Example of that "crunchy" bass sound (bad sound quality)

Here is a poor sound quality clip (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeP5nNur37A) taken off a VHS (or maybe super VHS?), or maybe even what was considered HD tape at the time. Anyway it's from a Killing Joke show from the 1986 era, which is often considered when things began to fall apart for the band, after having released an outrightly commercial rock album ("Brighter Than A Thousand Suns"). In this case, they perform one of my prefered tracks from the album (more on my views of Killing Joke later), "Twilight Of The Mortal" and if you listen carefully you will hear that "clanking", "crunchy" bass type played by my bass hero Paul Vincent Raven. After all it was after hearing his bass playing with Killing Joke that I myself decided to pick up the bass. Enjoy the clip, even if the sound quality is far from excellent.

Overlooked but necessary: plectrums

I shall be going on vacation soon enough which means that people at work will be slowly waking up until the end of the week and start bombarding me with ridiculous amounts of tasks with equally if not even more exaggerated time delay requirements. It's no surprise that the monster oligarchic worldwide conglomerate I work for (it's a long story as to how I got here, one for another time) doesn't offer support nor replacement staff, and that the people I work for in this department really don't care much about the welfare of the lower-leveled employees. But I have written and ranted about this ad nauseum in another blog I run (one where people actually go to and read), so suffice it to say this may be my last post in a while since I will be principally offline during my time off. So let me just right into it,


The plectrum, or pick, is a (generally) inexpensive but impostant piece of gear for the stringed instrument player. I play bass myself, with a but of guitar noodling when required, and the bass I've had the love/hate relationship for over 25 years now (or so) is the Steinberger system Hohner "The Jack" headless bass:

The advantage of this bass is it's size: due to the fact that it is of a smaller design than the traditional bass, it fits in a regular guitar case. The disadvantage, aside from being laughed at by the "cool" and "real" musicians, is that the strings are rare, hard to find, and expensive. Where guitar players and regular bass players have a real myriad of different types of strings to choose from, the Hohner bass, using the pattented Steinberger system, basically has "one". Yes I could custome order strings from the Status graphite company but that would easily cost me triple the price of the "generic" types of bass strings available for "The jack".


But the pick, or the plectrum, is a more affordable piece of gear which can greatly influence the style of playing as well as the sound. I myself sort of went a bit crazy of late with the whole pick/plectrum universe and discovered that you can get all sorts of picks in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and materials. From the common hard plastic generic brand to a unique custom-made out of meteorite fragments (no kidding!), passing through custom logos and design prints to oddball shapes, one can easily get overwhelmed in this universe, and one can just as easily begin a love affair with the sheer artistery of the pick's creation.


Anyway, my style of playing and prefered sound is far from the usual and traditional usually associated with the typical bass player. This is why I have recently ordered a few different types of picks online, in the hopes these will re-envigorate my love for the instrument.


After I purchased a pack of 1mm thick plastic-like picks which fall under the more traditional format, I went with the stainless steel:

Stainless Steel picks are supposedly "indestructible" and will last a lifetime. They are also reputed to literally shred through your strings if played violently for extended periods of time. They also give you a shorter and straigter attack with a more gripping sound.


Next I went with the horn material pick:

Much like the whole turtle shell picks which are illegal for obvious reasons, picks made out of animal material are indeed something which would go against my principals. However most horn-material pick manufacturers (and you can imagine there aren't all that many) used material from leftovers and residues, meaning they don't activally seek out animals to use their horns as plectrum materials. Usually, a buffalo's horns are used for these.


Next, the Bone plectrum:

Like the horn above, this is a bit of a touchy subject as again ot comes from animal parts. But I found a crafter who uses strictly bone leftovers from slaughterhouses who would otherwise just discard the bone leftovers. Bone, a bit like horn (but slightly more so), is also a very hard, very durable material which doesn't bend or break easily and creates a brighter-toned bass sound, or as I like to call it, "crunchy" (a term I used since the 80s).


