HR041 - Alien Planetscapes — Everybody's Mad At Amerikkka!
C90 — 1987
C90 — 1987
|
1. 4/15/87 "Atom Bomb Blues"
Marlon Cherry: Guitar and Effects Carl Howard: Synthesizers, Sequencer Doug Walker: Synthesizers, Sequencers, Organs, Electronic Flute, Glissando Guitar 2. 3/23/87 "Who's Talkin' 'Bout UFOs?" Same Band as Track One 3. 4/7/87 "Rodan's Disciples" Carl Howard: Synthesizers, Sequencer Doug Walker: Synthesizers, Sequencers, Electronic Flute, Organs, Glissando Guitar 4. 4/7/87 "Galaxy 1987A" Same Band as Track Three This work is dedicated to: Amy Carter and Abbie Hoffman, and is for Fran. |
REVIEW of Everybody's Mad at Amerikkka! by Jerry Kranitz
The four tracks on this 90 minute tape were recorded on three dates in March-April 1987. Side A features the trio of Doug Walker on synthesizers, sequencers, organ, electronic flute, and glissando guitar; Carl Howard on synthesizers and sequencer; and Marlon Cherry on guitar and effects.
‘Atom Bomb Blues’ opens like a master class of analog sci-fi flying saucer effects and kosmiche soundscapes. The capsule is floating through space and the listener has a window seat. When Cherry’s guitar joins, he rips off leads, but they are efx’d and mixed in such that the guitar serves to support the effects parade soundtrack nature of the music. It’s a glorious alien freakout and journeys into the most tab dosed regions of the cosmos. And the band roll on, developing their continually evolving theme and cranking out the effects, which make for a killer space rock and electronica shape shifting journey.
‘Who’s Talkin’ 'Bout UFOs?’ continues the exploration, though now we’re treated to what could be a menagerie of life forms speaking at once in a variety of alien tongues. I love the wailing gliss guitar licks, which melt into eternity along with multiple layers of sequencers and synths, the mood teetering along the meditatively drifting and high intensity axis.
Side B (‘Rodan’s Disciples’ and ‘Galaxy 1987A’) is just Walker and Howard, who released several Alien Planetscapes tapes as an electronic duo. Both tracks are one big effects drenched symphony in space, sci-fi film soundtrack, and at all times the listener’s brain is the canvas on which the duo paint richly vivid alien worlds. Love that swirling jamming flute.
Overall this tape consists of absolutely fantastic deep space electronica covering all manner of soundtrack, soundscape, and prog kosmiche territory. Fans of the Brain and Ohr labels would love this.
INTERVIEW with Chris Phinney by Jerry Kranitz
JK: Alien Planetscapes had been on your compilations but this was the first full length you released on Harsh Reality. I assume this was well before Doug Walker and Carl Howard came to Memphis in July 1987?
CP: It was well before I met Doug. Doug thought I was black and I thought he was white. His voice sounded like a white person and my voice sounded to him like a black person. He pulled up here at the house to stay for a week, to play a gig and record with Viktimized Karcass.
JK: So he didn’t know you were white until he actually came to your house?
CP: Right. We talked on the phone but had never seen pictures of each other. You’ve got to remember, we were doing MAIL. No internet. We didn’t send pictures to each other. We were sending pieces of paper, and music, and tapes. Nobody hardly ever sent a photo of themselves. But Doug was very articulate.
JK: Oh yeah, and he was a music scholar. I told him he should be writing books.
CP: He taught school at a federal prison. And listen… we never recorded any of it but he had a jazz band. Called Gyzmyztixx. We were at Carl Howard’s in New Jersey. And there was about five of us. Louis Boone, Carl, me, Mike Jackson, Doug’s the conductor. Reginald Taylor was there. And we played the same song over and over because we were supposed to have some gig. But the gig got cancelled. But we practiced our asses off and Doug was the conductor.
JK: Did you record any of it?
CP: Nope. He might have recorded it but I doubt it.
JK: Doug and Carl visited you in July 1987. When did you and Mike go to New York?
CP: Same year me and Carl did War Toyz. (Mental Anguish & Nomuzic – “Po Boyz With Gobot War Toyz”, released 2000).
JK: You must have communicated with Doug a lot if he came to Memphis from New York to visit you.
CP: We talked on the phone every week. About music and everything. We traded tapes like crazy. He’s the one that touched base with me. He said, “I heard you have a band that sounds like Hawkwind.” That was Skoptzies and we started trading then.
