Sunday Edition vol. 2: Flyer Art from the Archives

[For your Sunday afternoon reading and/or viewing pleasure, we present vol.2 of THE SUNDAY EDITION at Music for closetLames. A bit of this, a bit that, maybe art, whatev's. May include contributions from friends, associates, accomplices, not to exclude detractors, and maybe even us sometimes. So, kick back and dig in...]

 Byline: Sammy Salazar

 I have been doing gig flyers and posters for my bands (including but not limited to Decembers Child, Bigger Than God, Anonymous Beef, closetLames, Leather Pills, Solar Maximum...) since i began gigging in H-Town in the mid 1980's and straight thru my continued years in the SF bay area. I uploaded a bunch of them to gigposters.com some years ago and just found the link recently. I will be uploading more soon to fill out the collection, but in the mean time, take a look at these gems...

Dispatch 29: SMDS Booty-Shakin' with "Sammy daBass" Dirty Single!!

Dispatch 29: The Solar Maximum and DS Peligro collabo SMDS is at it again with a little experimental funkay bizznezzzz! Busting thru genres and the ages, Sammy daBass (the New York Dirty No Soap Mix!) has a funky old school booty-shakin' hip hop feel with a cool modern sound.  DS produced this track straight over the top! Its available for just $1 at our Bandcamp page. Enjoy. Introducing SMDS...we will seeya at da club...

                                   

Dispatch 28: DS Peligro Track Featured at CaliperMusic Blog!

DS Peligro

Dispatch 28: Always nice to announce that Caliper Music has featured another MCL artist as the daily feature on the blog. This time around its experimental sound addict DS Peligro and his track "One Minute Funk" (which actually clocks in at 4:44 but hey, are we splittin hairs here?...). A super quirky track that makes you feel good.
So much more over at his soundcloud page. Headphones on, volume up, enjoy! ...Always on Music for closetLames.

Sunday Edition, Vol. 1: Conversation on the subject of The Fall

[For your Sunday afternoon reading pleasure, we present the first volume of THE SUNDAY EDITION at Music for closetLames. A bit of this, a bit that, may include writing from friends, associates, accomplices, not to exclude detractors, and maybe even us sometimes. So, kick back and dig in...]

CONVERSATION on the subject of THE FALL.
Byline: John Middle, Oakland, CALIFORNIA

