Where is the Love For All These Bands from my "M" CD Shelves Who Don't Get Mentioned Nearly Enough on ILM?

(new york, london, paris ... kinshasa)

Motochrist -- LA sleaze metal and rock 'n' roll act. Think the guitarist from the Dwarves slums in the band. Had their first LP, was better than average example of LA bar room raunch. Did a song about Evel Knievel. Never listened to the second record.

Frank Marino & Mahogany Rush -- first three LPs on 20th Century were heavy psyche drug-addled murky hard rock with Marino sort of imitating Jimi Hendrix. (Maxoom, Child of the Novelty, Strange Universe) They are an aquired taste, but if it's you share it, they're as good as it gets. High point was a live album for Columbia when they were managed by Leber-Krebs who convinced Frank to ditch all the drug rock for "I'm a King Bee/Johnny B. Goode" heavy metal boogie rock for the US arena circuit. At the time, it was fairly popular without radio play. Then made a lot of solo albums of middling to indifferent quality. Most recent albums, including a live set, have been pretty good guitar and jam band virtuosity with touches of fusion set to Christian themes.

Mammoth Volume -- Scandinavian hard rock and metal act lumped in with stoner scene. Were more progressive and idiosyncratic than the genre and made a number of CDs which didn't strictly cater to the style. One with demos, outtakes and early singles is fairly good, as is one that was kind of a concept record with nondescript brown cardboard for a digipack case.

The Richard Meltzer, antler, smegma thing is a comp with a lot of noise band stuff and beat poetry on it. Also a CD-ification of most the VOM EP with Saunders, Gregg Turner, Gene Sculatti and Lisa Brenneis.

My Dying Bride -- always wanted to listen to their albums but never have.

Moonspell -- Iberian peninsula Goth metal band. A little stilted sounding but their version of "Mr. Crowley" was decent.

Mr. Wonka -- the two screwed and chopped CDs of redneck 70's hard rock are uniformly great. Where is he now and why did no one get him to do remixes for them?

Mooney Suzuki -- I liked their major label record where they were all propped up by super producers more than their indie stuff. Now one of those songs is in an auto commercial where the guy comes out of his house for work, gets kissed by his wife, and runs over a cliff, parachuting to his new super SUV or something. I've seen it about a jillion times and still can't remember the brand of auto or whatever it's shilling. Electric Eel Shock are currently filling the Mooney Suzuki niche.

Marseille -- we always say nice things about Marseille and it never does any good. It's the French name, it puts the heavy metal fans off. They have a cut on the new three CD commemorative anthology of the NWOBHM which I will prob'ly get for Xmas.

Oh, he''s there, right at the beginning (*Pop Muzik: The 25th Anniversary* CD, Metro), but I figured he gets mentioned on ILM plenty, even by people who don't know who Robin Scott is.

Magic Carpathians - boring ethno-drone. I tried.

Mariner - average 1970's Japanese hard rock, redeemed by the great song "Rime Of The Ancient Mariner". Angel were miles better doing a similar thing.

Didn't Frank Marino claim to be channeling the spirit of Jimi Hendrix? Never do interviews on acid is the moral of that one.

What I've heard of Roscoe Mitchell's solo records is way better than what I've heard of Lester Bowie's solo records. Definitely worth tracking down for Art Ensemble of Chicago fans.

Mark Morrison - obviously Return Of The Mack is gold, did he ever do anything else worth a flying one?

There's a thread about Metal Urbain somewhere, the cd's amazing for a few songs then gets a bit samey I thought. Better than Chrome though.

Mud were pretty much second fiddle the Gary Glitter and Sweet in terms of weird 1970's glam sonic invention, but they probably sound better at weddings and didn't either drug themselves into oblivion or rape children.

"The Rabbit" and "Hot Lava" are two songs that actually make me dance...Oh, and "KBG9298" and "Jamdek" are great as well....

no no no no, not THAT mariner (who i never heard of). some mid '90 techno guy(s), from, um, Miami? Or somewhere.

Also, no way are Metal Urbain better than Chrome.

Did Sweet drug themself into oblivion??????????????????????? News to me, but what do I know?

And yes, the midwest (= Cleveland) Mirrors.

Jackie McLean I find more admirable as a sideman than as a leader, which is why I long ago ditched his Blue Note albums.

You actually have a full album by the "Sitting On Top of the World" Missippi Sheiks? I didn't know they'd recorded that much...

And my impression (based in part on talking with him many years ago) was that Mantronik was all Kurtis to begin with. So what, exactly, are you differentiating here?

Memphis Jug Band is a lot of fun -- I think I lost my CD of them a long time ago though.

Mu-ziq is ok.

The best Jason Moran I've heard is the stuff he did where he wrote melodic lines that very closely followed different people's speech, especially one that I think was a Chinese financial news broadcast and involved some word like "infosource"

Famous Last Words is my favorite album of his. Totally, totally bizarre and insular studio-funk. My favorite M track has to be "Transmission," though... lovely bit of evocative shortwave soundscaping.

They never quite did it for me though -- some people say "Why listen to Isotope 217 when you can listen to 70s Miles?" and I sort of feel like "Why listen to Mushroom when you can listen to Isotope 217?"

I LIKE those Angus MacLise 20-minute poetry things! "Universal Solar Calendar" is the track I have listened to the most out of all three of those reissues! And I am surprised that he didn't get an asterisk. My favorite of the bunch.

