THE PANDA BEAR YOU NEVER KNEW

Here's Noah Lennox (aka Panda Bear) of Animal Collective in his first starring "film" role. Poor guy'll never be able to live this one down...

BAND OF HORSES @ HIGHER GROUND


Band of Horses, whose album "Everything All The Time" was one of the most raved about debuts of last year, will be playing at Higher Ground on August 9th. Get your tickets here.

SPITTING OUT TEETH DOWNLOAD OF THE WEEK


Les Rallizes Denudes, "'77 Live"

DISC 1: hxxxp://www.mediafire.com/?83vyrvamtyc

DISC 2: hxxxp://www.mediafire.com/?7ehk2kmnmon

As always, turn the "xxx"'s to "tt"'s (hehe...XXX tt's...naughty...)

JB, this is the album I was trying to tell you about the other day at Radio Bean...hopefully this is more helpful than my "Japanese Velvet Underground" description....

THE LANDLORD

Laughed my ass of at this today; the "landlord" is Will Ferrell's real-life daughter.



Is it just me or this oddly Lynchian?

OKKERVIL RIVER @ HIGHER GROUND


Hasn't been announced on the Higher Ground website yet, but indie-folkies Okkervil River will be playing there on September 24th, according to their tour schedule. Looks like the start of the fall return to good music at the Ground, following the usual summer schedule of mediocre jam bands and dad rock.

DAFT PUNK, "HARDER, BETTER, FASTER STRONGER" VIDEO

Proof that a great idea, lots of practice and a budget of less than $20 can be the formula for a great music video. Don't get disillusioned by the slow opening; the "action" doesn't start until 51 seconds in.

PATTI SMITH "SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT" VIDEO

The music video for Patti Smith's cover of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit", directed by one of my favorite filmmakers Jem Cohen--

SPITTING OUT TEETH DOWNLOADS

BYRON MORRIS & UNITY, "Blow Thru Your Mind"

Reissue of the lost classic independent Jazz record, Byron Morris and Unity's "Blow Thru Your Mind", originally released in the USA in 1974. Unity was formed with similar values, aims and objectives to many other spiritually conscious groups at the time, as the name suggests. Uniquely, it managed to match the musical and spiritual searching of John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders and Ornette Coleman alongside an equally experimental New York art-music dimension that was brought into the group by vocalist Jay Clayton, who had performed with, amongst many others, Steve Reich. With bassist Milton Suggs having played in Sun Ra's Arkestra, and Byron Morris having studied with Ornette Coleman and Rahsaan Roland Kirk, it is possible to see the musical path that makes up "Kitty Bey", twelve minutes of musical intensity, that sounds like nothing else ever recorded.

Byron Morris first appeared on Soul Jazz Records earlier "Universal Sounds Of America" compilation along with music by Sun Ra, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Pharoah Sanders and Steve Reid. Originally released on Unity's own EPI label and distributed by hand, this record has remained an underground classic recording for over 25 years.

hxxp://www.mediafire.com/?8mji1xdlmhg

MY BABY IS 7 MONTHS OLD TOMORROW


I dug through the archives tonight for the first time in quite a while and realized that tomorrow is the 7 month anniversary of the inception of Spitting Out Teeth! I guess I probably should have waited for the one-year anniversary to make a bunch of hoopla, but so much has happened in this short period that I felt like celebrating now.

I hope you all have enjoyed the blog so far; I know there have been some ups and downs & lags here and there, but I hope you've had fun reading my ramblings and downloading some good music and films and playing trivia (which I apologize for not doing lately, and doubly apologize to the last winners who haven't received their prizes yet--rest assured I am going to Pure Pop tomorrow to buy the gift certificates!) and other stuff.

Most of all, I just want to thank all of you for reading and those of you who have gotten to know me outside of this blog. As much as I respect you via virtual presence through your writing & ideas, you are all even more intelligent & funny & exciting people in "real" life. I've met a lot of really amazing people through this blog--JB, Tanner, Casey, Greg, Ben, Toby, Sara-Paule, Eva, Molly, Gahlord...and several I'm probably forgetting. It's amazing and wonderful that what started as an almost personal diary of my interests turned into a place where I've been able to meet such incredibly talented and interesting people. Sorry to get all mushy, but it's been great to get to know you all.

All right, this is starting to sound like a eulogy, and Spitting Out Teeth is far from being dead. I have some big plans for the near future (including buying the http://www.spittingoutteeth.com domain name!) so keep visiting--I promise to keep it interesting.

