STARK PALACE & KONO MICHI London Visit!

BLOGGER: shark batter records
LOCATION: scottish borders & brooklyn, new york
WEBSITE: sharkbatter.com
MYSPACE: myspace.com/sharkbatterrecords

There's quite a bit of SHARK BATTER RECORDS action in London this month.



In preparation for their debut album release (14th december) Roger Simian and Cameron Jack of THE STARK PALACE have been rehearsing with drummer Grant Pringle and bassist Davey Coyle (both from DAWN OF THE REPLICANTS).



The full line-up supports KATIE & THE DULL FUDDS at their album launch at The Corn Exchange in Melrose on Saturday 17th of October.

A three piece version supports ANIMAL KINGDOM and others at The Cross Kings in Kings Cross, London, on wed 28th October.



Our very own MICHI WIANCKO (aka KONO MICHI) is playing violin with the world-renowned MARK MORRIS DANCE GROUP at Sadler's Wells between tue 27th and sat 31st October. She should also be performing her own KONO MICHI material at The Albert & Pearl on sun 1st nov and The Ice Bar/Below Zero, tue 3rd nov. Her album "9 Death Haiku" is released on CD on Monday 2nd November.

VACUUM SPASM BLOG September 2009

BLOGGER: charles s bravo
LOCATION: scottish borders
BAND WEBSITE: vacuum spasm babies
BAND MYSPACE: vsb myspace
BLOG: vsb blog
LABEL: shark batter records



Henry's Cellar Bar in Edinburgh and why we like playing there, plus other news.

Over the past few weeks we've been doing exactly what we planned to be doing in August and September, mainly playing more gigs, pushing the album and recording for the next e.p. We have been lucky with gigs in Edinburgh, in that we're slowly convincing people to come and see us, and managing to hold it all together when we play. One of the highlights was a gig at Henry's in Edinburgh, a cool little venue near the centre of town, and one of the places we have always wanted to play. The gigs are run by a non-profit collective called The Raft, which includes Nora who does the sound at Henry's (and who had previously made us sound brilliant at a recent gig at The Ark) and Claire who books the bands and runs the door. It's a great place to play because it's tiny and the sound is really tight, it doesn't take a lot of people to make it look busy, you get beer tokens when you play, and it's run by quite cool people who are really into what they are doing. We had a riot, saw some mates that we hadn't seen for a while, and got talking to a few people including DJ Johnny Creamsoda who asked us to play at the launch of his new club Noriega’s Disco where on top of a few live acts he'll be playing 40 years of underground music - post-punk, DIY, C86, garage, punk, outsider and no-wave....

KONO MICHI's "9 DEATH HAIKU" Live in NYC

BLOGGER: shark batter records
LOCATION: scottish borders & brooklyn, new york
WEBSITE: sharkbatter.com
MYSPACE: myspace.com/sharkbatterrecords

Performance of 5 songs from KONO MICHI's "9 Death Haiku" album (Shark Batter Records) at Merkin Concert Hall, New York City. Michi Wiancko: violin & vocals. Annaliesa Place: violin. Jessica Troy: viola. Eric Stephenson: cello. Peter Seymour: bass. Satoshi Takeishi: percussion. Concert Artists Guild (C.A.G.).



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BUY CD OR DOWNLOAD FROM AMAZON.CO.UK

VACUUM SPASM NEWSLETTER no 1

BLOGGER: veronica spencer-brown
LOCATION: scottish borders
BAND WEBSITE: vacuum spasm babies
BAND MYSPACE: vsb myspace
BLOG: vsb blog
LABEL: shark batter records


Vacuum Spasm Babies' Charles S. Bravo

Hello everyone, and welcome along to the first newsletter all about Vacuum Spasm Babies. We hope that this first newsletter is fun, informative, easy to read, but most of all brings you right up to date with what's being going on with your favourite band, Vacuum Spasm Babies.!!!!

Later in the issue, Charles S. Bravo will be telling us about the night he took laxatives and sleeping tablets with hilarious results, and Malcolm Spasm finally let the cat out of the bag. Poor Cat. No, honestly, we'll finally find out why the band can never ever play in Dundee, Slough, Penrith or Gateshead ever ever again, really, ever. We'll also ask the 'boys' about their favourite things in life, did you know for example that Malcolm's hobbies include treason, potholing, and pinning Pepperoni onto the lapels of topographers, and that Charles used to play truth or dare for Scotland.!!!!

Before all that lets get right up to speed with developments with the band.

Charles has written and recorded two new demonstration tracks this week, we're very excited, but he's remaining characteristically coy about how the new songs sound. One is for the live set, is easy to play he says, and lots and lots of fun. It looks at a typical day when Mr Bravo, on his way to work, and feeling pretty down on his luck and not one hundred percent happy with his lot in life, decides to just ask kind looking members of the public to please run over his legs, and send him for six weeks of hospital food, just to relieve the monotony of the daily grind and avoid going into the office.

How many times have we found ourselves faced with the problem of how to get rid of the body of another dead woman dumped in the bath tub, without the right protective clothing. The other new song, 'Chemical Burns' looks at this jolly theme, and sees the band tilt a nod of appreciation to some 80's synth pop. It will send the fans wild when the song appears on a forthcoming Extended Player along with Mhz, Khz, and Science Division from Sharkbatter Records.

