On Vacation: Memorial Day

On vacation this week - back in a week!

Video: The Receiver - "Visitor"

Video: The Receiver - Transit

NPR All Songs Considered - Viking's Choice: The Receiver, 'Transit' (2015)

NPR All Songs Considered - Viking's Choice: The Receiver, 'Transit'
May 28, 2015

Like a space opera built for two, The Receiver's "Transit" captures a universe of dreamy prog in keyboards and drums. On their third album, All Burn, brothers Casey and Jesse Cooper set complex, bright melodies and heartbeat-pulsing rhythms adrift. "Transit" sounds like a Pink Floyd ballad sung with a Peter Gabriel-like coo, as synths tug and move the track forward. The band writes that "the song is about commitment to another person despite change and loss, and we wanted the music to reflect that."

New Additions: Decades album by The Receiver

Picking up CDs for cheap on Discogs has been a good way to quickly load up on Columbus music, usually a bunch at a time depending on the seller. Not too long ago I was able to grab the 2006 debut album Decades by The Receiver, which I missed back when it first came out. I'm not surprised that I missed it, as the combo of electronics, progressive elements, and indie rock would have gone right over my head.

Know Yer Band: The Receiver

Band: The Receiver

Members
Jesse Cooper - Drums, Percussion
Casey Cooper - Vocals, Bass, Keyboards, Piano

Releases
2006 - Decades album (Stunning Models On Display)
2009 - Length Of Arms album (Vital Music Records)
2015 - All Burn album (Kscope)
2016 - Air In The Embers (Kscope)

Impose Magazine: EL JESUS DE MAGICO, RAGTIME HORS C23

Impose Magazine: EL JESUS DE MAGICO, RAGTIME HORS C23

by TRENT MASTERSON

The Columbus punks are back with another tape that puts songwriting in the backseat in order to show off seriously heavy psych-rock chops. 

The tape starts off with a simple, blown-out riff repeating over some straightforward drumming, as a dissonant hum growls underneath it all. Any trace of vocals is hidden under a murky sneer. It’s definitely punk ethos meets space rock ala other current bands like Eternal Tapestry, but the groove and soloing are so fucked that it’s hard to fit it neatly into already fuzzily defined genres. 

The band also works with some more calm grooves, electing to let effected loops and bright power chords do all the work, but the real deal comes via the B-side.
It opens with heavy riffing and does not stop until everything is blow into high-hat abandon. Restraint is minimal and that’s a good thing.

VIDEO: El Jesus De Magico - live in Columbus

The Agit Reader: An Interview with El Jesus de Magico

The Agit Reader: An Interview with El Jesus de Magico

by Kevin J. Elliott

Just Deserts—what does it mean? I know you guys are deep into nature, Gnosticism, ritual and psychotropic experimentation, so are we are to just take this album at face value or is there something underneath the surface we need to be looking for? 

Michael O’Shaughnessy: As far as the titles go, they are usually the last things added to pieces or albums. Short of a few of Jon’s solid title ideas, song names and record titles have always been Tony’s work. Maybe he decided that since Jon and I came up with such a stupid name for the band, he wouldn’t let either of us name anything else. Or, maybe it’s because when we talk about one song or another, we use signifiers from our own language as a band. “Jear jiki jear ja jear, jiki jear, jieeeeer” is the intro to “LGNO,” for example. Surely this sounds bland and demystifying, but it’s the truth. The titles, while brilliant, mean nothing to me as the drummer but so much to me as a listener. I have clear pictures of each song in my head while playing them, but they are myopic and solipsistic compared to the picture I get when I listen to the record and the band as a whole. I have a silly idea as to what Just Deserts means, but I want to keep that in my pocket and think about it on my deathbed. So yes, more deism, yes, more ergot and wormwood and look in the mirror and ask yourself if you’ll get your Just Deserts. Just spell it right. 

Tony Allman: To me, it’s the notion of being left, even on the smallest, most minor scale, what an ending sounds like if no one is there to witness it. 

I know this record has been in the can for a while now, but has just been released. How long ago was it finished? Where was the band’s collective headspace at that time? 

TA: It has been done for quite a while. It was sequenced a little over a year ago and most of it recorded long before that. I’m not really sure about the collective headspace. We were very far apart in many ways. 

MO: Tony finished this version of the record last summer. He had done a version before and sent it to Adam Smith (of Columbus Discount Records) to press at Musicol, but the EQ on the B-side was all womperjaw and sounded bad to everyone after the lathe was cut. Most of the songs were from the last few weeks at the funeral home (the band’s old rehearsal space) before Tony moved to that little borough where trends go to die, and then there was a slice or two from a session at Columbus Discount Records when Tony came back to grab the last of his stuff that I didn’t destroy before he signed the lease in that city of infinite rendezvous. Jon howled like a poorly exorcised ghost, and it was the type of sound that vinyl can’t capture.

