Eugene Chadbourne: Classic or Dud/Search and Destroy?

well i have just six or seven rekkids by him (Chadbourne, not W*tson, luckily), but none of them are from earlier than mid-80s ...and, huh, he infuriates and enthralls me in equal measure, really, depending on the rekkid

I should hear more chadbourne than i have but i have listened to (not songs) is v good too.

That said, if I only had to recommend a few (a few you might actually find, that is) from the period I know best, I'd say start with There'll Be No Tears Tonight, his free-improv-country-and-western opus (w/John Zorn). Probably his most consistent, consistently interesting, and "professional" recording ever. A nice window into his musical world. The President, He Is Insane is a pretty good summation of his music circa his post-Shockabilly height of solo "fame." I seem to remember liking Vermin of the Blues with Evan Johns and the H-Bombs too. A lot of people (in Chad terms) seem to like Country Protest, though I can take it or leave it. Ditto for the Camper Van Chadbourne stuff.

Then there's Shockabilly. I used to love those records, but I haven't actually listened to them in a long time, so I hesitate to pontificate. I gather that he was annoyed by a lot of the production that Kramer added after they recorded basic tracks, even though in some cases, the production makes the tunes.

Then there's live, which is a whole different ballgame. I've seem him be really good, amazing even. (I caught a show a week or two after Miles Davis died and he covered "Bitches Brew" on acoustic guitar--wow.) I've walked out on his sets too. I doubt he still does, but he used to bring his young daughter with him on road trips and she would join him onstage to "sing" and otherwise perform in an obnoxiously cutesy fashion. It was unbearable.

Classic or Dud? Who knows. He really is sort of uncategorizable, even in those reductive terms. I mean, he's just the kind of artist who's almost overripe for some sort of music-nerd "rediscovery," complete with a boxed set, a big tour, a tribute project, and major ink in minor mags. But he's so contrarian, so hard to corral. Depending on where the needle drops, he's a great unsung artist or fatally self-indulgent. I mean, if someone were to do some kind of Big Book of Underground Music, he'd have to be a whole chapter or just a passing footnote. Very little in between would do him justice.

WHUH!?

Somehow managed to miss at least two local Chadbourne bar gigs over the last decade or so. Shockabilly for Instal 2007 - start the campaign now!

From a documentary *by* (?) Derek Bailey, who sounds strangely at home doing voiceover work. The live part from about 2:30 in is great, especially when he pulls out a sudden blast of overdrive. It's nuts, but it really is genuinely sorta countrified.

Maybe that's what made Ronald Reagan describe him as 'a direct threat to the American way of life'.

Eugene Chadbourne's 'Dreamory' has just been published. 'tour and dream diaries, teenage and draft dodging memoirs and much more'

At 1000+ pages, it's rather a doorstep, but I got a kick out of the childhood stories published in Forced Exposure #13. If this is anything like that, I'm sold. In fact, I have some (perhaps mistaken) memory of that article suggesting that the full memoirs would be published eventually, or at least, I had the sense that they were just an extract, cause I'm sure I tried to search for the book at one point. Perhaps this is the end result of that same process??? Just took him a while!

http://www.eugenechadbourne.com/pages/DreamoryBckCov.jpg

Oh god I remember him, he was supporting Moe Tucker at the Powerhaus.

He had an electric scrapey thing that he ended his set with by dragging it along the floor and ceiling and so forth. Before that, it was very like electric bluegrass, it was amazing stuff but too much to take all in one go.

Love Eugene. I'd love to read this - mostly for his early career which seems very mysterious.

1,000 pages!

awesome

To Mark G: Sounds like the electric rake!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwNGxr-T4Qc

He played electric toaster the one time I saw him, in Memphis. Part of playing it involved sticking a butter knife down in the slots, which guarantees a great visceral reaction from the audience.

dream diaries

Don't like the sound of this.
Wonder if he's rude about Kramer* somewhere within these 1000+ pages?

*the Shimmy-Disc one, not the Seinfeld one

should i buy that CD of him making music with noel akchote? it's been sitting in the local record store for a few years and i eye it every so often.

Thanks for the electric rake, mystery ILXor who is probably well known as whoeverperson, but has changed their name so everyone knows who it is but me.

ta.

oh darn.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/arts/music/blog/20856873/revered-dc-guitarist-evan-johns-has-died

Saw him last night. He was fantastic! One set with acoustic banjo, one with a dobro. A little dazzling the way he can move from playing and singing country tunes to wildly dissonant and noisy improv and back, and with nods to jazz and classical too. I picked up a new double CD-R from the many he had available: one is all prepared guitar, the other is labelled "Bach or German Country and Western". I'm listening to it now. Atm, we're in Derek Bailey-esque territory.

And now we're on an 'aria'.