[audio:muezzin_1.mp3,muezzin_2.mp3]
Einfach den Abspielknopf druecken
Kassette in Paris gekauft, 1983 glaubs
[audio:muezzin_1.mp3,muezzin_2.mp3]
Einfach den Abspielknopf druecken
Kassette in Paris gekauft, 1983 glaubs
Habe heute mein Revox repariert, immer schoen nach dem Motto: Schmeiss nie etwas weg. Du koenntest es eines Tages gebrauchen. Wahrscheinlich genau am Tag nachdem du’s weggeschmissen hast. Aber das wisst ihr ja.
Um es kurz zu machen: ich habe 3 Revox Bandmaschinen, eine funktioniert, eine nicht mehr, die dritte habe ich von meinem Hifi-Haendler geschenkt gekriegt, als Ersatzteillager. Dieses Jahr war ich mehrmals ganz nah dran, die beiden letzteren wegzuschmeissen. Zum Glueck fuer mich tat ich’s nicht. Denn heute wollte ich einige Masterbaender nach MP3 kopieren, all das fuer euer hier Vergnuegen. Doch die Maschine begann sofort zu stoehnen und zu aechzen, so dass ich schon das Schlimmste befuerchtete. Doch es war nur die Gummiandruckrolle, die in der Hitze des Sommers buchstaeblich geschmolzen war! Gut, das ist nun geflickt – haette ich das Teil bei Revox bestellen muessen, haette ich erstens mal wohl einen Haufen Geld bezahlen muessen, denn heute wird der Gewinn vor allem auf den Ersatzteilen gemacht, und ich haette bestimmt 10 Tage auf die Lieferung warten muessen.
So ist nun alles soweit bereit, um die Sommer Master zu kopieren. Mehr darueber spaeter. Fuer heute gebe ich euch einfach einen kleinen Einblick in die kommerzielle Abteilung von Calypso Now: Sommer 1984 erschienen die beruehmten Cassingles (‘Splendid – The Sound of Young Switzerland’), Sommer 1986 der Sampler ‘Chart Attack’, gefolgt von ‘Guitar Town’ im ’87 (Sommer, klar), ein Sampler mit Genfer Bands, damals die Hauptstadt des schweizer Garagenrock. Ich sage nur: The Maniacs, The Needles, The Faster.
Zu Splendid und Guitar Town spaeter. Heute feiere ich die Wiedergeburt meines Revox mit den ersten drei Songs von ‘Chart Attack’
[audio:The Reaction – Thoughts.mp3,Der Boese Bub Eugen – Ich will alles.mp3,Hydrogen Candymen – I can’t stand this love goodbye.mp3]
Einfach den Abspielknopf druecken
(Auf dem Bild die Rueckseite des Covers von Chart Attack, graphics by Martin Schori, thank you)
To download right-click
or
and
Peopleism (for Google to use hehehe): Max of The Reaction now works for SUISA, Stephan Ramming of Eugen for NZZ am Sonntag, Lori Hersberger from Candymen is a world famous biennale triennale documentale artist
Muede bin ich, geh zur Ruh. Hatte zuviel Arbeit mit dem Restaurieren einiger Masterkassetten, mit dem Evaluieren der richtigen Hardware und vor allem der richtigen Software. Benutze nun Audacity, ein sehr gutes Open-Source-Programm, vielleicht ein wenig komplizierter als Goldwave, mein vorheriges Programm, aber mit besserer Soundqualitaet, wenigstens auf meiner Hardware
Ich habe noch einige Exemplare hier gefunden, solange Vorrat:
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Fixed my Revox today. I always say: Never throw anything away. You could use it one day. Probably just the day after having disposed of it. You know that.
To cut a long story short: I have 3 Revox machines, one is working, one isn’t any more, the third was given to me by my hifi vendor just in case I could use some spare parts. This year I was several times on the edge of throwing those latter two away! Lucky me I didn’t. Because today I wanted to copy some reel-to-reel masters onto my computer to mp3 them for your listening pleasure. When doing so the machine started to make some weird sounds, and I detected that in the heat of the summer a small rubber wheel that presses the tape to the recording head had literally melted! Ok, so that has been fixed now – to order the part from Revox would have cost real money, that’s where the money is made, on the replacement parts. Plus I would have waited 10 days for delivery, at least.
So here we are, ready to copy the summer masters. You’ll hear about them soon. For now, just a glimpse into the charts hungry side of Calypso Now. Summer 1984 saw the release of the famous Cassingles (‘Splendid – The Sound Of Young Switzerland’), Summer 1986 the sampler ‘Chart Attack’, followed by ‘Guitar Town’ in ’87 (summer, of course), a sampler with bands from Geneva, at that time the capital of swiss garage. Remember: The Maniacs, The Needles, The Faster.