Finally as a bonus, I got an ebony pick:

People say that a wood pick's sound is unique to the type of wood and how it is crafted, which essentially means that each wooden pick is different. There are nor only articles and websites out there in the internet land dedicated to the pick/plectrum, but I found one blogsite dedicated strictly to wooden picks! The material apparently produces a more subdued sound, a bit more subtle, but warm, and it all dépends on the actual wood used. Ebony is apparently one of the richer, fuller, crispier types of sound which should fall in the "crunchy" required category, which is why I purchased one. It was also crafted by the same artist who did my 2 bone picks.


By the way I haven't tried any of these yet as I am still waiting on delivery of these picks.


Below are two plastic picks I have in my present arsenal. To the left is a barely used pick of medium-large thickness, and to the right is a thick gauge pick (1mm thickness) which got eaten up from playing in the bands A.K.A.inc. (https://www.discogs.com/artist/3623187-AKAinc) and of course the Ze Zinjanthropes Brachycéphales Ft'Gh group:

Fritz (Fritzy) image

Artist: Gilbert Hernandez. ARCHangel piece "Docteur Fritz" (from: https://www.discogs.com/Archangel-TefHanj-O-Ver/release/4438329) was inspired by this character. More to come soon...

Alan Vega - Suicide - Art

Like my previous post, who today is not familiar with Suicide? It seems after Alan Vega's passing last year, the band has reached mythical cult status and every post-bear hipster is now a Suicide fan. I will admit I too was not familiar with the band nor Vega's creative output very much outside of the little he did when he collaborated with the two guys from Panasonic as VVV (Vainio / Väisänen / Vega)

When I was eposed to VVV's debut CD "Endless", I was anything but excited, waiting to be impressed. I mean first of all, I was a mega Panasonic fan and those two Finnish guys working together on just about anything could do no wrong by my ears. I had no clue who this "Alan Vega" was, although the name was familiar (it was a few years later that I discovered that years earlier he had collaborated on the Andrew Eldrich "The Sisterhood" EP project). Folks hyped him up saying stuff like "Alan Vega... Matin Rev... Suicide, man!" to which I replied I had no clue, which people couldn't believe since I pretty much knew a good amount of useless information reguarding un-commercial music in general. However, "Endless" by VVV being my first official introduction to the world of Alan Vega, I was left anything but impressed. To me he sounded like a hack of Elvis Prestley with a one trick pony of a vocal delivery (that 1,2,3 schtick: "Red Lights Down" - "Hey Hey Hey" and so on), which sounded as though he recorded months later after the Panasonic guys delivered sub-par Panasonic material. Don't get me wrong, if "Endless" had be released without Alan's vocals as some kind of Panasonic material, I would have gobbled it up. Alas, it sounded as second-rate material at best, with maybe two stand-out track from the album.

It wasn't until years later I heard cover versions of this piece called "Ghost Rider" which caught my attention to try to look into Suicide. At first I was more curious about the music rather than the myth, but was again side-tracked by another VVV release. Oh great, I thought; if they hadn't wasted my time enough with the first one, now they're doing another. However this time, "Resurrection River" was quite different. If fans felt this second offering a less "bombastic" release being slightly more "toned down", I did not see it in the same light. In my opinion, this second release felt a more cohesive group effort instead of the disjointed offering of "Endless". In fact "Resurrection River" felt more focused, denser, and yet more pure in it's composition and delivery. OK so Vega was not getting any younger but this time he sounded more into it than the first time around. It was after "Resurrection River" that I felt I could dive into the whole Suicide myth with a more open mind, ready to discover what so many shunned and ridiculed for décades.

By this time, Alan had passed away, and the sheer number of people claiming to have been influenced by his decades' worth of art and music were unfathomable. Suicide's debut album "Suicide" from 1977 was being hailed as the long lost holy grail between rockabilly and noise-industrial. I was immersing myself in Suicide as best I could, trying to grab as many CDs from the band and Vega's discography that my limited budget allowed me (as you can imagine, after Alan's passing his contributions became more expensive to acquire). But it was to be something else entirely which would place the memory of Alan Vega in my artist's heart.

