Love and Surgery: Victor Lovera sampler

I tried to pare this down, I really did, but it couldn't be done with a clean conscience. So here you have a 10-song sampler of the work of Victor Lovera, a Nashville-based songwriter and muse/sometime creative partner of R. Stevie Moore, who, as anybody who is familiar with this WEBPAGE or its author will know, is by far my favourite one-man musical tornado.
Lovera was, from the evidence on this Moore-compiled double album of his songs, an arch-druid of mostly contemplative and personal minor-chord songs; at least in his later recordings chronicled here - he began with Moore in possibly Nashville's only hard rock/glam/Zappa-influenced group Ethos and could do a mean power pop.
I have never truly been a connoisseur of singer-songwriters, so it takes something really special to get me hooked (here the awkward, uninformed attempt at musical analysis); and Victor had a great ear for a satisfying chord change and a calming voice, paired with a feel for classic, universal lovesong lyrics and, yes, a goddamned sense of humour.

His more playful uptempo numbers are good fun, whipping out the assisted high harmonies, but for me these home recordings will always recall a sense of kinship, sorrow and mystery; seen, as Lovera is by the limited Youtube audience, as a disheveled and peripheral figure in the RSM lifelense - a streaming artistic audiovisual feed of sorts stretching back some 35 years. This feeling can be summarised neatly in the multi-part camcorder document of Lovera's visit to Moore's New Jersey home in 1991 - it was the song 'Gleason', below, which first caught my attention.

I believe that these days, amongst all the web-paradigms, they'd call this user-generated content. But there is something sincere and candid in the almost unselfconscious home tapes of the pre-spiderwebs generations.
Lovera's maudlin demeanour, which I am speculatively romanticizing, is no doubt partially explained by the unfortunate fact that he was a sufferer from Crohn's disease, which tragically claimed his life in '98. In place of any sense of injustice at the non-exposure of thousands of such worthy artists (LoveraMoore foremost), I merely count myself fortunate to have encountered these people and their music in my virtual travels. Could VicLo ever have imagined that people as far flung as the grey skies of Norwich UK would be shuffling around with his songs on their iSplod on an autumn's day?

The songs included are taken from 'Love Lovera, Last Victor', available for $$$coppage here and only here (near the bottom). They are mostly home recordings from the mid-80s to the mid-90s. Amongst them, 'It Sparkles' is 1996's latter-day classic (RSM rearrangement here); 'Jackie' reminds me of the intro to Love's 'Laughing Stock'... what can I say about the rest, they are just heart-rending and whimsical songs by a ''real down-to-earth cat''. Enjoy!

http://www.mediafire.com/?1s1h6goxwo9m7ji

Additional and essential material

Mice paces:

http://www.myspace.com/victorlovera (links through to dozens more)

http://www.myspace.com/victorlovera2

http://www.myspace.com/stethos Ethos (Lovera & Moore)

The compilation sampled here constitutes just a small part of Victor's output; he was in many other bands and it's all chronicled and sold through Steviehub. Here is the main page from which you can navigate through a plethora of info http://www.angelfire.com/nj2/cdrsmclub/3/vl/victor1.html

Can’t recommend this enough, one of those real delights you'd rarely unearth on purpose. The compilation consists of recordings from the 1930s golden age of rebetika/rembetika - urban underground music. This was the music disaffected Greek refugees from Asia Minor brought back with them, and boy… True to its origins, the Byzantine modes and unresolved structures give the style a strong Middle Eastern feel, but that doesn’t really cover it. The musicianship is impressive, intricate, often deceptively simple, and it still feels very Balkan, i.e. wistful as a troupe of wand'ring gypsies. These songs are ethereal when excised from worldly distractions and, as it turns out, made for stoners by stoners; which goes some way to explaining the disorientating side effects - even by today’s 'ethnic music' standards, where obscure and alien sounds issued from the dusty vaults are a dime a dozen.

