R. Stevie Moore - 3 reissued full lengths on Personal Injury Records

Just found out the brand new label, Personal Injury Records is rereleasing a bunch of R. Stevie full lengths, Delicate Tension, Glad Music and Clack!...they're also carrying the Hearing Aid and Phonography rereleases...it's a one stop shop for all things R. Stevie. They're pressing up colored vinyl and have a package deal with a bonus zine with RSM art based on some of the tracks! It's so incredible to see this kind of care and interest in his entire catalog which has been insanely out of print for years and years.
They also contacted me about carrying my single from R. Stevie so if you want to get it all out of the way in one giant order, go for it.

Personal Injury is pleased to present R. Stevie Moore’s classic 2nd album Delicate Tension, originally released by Stevie’s uncle on HP Music in 1978. Delicate Tension is regarded as an absolute highlight of RSM’s massive discography and was featured as one of his six most “essential” albums in The WIRE’s recent cover article. Reissued for the first time on vinyl in an exact-repro sleeve and mastered from a digital transfer off the original analog reels.

Personal Injury is pleased to present R. Stevie Moore’s legendary album Glad Music, originally released on the French label New Rose in 1986. Glad Music is regarded as one of the highlights of RSM’s 400+ album discography and was featured as one of his six most “essential” albums in The WIRE’s recent cover article. Reissued for the first time on vinyl in an exact-repro sleeve and remastered from an analog source.

Colored vinyl - Includes download coupon.
In Fall 1979, R. Stevie Moore squeezed into a midtown Manhattan building at 56 West 45th Street, entered a tiny 8th floor jingle studio run by Englishman Tom Clack, and proceeded to bond bigtime with ambitious engineer Jon Child (who Uncle Harry Palmer had earlier sought out to assist in assembling the original PHONOGRAPHY album) to create one of his greatest collections of music. Still awestruck by his recent move north, R. Stevie first met Jon & Tom when the studio was utilized for compiling the DELICATE TENSION LP. With a cache of great new songs & experiments, he now was set, aimed to break down all barriers and collect audio styles galore in a “professional” 8 track environment, a major jump from mere tapedeck home demos. The project extended well into the next year (decade). Those many sessions are gathered on this 60 minute masterpiece, simply titled “CLACK!” from which many of Moore’s greatest all-time hits emerged.

R. Stevie Moore single on Sweaters & Pearls Records

A few years ago I didn't even know who R. Stevie was.

My friend Travis in high school was always the one introducing me to amazing stuff. He moved to our small town school sometime my freshman year and blew minds with Eraserhead, Zappa and "Bob", in the days before the internet, plastering flyers in the hallways and busses until anything with a pipe and quotes was completely banned as a cult by the principal.
A few years ago we started using 7inches (and buckflix) as an excuse to talk about music and movies and one of those conversations (maybe even this one) ended up with me talking up Ariel Pink's Oddities... to him and Travis telling me I had to check out this guy R. Stevie Moore.
I picked up the "I hate people" single, (because god forbid I buy a whole album) and it was amazing, the 4-track style of Lou Barlow with the experimental pop weirdness of Ariel. A lightbulb went off. I could literally hear the straight line from Stevie through Pink, who I was so crazy about.
Fast forward to six months or so ago I ordered that Ku Klux Glam single from R. Stevie's site and Mike over at PIAPTK was just starting his Saturday singles series and I was inspired to try to send an email direct to R. himself.
Does he even check email? What about facebook? Was some entity posting on his behalf? Nope. He got back to me right away and seemed willing...hell, even excited to work with two nobodies on a new single. We were thrilled and emailed back and forth with Stevie to figure out which songs he'd want to get together on a tiny record from the archives. He sent a couple of photos to use for the sleeve, which I went ahead and rephotographed and glitched up. (I've been obsessed with Instagram and how pointless it is making digital files look like old photo processes when digital images have their OWN special ways of looking insane and nostalgic, thanks to decim8) Which R. was totally cool with. My friend Matt wrote the track text out when he was visiting from Boston while Travis had been doing a bunch of silk screening and I asked him to come up with something awesome for the first 50 cardboard matchbook sleeves.

The insert is handwritten tabs of "Traded my Heart for Your Parts" with some credits RSM requested and I copied them at work from ripped up legal pads and pressed it on red because I love color vinyl. That's it. 300 copies available from Sweatersandpearls.com and from R. Stevie on tour and maybe his site in the future.

The first 50 or so get the Travis cover which is a serious labor of love... This whole thing is really. We can die happy.

Pick this up over at my very own Sweaters & Pearls Records site, 5 bucks plus shipping. Obviously if you live outside the US, email jason at sweatersandpearls dot calm because USPS wants to make up for their incompetence by charging extra to ship overseas...sorry guys.

I really appreciate it. Oh and the tracks are really great, obviously.