I’ll give you some tracks of Splendid and Guitar Town soon. Today, to celebrate my newly fixed Revox, the first three tracks from ‘Chart Attack’.
[audio:The Reaction – Thoughts.mp3,Der Boese Bub Eugen – Ich will alles.mp3,Hydrogen Candymen – I can’t stand this love goodbye.mp3]
Ajust playback volume to 10 and press the play button!
(pic shows back cover of Chart Attack, graphics by Martin Schori, thank you)
To download right-click
or
and
Peopleism (for Google to use hehehe): Max of The Reaction now works for SUISA, Stephan Ramming of Eugen for NZZ am Sonntag, Lori Hersberger from Candymen is a world famous biennale triennale documentale artist
Tired, have to go. Had too much work restoring certain cassette masters, finding the right hardware and, much more difficult, the right software. Am using Audacity now, a great open source program. A bit more difficult to use than Goldwave, what I used before, but better quality, at least on my hardware.
Just found the master tape today for the ‘Segments’-Compilation (bands from Bloomington), and ‘Playette’; that one I used to listen to a lot, woman’s voice and cheap Casio-like synth playing pop music. Well, don’t recall the details right now, but am thinking of hosting the tape if possible. Found a blog by Rich Stim, who was the mastermind behind Playette (http://angelcorpuschristi.blogspot.com/2009/09/old-and-improved.html), also a blog talking about Segments (http://black2com.blogspot.com/2005/01/chinaboise-greatest-story-ever-told-cd.html). On the same blog he’s talking about a possible CD-release of Playette, did it ever realize?
BTW, great source to other links, like http://thehoundblog.blogspot.com/. Just look at the category “Found Photo”…
it’s just not possible that I lost any master tape or cover master, but I just stuffed all the tapes prints magazines pictures etc. away in cardboard boxes that have not been touched much in the past 20 years, so it may happen that I have to go through several boxes to find all related items. So it just happens I’ve found a letter concerning the tape compilation In Another Context where it said I paid licencing fees, I also have the master cassette, but no cover and no adress. But I think I’ve found the label, and it’s still active and they release just great stuff. http://www.bannedproduction.com/discography.html
found the master tape to Nikki Sudden’s Beau Geste – now I have to decide what to do with it. Rerelase it on tape, host it on the server as MP3? The latter will probably be difficult due to copyright reasons, and I can’t ask Nikki any more about it. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikki_Sudden. A pity, such a wonderful person.
got a mail today from Don Campau, whose tapes I featured a lot on my weekly radio show back in those tapesdays, because he does real poppy stuff in an industrial manner, as far as I remember, will have to listen to it again, anyhow, he’s real good. And still active. Asked me for a rerelease of a Steven Tetzloff tape he one got from me. Well, Steven’s not around any more, I believe. We will just all go ahead and host his stuff, I think.
Lp Cover Lovers: http://lpcoverlover.com/chicks-dig-records/, http://lpcoverlover.com/
Bad Compilation Tapes: still available, after 20 years, and they didn’t even raise their selling price!!!
Martin Newell’s got a website? Can’t believe it, but it’s really all his, his english country gentleman style, have to check it out, will take an hour or two, probably. http://www.martinnewell.co.uk/
Third Mind Records seems to be out of business as well, I found their complete catalogue at discogs, of course: http://www.discogs.com/label/Third+Mind+Records. And here’s a history of the label: http://www.obsolete.com/convulsion/interviews/convulse/2.11.html
Also found traces of Carola Von Hoffmannstahl, with whom we released the Great In Bed compilation (well, she released it, together with partner David Solomonoff, we collaborated with one track and got the rights to distribute it). http://www.homelandstupidity.us/author/mondoqt/. And this seems to be her personal homepage or something, very bizarre, will take some time: http://www.users.cloud9.net/~drs/index.html
I’ve already posted the link to Hal McGee yesterday, but I will need more time to check out all of the stuff on his site. Sent him a mail asking if I can host Viscera’s Foreign Films on my blog, because he wants to delete it to free the space. What a coincidence, because I was thinking about a way to make this tape available again, I really like it. Maybe also for sentimental reasons, because it was one of the first US-productions that was licenced to Calypso Now for distribution. Well, and he replied immediately his OK! http://www.halmcgee.com/index.html
His partner Debbie Jaffee doesn’t seem to be around anymore, but I’ve found an exhaustive discography, at discogs, of course – seems to be THE database for indies of the 80s, will have to contribute more to it. http://www.discogs.com/artist/Debbie+Jaffe
Also on Discogs I found out that I’m listed as an artist on a dozen titles released by crazy monster madman Zan Hoffman – I remember him as someone who wrote about once a week from the US about new collaborative projects, and it seems he’s turned out several hundreds of tapes, collaborating with everybody and their dog – have to check him out, he’s still on the scene, still crazy after all those years, how the saying goes. http://www.discogs.com/artist/Rudi+Tuscher and http://www.discogs.com/label/ZH27, also http://zanteson.blogspot.com/ and http://zh27.blogspot.com/, also http://zhcollab.blogspot.com/ and http://zhdate.blogspot.com/, even on myspace , here as well (http://www.archive.org/details/zh27) and finally at http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=132112. As Bob Dylan used to say: Oh, Mama, can this really be the end…. Louisville, Kentucky seems to be a good place for creative minds.
