WED MAY 19TH
Bill Orcutt And Brian And Mary Rose
8 PM
$10 on the door, $9.00 @ www.utr.co.nz
altmusicnz2010.blogspot.com
Bill Orcutt emerged as one of the most influential guitar players of the 1990s, alongside drummer Adris Hoyos in the
seminal Miami-based free rock band, Harry Pussy, their half-decade existence throwing up a boutique of caustic
masterpieces alongside equally luminary cohorts on labels including Chocolate Monk (Richard Youngs, Incapacitants, Bruce
Russell) and Siltbreeze (Charalambides, Guided By Voices, The Shadow Ring), but their volatile, calamitous sound has
remained their matchless own.
Harry Pussys sonic wit, spat forth in vignette-like rashes such as Please Dont Come Back From The Moon, Nazi USA and I
Don't Care About Sleep Anymore spoke of a generational disenchantment that heavily influenced the likes of later
acolytes, Hair Police, Pukers, Sightings, The Hospitals and the younger alumni on Philadelphias fabled Siltbreeze label.
In one critics words, Harry Pussy filtered the Circle Jerks' brutal attack through Sonic Youth and Lydia Lunch and
condensed it into a narrow, high-pitched assault, and in anothers, pretty much established a whole new blueprint for
post- hardcore avant rock destruction.
Orcutts unanticipated return with the 2009 self-released 7", High Waisted and his late-2009 LP, A New Way To Pay Old
Debts, was an exhilarating reincarnation of the rambunctious automatism and hair- trigger ferocity that pervaded Harry
Pussys earlier, combustible missives. In Mimaroglus words, the latter recording let loose a pan- trajectorial spray of
freedom-inflected guitar histrionics, captured gloriously in a room-tone / blown-amp fidelity. Its un-building of a
noise-blues vernacular invoked the equally insubordinate spirits of the late Derek Bailey and John Fahey, and the delta
bros, Fred McDowell and Joseph Spence, and was a universal, underground heir of album of the year, appearing on The Wire
magazines Rewind list next to Oneohtrix Point Never and Broadcast.
Orcutt's plucked lacerations, spooky boogie, and ballistic extraterrestrial blues, bordered by the severe candour of his
own ulterior, vocal utterances makes for an unsettling but downright melodious sound that repudiates mere descent into
noise-guitar discord, while serving as a reminder to a whole contemporary pantheon of guitarists of how it should be
done.
Brian and Maryrose Crook's band The Renderers enjoys a cult following in the US with the kind of country music that a
character from either a William Faulkner short story or a David Lynch film might whistle while scalding a hog. Their
songs are alternately knuckle-white and grangrene-black. Mary Rose, who also has a solo album in production, is a
painter (although her easel is not of tarnished gilt). Represented by Brooke Gifford Gallery, she was curated by Emma
Bugden in City Gallerys Telecom Prospect 2004: New Art New Zealand (Wellington). Her canvasses are a visual corollary to
the Southern Gothic of The Renderers songs.
http://palilalia.com/ http://www.myspace.com/therenderers
Established in 2001 and now organized by committees in every major city in New Zealand under the Audio Foundation,
Altmusic is an ongoing series of audio events, regularly bringing a vital injection of contemporary and experimental
music from around the world to New Zealand. This year, the programme continues with each city curating its own event and
touring this around NZ.
http://www.audiofoundation.org.nz
ends