Jack Mountain

The Lab :: Friday 22nd August :: Catch 22 Kingsland Road

It's time for another Lab. As usual this means free entry, sweet bands and rockin' DJs.

Upstairs:

8.30 open
8.30-9.45 Jack Mountain DJ
9.45 Oroku Saki live
10.30 Real Feal live
11.15 Cleckhuddersfax live
11.30 Cleckhuddersfax DJ

With DJ Malkovitch Malkovitch betwixt the bands

Downstairs

10pm DJ Diddy Wah
12pm So So Modern DJ set

Links:

Catch:        http://www.thecatchbar.com
Oroku Saki    http://www.orokusaki.com
Real Feal    http://www.myspace.com/realfeal
Cleckhuddersfax    http://www.myspace.com/cleckhuddersfax
Diddy Wah    http://diddywah.blogspot.com/
So So Modern    http://www.myspace.com/sosomodern
Jack Mountain    http://www.myspace.com/jackmountain

Some live Jack

I recently played my first solo show. My friend Theo Graham Brown recorded it. Here's a snippet, I cut the end off because I'm cack at editing but that's Theo himself heckling me with a Mighty Mighty Bosstones quip. I Deejayed for Theo at a night of his at the pubclub I played in (The Good Ship in Kilburn) and the owner has a MMB fixation.

I'm playing this too fast but hey, I was a bit nervous OK?

I Had A Spirit (live)

Here's some pictures:

Oroku Saki

Liam 'Boy Howdy' O'Neil, who played the pots n' pans on the 'Battle...' CD of mine, has a new band. Oroku Saki are a two piece guitar/bass metalnoisedrone outfit and they're mighty.

I bootlegged their coming out party and you can download those monsters from their site.

They'll be playing at the The Lab night that I help organise, on the Friday 22nd August, at Catch, 22 Kingsland Road. More bands TBC. I'll be DJing that night and it's free entry all night. So come on down and lose your shit.

Oroku Saki, not to be confused with the hip hop MC Orukusaki: 'the only thing Japanese about this guy is his dick size'. Arf.

Rest Your Bones On My Bones

Here's probably the last or second to last (seeing as I accidentally wrote another) song of this type. By that I mean mellow, picky, pastoral, a little sad.

This one is about death, the event and the character. The recording has 1 guitar, 2 voices and some feedback sounds played on the good Dr Rhythm. I'm not sure if is the first time that I have 'la la-ed' on a song but it really should be - and the last.

I'm going to round up a few of these recent tunes for a 3rd CD. 

Not sure what I'm going to write after this but it will probably be a lot louder.

Rest Your Bones On My Bones

Feeling Dog

Probably only the second song with a title that's not from the song. 

The music is a bit different too but the themes should be familiar: animals, ruralness, loneliness. Again, it's that book 'Independent People' casting a mossy shadow over my thoughts. 

I've finished that book now and am reading Grass' The Flounder. So expect songs about fish, history, food and sex.

There's heavy use of the Dr Rhythm DR5 drum machine and the Shaker Retro Rocket harmonica mic here. Both classic bits of kit, in very different ways.

Feeling Dog

 

Gigs coming up North and South

Saturday 2nd August: The Good Ship: Kilburn
289 Kilburn High Road, NW6
8pm
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This show should be the solo debut of the JM show. My drummer friend Liam is otherwise engaged. There may be stout assistance from Dr Mulhall on melodica and other noises but at present we haven't tried that out. Let's consider that possibility as only good to soft for now.

Either way a different set and different bunch of songs from the previous 2 shows.

More detail:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=17867078607
www.thegoodship.co.uk

Monday 8th September: The Windmill: Brixton
22 Blenheim Gardens, SW2
8pm
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The excellent Superman Revenge Squad is putting this on. So although I have no idea who the other bands on will be I do know that it will be good. And the windmill is a fun hangout.

I have no idea if there will be drumming at this show, turn up and it will be a surprise, probably to me too.

www.windmillbrixton.co.uk

Puffin Island (instrumental)

The first song featuring a cowbell. A real cowbell as worn by a cow, plus thunder sounds and a couple of instruments broadly impersonating wildlife. My friends know I like a little bit of exotica music and this is must've come from that place in head.

Originally I had been trying to do a Xiu Xiu style vocal on it but that was really bad and making me laugh and then I couldn't get my head around doing it as a proper song with words (and everything). But I like this just fine. As I was recording it the night was coming in and the rain clouds were gathering over Kilburn High Street.

This song is for Will and Karen because they like Puffins.

Puffin Island

Before I Fight

A new one of the weirder droney variety. I had one of these on each of the first two CDs and enjoyed making those so... Here we are. It's enjoyable mainly because I improvise a whole lot of nonsense over one simple idea.

It sounds like there are crap drum machine sounds on here but I'm afraid it's just the sound of my foot tapping and my hand banging a metal box on a plastic box. On the other hand, that definitely is the sound of feedback and an amp being dropped in the background.

Not sure what it's about wordwise but I was thinking of boxers (the sportsmen, not the undergarment), losers and the afterlife.

Before I Fight

Battle... Now on last.fm

You can listen to all the tracks on both full length CDs (no ghosty ep up there yet) on the Jack Mountain last.fm page. In other news all the Ghosty EPs have now gone and the next live show is August 2nd at The Good Ship in Kilburn. You can also see me DJing at the same venue for Pocus Whiteface on 3rd July.

Four Or Five Men

Continuing into hicksville... This song is about inter-family squabbles and stubborn sheep. The case against Laxness mounts...

The Danelectro Tuna Melt is all over this lamb. Other than that it's pretty straight up: two mouths, two guitars, that's ya lot. I like the little guitar line that comes up after the chorus parts, maybe because it was made on the spot up at whilst recording, it's easy to get bored of playing a song over so that kind of thing is always welcome. It's not very prominent on this mp3 but there are some shimmery strokes on the guitar in the verses too. Sexy huh? Sexy farm music.

Four Or Five Men