CONCERT UPDATE INFO:   

Eyvind Kang, amazing new violinist for Bill Frisell's current quartet & Tzadik recording artist, will be fronting a power trio with Kato Hideki-el. bass god & Calvin Weston-monster drummer for the Lounge Lizards, on Sunday Sept. 22nd at 10pm (?) on the main stage of the Knitting Factory. Although Eyvind plays fairly re- strained on the superb new Frisell cd, his Tzadik cd is pretty twisted, he loves to torture that violin with distortion...He has recently been jamming & recording with the Sun City Girls!   

Celebrating Albert Ayler's 60 birthday, there is going to be an historic Ayler festival, organized by my friend John Szwed-Yale prof, Voice writer & Sun Ra author. This all star tribute features Joseph Jarman, Joe McPhee, Peter Brotzmann, Sunny Murray, Borah Bergman, Amiri Baraka, Gary Lucas, Thurston Moore, Deidre Murray & Jim Nolet. It takes place Friday Sept. 20th at 8 pm at the Washington Square Church, 135 W 4th St. Cost is $15. Surprise guests as well. This should be a great concert, not to be missed.   

NEW RELEASE INFO: (either just released or just about to be)   
 

• 1.Thomas Chapin Trio plus Strings-Haywire (KFW) 
• 2.What is Jazz? 1996 (KFW) with Horace Tapscott, Clusone Trio, Matt Shipp, Myra Melford, David S. Ware Qt., Mario Pavone & Thomas Chapin. 
• 3.Marty Ehrlich Quintet-New York Child (enja) 
• 4.Bobby Previte's Weather Clear-Too Close to the Pole (enja) 
• 5.Derek Bailey-Guitar Drums n' Bass (Avant) Derek goes jungle!?! 
• 6.John Zorn's Masada-Seven (DIW) any day now, ask about eight. 
• 7.Jim Plotkin-The Joy of Disease (Avant) with Mick Harris. 
• 8.Soft Machine-Spaced (Cune.) archival/trance/loops/masterpiece. 
• 9.Present-Live (Cune.) Univers Zero off-shoot 
• 10.The Muffins-185 (Cune) prod. by Frith, their final effort 
• 11.Loren Mazzacane & Alan Licht-Live in NYC (NWoS) lp for $7.00 
• 12.Chris Cutler/Zeena Parkins-Shark! (ReR) Live! Harpercussion 
• 13.Rene Lussier/Jean Derome/Chris Cutler-Three Suite Piece (ReR) Feat. Tom Cora 

Elliott just got back from Europe where he played a couple of duo gigs with Vernon Reid, as well as a few quintet gigs with the unit-Oblique Ahblue who consist of Oliver Lake, Arthur Blythe, Santi Debriano, Billy Hart & E#. Neither group has recorded yet.   

Released so far this year-"Hoosegow" (Homestead) Elliott's superb acoustic blues duo with fine vocalist Queen Esther. Also "Sferics" (Atonal) solo fretless guitar, dedicated to Sonny Sharrock, pretty scary stuff. "State of the Union" 3rd version (Atavistic)2 cd set for $16. 147 one minute trax, over 2 hours, includes all trax from '82 and '92 releases. An extraordinary journey thru the bowels of down- town. Practically every downtowner you could ever imagine...   

Upcoming releases include-2nd duo with Zeena Parkins on Victo, called "Blackburst", out by Nov. 1st; also the 2nd release by Tec- tonics, called "Field & Stream" on Atonal due in mid October. Elliott describes Tectonics as psychedelic/dub/techno. Philorene is yet another project by E#, with a 12" out on Organico & completed cd out in the future-psych/dub/jungle.   

REVIEWS TO PONDER:   

Roger Kleier-"KlangenBang" (Rift) New guitar hero-Roger Kleier & key- boardist/wife-Annie Gosfield moved to NYC from LA about 5 years ago. I've seen Roger perform with David Moss, Elliott Sharp's el. guitar quartet-Dyner's Club (cd out on Intakt), Marc Ribot's Shrek, John Zorn's Xu Feng & a cool improv trio with Annie & Kato Hideki on bass. His playing consistently knocks me out, this cd is a fine example.   

Ribot's band-Shrek were/are very much hit or miss, both on cd & especially live. Both amazing & lame gigs as well. Roger seems to have taken some of the better aspects Shrek's quick strumming, double guitar angularity & put them to powerful use on this great, twisted cd. Layered feedback, Frith like warped guitar noise, thick toned monster sounds a la Branca. The Sonny Sharrock tribute tune sounds totally heartfelt & features some particularly sick slide, which would make Sonny proud. The last piece is a 14 minute masterwork of layer- ed guitars, fractured sounds, ominous rumbling, note bending skronk...   

