Spectre Folk's Pete Nolan says:
So I'm gonna shoot for a couple of moods here. I had a pretty aggro day yesterday and a fairly mellow day today, so I didn't want to pigeonhole my post into one camp or the other. Here are a couple of "obscure things that I'm feeling right now":
The magnetic fuzz wah snuff film that is "Street Crime" by the Index is what I'm feeling right now (yesterday). A high school band from Grosse Pointe, MI, circa 1966. John Ford manages to infuse his guitar playing with all the violence and malevolence of Lou Reed on "Sister Ray" or Link Wray on "Switchblade," all the while wearing black motorcycle gloves. The home-fi recording is nuts, too. Listen to how blown-out the drums are at the beginning?! These guys were making up their own rules for what shit should sound like, and their first record sounds like it was recorded in a cave or something. Most retarded version of "8 Miles High" ever. And "Shock Wave"? I'd rather listen to that than Hendrix anyday. I just stumbled onto this jam though and I'm digging the immediacy of the fuzz and drum tones. The cover shot they chose for the YouTube is creepy too. Maybe it's the dreaded onset of another New York summer, or just a crowded, uptight vibe, but I'm in the mood for some violent guitar playing-- the kind you never hear anymore. It was a toss up between this and "Frustration" by The Mystic Tide (one of those holy grail records I've killed countless hours trolling for in Long Island thrift shops). I had to stick with my Michigan roots on this one though. I don't think this song ever even came out on either of the 2 O.G. LPs that they pressed 100 of, so it qualifies as obscure. And yeah, with today's headlines being "Drunk Tour Bus Driver Runs Down Tourist in Times Square," and "Woman Throws Sulferic Acid on Brooklyn Man for Unknown Reasons," I'm definitely feeling "Street Crime" right now.
Ok. Mood 2 (today) is this track from Jem Targal called "Call Your Name." Something about this guy's vibe kind of reminds me of The Godz. Maybe it's the whole, extremely-stoned-loner-trying-to-make-really-catchy-pop-songs thing. The way the tape starts with the ONE (of 2,3,4) being all low demon wind-up vox makes this sound like you're tuning in to some collective unconscious radio station: "I'm not sleeping... to have bad dreams." This dude is so far out he thinks he's gotta smooth talk the foxy chick coming at him in his dream. Damn, that drum machine sounds so good... I could listen to it all night. I love how the song doesn't wanna end; he just keeps kind of jamming out on all the instruments, one at a time, because the groove feels so good. What a fucking weird dude.
Holy crap... I just found out here that like The Index, Jem is also from Michigan. I must be feeling homesick or something. I'd only ever heard this guy before on Tony Coulter's radio show a few years back. I guess he was the principle songwriter behind The Third Power's Believe, which is one of the best hard rock albums of the psychedelic era. I have a feeling I know what tomorrow's mood will be...
By Jenn Pelly
MP3: Spectre Folk: "The Blackest Medicine"
Sonic Youth’s Hoboken pad, Echo Canyon West, is like Candyland for indie rockers. Past the warehouse’s emerald-colored door-- marked only by an Ecstatic Peace! sticker-- is a dim recording sanctuary, packed with equipment from the mid-'80s. The space has served as their studio, practice space, and storage closet for five years, but on this gray Friday in March, Thurston, Kim, and Lee are nowhere to be found.
Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley, however, sits on a couch in the control room, donning tiny specs and a smart sweater over a collared shirt. Behind him, past a glass window, the studio’s live room is crowded with instruments; the walls are flecked with guitars. Shelley taps his foot to a freshly recorded take from Spectre Folk, the 16-year-old project of Magik Markers drummer Pete Nolan. The group has spent the past three hours recording at Echo Canyon, where they also tracked their recent Woodsist EP, The Blackest Medicine II-- a follow-up to Nolan's 2007 Woodsist debut, The Blackest Medicine. The new EP moves between sunny psych-pop and burning guitar solos, taste-testing the Canyon’s offerings with hypnotic gong crashes, Vibraphone drones, and melancholic piano parts.
Nolan, wearing thick black glasses and a denim jacket, speaks of “sculpting,” “clay,” and “paintings” when describing his musical textures and rhythms. He is an experimental music vet in his own right, citing influences as widely varied as Dead C, Turkish psych, free jazz, and outsider folk. Nolan releases “homemade masterpieces of epic psych” on his own label, Arbitrary Signs. And he’s also appeared on the past two Woods records, including-- you guessed it-- “September with Pete,” a nine-minute sprawl on 2009's Songs of Shame.
For the last EP and Spectre Folk's upcoming LP on Shelley’s new Vampire Blues label, Nolan has expanded the line-up to include Shelley on drums, Tall Firs guitarist/vocalist and Sonic Youth sound engineer, Aaron Mullan on bass, and cookbook author Peter Meehan, a former Times restaurant columnist, on guitar. After a listen to a mixdown of the day’s work, the dad talk commences; Nolan recently welcomed his first daughter into the world, and the group spends a few minutes comparing child bedroom decorations. Later, Meehan, Nolan and I drive to Manhattan’s East Village to talk about Spectre Folk’s history, Mark Ibold, and how the Woodsist Festival in Big Sur inspired their recent EP.
Brooklyn's Pete Nolan has been making lackadaisical psych-folk under the Spectre Folk alias since before he became one half of the Magik Markers, but it was not until he expanded his live line-up to include Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley and The Grey Lady guitarist Peter Meehan last year that the project seemed to be finally evolving into something more than a repository for stream-of-consciousness, early am noodlings. "Burning Bridge", from 2009's Compass, Blanket, Lantern, Mojo LP on Abritrary Signs, was one gorgeously tortured gem of a sleeper anthem, and we were delighted to learn yesterday that Nolan is now prepping a new EP for Brooklyn's Woodsist, featuring the aforementioned collaborators in addition to Aaron Mullan (Tall Firs) on slithered bass.
According to Magik Markers bandmate Elise Ambroglio, "the band entered Echo Canyon West with the intention of recording a 7" of the 'up-tempo' version of 'Blackest Medicine,' the title cut from the 2007 home-fi Woodsist debut. After several sessions, they emerged with a four song studio collage monster that won't fit in your locker and smells like smoked banana peels and undies blowing down an alleyway." Their reworking of "The Blackest Medecine", below, sounds almost like a lost single from VU's Loaded, though Shelley and Mullan's recent stint as the rhythm section for Michael Rother's Neu! tribute band seems to have rubbed off as well.
MP3: Spectre Folk: "The Blackest Medicine"
The Blackest Medicine, Vol. II 12" is out March 29th on Woodsist
A CMJ Showcase, co-presented by the blogs Microphone Memory Emotion, PIXELHORSE, and Visitation Rites at Glasslands Gallery in Brooklyn
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