As you know, Alan Vega was also a visual artist. Paintings, sketches, drawings, and "structures" made up some of his non-musical crafts, and in this I found a reverberating commonality. You see, not long prior to discovering this, I decided to take up acrylic painting myself. With no classes nor education in the domain whatsoever, I was inspired by my wife's own paintings and realised there was a whole world of visual expression to be experienced. I had a friend who did doodlings and drawings but found that the medium was flat and cold. Painting on a cotton canvas has a texture, a depth which 2-D pen on paper can not emulate. So when I discovered Alan painted (amongst other ventures), I felt a certain "connection" to the man, even though I literaly am an unknown nobody in a world of cell-phone addicted wireless streaming ADD sufferers. I'm not anyone special, and I don't have special skills, but I do "art" because it is a part of me, because I feel as though it needs to be done and it needs to come out. Some folks buy stuff, some folks shop, some folks stream Netflix and watch celebrities on media devices. I do music and paint and cook and support DIY independant artists. But again I digress.

I don't claim to being the planet's most enthusiastic appreciator of Alan Vega and Suicide, but I am a "wealthier" person for knowing about them and being open to their unique and unimitable strong-of-consciousness art. I absord anything relating to Alan Vega, in the hopes of getting some clue, some insight as to where the madman meets the artist, and how to make it "tick", make it "stick" and make it timeless and memorable. Worthwhile is another concept altogether, reserved strictly for that of the outsider looking upon, or for the masses of consumerism and disposeable fashions who claim to put value strictly on what gains popular notoriety and amasses social media points. To me, Alan Vega is about the creation of something reguardless of expectations, and letting it be as is in this world, for whatever that's worth.

Almost complete: The Young Gods

Surely you heard of The Young Gods. I don't think I need to inform you all of these guys. I discovered them in 1988 or 1989 with their 12" single "L'Amourir", which was followed by their self-titled debut and then the excellent "L'eau Rouge". I saw them live at Foufounes Électriques back in 1990 or 1991 (with a duo calling themselves The Iron Fireman as an opening act - very interesting to say the least!) which was after the release of the "Play Kurt Weill" album, but I am not certain if "T.V. Sky" was out yet or not. Probably as that was the period which they broke through to the USA (American) market and toured almost worldwide. Anyway I already was a fan and the show was nothing short but absolutely spectacular: how can a band where 2/3 of its members are stuck behind a drumkit and a keyboard/synth/rackmount module be as overly active? The sheer power of their material. Anyway...


Point is that last night I almost completed my discography. I sort of got rid of all my "industrial" collection back in the late 90s / early Y2K to make room (and gain store credit) for other musical adventures, but now I regret that decision since I seem to be sort-of wanting to return to some of those roots once in a while. After the "T.V. Sky" album from the Gods, I sort of began to lose interest since I wasn't getting into their "KMFDM"-"NIN" hyper-guitar sampled infused material. Yes, "L'Eau Rouge" is a masterpiece and the sampled guitar work on that is phenomenal, but "T.V. Sky" sort of felt as though they were catching the wave of this brave new sound, coupled with the exploding grunge scene of 1990's Teen Spirited Nirvana Smell. I also wasn't sure about that "The Doors" direction they were sort of hinting at, even though that proved to be one of their strengths for that period. Point is, after "T.V. Sky" I began switching off, heading more towards noise-drone-experimental and techno music, slowly phasing out the industrial side of things.


Somewhere in the early Y2K a friend gave me a promo copy of their "Second Nature" album and I enjoyed it. While keeping some of the frantic-ness of earlier Gods, they also were exploring deeper electronic textures, almost veering towards some of the effective-brutal minimalism of Panasonic (which were at the time my all-time favorite outfit). The title "Second Nature" seemed to imply that they took time off around the same time I switched off, further reading revealing that a new drummer had joined the band. Yet I still was not convinced about these aging Gods, since even with such a strong album, I thought they were still too "mainstream" for where my tastes had gotten to.


