Finally had a second to put a couple new things on the ARCHAIC FORMATS website after my tour with HUGH JOHN NOBLE last week, including one new FM DUST tape (a whole big batch on the way, don’t you worry…). Still a lotta unlisted stuff from Not Not Fun, Mississippi, etc… sorry for the delay! Anyway…
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FM DUST
DUST030
MALL MUTANTS- Elegy For Ron
C20 cassette (edition of 36 for now…)
$5 USD
I should say right upfront (if for no other reason than to make me look like both a sentimentalist AND a hypocrite) that I think the way people mourn in the western world is fucked up and gross, and totally not a fitting response to what is an inevitability for each and every one of us (except Walt Disney, maybe, or Keith Richards). Death is not sad… as a good dude once put it using deceptively simple language, “it’s only the last part of life”. That said, Ron Asheton’s death a couple years back did put me into a “traditional” all-black, emotionally-unsteady state of mourning that I didn’t expect, at least for a couple days. It wasn’t the man (who I only met once in passing), nor was it even his (undeniably immeasurable) contribution to popular music (and then some!) with the first two Stooges LPs… it was the distinct feeling that Ann Arbor (where Asheton was still residing until his untimely passing) had lost an essential bearing in its already-shaky foundation as a countercultural center, just by losing one more fount of history (and before you say anything about Iggy, I’m pretty sure that dude is off posing for an action figure sculpting or a Nike ad or something right now…). THAT fact is what caused me to do the raw recordings for this project in the week following Ron’s passing… if I hadn’t already printed the J-cards, it might be better titled “Elegy For Ron And Ann Arbor, Michigan”. The raw recordings were remixed, tinkered with, and gnarred-up in 2011 to take them just that little touch over the top, where one must always strive to be. Thanks, Ron.
WIZARDS OF THE GHOST
WOTG013
MEGA BOG- Freaky Dawn
CS
$6 USD
Hoo dang. I played bass (poorly) in this band for their first tour, and for their sake, I’m happy I wasn’t in the permanent slot for same. Why? Well, because these young turks are goin’ places, and I wouldn’t wanna hold ‘em back by hitchin’ my old creaky wagon to their star (besides, they live like 200,000 miles away in Seattle). Such a weird, awesome zone here… the first inclination is to think back to teen moments listening to those early Cat Power platters and feeling like life was in slow motion, but it’s actually witchy in this totally different way. Tight but teetering, gnarly but pretty, like a fire on the beach… wild vocal style where it’s hard to tell where she’s losing her shit or using a super-controlled instrument in a really fucked way (and to sing honest-to-god rock/pop songs, at that!). Is Erin Birgy the new Kurt Cobain for people who are (FINALLY) sick of the cock-rock hegemony, but not sick of rocking out? Well, it sure as fuck ain’t Karen O (or even the lady from Magik Markers), so chances are decent.
HUGH JOHN NOBLE
HUGH JOHN NOBLE- I’m A Ghost (la la la la la la la)
CD
$9 USD
Hugh John Noble is Merry Olde England’s second-best kept secret (the first-best kept secret is that lounge singer/legend TEDDIE F.A.B.Z. is living in exile somewhere within Blighty’s borders planning at least one more comeback before he shuffles off this mortal coil, but that’s neither here nor there for the moment)… dude has been digging deep into his bummed-but-hopeful soul for a decade plus, creating in the process a bottomless well of some of the best sad pop songs extant since the Wedding Present bit it, or at least since Kimya Dawson had a kid and stopped being sad. This new missive is no exception, either… in fact, there’s a fighting chance that it’s his best to date. Impeccably (but not trendily) lo-fi, gentle but acidic, unhesitatingly personal, and all delivered in a droll-as-fuck Midlands accent that hates all of your favorite pronouncedly-British bands. In an acknowledged and omnipresent world of bedroom-recorded pop endlessly streaming from jerkoff rag to computer to facebook to you (and probably vice versa), you still need this above most.
