Phil Pearlman

This guy has been on my mind a lot this week and I figured I might as well throw some of his stuff out for everyone as a little Halloween treat. The psychedelic master spawned some monster psychedelia albums, often dabbling in folky sounds as well from the mid 60's-70's. He never really stayed in one place as a musician and released most notably 3 self titled albums: Beat of the Earth, The Electronic Hole, and Relatively Clean Rivers. I'm going to talk about these from most recent to earliest, simply because of listenability. All-in-all his albums go from an almost free-form improvisation to solid structuring so start wherever your heart desires.  Definitely check the all out!

         First and foremost, Relatively Clean Rivers is a psych folk masterpiece.  Often they ease you in with some nice easy-listening folk songs like Hello Sunshine and other times destroy you with strong acid leads before coming back down to Earth on songs like Babylon.  They display a lot of versatility utilizing a variety of instruments and complex time signatures.  This album has become a cult classic with original copies becoming extremely rare and intense debate brewing over re-releases (most of which are pirated and don't give money to artist).  Grab this one now!
Get it Here

Next we have 1970's release of The Electronic Hole.  Immediate and unstifling love will adhere from this one, a more experimental Pearlman release.  Two songs subdivided into seven total parts swing you back and forth as you try to make sense of this somewhat Velvet Underground sounding album that takes you on a pretty menacing journey.  Phil established his signature wall of fuzz tone on this one and sometimes brings in the sitar and harmonica.  The last track is a very tasty treat, as it is a very obscure and fuzzed-out precursor of what will become a very nice, slow Relatively Clean Rivers acoustic song, a great way to look at how he changes over the years.

Get it Here

Finally we find ourselves staring at 1967's The Beat of the Earth. In this one, you will find what can only be considered as spontaneous musical combustion.  This free-form album had people bouncing around on "guitars, tambourines, flutes, auto-harps, bongos, anything that made sound. The combined beats were primitive, primal, the beat of the Earth."  The album is considered today to be a psychedelia masterpiece, an exploration that tests the limits of music and is manifested in a lush and dense collage of sound. It is acid-rock at its finest, often times chilling, often times exhilarating.

a good interview

Get it Here

Of Montreal @ Sokol Underground....and other stuff

*Quick Note: In lieu of having an enlarged spleen, The Morning Spleen will now be posting 500% more often to offset this extra spleen-ness that seems to be going around. Also because I lack direction in life*

Someone once said to me, "live music," and it was not until a long time ago that I finally found out what that meant. A good musician should be able to play music in such a way that they ignite the audience into a state of being that they weren't in before. It is like the thermal heat that gives a molecule enough energy to escape it's entrapment in the liquid state. There is a sort of flow of interactionism between the performers and the audience that creates a feedback of emotion. It is hard to sing your heart out to an audience that doesn't care (unless, of course, the song is about how some audiences just don't care). It is also hard to keep still when an audience is jumping around in euphoric glee.
   This past weekend I ventured across western Iowa to see of Montreal. As expected, the setlist contained mostly newer songs off of False Priest. It seemed like every song that wasn't from an earlier album just bored the crowd to death. There was very minimal grooving and people just seemed to be holding their position until the next "good" track came along. I think that of Montreal is destined to suffer in their live crowd-interaction, but not by their own doing. Their albums are so obscure that it really must take more time for a person to appreciate it fully. After the gig I was talking with the band for like 45 minutes and Davey told me something similar. He said, "People asks us now to play these songs from Skeletal Lamping and I'm like 'back during the Skeletal Lamping tour, we would be giving 120% and people would be fucking bored.'" 
   There were times when I was bouncing around the room in my own world and I actually had to stop and make sure people werent pissed at me, especially during Famine Affair and Girl Named Hello. On the flip side of this, a midset Rejector actually blew the crowd out of the water and really shook up the house from then on no matter what they played. For everyone else there, that became live music. That induced the feedback. I just regret that it didn't happen earlier. 


I have to get in one more big note, a more personal one.
The set is over. The band leaves the stage while the audience screams for more. All previous setlists I had looked at pointed at a pretty killer "michael jackson medley" encore to ensue. The band takes the stage. It is still dark. The first note.
There has been one of Montreal song that has soared above all of the rest in my life, one of my favorite songs of all-time. A song so powerful to me that I actually had placed it out of the realm of possibility at this show. But in a wave of eerie screeching and a driven bassline, The Past Is A Grotesque Animal emerged in all of it's glory, in all of it's affliction.

For You, A New Sound

Alright folks, it's time to cut the shit. Listen to Josh Ritter, who is currently one of my favorite contemporary folk artists. It was just one of those finds where the first tone of the first chord instantaneously brought along an urge to get his discography. See if it happens to you too; just give his new album, So Runs the World Away, a listen and you will know just what I mean. Peace.

Here's the first Couple 'o Songs

Down with Disease

That's right, my fellow half-wits and semi-literates, after a brutal 3 days of agonizing headaches and a sore throat, I cached in my luck and ventured over to the local health center. After about 30 minutes and a blood test, I was informed that I had contracted mono. I have found that mono is the biggest asshole of a bacterial infection. All the doctor said was "Well, Bill, we can't really do anything, and be sure that you don't do anything, see you in 4-6 weeks." At that he handed me a feel-good brochure that said "So, you have mono: taking the next step" and had a group of people sitting in a circle laughing and some guy on a beach, reassuring me that I, too, can still live a normal life. And by god, this brochure contained the nastiest of information : "Rupture of the spleen is a very rare, serious complication. It usually occurs between the 4th and 21st day of illness." With the 4th day approaching quickly, I look back at how far my spleen has taken me, what we have accomplished together, and am thankful. During the brief moments where my headache subsides, there is really only one band I can listen to: MONO. I discovered the Japanese post=rock band a little over a year ago and it was love at first sight. I truly wish I had traveled up to Chicago to see them this past summer, but that damned 21+ rule killed that idea.

Autumn Leaves

Well I've finally come to terms with that absence between summer and fall, that strange void that occupies a good portion of the first quarter of school. It is the time of year that doesn't fit in with either Summer or Fall. But now the leaves are starting to fall and the maples are showing their true colors. Fall is probably my favorite season. The season has become synonymous in my life to a time of appreciation for natural beauty. Walking around campus this past week, I have been overcome with the urge to pick up running again and to just go explore unknown places, a lifestyle that I have been living every fall with cross country the past 3 years of my life. This time of year, this feeling, also brings it's own musical tastes, a sort of down-home bluegrass and folky feel, sometimes uplifting and sometimes remaining subtle, in quiet respect for the upcoming winter.

Here is a sample playlist that took me like 2 hours to make (mostly embed) so listen it up.

Wild Horses

So this past weekend I ventured down to Des Moines with a few mates and wenches to catch Band of Horses in the Val Air Ballroom. We got there right as doors opened and managed to get right up front, literally within reach of Ben Bridwell. Naturally, we waited around as 2 opening bands played around for an hour or so before they took stage. They played all the classics, such as No One's Gonna Love You, The Funeral, Weed Party, and The Great Salt Lakes, as well as some never before played songs. The overall attitude, humility, and band-audience feedback that you just don't get with some of the bigger shows made the evening quite enjoyable, definitely try to catch them if they come your way.