Girls, if you are very clever, you'll be able to find out with no more than a quick hello, when the band will be popping into their local studio to record a new version of Science Division. Watch this space, and later there will be a prize if you can tell us in what month and year Charles S. Bravo founded the Science Division.

Finally for today, our old chums at The Ark have been back on the blower, to see when they can have the pleasure of getting Vacuum Spasm Babies back onto the stage, having said that they can't remember the last time they saw such a reaction to a new band. Keep an eye out for the date, and remember folks, the 'gig' will probably be during the Edinburgh Festival, and this will be one 'hot' ticket. I imagine the boys will want to get in a couple of practices before playing live and getting back into the studio for more fun and musical games.

Read on for our quick and fun quiz to see what Vacuum Spasm Baby you'd most like to take home to mother, and some more fabulous photographs from the band's recent appearance on Lookaround. If you look closely at the top photo, you'll be able to see quite clearly exactly why it's unlikely that the band will be back on ITV Border any time soon.

Best Wishes,

Veronica Spencer-Brown

President, VSB FanClub.

STARK PALACE Free EP + SARAHJANE SWAN Ghostie Vid

BLOGGER: shark batter records
LOCATION: scottish borders & brooklyn, new york
WEBSITE: sharkbatter.com
MYSPACE: myspace.com/sharkbatterrecords



The Stark Palace - Roger Simian (Dawn Of The Replicants, dumb/SULK trigg-er zine) & Cameron Jack - have been played on various radio stations including Radio 1, BBC 6 Music and East Village Radio in New York. Fans include Scottish novelist, Iain Banks, and also Tom Robinson (2-4-6-8 Motorway etc) who invited the lads in to record a session for his 6 Music programme in 2008 and often uses their CroMagnon Man as a bed on his Introducing... show.



Brakelight Cabernet The Stark Palace's 3rd E.P. is free to download right here...

THE WEREWOLF SONG (simian)
A cheerful song about the compulsion to maim and kill whenever the moon rises and the Hombre Lobo curse kicks in.

ATTENTION SPAN (jack)
Some relationships are just trouble from the start.

HUNGARIAN MINOR (simian)
Named after the scale the tune's written in, rather than underage Eastern Europeans.

BRAKELIGHT CABERNET (words: jack music: simian)
An eventful trip Cameron once took to Avignon with friends.



Roger Simian has also been busily editing the most recent video, Ghost, for fellow Shark Batter act, Sarahjane Swan. Filmed at Darnick Town Hall, Scotland, it's an ode to SJS's amorous resident poltergeist and in the vid she sports a fine ensemble of personae: from Demon Bride to Glam-Rock Guitar Chica, even at points conjuring her inner Nancy Sinatra...



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THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF FLAGWOMAN

BLOGGER: paul vickers
LOCATION: edinburgh
PAUL'S BANDS: paul vickers and the leg, dawn of the replicants
LABEL: sl records

THE HAUNTING OF SARAHJANE SWAN

BLOGGER: shark batter records
LOCATION: scottish borders & brooklyn, new york
WEBSITE: sharkbatter.com
MYSPACE: myspace.com/sharkbatterrecords


(pic by martin millar)

Creepy and entrancing, Sarahjane Swan's new single Ghost features her abrasive, blustery vocals over gothic guitars and industrial synths and percussion. Her peculiar blend of gothic music with pop is not easy to describe--perhaps try to imagine an early 90s Siouxsie Sioux/Trent Reznor collaboration. - Silence-Killer.com

Released today on Shark Batter Records, Ghost is the second single from the Scottish sculptress, occasional alternative model and creator of left-field electronic Gothic-Pop ditties, Sarahjane Swan . And there's a spooky story behind the song.

It was the Fates who brought Sarahjane Swan and Shark Batter Records together. Throughout most of the 1990s, the two brothers in charge of the label's day to day dealings - Mike Sorensen Small and rogerSIMIAN (not his real name, you'll be shocked to discover) - lived with their parents in a converted church hall in the Scottish Borders. That's the house where they and some friends started the underground magazine, Sun Zoom Spark , featuring interviews with everyone from punk rock old-timers (The Ramones, Jonathan Richman) to Brit Pop whippersnappers (Blur, Radiohead, Pulp, Elastica, Supergrass, Manics, Echobelly, Oasis, Sleeper), noisier American acts (Beck, Sonic Youth, Pavement, Mercury Rev), pop stars (Coolio, Erasure, Garbage, Rolf Harris) and many riot grrrl influenced female-fronted acts. It's where Roger, Mike and two pals - Grant Pringle and Donald Kyle - formed cult Scottish band, Dawn Of The Replicants, with their lodger Paul Vickers.

It's also where Sarahjane now lives with her boyfriend, their son and the resident poltergeist.

A year or so ago, when SJS began looking for a guitar teacher she found her way to Mike Small, and the pair were startled to discover they had that old church house in common.

"Have you met the ghostie yet?" Mike asked. "He was pretty quiet when we all lived there. We probably made too much noise. Scared him away."

"He visits almost every day," Sarahjane replied. "He's a nice ghost I think but he's a bit fussy. He moves little trinkets about the bathroom and turns stuff upside down."

Within only a few months of starting her guitar lessons, Sarahjane Swan was still having to look at the fretboard when changing chords but had written almost an album's worth of songs.

Mike loved those songs. "Oh, we should put those out on our wee record label," he said.