PIAPTK launch R. Stevie Moore Saturday Singles Singles Series

Get ready to pick up a new square lathe cut from R. Stevie tomorrow morning or maybe tonight at midnight? from PIAPTK. I'm sure like the Ariel Pink mirror split, this will be gone, thus the advance warning. Synchronize your watches.

R. Stevie Moore Saturday Singles Singles Series –
Starting this Saturday, and Every(ish) Saturday thereafter, for as long as we and Stevie feel inclined, PIAPTK will be opening up preorders for a new R. Stevie Moore clear, square, lathe cut single in a hand-set letterpressed cover. The preorders will last for 24 hours. We will then make only that many records (plus artist copies) and the single will be out of print forever. To sign up to the PIAPTK Stevie email list (separate list that will only contain Stevie-related emails) to remind ya, click here.

They also have just launched a kickstarter for a crazy double LP tribute to Kris Kristofferson.

Preview ALL of the tracks
The Rising Cost of Livin’ High and Lovin’ Hard: A Tribute to Kris Kristofferson:
Wooden Wand feat. The Scrivener – Tell Me One More Time
Little Wings - I May Smoke Too Much
Simon Joyner - Help Me Make It Through The Night
Golden Boots – Best of All Possible Worlds
Calvin Johnson, Sandman The Rappin' Cowboy, Timezone Lafontaine, and Andras Jones – The Highwayman
Turner Cody – Sam’s Song
Karl Blau - Here Comes That Rainbow Again
The Blank Tapes – Other Side of Nowhere
The Gifted Children – Enough For You
Assateague – Josie
RFK Heise – Stranger
Ohian – Year 2000 + 7&5
Wckr Spgt – Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down
The Gift Machine – The Taker
The Great Lakes – Nobody Wins
New Science Projects – The Pilgrim: Chapter 33
Amo Joy! – Don’t Let The Bastards Get You Down
Miniature and Presidential – Bottle to the Bottom
The Ocean Floor – For the Good Times
Daring Ear – Silver Tongued Devil and I
Southerly – Same Old Song
Matt Hopper – Jody and the Kid
The Black Swans – Moment of Forever
Good Saints – Breakdown
Bob Simpson – Jesus Was A Capricorn

Receive Special letterpressed covers, test pressings, exclusive colored vinyl, lathe cuts with bonus tracks, t-shirts, etc!

Ariel and R. Stevie - Ku Klux Glam! on Slowboy Records

I caught R. Stevie at 285 Kent on Sunday night and am working on a piece for QROmag, but in doing a little research on his site I came across this single from the two geniuses as part of their massive Ku Klux Glam series...available as a bandcamp download of 60+ songs...take that Lil B...that should be coming out on vinyl this year sometime as well.

This single has three tracks:

A1 DUTCH ME
A2 COME MY WAY

B1 NO ZIPPER

and comes signed by R. Stevie himself.

R. Stevie - we're finally ready for you.

Aaron Roche (collaboration with R. Stevie and Shahzad) on La Station Radar Records

Aaron Roche emailed me a couple weeks back about his latest single on La Station Radar Records which happens to be his collaboration with R. Stevie Moore and Shahzad Ismaily on separate sides of this single. I'm always happy to talk about R. Stevie, he's really an inspiration and forefather in a lot of ways to literally everything going on currently and it's great to hear him working with this generation of fans and artists working alongside Mr. lo-fi. Getting the recognition he deserves and within his lifetime...it's a great thing.
Aaron himself is a multitalented instrumentalist who's responsible for the arrangements and playing pretty much everything on this..there's not a whole lot of info out there, and coming out of the gate with Stevie is an impressive start...best served up on a seven inch platter.

A-Side's "Cyclocardoray" has a massive dense sound, huge chorus guitars, real dreamy, winding up violins, (probably real ones), they pulled some orchestral musicians in here, going for the extreme opposite of lower fidelity. Extremely laid back; acoustics, slow brush rolls on the snare, coming off like Beck's Sea Change album. A little bit blues but more psych if you can lean that way weaving this slow ride. The lyric influence from Stevie is definitely evident in even that song title and baritone backing vocal...this is a real restrained, ultra slow number, just trudging through molasses, all the vocals blurring together in a low muddle of whispering. All the instruments are epicly recorded, with lots of room, jazzing it up with fills, free to improv around, a real space daydream that grows and grows to multiple vocals layers and delay on strings, brass woodwind and ... who knows, they pulled out the stops to get this almost full orchestra drone, an overwhelming pile of etheria.

