMFO from Sunday mornings from 2AM to 6AM from 1983 through 1988…

Flex Your Head: Artifacts Vol. 1

Flexidics, soundsheets – those quintessential freebies in magazines up until the end of the century or so. They were a staple in the early new-wave and postpunk scene, often released as complete legitimate standalone records. We love to collect those. They are so fragile and crappy, but they are rare and fabulous nonetheless. (And they are making a comeback; watch for an upcoming podcast and see what I mean…) The Flex Your Head category celebrates these lo-fidelity all-stars; the selection today, Artifacts Vol. 1, is just a sublime example of this format.

One of the most obscure and enigmatic records I own. Blistering garage/psych/punk/proto-industrial, apparently the recorded output of a scene in the Richmond VA area from the late 60s through 1978 or so. I’ve included the entire set of recordings here in two mp3 files, Side 1 and Side 2, just as you’d hear them on each side of the flexi…

Side 1
[audio:http://www.paulcollegio.net/juke/current/fx.mp3]

A1 X-Breed – Marlene
A2 Frozen Horizons – Circus Of Terror, (Excerpt From)
A3 Titfield Thunderbolt, The – On The Can
A4 Rodney Maynard & The Hundred Dollar Band – Sittin’ On A Stool

Side 2
[audio:http://www.paulcollegio.net/juke/current/fx2.mp3]

B1 Little Lacy & His Trembling Lips – Cocktails For Thieu
B2 Vampire Cows, The – The Old Endicott Building
B3 X-Breed – Miss Two Knives
B4 Big Naptar – Cross-Country

Below are images of the record label ad inserts.



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Featured Artist: Craig Colorusso

On June 26, I had the pleasure and privilege of viewing Craig Colorusso’s Sun Boxes installation in the courtyard of Important Records headquarters up in Haverhill, MA.


Detail of Sun Box

A Sun Box is a self-powered loudspeaker, equipped with a solar-panel as its sole source of power. Each Sun Box contains a Single-Board Computer with a chip that emits a single, looped pre-recorded guitar tone of a given duration, as played by Colorusso. In this installation, there were 20 Sun Boxes placed across a field, each with a different guitar loop of a unique tone and duration which, by Colorusso’s own calculation, would take about 7 months for all of the boxes to realign at the beginning of their respective loops. Kind of like biorhythms with a fuckin’ attitude. What this means is that walking through the field of boxes yields a continually evolving aural experience, subtly different for each listener at any point in the field along any path, even if a listener exactly retraces their steps. The tones emitted by the Sun Boxes combine with the local landscape to create a rich multi-sensory temporal experience. A short video of the experience is below. It was a truly magical experience. Keep track of when and where the Sun Boxes will be deployed next here. ut the immediate future for Sun Boxes:

Sun Boxes in Turners Falls.
9 days 3 locations 20 boxes

Nov. 5-7 Lawn of the Great Falls Discovery Center
Nov. 12-14 Peskeomskut Park,
Nov. 19-21 Lawn at the beginning of the bike path

Craig’s music and art spans the better part of his life, from his early work of the early 1990’s with his band China Pig through his long, conecptual current projects. After touring the US tirelessly in bands such as China Pig, Olive Grain and Diving Bell, Craig found himself in one too many bars. Although loving music – especially loud distorted guitar driven music – he found himself in a dilemma about the presentation of sound. So the sound installations such as Tagmusik (24 Hour performance in Bethel CT)and Maschine (a composition for instruments and off-set presses) came and the concept was pushed further with CUBEMUSIC and MB 89.

With MB 89, Craig attempts to play a continuous piece of music that spans the greater part of his life. Unlike a composition with a discrete beginning and ending that may be played over and over, MB 89 is a composition played once, continuously; spaces between performances are to be treated as musical rests. Instead of many starts and finishes there is constant music.

According to Colorusso, “MB 89 is not to be merely conceived, written, and performed…It will be an ongoing endeavor for the rest of my life.”

The first MB 89 performance was a series of live radio broadcasts on the UMASS radio station WMUA. Mike Burke, WMUA DJ extraordinaire was a neighbor and friend of Craig and so every Thursday in August 1997 MB 89 was broadcasted from Mike Burke’s radio show. Since then, the presentation of MB 89 has evolved into a timeless environment for people to enter and exit at will. The concept for this installation is to create a space of subtle movement where people can be part of the environment and absorb MB 89 any way they like. Three Cylinders of metal and fabric will stand in a room, from within the cylinder will be a Bass Clarinet generating a drone with electronics. Lights will accompany the drone. The performance is presented in 4-hour increments and is designed for the audience to come and go as they please.