SPITTING OUT TEETH (MID)WEEKLY DOWNLOADS

Ok, there's too much good music out there to only do this once a week. So here are a couple of my favorite finds for this week--

ALHAJI BAI KONTE, Kora Melodies from Gambia, 1973


hxxp://www.sendspace.com/file/lk27je

STENIO MENDES, Self-titled, 1980


hxxp://www.sendspace.com/file/26wf1b

PATTON OSWALT, "WEREWOLVES & LOLLIPOPS", 2007 (Not out yet; if you enjoy it, buy it when it comes out later this summer & you'll get a bonus DVD!)


hxxp://www.mediafire.com/?32dwyyu5bb3

MASTERPIECE ROCK ALBUMS BASHED (BY MEDIOCRE TALENTS IN TODAY'S MUSIC INDUSTRY)

Ok, it's back to music; sorry for my brief political tangent. Check out this article from The Guardian, where musicians, producers & critics put down some of popular music's most cherished albums. Usually I don't dig these little gimmick articles, but it takes some balls (or a tremendous ego; not sure which yet) to be in a flash-in-the-pan band and put yourself head on the proverbial chopping block by badmouthing "Pet Sounds", "Nevermind", "Dark Side of the Moon", "VU & Nico", etc. Enjoy!

Oh yeah, Here's the original article if you'd rather read it there.

Sgt Pepper must die!

Ever get the feeling you've been cheated? It's meant to be a classic album, but all you can hear is a load of boring tripe ... we've all felt that way. And so have the musicians we asked to nominate the supposedly great records they'd gladly never hear again

Interviews by Paul Lester
Friday June 15, 2007
The Guardian

Tupac Shakur All Eyez On Me
Nominated by Mark Ronson, producer

This was Tupac's biggest record, and is seen by rap fans as the greatest latterday hip-hop album. But I've never got the cult of Tupac. Sure, he was in a lot of pain but he never said anything particularly clever - Notorious B.I.G. was far superior. People really related to the emotion in his voice, but it didn't resonate with me. No one would doubt Tupac's "realness" - he was shot nine times, for God's sake, and he began recording this album hours after being released from prison - but it doesn't compare to Biggie. Dr Dre produced it, and I didn't rate his production, either.

Article continues
Problem was, Tupac was so prolific. He would write 50 songs in a weekend. Maybe he knew he was going to die, so he recorded relentlessly. I bought it at the time because it had one song on it that I'd play in clubs, but one out of 20 isn't great. In fact, there are 27 tracks on it - it started the trend of putting loads of songs on rap albums. Tupac wasn't up there with Dylan - Dylan was a brilliant poet. Eminem is probably the Dylan of rap, whereas Tupac just sounded like he was whining.

Nirvana, Nevermind
Nominated by Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips

It's better to be overrated than underrated. Besides, it's not the musicians' fault Nevermind is overrated - it's the public's, or the critics'. But you don't find yourself ever longing to listen to it, because there were - still are, in fact - so many mediocre bands that sound like it, that you're constantly experiencing it. I never get out Nevermind and think: what great production, what great songs. Nevermind had a poisonous, pernicious influence. It legitimised suffering. The sainthood of Kurt Cobain overshadows the album: Kurt's lyrics, his attitudinising and navel-gazing, were hard to separate from the band's image. You can never just hear the record. For me, Bleach and In Utero are superior. Even the album cover seems cheap: that stupid dollar bill just seems to have been airbrushed in there. If Alice in Chains had done it, we'd have thought it was a joke, but because it was Nirvana we thought it was oh-so-clever. If you think you're going to hear an utterly original, powerful and freaky record when you put on Nevermind, as a young kid might, Christ you're going to be disappointed. You're going to think, "Who is this band that sounds just like Nickelback? What are these drug addicts going on about?"

The Beach Boys, Pet Sounds
Nominated by Luke Pritchard of the Kooks

Of all the albums that get written about as "classics", this one least deserves it. Having said that, it contains one of the greatest songs ever written: God Only Knows, which is melancholic yet uplifting, pure yet fucked-up. But the rest of the record is a total let-down - I felt that way from the very first listen. Pet Sounds is a million miles away from Sgt Pepper or Dark Side of the Moon. I do appreciate the lyrics, and I know it's an album about getting older, but as a concept album, it doesn't quite add up. Good tunes, yes - Wouldn't It Be Nice is a great pop song - but most of the other tracks just don't resonate for me. I apologise unreservedly to everyone who loves every word and note, every last crackle, on this album, but that's how it is. Oh, and it's got the worst sleeve of any major album, ever. Feeding time at the zoo? I don't think so.

