[Landline] Weekend enthusiasms
Katznelson, James & the Giants, Head Voice, Arik Roper, Lale Westvind, Henry Foster, Sam Sweet, more
My old friend David Katznelson, one of the most relentlessly positive people I know, despite seeing so much that would sink the rest of us (or at least me!), has maintained/sharpened/widened his great taste and fantastic cultural antenna for decades now. His substack newsletter The Signal (subscribe! it’s free!) is a constant, persistent catalog of discoverings, uncoverings and storytellings across recorded music, the visual arts, San Francisco landmarks, American Jewish cultural history and poetry — a true inspirational complement to his archival and contemporary record productions and releases thru the Birdman/etc. family of labels.
I don’t share all of David’s fascinations, obsessions or loyalties—I have enough problems!—but I always respect them. And I often find myself following up on something David writes up — something I’d missed or overlooked or set aside and never got back to for whatever reason. ‘Oh yeah, totally forgot, I need to check that out’ is a constant refrain in the brain when reading The Signal.
Case in point: the JAMES & THE GIANTS album, a collaboration between lifers James Jackson Toth (Wooden Wand) and Jarvis Taveniere (Woods, so much more) released in early summer by Kill Rock Stars, and spotlit in a Signal last week. I started listening to it a few days ago and haven’t really stopped. Kinda like an early M. Ward record meets Silver Jews, if you need a contemporary-ish comparison, although I hear Lennon, Caravan and The Band too… Anyways! Melodic, mellow, warm, enough wit and kindness to get one through December, and probably January and February, too...
Speaking of James Jackson Toth, he and Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance, Comets on Fire, etc) and Donovan Quinn (Skygreen Leopards, New Bums) recently debuted HEAD VOICE, a new print zine (!) that should be of some interest to older Arthur magazine heads in the audience…
Issue #1 features long interviews (the Matt ‘MV’ Valentine piece is a revealing/intimate epic!) and thinkpieces about all aspects of the creative process for working musicians, with special emphasis on technical/production stuff that is beyond my pay grade as a simple listener. Head Voice is thoughtful and expansive—excellent reading by and for musicians of modest means finding ways to make the most with what they’ve got. I gotta think this endeavor will be inspirational to many. Plus it’s on paper, the most durable and stable medium of all. Order the first issue direct from the fellas here: head-voice.com
Speaking of stuff appealing to old Arthur heads1, artist Arik Roper, who surely needs no introduction, has a snazzy2 handsomely appointed hardcover overviewing his career to date out now via Strange Attractor…
I contributed a short text tribute to Mr. Moonhawk for VISION OF THE HAWK, joining Erik Davis, Peter Bebergal, Al Cisneros, Stephen O’Malley and others in saluting this generous fellow who has brought us all so much dank-crystal eye-mind pleasure over the last 25 years. 224 pages! Grab one here.
Let’s keep speaking about paper. I clean forgot to order VOID PACKER #1, the newest Lale Westvind zine til (checks notes) last Wednesday. Behold this typically bold Westvind cover…
…and try to tell me how you can resist sending your bottom ten dollar bill (plus postage) directly to Lale now. The void must be packed! Do it here: lalewestvind.bigcartel.com
Speaking of mail-order comics by contemporary visionaries, I am deeply ashamed to have only recently become aware of HENRY FOSTER (Foliage) via this hilarifying post-Pedro Bell/Gary Panter/Mat Brinkman/I’m a Virgo RXK Nephew album cover…
Yeow, right? Investigating further, I discovered that Foster has been pumping out stuff for the last few years, a lot of it sold out already, but he does have a coupla comics available now…
…and when (if?) I get some more PayPal money, a good portion of it is going directly to dude here: needlesonwax.bigcartel.com
Also on my print shopping list: Please Come Home: Back Pages of the L.A. Free Press 1966-1974, the latest from author/archivist/historian Sam Sweet…
Sam sez:
The Los Angeles Free Press was the first and largest of the counterculture newspapers that sprouted in the late 1960s. The paper grew in tandem with a generation of teenage runaways. They treated the back pages as a test plot for uncensored desires. In turn, desperate parents embedded messages among ads for marijuana seeds, group sex, and crash pads, hoping to be seen by the children who had abandoned them.
This publication collects a selection of columns in which those embedded notes appeared. The “Please Come Home” messages surfaced for a period of years beginning around 1966 before tapering off after 1974.
In other words, Sam gets us lost in page after fascinating page like this:
Well! Did Mark Alan ever contact his Flower Child Mother…? Did Renette Moore call home and not get turned over to the police…? What happened to Lenny K. of Northfield, Ohio, so frightened by one Mr. Bossein about being sent to boys’ school that he ran away to L.A.? One senses a new investigative podcast series around the corner! Obtain this weird slice of real life direct from Sam here: allnight-menu.com
Best wishes for happy reading to you,
with a promise of a few more picks soon as we’re out of room,
I remain,
Jay Babcock
Tucson, Arizona
Landline is free! It is sustained by paying subscriptions ($5/mo, $40/yr), which I wish were cheaper but those are the rules.
If you’d like to support Landline, but don’t want to make that subscription commitment, just leave a tip of any amount in this handy PayPal TipJar.
Thank you.
Speaking of Matt Valentine, Arthur magazine, and dankness, here’s Arik’s cover from the mag’s 34th issue:
How snazzy? It has its own ribbon placeholder! Come on!
Tis the season for finding those gems you missed during the year. I'm trying to catch back up and have been floored by Country Life in America.
https://charliekaplan.bandcamp.com/album/country-life-in-america
Hi Jay! Thank you, as always, for your musical/cultural recommendations; I recall learning about the existence of NTS Radio from a twitter post of yours in 2020, which was life-changing (I've listened to it near-daily since; btw, I'm @elixirdc over there).
It occurred to me to share my Best Music of 2023 list, in case you are interested, which includes my picks for the top 20 albums this year, and my top picks for NTS sets this year. (I listened to and saved 465 NTS sets and honed that down to 64 of the best sets (presented in my list below), along with my top 10 "must hear" sets (noted by asterisk).) I also listened to or sampled hundreds of albums featured by Allmusic, reviewed by Pitchfork, and/or included on numerous year-end best music lists. My best album list comprises the very best 20 of those, to my taste/ear.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RMQ1S0NxCNQiFBdk-F9A5vBQ2cw6ryuOSHkUTb4fiJw/edit?usp=sharing
Tirzah's "trip9love...???" is my pick for the best album of 2023. As a side note: Tirzah's 2018 album "Devotion" was my pick for best album of that year.
Other notables: the most fun album this year was Pearl and the Oysters' "Coast 2 Coast", with its whimsical French indiepop; the smoothest album this year was Eddie Chacon's "Sundown", bathed in and reflecting the Mediterranean island sounds that inspired it; the most unique album this year was Ragana's "Desolation's Flower"; I've never heard anything like it, and the fact that it is as raw as it is while also being as listenable as it is, is an accomplishment.
The Veldt's "Illuminated 1989" and Arthur Russell's "Picture of Bunny Rabbit" were my picks for the best archival releases this year--a great lost proto-shoegaze masterwork, and a wonderful setpiece from the genius of the 80s NYC disco underground.
Wishing you and yours a wonderful holiday season, and a happy new year!
Shawn Sprague
sprague.shawn@gmail.com