What happened? Sometime maybe about 3 or 4 years ago I accidentally discovered they had released an album called "Everybody Knows", and the few excerpts I heard was enough to convince me of just how continually slef-reinventing themselves they were. The album had seen the Gods evolve to a point where I felt the expériences of their past had come almost full circle and they were starting to progress yet into deeper experimental territories. So I hunted down their material since, but it was no easy feat since quite a lot of their earlier material was out of print, and this new album (by my perspective) was near impossible to find at a reasonable price. After purchasing a CD copy of that one, it got the ball rolling and slowly I began re-purchasing the discography with the help of my wife who would get deals supreme with her own online researches.


1987: "The Young Gods" (self-titled debut)
Raw and primitive even at the time compared to other artists who had elevated the art of industrial sampling to heights unabtainable by the non-proffesionals. And yet with all brutal primitivism, they managed to get their point across. The CD album also contains the 3-track "Envoyé" EP.


1989: "L'Eau Rouge"
Considered by many as their masterpiece; they elevated the art of combining "classical"-influenced samples with hardcore fast guitar riffs and frantic drums. People who heard the Gods but were unaware of them never imagined that there were no guitar players in the band. CD version includes the "L'Amourir" 2-track EP.


1991: "Young Gods Play Kurt Weill"
I recall buying this one at the downtown HMV store (before it begame the mega-store which closed down earlier this year) and unfortunately selling it for store credit. I still did not hunt down a copy of the CD yet (one of my next hunts).


1992: "T.V. Sky"
I brobably bought this one at HMV as well but I don't really remember. Again, this was their breakthrough album which basically took what they had done so far, pumped it up a notch or two to be heavier than grunge, and began singing in English. America was introduced to the Gods and they got massively popular. My wife found a new copy of this CD last X-mas.


1993: "Live Sky Tour"
I had bought this one but didn't keep it and I am in no hurry to re-purchase it since I'm not a fan of live recordings (generally speaking) and it didn't feature my favorite pièces from the outfit.


1995: "Only Heaven"
I never knew of this album because as I said, by the time it was released, I had already moved on to other pastures. My wife ordered it for me and it arrived yesterday, brand new and scealed. Apparently it was as big as "T.V. Sky" at the time but already began to see the musical shift of the band towards a slightly more "toned down" approach. This time lyrics in both french and English, and "Moon Révolutions" is quite the maniacal trip.


1996: "Heaven Deconstruction"
Long-time drummer Use Hiestand quit the Gods after the "Only Heaven" tour which created a lull or a break for the band. Franz Treichler took the opportunity to craft a highly "experimental" album without lyrics, song structure, and barely any rhythm with this one, which was again given to me by a friend, but this time I kept this one due to its unconventional format. Alas, somewhere in my travels the CD cracked rendering the last 1/3 of the CD unplayable, and last time I checked, it was now completelly unplayable. Last May when in Germany I found a copy of this disc which is now part of my collection.


2000: "Live Noumatrouff, 1997"
Another live recording which I was unaware of and am not yet intrigued by, for reasons expressed earlier.


2000: "Second Nature"
The "return" of sorts for the Gods with new drummer (but long-time drum tech) Bernard Trontin; as mentionned I was given a copy of a promo version which has been with me ever since. A couple of stand-out pièces, an overall stronger electronic offering with a more techno-flavored feeling for the most part. "Lucidogen" remains one of my favorite pièces.


2004: "Music For Atificial Clouds"
Here is another "experimental" album from the guys, more ambient and textured than most of anything they had done before, but not quite as impressive as some of what more "full time" ambient explorators would come up. I heard the album but was left slightly unimpressed, and again I am in no real hurry to hunt down a copy of this one.