The Stone Roses, The Stone Roses
Nominated by Eddie Argos of Art Brut

They're totally overrated. Plus they covered Scarborough Fair. I don't understand why people still play their music in nightclubs - it makes me really angry. When I'm drunk in a club I usually end up arguing with the DJ who's playing them. The Stone Roses were an awful, awful band. They were uncharismatic, their lyrics are nonsensical and their music is dreary. Also, we have them to thank for Oasis, although at least Noel Gallagher is funny and Liam is a bit of a pop star. The Roses make me think of kids older than me swaggering around with bowl haircuts and affecting Manchester accents. It makes my skin crawl. And all their fans are so smug: "Oh, you don't understand it." I do understand it! It's ridiculous that it regularly gets voted in at the top of those "greatest British album ever" polls. They spawned a new thug-boy pop culture.

The Strokes, Is This It
Nominated by Ian Williams of Battles

The Strokes were just rich kids from uptown New York; the children of the heads of supermodel agencies who formed a rock band and thought they deserved respect because of that. Suddenly the downtown, older form of punk rock got co-opted by the system. If ever there was a point where Gucci and rebellion were married together, it was right there. The Strokes have, basically, been responsible for five or six years of a new form of hair metal, in the guise of something more tasteful. Their music is post-9/11 party music because it came out that week and everybody wanted to dance. They're seen as the rebirth of rock in the UK - but it's a very conservative, old-fashioned idea of rock for the 21st century. As for their punk credentials, I'm not going to say anyone's more authentic than anyone else ... But the Strokes are the new Duran Duran; the new decadence for the new millennium.

Television, Marquee Moon
Nominated by Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand

People expect us to love Television the way they think we love Gang of Four and were influenced by them - but we don't and we weren't! Marquee Moon is one of those records that I thought I loved, but it was only after a few years I realised I didn't love the album, just the first 10 bars of the title track, which are pretty astonishing. Those guitars that play off each other and the way the instruments go into wonderful places and the guitars are totally insane and that big cascade of drums - it's incredible. Then your attention wanders. You know when a boring guy is explaining to you the technical spec of a car, the fuel injection system and the leather seats, and his voice becomes so much background noise? Once I took the needle off this record, I realised I hadn't heard it at all. But what annoys me is the way people pontificate over the album; it's one of those staples of student halls of residence. People wax lyrical about it, but the reason it's so popular is because it's a prog rock album its okay to like. Because the words "punk" and "New York" and "1977" are associated with it, it's deemed cool. Really, though, they're a band who give guys who like 20-minute guitar solos an excuse. They were the Grateful Dead of punk, and I always hated all that jam-band stuff. They have the ethos of a jam-band but the aesthetic of a New York outfit. If anything, the Strokes took the look of Television, the aesthetic - and the Converse sneakers - and ignored the jam-band aspect. They took those first 10 bars of Marquee Moon and did something great with it! Tom Verlaine's lyrics didn't have much impact on me. I'm always uneasy when singers in bands profess to be poets - they can veer into pomposity and pretentiousness. But I've got to be careful: I once said something about Jim Morrison and the Doors, about their pseudo-poetry, and immediately all these articles on the internet appeared saying, "Kapranos slams Morrison!" I'm not slamming Television - I respect them. But Marquee Moon is an album I admire more than enjoy.

The Beatles, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Nominated by Billy Childish, prime mover of British garage rock

