..
Chris Cordoba,
Herbacious Keys,
Wylsie of Camberwell,
Max Vanderwolf,
Will Muldrew
Influences
Max Bialystock, Speedy West & Jimmy Bryant, Mott the Hoople, Cab Calloway, Tex Avery, Nick Cave, Count Chocula, The Rutles, Gong, Barry Adamson, Neil Young, Serge Gainsbourg, Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weil, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, Ennio Morricone, Antonin Artaud, Patti Smith, John Barry, Ernie Kovacs, Quay Brothers, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Fats Waller, assassins of the 1960's, Funkadelic, Alice Cooper, the Chicago Eight, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Egon Schiele, Hank Williams, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Salam Ragab, Charles Kaufman
Super Furry Animals, Igor Stravinsky, the Banana Splits, Muddy Waters, John Zorn, Henry Mancini, Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, Danny and the Juniors, Spike Jones, Black Sabbath, Carl Stalling, The Soft Machine, Robert Wyatt, Barry White, Jan Svankmeyer, The Pink Floyd, Harpo Marx, Velvet Underground, Julian Cope, Yes, 13th Floor Elevators, John Cale, Randy Newman, Rashaan Roland Kirk, the Residents, Richard Hell, Sparks, Robyn Hitchcock, Screamin Jay Hawkins, Shangri-Las, Bob Dylan, Beatles and the Stones.
Sounds Like
Review in MOJO Magazine January Issue by Andrew Perry
When did our capital’s rock scene last throw up a nonet? When, come to that, did it produce anything much besides Libertines wannabes and ‘’postpunk’? On both counts last man Standing are quite extraordinary. Their name derives from the embattled romantic life of their front man, Max Vanderwolf. As signposted by the album title, his lyrical world is one of disappointment and regret and unutterable sleaze, from which he emerges, song by song, bleary yet unbeaten. ‘’I’m so damnede depressed,” he yowls on the stomping Queen Kong, ‘’I just gotta rock’’. And rock his eight cohorts do, with a bredth of vision which encompasses the more ambitious end of glam (Aladin Sane, Bolans Zinc Alloy) and the cabaret splendour of Alex Harvey, even Tom Waits at his most theatrical. This blast of low-life pungency feels like a righteous breath of fresh air.
FOUR STARS ****
Review in UNCUT December issue by Gavin Martin
Max Vanderwolf’s band have a colorful ingenuity of Bowie’s 70’s floorshows and the wild spirit of Tom Waits- which means the are essentially rock theater, but with attitude. Stylisitically they cram a lot- sometimes too much- in, but the policy usually works. This collection of bedraggled songs duly incorporates the cabaret angst of ‘70s Lou Reed, dustbowl Mariachi, and Steely Dan cynicism. Their vision of wild-hearted losers, misfits and a world in collapse somehow holds everything together.
Where did it all go so wrong for Max Vanderwolf? When did he lose his faith
in love and goodwill? Why did he give it away so callously or casually ?
And what did he trade it in for? Some songs? Some words? Some memories
of a vaguely good time that will haunt him for his remaining years?
Considering the reaction to the debut album by his band Last Man Standing, 'False Starts and Broken Promises', it may have been a fair trade. The songs are memorable,
the lyrics powerful, and it sounds like he's stumbled down a colourful if crooked path.
"I thought, if I let these themes takeover the songs, maybe they would get
out of my life. I thought that by their very materialization as a song that
somehow I would be redeemed. I thought that I could give these problems
to you or you or you... Then I could report it all at a safe distance like
someone commentating from the sidelines of hell. But it didn't happen
that way."
Vanderwolf felt this darkness grow inside of him. And after several attempts at recording a new record, the New York-based songwriter gave up and slipped in and out of various forms of self-abuse. Various demo tapes circulated through the music community and they became well-known amongst the community of underground song-writers.
Robyn Hitchcock recalls, ‘’He was taking all the wrong stuff. Bagels with too many capers, cream-cheese with lox from the wrong side of Delancey. One morning I found him clutching his guitar on Broome St, staring vacantly into an empty cup of chicken noodle soup:
"What's up, Max?" I enquired
"Up? Up..." muttered Max as if he'd never encountered the word up before,
and had decided to take it for a walk. "Up? Up is down and back again"
He thrust his Telecaster towards me, then thinking better of it, slung it over his
shoulder and padded down into the subway. He grimaced and was gone.
I realized I hadn't offered him one of my antacids.
Poor Max - that finely tuned stomach would be the death of him. Yet his new
album was already advertised in Bleeker Bobs. Jon Fox had been playing the
shit out of on WNYU, and hopes were high.
But nothing more would come of it. Vanderwolf turned his back on music production
he left his hometown of New York City and moved to London in 2000 vowing to keep
his head out of the trappings of imagination but it wouldn't last long.
"Its a cycle. I'm a workingman. You could say I work in a factory. I work long hours and have responsibilities beyond my capabilities but I somehow hold it together. And then, I start to feel desperate and crazy and I think: this can't be it. There’s got to be something more. And the only healthy way to escape is to follow the dream, follow the music. Just write a little, just play a little, just record a little. Soon I'm 9-men strong ensemble. Personal standards must be met and the demands on ones purse and personal sacrifice must be justified with a plan for success- no matter how preposterous the plan is: Yes folks we're bringing back big band values and raw decadence and composerly electric sounds in 2007 single-handedly because I say so…. Then I go mad until
I crash and have to straighten myself out again with a dose of reality."