2006: "Truce Diaries"
I never knew what to make of this one as it did not seem to be considered an official album per se, more of a collection of tests, live bits, incidental audio, and mostly unclassifiable material. A very rare collectible but not on my list of priorities as I do not consider this one to being an official release.


2007: "Super Ready / Fragmenté"
The Young Gods return in full force, this time going back to their guitar sampling but to a more "hard rock" end than the "metal" genre they had explored in the past. This one is in fat the closest to a "rock" album these guys had done thus far. Credit my wife for finding a new copy (scealed CD) online for me!


2008: "Knock On Wood - The Acoustic Sessions"
Again I don't consider this to being a real LP from the Gods since it is new recordings of old songs done entirely acousticaly. However my wife enjoyed the new bluesy "Gasoline Man" version and ordered the disc from a seller online. We got it yesterday. And there's a cover/re-interpretation of Suicide's "Ghost Rider" which never hurts.


2010: "Everybody Knows"
As I said, the one which reconciliated with The Young Gods. I love this one, consider it one of their strongest, and is the first time they wrote and recorded as a quatuor instead of their long-running "power" trio format since their beginnings. Fans of the earlier material may ot find much common ground on this album, but it shows the band growing and moving into other directions, which is never bad for any band.


Since that album, Al Monod, the keyboard player since 1991's "Kurt Weill" period, left the band to concentrate on his solo sitar explorations and photography. Fourth member Vincent Hanni who was there for "Knock On Wood" and "Everybody Knows" also left the band, and co-founder/original sampler player Cesare Pizzi returned after a 20+ year absence. They've done numerous collaborations and shows since then, and apparently have been working on new material for the last couple of years. I can't wait to see what they come up with next,

Doom Patrol (Morrison-Case era)

I used to be a comic book fanatic back in the 90s. I was introduced to the medium of comic books as serious artform and storytelling/commentary by my younger brother who first had me read the infamous "Watchmen" book(s), and then the first dozen issues of Neil Gaiman's "Sandman". The first made me realise that comic books were more than just the Archie and Jugghead fluff for kids, the latter made me realize that I was in fact almost addicted to the form. However it took one long road trip to Atlantic City in a cramped car with a broken heart (the very first real time!) and almost the entire run of the Grant Morrison and Richard Case era Doom Patrol (late 80s-early 90s).




Left to Right: Rebis, Cliff, and Crazy Jane

Doom Patrol began in the 60s just before the Uncanny X-men, and yet people still think that the original Doom Patrol was sort of the DC offshoot of the Marvel now-succeful franchise. Actually if anything of the sort is to be mentionned, perhaps the resemblance is closer to the Fantastic Four than the X-men, but I digress. Anyway, the original Doom Patrol were a team of "misfits", three freaks of accidents brought together by a wheelchair-bound leader to fight crime and threats usually too "weird" for the more conventional heroes. Robotman (Cliff Steel), Elastigirl (Rita Farr), and Negativeman (Larry Trainor) were recruted by Dr Niles Coulder to be called the Doom Patrol, and at first they were your rather very conventional and semi-straight-forward 60s super-heroes. They went through a few changes, and even got re-booted in the early-mid 80s as a bonafide superhero team. However when DC comics were about the launch their Vertigo sub-line, Grant Morrison asked if the team could be effectively "killed off" so he and Richard Case could start "all-over" with a brand new team. Only Cliff and "The Chief" (Dr Niles Coulder) are the characters which appear in virtually all versions of the Doom Patrol up to that time.

Anyway, Vertigo comics were made to be directed at more "mature" readers and titles like Swamp Thing, Hellblazer, Sandman, and such were already in the staple, with other additions like Shade The Changing Man joining in on the fun. Morrison's take of the Patrol was basically a return to the trio format of the 60s, with Cliff still being trapped inside his robot body, Larry Trainor being re-visited by the negative spirit and merging him with a female Doctor to create Rebis, a sort of hermaphrodite composite, and Crazy Jane who has over 50 different personalities, all of which with its own super power.