Rebetiko is a folk style, and thus the tracks range from what I am informed are laments of woe to vital celebrations that make you want to dance badly, smash a few plates and drink copiously at a Mediterranean wedding reception... Ironically, my Greek ladyfriend hates it (too Turkish). She adds: ''rembetika originates from the verb 'remvazo', which means be lost in thoughts/absent-minded''. How apt!

Opa!

Below is a stonking BBC documentary on rebetiko, vintage: 1988.

Янка Дягилева 'Стыд и срам' (1991)

Link

The definition of a 'lost' classic. Russian 'punk poet' Yanka Dyagileva's sorrow is beautiful and heartbreaking. The dissonant rumblings of cheap electric guitar introduced here on some tracks makes this, like all 'final statements', prophetically unhinged and disturbing. The foreknowledge of her spiralling depression, alcoholism and the increasing bleakness of her lyrics haunt the listener throughout.

This short album is bookended by painful exorcisms, 'Выше ноги от земли' and 'Придет вода'; both are lengthy songs with more than one passage, and both transmit an indescribable angst (especially if you don't speak Russian), although these titles should give you some idea: 'The Water Is Coming', 'Higher Than My Feet Above the Ground', 'Of Devils'...
Cracked lullabies, a recurring broken music box and an endearingly shambolic delivery reflect an innocence lost, never to be regained, and the sort of fatalistic, self-destructive philosophy that permeates the art of those under the Mighty Red Boot. We are even treated to a minute or so of Yanka's *swoon* spoken word and *gasp* an organ solo!

The title translates as Styd i Sram, or Shame and Reproach, and is Yanka's final self-released record before her suicide in Siberia, in 1991, within months of recording these songs.
In Soviet Russia you were simply not allowed access to studio facilities unless you were bland, state-authorised un-music. Yanka's vagrant lifestyle, travelling around Russia in collectives playing to the counterculture crowd, was the only means by which a dissenting artist could make themselves heard - at grassroots level. As such the Russian political folk underground was largely inspired by Bob Dylan and other Western minstrels, as well as rock 'n' roll and other impassioned forms of music that were frowned upon. Indeed, many of Yanka's contemporaries faced arrest without trial (and in some cases even torture) for their stance.

To those in the know, Стыд и срам is a punk-folk classic, although parallels could be drawn with the concurrent grunge and lo-fi scenes emerging in America. However none of those artists knew anything of the true tyranny, cultural suppression and hardship that Yanka did; and the melodies bear no resemblence to anything Western.

It's such a shame there has been no comprehensive translation of this bohemian heroine's lyricbook, as the folk-poet element is lost on non-Russian speakers... But if you are interested there are dribs and drabs of information, and all her home-recorded albums and bootlegs are free to download here: http://store.yanka.lenin.ru/mp3/Prodano!_89/

Shout to Proskynesis for introducing me to this a while ago.

The POWDERED COWS AND THE TOY THROAT ALARM CLOCK - s/t (2009)

Right, a bit of a break from the norm here as this is not an album share; but I've included a few streams for you to peruse whilst you deliberate on taking the monumental risk of actually paying FIVE POUNDS for an excellent record by a lovely person whom, in all certainty, deserves the money.

Powdered Cows is the solo alias of multi-instrumentalist songwriter Martin Roberts, resident of the rolling hills and sweaty crevices of Dorset (this is an important factor as we shall find out).

Compared to the playful noise-jazz chaos of one of Martin's many group projects, Skitanja, the Powdered Cows output is predominantly of the introverted, reflective indie-folk variety. I'm crap at hearing lyrics, but based on the artwork and song titles this album is inspired by very late nights and the 'blissed-out' (as a friend recently put it) atmosphere of the countryside in the South West. It's my belief that the closer to nature you are, the closer you are to the essence of life, and this is reflected in the Powdered Cows listening experience, which is quite ethereal. 'Descent From Animals'.

