Thursday 30 June 2011

Wildman Fischer and the problem with "Outsider Art"

Wildman Fischer died a few weeks ago and it got some sympathetic coverage from music journalist Bob Lefsetz saying among other things;

"Wild Man Fischer was an institution. A club you became a member of in high school or your college dorm. Someone cool but friendly, not a football player or a cheerleader, would start talking about a record, with a smile on his or her face, and begin singing..."

and

"You remember the cover of that initial double album. With his electric hair?
Maybe you don't. Maybe you're just too young. Maybe you equate music with money, learning about the riches of Led Zeppelin or seeing all those acts on MTV.
But once upon a time, it was about music.
And it was certainly about creativity.
Could you question convention?"

Exhibit a)
Bongo George Coleman ~ "I wish I could sing";


For those who don't know, Wild Man Fischer was a mentally ill street person who was known for his off key singing for change on the streets of 1960's L.A. Back in the days of the hippie counter-culture some found this sort of thing endearing, or a refreshing change from corporate culture, or something like that. So Frank Zappa brought him into the recording studio for an album of off key caterwauling and rambling that some hipsters (including notably Dr.Demento) found, and still find endlessly amusing. It didn't last of course because Fischer was mentally ill and soon ended up coming to blows with Zappa who recoiled in horror, canceling his record deal. Turns out when a mentally ill street person is no longer amusing they are just crazy and actually scary. Who knew? In fact those records have been spitefully kept out of print ever since by Zappa and his estate which pretty much destroys any "but how else is Fischer supposed to make a living?" argument.

Exhibit b)
The Shaggs ~ "My pal Foot Foot";


Any of this sound familiar? Remember the late Wesley Willis? Another mentally ill street person brought into the studio to record a couple albums of demented, utterly talentless rambling. A few years ago, before Willis died, Jim DeRogatis wrote a thoughtful piece about this wondering about the ethics of a bunch of white middle class hipsters and fratboys openly laughing at the large lumbering brain damaged black man cavorting for their amusement. That's a question I had been wondering about before and since. And setting aside the issue of race which doesn't apply here since Fischer was white, Lefsetz' comments brought the issue back.

Exhibit c)
Hasil Adkins ~ "The Slop";



I get the theory of "outsider art" or "naive art" that Lefsetz is getting at here, that those amateurs who are untainted by "corporate culture" can give us an alternate voice untainted by the excesses of that culture. It's the basic message of "One flew over the cuckoo's nest" and to a lesser extent "To kill a mocking bird". But I don't buy it. This always seems to me to be a rationalization to give otherwise decent people an excuse to laugh at a geek show that would never be allowed in modern society.

Exhibit d)
The Legendary Stardust Cowboy ~ "Paralyzed";


I like some of Lefsetz's often insightful comments and I don't question his sincerity, besides anyone who despises Gene Simmons even half as much as I do can't be all bad. But I call bullshit on this bullshit. By any rational standard the actual music they created is terrible. If it were not coming from someone the audience is fully aware is mentally ill there is no way it would have been treated as anything other than a silly joke for the amusement of largely white hipsters and drunken fratboys. But since it's coming from an "outsider" their records are seen as an alternative to corporate music, which then gives the hipsters a chance to laugh "ironically" at the geek show? I think not.

Exhibit e)
Herbie Duncan ~ "Hot lips baby";



There are plenty of other examples of clueless amateurs who accidentally made some oddly cool records in the first three decades of rock and roll; Hasil Adkins, Jenks Tex Carmen, The Legendary Stardust Cowboy, The Shaggs, Lucia Palmoa, King Uszniewicz, Mrs. Elva Miller, Herbie Duncan, Bongo George Coleman, even Florence Foster Jenkins and I gleefully recommend them all without having to engage in the fetishistic worship of the mentally ill. And spare me the smug hipster "if you don't get it you just aren't as cool as us" implications of your "club". By the way Bob, "clubs" are not cool. Clubs exist to exclude people, and that's not rock and roll.