Thrusting himself back into a world of despair and obsessed with artistic endeavour Vanderwolf finds himself in rehab. In an attempt to maintain normalcy, he joins a rehab book club where he is immediately discovered by guitarist and former-pill popper, Chris Cordoba who has himself experienced the verisimilitudes of the music business: "His demo tapes were widely known to the few in-the-know that knew. They were the stuff of legend – well, sub-legend--or probably sub-sub legend. After a discussion on that weeks’ reading--Evelyn Waugh, I think it was, I asked him point blank: can I produce your next recording? He agreed immediately without knowing a thing about me. We dropped out of rehab that week and started on the record."
Soon the band was playing gigs to enthusiastic audiences. A regular fixture at
burlesque parties in London, the band was invited to perform at the Paradiso in Holland for the ‘’London Calling Festival’’, support slots with the Polyphonic Spree, Sparks, Violent Femmes, a tour with Bobby Conn, a slot with the White Stripes Festival in Hyde Park, a weekly residency at Madame Jojo's and festivals including Glastonbury, Lovebox Weekender, Secret Garden Party and Electric Picnic Festival in Dublin.
Now I'm in deep again," says Vanderwolf. " And I'm losing my mind…
everything must go. Sacrifice it all. Damn the torpedoes. March, soldier.
I can almost taste victory. Or is that nerve gas?
All this had led to a brave NY independent label stepping up and declaring that this record needs to be heard. Even better that had the guts, nerve and muscle to release for the first time in UK properly and for the first time ever in Europe. The band will support the release by touring the festival circuit with like-minded similarly depraved artists with the Launch of the Last Man Standing Saloon.
L'esattezza di questa musica ha evidenze sperimentali. In questo caso, per rapidità, si è proceduto alla sola controprova: effettivamente, i ratti a cui non è stata somministrata non hanno mostrato alcun mutamento.
The accuracy of this music has experimental evidence. In this case, to increase speed, we proceeded only to cross-check: indeed, the rats that did not listen to it showed no change.
....FRIZZ RECORDS is proud to announce our fourth LP release...
LEILA ADU has been described as 'A Nina Simone for the Noughties', and her two acclaimed albums infuse a broadly 'art-rock' approach with elements of torch song, speakeasy blues, avant garde jazz, gamelan, post-rock textures, and a David Lynch style dreamlike b-movie melodrama. As her website has it, exploring the "dissonant edges of familiar forms", but with that kind of 'dissonance' that they once accused Thelonious Monk or Debussy of, the kind that soon betrays it's own compelling melodic and harmonic logic to the attentive listener...
'Dark Joan', Leila's third album as a solo artist, was recorded in Chicago with the legendary Steve Albini (PJ Harvey, Joanna Newsome, Nirvana, Pixies), and Albini's genius has been to strip her sound back to it's essence, and hold it's most distinctive qualities up to the light. It doesn't hurt that this is by far Leila's most powerful set of songs to date, and if anything we are lead even deeper into her world by the pictures painted with just piano (or in some cases harpsichord or a grime-encrusted electric piano) and that voice...
Capable of anything from delicate heartbreaking purity to a fearsome dramatic power, her powers are seemingly limitless, yet unlike most other singers of her calibre, never does she resort to melodrama or show-boating, or any kind of pastiche, instead she employs her resources fully in the expression of her distinctive musical vision and the deep well-spring of her imagination. Nothing ever sounds as though it could have not been sung...
23rd November @ 13th Note, Glasgow with D Abraham Turner 24th November @ Kraak Gallery, Manchester with A Middle Sex - £4 26th November @ Tap, The Water Works, Southend with Lost Harbours - FREE 27th November @ Cafe Oto, London with Chora - £5
"Heavy Duty Brothers - Check This Out" on Dirty-Dj-Recordings featuring heavy remixes from Finkelstein, L_C, Dirty2Groove and Minimal Duty! Available exclusively from Trackitdown.net
Christmas is coming soon. Are you looking for a Christmas present and would like to help handicapped children? Than please request the list of donations in kind from HelpCharity, www.MySpace.com/HelpCharity , by sending me an e-mail at Ch.Lamitschka@t-online.de . Many donations in kind are autographed.
If you don't have the chance to request the list of donations in kind, please add HelpCharity to your Top Friends!
Thanks for helping me to support handicapped children!
Christian
Founder of HelpCharity Editor & Journalist for Country Music Christian Lamitschka An der Pfingstweide 28 61118 Bad Vilbel Germany Phone: ++49 (0) 6101 544613 Mobil: ++49 (0) 171 6903352 E-Mail: Ch.Lamitschka@t-online.de Internet: www.MySpace.com/HelpCharity Internet: www.MySpace.com/ChristianLamitschka
The Jim Jones Revue play a special XFM 14+ show at The Barfly in Camden this Monday. The show will be recorded and broadcast on John Kennedy's XFM Xposure radio show throughout November.
Well senor...I recommend wearing a tuxedo jacket with tails and at various intervals through out the day pouncing on them using the element of surprise, and thus 'catching(up with) yourself'. Or you could attempt to erase all attachment to any 'you' and there would be no one to catch no more! x
hi max - la vie est belle, I am in sunny Brooklyn for the next few months. Let me know if you guys are going to be playing in NYC, would be great to catch you...x
Today I like to inform you, that you can read and watch interviews with your favorit country stars in Enlgish, German and French at http://www.CountryHome.de/Interviews .
Warm regards
Christian
Editor & Journalist for Country Music Christian Lamitschka An der Pfingstweide 28 61118 Bad Vilbel Germany Phone: ++49 6101 544613 Mobil: ++49 171 6903352 Ch.Lamitschka@t-online.de Info@CountryMusic-Magazin.de www.MySpace.com/ChristianLamitschka
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