#Kid Millions

[ladybegood]

Lucille Ball on the set of Kid Millions (1934)

[maudeboggins]

Kid Millions (1934) - ice cream goldwyn girls

[dustedmagazine]

Alessandra Novaga & Kid Millions — Sinopia (Long Song)

Photo of Novaga by Juho Liukkonen/Photo of Kid Millions by Lisa Corson

A cross-continental collaboration from Italian experimental guitarist Alessandro Novaga and drummer Kid Millions explores the far reaches of noise and sound and rhythm in visceral onslaughts and lyrical intervals of respite. The title, Sinopia, refers to the art that surrounds Novaga in her home city of Milan. It’s a technical name for the rough sketch that was applied to church walls as a preparation for fresco painting. How that applies to this music, however, is unclear. The tracks don’t seem like sketches; in fact, they’re more like action painting with wild slashes of guitar sound and bristling textures of percussion.

All six pieces are titled Sinopia, the tracks numbered to differentiate them. “Sinopia 1” puts Colpitts explosive drumming in the foreground. He ranges violently all over the kit, on snares, cymbals and toms, as a vibrating wall of feedback takes shape behind him. “#2” gives Novaga’s guitar a longer leash. She plays it like a banshee, sawing, moaning, squalling, groaning, while Colpitts picks out a skeletal, untethered beat.

The revelation, though, comes in the long, relatively tranquil “#4” where notes are allowed to linger and decay, floating over a shifting, not-quite-quiet background like bell tolls drifting out over water. The guitar sounds only a little like a guitar. It’s abstracted into pure wavering tone. And the percussion, likewise, is nothing like what you’d expect from the Man Forever/Oneida slugger. It’s full of ringing tonal bells and flickering clicks and clonks, widely spaced, so that a meditative silence stretches out between them. Indeed, there are hints of Asian temple music in this slow-evolving, space-filled piece. Guitar strings, tightly clamped, make quick flurries of terse sound that is as percussive as the drums.

Novaga and Kid Millions made Sinopia remotely, with the guitarist laying down her bits in Milan and the drummer answering from his home recording set-up in Queens. It’s a conversation, but an atemporal one, with the questions widely separated from their response in time and space and meaning. And yet you can hear two brave, unconventional artists challenging each other, contradicting each other, finding areas of common inquiry, in pieces that are aggressive and serene, knottily intellectual and visceral all at once.

Jennifer Kelly

[brusiocostante]

Oneida - Paralyzed (Official Audio)

[spilladabalia]

Oneida - Here It Comes

[pharmasrightarm]

oops, still feral over pre-war Dead End Dratchet

(drift: you're rusting at every joint gasket: but isn't that doctor chummy with the cops? we're literal thieves??)

started with the headcanon that drift hung around the clinic like a feral wet cat for a while, then halfway through shading these, I started thinking, what if deadlock was an especially reliable assassin because he knew what kind of damage would make sure that even the best of the best couldn't bring you back

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

we need more hero/arch-nemesis duos whose backstory is being bitterly, bitterly divorced

[onryou-onryou]

Kheth Astron, "Kriaetory Opalesce" (Full Album)

[clone-futon]

Basically Kid in every movie when it comes to action scenes

[galacticleechart]

This was way too much fun too draw... Enjoy Tom Paris holding up one of the warp 10 salamander babies

[melmedarda]

"I missed you little man." ⸻ VI & EKKO, Arcane

[jamierthanyou]

"you only say you're autistic because you want to feel special and different" actually finding out i was autistic made me feel significantly less special and different. before i was autistic i was Strange and Unpredictable in some sort of Unknowable way which Surely meant i was Predestined for Greatness (like storybook character). now im just some fuckin autistic guy like any other. i significantly prefer it this way btw

[mrboomtin]

Mother is mothering

[dustedmagazine]

Listed: Kid Millions and Sarah Bernstein

Photo by Caleb Bryant Miller

Kid Millions and Sarah Bernstein both have long CVs in experimental music, Millions as the drummer for Oneida and Man Forever and Bernstein as an avant garde composer and performer with the VEER Quartet, the avant-jazz Sarah Bernstein Quartet, and solo as Exolinger. They’ve been improvising together for roughly a decade, building mesmerizing sonic architectures out of free-form drumming, wild violin pyrotechnics and cryptic spoken word. Of their latest, Live at Forest Park, Margaret Welsh writes, “Bernstein and Colpitts weave sound together into an unsettling fever dream-like warp, growing larger and smaller. All you can do is lay back and surrender to the waves.” Here are some things that inspire the two.