My old friend Tim Ascough recently regaled me with a dense and expectorant sodden missive on the subject of his intense loathing of THE FALL. As a long time FALL fan I have been made aware of such feeling many times before by many people from many different walks of life. Particularly in the early 80's (when I was initially developing my appreciation of their music) I found myself on the receiving end of negative feedback ranging in tone from incredulous and disbelieving to hostile and annoyed upon playing THE FALL or bringing them up in conversation. Certainly I was never taken aback as THE FALL have a sound and musical angle that can only be described as difficult, abtruse, challenging, ramshackle, cacaphonic and so on ... and so on. Mark E Smith, THE FALL's only permanent fixture at this juncture has a vocal style that de-emphasizes range and key by way of skewing more in the direction of squeaks, mumbles, hard consonants and hard-talk. I generally assumed that I would be alone in my affinity with their din. Back then THE FALL as a band were not considered "cool" at any level. Mark E Smith was considered an annoying but persistent fixture on the "scene" by most. The band dressed "wrong". Their Link Wray/Beefheart/Van Der Graaf Generator/Iggy Pop/CAN/FAUST/Velvet Underground/Country and "Northern" influences were over most peoples heads. They slagged off your favorite band without hesitation in the media...etc etc. When you met folks who were into THE FALL back then you came across a certain type of music fan. 'Committed' in a word. The type of music fan who understood that great music is oftentimes only revealed as such by way of repeated listening. You have to 'earn' the privilege. FALL fans loved the 'differences' they heard....Wrong notes over right 'business as usual' notes. THE FALL are about uncompromising vision in combination with committed creative execution. THE FALL for a huge portion of their career pursued these qualities in the face of overwhelming commercial disdain and public disinterest. Mark E Smith is certainly a known and respected cultural renegade THESE days. The dogged persistence that has characterized his 'career' in its entirety has paid off ultimately. The last 5 years have been good to him at a public level. Vindication... Lets not forget though that THE FALL have been in business since 1977. They have completed 25 original albums. They have released 50 singles. They have issued 50 live and compilation albums. Mark was a dock worker prior to being in the band. He believes in hard graft and testicular fortitude. '' Nothing has happened since 1977 to STOP Mark from 'doing his thing'.....Of course the truth is that his experience in the biz has been rife with the typical (and at times uber-typical) challenging situations and problems. He has endured thirty years worth of such moments to state the obvious. Throughout, he has kept rolling ever onwards. We are after all talking about the music business....SHOW BUSINESS. Mark has evidently faced down the type of 'shit' that stops most bands in their tracks by album 3 if they are lucky AND determined. THE FALL are of Mancunian stock and represent the grit and "no mithering please" nature of the place to the core. Personally, I am into the idea of having a strong 'work ethic', be it in music, art, sport or whatever. Hard work is tough to ignore or downplay ... It can't be "bullshitted" if you know what I mean. It resonates. What about the music? Well .... you develop your craft thru repetition right? THE FALL have gone thru a lot of repetition. The craft is accordingly in good shape. Its not the typical 'craft' mind you. It is born of a contrary nature. It is about the advantages of making music while NOT being a musician. I DON'T SING I JUST SHOUT .....ALL ON ONE NOTE....SING SING SING SING.....LOOK AT ME I JUST STING......YOUR HEART OUT. Mark is in his 50's these days. Listen to his last three albums and see if you can pick up on a softening of his approach to creating music. NO NOSTALGIA resides therein. Instead you will find odd and unique sounds and noises. Techno synths in rockabilly shirts. Industrial grind in cod-cabaret sequins. Punk meets APHEX TWIN by way of a detour through a ROCHDALE working mans club. FOOTBALL HOOLIGAN ANTHEMS and freestyle crap-raps. His hips may have proven fragile but his ears are those of an athletic elephant, greedily filtering the RIGHT frequencies for the NEW sounds to add to the OLD new sounds. Head music with energy. VALUES and having an ANGLE. No love songs..... Mark like myself would rather read a HORROR STORY. The Mills and Boones preoccupation of modern pop music is somewhat narrow right???? RIGHT? What if we make the atmospheric presence of a song its HOOK? BAD DRUGS and PARANOIA. BACK STABBING and RIP-OFFERY. Y'know life....... Thats without going into the BAD stuff. The 'wirey' out of tune guitars that chicken scratch at your psyche. The "drums being kicked down the staircase" BIG BEAT.....Gary Glitter meets JAMES BROWN uptown. The purposefuly anemic but HUGE and turgid bass undulations. ONE NOTE SOLOS. Mark scratching on the microphone so that it sounds like someone or something is trying to scrape its way OUT OF YOUR SPEAKERS upon playback. LO FI NO FI .....RIGHT FI.....FEE FI thumbed noses. "TURN THOSE BLOODY SPACE INVADERS OFF - UHHH" ... keyboard tone setting. And to top it off......from my perspective at least the funniest and most interesting lyrics in modern music. BOB DYLAN FANS TAKE ELEVATOR TO 13th floor AND EXIT THIS DIATRIBE BY WAY OF WINDOW PLEASE.... An example of this lyrical prowess......I could pick any of a thousand. Check this one out for example..... It's about methedrine related insomnia....squalid ciity living...creeping paranoia and worry. Such that you cannot....WALK THE FLOOR AT NIGHT IN PEACE. Pacing the floor y'gedditt? Such conditions must be the fault of another.....CITY HOBGOBLINS perchance??? CITY HOBGOBLINS Spiders know these things Gremlins know these things Tap, tap, tap, tap You think it's the pipes But who turns on the lights? Our city hobgoblins Ubu le Roi is a home hobgoblin at night always ready. City hobgoblins Infest my home at night They are not alright Ten times my age One-tenth my height Our city hobgoblins Buzz of the all-night mill Ah but evil Emigres from old green glades Pretentious eh? Our city hobgoblins They'll get yer I saw Queen Victoria on the back of a large black slug Where? in Piccadilly, Manchester Our city hobgoblins They stay I say We cannot walk the floor at night in peace At night in peace At night in peace ME NOW.....So in closing I leave you with this thought. Tim knows his music. He perhaps makes several good points about MARK. He is undoubtedly a man with a strong sense of self. He may well have a large ego. He is unruly, disagreeable and contrarian in nature it would seem. I have never properly met the man so can't really be the judge of such matters. His empirical history provides us with one obvious elemental truth about Mr. Smith. He is a survivor. Plain and simple. In my view.... He is a working class success story from Manchester who succeeded through bloody minded persistence and self-belief. Begrudge him or commend him...Your choice. MARK COULD NOT CARE LESS either way I imagine. A genius ????? God knows. HIP PRIEST? (stolen from Burroughs...notebooks out plagiarists) No such thing. A haggard "speedy" snaggle toothed POET LAUREATE for the terminally disenfranchised. YES... I believe so. and a lot more besides when you really get into it....