JK: So you first started communicating with Doug back in the Skoptzies days.
CP: Yup. Marlon Cherry, who played guitar on Everybody's Mad At Amerikkka!, was a cool motherfucker man. I don’t know if he’s still alive. But I did trade a couple CDs with Marlon. He’s a damn good guitar player.
JK: I’ve not heard anything by him other than what he did with Alien Planetscapes.
The four tracks on this 90 minute tape were recorded on three dates in March-April 1987. Side A features the trio of Doug Walker on synthesizers, sequencers, organ, electronic flute, and glissando guitar; Carl Howard on synthesizers and sequencer; and Marlon Cherry on guitar and effects.
‘Atom Bomb Blues’ opens like a master class of analog sci-fi flying saucer effects and kosmiche soundscapes. The capsule is floating through space and the listener has a window seat. When Cherry’s guitar joins, he rips off leads, but they are efx’d and mixed in such that the guitar serves to support the effects parade soundtrack nature of the music. It’s a glorious alien freakout and journeys into the most tab dosed regions of the cosmos. And the band roll on, developing their continually evolving theme and cranking out the effects, which make for a killer space rock and electronica shape shifting journey.
‘Who’s Talkin’ 'Bout UFOs?’ continues the exploration, though now we’re treated to what could be a menagerie of life forms speaking at once in a variety of alien tongues. I love the wailing gliss guitar licks, which melt into eternity along with multiple layers of sequencers and synths, the mood teetering along the meditatively drifting and high intensity axis.
Side B (‘Rodan’s Disciples’ and ‘Galaxy 1987A’) is just Walker and Howard, who released several Alien Planetscapes tapes as an electronic duo. Both tracks are one big effects drenched symphony in space, sci-fi film soundtrack, and at all times the listener’s brain is the canvas on which the duo paint richly vivid alien worlds. Love that swirling jamming flute.
Overall this tape consists of absolutely fantastic deep space electronica covering all manner of soundtrack, soundscape, and prog kosmiche territory. Fans of the Brain and Ohr labels would love this.
INTERVIEW with Chris Phinney by Jerry Kranitz
JK: Alien Planetscapes had been on your compilations but this was the first full length you released on Harsh Reality. I assume this was well before Doug Walker and Carl Howard came to Memphis in July 1987?
CP: It was well before I met Doug. Doug thought I was black and I thought he was white. His voice sounded like a white person and my voice sounded to him like a black person. He pulled up here at the house to stay for a week, to play a gig and record with Viktimized Karcass.
JK: So he didn’t know you were white until he actually came to your house?
CP: Right. We talked on the phone but had never seen pictures of each other. You’ve got to remember, we were doing MAIL. No internet. We didn’t send pictures to each other. We were sending pieces of paper, and music, and tapes. Nobody hardly ever sent a photo of themselves. But Doug was very articulate.
JK: Oh yeah, and he was a music scholar. I told him he should be writing books.
CP: He taught school at a federal prison. And listen… we never recorded any of it but he had a jazz band. Called Gyzmyztixx. We were at Carl Howard’s in New Jersey. And there was about five of us. Louis Boone, Carl, me, Mike Jackson, Doug’s the conductor. Reginald Taylor was there. And we played the same song over and over because we were supposed to have some gig. But the gig got cancelled. But we practiced our asses off and Doug was the conductor.
JK: Did you record any of it?
CP: Nope. He might have recorded it but I doubt it.
JK: Doug and Carl visited you in July 1987. When did you and Mike go to New York?
CP: Same year me and Carl did War Toyz. (Mental Anguish & Nomuzic – “Po Boyz With Gobot War Toyz”, released 2000).
JK: You must have communicated with Doug a lot if he came to Memphis from New York to visit you.
CP: We talked on the phone every week. About music and everything. We traded tapes like crazy. He’s the one that touched base with me. He said, “I heard you have a band that sounds like Hawkwind.” That was Skoptzies and we started trading then.
JK: So you first started communicating with Doug back in the Skoptzies days.
CP: Yup. Marlon Cherry, who played guitar on Everybody's Mad At Amerikkka!, was a cool motherfucker man. I don’t know if he’s still alive. But I did trade a couple CDs with Marlon. He’s a damn good guitar player.
JK: I’ve not heard anything by him other than what he did with Alien Planetscapes.