It's no wonder that one of the world's most internationally renowned college radio stations is based in one of the world's most internationally renowned area for its colleges. Based in Boston, WZBC celebrated 30 years of groundbreaking radio last year (beat that, Resonance!). This week is the irregular pledge week and to support them, a video document of the 30th Anniversary Bash has been assembled from footage taken by students and DJs, edited by Jon Whitney and current WZBC Operations Director Amar Ashar. Performers at the bash included Keith Fullerton Whitman, Quasi, Lightning Bolt, Out Hud, Due Process, Jackie-O Motherfucker, Sunburned Hand of the Man, Tunnel of Love, Landing, Bardo Pond, Christopher Willits, No Neck Blues Band, Hella, and Nautical Almanac (many appear in this mini-documentary). Watch the video, then tune in afterwards at www.wzbc.org (or tune in if you're local) and hear for yourself! Support innovative non-commercial radio. Thanks!
13 Minutes, Quicktime Streaming Video

As much as we diss Warp for making bad decisions, they have perfected the right techniques that make them a strong label with a strong identity. Most importantly: present the music in a direct and uncluttered way, with a conscious attention to an appealing design, making sure it is never overpowering: essentially allowing for the music to retain its importance over design. It's essentially what they've done for their first various artist video collection. Warp Vision isn't breaking new grounds nor is it the first of its kind (see: Ninja Tune or Matador), but what it does is collect a wide selection of the music videos that Warp has had something to do with over the years. It has no noticeable Easter Eggs, nor any audio commentary. The menu choices are to play all the videos or select them alphabetically, see the credits and see some images. Noticably absent are videos for Autechre's "Basscadet," Tricky Disco's "Tricky Disco" and "Housefly," anything from Vincent Gallo (THANK GOD), as well as !!! and Tortoise (but then again, they were licensed from US labels so Warp probably doesn't even own the rights to the videos). What is included are everybody's favorite Aphex videos with people running around with his ugly ass face on, Chris Cunningham's brilliant video for Squarepusher's "Come On My Selector" and the Chris Cunningham-wanna be, LFO's "Freak" directed by Daniel Levi (gotta love those fiery young Asian girls), plus videos from Prefuse, Antipop, the inexcusable Jimi Tenor, and many more. I'm pleased to finally be able to see videos for Sweet Exorcist (even if it's a lot of primitive graphics and a Pong! game) and LFO's classic "LFO" and the brilliant "Tied Up." Videos like Broadcast's "Papercuts" are just so visually colorful that it reminds me how much nicer it is to see on a full screen as opposed to a tiny little streaming computer image. A couple Warp TV commercials are included for shits and giggles along with a bonus CD of eleven audio mosaics of various tunes from the Warp vaults mixed by Buddy Pearce and Zilla. The CD is forgettable for the most part, but the DVD has its moments that will please different people depending on their tastes. With any luck 4AD and Mute will take a hint and do something similar. (And if you record execs are actually reading: don't leave anything out next time!)

www.jandekoncorwood.com
Finally making its way into select theaters right now is probably one of the most anticipated films by the tiniest subset of outsider/fringe music fans. For those reading who don't know, Jandek is an enigma shrouded in mystery: a one man band who doesn't give interviews, doesn't perform live, and only releases records from beind a post office box registered to Corwood Industries. Unsurprisingly, this film is far from a conventional music documentary. Jandek on Corwood is more of a documentary of the mystery of Jandek rather than the man behind Jandek, himself. There's no live concert footage, there are no artist and friend accounts of influences and origins, and there is no information of the inspiration behind the man often accused of not knowing how to tune his own guitar. With the surprisingly small amount of material to work with, filmmakers Chad Friedrichs and Paul Fehler have done an amazing task of incorporating a lot of stylistic images to go hand in hand with the photographs that grace the covers of the Jandek album releases. Interviews are held with fringe music store employees and a handful of music journalists who have had the rare brush with Jandek, via mail or phone. It starts off interesting but after a long time it becomes tiresome. The stories of other people's experiences and ideas and imaginations begin to grow old along with the repetitious usage of the small amount of photos available. At this point, everything changes and what emerges changes everything and in any screening room, movie theater, or house, silence falls. As the voice appears through the movie a pin drop could have been heard where I saw the film. We might never know the answers but then again, maybe we're not supposed to. Honestly, our imaginations have the potential to be far more interesting than the truth. If the film has passed you by or isn't coming close, a DVD is due very soon, but I would say this is one of those things to see once in a theater with your closest music geek friends, whether you love, hate, or haven't even heard Jandek.

St. Louis, MO, June 25th, 2004
Despite technical difficulties, despite a bad venue, and despite the fact that it usually takes a fire under St. Louis' ass to get anybody to dance, !!! came to the infamous Creepy Crawl and left the crowd exhausted and cheering for more. The doors opened at 7:30 and, perhaps around 8:15 or so various members of the band came on stage and started spinning records, DJing everything from hip hop and Prince to electronic funk and foot-tapping pop songs and winning over the crowd before a single song had been played. As the group got on stage and began to jam for a soundcheck, several confusing glances were exchanged from the stage to the mixing board, keyboards glitched up, monitors fizzled, Justin Vandervolgen appeared frustrated, and Nic Offer kept the crowd together, continuing to dance to the house music and promising the crowd that they had come to "rock ass." Once things had sort of been worked out (many of the members just shrugging and suggesting they start the music up) the first notes of "Pardon My Freedom" poured out of the speakers. I've never seen a St. Louis crowd react the way they did to the music that night: everyone was sweating their ass off, jumping about, slamming their feet to the floor, and waving their hands in the air because !!! were fucking tearing into the soul of excellence and pouring out an energy that I've never seen from any performers anywhere. Disaster struck again and the monitors that were supposed to be playing behind the percussionists bugged out and completely died. A friend of mine echoed my sentiments when he said "fuck this place, they should've played at Mississippi Nights." The Creepy Crawl is incredibly notorious for being a venue without much to brag about, but despite difficulties the band pressed on and continued tearing the roof off the ceiling and ejecting it into the Mississippi River by playing "Dear Can/King's Weed" with "Hello? Is This Thing On" and "Me and Giuliana Down by the Schoolyard" following right behind. Despite the drummer's being virtually deaf to the rest of the band, the songs sounded absolutely perfect and at no point did anybody in the crowd stop moving. Nic Offer could've told us all to jump off a bridge that night and, in all likely hood, many of us would have. At one point there were kids up on stage dancing with members of the band and Offer was hanging over the crowd from a post near the stage screaming "can U feel it intensify" like a man possessed by the energy that threatened to blow the glass right out of the windows. Only five songs were played, but after the show I managed to ask the band some questions and it was the technical difficulties that kept them from playing further. 5 songs, over an hour of non-stop dance mania, over three hours of total music (including the DJ work), and !!! left without a single mention of disappointment or dissent from the crowd. If !!! can own a city for a night like this with all these technical difficulties, then I can't imagine how incredibly intense they must be when they're at a venue that can actually manage their equipment correctly. I suppose that says something about the band and their dedication, though: although problems persisted, !!! played one of the best and certainly the most fun shows I've ever been to. There is absolutely no excuse for missing a show from these guys and they are still on tour in the US through June 29th. Beginning July 2nd they will be touring throughout Europe with a special show being staged in Japan. The website says there are more US dates to come and all I can do is wait patiently and hope they either come back to St. Louis are play somewhere very close.