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— Music
(for The Detroit issue)
Aaron Siegel is a 26 year old artist, DJ, producer, label owner and record distributor in. Detroit, Mi. He began promoting underground parties in the city when he was 20, which lead him to booking tours in the US for international artists, all while he was operating the first independent Bike Messenger service in Detroit. Presently, his company, FIT (www.fitdetroit.com), distributes vinyl from Detroit’s best underground dance music labels worldwide. Expect the first release coming out on his label in November- it’s by Detroit producer Marcellus Pittman and its some interesting shit. He thanks his family, Suzanne, Mike and Bridgette Banks, Serge, M. Pittman, and Peoples Records for their support.
Liner Notes:
Detroit is a beautiful and peaceful place for some, but it can be an ugly, violent and dangerous place for others. For me, at night I have always felt a certain type of mystery in the air. Under the Influence Magazine asked me to put together a mix of electronic music from Detroit for this issue, so I have picked some tracks that for me represent some of the minds and spirits one may encounter here. This is not a mix of the most influential and important Detroit tracks. I am not a music expert, or an expert on Detroit for that matter. I just live here, and let me be the first to tell you that living in Detroit’s a motherfucker. But fuck it… as far as music goes, I can’t think of another place that can even touch Detroit. And I’m not just talking about the amount of talented individuals here. The world is full of talented individuals. I think what sets Detroit apart from the rest of the world is the inventive and innovative ways people use their creativity here to make it a reality kind of like the old saying goes “…making something out of nothing.” Well, in Detroit there are vast amounts of nothing, and everyday people are harnessing the nothingness and transforming it into some highly original, raw, and futuristic music.
(for The Detroit issue)
David Dunbar Buick aka Dave Italy was born in 1972. He is New Detroit’s golden boy; he is a gentleman, and a philosopher, a hopeless romantic even. He has hosted
a legendary rock -n- roll party or two, at his superbly decorated, over 100 year old Victorian home. On occasion his friends trick him into playing music in killer bands like The GO, Wolfman Band, Mck Jggr and The Btls, and Brown Cardboard, but he prefers watching television, sipping some fine wine, and listening to obscuro d.i.y 45’s. David is the kind of man that emerges unscathed from getting thrown through a storefront plate glass window (for accidentally stealing some jock’s drink), while simultaneously (and also accidentally) pretending to be The Strokes. Dave does not remember this the next morning. Do not I repeat do not throw Dave Buick through a plate glass window, you’re the one going to the hospital tough guy.
Lastly but not Leastly Dave has been releasing music on his own label, Italy Records since the year of our lord 1997. Italy has “signed” artists as diverse as The Hentchmen, The Greenhornes, Terrible Twos, Rocket 455, The Dirtys, Gardens, F’ke Blood, Whirlwind Heat, and many more. Oh yeah, Italy also put out the first ever 45’s by a little duo called The White Stripes. Ever heard of them? Yeah, I thought so. Well Buick discovered them, that’s right I said it Dave Buick discovered The White Stripes! Mr. Italy was kind enough to make a play list of new bands for you to check out. Listen up! They are all current bands that love you. He had the bands and the fans write the descriptions. He loves you too.
David Buick’s own notes to the track listing:
1. Druid Perfume – Goat Skin Glue- Italy records
We live in a forest and practice when the wind in just right. We have to forage for picks and strings. We love to stick things to things.
2. Johnny Ill Band – Makes Them Feel Good- Kaboodle records
Johnny Ill hates his singing voice but other people don’t cuz it makes them feel good yeah!
3. PSilverghost – Bad Blood – Italy records
Formed in place of make up sex. It has never been so good.
4. Tyvek – Give It Up – What’s Your Rupture records
Canadian television has certainly extended its influence on Tyvek and they’ve returned the favor! This song once ran during a Don Cherry boopers segment. Kiss and make up boys.
5. Bad Thoughts – Keep It Easy – M’ladys records
We like sound. We like noise. We like animals. We like toys. We like sound. We like noise………….
6. Gardens- All Is School All Are Teachers – Italy records
Fuck the government. Fuck the communists. Fuck you. All is kool. We’re all teachers. Take drugs in the name of art.
7. F’KE Blood- Water Wings – Italy records
NEW WAVE/NO WAVE/WRONG WAVE/DON’T WAVE.DEBUT 45 FROM NEW DETROIT’S FINEST POST EVERYTHING COMBO
8. Terrible Twos- Lil’ Lil’ Creep Cloud – Italy records
Craig Brown loves gladiator movies. Craig Brown goes shirtless. Craig Brown gets out at softball. Craig Brown has a mustache.
