#rob smith

[comicwaren]

From Rogue Vol. 4 #003

Art by Luigi Zagaria and Espen Grundetjern

Written by Erica Schultz

[haveyouseenthisseries-poll]

Have you seen The Dumb Bunnies (1998-1999)?

Yes

Partially

No, but I've heard of it

Never heard of it

Voting ended onFeb 7

[ed-blog4]

rob smith

[music-crush]

Rob Smith

Happy birthday Rob Smith, creator of Swedish Railway Orchestra!

[dustedmagazine]

Animal, Surrender! Listed

Animal, Surrender! is a duo made up of Sunwatchers’ Peter Kerlin on bass and Rob Smith on drums. On their first, self-titled album, the pair execute, loping, elastic grooves, nodding towards folk and blues but never quite settling into genre. In her review, Jennifer Kelly called the song, “Led by the Bit,” “an intriguing rattletrap construction, bounded by intricate, syncopated percussion but with Kerlin’s bass musing its bass-like dreams within these constraints.” Here’s what Kerlin and Smith are listening to.

Kelan Phil Cohran & Legacy — “White Nile”

PETE: I first started to slip into the Animal, Surrender! sound world upon hearing African Skies, by Kelan Phil Cohran & Legacy at Domino Sound in New Orleans in 2011. I asked the purveyor, “What is this and please tell me it’s for sale.” It’s been in regular rotation since. Pure magic, flawless without being precious for a single moment.

Jeff Parker — “2019-07-08-ii”

ROB: The drummer here, Jay Bellerose is my favorite currently-working drummer... all space, tone, and touch. Earthy patterns intersect and breathe in ways that simultaneously nurture and tug at the other voices in the ensemble. Although I absolutely love what he does with groups as dad-rockish as Alison Krauss & Robert Plant, this heady double-LP from Eremite really gives us a clear open view of his masterful creativity with timbre and air.

Ann O Aro — “Zardin”

PETE: The economy of the arrangements on this record and the spare, precise production were a touchstone in the recording stage of A,S!. There is some crazy stuff going on here though. O Aro’s voice is clearly a thing of beauty but that is 100% not the point at all. The music has an undeniable force and is bound together with an incredible tension. An example of the Maloya anti-colonial music from the Island of Reunion where she hails and a deeply personal dredging and catharsis synthesized seamlessly. Shout out to Mike Bones for turning me on to it.

Gunter Schickert — “Puls”

ROB: Klaus Schulze’s roadie didn’t use any synthesizers or sequencers to craft his own singular, prowling Berlin hypnosis. The warp and weft of multitrack tapes, guitars, and drums is exactly the kind of mind-fabric that prepared me for working within Animal, Surrender!

Jack Rose & The Black Twig Pickers — “Kensington Blues”

PETE: Rose loomed large for me. This track played on repeat in my mind for years. It’s so effortless, it’s as if the music existed already, unheard, and the band is just revealing it. My effort to balance multiple voices on the bass comes out of a fascination with this “American Primitive” sound. Nathan Bowles is here on percussion. Bowles shared the drum chair with Rob in Pigeons!

Hopkinson Smith — “Robert de Visée: Pieces de Theorbe”

Robert De Visee: Pieces de Theorbe (Hopkinson Smith)

LES SYLVAINS DE Mr. COUPERIN par Mr. de Visée

ROB: One of the greatest musical conversations I ever had was speaking intimately with the genius lutenist Hopkinson Smith over pints of stout about unmeasured preludes and the intersections of baroque string music and bluegrass. This incredible 1979 recording of works for theorbo, an epic bass lute, shows how a multi-course bass instrument originally designed for accompaniment can take the spotlight, much as Peter’s 8-string bass does within this group.

Jessica Pavone — “Dawn to Dark”

PETE: I was split about which Pavone track to include here. Her recent “less tempered” works are riveting, but I chose this early Pavone chamber piece featuring my old bandmate, Emily Manzo, a pianist of extraordinary ability, who is also a gifted songwriter and singer. Here Pavone casts her as a vocalist. There’s musicality and presence in every nanosecond of her performance. Stunning yet never bombastic. The pacing and restraint that Jessica brings to the whole record leads you deep into some psychic space, you forget you’re listening to “chamber music.”

