Bands on the Live at WREK CD

Estrada
As the name "Tumor Song" might suggest, this hard edged, metal influenced piece drives with an insatiable beat, and an alternating distortion laden, then repetitively melodic guitar centerpiece. But it's the heralding lyric style of the vocals which superimpose a strange beauty upon the whole rockin' song.

Charlie Parker
"The Bird you've never heard!" likes to proclaim this Atlanta experimental ensemble. Sonically evocative of its title, in "the body in pain" Charlie Parker mixes live wind and percussion playing with electronics, together weaving an intricate and challenging musical texture.

Voice Crack
"Speed up" is a free improvisation by the veteran Swiss duo Andy Guhl and Norbert Moslang, using cracked everyday electronics in a nine minute long composition of sweeping and at times very complex composition of completely electronic music.

Flap
In "Styromania," Atlanta's acoustic pop kings engage in some creative acoustic guitar interplay reminiscent of earlier folk tradition, flawlessly executing an upbeat and skillfully coordinated masterpiece.

Roy Dunn
This beautiful blues ballad, "Vacation in Heaven" was dedicated to Dunn's close friend and bluesman Piano Red, who had passed away the same day. Thus this song is emotionally charged, but especially poignant now given that this local Atlanta blues legend himself passed away just two years later.

Zen Pusher Gasoline
This local Atlanta experimental / industrial outfit blends a breathtaking weave of prerecorded electronic sounds and manipulates them live digitally. "Sift" uses a metallic percussion line and overlays first waves of tonal noise, and then higher pitched chime-like melodies, only to finally dissipate into a windswept calm.

Man... Or Astroman?
These Alabama transplants now call Atlanta their home, and have almost single-handedly defined the genre of "space-rock" using elements of surf-rock and quips from old sci-fi features, not to mention flaming television sets as headgear during live performances! The song "24 hrs." is an old school instrumental guitar and drum overture that insinuates the frenzy of an outlaw's last day alive.

Shaking Ray Levis
This legendary Tennessee band is so influential that they even have a society named in their honor that promotes improvisational and creative music in the Chattanooga area. The tune "1988 Song" begins with a little southern-style spoken word philosophizing, and then launches into a at times sparse, free jazz improvisation a la mucho drum rolls and horn work. As they themselves put it, "All I got to say is, we didn't have music like this when I was a boy!"

Universal Congress of...
This Los Angeles band has been recording and touring the independent music scene with their "mecolodic" philosophy of improvised jazz music since the mid-1980's. Here they interpret the song "Hightime," originally written by the legendary guitarist James "Blood" Ulmer, with considerable swing in the drums beneath the bubbly guitar and saxophone riffs.

Minutemen
Revered as a seminal California band that fused genres as diverse as country, jazz, punk and classic rock, their set at WREK was performed in between opening slots for REM at the Fox Theatre. Unfortunately, this show was to be their last full length performance, as vocalist / guitarist D Boon was tragically killed in an automobile accident less than a month later. While some of the WREK set was released on the album Ballot Result, "Political Nightmlare" was not on that album and is released in this form for the first time.

The Forty Two
Simply described as indie-rock with some experimental tendencies, "Peripheral Hearing Aid" is full of energy and marked by both guitar and vocal interplay, ending in a fierce adrenaline releasing slam.

Soheil Zoolfonoon & Neil Murgai
This duo performs traditional Persian music, on the setar (a 4 stringed lute) and daf (an oversized frame drum). The poetry from the song "Saqi," translated as "Spiritual Wine," was written by the 12th century poet and mystic, Saadi, and is sung here in the original Farsi language.

Wheeljack
A noisier flavor of rock and roll, with much bravado from the guitar section, "Kultur Kampf" releases anti-social angst in a groove you can tap your toes to. Perhaps we can all identify with the repeated phrase, "your static, so tragic."

Sun Ra
From one of the fathers of improvisational jazz, hear his fascinating perspectives on the nature of music, musical talent, and his seminal tour of Egypt and her ancient pyramids.