Exhibit f)
King Uszniewicz ~ "Doo Wah Diddy";


Exhibit g)
Mrs. Elva Miller (w/Jimmy Durante) ~ "Inky Dinky Doo";

Saturday 25 June 2011

Toronto Radio; Out with the Old, In with the New

This spring Toronto had one radio station finally go off the air for good while another finally won it's battle to go on the air. Still another once proud radio icon engaged in yet another one of it's revolving door format changes.

First the deceased;

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CKLN 88.1fm was a campus/community radio station based at Ryerson University since 1983, or earlier depending on who you ask. Over the years a lot of good programming went on there and the station was quite influential on the Toronto music scene. Some talented people got their start there, Handsome Ned, Mean Steve Piano, Sucking Chest Wound, Jill Heath, Brian Taylor, Bill Grove, David Scurr, James Bailey, Arnie Achtman, The Blue Demon, Mike Hanson, Gerry Belanger, Charles Watson, Jaymz Bee, DJ Barbie, Dave Neudorf, Michie Mee, Freedom in a Vacuum, The Tape Beatles, Chris Twoomey, Ian Danzig. A bunch of people who later went on to The Flow and CBC and Exclaim Magazine. Oh and I did a show there too for several years before moving to CIUT.

Unfortunately like a number of other campus/community radio stations in Canada CKLN was also full of professional DJ's and show promoters who used CKLN to make money on the side and also became a haven for a cadre of fanatical left wing activist types who engaged in their usual vicious sectarian infighting that inevitably tore the place apart. In 2008 the left wing groups staged coup to seize control of the station. After a year long campaign of harassment, slander, nuisance lawsuits, frivolous complaints to the CRTC, threats and occasional violence backed by the equally leftist Ryerson Student Union (RSU, who also withheld the station's funds to force it into bankruptcy) the leftists got their way. But only after the RSU actually seized the station itself, changing the locks and forcing it off the air for seven months. Unfortunately for them after getting the run of CKLN it turned out that left wing activists didn't know the first thing about running a radio station. So after several months of jaw dropping incompetence the CRTC finally called hearings to decide if the whole sorry embarrassing mess should be allowed to continue. The hearings happened in December 2010 and I testified as a witness. There is no room here to go into the hilarity of the proceedings and the awe inspiring ineptitude of the new CKLN management but suffice it to say the CRTC was not impressed and ordered the station shut down for good. CKLN tried to fight this shut down order in court and via a public campaign claiming "corporate censorship". To the surprise of absolutely nobody the court challenge failed and the public campaign fizzed out and CKLN finally went dark this April.

The Torontoist had the best article about the CKLN debacle which I can't improve on so here it is;

"Timeline: Why CKLN Radio's Broadcast License Was Revoked
by Steve Kupferman on January 28, 2011 3:30 PM

Today the CRTC revoked the broadcasting license of radio station CKLN—an independent community-run radio station located in Ryerson University's campus (and largely funded by its student union) but not officially affiliated with that institution—citing the station's failure to comply with federal broadcasting regulations for the past three years. The decision document announcing the revocation is an epic catalogue of alleged violations, some of them outrageous in their negligence. But the document is long, and you have stuff to do. So we've boiled the whole thing down to a series of key points.

August 13, 2007: The CRTC renews CKLN's license for a term of seven years.

Between August 2007 and March 2009: CKLN is riven with internal disputes. The station fires staff and volunteers, and eventually elects competing boards of directors. (A case concerning the competing boards is currently underway at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.)

The Palin Foundation, the building manager for Ryerson's Student Campus Centre (where CKLN has its studio), locks staff out from March 2009 until October the same year. During the lockout, rather than its usual programming, the station plays a recorded loop of a jazz program, complete with spoken commentary. CKLN is denied access to its transmitter at First Canadian Place, so broadcasts are intermittent.