Henry Cow — “Nirvana for Mice”

ROB: Chris Cutler’s way of feeling deep grooves inside of twisted, asymmetrical compositions always sounds brand new and shocking to my ears despite this album’s 1973 session date. He’ll crack a nasty backbeat inside a careful avant woodwind arrangement, forcing your ass to swivel despite your brain being patiently sliced open on the band’s dissection table. Dada blues for sure.

75 Dollar Bill — “Beni Said”

PETE: One of the most consistently inspiring live bands in New York for the past decade. It was while lost in one of Che’s asymmetrical Mauritanian riffs on his modified Hagstrom 12-string that I had an “ah ha!” moment about the 8-string bass and how to bring it into the foreground. We’ve had an ongoing dialogue about it that has kept me going in those moments when I’m questioning this weird obsession I have with this uncooperative instrument.

Bullwackies All Stars — “Kicking Scott, Rockfort Dub”

ROB: Lloyd Barnes’ Bronx dub devastation provided an early shared navigational system for us in Animal, Surrender! Wackie spirals you down infinite, dissociative avenues of echo paved with the deepest bass around. Melodic organisms bloom from the cracks and illuminate pathways through the twisted urban ecology, clouds of pungent smoke notwithstanding.

[inahailofbulletz]

cd: pin

[saywhat-politics]

Gay, Black Republican to release "receipts" on MAGA

Rob Smith dismissed the claim that Antifa may have been responsible for hurling slurs at him at a conservative event last year.

Agay and Black Republican influencer who accused conservatives of shouting slurs at him at an event last year said he may release "receipts" on MAGA.

Rob Smith, an Army veteran, shared a video on social media in December that he said showed him at an event in Phoenix being "confronted and surrounded by some White Supremacists that don't like gays or blacks in the Republican Party." He said the group hurled racist and homophobic slurs at him, and he later told CNN he was a victim of a hate crime.

On March 14, Smith called out conservative pundits for not reaching out to him to share his story, accusing the MAGA movement of "cult behavior" for being upset with him over the CNN Interview. He also responded to a critic who suggested it may have been Democrats behind the slurs.

"Those people were not pretend Republicans or Antifa types they were all involved with @RNRenewal (and direct ties to other orgs) and I have many more receipts to back it up which will be released in the coming weeks," Smith wrote in a post to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

[burlveneer-music]

Fachada - Cidade Da Selva - Brazilian music imagined through a Washington, DC lens

Cidade Da Selva - There are a million stories in a naked city… In this sequel to Fachada’s "Mundos Secretos," "Cidade Da Selva" tells 16 of these stories. After departing the secret world of "Mundos Secretos," this new album, "Cidade Da Selva," by Fachada, sets new tones, delving deeper into the afro-noir diaspora, re-interpreting soul, funk, afro, Brazilian and deep jazz. Each tune is a vignette - altogether examining and immersing into the margins of imagination and magic. This album goes on a journey of retrospection through multicultural and site specific sounds; evoking visions and the spirit of a time and place in a mysterious jungle city. Fachada is the musical persona of autodidact, musician, and visionary artist Rob Smith. A D.C. native, Smith grew up on the sounds of the local 70s radio, immersed in funk, R&B, jazz, hip hop, and the city’s trademark Go-Go music. By the late 70s and early 80s he found himself at the center of DC’s emerging punk/DIY music scene; going to shows, drumming in bands, and being an artist at the ground zero of the city’s zeitgeist. A chance discovery of a stack of discarded Brazilian records at the city dump one day proved to be a catalyst, offering him a fortuitous portal to a “secret world” of rhythm and sound. All songs were composed, played and recorded by Fachada, who is once again accompanied by Mundos Secretos personnel: Ty Hussell on electric guitar, Adrian Baxter on flute and Swamp Guinee playing congas on "musical chairs" and "second shot." Additionally, Fachada welcomes  Charles Road, playing bass, acoustic guitar, and piano on "outside the shadows," which he co-composed. Mer Boel plays violin on "one look" and "cold drinks hot nights." Fachada plays, drums, bass, fender Rhodes, RMI Electra-piano, synthesizer, congas, rebolo, pandeiro, shakers, bells, triangle, cuica.