New Additions: Just Deserts album by El Jesus De Magico

Last fall I picked up a pair of El Jesus De Magico albums from Records Per Minute. Both Scalping The Guru and Just Deserts came with the comment from the owner Steve - "these are the best Columbus albums ever." High praise, considering Steve's long history in the city. I don't know that I 100% agree, but there is definitely something special and unique about the band, who traffic in experimental noise rock that sounds like the natural evolution of the scene following Jim Shepard and his various incarnations.

Know Yer Band: El Jesus De Magico

Band: El Jesus De Magico

Members
Bass Guitar – Christopher Lasch/Sarah Yetter
Drums – Michael O'Shaughnessy
Guitar – Dave Capaldi
Keyboards – Anthony Allman
Vocals – Jon Witzky

Releases
2005 - El Jesus De Magico album (Columbus Discount Records)
2007 - Funeral Home Session 7" single (Columbus Discount Records)
2008 - Unclean Ghost / Pirate Utopia 7" single (Columbus Discount Records)
2009 - Scalping The Guru album (Columbus Discount Records)
2009 - Paha Sapa / Rapey Guys II / Klip Aught 7" single (Columbus Discount Records)
2009 - Ragtime Hors mini-album (Goaty Tapes)
2012 - Just Deserts album (Columbus Discount Records)

OBSCURO! Blog: Jim Shepard/Vertical Slit/V-3 Megapost

Back in 2014 at the OBSCURO! blog, Bizzaro Jerry compiled all of his Jim Shepard and related recordings and posted them for download. Now, generally, I am opposed to posting music for people to download for free. In this, due to the relative obscurity of Jim Shepard's work, and near impossibility to track down for a purchase, I'm posting. However, if you can pick up a copy at Discogs, I also suggest that as well.

VIDEO: "SPIRIT DOMINATES MATTER" BOX-SET TRIBUTE FOR JIM SHEPARD DVD

Our Hearts Of Glass - The lost tapes of Jim Shepard

Our Hearts Of Glass - The lost tapes of Jim Shepard

August 15th, 2018

I first discovered Jim Shepard in the middle of a wildfire haze, which couldn't be more appropriate. Jim exists in a space tinged with a thick layer of smog, clouding both his history and our post-humous image of him. Even after hours of research, I've only been able to salvage a few pixelated photographs and second-hand, tale-like information about him.  

Through these obituaries and memories, I know that Jim was a blue-collar worker who lived in both Columbus, Ohio and also somewhere among the sun dirt roads of Florida. I know that he suffered through a horrific work accident that completely mangled one of his hands. And I know that due to this accident, Jim decided to dedicate all of his time to his many musical projects such as V-3, Vertical Slit, Ego Summit, and countless solo recordings. 

New Additions: Jim Shepard w/ V-3 / Lacquer ‎– Evil Love Deeper Album

Sometime over the winter, I was able to grab a copy of Evil Deeper Love from Used Kids. Like with the V-3 and Vertical Slit recordings I've acquired prior, Jim Shepard is an acquired taste I'm still trying to wrap my head around. Some of the elements hit me right, and others leave me scratching my head.

Know Yer Artist: Jim Shepard

Artist: Jim Shepard

Bands
Creature
Ego Summit
Lacquer
Phantom Limb
Skullbank
Snooks
V-3
Vertical Slit

Releases
1977 - Slit and Pre-Slit album (Not On Label)
1987 - Jagged Flash album (Old Age/New Age)
1991 - No Big Deal album (Iron Press)
1991 - Amsterdam album (Iron Press)
1991 - Whiskey Priest With A Master Plan (Iron Press)
1991 - The Folk City Aztec Drama Series: Volume One album (Iron Press)
1995 - Picking Through The Wreckage With A Stick album (Siltbreeze)
1995 - Morphine Monogram album (Iron Press)
1995 - Evil Deeper Love album (Thrill Jockey)
1995 - The Folk City Aztec Drama Series: Volume Two album (Iron Press)
1996 - The Evil Twin album (Iron Press)
1996 - Plays The Songs Of Kim Fowley - The Hollywood Hills Are Alive And Well 7" single (Anopheles)
1998 - Motorcycle Movie album (Iron Press)
1998 - Collisions compilation album (Iron Press)
2001 - The Dispossessed w/Charles Cicirella album (Shrimper)
2009 - The Voices Of Men 7" single (Columbus Discount Records)
2010 - V-3 Next Album (Not On Label)
2018 - The Letter Tapes album (Feeding Tube Records)
2019 - Heavy Action album (Ever/Never)