Ever wanted to know how the apartment of a die-hard Elvis fan looks like? I found a recording of the moment Radio Luxemburg announced his death, and just by chance one of those Elvis admirers had his video camera turned on. http://video.aol.co.uk/video-detail/the-king-is-dead-the-death-of-elvis-presley-as-announced-on-radio-luxembourg-by-tony-prince/2554320241
Can it be there’s a comeback of 80’s cassette culture? I keep on falling over labels who rerelease stuff on limited vinyl editions, like http://www.punk-disco.com/WSDP.htm, who for instance rerelease tapes by p16.d4 I distributed back then. They don’t seem to have a catalogue, but I found a list at http://www.discogs.com/label/Was+Soll+Das%3F+Schallplatten
Im Zusammenhang mit Swisspunk.ch bin ich uebrigens noch auf diese Seite hier gestossen, noch nie gehoert, wer hier wohl einkauft? Die Menge erschlaegt mich jedenfalls. Swisspunks naechstes Projekt behandelt uebrigens die 80er, das wird eine gute Sache, freue mich!
Found a lot of master tapes in my boxes, like Years On Earth‘s third tape Worlds In Collision, or Einstuerzende Neubauten Architektur & Geisselnahme, both complete with some remaining original covers, so I have to think about how to release these last copies. Still on the lookout for the master of Nikki Sudden‘s tape Beau Geste that he compiled especially for Calypso Now. Lots of great material still around, an estimated 100 master tapes, some from labels long gone, like Trance Port Tapes, where I bought a big box of covers back then, where I still have reel-to-reel high quality masters and dozens of covers, or Blacklight Braille, who sent me unreleased recordings for a Calypso Now release that sold maybe two copies, but are heavily sought after these days.. http://mutant-sounds.blogspot.com/2008/09/blacklight-braille-carmarthenlp1988uk.html, http://mutant-sounds.blogspot.com/2007/04/blacklight-braille-seachangecd1993uk.html, http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=97840218, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_Ghazala. What to do with it? Will not be an easy decision.
Well, it’s his brother who’s my neighbour, but who cares about those details? Anyhow, due to the fact that my neighbour’s got a famous and prolific brother I was handed a free CD, the first since at least 20 years. It’s on enja. And it’s great, nonetheless. It’s even fantastic. No, I’ve only had one beer.
You know how it is, when the first note hits it right home. This is how it is: It is rare. But they did it. Incredible.
Ever heard of the Lucien Dubuis Trio? Could be, they’ve been around since quite some time, they played Willisau, they are Swiss, they will be big. Believe me. I’m just listening to their new CD. It’s on enja. Oh, I already said that. But enja… The home of Guido-Westerwelle-Contemporary-Jazz, the fetish of every Revox Head Cleaner. Or do I mix it up now with ECM now? Whatever, whoever – they took the money from the label (enja…) and made something unheard until now.
On the jazz level you hear bits of Arthur Blythe, maybe, seventies jazz rock licks from guitar whizz kid Marc Ribot (well, pretty grey by now), but above all this CD is about Sounds And Rhythm. And about the fun you can have when a very young trio of immaculate taste teams up with mildly crazy Marc Ribot. And about the moog-defying sound of a bass clarinet. About the Daniel-Humair-was-yesterday-drumming of Lionel Friedli. Not that I don’t like Daniel Humair, of course. No, I love him. Well, shucks, have a look at the trailer. Come back after.
Since you’ve been away, I heard: a hardcore dance track, a Zappa-like ditty, now they are playing a folksy tune, could be drunken sicilians locked in a studio messing around with the instruments they found. Steve Marcus, to give you another reference, used to indulge in stuff like that. But Steve Marcus never played so good, of course. Highly entertaining.