I was a big Beatles fan - I had a Beatles wig and Beatles guitar when I was four - so I know what I'm talking about, but Sgt Pepper signalled the death of rock'n'roll. Rock'n'roll is meant to be full of vitality and energy, and this album isn't. It sounds like it took six months to shit out. The Beatles were the victims of their success. This is middle-of-the-road rock music for plumbers. Or people who drive round in Citroens - the sort of corporate hippies who ruined rock music. I bought it the day it came out: it was ideal for a seven-year-old. These days, well, it's my contention that it represents the death of the Beatles as a rock'n'roll band and the birth of them as music hall, which is hardly a victory. The main problem with Sgt Pepper is Sir Paul's maudlin obsession with his own self-importance and Dickensian misery. (Paul McCartney is the dark one in the Beatles, not John Lennon, because he writes such depressing, scary music.) It's like a Sunday before school that goes on forever. It's too dark and twisted for anyone with any light in their life. Then again, when he tries to be upbeat, it rings false - like having a clown in the room. The best thing about the album was the cardboard insert with some medals, a badge and a moustache. But the military jackets they wore on the front made them look like a bunch of grammar-school boys dressed by their mummy. When I was in Thee Mighty Caesars we did a rip-off of the sleeve for an album called John Lennon's Corpse Revisited, featuring the Beatles' heads on stakes. This isn't the greatest album ever made; in fact, it's the worst Beatles album up to that point. Live at the Star Club trounces it with ease.

Abba, Arrival
Nominated by Siobhan Donaghy, former Sugababe turned solo artist

I love the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Burt Bacharach, all those great pop melody-writers, but there's something about Abba that I hate. Maybe it's going to parties with shit DJs for most of my childhood that has made me hate them. Abba were forced on people from my generation, so there's a natural resentment towards them. Through my mum I discovered Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix, and if I'd done that with Abba maybe I'd have appreciated their brilliant pop songs. On Arrival, the particularly annoying songs are Dancing Queen, Knowing, Me Knowing You and Money, Money, Money. And if we're talking about the reissue, you can add Fernando. Nick Hornby may well say they're part of the canon now, but I still don't have to listen to them. Yes, they wrote some of the catchiest melodies of all time. But then, The Birdie Song is catchy, too.

Arcade Fire The Neon Bible
Nominated by Green Gartside of Scritti Politti

People who enjoy this album may think I'm cloth-eared and unperceptive, and I accept it's the result of my personal shortcomings, but what I hear in Arcade Fire is an agglomeration of mannerisms, cliches and devices. I find it solidly unattractive, texturally nasty, a bit harmonically and melodically dull, bombastic and melodramatic, and the rhythms are pedestrian. It's monotonous in its textures and in the old-fashioned, nasty, clunky 80s rhythms and eighth-note basslines. It isn't, as people are suggesting, richly rewarding and inventive. The melodies stick too closely to the chord changes. Win Butler's voice uses certain stylistic devices - it goes wobbly and shouty, then whispery - and I guess people like wobbly and shouty going to whispery, they think it signifies real feeling. It's some people's idea of unmediated emotion. I can imagine Jeremy Clarkson liking it; it's for people in cars. It's rather flat and unlovely. The album and the response to it represent a bunch of beliefs about expression and truth that I don't share. The battle against unreconstructed rock music continues.

Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon
Nominated by Tjinder Singh of Cornershop

This album is a sort of lab experiment, put together by scarf-wearing university types. There's a certain irony in a song like Money that takes pot-shots at greedy corporations, when this album made so much money. There's also irony in these super-wealthy elite prog musicians positing themselves against The Man, having a go at the machine. The light shows, all the technology and white-coated technicians at their disposal, make them very much part of the machine. I appreciated the early stuff Pink Floyd did with Joe Boyd, but this is a bloated concept album that made punk necessary. It says, "What a crazy world it is!" and "Everyone's demented!" It's meant to be imbued with the spirit of Syd Barrett, God rest his soul. I'm amazed that it's up there in the pantheon, because I can't see any virtue in it whatsoever. Lyrically, it's banal and doesn't say anything beyond "greed is bad". Radiohead are the 21st-century Floyd, which says it all really.

The Doors LA Woman
Nominated by Craig Finn of the Hold Steady

In America when you're growing up, you're subjected to the Doors as soon as you start going to parties and smoking weed. People think of Jim Morrison as a brilliant rock'n'roll poet, but to me it's unlistenable. The music meanders, and Morrison was more like a drunk asshole than an intelligent poet. The worst of the worst is the last song, Riders on the Storm: "There's a killer on the road/ His brain is squirming like a toad" - that's surely the worst line in rock'n'roll history. He gave the green light to generations of pseuds. A lot of people told him he was a genius, so he started to believe it. The Velvets did nihilism and darkness so much better - they were so much more understated; what they did had subtlety, whereas the Doors had little or none: they were a caricature of "the dark side". I actually like Los Angeles, but the Doors represent the city at its most fat, bloated and excessive. Morrison's death does give rock some mythic kudos, but that doesn't make me want to listen to the music. In fact, if it comes on the radio, I change the station.