July 2, 2009: After hearing complaints about CKLN's alleged "ongoing difficulties with its governance structure," CRTC staff sends a letter to CKLN requesting responses to the accusations.

September 14, 2009: CRTC staff members meet with representatives of CKLN to discuss the station's compliance difficulties. Face-to-face meetings of this kind are not something the CRTC typically does.

September 17, 2009: CRTC staff sends another letter to CKLN, requesting information on the station's operations and governance structure. The letter informs CKLN management that the station hasn't filed its required annual returns with the CRTC for the past two years.

October 6, 2009: CKLN files its response to the CRTC's letter of September 17. It promises to hire paid management staff and resolve its internal difficulties.

February 10, 2010: The CRTC sends CKLN a letter requesting tapes, logs, and program schedules relating to the week of January 10, 2010. CKLN sends the tapes on time, but files the schedules and logs almost two weeks late. The tapes are full of static, and they don't match the logs. Later, the CRTC reiterates an unfulfilled October, 2009 request for tapes and logs from June 2009 (which was during the lockout period) and again CKLN sends them after the deadline. When a CRTC staff member asks why the material is late, a CKLN representative says that the person responsible for sending the stuff was "in the Caribbean for a month.

March 1, 2010: In response to the CRTC's continued insistence on receiving those required annual returns, CKLN sends a letter saying that it has "no knowledge as to why the returns had not been filed," and that they'll be in the mail within a few days.

May 12, 2010: The CRTC adjourns a public hearing on CKLN's alleged regulatory violations, but requires CKLN to file monthly reports beginning June 14.

July 7, 2010: A scheduled host doesn't appear at the station for his or her show, and so a CKLN volunteer broadcasts the online stream of a Seattle, Washington, jazz radio show as a substitute. The CRTC takes this and other lapses as evidence that the station's infighting is ongoing. CKLN has not hired management staff and is still controlled by a "working board."

September 14, 2010: CKLN tries to file its annual return for the broadcast year of 2006/2007 with the CRTC, but sends in the wrong form.

October 13, 2010: CKLN tries to file four years' worth of annual returns with the CRTC, all at once. But the data for each year goes only until April 30—the CRTC requires data ending August 31. CKLN promises to file corrected returns within a month, then doesn't.

December 8, 2010: The CRTC reconvenes the previously adjourned public hearing on CKLN's alleged violations. Ron Nelson, head of the station's working board, tells the CRTC that the board has no experienced guidance. "We have never been a program director at a radio station before," he reportedly said. "So we had to do a lot of consulting with the NCRA and other radio stations and their program directors, such as CHRY and CIUT, to find out how to do our job properly."

January 28, 2011: The CRTC revokes CKLN's broadcast license, effective February 12."

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On another note, not an entire radio station but rather the last remaining shred of a once respected radio station's glory years. In the 1980's CFNY was Toronto's Alternative, Toronto's New Wave. Then at some point in the late 1990's they changed formats, substituting new wave for Madonna and (gasp) Phil Collins. There were protests, mass firings and resignations, an ownership change and CRTC hearings, which I also testified at come to think of it. The new owners promised to bring back the old format and foster new talent. Instead there were more mass firings and a re-branding as "The Edge 102.4" whatever that means. One of those few from the glory days who managed to survive was DJ Alan Cross. But only just. In 1992 he was given the choice of doing a new project of doing a historical retrospective show called "The Ongoing History of New Music" which would give The Edge some CFNY gravitas. Or Cross could dust off his resume. He reluctantly chose to do the show and given his deep musical knowledge and research skills honed when he had earned a history degree he was able to turn it into a much respected show. Recently he was unceremoniously dumped off the Edge who have long ago learned that gravitas doesn't sell nearly as well as marketing. Sometime this year CFNY also closed their street level audience friendly studios at the Eaton Center. Speaking of which this year Q107 also closed their street level studios across the street at the Hard Rock Cafe. Why in an age when radio is under challenge from newer user friendly media forms these corporate geniuses would want to isolate themselves from the public I'm sure I don't know. But then again I also couldn't for the life of me figure out why CKLN's far-leftist fanatics wanted to turn that place into an insular sectarian cult either. Hey how did that turn out again? Oh right.