"Synthessiah" on the B-Side is with Shahzad Ismaily and is a lonely acoustic surrounded again by big time space, weird little blips and muffled glitches, it has a real quiet, almost intimate, home recorded space, but with an epic, regal distance around it, like Sufjan can. Really close and far at the same time. Quiet almost whispered vocals pile up on each other. Rapid scratching of a metal string with the underlying room tone of a spaceship. Aaron's taking this as 'produced as possible' approach without getting too shiny, just clean sounding, and I think that's a hard thing to do, to consciously go this overboard, but not too compressed and gated, working at capturing those interestong sounds in a really perfect way....the subtle sine waves fading in and out. Another side of that nearly ambient pop kind of sound. Big and airy... acoustic sludgy psych. That's the twitter review.

Get this one from La Station Radar or a local distro near you.

Ariel Pink + R. Stevie Moore on PIAPTK Records

Just got word from Mike over at People in a Position to Know Records that I can finally talk about this amazing handmade single that he just put out. If you have to have everything from R. Stevie or Ariel Pink (because of the amazing B-sides, let’s face it) then you’re going to want to just immediately stop reading and head over there to pick this up. Limited, handmade lathe cut, acrylic MIRROR and freaking amazing. I know in theory, you should be able to cut playable grooves into any kind of plastic, but to see it in practice like this on a mirror backed clear surface is really unique. There won't ever be a another single like this...and that's before you even drop the needle.

Even more amazing than the track itself is the fact that PIAPTK has managed to put both of these artists together. Whether this is a tape or email exchange between Stevie and Ariel, or they actually were sitting next to each other in an isolation booth, it’s a pretty amazing document of a collaboration between generations of underground innovators.
Fashion has finally caught up with appreciating both Ariel and Stevie and I’m just happy they got together for a moment....like William Burroughs and Kurt Cobain, Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash, that’s almost enough on it's own. I almost don’t even need to hear it, and it can't be judged the same way as their solo releases...it's enough that they each did their unique thing together. They had a few words, played a few chords and history was made for an afternoon.

This crazy medium of this record itself is almost like being able to listen to the original cassette tapes, wound on a misshapen reel, and somehow you're even closer to the source material. The curtains are pulled back on the whole mysterious process just a little more than usual. Stevie begins the single sided track, “SteviePink Javascript” with a few low words after you get used to the amazing amount of hiss coming off this acrylic mirror, which for these two is an essential element. It’s another instrument, a layer to free them up for this improv back and forth jam. A distinctively warbled rhythm for Ariel comes up out of this pre-intro, as if all the tracks on his latest cassette scratch tape just run right into each other, there’s no beginning or end, just an abrupt change in tempo and the sound of the tape head turning on record.
Stevie’s whispering gives way to a synthy bassline, an odd rhythm with some vocal beatboxing and those synthy keys, from the Scared Famous era. Stevie’s almost autotuned or just buried under a variable reverb. This isn't your typical duet, they're stepping all over each other, Ariel busting into a high falsetto chorus over Stevie telling Ariel he’s thinking about running for Senate and if he’ll be his running mate. It’s informal, a chance to collaborate and appreciate each other for a minute... they’re fans and here get to literally play off each other lyrics, responding to the last line, a warped call and response.
Ariel starts:

you tell your friends about me and I'll tell mine about you
nice to meetcha
now... what do you call this music Stevie?
Ariel dreams
SteviePink / You do great shit
You’re better than I am
put a snare here right?
no, you're out of your mind

Ariel and Stevie half rap at points and Ariel breaks into his soul layered falsetto vocals, sometimes creating the guitar sound vocally and other times...well I'm not sure. This has to be well over 5 minutes, winding between their styles in a plodding broken AM see-saw rhythm. Stevie references the Prince line about partying like it’s 1999 and Ariel replies

Too much R&B it's all your fault
have your layer call my lawyer

Beyond the incredible track that was cut into this thing, every single piece of this single is recycled or repurposed. The 'vinyl' itself from mirrored acrylic plastic, each one handcut on Mike's 1940's lathe, each cover handscreened on this a crazy grip tape type of hologram material, even the insert describing the whole process is paper from a garage sale.

This is where I get to the bad news part, this is such an incredible document, I am legitimately sad that only 87 other people are going to be able to hear this. I know that's the point of something this homemade both musically and so intimately handmade, but it's so important, it's got to be shared int he future.

If you're reading this late and PIAPTK is out, go pick up R. Stevie's Phonography, as completely mindblowing and an early blueprint of Ariel. I respect both of these guys so much, Ariel for introducing me to Stevie and Stevie for making this kind of handmade folk pop before I was even born. So inspiring... and with a back catalog like this thankfully it's going to be a million years to make my way through everything.

We can also hope this is the beginning of an entire album collaboration, it sounds too damn fun and completely a part of both of their processes. It's a perfect match. There's no doubt this is going to be gone. I'm happy Mike gave me the chance to hear it and let you guys know about it first, now go pick up this incredible artifact...and hey in the future apocalypse you could even use it to shave or something...it's a win win!

(Even joking about that, I get a little upset.)