The Smiths Meat Is Murder
Nominated by Jackie McKeown of 1990s

I'm a Smiths fan and I like most of their records, but this is the weakest link in the canon. With the debut and The Queen Is Dead, you could cut up Morrissey's lyrics and they could be pages from the same book. For Meat Is Murder, he seemed to make a list of topics to write about. It was a protest album, which defeats the idea of Morrissey as romantic. The cool-guy cover with Meat Is Murder written on his helmet rams it down your throat. The title track is offensive, not least because of the loud, gated drums and 80s production that you get on Huey Lewis and the News records. Morrissey was obviously suffering from a loss of nerve or lack of faith when he wrote these songs. It took him years to write the first album in his bedroom. By the second album, he started panicking and pointing fingers at teachers at school and thinking up things like, "Oh, meat is murder and, oh, we're going to get attacked by thugs in Rusholme." Barbarism Begins at Home is where the Smiths betray their jazz-funk session-guy roots; it's absolutely treacherous to listen to, even if it was brilliant fun to record. You can just see the rolled-up jacket sleeves. It's everything Morrissey hated. Meat Is Murder is Red Wedge music for sexless students. It's like being stuck in a lift with a Manchester University Socialist Workers' Party convention.

Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band Trout Mask Replica
Nominated by Peter Hook, ex-New Order and Joy Division

Steve Morris, New Order's drummer, was a great fan of his, but Beefheart was one of those things I found unlistenably boring. I desperately wanted to like it because Steve loved it so much, but I had to admit defeat. Ian Curtis found it easier to convert us to the Doors, put it that way. Trout Mask wasn't a work of untutored genius, it was untutored crap. When you're beginning as a musician, people try to educate you with music like this, but I never understood the allure of Captain Beefheart. I certainly didn't last all four sides. There are very few records I gave up on, apart from Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music and Trout Mask Replica. It sounded like somebody taking the piss. But then, I've never been a great fan of jazz, and this erred on the selfish side of jazz. It sounds like you feel when you've taken the wrong drugs, like going to your mate's dope party on speed. I'd listen to it with my head in my hands. Trout Mask was highly regarded by post-punk bands because of its idiosyncratic approach to rhythm and song construction - but those bands were full of shit, weren't they? I wouldn't have put it at the front of my record pile to impress people; it would have been at the back with my Alvin Stardust and Bay City Rollers records that they sent me from the record club I belonged to at the time. These days, I would rather listen to the Bay City Rollers than Beefheart.

What kind of heathen dislikes the Velvet Underground and Nico?
Novelist and music lover Ian Rankin gives his reasons

This is a sacred cow but that doesn't mean it can't be turned into hamburger. You can start before you even listen to the music. The front of the album bears the name Andy Warhol and a yellow banana - there's no mention of the band whatsoever. The back of the album says it was produced by Andy Warhol alongside the Velvets, so straight away I'm annoyed. It's one of the worst-produced albums of all time - put it on a modern hi-fi and you'll think: this sounds like shit. It's muddy, the volume comes and goes, the guitars are all out of tune, as is the viola. John Cale is one of the great Welshmen, but the viola on Venus In Furs sounds like a Tom and Jerry sound effect. And Nico's voice is flat throughout - she sings English the way I sing German. Talk about looks being everything: she was a supermodel trying to sing in a rock band, but she couldn't sing - she gave good dirge.

It all flags up that the Velvet Underground were just part of Warhol's circus, his Factory; just another product. Once you start thinking about the Velvets being part of that, the notion of them waiting around for the man is ludicrous. As far as introducing the idea of nihilism to rock, the first Doors album, which came out the same year, was far better produced, far darker, and more nihilistic. Ditto the first Mothers of Invention album. Those two were from the west coast; the Velvets were from New York. And this was New York trying too hard. There's a line in Venus in Furs about "ermine furs adorn imperious". Those are four words that should never appear in a rock song and here they are put together. And the last two tracks are completely unlistenable: The Black Angel's Death Song and European Son, which constitute 11 minutes and one fifth of the album.

Nevertheless, as Brian Eno said, almost no one bought this album but the ones who did put a band together, so it was important - as the beginning of the black raincoat brigade.

THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE


I designed Spitting Out Teeth as a music & film blog and while I throw in the occasional silly YouTube video, I go out of my way to keep it limited to the arts. And while I try my best to keep politics and current events off of here, sometimes I'm just going to need to rant about something in the news and today is one of them.