"You have a record label?" Sarahjane asked. "Cool."



SJS's ode to her spectral lodger, Ghost, is the most recently written of her songs, composed without guitar: just voice, a beatbox and plenty of spooky reverb. The Shark Batter posse loved the demo so much they thought Ghost should be the next single. And so here it is.

This new version features musical shenanigans from rogerSIMIAN and Mike Sorensen Small, the drumming of Grant Pringle (Dawn Of The Replicants) and a bit of additional vocal derring do from Brendan McAndrew (Mike's co-conspirator in the Stone Ghost Collective).

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MUSINGS OF A WANDERING OAF

BLOGGER: fren attic
WEBSITE: wanderingoaf.blogspot.com

OBSERVATIONS ON 21ST CENTURY LIFE FROM THE RELATIVE SAFETY OF A GARDEN SHED.
OAF(N): CHANGELING, USUALLY DEFORMED, LEFT BY THE FAIRIES; A DOLT; A LOUT; AN AWKWARD FELLOW



It is not often that I drag my sorry carcass to the cinema. I prefer lost films myself. Celluloid masterpieces such as Edward D. Wood Jr.'s 1972 classic, The Undergraduate are my forte. Films that exist in rare prints, films that are only extant in a damaged or incomplete form and some that never existed in the first place are my usual fare. À tort et à travers, I lurched into the local picture house recently to satisfy a childhood craving.

The year was 1977 and my recently redundant father entered our sitting room with a brand new COLOUR TV. When I say redundant I mean relieved of his employment rather than his position as titular head of household. My dysfunctional siblings and I were already assembled around the space where the cathode shrine would take pride of place. Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis and all that. Up until then, and rather late in the day might I add, we had satisfied ourselves with monochrome domestic entertainment. We even listened to the radio in black and white, although this was only a problem when they broadcast snooker.

Anyway, the prospect of one show more than any other made our ocular facilities salivate or should I say lacrimate - Star Trek. We were a family of proto-Trekkies who weren’t sad enough to become actual Trekkies. We even had favourites. Mine was that irrepressible Russian Starfleet officer, Pavel Andreievich Chekov. I chose him because I was the youngest and all the others had been taken.

The television came replete with a sliding, wood effect door. This enabled you to hide the fact that you dared to watch the goggle box from your disapproving neighbours - if they ever popped around for tea. Middle-class families in our neck of the woods were obviously expected to have a good old sing song round the piano of an evening. Television was for common people and Roman Catholics. We were both. Property prices took a nose dive I can assure you.

Having switched it on, in eager anticipation, we were forced to wait while it ‘warmed up’. The picture seemed to wobble on to the screen like a sort of green tornado, something I’ve never witnessed on any other piece of televisual equipment. But, and this is the crux of my tale, the image that burned itself on to our retinas was the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Captain James T. Kirk sat in his throne, looking habitually pensive. Spock stood to his right, typically emotionless and calculating. Scotty stood to his left, a look of familiar defeat crowning his features. Only this time they were devoid of their dull, grey uniforms. Kirk was yellow, Spock blue, Scotty a shocking red. We had never witnessed anything like this. It was like walking in to a Jackson Pollock painting. That image lives with me to this day, in sparkling Technicolor.

So, having been blown away once by Gene Roddenberry’s baby I couldn’t help but notice that Star Trek was being reinvented for the big screen, again. I thought nothing of the original movies, still less of the cloying, saccharine, vomit fest that was The Next Generation. Those other abortionate incarnations will remain unnamed for aesthetic reasons. The difference here was the prospect of the original characters once again being introduced. I always loved Kirk’s logs which appeared to be full of faux ‘philosophispeak’ and Shakespearian buffoonery: “My soul searches for meaning on this deserted planet. Spock and the others seem distant. What is the lot of man, are we meant to suffer? The others may return to the ship but will they be the same men and women who left it”? In truth if an unknown character went on a mission they were invariably struck down by a child-like Apollo or laid low by a prosthetic disease. We called them ‘the expendable ones’. I do wonder how the Enterprise functioned with Kirk’s inane ramblings. Couldn’t he have inter-spliced them with some practical announcements like “The Holodeck needs a wipe” or “The canteen will be serving Vulcan selhat soup, followed by shepherd’s pie”?

I was not disappointed by the aural and visual delights that faced me as I drank in the latest incarnation. The story was a little far-fetched. A convenient meeting between the spanking new 'buff' Captain Kirk and a decrepit Leonard Nimoy stretched credulity, but with plenty of stunning, ear-splitting effects and a little humour, popcorn spilled on to my velveteen chair, the tangy taste of caffeinated coke fizzed around the roof of my mouth and I was entertained. Oh, and Simon Pegg really is a star, after all.

VACUUM SPASM BLOG July 2009

BLOGGER: charles s bravo
LOCATION: scottish borders
BAND WEBSITE: vacuum spasm babies
BAND MYSPACE: vsb myspace
BLOG: vsb blog
LABEL: shark batter records

Being a Spasm Baby and getting played on the BBC.