Detail from MB 89 installation

The details are still sketchy, but this fall should witness the exposition of Colorusso’s Time Remap Sessions, a project that re-organizes time, environment and architecture. Eleven short pieces of Colorusso’s audio backing visuals by artist David Sanchez Burr. The piece is designed to be in a gallery setting with 11 monitors playing simultaneously as loops. A gallery tour is being planned for the fall 2010.

Below is one of the eleven visuals comprising the Time Remap Sessions installation. A gallery tour is being planned for this fall. A place to definitely be…

Finally, in addition to his work in audio-visual and multimedia projects, he has also released several audio pieces in traditional formats. Below are the two complete tracks from his Strap Parts 10″ vinyl recording.

Strap Parts, Part 1
[audio:http://www.jukeboxheart.com/featuredartist/colorusso/StrapPartsOne.mp3]

Strap Parts, Part 2
[audio:http://www.jukeboxheart.com/featuredartist/colorusso/StrapPartsTwo.mp3]

Strap Parts was reviewed in the magazine everyone loves to hate (but secretly loves,
even if it does cost fucking ten dollars an issue now)
The Wire. Issue 260 October 2005:

“Craig Colorusso has been around for a while in all manner of guises, but his newest thing may be his most interesting yet. Strap Parts (Muud 10″) is a set of two solo guitar inventions that begin with the same gentle strokes, then evolve in very different ways. [Strap Parts One] lets feedback build around its gentle curves, concluding in a question more than an answer. [Strap Parts Two] resolves itself a bit differently, lingering over long notes that jet slowly down so much that it almost sounds like mid-period Loren Connors at times. A superior effort.”

Blogroll: I Heart Noise

Oh yeah. This is the shit.

I Heart Noise is one of Boston’s coolest kids in the bloggerhood. With recent interviews and downlod tidbits from Female Demand, FEASTofFETUS and more, and a pretty big archive, there’s bound to be a lot of stuff you don’t know about, but should, all up in there. So go visit…

Blogroll: Two new additions to Jukebox Heart’s Bloggerhood

Non Event is an organization dedicated to supporting and promoting experimental music performances in Boston. Visit the site to see what is planned for the upcoming weeks, and you will immediately be impressed by – and ultimately grateful for – the work these people are doing. It’s absolutely essential, and you’ll be wondering how you navigated in Boston without it.

Rare Frequency is an invaluable resource, supporting one of the most important radio programs in Boston, Rare Frequency, hosted by Susanna Bolle, which airs on WZBC, 90.3 FM, in Newton Massachusetts. Rare Frequency also hosts the Susanna’s extensive archive of music journalism and provides many links to other valuable resources for the music we love.

Download Now: Thinner Netlabel

One of the nicer surprises that have come along lately in the Free Digital Download domain is the Thinner netlabel out of Frankfurt Germany. Thinner releases electronic music in digital file formats under the Creative Commons License. The netlabel has existed since 1998 and enjoys worldwide critical acclaim for its music. It was founded by Thomas Jaldemark and is today operated by Sebastian Redenz and Ole Schulte as leading parts of an international team. The headquaters is based in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Thinner productions has accumulated over two million mp3 downloads.

Randomly select an available release from the extensive Thinner discography and there’s a very high probability that the sounds on that album can be broadly described as “dub-inspired” i.e. some permutation of a fusion of dub with house, techno, or even ambient music. It’s also quite possible that the album could be further redefined as belonging to the sound departments of either “dubby techhouse“ or “intelligent dub”, and, if not one of these, the more evasive aesthetic referred to as “minimalism” is an increasingly more likely descriptor. An alternate categorization can also classify the music as either soft and mellifluous or hard and edgy.

Static images from three of the Thinner Netlabel releases:

Although dub-influences are clearly the predominant inspiration behind the general flavor of the Thinner sound, even a cursory sampling of its catalog quickly reveals that thinner is not a static label. During the time period 2001 – 2006, Thinner grew and evolved to encompass a wider variety of sounds and to make available a more diverse palette of releases from which interested listeners can make their selections. The early steady stream of signature dub-inspired techno/house music for which thinner initially became recognized still make their appearances but, as time has progressed and tastes have changed, new sounds have found their way into the thinner discography. While many of early thinner virtual releases were clearly efforts to emulate styles/genres similar to those offered by popular physical labels (eg. basic channel), later albums demonstrate innovative efforts to offer new sounds and/or interesting hybrids of existing ones.