Like everyone who owns a TV or radio and doesn't live in a cave, I couldn't help but passively follow the ups and downs of the Duke Lacrosse rape case. Having not followed it very closely however, it seemed to me lately like it went from an accusation to a fake accusation, with the accused exhonerated by the courts, the media and their peers. And, just today, settling with the University for an "undisclosed sum". Which I'm sure wasn't paltry by any means

However, it was the recent backlash against the North Carolina DA in the case, Mike Nifong, that has made me revisit the case over the past few days to analyze what really happened. And, like everyone else in the case, I'm still not exactly sure. But from what I can gather, these "men" (while not guilty under North Carolina law) are far from innocent. From what I can gather, these little slimeballs are getting the hero's treatment in exchange for an opportunity to clear its name and at the expense of an overzealous state prosecutor and a young woman who's life has been ruined.

While the prim-and-proper little yuppies pictured above are being portrayed as having been just the victim's of lies and slander, check out this explanation of why the charges were dropped--

A charge of first-degree forcible rape was dropped in December after the 28-year-old accuser told prosecutors she could no longer testify that she had been penetrated with a penis, one of the defining factors of rape under North Carolina law.

(CNN.COM)

So rape = penis, huh? So what does a group of men holding a woman down & forcing foreign objects into her genitalia constitute? Just good ol' fashioned Dixieland fun? Read on.

The facts as recounted by the police affidavit could hardly be more sordid. The stripper—whose name has been withheld but who told The (Raleigh) News & Observer that she is a student at a local black college and a mother of two—says she was hired by some Duke students to dance, along with another stripper, at a small house just off the Duke campus. They had just begun their performance when the men became "excited and aggressive." According to Nifong, one of the players called out, "Did you bring any sex toys?" When the women answered no, a man said, "That's OK, we'll just use a broom." Frightened, the strippers ran outside to their car. One of the men followed and coaxed one of the women to come back in. When she did, she told police, she was forced into a bathroom and held down while three men forced her to have sex. According to Nifong, she claimed that the men robbed her and that she broke off several fake fingernails clawing one of her attackers.

The other woman was waiting outside in the car. As the two sped off, a neighbor heard one of the boys yelling out, "Hey b----, thank your grandpa for my nice cotton shirt!" The neighbor, Jason Bissey, says that before the woman went back inside, he heard one of the partygoers repeating urgently, "Guys, let's go." He also says the party broke up within five minutes after the women left. The women did not call 911. Rather, a security guard at a grocery store called police to report that one of the women, apparently intoxicated or disoriented, was sitting in a car in the parking lot.

The police took her to the hospital where, according to D.A. Nifong, a nurse concluded that the stripper had suffered injuries consistent with a sexual assault. Two days later, police showed up at the house with a search warrant. According to the police report, they found some evidence that sounds incriminating, including five fake fingernails, the woman's makeup bag and ID, and $160 in cash.

(MSNBC.COM)

So...physical evidence of sexual assault, harassment, threats of sexual violence with a broomstick, racist comments. Even if these little bastards didn't "rape" this woman (in North Carolina's backwards perspective) they are probably guilty of sexual assault, intimidation and various hate crimes. But I'm certainly not holding my breath to see them brought up on any of these charges, as the pressure by the university, the N.C. DA's office & their rich white parents would make it a career deathwish for any prosecutor to take on the case. The smiling little brats in the picture above have literally gotten a "Get Out of Jail Free" card, certainly not the first or last they'll receive in their privileged, decadent little lives.

And if anyone still thinks that race and class don't have everything to do with it, think again. This is truly a modern-day Hattie Carroll story, yet another poor black woman who will never see justice against the rich, white predators who victimized her due to loopholes, technicalities, good ol' boy cronyism, high-priced lawyers, politics and deep-set Southern racism. I can guarantee you that had this been a rich, white blonde-haired southern belle mother of two cherubic Aryan children, this case would still be ongoing.

Instead, we have a woman who will be spending the rest of her life in fear, condemned by her community, distrustful of the legal system and concepts such as "justice", all the while with two young children to raise who will probably have to struggle with living with a mother who just never seems happy and who hides her face when they walk down the street.

And someday when they're older, they'll do a Google search and find the picture of the smug white boys above, with their shit-eating grins that only the law & ethics-exempting gift of wealth can bring, and they will begin to understand why.