It's been a tough couple of months trying to keep up momentum and push the album to anyone who might listen or purchase. One way has been radio. We've been quite lucky with radio play, generally, and for 'Whipping Clowns' with plays on the BBC, and a list of internet stations. Vic Galloway who does a show on BBC Radio One, and another on BBC Radio Scotland has always been really good to us, and recently we've been getting played on BBC Radio Bristol Introducing, presented by Richard Pitt and Gary Smith. They played 'Song for Katie' and read out a bit of the press release, which was a great introduction to the band. The bad press reviews makes us laugh, especially reviews written by people who don't seem to like anything. One Edinburgh magazine reviewed the album without saying much either way, but after asking a few folk about that particular publication, I was told that in actual fact it's put together by idiots. Our favourite review was from Maarten Schiethart writing in Pennyblack Music who said "Forget about your Maximo Ferdinand Monkeys, Vacuum Spasm Babies are the band for the future". That made us smile, a lot.

Playing a few live gigs also made us smile. We've had a riot playing the tracks live a various places in Edinburgh, and getting to hear other new bands. We especially liked Rodent Emporium, who i think like us like to make a lot of noise, and have a bit of humour in what they do. We have some very odd people coming to see us live, and based on the way the album turned out, we wouldn't have expected anything else.

THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF FLAGWOMAN

BLOGGER: paul vickers
LOCATION: edinburgh
PAUL'S BANDS: paul vickers and the leg, dawn of the replicants
LABEL: sl records

MUSINGS OF A WANDERING OAF

BLOGGER: fren attic
WEBSITE: wanderingoaf.blogspot.com

OBSERVATIONS ON 21ST CENTURY LIFE FROM THE RELATIVE SAFETY OF A GARDEN SHED.
OAF(N): CHANGELING, USUALLY DEFORMED, LEFT BY THE FAIRIES; A DOLT; A LOUT; AN AWKWARD FELLOW



Thus far I have avoided infection from the beasts of the air and the beasts of the field and I feel a minor celebration is in order. I rest my worn quill (my prodigious digits) and crack open a bottle of Pinot Grigio, pouring it down my gullet like a starved cormorant - no Sideways reference intended.

Having no wish to carnify my apportionment of wit and wisdom, however slight that may be, I have begun to exercise not my sickly corpus but something all together more important - my judgement. It is my intention to regale the weary surfer with delectable titbits on myriad subjects, including politics, culture, sex, drugs and sofas. I hope no one gets injured in the process.

I shall do my best to be succinct for, as my granny was fond of saying, non multa, sed multum – not quantity but quality. She was a Latin scholar who occasionally lapsed into drunkenness. I, on the other hand, am a scholar of drink who occasionally lapses into Latin. Nota bene.

PAUL VICKERS COMEDY, SARAHJANE'S "GHOST", KONO MICHI in THE STRAD

BLOGGER: shark batter records
LOCATION: scottish borders & brooklyn, new york
WEBSITE: sharkbatter.com
MYSPACE: myspace.com/sharkbatterrecords

Paul Vickers performs live in Edinburgh with help from Twinkie, Bruntsfield Lottie and Joyce Bananas. Includes the famous story of the elephant chimney sweep. Dancing Jim, and Barbara Bananas's death-trip train ride.





Sarahjane Swan singing a rendition of her next single, Ghost, with rogerSIMIAN (The Stark Palace) playing fairly bad piano.



Kono Michi 9 Death Haiku review in The Strad, June 2009:



Kono Michi is a New York-based concert violinist and erstwhile Silk Road Ensemble collaborator, and has come up with this intriguing and exquisitely beautiful setting of Japanese deathbed haikus. 

If you listen to this wanting to hear violin music, you might be disappointed. True, Michi's pedigree on the instrument is manifest, with a dexterity and refined expression, whether in the crystalline melody and pulsing accompaniment of Vanish or the gossamer-light pizzicato of Cherry Blossoms. But these songs are about the whole package. The spare, open-ended lyrics, peaceful and occasionally darkly tinged, demand subtlety, and Michi delivers.

Her voice is gently honeyed, with a Bjork-like quirkiness that tempers the languid, summertime ambience of the sound. And around the succinct text, she crafts precise, imaginative textures, with layered violin lines and delicate percussion, expanded by touches of reverb that do not tarnish the solo violin on top. Michi draws on Gershwin, Weill, impressionism and Japanese traditional music within a popular format - a bold venture that occasionally jars as so many styles rub up against each other, threatening to overpower the words. Then again, the variety of moods and range of musical allusions explore the acres of unspoken meaning that each haiku offers from a number of angles. And overall, the album coheres into a distinctive sound that reflects Michi's personal blend of cultural influences (she was born to Japanese and Polish-American parents). This is a great advert for music that breaks through the pop-classical barrier.

SHARK BATTER feature in SUNDAY HERALD

BLOGGER: shark batter records
LOCATION: scottish borders & brooklyn, new york
WEBSITE: sharkbatter.com
MYSPACE: myspace.com/sharkbatterrecords



Sound of the underground
The big-time music industry may be suffering as the internet and economy bite, but in Scotland the grassroots scene is thriving. A new generation of web-savvy talent is emerging from unlikely places, ignoring all the rules … and taking on the world. Edd McCracken meets the bands, venues and labels creating a vibrant community of new music...

THE LABELS

News of the demise of major music labels is nothing new. They reacted to the internet as swiftly as an oil tanker doing a three-point turn in a shipping lane. And so, where once talks of international record deals were the preserve of musical ivory towers in London, LA and New York, today the scene shifts to a day-glo cafe in an Asda in Galashiels.

