Golden Boots - Xray Flexi on PIAPTK

When I first heard about this Xray flexi disc by Golden Boots from PIAPTK, knowing how innovative Mike has been about pushing the vinyl format, I just assumed this was the first time sweet rock and roll was cut into Xray film. I was completely wrong. I had never even HEARD of the insane history of the Roentgenizdat practice in the soviet union of smuggling in western recordings by lathe cutting or pressing this readily available source of thin plastic. Incredible, changed this whole release from PIAPTK for me. This release in particular even started out with Nathan writing the original track, "White Skeleton" in honor of the xray records which Mike first made with regular clear lathe cuts and gluing an xray on the reverse...so years later they both took another stab at this along with Pirates Press and actually pressed some xray flexi's exactly the way they would have been made those years ago behind the iron curtain. So what track do you put on this latest incarnation? Well, the live version of the original track of course.

The studio version took a weird drum machine percussion pile and loose lines of jangle electric in a junkyard pop style. Bits of digital hits of conga and shakers sounding compressed and glitchy with a real country spirit nonetheless and when everyone came in on that chorus it's combining both of these weird worlds in a great way. Sort of in the spirit of the Flaming Lips or Beck with homemade crafts jammed together in a purely experimental way but ending up with something accidentally great. Bass notes struck as hard as possible twanging out with a real slow BOING. It devolves for a second into a capella scat...pretty crazy for what I've heard from their usual offerings.
The live version included on this flexi takes that studio blend and truns it into a rolling along countrified number, the band coming in with a honkeytonk ensemble style. The guitars jangling along faster than ever, ramping up the speed. The kind of track that plays witht the dynamics, taking it down slow to build it back up with slide guitar taking a stronger place in this composition.
It sounds like live they're even having some fun with this, making sure to keep it a loose folk song that they managed to drag out of the bedroom and out on to the porch just as the sun is going down.

Get it from PIAPTK.

The R. Stevie series has ended by the way, incredible effort, and I hope you got a chance to pick sme of those up, I'll admit by the time I went to check Sunday evening the 24 hours was always over....I'm the worst.

Golden Boots - Viking Moses/Teenage Mysticism handcut singles from PIAPTK

Mike makes me jealous. Not only is he doing really crazy things with the singles themselves, like this square translucent picture disc, but then he's cutting them himself. Basically to have that kind of freedom coming up with projects and runs of stuff would be pretty amazing. It's no wonder he's worked with some impressive big shots on previous stuff. I've only had a brush with Golden Boots before and don't know either of the guys on that split lathe picture disc, but when you're putting it on a work of art like that, the fact there's a song in those grooves is just a bonus. Pick up both of these artifacts from People in a Position to Know.

Golden Boots - BeezKneez/Be My Champ 2x7" - A double 7" picnic plate release of new Golden Boots tracks... One Dmitri tune (Be My Champ) and one Ryan tune (BeezKneez) on two one-sided picnic plates in beautiful hand-silkscreened medical folders made by the band. Limited Edition of 50. The band has 25 and we have 25.

Viking Moses/Teenage Mysticism Split 7" Translucent Picture Disc - These went from concept to reality in less than 3 days... Put together for a VM/TM tour which included some dates opening for Viking Moses' old protege, Deer Tick. Beautiful translucent lathe cut square picture discs in hand-made covers. Each cover has one side watercolored by Viking Moses and one side is water colored by Teenage Mysticism. Each one is unique. Only 50 made.

Don't forget Mike will spend this kind of time and attention on your weirdo vanity project at Lathecuts...bust out those cassettes for 'remastering'!

Wand/Golden Boots Split 7" on People in a Position to Know

Just ordered this and a couple other things from Mike at PIAPTK last week and was listening to them this weekend. The sleeve and vinyl are great, as usual, there's actually two different versions of this screen printed on blue or three color screen on white, you can see both of those on my classy sheet covered/cat barf protected couch. The vinyl itself is a kind of swirled black and pink....more pink than black.

Wand of Wooden wand and the vanishing voice or James Toth has two tracks on the A-Side of this single. His catalog is a little overwhelming, having multiple aliases and recording with all kinds of artists and thus changing the band name slightly on a million labels makes it like some kind of crazy treasure hunt to track everything down. He's got at least 3 myspace pages. It's got to be confusing even for him at some point keeping up with answering friend requests, posting songs. So this is a 'solo' release, hence the Wand.
The first track 'Dirty penny', makes me feel better about taking the obsessive time to track down a good amp and speakers because the deep bassline here is really pushing the low end around. Even at 33 1/3, this single is sounding great, they didn't loose anything in the mix at all. James has a slightly country, slightly folk sound, some other stuff I've heard reminded me of Mark Lanegan, not his signature baritone vocals so much, but stylistically. It's dark country, it's classic, really well constructed...the kind of thing that you can hear the painstaking years of paying homage to the years of singer songwriter tradition before him. 'I'm afraid of little girls', this not only has a great acoustic strummed melody but lyrically this is where James nails it. It's that Johnny Cash story song about the things that don't scare him, except for little girls. Timeless writing like 'I'm not going near the hurricane in a dress', for me he's getting into Townes Van Zandt territory. The kind of thing that doesn't matter what category you try to out it in explaining to someone. It has an instant credibility. I'm looking for credits to see if this is a cover or something just to make sure. But this is the kind of writing that makes his whole body of work stand out. He does more than just attempt to make a go of it with practically traditional country, but it sounds like he's succeeding.

The B-Side features Arizona's Golden Boots. I can't think of another band I've heard recently from Arizona, so right away I'm reading all kinds of guitar, harmonica with some things into the sound, picturing the desert cactus, and miles of sky. It's a great match with Wand, there's a classic country influenced sound but reinterpreted, like Calexico. In 'Passers by (Penelope)' there's lots of harmonies, slow reverbthermin or synth at the end for that anti-folk kick. It sounds like they are playing with that country folk expectation a little bit. Just when the direction sounds all planned out, it goes somewhere else.
The second track 'A nothing', speeds things up a bit, with a lot more electronics, high pitch squeaks, weird percussion sounds, definitely some synth...it's a little Flaming Lips to me. The melody is pitch wheel shifted through a great organ sound. It's even Magnetic Fields in it's future cowboy sound. Alien sounds coming together in a country two step way...they've got that weird combination sewn up nicely here.

For the ultimate in low-fi sound, PIAPTK has this mp3 of one of their tracks cut into a plastic picnic plate.

Wand/Golden Boots Split 7" - A great new split 7" from two of my favorite bands! Tennessee's James Jackson "Wooden "Wand"" Toth and Arizona's Golden Boots. Each artist has two songs, Wand's "Dirty Penny" and "I'm Afraid of Little Girls" and Golden Boots "Passersby" and "A Nothing". Will be on colored vinyl. Preorders get mp3s early!

Get it from PIAPTK...the label is currently on vacation, but they'll ship everything at the end of the month.