Eclectic Grooves

It was brought to my attention by the FM Shades blog that Charles Gocher from the Sun City Girls passed away on February 20th at the age of 54. Charles had been battling cancer over the last three years, but apparently he only wanted his immediate family and friends to know about his illness. I was privileged enough to witness his frenetic free-jazz inspired drumming and spoken-word at a Sun City Girls show at Dante's in Portland, OR on 11/13/02. It was a sight to behold , and an experience that I will never forget. I wish I had gone to the band's last show in Portland, but unfortunately I can't turn back the hands of time. In honor of Charles and his recordings with the Sun City Girls , I am posting an album from the Sun City Girls' limited edition Carnival Folklore Resurrection Series called The Handsome Stranger which primarily focuses on the profanity-laced beat poet stylings of Gocher with Alan and Rick Bishop complementing him with a loungey jazz backdrop on pian...

Nels Cline (Nels Cline Singers, Wilco) and Glenn Kotche ( Wilco) are playing a show at the Doug Fir Lounge this Saturday for $12. I've seen Nels Cline live before and he is one of the most extraordinary avant garde jazz guitarists playing nowadays. During his performances, he displays a skill and dexterity in playing incendiary guitar solos so fast that it makes the listener's head swim. His diverse recording endeavours include projects with the Nels Cline Singers(instrumental), Wilco , Scott Amendola Group , Vinny Golia , Thurston Moore , Charlie Haden , Willie Nelson and Carla Bozulich . He is well versed in punk, noise, free jazz, country, traditional jazz and just about any other style that he attempts. I am most familiar with the Nels Cline Singers album called Instrumentals which is a barnstormer of an album blending noise, blues, free jazz, ambient and acoustic music. Nels describes the album as “powerjazzrockfreepsychedelicate instrumental music.” For what it's ...

I wanted to post a little something on MV & EE w/ The Bummer Road since they are rolling through Portland tonight w/ Charalambides at The Reed College Chapel . I realize its not much notice, but if you want to head out to the show, it's probably around $6-8. The MV stands for Matt Valentine and the EE stands for Erika Elder. The married duo have been releasing limited edition CD-R's and vinyl that have long gone out of print. For those of you who weren't fortunate enough to snag those when they were in print, you can still find them scattered on various blogs and file sharing services such as Soulseek . I will be posting a couple of these later this week, so keep your eyes peeled for that. Since time is of the essence I am only going to say that ever since I discovered the Tower Recordings (MV & EE's band before they started MV & EE w/ The Bummer Road) ) album Folk Scene , I have been mesmerized with it's intoxicating blend of atmospheric folk, indian ra...

Well, first of all, it really is great to be back after being gone for a little over a month. However, I am disappointed that my last post on a mix-CD called Aural Film Noir Excursions received only one comment over the past month. I hope I still have some readers out there in Blogland. If you guys are out there and you appreciate what I do here at Eclectic Grooves, please give me a shout. And now onto our regularly scheduled program: I was fortunate enought to see Deerhoof twice in the last year, and their recent show at the Wonder Ballroom in Portland, OR was definitely something you had to see to believe. Greg Saunier played the drums like a speed-addled crackhead who's had one too many cups of coffee. I was in awe as his octopus-like drumming skills captivated the sold-out all ages show. He is essentially a rock drummer, but his fills are as funky as the JB's and his drumming is mostly reminiscent of free-jazz legends such as Milford Graves or Sunny Murray . You have to...