Two brothers sit at their usual table by the window, enjoying cheap coffee, discussing what to do with their signing from New York. Roger Simian and Mike Small played in a mildly successful Britpop band, Dawn Of The Replicants, but have swapped sweaty live venues for running their own record label, Shark Batter. Begun in 2006 and named after a defence technique for dealing with Jaws (rather than a Borders delicacy), it is part of a resurgence in Scottish indie labels, a musical sub-genre that gave the world Postcard Records in the 1980s and the booming Fence Collective. They are rising in bedrooms, kitchens and supermarket coffee shops, nimbly filling in the gaps left behind by crumbling majors.

"Indies are coming back, although it's different to what it was before" says Roger. "It is easier to set a label up now, thanks to the internet, but there are new difficulties, too."

The withering of the independent label's trusted distribution method is one such difficulty. The number of small, dedicated record shops has dwindled. As has the music press: only the NME remains as a weekly diet, while monthly magazines are in thrall to stadium acts or slavishly cater to the baby boomers' record collections.

While Shark Batter still burn promotional CDs, packed in home-made cases, they will be sent as readily to mp3 bloggers and online fanzines as to Q magazine. In an age when such a DIY ethos reigns, their tagline has an agreeable Del Boy chutzpah to it: "DIY Indie Label from Scottish Borders & Brooklyn, New York".

"It's somewhere between tongue in cheek and our ambition," says Roger. "One of the things now is that instead of indie labels being identified with one label and one country, thanks to the internet you can reach out and find an audience in America, Europe or Mexico, as well as your own country. There is a fascination with other cultures. Connections will be made, like twinning cities." He stops, as if contemplating whether to put his tongue back in his cheek for the next remark. "We'd like Galashiels to be twinned with Brooklyn."

The link with New York's hippest borough is not speculative. It comes from Shark Batter signing Kono Michi, right, a classically trained concert violinist and singer who manages to embody the sound of both John Cale and Nico in her slight frame. Mike bonded with Michi via MySpace over a love of The Cocteau Twins. She recorded violin for his band, The Stone Ghost Collective, before agreeing to be signed to their label.

Reflecting the "Think Global, Act Local" approach to running a label, Shark Batter's signings are highly personalised: Sarahjane Swan lives in their old house and Mike was her guitar teacher; the lead singer in the wonderfully titled Vacuum Spasm Babies worked on the same music fanzine as Roger; and The Stark Palace is Roger's own band.

As a career, they "get by" running Shark Batter. "We're not making any major profit out of it," says Mike. "We're always looking for new angles. We're full of ideas. One of us keeps the other on the ground. But we'll always be based in Galashiels. You don't always have to be based in big cities and follow the traditional routes. Besides, we get free coffee refills in Asda."

Kono Michi's 9 Death Haiku and Vacuum Spasm Babies' Whipping Clowns are out now on Shark Batter Records; www.sharkbatter.com

KONO MICHI "9 Death Haiku" World Premiere & Album Launch

BLOGGER: shark batter records
LOCATION: scottish borders & brooklyn, new york
WEBSITE: sharkbatter.com
MYSPACE: myspace.com/sharkbatterrecords



The world premiere of Kono Michi's 9 Death Haiku album is at the Thalia Theatre at Symphony Space, New York, on Thursday May 21st. $20 discount tickets on sale at concertartists.org.

Line-up:
Kono Michi: vocals & violin
Annaliesa Place: violin
Jessica Troy: viola
Eric Stephenson: cello
Peter Seymour: upright bass
Satoshi Takeishi: percussion

The album is on sale now at the major online stores. The CD will be fully released later in the year but a limited number of copies will be available at the concert.



rogerSIMIAN's Review of the Album
Now, I'm a somewhat scruffy and gruff-voiced Scotsman of a certain age but I'm not ashamed to admit that I cried when I first listened to Kono Michi's 9 Death Haiku LP. I don't think it was much to do with the fact this is an album about mortality. It was more related to that range of almost unbearable emotion which you can never quite utter in words, but which certain composers occasionally capture in their music. Throughout this record Michi's voice and instrumentation produce wonderful tones, melodies, harmonies, discordances which are frequently allowed to soar up into the ozone like flapping, dragon-red kites, but always remain tethered to the earth by the inventive noises and rhythms of percussionist Satoshi Takeishi.

I think my shameless shedding of tears also had something to do with the fact I couldn't imagine anybody else but Kono Michi being able to both write and perform anything quite like these nine songs. This is not so much to do with her family history. Yes, she is the daughter of a Polish-American documentary maker and a Japanese amateur musician. And of course her parents' influence is explicitly there in the music - from the use of the traditional Japanese melody, Sakura , to the field-recording style mash-up of European folk and other popular styles, including fragments of Gershwin and Kurt Weill-like decadent waltzes. But it is Michi's own diversity of musical background which has resulted in this work being so finely balanced between full-on classical excellence of playing and an uncompromising alternative pop /indie sensibility.

Kono Michi began learning to play the violin as a three year old growing up in Orange County, California, and later went on to study in Cleveland and at New York's Juilliard conservatory. She has since travelled the World as a concert violinist, playing with the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics, The Silk Road Ensemble, Los Angeles Piano Quartet and ECCO (East Coast Chamber Orchestra), as well as recording with David Sylvian and on various Hollywood film soundtracks.