9. Mountains and Rainbows- Knock Me Out- Cass records
From the Big Bass River to the shores of Grass Lake, life in the mountains can be tough, but when the cowboy coffee kicks in damn if it ain’t worth it all.
10. Timmy’s Organism – Tree Thirsty Earth – Sacred Bones records
Slime dwellers unite! Timmy’s Organism is here to lead you home.
11. Lee Marvin Computer Arm – Going It Alone
Six boys that pick fights play loud rock and roll and take turns pissing their pants and punching people. True heartthrobs.
12. The Go- Maribel – Italy records
The Go wear their heart on sleeveless shirts. This came to them in a dream, maybe?
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Mix by David Dorrell
(for The True Human Nature issue)
David Dorrell is a self-confessed autodidact who has always found fascination poking around in the entrails of what passes as pop culture whether writing one line Situationist poems for The Modern World fanzine as a teen Punk, ushering the word Goth into popular usage as a writer at the NME during his twenties or mixing Dada ‘cut-up’ with Grandmaster Flash to produce ‘Pump Up The Volume’ as M|A|R|RS.
His obsession with language, meaning and symbology has left an indelible mark on our cultural landscape. His recent solo show, ‘Roost’, at London’s MEN Gallery saw him spend the four days and three nights of Easter locked in the gallery with two chickens and a rifle as he echoed Beuys’ ‘I like America, America likes me’ action in the context of financial meltdown, artificial Global Pandemics, Pop Art, the fear of assassination in the Public Mind, Vodou ritual, Voodoo economics, the charade of the Vote and the advent of late-stage Capitalism.
He lives in London with his Messiah complex.
Mix by David Dorrell, engineered by Kevin Swain.
David Dorrel’s own notes to the track listing:
1. Carlton Rara – Papa Legba nan peyl Vodou
From the French/Haitian artist Carlton Rara’s 2008 album Peyl Eyes, this is a traditional invocation to Papa Legba. Papa Legba is the intermediary between the world of humans and the loa (the pantheon of Vodou Gods): master of all languages and God of the crossroads he is invoked at the beginning and end of every Vodou Ceremony as his permission is required if there is to be any communication between mortals and the loa. Associated and syncretised with St. Peter (the key holder of the Catholic church) and also St. Anthony (patron saint of, amongst other things, Lost items, relief from pestilence, swine, and epilepsy) he is a liminal God and as such is also associated with Hermes (and the later Roman Mercury). Folk-lore has it that it is Papa Legba, not, as often reported, the Devil, who Robert Johnson sells his soul to in exchange for the prodigious musical talent that would give birth to the Blues and, in turn, Rock and Roll. Greek mythology has Hermes creating the Lyre when he was only one day old and Johnson allegedly made his ‘deal’ at a Crossroads. One could infer from this that the roots of modern music and their true nature are the result of magical ceremony and process that go back thousands of years…
2. Talking Heads – Seen And Not Seen
African polyrhythms underpin this strange musing (taken from the 1980 album, ‘Remain In Light’) on the potential for transformation and the ability to disguise our original, true nature. Producer Brian Eno had introduced Talking Heads’ founder David Byrne to the Afro-beat of legendary Nigerian band-leader and activist Fela Kuti – and the influence is felt throughout the record. ‘Once In A Lifetime’, from the same album, also investigates similar themes of ‘awareness’ and dissociation.
3.Prayer to Shango (taken from the Olympic album ‘Voodoo Ceremony in Haiti’)
Shango is a Sky-God and one of the most important loa in the Vodou pantheon. Associated with thunder and lightening, he is a ‘fire-God’ in the tradition of Prometheus and Lucifer (the ‘light-bringer’) – stealing Knowledge/light/fire from the older Gods and giving it to humans often at great cost to themselves: this Knowledge (gnosis) is ‘enlightement’.
4. Pulsallama – The Devil Lives In My Husband’s Body
Wild tribal antics from a wild, tribal all-girl group. Pulsllama supported The Clash, released two singles for London’s Y records and hung out with Keith Haring at Club 57 in happening downtown New York at the beginning of the 8T’s. The kind of fifteen minutes of Fame that anyone with any sense would want. Is the husband in the song really Possessed or is it, as diagnosed, Tourettes syndrome? Phonic (vocal) outbursts similar to Tourette, such as glossolalia (‘speaking in tongues’ – incidentally an album by Talking Heads) are to be found in many sects and religions and appear to have much in common with the possession of humans in Vodou rituals by the loa (who ‘ride’ mortals, forcing them to become their physical representation and voice-piece).