But don’t be fooled: It’s not a nice little record, it’s a record that will be played in clubs, and people will stop their talking for a moment and wonder, who this might be. And there’s no greater compliment for a record these days.
Lucien Dubuis Trio with Marc Ribot, Ultime Cosmos. enja 2009.
You would have guessed it: I did put a day’s worth of digging in my files tapes pix to ensure a lot of follow-ups to the tapes I’ve presented here in the last few weeks. Well, expect some heavy unheard stuff in the near future. But for tonight some ambient cut-ups… Yeah, I used to release catalogues of my tapes on a tape, usually a C-90, so you could cram as much as possible on it. I’ve uploaded one for your listening pleasure. I gave them away for free then, you just had to send a blank tape and return postage. That was the http-protocol of the offline world.
For the techies among you: It was made with an Aiwa Double Decker, the first of its kind, I believe. It was the backbone of my tape production, because it could copy a C-90 in 27 Minutes: both sides at a time at double speed. Plus it had a tiny mixing desk with a microphone input, so you had three separate channels, two for tapes, one for ambient noise or speech. I really miss those cheap simple can-do-alls….
So, that’s what you got here: two sides of the C-90 catalogue, probably from around 1986. Side one is obviously the commercial side, you’ll hear garage bands and above all the wonderful Cleaners From Venus, one of my all time faves, will tell you more soon. Side two takes no prisoners. Some fantastic snippets there. On minute 25 approx. you can hear my then incredibly powerful sax playing – now I know why the more clean punks hated me… Wow, those lungs…
Music for a unforgettable new moon night. Don’t know yet if those tapes are still around, but I really do hope so, mind blowing stuff, you’ll hear. I’ll be back with the news. Don’t hesitate to ask about something specific you heard on the tape.
[audio:cn cat pt 1.mp3] Side 1 of C-90 cassette
[audio:cn cat pt 2.mp3] Side 2 of C-90 cassette
Ajust playback volume to 10 and press the play button!
To download right-click Calypso Now Audio Catalogue Side 1
or Calypso Now Audio Catalogue Side 2
Releasing and playing music since several decades, I never cared much about keeping track of the stuff I’ve done. As the title of this posting says, I subscribe to the punk motto ‘be there or be square’ – pity, if you’re born after the fact. No pity, though, if you’ve missed on it because you were lazy.
Now, this may sound quite preposterous – I mean, you could rightfully say: Well, if nobody cared, then it probably wasn’t worth it.
Check it out for yourself – this is a catalogue poster I printed around 1987/1988 – click on each page for bigger view.
You sure are right, if you like your taste mainstream and middle-of-the-road. Because I’ve never cared much to live up to expectations. Call me the Taste Hero, or, if you like it really heroic, The Man Who Wouldn’t Give A Fuck.
You read me spitting out big sounds now, because today I came across traces of my work from the 80s in the internet. As a matter of fact, I for instance discovered a site where some of my Calypso Now releases are listed, some quite popular, like the split tape by The Ex/Svaetsox, Pay no more than 6 Fr (the tongue in cheek title referring to hip indie releases ‘for the working man’ in England in the Thatcherist 80’s). But I’ve also come across a real obscurity, like Big City Orchestra’s Hand Of Fear – they were always my favorites, by the way, and if you read their portrait, you’ll know why.
I’ve also found several sites who still keep the fire going, like Mutant Sounds, which I found researching Years On Earth; like Crud Crud on a more general level, where you keep falling over rare and strange sounds, a lot of tape-only productions, but also other stuff like belly dance rip-off singles; like Sweet Thunder which is full of surprises, check it out for yourself.
I was looking for the whereabouts of Years On Earth because I used to release two of their fantastic dark droning tapes, ‘Site’ and ‘Worlds Apart’, and I’ve always listened to them ‘in private’ as well. I will tell you more about them as soon as I can find the master tape for YOE3 in my piles of incredibly great, rare and half-forgotten stuff. But for today, I will give you just a listening of two tracks from their tape ‘Site’ from 1982 (YOE2). Bedroom electronics really well done.
Ajust playback volume to 10 and press the play button!
To download right-click Years On Earth: And I Dream or Years On Earth: Lost Letters
Wer um alles in der Welt, ausser mir, hat eigentlich noch ein Kassettengeraet zu Hause?
Naehme mich ehrlich gesagt sehr wunder… Da ich im Moment diesen neuen Blog mit Musik fuelle, das meiste kommt von Kassette, alles ist Indie, das meiste wohl recht krachig fuer DRS3-Hoerer… Fuer Aficionados allerdings bestimmt voller ueberraschungen.