But all the while Michi was discovering for herself the raw excitement of rock and popular musics. Dancing around to Joan Jett's I Love Rock 'n' Roll as a toddler seemed as vital and important as her more formal studies. And so it was easy to appreciate the punk or goth her older sister introduced her to in her teens, or to happily freak out to mixed tapes jammed full of Captain Beefheart, Cocteau Twins, Dolly Parton, Screamin' Jay Hawkins and Camper Van Beethoven. I don't think I'm wrong in imagining that all of these influences are gumboed up together in the 9 Death Haiku LP.

But the only real, steady reference point I can think of for this album is that it mines similar terrain to the Velvet Underground or, more specifically, Nico's Frozen Warnings . I don't mean that there's any great sonic similarity as such. But there was a particular electricity produced when John Cale's experimental classical training was bumping and grinding up against his new friends' more earthy, down at heel, love of Western popular forms. And I can feel that same electricity crackling through Kono Michi's debut album.

By the time of the trippy final track, with its John Adams influenced minimalist orchestral layers and Zen refrain "My one wish is to live in the Capital of Non-Action" I can't help feeling, as a listener, that I've tasted a most delicious vintage of Death Song, and I want to experience it all again immediately.

rS

VACUUM SPASM BABIES LP released today

BLOGGER: shark batter records
LOCATION: scottish borders & brooklyn, new york
WEBSITE: sharkbatter.com
MYSPACE: myspace.com/sharkbatterrecords



The debut album, "Whipping Clowns", by Scottish oddballs, Vacuum Spasm Babies is released today on Shark Batter Records, and a gloriously wonky and inventive album it is too. You can buy it as a download through iTunes, Amazon etc and it's also available to buy in various music stores in Edinburgh and the Scottish Borders, including Avalanche.

Charles S. Bravo and Malcolm Spasm have put together a live incarnation of The VSB, featuring Cameron Jack and rogerSIMIAN from The Stark Palace on guitar and bass, and original Dawn Of The Replicants drummer, Grant Pringle. If you're in Edinburgh this month you can catch 'em at Bannerman's this wednesday (11th May) and The Ark on wednesday 27th May.



We've also just uploaded the High Definition version of Vacuum Spasm Babies's "MHz" video - an experiment in mixing Machinima (Second Life created characters) with old public domain footage from the Edison company. To see the full quality version click on the "HD" button above.

VACUUM SPASM BLOG May 2009

BLOGGER: charles s bravo
LOCATION: scottish borders
BAND WEBSITE: vacuum spasm babies
BAND MYSPACE: vsb myspace
BLOG: vsb blog
LABEL: shark batter records




Free Records

As we hurtle toward the release date of the vacuum spasm babies' record, I'm going to break with tradition and for the most part talk about records released by other people. Whilst my brother in rock has his mind set on reaching a time when he's not troubled by actually owning music he can touch (CD or vinyl) and the only songs he has are stored on a computer chip and played back in alphabetical order, I continue to collect LPs as vigorously as budget and space will allow. I am not hugely rich in either area, so have strict criteria when mooching around charity shops and car boot sales. Number one, how much do I really want this record, and how often will it get played. If it's something I've been after, or I'm too curious to pass on, and know that I'll not neglect it after one spin, I'll take it, give it shelf space, and appreciate it. Number two, cost. I'm a charitable man, but who the hell is going to pay £2.99 for a 2nd hand LP that you could probably get in a supermarket on CD for about the same price, I've got a £1.50 limit for any charity shop purchase, unless it's a record clearly worth more, I walk away.

The building I work in hosts a reasonable sized record library, stacked high with CD's and vinyl covering a huge list of genres from the last 40 or 50 years. Like my brother, the owners of this library have spent a lot of time and money putting songs into a big computer, that then plays them back to people who listen in what it considers to be a pleasing order. In fact, the songs are tested in some fashion on members of the public to make sure that no one song will cause offense, or provoke a stroke from any of the older listeners.

Cut to the chase Charlie, I'm dozing off here.

They decided they wanted to make some space, and do away with the vinyl part of the library. You have to understand, that 90% of the records carefully catalogued and labled and sitting on the selves are sitting on the shelf gathering dust for a reason, and usually not worth a second look. Although in the same way that on a rare and special day flicking through records in a charity shop you'll find a Lee and Nancy album in amongst the Clannad, Engelbert Humperdinck, Tartan Party, and Holst - The Planets, I guessed that there might be a few gems hiding away in this library.

Word got out that you could take your pick of the vinyl, before it was sent elsewhere, although it was unlikely that most other folk in the office would be after the same kind of stuff as me, I decided to get in there quickly. Along from the section dedicated to 'songs from the countries', 'military', 'local humour' (Geordies from clubland) and 'Folk' sits the 'soundtrack' section. And again you need to dig deep and beyond 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit', 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' and 'Mermaid' before you found the stuff worth keeping.

I've listed the records that came home with me from this section for a permanent record.

Music from the Movie

A Man and a woman
Midnight Cowboy
The Shining
Trail of the Pink Panther
Sorcerer (Tangerine Dream)
Rollerball
Shaft
The Persuaders (basically a load of John Barry)
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
The Exorcist
The Empire Strikes Back
Easy Rider
Manhattan

Along from that, sat compilations, and when you got past 'Now 4', far too many 'Greatest Love' type things all featuring Bonny Tyler, 'Chart Attack' and a load of music that made the 80's so bad, a few more gems for the collection.

