New OmmaCobba & the East Side Marijuana Band Tape!

My good friends of OmmaCobba & the East Side Marijuana Band have just put out their first tape on Harding Street Assembly Lab. It is a spilt with South Carolina band Cave Drums. OmmaCobba's work covers a rich spectrum of droned out RnR, to fake-jazzy freakouts, to krauty-space-stoner-pop, usually accompanied by large tom drum workouts and always given a generous portion of reverb and melody. Daniel and Denis definitely understand beauty and how to have a good time, their music reflects this take on life. The sound is a much needed breath of fresh air.

Listen below.

Here's what the label has to say about it!

From http://hardingstreet.bandcamp.com/album/hsal-06-split-cassette

"The A side is the most recent output from the brothers Condon (w/ a little help from their friends). The B side features music from great white northern neighbors OmmaCobba, who met the Condons online (think more e-harmony than dateline's "to catch a predator"). We recommend taking in this full length cassette as you would a 2nd hand smoke filled house show...complete w/ friends, brews, & good times."

Captain Beefheart and Cormac McCarthy

These guys have defined my summer of sorts. I am on a quest to read all of McCarthy's books and have been going through Beefheart's discography.

I think both artists are quite different when talking about how one reacts to their art; McCarthy's books make one experience the cosmic-awe of nature and ponder the inexplicable tragedies and ways of man. While Beefheart serves as the ying to this yang and seems to challenge this notion of determinism. He courts the shadow of the laws of nature, chaos.

However, these two artists are quite similar. Both are intensely reclusive and really give interviews if at all, both are extremely inspired by the desert, and their art owes much to the past as it is a part of it. They recycle-reuse-and-reinvent the past and return it to the cannon as if it was there all along. They borrow from the rich history of American folk culture; oral story telling, mythology, tale tales, folk, and blues. They take this ancient wisdom and shine its relevance, its timelessness.

I posted a couple of videos. The first is a short autobiographical documentary on Beefheart that sees him briefly talking about Miles Davis and has David Lynch pitching him a few questions.

The second series of videos is two excellent lectures on McCarthy's Blood Meridian by Professor Amy Hungerford from Yale University. I understand it is part of a series of courses from Yale that are available free online, check it out here.

McCarthy's Blood Meridian is widely regarded as one of best pieces of literature to come out in the last century. A heads up to people wanting to check out the lectures, it definitely helps if you have read the book but also if you were an english major it might remind you too much of school. Anyways the lecture is very well put together and sure to get you thinking. It sort of made me wish I had an english degree.

-Z

Montreal Sessions

Hello all I'll be artist in res at CKUT this month and hosting the Montreal Sessions radio show.
I'm pretty stoked to be doing this and going to be trying some new stuff on air. All shows are archived in case you miss it. First week is Dirty Beaches!

-Z

From www.ckutmusic.wordpress.com
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MONTREAL SESSIONS AUGUST: ZACHARY DEVEREUX FAIRBROTHER
August 2, 2010
by ckutmusic

Zachary Devereux Fairbrother is a musician from rural Nova Scotia. His music has touched many genres including psychedelic rock and folk, noise, drone,improvisation, and black metal. He lived and studied in Halifax for a number of years, playing in a band called Omon Ra and helping out with the Obey Convention Musical Festival. In May 2009 he graduated with a music degree in composition while studying under Jerome Blais and took off and left for Montreal. In the last year Zachary played many shows with his new group Omon Ra II and toured to Alberta to play Wyrd Fest and all the way east to for an appearance at the Obey Convention. In 2010 his music will score a film by director Salomon Nagler call *Black Salt Water Elegy *and he’ll be moving to Philadelphia for who knows what but he’ll be bringing along and cutting his teeth with his newest project entitled Lantern. He has written papers on Japanese Proto-Noise, Black Metal, is a contributor to Weird Canada , and keeps his own musings at a blog called Avant-Lard.

Zachary is thrilled to be hosting the Montreal Sessions for August. He is no stranger to radio having hosted a couple of shows on Halifax’s CKDU that were known for their enthusiasm for desperately diverse styles of music. Here is what he has planned…

August 3rd – Dirty Beaches will perform

August 10th – D’eon will perform

August 17th – Cabral Jacobs + TBA

August 21st – Lantern

Also planned are interviews with Halifax group The Ether and Divorce Records
owner Darcy Spidel.