implica:blog - design + music + art + culture

“Porch-core”, replied Doo Crowder, when I asked him five years ago to what genre of music does his band fit in. In the Fall of 2004, I was lining up a gig for a touring Austin band Mandarin Dynasty at the now defunct art/music/culture space at Revoluciones, which I co-founded and directed from 1997-2005. Doo Crowder, the singer-songwriter and bandleader of Pee-Pee, had solid roots at Revoluciones playing bass with local pop-punk darlings The Dinnermints. This first Pee-Pee gig at Revo was a raw and playful coalescence of a few friends experimenting with some of Doo’s new ideas.

Basement-core may also be an apt moniker for the categorization of this 10-piece (or so) ensemble who held rehearsal and a few improv recordings in the laundry room of our apartment building off of Colfax in Denver. Doo’s dingy, garbage filled apartment is the sole inhabitance in this basement; a wretched refuge of a pop genius/anti-popstar. Coincidentally, Randall Frasier of Helmet Room (who shared warehouse space with Revo), also resided in this basement apartment in the late 90s; DJ Flukz of Future Reference Crew, who kicked off the debut event at Revo, also lived in this basement in the early 2000s.

Every Monday night for 4 years, I could hear Pee-Pee rehearsals from my ground-level apartment above. Hearing the original chaotic stench blossom into an orchestra of chamber-pop and folk-rock experiments over time and practice is truly astounding to me. Almost two years in, Doo invited my wife to join in with his jamboree to beat on a cardboard box. Seema eventually moved up to playing the cajon and various percussion, as well the french horn. A live Pee-Pee show was one among several performances at our wedding reception. This blood runs deep here, baby.

Along comes Castile Jackine is Vooded At Broonus Mousin Volume I, the debut album and part one of a double release, unleashing it’s weirdness and beauty on eager fan’s ears and new listener’s alike. Castile Jackine is the result of several recording sessions by the band and studio work by Doo Crowder and Danny Shyman, owner of Shyman Studios, and a member for Pee-Pee. Mastering was done with meticulous brilliance by my good friend at the Helmet Room Studio, Randall Frasier. Randall also produces his own music project called Orbit Service, a darkly psychedelic affair, mixing analog instruments with lots of digital effects. His label Helmet Room Recordings, handled the digital release of Castile Jackine, while the cd format was self-released.

Insider secret: the album title comes from a page in a small spiral notebook that Doo found on the ground on Colfax Ave. Handwritten in chickenscratch, the words “Castile Jackine is Vooded At Broonus Mousin” revealed themselves as peculiar and random enough to become the title for Doo’s upcoming opus.

Castile Jackine begins with the lovely acoustic ballad “Jaroline”, which quickly becomes something different in the way of indie-pop as the chorus comes in after the first verse. Warm and sincere, Jaroline is the perfect opener for an album that I feel can be sincerely described as having a lot of ‘heart’.

“Madness (Remix)” is a studio version of a yet to be recorded original. My personal favorite, Madness begins with a door knock by an uninvited guest who arrives while Doo is playing his guitar, repeating the underlying chords and rhythm to the song. When he finally answers the door about a minute and a half in and recognizes his guest, the lyrics kick in with phase effects and the journey into lo-fi psychedelic delight ensues. “Hello Madness my old friend/Ask me one question tell me/where are you taking me now?/ Please be gentle I ain’t got no health insurance/I’m as fragile as the law will allow.” An indie-electro beat complete with handclap and vocoder effect informs the following verse, then segueing into a lysergic electric sitar-driven verse that eventually paves the way for a somewhat straight-forward chorus; not too dissimilar from the original version of “Madness” that I’ve heard many times during live performances.

“Love Needs a Quivering, Restless, Aching Fire to Lay its Head On” is perhaps Doo’s finest pop moment thus far. Like a meeting of Modest Mouse’s “Float On” and Yoshimi-era Flaming Lips, this acoustic number should have been an indie top-ten single. The first verse name drops the very talented Mikie Neff, a close friend to the band. In the hushed second verse, the line “From some distant memory/of some distant memory/of some long-lost trip on LSD/when we were free” gives the listener the sense yearning for a dreamy mystical love that may be just out of reach.

