I wrote this is a slightly intense acoustic tune back last winter sometime … finally got a chance to play it with a band during rehearsals for the next round of GLASS GOBLINS shows … sounded so good I’ve posted the 1st and only rehearsal take:

Sweet Crazy Heart (1st jam) by 5-TRACK

That’s Scott Keil on the drums, Jennifer Ng otherwise percussing, and Voodoo Will momentarily on loan from the Voodoo Fix.

enjoy!!

5-Track

Hi theres,

I’ve suddenly picked up a few fresh and positive reviews which I will now share with you (in convenient PDF format, tho you can always follow the links back to the source) …

Here is Julian Cope’s review of my new cassette, “OBLATIONS TO A DIGITAL MUSE” –
http://www.5-Track.com/press/HEADHERITAGE_reviews_OBLATIONS.pdf

… and here is a review from TERRASCOPE ONLINE of “Lost Soul Island” by 5-Track & Glass Goblins:
http://www.5-Track.com/press/TERRASCOPE_review_GGLSI.pdf

You can dig them amongst the accumulating nest of other press hither:
http://www.5-Track.com/5/5press.php

hope you-all’s well,
5-Track

I had a bunch of stuff, mainly recorded and mixed on my computer, that I thought would sound good on a cassette.

It does sound good. I was right.

Very nearly 60 minutes worth of analog entertainment, edition of 42, hand-painted covers.

Get yours here

thanks,
5

I hadn’t heard SUN SHIP (specifically the title track, tho the whole album is pleasing as I recall) since borrowing the CD from genius guitar player Aaron when we were in the band called BRUCE together, about ten years ago (gasp). Then I found the album for sale, a vinyl copy, new, price was right, so I picked it up and had a listen.

I used to listen to “Sun Ship” and think Coltrane must have had robins outside his house, the way I did, and woke up to their chirruping triplets every morning, the way I did. I knew he took his inspiration from, well, everywhere! and I knew that Eric Dolphy, for example, a good friend of Coltrane’s, had been specifically influenced by birds. And when do robins most notably sing? At sunrise! So “Sun Ship” didn’t (and doesn’t) seem like that unlikely a title for a piece based on singing robins.

On more recent listen, my ears somewhat more precise in their ability to measure increments of pitch and rhythm than they were ten years ago, I’m finding that they are not so much triplets that JC is playing as quadruplets for the most part … but the feel remains. I still can’t rule out the influence.

Tho the sound is in some ways muted relative to the CD issue I once had (which could also I guess be partly the stereo, or deterioration in my hearing at the treble end), I’m finding that the individual tunes speak out much more clearly to me now (either due to the medium or due to something that has evolved in my brain) and that playing even just one side at a time is too much … I am having to take it song by song, something I rarely do with CDs (which I tend to take as a whole) and perhaps rarer still with records (which I tend to take side by side).

As far as “side by side” goes, the other night I listened to “Reward” by The Teardrop Explodes on a 45rpm, then followed it up with side one of EARTH 2 by Seattle’s power-drone then-duo, Earth. Side one contains only the winding, meandering, detuned riff known as “Seven Angels”. It’s quite nice. It took me several minutes to realize I hadn’t set the record player back to 33&1/3. While I do prefer this record at the proper speed, it is not unpleasant when played too fast. Certainly not frantic or hurried. Just higher-pitched and thus physiologically different in its effect.

Tonight we listened to side four, “Like Gold And Faceted (part 2),” which consists of a reasonably consistent drone (it stutters a bit but never breaks or halts; it even fades in and out for continuity) and some distant bashing about on (what I assume is) cymbals.

It occurred to me that in the utterly un-sine-like droning of EARTH 2, side 4, most likely were contained or implied all the freaky free harmonic sounds of SUN SHIP. As if the one could reveal the other if rotated properly under certain kinds of light or behind a series of prisms.