Alan Cross in action;





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Now for the new;

The Caribbean Radio Network (or CARN) has been pushing laboriously for a license since 2002 and after having been shot down a few times finally got permission from the CRTC to broadcast at 98.7fm in June. CARN Had to get past objections from the CBC (because of their fears that CARN's 98.7fm signal would interfere with the CBC's 99.1fm signal) as well as unrelated objections from Rogers, Astral and CTV (because they're dicks). Also Ron Nelson from the soon-to-be corpse of CKLN also complained on the air calling CARN "vultures" for having the temerity to claim that CARN would be "The Voice of the Black and Caribbean Communities in Toronto" a role that CKLN had claimed. It has been noted that once upon a time The Flow made the same claim only to abandon that role to become a more mainstream (and more profitable) station. For that matter the same has been said about CFNY and Proud fm so we shall see. CARN is not actually on air yet and there will be a delay while they get ready, they will also probably have different call letters.

On another note there is the never ending saga of 1050 CHUM am. Once the powerhouse of Toronto rock radio from the 1950's to the early 1980's. CHUM ruled the roost in Toronto for twenty years presenting everyone from Elvis to the Beatles and could claim the title of "The Voice of Young Toronto". The CHUM Top 30 charts became a fixture and eventually branched on to a television version as well. The owners of CHUM Group also started a CHUM FM sister station as well. I have fond childhood memories of all of it. However times were changing as AM lost ground to FM and top forty lost ground to more specialized rivals like the avowedly hard rock Q107, the new wave CFNY and more eclectic campus/community stations like CKLN and CIUT. CHUM seemed not to notice times were changing until suddenly in the mid eighties it's ratings finally tumbled dramatically. In 1986 they switched from Top Forty to Adult Contemporary Soft Rock and Pop, then in 1989 they went to Golden Oldies. When that didn't work they suddenly gave up on music entirely in 2001 to become an all sports station, ignoring the fact that Toronto already had an all sports station. That turned into a disaster and the ratings cratered completely so they desperately switched back to golden oldies only a year later.

They never recovered from this debacle and in 2007 when the network was sold the new owners, CTV, abruptly switched formats again to a 24 Hour news station, once again ignoring that Toronto already had such a station. This time it was widely assumed that the new CHUM was just making time by running a shell station since there was no actual programming at all, just a direct feed from the Cable Pulse 24 television channel, which led to some odd moments when the television announcers referred to video images that the radio audience (assuming there was one) could not see and long unexplained silences. This year brought another change back to...wait for it...another all sports station. This time they took the time to plan it out and got a fair amount of press attention for the big switch over to what they are now calling TSN Sports Radio. Whether there is still any point to having another sports station in Toronto remains to be seen. At any rate the long winding road of CHUM and CKLN is a unique one in the history of Canadian radio for better or (eventually) worse.



Thursday 23 June 2011

NXNE 2011 Review

I was a little under the weather this year so I didn't get to see as many bands this year as I usually do, also I wanted to see the Three Blue Teardrops on Saturday. There were also a couple of long lineups I didn't have the patience for, however I actually got to see most of what I really wanted wanted.

Pick up press pass on Wednesday. Actually there have been films showing since Monday, including ---- but they don't issue press passes until Wednesday so I don't get to see them. Why do you always do stuff like this NXNE? Really, there is always some sort of completely avoidable scheduling fuck up every single year. Anyway there is only one actual show this night.

