Apparently totally shredding in Chicago's favorite pop-garage combo (CoCoComa) and having a really cute three month-old kid isn't enough for Big States buddies Bill & Lisa Roe, as we just got word they're starting a record label.
Trouble In Mind looks to be focused on 7" records for the time being, with the debut release (a CoCoComa single) coming August 13th. Future releases promise international jams from White Wires and Sonic Chicken 4, and showings from Bay Area favorites Ty Segall and The Fresh & Onlys.
The nice boys in the Wu-Tang Clan have made their pre-36 Chambers demo tape available as a free download. Decidedly lo-fi, the recordings are nevertheless exciting in an artifact kind of way; interesting to see a snapshot of future masters developing their craft.
Legendary avant-garde coreographer Merce Cunningham has died. After forming the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at Black Mountain College in 1953, Cunningham moved to Manhattan, where he lived and worked for the rest of his 70 year career. A tireless collaborator, Cunningham worked with everyone from David Tudor to Robert Rauschenberg and John Cage, his life partner of 50 years. He was 90 years old.
In addition to being a nice guy and an extremely charismatic front man (first in teen-freaks The Catheters, then Tall Birds, and now Idle Times) Seattle's Brian Standeford is one hell of a poster artist. A weird pastiche of 80's DIY and 60's psychedlia, Brian's posters highlight the sinister nature of underground rock'n'roll; his work is both repellent and somehow beguiling.
See more at Gig Posters. And if you're in the Seattle area this afternoon, you can see Brian in action at the Capitol Hill Block Party, where he'll be playing bass for the Dutchess & the Duke.
A while back Reference Library posted some interesting photos of Paolo Soleri working at Arcosanti that led me to a series of pictures made in the 1970s for LIFE Magazine. Taken by Nina Leen, the photographs document artisan American crafters at work dyeing yarn, spinning pottery and blacksmithing, among other things.
The 1962 film This Is Ska- despite its goofy ethnographic dance lesson/artifact pretense- captured some pretty incredible footage of future reggae heavy-weights. Part one focuses on the exotic, "anyone can do it" nature of of "ska steps." Parts 2, 3, and 4 features early performances by the Maytals, Jimmy Cliff and Prince Buster, among others, all filmed live at the Sombrero Club in Jamaica.
The Fascinations were, among other things, the perfect vehicle for Curtis Mayfield's pop songwriting. While his songs with the Impressions were getting funkier and more socially conscious, the Fascinations' sides show just how good Mayfield was at crafting straight, buoyant pop. Originally from Detroit, the Fascinations sound less like classic Mayfield soft soul and more like a synthesis of Motown-style ebullience with the nuance of Chicago soul. One gets the sense that he saw them as viable competitors with the Motown Sound™. And while Curtis' role with the Opals and the other OKeh artists was as songwriter or in collaboration with Carl Davis, Mayfield was much more involved with the Fascinations, writing, producing, and performing on their recordings. At times they can sound almost like the Impressionettes.
But all the credit shouldn't just go to Mayfield. Lead singer Bernadine Boswell Smith's voice is totally amazing-- girlish and raw and so, so good. Sounding like she's constantly singing in the red, she transforms snappy little teen pop into awesome declarations of love and heartbreak.
Take, for instance, the first song Mayfield cut with them on ABC-Paramount:
Jan Bradley had already scored a hit with the song a year or two earlier (Although the liner notes to the Curtom Story seem to suggest Mayfield originally wrote the song for the Fascinations):
Where Bradley's voice sounds clear and innocent, Boswell Smith sings with gospel-style force. The Fascinations' version is a more spirited recording, but in an era during which Motown was still coaching the blackness out of singers' voices, it wasn't really "hit material." I will say the Bradley version is beautifully produced-- great bottom end.
For the hell of it, here's a Joe Meek produced version by Flip & the Dateliners:
Sounds like 70s Cambodian pop. When I hear Joe Meek I think, Timbaland who? If only Meek would've stuck around long enough to record with Beyonce. They would give a whole new meaning to great bottom end. Alas, the world can only sustain so many "king's of men" at once.
Anyway, the Fascinations next single was "Tears in my Eyes." It failed to do much and ABC dropped them soon after.
When, in 1966, Mayfield formed his own label (Mayfield) he focused on pushing the Fascinations. The first release was the song "Say It Isn't So." It was a hit in Chicago but failed nationally.
Their next single, "Girls Are Out to Get You," was their one bona fide hit, reaching #13 on the R&B charts, and scraping the pop charts. In the early seventies the song was a hit in the UK, inspiring a brief Fascinations reunion for an overseas tour.
The b-side is one of my favorite Fascinations tunes. I've been listening to it on repeat for the last few days. When I played it for the ol' GF, she looked totally bored and said "I always forget you like this kind of music." So I guess it's not for everyone.
If you like what you hear, an out-of-print compilation is posted over at the blog Soulful Divas ---> HERE
