avant-garde Archive
05 Oct 2021
A Conversation with The Residents’ Spokesman Homer Flynn (Part 1 of 2)
I recently interviewed Homer Flynn of The Cryptic Corporation, discussing the Residents, the anonymous avant garde group of which Flynn may or may not be a founding member. The conversation […]
04 Oct 2021
Permanent Residents: SF’s Notorious Avant Garde Collective Looks to the Future
Few in the early 1970s might have predicted that one of music’s strangest (and most original) acts would continue to tour and release new music well into the 21st century. […]
26 Jun 2021
Album Review: Three-Layer Cake – Stove Top
Bassist Mike Watt is one busy guy. He lends his talents and skills ot myriad creative collaborative projects, and here’s another one. Three-Layer Cake is a trio featuring Watt plus […]
27 Feb 2021
Album Review: D-Town Brass — Demiurge
Much of what passes for avant garde music tends toward a kind of seriousness, a dour approach that screams, “this is art!” and all but insists that the listeners revel […]
17 Feb 2021
Hundred-word Reviews: February 2021, Part 2
These five fall loosely – okay, sometimes very loosely – into the progressive and jazz categories. The Mastelottos – Too Much Happiness Though Robert Fripp’s recent video series with pulchritudinous […]
14 Jan 2021
Bonus Interview: Kevin Godley on ‘Consequences’ and the Gizmotron
I recently spoke with Kevin Godley (10cc, Godley & Creme) about his new solo album – his first, in fact – titled Muscle Memory. But during our chat I also […]
26 Nov 2020
Rad Lab: Doug McKechnie and the Moog Model III (Part Three)
Continued from Part Two … You’ve said – only half joking, I’d guess — that the main goal of the San Francisco Radical Lab was attracting women. Well, it wasn’t […]
25 Nov 2020
Rad Lab: Doug McKechnie and the Moog Model III (Part Two)
Continued from Part One … The Moog Model III didn’t come with a manual. How much was it hit-or-miss to develop the sounds that you wanted? Well, I pretty much […]
24 Nov 2020
Rad Lab: Doug McKechnie and the Moog Model III (Part One)
In the late 1960s, Doug McKechnie and his roommate launched the San Francisco Radical Lab, an experimental endeavor launched (in part, as you’ll read) to explore the capabilities of the […]
23 Nov 2020
Doug McKechnie’s ‘San Francisco Moog: 1968-1972’
In the late ’60s, the Moog modular synthesizer was still very much an experimental tool. While there had been some ambitious attempts to use the Moog as the centerpiece of […]