The Drive-By Truckers ~ The Phoenix;

One of the best Southern Rock bands around today, they're tight, play well and have some good songs. I just wish I could remember more of them after-wards. I wish they had more personality. And I wish they would rock out more. Still those who like the genre like them a whole lot.

Thursday;

The Descendants ~ Dundas Square ~ 9pm;

Easily the most popular show of the weekend, with people literally coming in for miles around, I ran into people I haven't seen in a decade. Milo and the boys are still as rock solid and tight as ever. And the toughest nerds in punk rock. At some point somebody through a bottle and hit Milo right in the head, drawing blood even. Hey asshole! This is a free show for fuck sakes. Shouldn't you be in Vancouver celebrating your teams ability to choke like George Bush on a pretzel? Sorry where was I? Oh right Milo; anyway he continued on as if nothing happened. Not only did he not miss a beat but he never even mentioned it after the song was done. Now if that had been Mike Ness or Glen Danzig they would have stopped the show for half an hour while they harangued the crowd about how they were punk rock while you were in kindergarten.Speaking of which Milo brought his two young kids on stage to read the Descendants Ten Commandments to the crowd; to wit,
Adorable Young Daughter; "Thou shall not partake of death"
Milo; "Uh no sweetie, that's decaff"
Yes well, It's still good advice though.

Take Drugs ~ The Bovine ~ 10pm;
So-so local punk band in that grey area between early hardcore and old school punk.

Darlings of Chelsea ~ The Bovine ~ 11pm;
These local guys are always a solid trash punk band. I really must get a cd at some point.

CJ Ramone ~ The Bovine ~ 12am
As one of the last standing Ramones, albeit one of the least important ones, CJ knows where his bread is buttered. All Ramones songs all the time. Reminds me of the version of The Misfits that has been touring for the last several years now featuring fellow bassist Jerry Only (finally living up to his name). Still even though unlike CJ Jerry actually played on the original songs CJ pulls this of with less embarrassment. Must be the makeup.

Komunga ~ The Hard Luck ~ 2am
Formed by the singer of the late lamented Brown Hornets. The Hornets were a blues/r&b garage band with a smoking love show that never really translated in the studio. The new band is more 1970's Grand Funk with less swagger and more volume. We'll see.

Friday;

CATL ~ BBQ at Casa Del CATL;
CATL put on a BBQ and played a few acoustic blues numbers, they should really add that into their live set. Col. Tom Parker from the late lamented Backstabbers played a few old timey country numbers as well and a low key good time was had by all.

The BB Guns ~ The Silver Dollar 11am;
Another most girl garage band. Featuring the guitarist from the late Machetes. I saw them last year time when they had the worst amp malfunction I've ever heard but I was assured that wouldn't happen again. And it didn't. They were in fact better than White Eyes or The Dum Dum Girls with more melody and variety.

White Eyes ~ The Bovine 12am;
A band from Taiwan getting some buzz. They are indeed loud and intense and they do indeed have an attractive scantily clad girl singer. But to me they sound like every other buzz band from the orient that comes here every couple of years; a whole lot of distorted guitar, driving bass and a singer's indecipherable caterwauling which may or may not be in English. See also; Guitar Wolf, The Zoo Bombs, Melt Banana, Jittering Jim. I don't know if all bands in Asia are like this or lust the ones who come here. Probably the latter. Also as usual the audience is full of Asian students who I never see at another gigs.

The Dum Dum Girls ~ The El Mocambo (secret show) ~ 1am;
Another band getting some buzz right now. An all girl four piece dressed all in black playing mid tempo droney guitar pop. There pretty cool alright but I couldn't help but notice that all their songs are exactly the same. Seriously, Alana, guitarist from the BB Guns comes over and asks my opinion; "I like them enough but all their songs are the same". "They are using all the same chords!" She says, "Really, they are just changing the placement a bit or using a capo". Also while they have two guitars they are both playing the same chords as well. I note that they are also using the same Mo Tucker drum pattern in every song as well. We wonder how they are going to last long term if they don't start to change it up a bit. Oh well she assures me they are very nice.

