Damon and Naomi... eh?

Kurihara is one of my favorite guitarists ever. possibly my favorite living guitarist

YES. The Rainbow record with Boris is absolutely stunning. "You Laughed Like A Watermark" in particular.

some kurihara megafan made me a mix of a bunch of his stuff a couple years ago, all kinds of recordings (mostly pre-Ghost!)...i take it y'all might be interested? i can upload it somewhere.

I would be very much interested, esp if it is a lot of pre-Ghost stuff!

Seconded!

You can probably find some of the White Heaven & The Stars releases around. The Onna stuff got reissued not so long ago too.

Still wish he'd 'step forward' a bit in the D&N stuff (although I know that's not his way) - have little interest in them, but everything he does is gold.

yeah this has stuff from you ishihara, cosmic invention, marble sheep, onna, ghost, white heaven, ha-za-ma and stars.

oooh yes plz

I had a really crappy tape of the Cosmic Invention record which I loved and has since died

eh?

oh sorry, couldn't do it this weekend. sometime this week!

i like pfork's 5-10-15-20 feature in general, but this new one w/ damon & naomi is really phenomenal—insights on damon's "age 0" record (his mother was an atlantic recording artist?!), velvets, new order, robert wyatt, leonard cohen, fairport convention etc. etc., they are super down to earth folks (as usual)

http://pitchfork.com/news/42581-5-10-15-20-damon-naomi

"So when Damon and [Galaxie 500 drummer] Dean (Wareham) started to form another band"...

After a few listens, I'm liking "Shadow Boxing" from this, and a few others. The ones I like best remind me of a less jokey Kramer/Bongwater, which has probably always been the case. I feel like they could keep on cranking out similar albums pretty indefinitely, for better or for worse. They could really use a producer who kicked their asses a bit...

has anyone heard the kramer produced "bootleg" of the wonderful world of damon and naomi? the one with the sonny and cher sleeve scribbled out? is this a thing that should be sought out? for ardent fans of more sad hits i mean.

It's on Spotify now. I didn't find it particularly essential, and in a surprising number of cases preferred the non-Kramer versions. I mean, it's fine and interesting but not something to go crazy over.

I just heard that Damon Krukowski had an essay on Scott Walker published, and I realize I was present the moment he discovered SW. I was shopping at Twisted Village (ca. 2000) when Wayne (?) was behind the counter and Damon was hanging out. I brought Shirley Collin, Dusty Springfield, and Scott Walker CDs among others up to the counter (the latter was "Pola X" sdtk) and Damon started talking to me about Shirley Collins. then he asks, "what's the deal with scott walker?" and I explained. I pointed to the Dusty CD and noted that he had the same arranger as Dusty in the early days (Wally Stott, correct?). anyway this is interesting to nobody and no doubt Damon would have discovered Scott Walker eventually but I feel that this is my very minor contribution to music culture and wanted to get it on the record.

anyway, they put out reissues of their albums a year or two (?) back and they sounded really poorly mastered.

that is all.

So you deserve the blame or the credit...

Titled No Regrets: Writings on Scott Walker, the collection features meditations on Walker's life and work, ranging from his 1960s records with the Walker Brothers to his later, more abstract solo material. It was edited by Wire editor Rob Young.
Contributors to the anthology include David Toop, Damon Krukowski of Galaxie 500/Damon & Naomi, Ian Penman, Stephen Kijak (director of Scott Walker: 30 Century Man), and more.

From a Pitchfork news item from 2 years ago.

yeah, somehow it just came across the radar yesterday. time moves slowly up here in the mountains.

argh, twisted village. that was a good record store. when I lived in boston, i just wanted to go there all the time (tho i had very little $$$ to spend).

yeah, it was a GREAT record store. i might have cried a tear when I heard they were closing up shop.

I had more money when I was living in Boston than I have had since, I used to get friday afternoons off during the summer. i would take the train to Harvard Sq, get a sandwich at that portuguese cafe (RIP), go shopping at the Other Music that had recently opened (RIP), Twisted Village (RIP), and a few others (mostly RIP; all along buying maybe a dozen LPs/CDS), then maybe meet a friend for a movie at the Brattle (fortunately not RIP).

twisted village got me into Michael Hurley, the Incredible String Band, all kinds of contemporary composition and free jazz, lord knows what else.

the CDs I bought there still kind of radiate with good memories for me. that Pola X CD, a recording of Feldman's The Viola in My Life, Faust "Wumme Years" box, all sorts of other goodies.