From track to track the permeating sound is hushed and reverential, even when things take a darker turn it's as if Martin were staked out at 3am with Bill Oddie, waiting for a badger to emerge from its burrow. These references to nature shouldn't be misread as New Age philosophy either - think more along the lines of British Sea Power, a pastoral Englishness and celebration of peaceful life, with a dash of spirituality.

A lot of work has gone into the production, and each track is layered with instruments, synths and samples of all kinds: woodwind, strings, trumpet, drum machine, accordion, toybox, to name but a few. It's the sound of a musical collector bringing his toys out of the loft to play.
But what really ties this record together for me are the sound samples and the hissy gramophone-like effect on many of the tracks. We hear birds crowing, what sounds like pattering rain throughout 'Eyes of Knives', radio static, a kick-drum that almost recreates the sound of a record skipping on 'Little Red Lilly Beetle', and a denouement that, appropriately, reminds one of the 'Lonely Man' theme...

Every song is legitimately catchy, but it's easy to overlook this amidst the homespun, secretive ambience of the album, which is only punctuated in the first half by Angus Rudd's driving drumwork featured on such tracks as 'Hidden Tapes'. This actually rocks in a subdued, post-punk way and is one of my favourites on here; with an intro that sounds like a processed organ feeding back, and a highly satisfying Doctor Who tone in the chorus.
The Doctor Who tangent might also take us, by way of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (also featured here) to the 21st century's Ghost Box label and its esoterical manifesto of mysticism and the paranormal; a thread that I feel Powdered Cows picks up on, at least in spirit.

Hear some tunes, and possibly purchase them. http://www.myspace.com/powderedcows
Last.fm, free downloads. http://www.last.fm/music/The+POWDERED+COWS+AND+THE+TOY+THROAT+ALARM+CLOCK

Jake Thackray - La-Di-Dah (1991 collection)

A real treat for yuz here. To celebrate my purchasing of the Jake In A Box retrospective, I present here a 22-track compilation of Jake Thackray recordings, taken from his tenure at EMI in the late 60's and early 70's with a couple of live tracks from later in the 70's. To my mind he's at his best as you see him on stage: solo with an acoustic guitar; but I was pleasantly surprised by the producers' restraint in embellishing his songs in the studio - all of them are gold. So - no flies on me!

Thackray's bawdy, verbose and often hilarious folk songs don't at all betray his reputed stage fright, a fear which eventually led to his premature retirement from performing. However this wasn't before he completed many sessions for the BBC, played the Royal Variety show and recorded his debut in 1967, a door down from the Beatles at Abbey Road... (although he's not always exactly wholesome family entertainment).

'So, what makes him so damn great?', I hear the voices in my head cackle.

Over an idiosyncratic finger-picking style, Jake tells quirky and satirical stories with whimsy, wit, raunch (always in good taste) and the occasional dash of absurdism, all in an exquisite Yorkshire brogue. Not unlike Nick Drake with a sense of humour (Nick was a fan apparently). He's been called 'the North Country Noel Coward', but this doesn't do him justice at all. Thackray taught in France for many years, and was essentially responsible for introducing the chansonnier tradition to these shores. The video below is his translation of George Brassens' 'Le gorille'.

I was introduced to the songs of Jake Thackray after seeing a 2006 BBC Four documentary aired to mark the revival of interest following his death in 2002. Shamefully, it's taken me this long to properly exploit my curiosity. He is all the more appealing for his detatchment from that contemporaneous music scene of psychotropics and Eastern mysticism; right up there with 60's traditionalists like Ivor Cutler and the Kinks circa 'the Village Green Preservation Society'.

'The Thack' just wrote great down-to-earth songs with a mastery of the English language we don't often see in this day and age; his pastoral songs always put me in a rustic frame of mind and almost make me proud to live in the countryside (see: 'North Country Bus', probably the most impenetrably colloquial song on here, or not? Non-Brits leave yer feedback!).

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