The British Psychedelic Trip Vol 4 (1965-1970)
The Decca Originals Vol 2 (1965 - 1969)
In the Beginning (early recordings of the superstars - i.e. Slade when they were The Inbetweeners, Bowie as Davie Jones etc.)
Dream Babies - Girls and Girl Groups of the Sixties (The Girls, The Crystals, The Honeys)
Death, Glory and Retribution - Rock Rarities including death disks, protest songs and answer songs (an odd mix of stuff from late 50's to late 60's)
Buddah in Mind (Buddah Records compilation, just brilliant)

And filed under misc.....

Astrid Gilberto - Once Upon Summertime
Fairport Convention - Heyday (BBC Sessions 1968-69)
The Tornados - greatest hits
The Lovin' Spoonful - greatest hits
Harmony Grass - This is Us.

Someone beat me to the soundtrack to 'Enter the Dragon' and my buddy Steve got into the 7" section for his jukebox before I had a chance to check it out, and I'm pretty sure he made off with the 'Top of the Pops' albums he's missing, but enjoyable and quite surprising set of circumstances means I've enough to keep my busy for a couple of weeks.

Mrs Bravo will be getting a compilation tape in the next 48 hours, let me know if you want a copy.

Meanwhile vacuum spasm babies continue to smile at the good reviews for the album that have been popping up, and laugh at the bad ones. We're designing posters for the record shops who will be stocking it, and working out how to play the live set quiet for the instore the label have sorted out for us.

SUN ZOOM SPARK ZINE Online Archive: issue 1

BLOGGER: rogerSIMIAN
LOCATION: scottish borders
BAND: the stark palace
LABEL: shark batter records



In the mid-1990s, many of the good folks now associated with Shark Batter Records ran a glorified local fanzine, Sun Zoom Spark, that dun good and ended up becoming a full colour monthly distributed throughout the U.K. Sun Zoom Spark, named after a Captain Beefheart song, was based in the Scottish Borders town of Galashiels.

Distinctive design and band caricatures came from the 6 ft 5 bearded behemoth Grant Pringle, original drummer with Dawn Of The Replicants, who is now collaborating with myself and Cameron Jack in The Stark Palace.

My brother Mike Small and school friend Brendan McAndrew - the song-writing partnership behind The Stone Ghost Collective - were the publisher and editor, respectively.

Charles S. Bravo - currently frontman of Vacuum Spasm Babies - was the music editor and it was generally him who set up interviews for us: everyone from punk rock old-timers (eg The Ramones, Jonathan Richman) to the up 'n' coming Brit Pop whippersnappers (Blur, Radiohead, Pulp, Elastica, Supergrass, Manics, Echobelly, Oasis, Sleeper etc), various noisier American acts, who I usually much preferred to the Brits (Beck, Sonic Youth, Pavement, Mercury Rev), pop stars (Coolio, Erasure, Rolf Harris) and a gaggle of riot grrrl influenced female-fronted bands.

In the early '90s, my brother met Tom Baker lookalike and natural born Dadaist, Paul Vickers, at college in Carlisle. A few years later, he persuaded Paul to ditch the experimental music degree he was studying in Nottingham and move into our parents' converted church house so he could draw his Flag Woman cartoons and pen articles about the bands he liked. Which is basically how he ended up writing songs with Crunchy Joseph (a Borders three-piece featuring me, Mike and Grant Pringle: Sonic Youth guitar tunings and three-part vocal harmonies if you can imagine such a thing), and later fronting Dawn Of The Replicants, Pluto Monkey and Paul Vickers and the Leg, pretty much becoming an honorary Scotsman in the process.

The early team also included: Hector Prole and Dermot hACK ( long-time inhabitants of Amsterdam since SZS folded), Grant Kirk and Andy Foggin (now both teachers) and Hawick lass Vicky Davidson, who's had a healthy career in Scottish journalism and is now deputy editor of The Big Issue (in Scotland).

Well, after many years, we've finally built a website where we can archive some of the old material.

Here's a sampler of the first national issue (from Jan '94):

* SUN ZOOM SPARK issue 1 *

And a taster of the two early local zine versions of SZS (92 & 93):

* SUN ZOOM SPARK local zine *


"Pop Up Jesus" by Paul Vickers


Courtney Love by Charles S. Bravo

I've also uploaded two new galleries of photography to the Sparks From The Mothership by Paul Vickers ("Church of the Curious" in which he explores his unhealthy obsession with religious iconography and trashy culture) and Charles S. Bravo (rock & pop snaps including:: Courtney Love, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Kylie Minogue, Nick Cave, Beck, Thom Yorke, Joey Ramone, Bjork and Richie Manic):

* GALLERIES *

Hope you enjoy. I'll try and upload an issue's worth every month or two...

rS
x

SHARK BATTER SAMPLER w/ ROBOTS & ELECTRONIC BRAINS ZINE

BLOGGER: shark batter records
LOCATION: scottish borders & brooklyn, new york
WEBSITE: sharkbatter.com
MYSPACE: myspace.com/sharkbatterrecords

That lovely fella Jimmy Possession played the debut single by our very own Sarahjane Swan on his latest show (16/03/09) on Cambridge's local station, 209 Radio. Here's the bleeding blimey MP3 of his show if you want to listen in:

Jimmy Possession Show



Mr Possession is also the creator of the excellent long-running 'zine, Robots & Electronic Brains. The latest issue (18) includes a free Shark Batter Records album, Nachtmusik Sampler, featuring 16 tracks by Kono Michi, Vacuum Spasm Babies, The Stone Ghost Collective and The Stark Palace, and cover art by Edinburgh-based artist, Mary Trodden.



