Mp3 Killed the Vinyl DJ 13: The Entrance Band

The Entrance Band: «I Want You» 7" [.zip]

[Download disabled. Mp3s of A-side & B-side now commercially available.]

Before singer-songwriter Kurt Vile grabbed the mantle as liberating one-man resistance movement against the emotional onslaught of demanding/annoying/soul destroying lovers (cf. the biting lyrics to «Heart Attack», «Dead Alive» and «Runner Ups»), Toilet Guppies' darling used to be Guy Blakeslee a/k/a Entrance, who was equally indomitable. But when this wailing, stomping, feedback feeding, banjo mangling freedom fighter went from soulful solo artist to fronting noodling bloos trio the Entrance Band, Toilet Guppies' man crush ended. Enter '70s funk rock riffage, completely unnecessary gee-tah solos at every turn, politically naïve lyrics calling for social change (see their ode to Martin Luther King, «MLK», worthy of a primary school essay, the likes of which we haven't heard since the superficial politics of soul music in the '70s—or that time Primal Scream sang their obituary for US civil rights legend Rosa Parks, only eight years before she was actually dead). All of the above relegated Entrance to irrelevance.

But earlier this year, Black Tent Press released the vinyl-only single «I Want You», b/w «A House Is Not a Motel», which vindicated Entrance and gives us hope that we may still expect terrific things from his camp.

«I Want You» is a cover of the Troggs' scuzzy garage rock classic, primitive to the point of brain death and absolutely brilliant as only the most basic can be. Blakeslee imbues, even elevates the original with his signature quaver of desperation and forlorn lust, as only he knows how. Blakeslee's voice will haunt you forever… Nice!

«A House Is Not a Motel» is a cover of one of the high points on Love's classic, but somewhat overrated Forever Changes record. You can't beat the original, but the Entrance Band brings it as close to doing just that as you could possibly expect. And there's hardly a guitar solo!

Fittingly for covers of '60s songs, these tracks are only available in the most annoying music format known to man, vinyl. If you're into such techno nostalgia, buy the 45 here. 500 copies only!

«I can't stand it alone on my own!»

Rare or Unreleased 43: Guy Blakeslee

When he's not singing about ghosts or social phobia, against war or for civil rights, a recurring theme in Entrance a/k/a Guy Blakeslee's song-
writing is control. As in: not being controlled by your desire, in the form of the object of it. Written by a young man, many of his songs are about trying to ward a lover's possessiveness and neediness (traits equally typical, perhaps, of young girls) off your freedom. After all, love + need = power games. In Blakeslee's universe, freedom springs forth from truth, but is threatened, encroached or stifled at the other end by romance, rendering love anathema to life, but then life a hindrance to happiness. The resulting tension, frustration and confusion between love and independence is the source of some of the best (if most criminally ignored) new songwriting of the '00s, not only despite but also because it's not flashy or trying to be innovative. («Original» often being just another word for «soon-to-be-dated».)

Entrance—once a desperately wailing, loud and utterly liberating one man band—was one of the original exponents of «freak folk» (though he was always less whimsical and more blues oriented than über-freakie-folkie Devendra Banhart). His two last records have ventured into more instrumented, almost funky hard rock à la Led Zeppelin. No artist should stand still, and though Entrance's recent release and first record as a three-piece band is laudable for going off in a different direction, for those of us less inclined towards noodling space jams than down home acoustic laments and hoots'n'hollers, here are some older rarities by a solo Blakeslee, most of them intimate home recordings. None of them deserve to be rare, but rare they are. And here they are:

Entrance: Rare Solo Recordings [.zip]:

1. Pretty Baby

Echoes linger like some kind of aura of electricity whenever Blakeslee’s wails are drawn to the magnetic tape, as he bends the distortion to his will with the varying pitches and intensities of his wolfish howls. Nobody writes an ambivalent love song like Entrance—no frills, just the simplicity of archaic, barely literate blues lyrics trying to hold on to a spirit of independence in the face of Love. He even pulls off sarcasm without being overly bitter or coming across like just another clever, shallow hipster. (He’s caustic because it’s good for her. He's not about to kill with kindness.) Besides, anyone who could pen a line like, «Don’t let Jesus catch you like he has before / Tripping while you’re dancing on the bar room floor,» is a bona fide poet, and you better know it. And not to sound misogynistic, but this really is a liberating anthem for any male who has ever had to contend with clingy demands, draining emotions and cunning manipulation. Anyone who's ever dated a goth chick will know what he means. Son, leave those suicide girls well alone:

Pretty baby, all dressed up in black
Your make-up is on, and your hair's pulled back
But it ain't time no time to go out on the town
So take your black dress off, and let your long hair down…

From the out-of-print, self-released 13 Unreleased Songs 2002-2006 (2008). An upwards spiralling, full band studio version can be found on Prayer of Death (2006)

2. Valium Blues

Raga flamenco blues! Two studio versions of this song exist: the Led Zep-echoing, psychedelic acoustic version on debut album The Kingdom of Heaven Must Be Taken by Storm (2003), and the gypsy space rock band version on Prayer of Death. But this distorted demo version is perhaps the most unmercifully blistering run-through of this desperate but ultimately soothing love-song-by-way-of-insomnia:

I shouldn't waste my freedom on your worries
I must look out, my vision's getting blurry
But I've been lying sleepless
Until the light of the new day
Worried about how you're gonna change
Earlier tonight I was a stranger
In a fatal trance of lonely anger
Now I'm lost in visions and beholding
As the precious minutes keep unfolding
So please don't fear our love is ever-changing
My whole world could use some re-arranging

From 13 Unreleased Songs 2002-2006 (2008)

3. You Must Turn

A piano appeal to any friend who has lost their way, pulled down by gravity and stewing in the acrid juices of their own sloppy, sticky, glue-like negativity.

From the out-of-print, Devendra Banhart-curated various artists compilation The Golden Apples of the Sun (2004)

4. Mary, Don't You Weep/Down on Me

These two traditionals showcase Blakeslee's signature falsetto-vox-and-acoustic-guitar-with-foot-bell-stomp, and sound like they're outtakes from excellent sophomore effort Wandering Stranger (2004). The paranoia of the last part of the medley is classic Entrance.

From 13 Unreleased Songs 2002-2006 (2008)

5. Cocaine Blues

First made available as a free download on Entrance's MySpace page, this tragic and morbidly humourous re-writing of the old traditional tune as a love song could well be another outtake from Wandering Stranger.

From 13 Unreleased Songs 2002-2006 (2008)

6. Right and Wrong

Another demo originally made available on Entrance's MySpace (in 2006 or something), this is a heartbreakingly ambivalent «So long» to either a lover or a dear friend. Why this melodic goodbye—so comforting to those who need a soundtrack to go with the collapse of some relationship—was never released (not even on 13 Unreleased Songs) is a mystery…

7. Woncha Come on Home

Blakeslee never sounded so scared, forlorn and full of lonely longing as on this cover of Joan Armatrading's venting of need and paranoia. Arguably one of Blakeslee's finest performances, it's no coincidence this was one of the first pieces of music to ever be posted onto this blog.

From 13 Unreleased Songs 2002-2006 (2008)

Net Nuggets 28: Radio Free Indie, or: How I Learned to Stop Dancing and Love Indie

This toilet guppy has been going through a period of unprecedented, almost insolent optimism and enthusiasm lately. Those of you who
received the annual winter compilation CD will have heard a two-and-a-half-year staring contest with the abyss condensed into one utterly bleak, unlistenable CD (for which I do apologise), vomited out, leaving yours truly purified at last! (I win, Abyss!)

Worry not; like anything else it probably won't last, but the days of this being a downer death trip blog may just be a thing of the past. And as the best music is usually somehow negative (sorrowful, aggressive, perverted, or trying desperately to clamber to the top that is transcendence), that means the future of this blog hangs by a thin thread indeed. There's still music to post before I call it quits, however, and since today is Sunday—that grey day of nothing I used to find so heavy as a child—I'm grabbing the opportunity to share some of the self-indulgent, misery-guts music that's left in the ol' iTunes library…

Indie's a mixed bag. The flashes of brilliance—and they are brilliant—are almost swept away by an insufferable tide of collegiate, sensitive artiste blandness or knowing trendiness. It's enough to make you hate the guitar. And singer-songwriters. And the middle class. And suburbia. And institutions of education. And hipsters (if one didn't already hate them so). And hairdos. It makes you want to do extreme sports, or commit a heinous crime that would make even your own mother spit you in the face.

