Strangers Die Every Day : Aperture For Departure

When I read, in the accompanying press release for Portland’s Strangers Die Every Day’s debut album, that they had previously opened up for Thurston Moore, I was immediately seized by an intuition telling me that I was not going to like this album at all. I saw Thurston (one of my absolute all- time musical heroes) at the Great American Music Hall back in October and the group (not SDED) that opened for him… well, suffice it to say they just weren’t my thing* and I was afraid it was going to be more of the same here.

I was so heartened to be wrong. “Aperture For Departure” is a cool record, something I’d much sooner classify as left- field chamber music than I would Indie Rock.  It’s entirely instrumental, and some of the tracks don’t even incorporate a drummer– and for a guy who spends just as much time these days listening to Gershwin and Glenn Gould as he does Gogol Bordello and Grizzly Bear, that’s a welcome thing.

Fans of Tortoise and Godspeed You! Black Emperor will really enjoy “Aperture.”  In fact, I’d just about recommend it to anyone who enjoys a bit of both “Rite Of Spring” and “Real Emotional Trash” in their same- day repertoire.  2 out of 3 stars.

Available on the This Generation Tapes label. 

*Think Yoko Ono meets “Metal Music Machine.” Even though I had recently (and quite begrudgingly) quit smoking cigarettes after almost twenty years– and the cravings were still killing me– I boycotted their set and stood outside with the smokers until it was over.

Words by Lee

John Peel is Better Than God and Chocolate

My life is pretty good.  I have a long way to go to get to where I want and I’m sure even when I get there, I won’t be satisfied–probably because I’m never content with anything. My point being, as each year slips by, there are a few people in my life, both private and public persons, who I never got a chance to meet because they died. Some I wanted to head-butt with a steel spike, others, dine with over some wine and Moroccan food. But when I was in a band my DREAM, my GOAL IN LIFE, was to be invited to perform on BBC Radio 1 Peel Sessions.

What John Peel did was and continues to be my structure for integrity, vision, contemporary actualization (keeping up to date and exposing it). Mr. Peel (died of a heart attack while traveling in Peru) was an English disc jockey, radio, and print journalist who worked at the BBC from 1967 to 2004. The man had great musical taste and never stopped keeping his ear to the pavement to showcase unknown bands to the rest of the world. Peel, in a boiled down version of his life, introduced BBC listeners to punk, reggae, hip-hop, and electronic dance music.

For those of you who want to probe deeper into the Peel Session bands and the songs they played go here and on the BBC here. (They have tracks you can stream and listen to for only 30 seconds…like, what’s the fucking point there?) Anyway if you know what’s up with Bit Torrent, then I suggest you search for Peel Sessions through that since the only Peel I’ve found is on vinyl (I know there’s more but vinyl is the best way to find Peel’s recordings besides online Torrent).

My favorite aspect about the Peel Sessions is how well recorded they are. In addition to getting great performances he could be one caustic son of a bitch, which I love, when he felt that a performance was lacking or the artist was shit.

Here are a few examples:

Smog : I Break Horses
Mudhoney : The Straight Life
Pretty Girls Make Graves : More Sweet Soul
The Damned : Neat Neat Neat
Yeah Yeah Yeahs : Tick
Yeah Yeah Yeahs : Maps
Interpol : The New 
Interpol : Hands Away

And one of Peel’s favorite bands, The Undertones, have lyrics from their song Teenage Kicks, on Peel’s headstone.

Life is too short to live. Ya know? So, here’s to John Peel. (I’m drinking a Guiness with a shot of Jameson’s in my mind)

Words by FJP

Applied Communications : Heavenly Gospel by Lee Henderson

It is raining outside, and I am in kind of a bad mood. I’ve been trying to work on music all day andówhat can I say, there’s just no blood going there at all like hanging upside- down in a meat locker.

I want to get something done today, though, and thankfully I have a couple of reviews due. So I reach for Heavenly Gospel, the second album from Applied Communications, and am immediately struck by the albumís layout–hand-bound with string, the CD cover is nothing more than a folded, color-copied piece of high gloss paper. Inside it is another folded, color-copied piece of high gloss paper, this time with lyrics (or something). I like it. It’s econo. It’s punk rock.

It’s absolutely the only thing about this album that I like.

Weird for the sake of being weird (or for no reason at all) has never sat very well with me. I can spot these guys’ influences, if you can call them that, within the first thirty seconds, though I do sit through the whole album: Beck (when he was selling tapes out of the trunk of his car), “Revolution #9,” Lard, the Descendants, video games, and lysergic acid diethylamide (or maybe just Robitussin). And masturbation–ólots and lots of masturbation. Brutal, uncompromising, I’m- going-wind-up-with-Carpal-Tunnel-Syndrome masturbation.

I really hope that these guys are thirteen, but they have a website better than I could pull off so I’m kind-of doubting it.

Suffice it to say, yes this album is just that bad, and yes it has made my bad mood that much worse. It should have been called something like “Thirty-Five Migraine-Inducing Minutes, and Other Assorted Love Songs.” Except that nothing on this CD can be actually classified as a song*. So I’d go with “Worse Than The Holocaust,” and call it a day.

~lee.

*Just in case you were wondering, Heavenly Gospel is made up entirely of sound snippets like truncated (or otherwise irregular) drumbeats, keyboard, um, melodies, and, finally, what can only be charitably described as somebody using a dictaphone to record a television (or something). There is nothing avant-garde at work here. The ACLU wouldn’t defend this CD.