Daily Listen by Brian Brock

Golden Boots - Stinkweeds Records, Phoenix, 28 Oct 09

Golden Boots, which I learned about back a year ago, is a Tucson scrum bucket of sloppy noise and great songwriting, vocal harmonies and psychedelic freakouts.  They are a band who is really doing something, not like those other bands who just play at something they heard about on the radio.

Download here: http://www.mediafire.com/file/nrzzohedxnj/Golden_Boots-Phoenix-28oct09.zip

BLK JKS - Mystery EP (hear “Lakeside”)

One of the worst band names ever, attached to a pretty darn tootin’ bunch of jumbled up styles which really does sound as much like T.V. on the Radio as people say, although it’s more like a great other band playing a lost TVOTR album, that is to say, it’s really the songwriting which bears a resemblance, and speaking of resemblance it must be noted that most of said comparisons to said band are based less on said songwriting than on each band being an experimenting rock band largely composed of people of African descent, but the instrumentation and production approach are, while varied and interesting in each band, very different, and although I never love this album when I listen to it, I keep returning to it, so I must like it more than I realize, with a cool whistle in the first track.

Now they have a new one out, but here’s the old one, which has been floating around for a year or so: at lala.com.

The Sundowners - Goat Songs (hear “Tonight I Will Be Fine”)

This is a collaboration of sorts between Will Oldham, Bill Callahan, and Edith Frost from the middle nineties.  I guess each of them was featured on one single/EP or something?  Anyway, it’s pretty classic lo-fi stuff, with a ridiculously messed over cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Tonight I Will Be Fine” - it sounds like some lost hippie jam session that Dave-o recorded through his effects pedal cause it sounded rad.

This one is out of print, for some reason, while the other two can be found for sale at Drag City Records’s Sea Note distributary.

Here’s a copy: http://www.mediafire.com/?mtrgnwxtzlj

Bill Callahan - Tucson, 3 July 09 (hear “Rock Bottom Riser”)

At this point Bill Callahan has to pass from being under the radar to massed on the border, waiting to invade.  He came back from his disappointing Woke on a Whaleheart with an album as good as anything he’s done.  Even though in this show he seemed somewhat haggard, and he gave up a couple of times in the middle of songs, if he just continues to reach the same high points, all of a sudden people will just refer to him in the same context as Leonard Cohen, or one of those Lyle Lovetty sorts.

Download my not-too-awful recordings from right in front of the stage.  I edited out most of the chatter and eighty percent of one guy’s repeated “YEAAAAH!”s, and equalized it a bit for better listening.

Part 1 - Our Anniversary, Diamond Dancer, Sycamore, Too Many Birds, The Wind and the Dove, Cold Blooded Old Times - http://www.mediafire.com/?ajondn4jtym

Part 2 - Jim Cain, Rococo Zephyr, All Thoughts Are Prey to Some Beast, Rock Bottom Riser, Say Valley Maker, (noodling before Let Me See the Colts), Let Me See the Colts - http://www.mediafire.com/?mytynmout4g