Currently, there are 113 releases available for download here and the overwhelming majority of them are free. A visit to the site is essential as each of the releases has a beautiful abstract flash animation, a static portion of which is downloaded along with the mp3’s to be used for a release graphic.

I have downloaded almost all of these releases and they are pretty choice. I would act quickly; it appears the site is about to undergo a major overhaul. Considering that their past subsidiary label releases have all been taken down, there is no telling how long these will remain available on line.

As Thinner’s catalogue has grown substantially with the years, they also offer 2 compact djmixes to introduce you into their microcosm. While the first mix by dj krill.minima concentrates on the ambient dub side of Thinner, the second mix by dj deluge keeps the 4/4 style. Both mixes span about 70 minutes and are encoded in 192kbps:

thinner ambient dub mix
[audio:http://www.jukeboxheart.com/downloadnow/thinner/thinner_amb.mp3]

PLAYLIST:

01. Danny Kreutzfeldt – Core 2
02. Digitalverein – Abend am Gasometer (rktics_endlos_variation)
03. Blamstrain – Misfire
04. krill.minima – Palmengasse
05. deluge – l’étoile a pleuré rose
06. Pheek – There You Are
07. tlon – Close Distance
08. Benfay – Blüten Konfetti
09. Mikkel Metal – Abank
10. Lufth – Rotes Dortmund
11. Rasmus Møbius – Vintage
12. Off The Sky – Niello Tryst
13. Deluge – After the Flood
14. Danny Kreutzfeldt – Core 1

thinner minimal house mix: IN THIN WE TRUST
[audio:http://www.jukeboxheart.com/downloadnow/thinner/thinner_min.mp3]

PLAYLIST:

01.[thn044] 01-mateo murphy – womb
02.[thn059] 02-theodor zox – b.script
03.[thn043] 02-pheek – a new soulfullofwind
04.[thn045] 04-dick richards – (fingerscent-pheek rmx)
05.[thn057] 06-jason corder – berlin wall
06.[thn054] 04-benfay – warm home
07.[thn052] 02-dennis desantis – on the gripping hand
08.[thn040] 03-surphase and rktic – elbwaerts
09.[thn055] 09-selffish – lo-fi funk 67
10.[thn058] 10-mikkel metal – abank-(theodor zox remix)
11.[thn041] 02-chronolux – returning
12.[thn043] 09-pheek – a new soulfullofwind (mateo murphy remix)
13.[thn050] 03-m.jarl & j.fotmeijer – cant stand to be alone

Live Transmission: Fennesz

Live Transmission in Jukebox Heart documents the performances we attend. This entry features Fennesz, in performance at the Middle East in Cambridge on Sptember 20, 2010. Don’t miss the videos, below!

Monday night (20 Septemeber 2010) was a landmark night for Boston, in that Vienna-based electronic composer Christian Fennesz (known simply as Fennesz) performed at the Middle East, in the larger space downstairs. And what a treat it was to witness such a rare performance. OK, so downstairs at the Middle East has become a home-away-from-home over the past couple of decades. But still. It’s hard to sync the yin and the yang, the beauty and the brutality, of Fennesz’ music – let alone have it wash over you as it is intended – in one of Boston’s legendary cellars-by-starlight. The fact that the Middle East in Cambridge has such an open mind in terms of booking artists doesn’t necessarily make it the best venue for some of its bookings. No. At the very least, for Fennesz, a large open airy space is optimal, with plenty of room to prostrate oneself under the heavy weight of Fennesz’ relentless waves. Believe me…you’re gonna need that air. But the floor? At the Middle East? I. Think. Not.

No one I spoke to was able to remember any prior stateside appearance of Fennesz, so the buzz about the show began weeks ago. The posted tour dates suggested a grueling schedule, so there was much speculation on what would be presented. Fennesz appeared with laptop, guitar, and effects. And of this, to maximum effect. I will not draw comparisons to any familiar names or genres, because, frankly, all comparisons that I have read thus far have been so wrong as to be offensive and I likely couldn’t do much better myself. (For instance – because your music is laced with fuzzbox effects doesn’t make you “influenced by My Bloody Valentine”. Seriously, the fuzz is where the similarity ends. And where My Bloody Valentine thrives in glorious confrontation, increasing and increasing until you buckle, Fennesz takes this concept and with it guides you closer to ecstasy than to pain. And because your music is pretty and has a remarkably calming effect doesn’t mean “there are parallels to the glacial, synth driven new-age music of the ’80s.” UGH. Hardly. this reference in particular conjures such an incorrect image as to be laughable. If anything, the calming effect is similar to that of a shock treatment.