Kid Millions

Billy Harper Quintet — In Europe (Soul Note)

While I admire and enjoy all of the Quintet albums I’ve heard, this particular one captures something ineffable and transcendent. The Quintet’s personnel changes throughout Harper’s career but this particular session has the tunes, the passion, the reaching and the constant surprises that make it my most listened to album in the last ten years. Fred Hersch is especially sympathetic and powerful on this too. I really want to see this group ASAP. Billy Harper is still playing!

Pete La Roca — Basra (Blue Note)

La Roca is a drummer who is unappreciated but his playing and compositions stand out. This album gets the slight nod over the legendary Turkish Women at the Bath because it was recorded well. He’s in the same league as Elvin and also wrote some incredible tunes.

George Adams & Don Pullen Quartet — City Gates (Timeless) (but any record is cool)

I’m leaning on big tenor sounds these days, and George Adams stands in the same universe as Billy Harper because he plays the range of the instrument — there are gorgeous melodies set alongside blistering free blasts. Don Pullen is incredible as well. Near the end of his life he started to write more songs with hooks, but he shreds like Cecil Taylor. I’m digging the stuff that straddles the line between songs and free these days.

Henry Threadgill with Brent Hayes Edwards — Easily Slip Into Another World (memoir)

This is a brand-new book, and I’m finding lots of inspiration and great advice within the pages. His discussion about how young musicians need to find their way within the tradition, among their peers, and on their own terms applies to all traditions, rock included. In order to really engage with the music, you have to play all the time, with other people. You have to play covers, and you have to play in front of audiences. And you need to be fired. I certainly have!

Marcus Gilmore

Such an incredible, deep, drummer. You should go see him ASAP!

Sarah Bernstein

Music/poetry films I like:

When It Rains — Charles Burnett (1995)

Charles Burnett’s work speaks to me as a whole. The films I’ve seen slip into a continuous flow of poetic story/documentary. When It Rains is a 13-minute short film that takes place on a festive New Years Day, but January’s rent needs to be paid. Musicians are among the characters and sound, and it plays like a jazz improvisation. A particular highlight is seeing instrument-maker Juno Lewis on-screen playing his double bell trumpet. The story’s ending will have vinyl collectors smiling.

The Connection — Shirley Clarke (1961)

Before discovering this movie, I knew director Shirley Clarke from her later film "Ornette: Made in America," also a must-see. The Connection is a film version of Jack Gelber’s play for the burgeoning Living Theatre. Most of the actors from the stage play, and all the musicians, are also in the film. The band is swinging: Freddie Redd composer/pianist, Jackie McLean alto sax, Michael Mattos bass, Larry Ritchie drums. The musicians also act in the story, and even the turntable — playing Charlie Parker’s Marmaduke — provides a key recurring motif in the film.

Poetry In Motion — Ron Mann (1982)

Poetry in Motion, By Ron Mann from bob stein on Vimeo.

The other movies on this list are ones I’ve seen relatively recently, but Poetry In Motion I watched in an art-house cinema as a teenager, and it had a big impact on me. The documentary shows 40 poets and performers, including Jayne Cortez, Dianne Di Prima, Helen Adam, William S. Burroughs, Amiri Baraka, Allen Ginsburg, Jim Carroll, John Cage, Robert Creeley, Miguel Algarin, to name a few! Also check out Ron Mann’s first feature film: Imagine The Sound (1981), a superb profile of Cecil Taylor, Archie Shepp, Bill Dixon and Paul Bley.

Desolation Center — Stuart Swezey (2018)

The concert footage is so good. Highlights are Einsturzende Neubauten and Survival Research Labs literally blowing up the desert in Joshua Tree. Also Sonic Youth, Minute Men, Swans, all in DIY festivals and shows taking place in outdoor remote locations in 1980’s SoCal.

Amazing Grace — Alan Elliott/Sydney Pollack (2018)

Aretha Franklin and choir hold a live concert recording session of her gospel album Amazing Grace over two days in 1972. This is not a documentary with talking heads or explanation, rather the action is all in the music and spirit. Aretha Franklin’s genius and deep interaction with the listeners and choir is riveting and inspiring, even more so with repeat viewing.

[brusiocostante]

Oneida - Beat Me To The Punch (Official Video)

[spilladabalia]

White Hills : Dead