Listed as two separate tracks, “Freakout Jam” and “Pee-Pee Song” actually play on the disc as one song. Like the Dub and Krautrock-ish splicing of highlights from miles of recorded tape, “Freakout Jam” is an experimental post-rock improvisation pieced together from jam sessions in the basement practice room. “Pee-Pee Song” is a raw, country-rock romp, with a Neil Young guitar and a Velvet Underground-style/motorik chugging rhythm. The lyrics are simply meaningless fun. “This is the Pee-Pee Song (2x)/This is the Pee-Pee Song, Honey/Pee-Pee Song all of your life/Sing a little song for Pee-Pee/Sing a little song for life/Sing a little song for Pee-Pee/Sing a Pee-Pee song til you die.”

The paradoxical nature of moods between these songs, from honest and heartfelt confessionals to the absurd and playful freakouts, Doo Crowder carefully measures a pinch of M. Ward and a dash of Animal Collective into the Great Work that is Castile Jackine. But it doesn’t stop there. “Love U2 Much” revisits the soul sound of Stax/Volt of the 60s, featuring the incredible lungs of Miss Holly Thompson, a theatrically-trained vocalist.

This album review is a bit overdue. I myself designed the album art what seems like eons ago, and the CD release event was in May 2oo8. But with Castile Jackine volume two on the horizon, I’m just getting excited for what’s in store. Doo told me that the sophomore release will contain all of those darker-themed songs that I know as well as some new themes for the coming apocalypse .

Madness Song (Remix).mp3

I’m not proud. I suppose it’s hard starting fresh in any new city, but moving to NYC last fall has been challenging for me as a freelance designer. I recently had to pick up a few bar-back shifts for supplemental income where my cousin Julio tends here in Brooklyn. Rest assured, several of my friendly and down to earth coworkers (Julio is a closet pop genius) are also pursuing artistic goals in the Big Apple, but at my age I still feel like I’m back-pedaling a bit. For what it’s worth, I do enjoy the quick cash and the atmosphere at this place. A great new music venue/lounge in the warehouse district of Gowanus, The Bell House is neither snooty nor grimy. The lounge is a classy spot, cozy and clean with couches and cocktail tables, and employee ipods on rotation to set the mood to whatever the night calls for. The recession/working-class can here is “The Champagne of Beers” rather than peebers, and an impressive beer-tap lineup that includes my faves Brooklyn Lager and Newcastle get my nod of approval. The performance space is huge, with wood rafters and 2 big chandeliers that enhance the intimate feel of the room.

While on a ’smoke’ break Sunday night, I had a brief and casual conversation with a 40-something gentleman out back whom I assumed was a roadie, stage-hand, or someone involved in the show that night.  We were chatting it up about the old-school way of graphic design, and how these ‘kids’ today play on Photoshop and think that they’re designers. He told me that his father designed and laid-out event posters and he taught his son typography and the like. My friend and I laughed about ‘graffiti’ fonts and how the letter ‘a’ in a word is the exact same ‘a’ as the others. I told him that I had to get back in, and that was the end of our chat. I never did catch his name.

About a half-hour later I saw the actual line-up for the evening which read “Death Vessel/ Grant Hart (ex-Hüsker Dü) / Kevin Barker. Coincidentally I was reminded of a musically-geeky conversation with my friend Rob a few nights prior about the wonders of the mighty Hüsker Dü. How the brilliant ‘Zen Arcade’ is American Hardcore’s ‘White Album’ and how the birth of Emocore actually began in Minneapolis with this album. I immediately called Rob to tell him the news, and he said he’d be down in an hour.

Bar-backing both the lounge and the performance space doesn’t allow me very much of an experience of the live performances, but imagine my surprise when I realized that the guy that I was chatting with earlier was actually the second act of the evening!  I quickly noticed that the drummer and vocalist for Hüsker Dü, Grant Hart, had no accompanying band, and his performance would be the man and his acoustic-electric guitar. From what i did get to hear of Hart’s performance, it was pretty raw. But shining through the weather was that light, pop-driven songwriting that he’s known for. Rob told me that he did play a couple of his old Hüsker Dü songs as well.