5. Unknown Voodoo (New Orleans version of Vodou)
Soundtrack material. Fake but real.
6. Brian Eno and David Byrne – The Jezebel Spirit
Taken from the seminal electronic album ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’ (and recorded around the same time as Talking Heads’ Remain In Light’) ‘The Jezebel Spirit’ builds around a field-recording of a real exorcism. Possession? Tourette’s? Fundamentalist Christians believe that the demonic spirit of Jezebel is responsible for everything from heresy to the Feminist movement…Chilling on every level.
7. The Jimi Hendrix Experience – EXP
High weirdness from the Voodoo Chile himself on the opening track from the 1967 album, ‘Axis: Bold As Love’. The voices are those of Experience bass player Mitch Mitchell ( playing the ‘host’) and Hendrix himself as the ‘alien’/Paul Caruso. Voodoo, possessions and UFO’s all come together in this track – and a few years later in the work of Professor Michael Persinger who found links between UFO sightings, famous historical possesion’s such as that of Joan of Arc and electromagnetic fields caused by seismic events along faultlines in his Tectonic Strain Theory. As Hendrix/Caruso says, “As you all know, you just can’t believe everything you see and hear now, can you?…”. The true nature of things is often hidden.
8. Sonic Youth – Kool Thing
Part Kim Gordon ‘nod’ to the Black Panthers and other Radical Sixties moments (think Tom Wolfe ‘Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers’), part ode to LL Cool J (!?) referencing his album ‘Walk Like A Panther’ and single ‘Going Back To Cali’ (amongst others0. It also features Public Enemy’s Chuck D in a discussion that taps into the themes of oppression, liberation and unity. Taken from the 1990 album Goo. Is Kim Gordon trying to tell us something about the true nature of LL Cool j along the way? Or is she just coming out of the closet about her love of Hip Hop?
9. Adam & The Ants – Never Trust A Man (With Egg on his Face)
One of the stand-out songs from their 1979 debut album,‘Dirk Wears White Sox’. More deceptive appearances, more voices in the head and more Aliens. Where do the voices come from?
10. Mos Def – Climb
From his 1999 debut album,‘Black on Both Sides’. Produced by DJ Etch-A-Sketch and Mos, with additional production from the legendary Weldon Irvine (who wrote the lyrics to Nina Simone’s ‘To Be Young, Gifted and Black’, which became the official Anthem of the Civil Rights Movement). Built around a lift from Diana Ross’s Number One hit ‘Theme from Mahogany (Do You Know Where You’re Going To?)’. It’s all about the lyrics…
11. Master Drummer Coyote – Legba Plante’l Poto/ Papa Loko Di Yo Sava
A recording of legendary Vodou Master Drummer Coyote made by the legendary avant-garde film-maker Maya Deren. Deren‘s book Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti is widely recognised as a classic study of Haitian Vodou ceremony. The drum is a central feature of Vodou ceremony and this invocation to Papa Legba by Coyote (an ounto or Master Drummer) was recorded sometime in the late 1940’s/ early 1950’s.
12. Will Powers – Adventures In Success
Will Powers was the moniker used by video artist and photographer Lynn Goldsmith on the 1983 album Dancing For Mental Health a parodic self help album featuring contributions from (amongst others) Sting, Carly Simon, Nile Rodgers and Todd Rundgren. I think dancing is good for your mental health. And that Vodou is the religon of the future..
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Nurmi Mix by Cicerobuck
(for the Finland issue)
Cicerobuck goes by many names in the music realms. Always trying to keep hidden behind the music itself, he’s been sighted as Bertrand Delanowave, AGS, Marylin Moonroad and countless other aliases alongside artists such as Autechre, Ramuntcho Matta, Bernard Parmegiani, Sensational, Prefuse 73, Coil, Bernard Vitet, Black Devil Disco, Otto Von Schirach… He’s been running the infamous Helter Skelter radio show in Paris for around 10 years (myspace.com/helterskelterradioshow), djing for as long, collecting free jazz and musique concrête as if his life depended on it – If it exists, he knows where to find it! «Having spent a lot of time in Sweden, some in Danemark and Norway but none in Finland, I can’t help thinking about Suomi with mixed feelings. The remoteness, the guns, the violent history, the alien quality of the language, well, thank god for the Moomins and the racers!