*NOTE … this podcast is no longer available … my apologies!! Maybe keep an eye on Kosmik Dave’s future playlists, just in case

http://www.kosmikradiation.com/2010.06.11.htm

DJ Dave 3000 out of Madison, WI, has been so kind as to include a track of mine called “COMETS” (the special home-demo semi-4-tracked version with Zlicious on drums!!) in his June 12th Kosmik Radiation Podcast … you can listen to it at the link above … I think I’m in segment 2. It’s a super-cool track imho and I’m not sure where else you’ll be able to hear it anytime soon. A somewhat more rocknroll version will be appearing on the next Glass Goblins album, however.

Hey hey,

http://5-track.com/mp3/FloatingOther/1stFloatingOther.mp3

here’s a little piece (60 minutes worth) from my creative music / improv unit, “Floating Other“. The name has to do with the geometric alliances of players within a given personnel and also with the inclusion of elements outside the ostensible set of performing musicians.

in this first recording, the role of the “other” is handed around between myself, bassist Jef Hogan Buffa, percussionist Jennifer Ng, and an acknowledgment of the mischievous presence (a floating other?) with which Jef shares his home.

Floating Other will be performing on Wednesday June 30th at the Echo Curio,
1519 Sunset Blvd, Echo Park, CA 90026,
9pm,
with additional performances by Jack’l, Stefan Scott Nelson, and Art Terry.

I had always assumed that canaries sang, like, one whistled note or so. Presumably something very pretty and poignant. “Tweet!” or “Chirpy chirp!” at the most …

Now, I’m into birds that sing. Robins used to wake me up most mornings in Vermont sounding like John Coltrane’s “Sun Ship” (or vice versa … presumably Trane woke up to robins as well at some point in his life?) and I used to look forward to that every day. Here in Los Angeles it is mockingbirds that sing, well, all the time. No complaint. I love it. They improvise and their tri-faceted songs are always different, always the same. Catbirds, Vermont’s equivalent to the mockingbird, are similar but more overtly chaotic in their arrangements.

But canaries, being the housebound songbird of choice in the common knowledge, I assumed had a pretty, sweet, fairly unremarkable song.

OK, so now I’m housesitting for some people with 17 finches and an orange canary. The finches go “meh! meh! meh! meh!” nasally and constantly from dawn until they pass out in the early evening (unless something we do wakes them up again … we are night owls and not especially quiet ones at that) which is not unpleasant, especially given the wonderful acoustics of this particular house, lots of open spaces and wooden floors. And the canary makes noises that put psychedelic synthesizm to shame.

Really. I will never need a synth player in my life. If I want to outdo Hawkwind, Jefertiti’s Nile, Acid Mothers Temple etc, I’ll just mic up a canary (or record one prior, I suppose). The thing burbles and twitters and whoops and warbles for minutes at a time! and LOUD!!

I am not sure I understand why it is desirable to own one, as sustained thought can be difficult with such a thing around. But it is certainly a remarkable creature, the canary.

(I’m on bass)

(scott keil on the drums)

click here for more matthew

In the last 3 weeks we have enjoyed a potpourri of climatic variation. We had a little bit of rain, but not too much. We had one or two blazingly hot days, but not too many. We’ve had a few days that merited an extra shirt – cool, breezy, bordering on chilly if you’re from here or just done got too used to it – but only a few… Though the evenings have been a little on the “cold” side as standing-around-outside-a-venue temperatures go. In the main it has been pleasantly warm, not too hot, not too cold, and a little more motion in the air than I expect to find here, which is especially nice cos it keeps the breathing a little easier.

Yesterday there was a raven on the next street up (Marathon?) making that sound like an African gourd xylophone that I never heard them make until a few weeks ago … And in a few weeks into the future we are moving into a house which will allow more cool in, keep more hot out, and be surrounded by more in the way of vegetation which means birds, squirrels, and lots of the color green.

EDIT: The mockingbird is DEFINITELY back. I was playing along with him on the guitar yesterday.