But it's not all navel gazing mediocrity or overly cerebral, sexless wankery with all the passion of a bong-hugging slacker—although you might be forgiven for thinking so from perusing websites such as Pitchfork (Rolling Stone for the noughties' discerning, computer literate hipster) or Internet radio station Daytrotter. But for every dozen or so Sufjan Stevenses, there's a Devendra Banhart; for every ten Pavements there's a Blonde Redhead, so don't lose heart!

Over at Daytrotter, there are so many sessions by so many artists to download, all for free, that navigating it is an autist's dream come true. Naturally, Toilet Guppies has only listened to a fraction of the sessions, but that doesn't stop me from compiling a best-of primer.

The problem with indie becomes apparent at times during this sampler, but that's due to indie overload more than the quality of the songs, which all bear the Toilet Guppies stamp of approval. And worry not, I've sorted away the trite campfire songs (so that you wouldn't have to—you're welcome). So, rock out to Black Lips, grieve to Spoon, dance to High Places, dream to Elvis Perkins, whistle to Grizzly Bear, and (try not to) weep to Will Oldham. Terrific stuff.

WARNING: You may still want to go listen to something like this afterwards, just to regain your equilibrium, libido, sense of humour and overall lust for life… In the meantime, fold your brittle, little self into a foetal position and indulge:

V/A: Contemporary Indie for Dummies—Daytrotter Sessions [.zip]:

1. Jana Hunter: «Pinnacle»
2. Marissa Nadler: «Salutations in the Dark»
3. Grizzly Bear: «Shift»
4. Department Of Eagles: «1997»
5. Deerhunter: «Heatherwood»
6. Spoon: «The Ghost of You Lingers»
7. The Dodos: «Horny Hippies»
8. The Walkmen: «Yellow Kid»
9. High Places: «From Stardust to Sentience»
10. Elvis Perkins: «Good Friday»
11. The Cave Singers: «Seeds of Night»
12. Bonnie «Prince» Billy: «The Sun Highlights the Lack in Each»
13. Rodriguez: «Sugar Man»
14. Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson: «There Will Be Mud»
15. Akron/Family: «The Land»
16. The Entrance Band: «Lookout!»
17. Black Lips: «Take My Heart»

All tracks are in 128 kbps (Daytrotter download standard). Hundreds, if not thousands more mp3s are freely available over at the gracious Daytrotter site.

Mp3 Killed the Vinyl DJ 2: Entrance

Entrance: «See for Yourself» [mp3]

The one-man band is a much-maligned artist, dismissed as a novelty busker clown outfitted in a particularly laborious and obnoxious percussive apparatus. But when Entrance a.k.a. Guy Blakeslee strapped bells to his boot and plugged in his back-feeding guitar, saying, «I know it's loud, but that's just the way it's going to be,» I was almost sold. And one long and loud, haunted, high-pitched blues cover to blow your mind (and blow dry your hair) later, I was his bitch forever. Shudder to think what it would've been like if he were backed by a full band…

That was at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts, opening for Devendra Banhart. Poor Devendra. As if suffering from some sort of funky food poisoning on a foreign continent on your birthday wasn't bad enough, he had to go on after a desperately wailing Entrance had ripped our ears and minds apart with his assault on electricity.

That was in May 2004, and I thought we'd see plenty more of this kid. Alas, Blakeslee continues to be one of the most underappreciated singer-songwriters to appear in the '00s. His last album was self-released, and until very recently he was selling bootlegs of his own stuff(!) on MySpace.

Long before that, in 2002, Tiger Style Records came out with an Entrance/Papa M split 7". Entrance's side, «See for Yourself», sounds like an outtake from debut album The Kingdom of Heaven Must Be Taken by Storm, complete with what was then Blakeslee's signature raga flamenco blues stylings. Typically, Blakeslee's lyrics come from an empathic urge to say what people don't want as much as need to hear, his brand of brutal honesty devoid of the vitriol that so often betrays a songwriter's true, underlying bitterness. With «See for Yourself» Blakeslee doesn't mince words, opting instead to show some tough love:

Destined to find only disconnection
Constantly caught at an intersection
See for yourself past your own reflection
And if you're so wise, see a new direction

One hundred times a day you try
To slow down time as it passes by
And though you fail and wonder why
There's nothing you can do but close your eyes
Go back to your dreams for now
Go back to your dreams for now

This vinyl-only single has since gone out of print, but not to worry: Too good to rot on the rubbish heap of popular music history, here's an mp3 of it. Enjoy!