People in a position to know - R Stevie + Wooden Wand

It's hard to keep up with the People in a Position to Know Records, I hate to say it but I almost dread checking out their site, just because I know there'll be at least 3 new things I have to get and/or talk about, and not just, "Oh I pressed a record from a great band" but I handcut music exclusive to this release with a lathe cutter in my garage! And I letterpress printed them myself at a nearby printshop! I added the exclamation points because PIAPTK is such an inspiration when it comes to elevating the lowly single to and I almost hate to say it, something to hang on the wall and handle with white museum gloves.



Take this R. Stevie Moore and Billy Anderson release, it's hard enough to find R. Stevie stuff on vinyl, and it's usually way out my price range on ebay, and then to have such a cool handscreened, spraypainted matchbook style sleeve puts this over the top for just $5. The track is a great poppy, off kilter, falsetto Stevie number. Super clean production, full of high hat and electric organ bouncing along, I sincerely hope to still be half as much messing around with tracks for this long. To still have that sense of experimentation...totally inspiring. Only 400, a steal.
Then that Wooden Wand box set, and not just any box, a handmade wooden box housing 6 disks of James' archives. Mike assures fans that this isn't just pieces of unfinished songs or alternate tracks, PIAPTK was given free reign to choose work from the hundreds of unreleased songs over his 15 year career...too amazing. The gold vinyl is sold out, but black is still available...check out the disk listing:

Disc One: Hard Bargains – This disc contains the more “rocking” Toth tunes, mostly full band style recording with a heavier groove to it.
Disc Two: Roadside Peaches – This disc contains the lesser seen Toth song-type... the sincere, sweet, love songs.
Disc Three: Visiting Hours and Other Missteps - Full of the more Downer-type tunes. But don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of giggle-worthy moments despite the somber tone. A good disc for fans of Born Bad.
Disc Four: Get Right With The Goddess – A really good mixed bag of mostly acoustic tunes.
Disc Five: Preparing An Audience - Much like Tom Waits, Wand often writes tunes from the perspective of a character. Whereas Waits’ protagonist is a down-on-his-luck, hard living, skid row bum, Toth’s is more of a self-loathing, hard living, smarmy Southern jerk. This disc compiles some of the best tunes from that perspective.
Disc Six: Five Alive / First Songs – A collection of the lower-fidelity tunes, many of which are very old, and give a really good glimpse into a little different Wand than you are used to. Runs the gamut of recording type and vocal style.

You can even make an offer on his picnic plate 7" wedding favor discs! Jad Fair, Carcrashlander...only twenty of these exist! It's like you were there! I can't stop the exclamation!

100 Records Sonny Smith show + R. Stevie

(covers top-left to bottom-right by: Kyle Field (Little Wings), Chris Johanson, Scott Hewicker, Kyle Ranson)

Arvel sent me an email about this amazing show in San Francisco Endless Nest dubbed 'The most ambitious show of all time' from Sonny Smith of Sunny and he Sunsets. Sonny asked 100 artists to illustrate 100 7" covers and Sonny came up with persona's for each band and recorded A and B Sides for each one. Amazing.
There's mysterious mention of all of these being released at some point and you can check out some of the covers on Turn up Records blog. It's a great idea, but the scale is insane...I wonder how long he's been working on this project, and I hopefully can't wait to hear these eventually. Are some going to actually be pressed as singles? This would be an entire discography of a decades worth of material for a label....massive. I hope they press a massive catalog with the covers and a box set of CD's, or maybe just put codes in there for the downloads at least.

Then I caught this email yesterday morning about a live remote show WFMU is doing at the gallery, so I'll be listening to this later today.

Live Remote from San Francisco Gallery 16's "100 Records"
Friday, May 7th, 3pm - 6pm on Put the Needle On the Record with Billy Jam
Musician/ artist/ curator Sonny Smith has a unique exhibit at San Francisco's Gallery 16 entitled "100 Records” featuring the cover art for one hundred records by 100 bands/artists that never existed but were dreamt up by Smith who commissioned a hundred artists to create cover art for these singles. The remote broadcast’s in the middle of the exhibit where Smith will be among the many guests along with Gallery 16's Griff Williams, Live Human, DnZ, Z-Man, B-Cause, and more.

But in the meantime I thought I'd post some R. Stevie Moore at Mercury Lounge opening for Ariel this week. The show was epic, Ariel and the Haunted Grafitti, contrary to everything I'd read about his infamous live show, were great. Really amazing...but then to catch Stevie opening for him? It was too much. I've just barely scratched the surface of his insane catalog and live he was completely in his own world. The in between song banter is the best...I don't know when songs ended or started, it was a medley of rehearsed, improv material with random spoken word moments about Lindsey Lohan? After each song he would crumple up a piece of paper and throw it into the audience...once after eating it.

Download here, it's about 20min.