test apes by the test apes

Here is another great record from Danny Barnes, this time with Max Brody, the drummer from Ministry. I am a huge fan, and this is making my day, to be sure. Even more, I feel like the last three records were kind of setting up for this one, stretching out the sonic limits of my expectations. I now have four new recordings from Danny Barnes and they just keep getting better and cooler. Ok, and weirder; but this is the reason I keep listening to this stuff. A lot of people talk about art, but when you look at what they're doing, all you see is technique. Not that it is a bad thing to be, a technician. But what art is supposed to do, the art that I like anyway, is to challenge and broaden the mind of the audience; to create something new. So where I might have been comfortable just hearing more of any of the things he does so well (ambiant, folktronics, acoustic banjo etc) Danny Barnes just keeps mixing it up and tying it back together with what Zappa used to call "conceptual continuity". These are more than just banjo records: they are re-framing the question of what can be done with music itself.

Junior Sampled, a great new album from Danny Barnes!

http://dannybarnes.bandcamp.com/album/junior-sampled

I finally got my pay-pal account working (seems they want you to have money in the bank) and bought both "Ambient Works Vol 1" and "Junior Sampled" after listening to both of them for free on Bandcamp whenever i had wifi signal on my phone. Initially, I thought this was another Ambient Work because of the black and white cover art and the title, and because after the last one I'm ready for as many more of those as I can get. However, it was instead another great album of songs like Shri108. Great social commentary lyrics, great beats, and plenty of bass and banjo.

Scott Thunes

This weekend I got to meet the great Scott Thunes. I had wanted to see this cat for such a long time. In 1988 I took a trip to California and found Zappa's album "Guitar" on cassette in a little gas station convenience store and played it on the car deck all the way up route 1 to Big Sur.

I was already a big Zappa fan, but this record was clearly better than all his others and it didn't take me long to figure out the reason was the new bass player, Scott Thunes. That tape was the mainstay of my playlist for years, I made duplicates so I wouldn't wear it out. I still have it.

It has been said that Zappa band members have often done their best work in Zappa's band and then done nothing noteworthy after. Well, here is an exception to that rule: Scott Thunes is doing his best work now. I caught his set Saturday night with the Mother Hips at a little music festival at Big Sur called the Hipnic. This is a great jam band setting to see Scott just shine.

His awesome command of the instrument and great taste brings funk, punk, jazz and rock to a point of just blowing my mind. I have not seen bass playing as good as that since I saw Mike Watt playing with Firehose in 1991. Part of what makes it so good is that the band is obviously in the process of growing musically into new and farther out spaces. So, that makes it sound really fresh. They are playing on the edge.

I am going to catch the Mother Hips show any time I can; they are a solid act, and a great way to see one of the world's best bass players at his best.

Here's the link to Ambient Works Vol.1

https://dannybarnes.bandcamp.com/album/ambient-works-vol-1

New Danny Barnes record: Ambient Works Vol. 1

Things just keep getting better for me as a Danny Barnes fan. This new release continues on in the direction of Shri 108, but with an ambient bent. It has plenty of awesome banjo. 

Danny Barnes is the top philosopher in banjo music today. If you read his written pieces, he is just spot on about everything. He has in this ambient work created a sonic expression of his positive understanding of the world. 

This is a lot to ask of a musical piece, but he has done it here. Now granted, I have been doing my homework. Following up on his references, I have been reading Buddhist and other spiritual and philosophical material, Maher Baba, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Dalai Lama. This sort of thinking flows along well with ambient banjo music. 

I hope the implication in calling this work Vol.1 is realized in many more volumes to come. This recording creates peaceful space for my mind to wander around in. Just what I needed.