(sheds tear again)

ha forgot about that other music in harvard sq. what was the deal with that, it only lasted like a year?
seems like we may have been living parallel lives circa 2001-2.

yeah. I think maybe it lasted two years? I visited once a little while after I moved and it was still there, but next time it was gone. it was nice, though, less crowded than the NY Other Music obviously.

similarly, Reckless Records briefly (two years?) opened a branch in Evanston when I was working there. NOBODY came into that store (slight exaggeration)--I think this was precisely around the time that college students started filesharing, bad timing. but that just made it better for pickin--I got all kinds of crazy stuff that had just been sitting there forever, some clerk even gave me a big discount on a dagmar krause record b/c he was happy that someone bought it.

nabisco worked there for a while IIRC. but I didn't properly "meet" him until a few years later.

those friday afternoons were the best. I must have been, what, 23? I went to a lot of shows back then, too. bet if I played a Damon and Naomi record I'd become even more nostalgic...

maybe we should take this offthread.

new one sounds great!

didn't even know there was one

is Kurihara on it?

he's not on it -- sounds like it's just the two of them here.
http://damonandnaomi.bandcamp.com/album/fortune

https://youtu.be/GL_UMgsvoUc

didn't know magic hour at all and grabbed magic moments off bandcamp after enjoying a bunch of the songs.

those magic hours albums hold up!

Magic Hour was so spectacular live. I remember seeing them live at the Empty Bottle where Damon and Naomi sort of lulled you into leaning forward only to have Wayne and Kate slowly build up into one of Wayne's solos that pushed you back on your heels. I remember turning to my friend totally wide-eyed as one solo was kicking off only to have him smile back and yell "here it comes!"

ha, i found them off your feed, it's been really fun listening! the passing words peel track on youtube right after my link is great too! xpost

(xpost) ha...hey tyler, we had a similar exchange on twitter

wait, who are you on twitter? sorry, i have trouble keeping track between there and ILM...
was having my mind melted by this one yesterday: https://magic-hour.bandcamp.com/track/something-else-2

here's mp3s of their peel sesh btw: www.fullofwishes.co.uk/2013/10/04/audio-magic-hour-peel-session/

yeah, that's the one that sold me on buying that collection. my longmont musician pal was big upping cover of "permanent green light" and i was saying, no, check something else #2.

aw, awesome, thanks for peel!

(xpost) i'm jseraf on twitter. don't post often on either. but this band'll send me clamoring.

ah ok, good to know! and Hunt3r who's your longmont musician pal?

bought the collection, shit was breaking my brain on the subway today.

was actually hipped to it by damon tweeting a link to tyler's blog linking to the bandcamp, internet

lol

man, that's...connections!

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/ea/78/0f/ea780f6a15a1ed045da3c610faa88327.jpg

hey i pm'ed you through ilx but i don't know if that works ? his name is dave m3y3r, he is not acquainted with you afaik. he was keys for a denver psych band til a couple of weeks ago.

oh! yeah i think my ilx mail is hooked up to an email account that i don't really check anymore. hit me up at tywilc AT gmail ... i need a denver psych keys guy!

Something else #2 making me think about ~cymbals~ which I don't always want to hear, but man, that whole song.

something else #2 has taken over my conscience, it is a drive across the intermountain west in spectacular cloudy conditions, that high high bass, those cymbals, and the guitars wailing, until the keys rope them down, and vocals return and it concludes. Damn I love it.

Listened to https://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=0U-6Nmj-2ZQ so many times today it still sounds perfect,
esp for the season.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgqz_A5Ojwk
Playback Singers will always be my favorite of theirs, came out when I had mostly given up on indie rock and was nervous about the turn of the century for some reason. Played this CD nonstop for a few months.

yeah that one is great (and definitely takes me back to circa 1998 or thereabouts).
Damon has a book coming out next year that looks good: https://www.amazon.com/New-Analog-Listening-Reconnecting-Digital/dp/1620971976
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51-fJ2kQQIL._SX405_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Somewhat afraid to read this. Dean's book put to rest any doubts that he's anything but a complete asshole. I really don't want to lose D&N.

ha well, this isn't a memoir (and I didn't really come away from Wareham's book hating him, though obviously there was plenty of asshole-ish behavior).

huh for some reason I never got Playback Singers, will check out

Fall is def prime Damon & Naomi time

hey tyler you get into denver still? sent you dm, but in case i got spammed...

just saw here - https://www.newyorker.com/culture/2017-in-review/my-best-podcasts-of-2017 - that damon has a podcast, based on that book:

“Ways of Hearing”
The way we listen has been revolutionized by digital technology, which in turn has transformed our world, including podcasts. “Ways of Hearing,” hosted by Damon Krukowski and based on his excellent book “The New Analog,” is about listening. (It’s the first of a series of podcasts in the Radiotopia show “Showcase.”) Krukowski makes complex ideas delightfully accessible, and in audio form he’s able to include wonderful sounds: street noise, song bits, chitchat at a record shop. Krukowski, the drummer of the great band Galaxie 500, illustrates points in Episode 1 with gorgeous strains of “Tugboat.” Krukowski is a fantastic observer; I often think of the ideas he articulates in “Ways of Hearing,” and I feel like I perceive the world a little more acutely because of listening to it.

yeah, it's a great listen (and a good companion to the book)

that looks awesome! will def check it out, guy is really good at both thinking and communicating

Nice new song!

Thank you for all the preorders today!! Such a warm welcome https://t.co/JF07thf32C

— Damon K (@dada_drummer) June 22, 2021

wow, yeah - wonderful

I will say, that for someone who spends as much time (rightfully) railing against Spotify and streaming as Damon does, it kind of irks me that they don't release more physical versions of their recent work.