Manchmal frage ich mich, ob ich einen Occasionskassettengeraetegrosshandel eroeffnen soll, so nach dem Giletteprinzip: Das Geraet ist billig, die Klingen kosten dann ein Vermoegen. Denn ich stolpere natuerlich allethalben ueber ausgezeichnete Maschinen, die zu ihrer Zeit ein paar Hundert Franken gekostet haben, fuer 30 bis 120 Franken. Brockenhaeuser abklappern, Leute. Denn eines muesst ihr euch bewusst sein: Kein Geraet der Welt kann dermassen hoch aussteuern – wo eine Nadel aus der Rille springt, da haelt das Kassettengeraet noch laengst mit. Und viele Produktionen legen es drauf an, die Bandbreite einer Kassette voll auszureizen, die Lautstaerke zu uebersteuern. Und das kann ein MP3 natuerlich nicht wiedergeben – Digital ist praktisch, klingt aber katastrophal.
Also, Geraet kaufen! Kassetten gibt’s naemlich noch 😉
There are boxes of master tapes laying around here, tons of sessions that were never released, hundreds of demos I got that I can’t release due to copyright reasons. Like for instance the first demo of The Young Gods – recorded in 1986 with ultra cheap gear, unlike Yello, by the way, but probably a lot more creative. No offense ment to Boris Blank…
So much to make you drool, drivel and slobber (thank you, Wikipedia 🙂
As you can imagine, I have a lot of my own masters awaiting to be filed under ‘trashbin’. So allow me to save one of those for this here blog. I didn’t like it at the time, but listening to it now I think this is nothing less than pure chart fodder – which in my world is the most positive statement there is about any track.
I hope he will not kill me, my buddy Michael Antener, who at that time, must have been 1984/85, had made himself a household name in the international industrial home recording scene, which in Europe was mostly the crowd around the Graf Haufen Label in Berlin. Antener then recorded, in the basement of his parents house in a small village, Utzensdorf, if my memory serves me well, under the dark name of Bande Berne Crematoire.
Myself, I went by the name of Anal Furgler, always hoping to create a media scandal by hijacking the name of a then famous politician, but to no avail. So much for the history of the two tracks I’ve unearthed today.
Michael invited me to record a session with him in his basement, and I went there with a sax, records and tapes, he playing the analog synthesizers noise makers back then usually had. I found today two tracks of this session on a lost cassette, and as I’ve said, I rather like them now. It has a nice ambient feel to it, all the while keeping that dark gloomy spirit BBC used to fancy then. I could have released them on my label, but I’ve decided against it, rather unwisely, I think, because it didn’t come out the way we liked it then; this being an entirely improvised session, without any overdubs, add-ons or remixes, both rather reluctand to really trash it away like we both did usually, the greatness of the result was lost on us. Anyway. Here they are now, for you to listen or download.
Bande Berne Crematoire, by the way, later teamed up with Ane Hebeisen, then a very young goth adonis and ideal frontman. They went by the name of Swamp Terrorists, played live around Europe and released several ‘real’ records. Hebeisen later was a better journalist than he was a singer, if you allow me my saying so, and his articles in the now almost bygone Berne newspaper “Der Bund” always made for a very pleasurable reading. Yeah, Berne really has a quite morbid touch to it…
[audio:mutter.mp3,manneszucht.mp3]
Ajust playback volume to 12 and press the play button!
(pic shows cover of joint tape release by nacht’raum and Nisus Anal Furgler, designed by BBC, who played in nacht’raum)
To download right-click Bande Berne Crematoire & Anal Furgler: Mutter or
Bande Berne Crematoire & Anal Furgler: Manneszucht
You can also find downloads of the early works of Bande Berne Crematoire at this site: http://www.vuzrecords.de
Also, the cassettes of Bande Berne Crematoire seem to be quite rare – several people have them on their want list, I see here. Well, if you missed on it: here’s the cover of the first official release of Bande Berne Crematoire, it came out on several labels simoultanesly, also on Calypso Now. Must have some laying around here… grin. As I always say: Be there or be square. Why, according to my ‘files’ I’ve sold seven copies of the tape in 1984 – and now I see that five people at Discogs have it on their want list. Bad case of being born too late, probably.
I’ve almost forgot, that the other tape by Bande Berne Crematoire, which remained unnamed, has also been released by Calypso Now. That must have been one of the last tape releases, as it is packaged the way I did it then: Have an A4-cover printed, to be folded in a plastic bag which allowed more paper work to be included. This cover has been handprinted by Rueebli, a madman back then, now successfull winemaker at the lake (Bielersee). Luckily, I’ve still got a couple of those covers…
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