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Conference marvin::uk_music

Title:The UK Music Conference
Notice:Welcome (back) to UK_MUSIC on node MARVIN.
Moderator:RDGENG::CROOK
Created:Mon Mar 28 1988
Last Modified:Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:1381
Total number of notes:39269

992.0. "John Zorn" by POBBLE::COTTON () Mon Mar 16 1992 18:02

Any fans of John Zorn out there?  (cue silence...)

He's a New York musician, very experimental.  He's worked with the likes of
Sonic Youth, Eugene Chadbourne, Fred Frith, Wayne Horvitz and other loons.

He was on U.K. T.V. a while back on a program on improvisation in music.  They
showed him working on a project called Cobra, in which the musicans seemed to
play what they fancied and took their cues from Zorn orchestrating by throwing
numbered cards up in the air and taking his hat off and on.  The Cobra album
is now in the shops.

Other projects he's been involved in include a band called Naked City, who
released a couple of albums of the most frightening death-thrash-metal ever
heard.

I believe his current project is with a band called God, a like of intense
jazz experience, who've just released a new album, and are doing the rounds 
live in the U.K.

Anybody got any more information about him?  I'm interested in collecting more
of him, ahem, music.

Lee
T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name
DateLines
992.1Take me to the Knitting FactoryI18N::SUGIMOTOAkatsuki, ISEDA-Japan, ZKO2/3K23Tue Mar 17 1992 20:3238
Hi! Lee!
At least one Zorn fan is here. I've been wondering where I should post about 
him, on JAZZ conference, there's no topic about him.

As far as I know, he's been released,

	Locus Solos
   	Cobra
	Spilane
	FilmWorks
	SPY vs SPY
	News from Lulu
	More news from Lulu

As Naked City, he has released two albums. I'm not sure its 
'death-thrash-metal', but I can say it's far from 'thrash-metal'. However, 
I'm sure it'll thrash your ear. And as a Pain Killer - this is a trio with 
Bill Laswell - there's one album. This trio seems rather short-life one. Bill 
stated the trio was really experimental. 
Unfortunately, I can't find those albums around Boston. Maybe Knitting 
Factory in NY has them. 

My recommendations are FilmWorks and Naked City, these are easy to listen(?! 
yeah, of course comparing with Cobra, SPY vs SPY...). SPY vs SPY is a 
dedicated album to Ornet Coleman. Very tense non-stop improvisation. You need 
to be phycally and mentally well when you listen to it. 

Spilane is an example of his wide relation. Albert Collins, Kronos Quartet, 
John Lury, Ohta Hiromi(maybe nobody of you know her, but she was my idle star 
when I was a junior high school student) are involved in this 
movie-improvised collections.
He's not only a cinemania but he also works on some film soundtracks. 
FilmWorks is the collection of his movie songs.  

I heard he lives in Japan half a year and another half in NY. Seems he loves 
Japanese comics as you can see them on Cobra, Naked City. Those frightnig 
pictures of Naked City are written by Maruo Suehiro, who's a star in Japanese 
underground comic scene. 
992.2LINGO::CWALSHThe Man Who Knew Too OftenWed Mar 18 1992 13:2014
I have an ambiguous reaction to Zorn. He is an excellent player, but also 
happens to be, sadly, a prat of the first order (I don't want to go on about
this - I entered a note about it in the JAZZ conference).

Suffice to say that his "thrash" music is derivative, dull, and extremely
embarassing to watch, particularly if you know the musicians involved well
enough to realise that they can actually play.

His jazz-based work, on the other hand, is right out there at the cutting edge.
Spy vs Spy and the two News for Lulu albums are required listening.


Chris
992.3Purgatory of Fiery VulvasPOBBLE::COTTONMon Sep 28 1992 17:198
I found one of the Pain Killer CD's over the weekend; Guts of a Virgin.  It
sounded very much like the Naked City works, but more stripped down.  However,
that didn't stop it being one of the most frightening albums I've ever heard.
Great stuff.  Apparently there's a new Pain Killer album out `Buried Secrets'
but I've yet to find it.

Lee
992.4re: Pain KillerPARITY::JONESWed Oct 14 1992 17:515
    What label is Pain Killer on?  Zorn also performs on some works out of
    Germany on the Intakt label, with David Moss' Dense Band.  A true audio
    overload experience!
    	Ron
    
992.5oopsPARITY::JONESWed Oct 14 1992 18:493
    Sorry, that should have been the Moers label, not Intakt.
    	Ron
    
992.6Deadly obstacle collage...POBBLE::COTTONThu Oct 15 1992 12:317
The Pain Killer albums are (in the U.K.) on, unsurprisingly, the Earache label.
`Buried Secrets' release date has been put back a while, not sure why.  Perhaps
they've had more problems with the sleeve artwork like they did on `Guts of a
Virgin.'

Lee