The first story arc for Morrison and artist Richard Case started off perhaps in a more straight-forward linear fashion (up to a certain degree) but things quickly took a turn for the weird, and the weirder, exploring a host of themes both bizarre and personnal, all the while presenting trully original characters and situations, with Cliff being the most "normal" person in the whole of the storyline.

It's really hard to describe the Doom Patrol of that era in any way which would make sense, and even in those days, the title stood out for being quite off the beaten path. It's peers such as Sandman and Hellblazer for example, remained more "dark" that flat-out weird, and maybe the audience of the era weren't ready for the Doom Patrol's own brand of psychedelic, psychotronic non-adventures. However the title went on for a couple of years before Morrison left, to be replaced by Rachel Pollack who did a fine job continuing the odd and weird, but never quite capturing the "grandeur" of Morrison's world.

Anyway with the world changing in the 90s and onwards, such blatantly off-the-beaten-path oddness became  socially accepted and with the advent of the interweb age, the Doom Patrol found a new more receptive audience even if the post-Rachel Pollack reboots were nothing more than the typical super hero comic book attempting to re-vitalize the title but never quite being able to find its niche. People have written quite elloquently about the Morrison years of the title and you can find more detailed and professionally written prose about the series online. But for my little blog here, I just wanted to mention how this series, the Morrison/Case era of the Doom Patrol, remains to this day my all-time favorite comic-book. I tried desperatly for years afterwards to find other comic book titles to replace the void the the DP was decommisioned due to lack of sales, but nothing ever quite came close to that special place.

As to why it touched me in such a profound way? Is it any surprise that the D.F.S. (https://www.discogs.com/artist/282405-Dogged-For-Sympathy) logo is an old-school type of robot, not unlike that of Cliff Steel's Robotman? Of that many of those A.K.A. inc. albums and songs were inspired by situations, scenarios and phenomenaes from the stories? Or that the logo of Wreck Age Recordings itself seems so familiar? I think that the comic book just spoke to me in a way which I could not fully understand (and still don't) but caught me at a crutial time. I was very fragile and receptive to weidness, having been only recently exposed to mind and perception altering substances which allowed me to appreciate alternative viewpoints and untraditional concepts. I was just beginning to discover a whole different universe of underground music via the DIY tape network culture, and was open to fill myself up with new ideas, morals, and expériences. The Doom Patrol took me on a wild and indescribable ride which felt as though it was written just for me. I still have all those single issues of that original run, as well as the re-printed graphic novels. Maybe I am overdue for a visit!

ARCHangel (the band) logo

I know this is a rather useless post, one which doesn't bring nor ad anything substantial to anything at all, but I wanted to share with you the brand new ARCHangel (https://www.discogs.com/artist/282406-Archangel-2) logo. ARCHangel is a band/project I have been doing on and off since 1991 (1992 was the first tape release), and I decided to crate a logo to represent the band.

I basically took a loose interpretation of the Ourouboros symbol (*) and added another circular symbol in the middle of it. It's nothing fancy but it works well, is simple enough and should be quite representative of the ARCHangel sound - both timeless, minimal, but dense (if need be).


(*): Ouroboros (but "Ourouboros" in Grant Morisson's Doom Patrol... I think!):
The ouroboros (/ˌjʊərəˈbɒrəs/; /ʊəˈrɒbərəs/; Greek: οὐροβόρος) is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail. Originating in Ancient Egyptian iconography, the ouroboros entered western tradition via Greek magical tradition and was adopted as a symbol in Gnosticism and Hermeticism, and most notably in alchemy. Via medieval alchemical tradition, the symbol entered Renaissance magic and modern symbolism, often taken to symbolize introspection, the eternal return or cyclicality, especially in the sense of something constantly re-creating itself. It also represents the infinite cycle of nature's endless creation and destruction, life and death.