Saturday;

Devo ~ Dundas Square;
I only caught the last few songs so no "Whip It" or "Satisfaction". I have to admit I've never seen them before and had no idea they were so rockist. I swear one of their songs lifted a riff from a Black Sabbath song. Yes they did wear the black jumpsuits. No conehead hats though. Apparently those got lost before I got there.

Thursday 9 June 2011

RIP to New Wave producer Martin Rushent

PETE SHELLEY ~ HOMOSAPIEN;



UK record producer Martin Rushent died June 4 aged 62. Producer for the classic New Wave hit albums of the 1980's by The Buzzcocks, Stranglers, Human League and Soft Cell.
The Buzzcocks and Stranglers albums made his name but he really hit the big time with the classic and massively successful series of hit albums with The Human League and Soft Cell. Besides selling tons of copies these records (that's right kids, actual records!) were also hugely influential to a new generation of electro music artist and dj's for better or worse. This is in spite of the fact that the technology then used will probably never be used again and would be considered by today's electronic musicians as being as hopelessly out of date as the player piano.

THE HUMAN LEAGUE ~ DON'T YOU WANT ME;



Today's electro musicians do can do everything from a single computer program using premade samples, drum tacks and auto-tuning which removes any actual human fingerprints. Rushent's records with The Human League and Soft Cell were done with analog technology (ask your parents) and required not only that each sample clip be separately edited in but also that the entire mix be programed in step by step lest it go out of time. Then you add in flourishes like a horn section which also had to be programed in step by laborious step and you have days and days of work for something that could be dashed off in a day now.

SOFT CELL ~ TAINTED LOVE;



At the time many music writers and musicians didn't see these records as being legitimate in the way that guitar oriented New Wavers like say, The Pretenders, Blondie, Police, Talking Heads or even avowedly keyboard heavy bands like Ultravox. Now, in retrospect we can see them as much a part of pop (if not exactly Rock and Roll) as the heavily orchestrated girl groups of the 1960's.

THE STRANGLERS ~ NO MORE HEROES;



And if that weren't enough remember Rushent also produced the classic albums by The Buzzcocks Generation X, 999, Dr. Feelgood, the dB's and the Stranglers, and nobody could deny those. He had actually been around since the early 1970's and had worked with T Rex, Fleetwood Mac, Gentle Giant and even Shirley Bassey.

999 ~ HOMICIDE;



Partial Martin Rushent discography;

1971;
T-Rex ~ Electric Warrior
Gentle Giant ~ Acquiring the Taste
Fleetwood Mac ~ Future Games
1972;
Gentle Giant ~ Three Friends
Gentle Giant ~ Octopus
Shirley Bassey ~ I Capricorn
1975;
Shirley Bassey ~ Good, Bad but Beautiful
1977;
The Stranglers ~ Rattus Norvegicus
The Stranglers ~ No More Heroes
1978;
The Stranglers ~ Black and White
The Buzzcocks ~ Another Music in a Different Kitchen
Generation X ~ Generation X
The Buzzcocks ~ Love Bites
999 ~ Separates
Dr Feelgood ~ Private Practice
1979;
The Stranglers ~ Live (X Cert)
The Buzzcocks ~ A Different Kind of Tension
J-J Burnel ~ Euroman Cometh
1981;
The Human League ~ Dare
Pete Shelley ~ Homosapien
The Raybeats ~ Guitar Beat
Altered Images ~ Happy Birthday
The dB's ~ Stands for Decibels
1982;
The Human League ~ Love and Dancing
Altered Images ~ Pinky Blue
1983;
The Human League ~ Fascination!
Pete Shelley ~ XL1
1984;
The Human League ~ Hysteria
The Go-Go's ~ Talk show


GENERATION X ~ KISS ME DEADLY;