Visit the R&EB website to get hold of a copy now.

And if you want to read more about the forthcoming albums from Vacuum Spasm Babies and Kono Michi (both May) and Sarahjane Swan's debut single (mon 13th april), GO HERE.

THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF FLAGWOMAN

BLOGGER: paul vickers
LOCATION: edinburgh
PAUL'S BANDS: paul vickers and the leg, dawn of the replicants
LABEL: sl records

VACUUM SPASM BLOG March 2009

BLOGGER: charles s bravo
LOCATION: scottish borders
BAND: vacuum spasm babies
BLOG: vsb blog
LABEL: shark batter records

Video killed.....



It’s not enough to write songs, record them, put them in order and onto a CDR, get someone interested in them, design the artwork, play them live to people, write a press release, and smile for a photograph, but then you are almost obliged to make a video. “A good strong concept that won’t cost any money to make” the fella from the record label told me this week. Why not?

The golden age for music videos for me was 120 minutes on MTV in the early 90’s where there seemed to be a whole bunch of really good bands both here and in America, with cash for a decent video, and a platform like MTV’s night-time nod to indie cool in 2 hours. Our experience of video making however stops quite short of the mark, even the mark as it existed in 1992. Our video for Punch in The Face (see above) took about as long to make as the track itself, and focused heavily on matchstick drawings rather than us. Likewise, Mr Simian at the record label mixed some random vintage black and white footage with Machinima and came out with something quite brilliant for our toe tapping instrumental MHz.

The latest signing to Sharkbatter Records Sarahjane Swan has already made a video for her forthcoming single “I Am Just the Past”. Sarahjane is a songwriter and artist based in the Scottish Borders and this track was produced by Shark Batter's co-owners, Glimmerfin (The Stone Ghost Collective) and rogerSIMIAN (The Stark Palace). They also made the video, which is set mostly in a cage, features fairy lights, fairy wings, pink hair and Sarajane cutting some moves. When Kono Michi made her video for "When I Don’t Come Back” she sang the song in the bath. My brother and I can’t complete with this, although still have to come up with something for our track “On the Brink of Tears”. The only thing we’ve thought of is hobo chic with clown undertones, and a bit of a funny dance. If anyone has any great ideas, or wants to come up with a story board, find a location and props, star in it, get someone to shoot it, then edit it, then give me a call.

VACUUM SPASM BLOG Dec 2008

BLOGGER: charles s bravo
LOCATION: scottish borders
BAND: vacuum spasm babies
LABEL: shark batter records

Kono Michi gig and drummer update

Vacuum Spasm Babies went to see Kono Michi play at Henry’s Cellar Bar in Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago, a great little venue, which as well as hosting the show and giving us the chance to hear Kono Michi live, also acted as a venue for a kind of twisted and accidental convention attended by some of the most creative people I’ve know over the past 20 years.

Some time in the early 1990’s a few guys were playing together in a local band that were actually quite good, a rare thing in the Scottish Borders then. At the same time I was playing records and demos from bands I knew on a local radio station, including those guys, and not long after that a few more people came together to launch a fanzine that eventually mutated into the now cult Scottish publication Sun Zoom Spark. Most of the people who made this amazing and unlikely publication happen were at Henry’s on this night.

The timeline and rock family tree that links the people around Sun Zoom Spark magazine to Sharkbatter Records and then Kono Michi is vast and impossible to record, but this is a starting point.

Simian, Small and Pringle were Crunchy Joseph, Simian, Small, Pringle and Vickers were lots of things and then Dawn of The Replicants. Simian and Vickers were Pluto Monkey, Simian and Jack are the Stark Palace, Small and McAndrew and others are the Stone Ghost Collective, Vickers joined The Leg at the hip, me plus one make Vacuum Spasm Babies. Most of them were Sun Zoom Spark, Small, McAndrew, Jack and Simian run Sharkbatter Records now, many record and release records for the label, and on this night Michi Wiancko brought them all together. Kirk and Coyle were also present, with many others from our neck of the woods who’d played a part. Aitken and McNiven currently overseas were present, at least in our minds.

An amazing show, with Small, Simian, Jack and Coyle backing Michi through a complex and staggeringly impressive range of songs, hell even the man from The Scotsman was impressed. The night was made even better by the chance to catch up with a lot people who I just don’t see enough of, including the previously mentioned Pringle, not just a fine artist, but a superb drummer, who I think we have successfully managed to recruit into the Vacuum Spasm Babies live band, for a short time at least. With Simian and Jack my brother and I have been putting together a live set, with songs from our album Whipping Clowns, and some new songs. The prospect of playing with drums on a backing track isn’t a fun one, and leaves us vulnerable to all kinds of on stage embarrassments, but with a drummer of the calibre of Pringle in the band, there’s less to panic about. All we need to do now is find a rehearsal space where 5 people from 5 different parts of the country can get to without too much trouble.