Net Nuggets 5: Entrance

Entrance: «In This Land» (a.k.a. «Lord Help the Poor and Needy») [mp3]

His face is like a big black cloud
And his voice is like a thunderstorm
I would follow him anywhere he wants me to
And I would sing for him in a crowd of New York hipsters
Because I think he's a good one
He's got to be a good one

His legs are like climbing vines
And his arms are like a tree
His fingers willingly entwine
With music made of leaves
I think he's a good one good one good one
He's got to be a good one

So sings Larkin Grimm—herself an awe-inspiring demonic angel—during her song «Entrance», which surely cannot be anything but a genuflecting submission of annihilating love before the transcendental troubadour that is Guy Blakeslee, the most underappreciated contemporary singer-songwriter this blogger can think of.

When Entrance first blew me away a few years back, opening for Devendra Banhart at the ICA in London, it was only him—Blakeslee—his desperately wailing falsetto, his extremely loud guitar, and something like a cymbal attached to his furiously, decisively stomping boot. It was all whirlwind, heat & flash, and when later I tracked down one of his CDs and could actually make out the words, there was no turning back. A modern popular music obsession (and perhaps even the seed of an (albeit infecund) homoerotic crush) was sown… No other artist quite manages the feat of displaying such love and disdain, all at the same time (except, of course, for the aforementioned Ms. Grimm).

Yet again I digress; a few years before Blakeslee's one-time duet partner Cat Power got into legal trouble with the copyright bureaucrats over her dreamy covers album Jukebox—the liner notes credited the song «Lord, Help the Poor & Needy» as «Traditional, by Jessie Mae Hemphill, arranged by Chan Marshall, Public Domain,» when, in fact, the song is not a traditional, but was written by the late Hemphill—Entrance recorded his own idiosyncratic take on this song, giving it the title «In This Land» and uploading it onto his MySpace page for all to download (back when MySpace wasn't just for streaming).

It sounds like an outtake from Entrance's heavy 2005 record Prayer of Death, and why it was never released I'll never understand, as it would've been a stand-out track on that album, as Entrance shapeshifts the blues into a ceremonial incantation and prayer to end the Total War, the drone and jingle-jangle percussion casting a curse on all those who cause a prayer to be necessary in the first place.

Please feel free to click your way to purchasing Entrance's album-long meditation on the big sleep here.

Rare or Unreleased 1: Won't You Come Home?

Entrance: «Woncha Come on Home» [mp3]

Maybe there's a man living with a woman. Maybe he's at home at night while she works late. Maybe there's been a spate of muggings and rapes lately. Maybe even murder. Maybe sometimes he calls her about the time she finishes at night. Maybe on this particular night he doesn't, for fear of stifling her. (Maybe even because he doesn't want her to know just how much he thinks of her, or that he even longs for her or isn't perfectly content when she's not around—because maybe she'd take advantage of this, or else lose interest.)

But maybe he does miss her whenever she's not around; and maybe he's not used to missing anyone like that—maybe this worries him. Still, maybe he hates to be alone, and now he's alone. And maybe he knows full well that she goes drinking sometimes with her colleagues after work, and maybe it occurs to him that he could phone her up and join them. But maybe he has work in the morning.

And maybe the thought of her having fun while he has to get up early doesn't bother him as much as some vague and unworded jealousy at her enjoying herself with other people (maybe a man). And maybe this thought makes him more adamant (spitefully, like a child) not to give in to his worry, but rather continue to not quick-dial her—to not show her he cares (and definitely not that he misses her company or, God forbid!, is the least bit jealous).

But maybe the hours pass sleeplessly by and she's still not home. Maybe he keeps looking at the clock—maybe because he's made a resolution to himself not to call until a certain time, when calling her would seem reasonable (and in no way an act of longing, or at least not jealousy). And maybe just moments before the agreed-upon time he'd made with himself, he can hear familiar footsteps on the staircase, then the fumbling key and dodging lock, listening intently until the door shuts again and he hears her sigh and throw her shoes off, at which point maybe he pretends to be fast asleep, with only a couple or so hours left by now until he has to get up for work.

And maybe—just maybe—she stalled and came home this late on purpose, to make him wait, to make him long, to treat him mean'n'keep him keen, for the same reasons he never called?

Maybe that was a long time ago. Maybe she's not coming home anymore. Maybe there's nothing left to fear, because maybe the «man standing on the corner» whose «evil eyes are shining through» the window doesn't pose a threat, as much as represent one that's already come to pass?

Maybe.