Dispatch 27: MCL Welcomes DS Peligro to the label!

Dispatch 27: We are beyond excited to welcome DS Peligro to the ever-dysfunctional Music for closetLames family! From the moment we made contact via the mysterious ways of the internet (soundcloud in particular) we knew we had found a gem, a kindred spirit.
 A self-described AUDIO ADDICT!!! DS is legit from the start. As a kid in the early 70s he was recording everything from toilet flushes to construction sites to the bass guitar he pulled out of the garbage. And then layering sounds on an old reel-to-reel he salvaged from a fire.
At age 10 his dad gave him a CB Radio which he used to harrass local CBers with his very first radio program  "The Bubba Jones Show." Despite threats and near-constant attempts to triangulate his position, he was never discovered.  Then he moved on to dubbing cassettes and taping them to telephone poles. He was leaving them on the counters at local record stores.
In the early 80s, DS was quickly accepted into the tiny dark underground art scene. He had a 'highly unusual' setup of tape machines, effects units, a cheap synthesizer, and electric bass and one cymbal. His sound was raw, twisted, loud and distorted - so much so that he was often ushered out, and sometimes forcibly ejected from his own performances!
The late 80s were a mash-up of drugs, home recording, confusion, pirate radio (transmitted from his Mazda), and countless failed romances. Since then he's worked doing location sound and restoration for adult films, for radio stations (MARS FM 103.1), tv stations (KCBS, KTLA), and LA Theatre Works,
And he just can't stop! He's still recording!
 So head on over to his soundcloud page and take it all in! The quality and the pace of his output is stunning. Lots to hear. We will be including a couple DS Peligro tracks on our 2016 Music for closetLames sampler along with Her Majesty TheE Spleen, Palace Catfight, closetLames, Leather Pills and Solar Maximum. This year is gonna be hot!

Dispatch 26: First Solar Max and Trauma Collabo made Available!

Dispatch 26: We are very happy to announce a new collaboration project with sound artist Trauma in Germany. We met on Soundcloud and were instantly mutual fans. Trauma's offerings are a bit more electronically based than Solar Max and so we thought it might lead to a cool mashup! It has! Here is the first part of said mashup! Birthday Party is now beating like a heart! Trauma employs the Kaossilator on this exclusively. Take a listen and let us know what you think! More to come soon!

Dispatch 25: HMS Video Featured at CaliperMusic Blog!

John and Sammy of HMS.

Dispatch 25: We are very excited that the video for Her Majesty theE Spleen's track called Aunt Anxious was the featured video of the day on the CaliperMusic blog last Sat. Feb 6, 2016. John Middle of the Spleen (and ACME House of Music in Oakland) is at it again with some really intense psychedelic visuals accompanying the track recorded in early Jan. at HMS HQ by Emery Bored. There sure is plenty more where that came from on his Youtube channel and also here at soundcloud!
 Look out for some Her Majesty theE Spleen hitting the MCL bandcamp page later in the year.

Dispatch 24: Solar Max at Bay Area Band Show

Dispatch 24: Waking up to the sun shining brightly and the birds'a singing, we thought what a cool way to spend this afternoon, heading across the San Francisco bay to record a podcast with Steve O'Sullivan and his Bay Area Band Show, www.thebayareabandshow.com
  We talked about all kinds of stuff from what got us into music to how we make this music, technically speaking. Also touched on a bunch of other things that we have going on with the band, the album and the record label.
 Steve has been a huge fan of music his whole life, and as he was wondering how he could pursue these musical fascinations for himself and his children, his podcast was born. He doesn't play an instrument or sing but he does have the curiosity bug and the love of music. So the connection. The bridge. The Bay Area Band Show. Artists love to talk about ourselves and our projects and Steve loves to listen and learn! A match made in his garage studio. We talked for about an hour then wrapped it up. We are only his third band to come in and chat and he's in the process of putting a few podcasts together before going live on iTunes. We can't wait, Steve!

 He's also interested in talking with anyone about possibly being on his show so if you're interested, hit him up at steve@thebayareabandshow.com, he would dig that!