Shea>Rimbaud>Hampson-"Zulutime" (Sub Rosa) Two untitled 20 minute plus duos with David Shea. One with Robin Rimbaud, better known as Scanner, the other duo with Robert Hampson from Main. Recorded live in London, May '96. Rimbaud/Scanner uses local cell phone lines to tap into, picking up random phone conversations. Since we are all voyeurs deep within, we zero in on snatches of interesting conversation. Shea con- tinues to surprise us with a constant source of evocative sounds, flow- ing in & around the words & phone static. The duo piece with Hampson is much more subtle, slowly evolving, scratchy records, tv samples, ethnic voices & percussion loops. A well done journey intricately selected sounds.   

Franklin Kiermyer-"Kairos" (Evidence) Master drummer & composer, hail- ing from Montreal, now based in NYC, Franklin came to our store a few years back with a tape of music he composed & produced. I listened to the tape of this unknown talent & was very impressed with the playing and composing. We made a list of labels that might want to put out his finished product & within a year he had 2 great cd's out on Konnex. The 2nd one is called "In the House of the Fathers" and features Dave Douglas, John Stubberfield & Anthony Cox. We carry both for $14.each. Evidence finally picked him up & put out his 3rd release-"Solomon's Daughter" which featured Pharoah Sanders blowing, screaming like late period Coltrane. A rare treat from Pharoah nowadays.   

"Kairos" came out earlier this year, and is his best effort yet. It is mostly a quartet date with Michael Stuart on tenor & soprano, John Esposito on piano & Drew Gress on acoustic bass. Stuart is an old high school pal of Franklin's, a powerful player right out of the Trane school. John Esposito is also an outstanding player out of the McCoy bag. There are 5 sacred/world music pieces strategically placed bet- ween these strong compositions of Franklin's, showing the source & inspiration inside-angolan, pygmy chanting, mbuti percussion, greek bagpipes & papago native american chanting. Franklin's composing is superb & memorable throughout. His Elvin Jones like drumming is a powerful centering storm. There is a deep spiritual quality to the entire affair. Special guests include Sam Rivers & Eric Person on soprano saxes. One of the year's best. Later Trane lovers take note.   

Welcome to the second edition of Mike's Space once again dedicated to the indulgent spirit that resides inside all of us, but especially mine (get your own newsletter).   

If you can't say what you need to about something in under a paragraph you're too damn wordy, so in that vein we'll turn our attention to REVIEW HAIKU. Once again the format will be  [artist- title- label]  

Chandeen- Lights Within Time- Hyperium/Rough Trade   

new songs and mixes  
dark pop sad and beautiful  
makes me want to cry  

Mental Destruction- Straw- Cold Meat Industries  

new tribal harshness  
metal drums voice as texture  
sound of slow flaying   

Roach/Kent/Newby- Halcyon Days- Fathom   

aboriginal  
synth and didj and ancient drums  
beautiful dark trip  

Arcana- Dark Age of Reason- Cold Meat Industries   

darker Dead Can Dance  
warm like In The Nursery  
Carl Orff did it first  

Murphy's Law- Dedicated- Profile   

lack of progression  
still just as fun as ever  
better than Warzone  

Skold- Skold- RCA   

Swedish Nine Inch clone  
RCA tries to cash in  
okay for background  

Vanessa Daou- Slow to Burn- Krasnow/MCA   

Sade should beware  
breathy erotic stuff here  
slow grind after wine  

Various Artists- The California Takeover (LIVE)- Victory   

metal as hardcore  
Earth Crisis Snapcase and Strife  
no Integrity?  

Starting to get cynical so I'd better quit for now.   
On to some other waste of our time. 

• 1. Brighter Death Now- Innerwar (can't get over the eerie brutality)   
• 2. Cradle of Filth- Vempire (can't get over the poetic brutality)   
• 3. Mortician- House by the Cemetary (can't get over the moronic brutality)   
• 4. Chandeen- Lights Within Time (can't get over the sad beautality)   
• 5. Closing theme to Cartoon Planet (can't get over how stupidly a song can be, BRAK RULES!!!!!!!!) 

In light of the fact that there really isn't anything too amazing to review and my HAIKU and BABES sections are so short I'm going to review recent events in my life-   

Ex-Fiance Blues   

Tried to reconcile  
will not move to Oregon  
broke up on Sunday  

CMJ Weekend   

Victory show ruled  
Neurosis and Bloodlet killed  
felt young again  

Hurricanes   

great waves Labor Day  
breakers tubed way far offshore  
Ah!! Ha! Ha! Wipeout!!!   

Music Biz Blows   

tried to make mu$ic  
publisher $crewed us real bad  
not writing for now  

Bye Summer : (   

sales picking up now  
it's cool outside as I write  
skirts getting longer 

I'm out of fairly original, funny stuff so I'll end here and say goodbye until next time. Remember, we'd like this space to be sort of interactive so Email us with suggestions for the betterment of this piece of cyberfluff and we'll do what we can. Until next time this is Mike, future leader of the Empire of America saying CIAO! Spank you. (Apologies are due for our bi-weekly letter becoming a tri-weekly letter, but dammit we were busy and we've still got over half of that collection left to sell [hint], so, sorry.)