ALBERT AYLER "HOLY GHOST BOX SET"


Last week I received an e-mail from Borders Rewards that had a coupon for 40% off any box set. I haven't been spending as much on CD's lately and considering I probably wouldn't score a deal like this again for quite a while, I figured I'd go downtown and pick something up.

I was browsing through the box set cases and happened upon a beautiful recreation of a hand-carved spirit box. I pulled it out and realized that it was a 9-disc set of Albert Ayler rarities that covered his entire career (up until his untimely death at 34).

Sold.

Beyond the wonderful music it contained inside, I was also impressed by what a beautifu job Revenant Records did with the set. Included in the box were a 208-page hardcover book (with some amazing bios and essays), a dried flower, reproductions of Ayler letters written on hotel stationary, early photographs, repros of early jazz magazines and other goodies. Each of the CD's also came in beautiful rice paper sleeves. Very impressive; definitely the nicest box set I've ever purchased.


Here's a streaming audio review of the set on NPR--CLICK HERE

And here's a link to the set description on Revenant's website

SPITTING OUT TEETH DOWNLOAD OF THE WEEK (PT. 2)

I found this one today & couldn't wait until next week to share it. It's from 1969 and blends jazz, psychedelic rock & Indian influences. Unique but very accessible.

Baroque Jazz Trio, "BJT"


You'll need software that can handle password-protected .RAR files to open it. For Mac users, I recommend RAR Expander.

LINK TO DOWNLOAD HERE

Password: jajaah.blogspot.com

SPITTING OUT TEETH WEEKLY DOWNLOAD

Ok, the votes are in and the people have spoken--the weekly download is going to be rare albums, no films. As a man of the people, I will concede to your wishes, but the film lover in me is still going to push some great cinema on you with this week's selection.

I can remember the first time I ever got the overwhelming urge to pick up a camera and shoot a film. I was 16 years old and having raided the local Video World shelves of every Martin Scorcese and Woody Allen film they had, I turned my precocious little dilettante attention to the foreign film section. It was a huge cultural awakening to say the least, entering into completely different worlds of cinema: the existential angst of Bergman, the romantic nostalgia of Truffaut, the hip Maoism of Godard...but the film that really blew my mind and made me want to be a filmmaker was Federico Fellini's "8 1/2".

"8 1/2" was Fellini's follow-up to his hugely successful epic on the Italian cognoscenti, "La Dolce Vita". With a large budget & tremendous pressure from producers to make a follow-up hit, Fellini nearly had a nervous breakdown. Instead of throwing in the towel however, he delved inward to explore his fears, guilts, loves & joys in one of the most personal (yet, strangely, also the most universal) films he would make ("Amarcord" is another that has this trait).

If the brilliant cinematic innovations (this is the film that started the "film about film" concept, never again pulled off as well by the imitators) and gorgeous cinematography were not enough, the film also has one of the most energetic and powerful scores ever to be written. Composed by the brilliant Nino Rota (who worked with Fellini on dozens of his films), the circus-like chaos of the soundtrack matches the inner turmoil of the main character, Fellini's doppelganger Guido, as he balances the wispy daydreams and fantasies of an imaginative man-child with the panic-inducing demands of marriage, catholic guilt, artistic integrity & business.

It's a soundtrack that never ceases to fill me with a sense of nostalgia and wonder; I hope you enjoy it too.


NINO ROTA'S SOUNDTRACK TO FELLINI'S "8 1/2" - LEFT-CLICK TO ACCESS DOWNLOAD PAGE

LEAKY SMUCKERS



Well, it had to happen...the first few tracks from the new Animal Collective album, "Strawberry Jam", have leaked onto the webernet.

For all of you "pure of spirit" types, the album will be out this fall. For you curious little sinners, here's a link to three of album tracks, "Peacebone", "Chores" and "Unsolved Mysteries".

hxxp://www.mediafire.com/?c0xh10c9gvy

(just change the "xx"'s to "tt"'s. "titties" **giggle**)

PUTTING THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS TO WORK



I've been visiting a lot of sites lately that have been using MediaFile and other download sites to legally share out-of-print albums that are in the public domain. I would like to start a weekly download here at Spitting Out Teeth, but I can't decide what I want to do. So let's put it to a vote.