I suppose the anonymity of our exchange saved me from the possible humiliation of showering him with compliments like some pathetic fanatic.

I have been living in NYC for about seven months now, and Saturday night was my first time visiting the legendary music hall called Carnegie. Built in 1891, and funded by the namesake Andrew Carnegie, this music venue is known for its acoustics, architecture, and rich history. Carnegie Hall was one ofNew York’s last buildings to be built entirely of masonry, with no steel frames in its original structure.

Evil Doug, a friend and frequent contributor to the art & culture space called Revoluciones that I co-founded and directed back in Denver, contacted me recently via Facebook. Evil Doug informed me that he had a couple of extra tickets for the 45th anniversary performance of Terry Riley’s “In C” minimalist composition and was wondering if I would like to come along. So I scooped up my fellow Brooklynite Will, along with Doug and his friend Cory the photographer, and we all headed up to 57th Street to witness an important piece of contemporary music history.

As we took our balcony seats in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage, I noticed that people were a lot smaller in 1891. Throughout the night, I would try to keep from kneeing the person sitting in front of me in the back of the head.

Terry Riley conceived of his masterpiece “In C” on a bus on the way to a gig in 1964. He had recently been influenced by Coltrane’s circular workouts, Ravi Shankar’s extended ragas, as well as La Monte Young’s pre-Fluxus and Dada concepts. Mr. Riley was “properly stoned” when the patterns began to unfold in his head, organizing themselves into 53 repetitive modules. The idea was to have these patterns performed by “any number of any kind of instruments”, amateurs and professional musicians alike. The phrases can be repeated any number of times, but they must be played in order. “In C” depends upon collective listening between musicians, each one phasing in and out of the fundamental patterns.

Saturday night, the stage was filled with about 65 people, including a wide range of brass, vocalists, strings, keyboards, percussion, a didgeridoo, and much more. Front and center on the stage were the contemporary classical string combo Kronos Quartet. Prominent minimalist composer Philip Glass was along the back row with several other keyboardists. Terry Riley himself was well-placed in the middle of the entire orchestra; a centerpiece elevated for the all of the audience to see.

The composition began with repeating eighth notes of C major on the keyboard, a pulse that is the resonant backbone of “In C”. Gradually, the musicians began to present themselves in the form of the 53 short modules, informing and being informed by each other, and forming multiple layers of sound. The playing of phrases would begin at different times by all of the instruments and voices. At times harmonic, discordant at others, the sounds morph through moods and textures while the initial drone of eighth notes remains a ground-wire for the flowing chaos. Like clouds moving and dispersing, building and fading, instruments and groups of instruments convey feelings of great joy then move on to something a bit more sinister. Several times during the performance I was literally entranced by the drone of this cannabis-influenced psychedelia. The didgeridoo had the obvious drone effects too; hypnotizing the audience while the moods shifted in and out of intense climaxes.

When the journey finally came to a close, I looked at my watch to notice that almost two hours had past since we sat down. Effective timelessness had confused my linear mind during the performance and transported me into the brilliant and chaotic waves of this anniversary performance of music history’s first minimalist composition. In hindsight, “In C” makes a lot of sense to me in terms of contemporary avant-garde music. Riley, Young, and the other composers of those days in the early sixties, had a huge influence on music that would begin to emerge in the next few decades. The Velvet Underground, Brian Eno, Spacemen 3, and even The Who would apply these musical ideas and deliver them to a broader listening audience.

I must admit, I had not yet heard Terry Riley before this concert, and I feel privileged to have experienced it. Riley and the other 64 musicians produced an inspiring and intoxicating brew of the repetitive, circular music that I so adore. Music informs much of my own art and design, and Riley’s chaos is going to help tremendously to carry my creative flow into the realms that I feel that my art is moving. Thanks Evil Doug for a wonderful evening.