Instead, what draws us to Fennesz’ music, and, indeed, what has landed him roster positions on some of the most finicky independent labels in the world (Touch and Mego for example), is his ability to defy comparison. He sounds like no one else because no one else has combined the elements he has drawn upon in the way he has composed them. That’s really all there is to say.

As loud as is his live presentation, Fennesz manages to capture and preserve the delicate nature of the music documented on his studio recordings. The backbone of his musc – the thick sphere of sound originating in his laptop wrought from layer upon layer of electronically processed electric guitar – is so well crafted that even the loudest portions don’t crumble under the threat of compression. Rather, it shimmers in harmony with each solitary pluck of a guitar string. And while his music is delicate, it is certainly not fragile. This performance probably compiled the most intense moments of his music, and the volume added a sense of scale to his work that is almost impossible to achieve in your living room with his recordings. He played continuously for close to 45 minutes, and distinct moments from Venice and Black Sea were vividly identifiable, but it was also a delight to lose oneself in his improvisational passages as well.

I missed the first band, arriving shortly before the second artist, Burning Star Core, began his set. Another laptop artist grinding out stuff since 1998, his performance focused on his violin superimposed on his pre-recorded percussion and other sound sources. BSC’s resume reads like a who’s who in the noise and improvisational arenas with key recordings on Important, Hospital, RRR, Ultra Eczema, dronedisco and more.

Three videos are here for you, only partially documenting the night. Of course, my handheld vid-cam only captures a small part of the live experience. So come out and join us next time!. The first is the opening passage from Burning Star core’s set. The second is a clip from Fennesz’ performance. The third is an abstract video I shot in real time from a variety of visual sources at The Middle East while Fennesz was performing his final piece of the evening.

Burning Star Core…

Fennesz Performing at the Middle East…

Fennesz provides the live soundtrck for this real time
abstraction captured during his final piece of the evening…

Divas of Jukebox Heart: Kimya Dawson


[audio:http://www.jukeboxheart.com/divas/kimyadawson/Lullaby.mp3]
Kimya Dawson – Lullaby of the Taken
(Hidden Vagenda CD, K Records, 2004)
3:46 | 3.45 MB

It has been awhile since I revisited the diva category here in Jukebox Heart, but the lovely and unique music of Kimya Dawson certainly earns her a spot in this hall-of-fame-of-sorts. You may be familiar with the Moldy Peaches, whose release on Rough Trde spawned the instant hit “Downloading Porn with Dave” and earned them a spot in the December 2004 edition of Moonlight Radio. Kimya is one-half of that band, and since the band went on hiatus (er, broke up?) in 2004, Kimya has embarked on a remarkble solo career. She has albums out on the K imprint, the famous label of Olympia where she now lives, and on Massachusetts’ own landmark imprint, Important Records. Her fourth album, Hidden Vagenda, is probably her darkest, even more honest than all of her other work if that is even possible. The track selected here is from Hidden Vagenda.

Kimya strips away all the pretenses of every female vocalist who has come before her. The goddaughter of “Antifolk”, Kimya succeeds by simply being true to herself. There is no empty space between her visions. There is no filler in her songs. She prevails by being tender, vulnerable, silly and raw. She shows you what she loves and makes you love it, too. She is the quintessential authentic bohemian artist – what almost every smoky nightclub jazz chanteuse wishes she could be. Dawson is the artist-poet skateboard girl. And, most importantly, she is a delicate human sensing device, the only real human on a planet full of androids. What makes her music so unique and amazing is her undiluted humanity. Hidden Vagenda is her first studio album after a trilogy of home recordings from 2000 – 2003 and was recorded in the Bay Area at Mourningwood Studios and in friends’ bedrooms, garages and yards. She was joined by friends Joe Gore, Arion Salazar, Stephan Jenkins, Daniel Johnston, Vanessa Carlton and a children’s choir in St. Ouen, France. Hidden Vagenda was co-produced and mixed by Jason Carmer (The Donnas, Run DMC, Third Eye Blind), Arion Salazar and Kimya Dawson. I’ve only included on track here, but really, you need to hear it all…