Would you like to see:

A) A rare, out-of-print album available for download each week (.zip file; app. 70MB)
B) An experimental or short documentary film download (.mpg file; app. 250 MB)
C) An alternating schedule, with an album available one week & a film available the next

Submit your votes for A, B or C in the comments section. Whatever gets the most votes by this weekend will determine the future of the Spitting Out Teeth Download Day. We appreciate your vote!

hxxp://www.mediafire.com/?0zgzj9imcng

(change xx's to tt's)

most of this a low-quality radio rip. if you like it, buy it when it comes out on the 19th.

SO MY BIRTHDAY IS COMING UP....


...in August. Who is going to be my best friend this year & buy me one of these--



(courtesy of Wikipedia)

The clavioline was an electronic keyboard instrument, a forerunner to the analog synthesizer.

It was invented by Constant Martin in 1947. It consists of a keyboard and a separate amplifier and speaker unit. The keyboard usually covered three octaves, and had a number of switches to alter the tone of the sound produced, add vibrato, and provide other effects. Several models were produced by different companies; among the more important were the Standard, Reverb, and Concert models by Gibson and Selmer in the 1950s. The Bode 6-octave model employed octave transposition.

Recordings

The clavioline has been utilized on a number of recordings in popular music, including:

* The 1953 tune "Little Red Monkey" by Frank Chacksfield's Tunesmiths, featuring Jack Jordan on clavioline. This was the first record featuring an electronic instrument to feature on the UK pop chart (April 1953).
* The 1961 song "Runaway" by Del Shannon. The song features a famous solo by Max Crook, performed on a heavily-modified clavioline that Crook called the "Musitron".
* The 1962 hit instrumental "Telstar" by The Tornados.
* The 1965 jazz albums The Magic City and The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Volume Two by Sun Ra.
* The 1967 hit "Baby You're a Rich Man" by The Beatles.

Van Phillips also composed music for the clavioline for the science-fiction radio trilogy Journey Into Space.

It hasn't been updated on Wikipedia yet, but this is also the organ used to make the cool snake charmer sounds on The White Stripes' new single "Icky Thump".

SUPER-HYPER KID

JB, there's gotta be a place in The Le Duo (Sextet) for this kid...his a natural performer!

AKRON/FAMILY @ CLUB METRONOME TOMORROW


Wow, it's been nearly a week since my last post....I've really been slacking. Sorry, it's just been tough with not being able to blog from 8-6 since I've started the new job. I'll do my best to start posting again more regularly; we'll call it my Mid-Year's Resolution.

I really should have been posting more this past week because I've had a lot of music & film-related experiences. Here's a rundown:

* JB & I went to the Flynn Theater last Saturday evening to see the Kenny Garrett Quartet, featuring the great Pharaoh Sanders on tenor sax. The show was amazing and gave me a newfound respect for Kenny Garrett ("newfound" only because I'd never heard him before) and an even deeper respect for Mr. Sanders.

* Speaking of the Pharaoh, I've been listening to "Jewels of Thought" quite a bit lately. In fact, I think JB has kind of passed on his free-jazz virus to me, because I've been listening to a lot of it lately. My other favorite two albums this week are Anthony Braxton's "3 Compositions of New Jazz" and The Mahavishnu Orchestra/John McLaughlin's "INNER MOUNTING FLAME". The first is sparse, chimy and delicate and the second is, uh, completely the opposite. (Oh, and by the way, I put the album links to Amazon not because I'm encouraging you to buy there, but just because the reviews are usually decent and well-rounded. Support your local indie music store and buy it there. Or have them order it if they don't have it in stock. Fuck Amazon.)

* In film news, I watched quite a few movies this past week. I revisited the beautiful classic C.T. Dreyer film "The Passion of Joan of Arc", saw a newer film called "Old Joy", featuring the charming and talented Will Oldham as well as the beautiful camera work of one of my favorite cinematographers/directors Peter Sillen , and I watched "The Devil's Backbone" (an earlier film by "Pan's Labyrinth" director Guillermo Del Toro). All three were brilliant, highly original works and I would recommend them highly.

Oh, and the reason I originally started this entry...the tragically underappreciated band Akron/Family will be playing at Club Metronome tomorrow evening at 9pm with Burlington's "King of the Drone" Greg Davis opening along with a band I don't know about named the Lexie Mountain Boys (who apparently all girls....I'm confused...). Tickets are $15/$20 day of show & let's thank the wonderful folks at Tick Tick for bringing this great band to our humble little town!