Finland is so different from other scandinavian countries that it sometimes feels like its got its own little iron curtain. Musicwise, it’s quite the same : great music has come from Suomi, but
always at an odd timing. It rarely felt appreciated as it should have when it was actually produced.
Weirdly enough, some of the best record shops I’ve encountered in the world were run by finnish guys, so when I’m asked to think Finland and music, it should come quite easy…
Hmmm, unfortunately, the great music from the 70’s , the Love label, the experimental techno scene, most finnish music we come across seems to reach out rather than in. So I thought I’d just subjectively project comments and feelings, as if I was about to take a journey through the land of trolls, encountering shamans and bards, embracing the force and stillness of nature, running by night alongside Nurmi around the icy lakes with disquiet and hope.
If you actually listen to this mix (2 analog turntables and a CD), please consider the possibility of hope and hapiness in the cold.
These artists were summoned for this musical journey:
Barbed, Robert Henke, Meredith Monk, Hrvatski, Knud Viktor, Alvin Lucier, Kemialliset Ystävät, MV & EE with the Bummer Road, Coil, Jeswa, Gas, Moondog, Sten Cedervall, Matmos, John Beltran, Kjell Samkopf, Mark Spybey & James Plotkin, Crochted Donught Ring.
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The Hallucinations of Edie by Iueke
(for the Grey Gardens issue)
Under the influence is excited to introduce an exclusive mix by French DJ and producer Iueke (one half of Black Devil Disco Club) entitled ‘The Hallucinations of Edie’. We gave Iueke the Maysles Brothers documentaries plus footage of John Gallian o’s catwalk show for Diorspring/summer 08 for reference and inspiration and he constructed a supremely seductive gem of musical cut-up and re-edits.
We invite you to steal thirty minutes to sit back and sink into a hot tranquil summer at the Grey Gardens mansion where, with 5 o’clock Martini cocktails, the lines “between the past and the present”, the 30s through to the 70s slink by in a haze of disconnected thought, dreams and imagined eccentric pageantry.
On a trip to NYC in the 70s, the Maysles Brothers introduced Little Edie to Andy Warhol to which Iueke has acknowledged with a real vinyl rarity, a recording of the inimitable Warhol Superstar Jackie Curtis giving a powerhouse rendition of ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas’. Curtis’ delivery adds layers of indefinable magic to the lyrics.
Iueke’s own notes to the track listing:
1. Doctor says ‘huh’ 1978
The text is originally performed (before re-edits) by Gail Will iams of The Cincinnati Artists Group Effort (C.A.G.E.) Background music is a Classic, melancholic track by soundtrack maestro Bruno Nicolai (Morricone’s mentor) from a rare music library only LP (CAM 1070). Nicolai sadly took to the shadows after been involved in a sex scandal.
2. Kenward Elmslie ‘the woolworth song’ 1978
NY Kenward’s poetry and prose is often combined with the graphical work of other artists. A collection of his writing, Motor Disturbance (1971), won the Frank O’Hara Award for Poetry in1971. Here we hear that the boy can sing.
3.Erik Thygesen – Passions-Surfaces – For Cecilia Stam 1968
Madam Stam made her Debut at the Eurovision song contest, here she is guided by Erik, a Swedish man of stories, essays and translatio ns on a sentimental piece on the eternal triangle. Once again the added backround music is from my vast collection of unknown music – details on request
4. Arne Mellnäs – Far Out (Portrait Of Laura Nyro) 1969
Swedish composer Arne Mellnäs delivers a wonderful tribute to song legend Laura Nyro – Todd Rundgren famously stated that, once he heard her, he “stopped writing songs like The Who and started writing songs like Laura”. Go Todd… Nyro is mixed with the poetry of Mona Da Vinci – excerpt from “the sacred wood art: the last super of Mona Da Vinci” NY 74. A true pioneer of feminist based art.
5.Anthony J. Gnazzo – Hisnia & Hernia – CA 1975
A beautiful piece from an avant-garde poet extraordinaire. Join ed on re-edited drums and electronic-ness by Teutonic drummer Klaus Weiss from an LP called ‘27’ – Vegetable Poet Novelist On Cello.
6.Jackie Curtis – ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” NY 1 976