Mississippi Sheiks: "Sitting On Top of the World" is only the beginning. Lovely stuff.

Moonshake: The early records, when Margaret Fiedler was still in the band and writing half the songs, are way WAY up there for me--occasionally when I'm in the right mood I'll play "City Poison" or "Girly Loop" or "Coward" at blistering volume. And I really like the contrast between Fiedler's & Callahan's songs. The later Callahan-only records do less for me, although their cover of "Always True to You In My Fashion" is a keeper for sure.

Mud: So yes, the glam-rock one (who I discovered very late via playing bass on WFMU DJ Terre T.'s rendition of "Tiger Feet," and now want to hear more by), not the Hilly-from-CB's one...

Mushroom: A few years ago I encountered one of their albums and heard some song that was a fantastic Can-type locked-in-beat jam, and thought "oh THAT'S what they mean by their name, at least partly." Have never been able to locate that particular song since, & wonder if it was just a dream.

*The Best of the Mississippi Sheiks: Honey Babe Let the Deal Go Down,* 20 tracks, Columbia/Legacy. Just noticed it doesn''t have "In the Jailhouse Now" on it, though; weird. (Or was that the Memphis Sheiks? Not hard to confuse the two, for obvious reasons.)

>And my impression (based in part on talking with him many years ago) was that Mantronik was all Kurtis to begin with. So what, exactly, are you differentiating here?<

Well, the *I Sing the Body Electro* CD, Oxygen, 1994 or so I think (I don't see a year anywhere on the cover or sleeve) was released under his own name, not under the name Mantronix, apparently (I'd guess) because it doesn't have MC Tee on it. MC Tee's definitely on the first two albums, right? He's listed on the sleeves (I just checked), and his photo is on the back of the first one. So JD, are you saying Kurtis claimed MC Tee didn't actually do anything? News to me, but who knows? (Or maybe they had beef or something, and Kurtis is lying?)

I think one of the M2Ms (either M or, um, M) put out a solo album in Europe, maybe, last year? I only know this because Frank Kogan has mentioned it. He's kept up with them more than I have. I only know the two M2M albums myself.

Measles, Mumps, Rubella: The noise band? If so, they're pretty solid. Saw them with Black Tent and Cotton Museum. Dunno about their albums.

Mooney Suzuki: When I first heard of them, I expected them to be a Can knock-off group. I still like Electric Sweat though...

Roscoe Mitchell: Gave one of those interviews that feels like torture at the time, but cleaned up really well into a feature. Of the school of musicians who has no interest in talking about his music ("I can't say anything about it. You either hear what I mean or you don't,") or his past ("Yeah, the Art Ensemble. We were OK...") but was more than happy to talk about his current life and what he was enjoying (egg sandwiches or something, but I think I caught him right after breakfast). Then he came and played such a damn transcendent show that it was impossible to imagine what he could have said in the interview that would have given someone a picture of what they were in for...

Morsel: The Midwest one with the didgeridoo and electronics? If so, they really haven't aged well... I remember when they put out their most recent album, after a hiatus of about six years, and Midwest Product opened up for them. MP put on such a killer set that there was nothing Morsel could do to recover. It was one of those musical generation moments, when the young kill the old.

µ-siq: He's always better when he's collaborating with someone else, isn't he? I remember his stuff with RD James as being much better than his solo stuff.

Odd how the bands diverged success-wise in the US. Gary Glitter was a non-sell except for "Rock 'n' Roll, Pt. 2" which was adopted as an athletic chant. (Hear a version of it every weekend during the college football season on TV for an Allstate Insurance commercial running on ESPN). But he was gangbusters in the UK.

Sweet did better than either in the US. Mud had some hits in the UK, never did a thing here. Mud veered between glam rock and easy listening pop that often sounded like the Beegees post Saturday Night Fever. "Under the Moon of Love" scored for them, as well as much bigger for Showaddywaddy a bit later. Must've earned good royalties for the Americans who wrote it, or more likely the agency that owned the publishing.

Morsel: Yeah, that Morsel. I only have one album by them, Para Siempre from 2001; had no idea they were still around.

Mu-ziq: I don't even really know his collaborations much. (He uses other names sometimes too, right?) But both *Royal Astronomy* from 1999 and *Bilious Paths* from 2003 both sound excellent to me.

Mr. Wonka: Still in Ohio, I believe, and still hacking and jacking. Also probably still has the planet saturn shaved into the side of his hair. George, maybe I'll send you his latest CD-R, where he screws and chops "Games Without Frontiers" and "Godzilla" and "Werewolves of London" and "White Wedding," among other stuff.

'Roy Castle' is genius.

One of the Ms, ie Marion Ravn, anglicized her name to Marion Raven (correct translation, btw) and got her first solo album issued this year.

Color me very, very intrigued.

No, he just talked about the recordings as if they were *his* work, and MC Tee was not so much a collaborator as a sideman. So maybe it was just creative arrogance...

Meltzer gets thanked in the acknowledgments on the cover of Strange Universe, the '75 record. Child of the Novelty was '74 and Maxoom was '73. I saw 'em in '74 opening for Aerosmith and Frank said something about Jimi inspiring the next tune, "Buddy," which was one of the pushed cuts off the first album.

The original Hendrix-tale got some mileage for Marino and he milked it. In the final accounting, it pigeonholed him and he realized it.
It lumped him in with Robin Trower who was far more commercially successful. With that description you tended to get dismissed a lot for being thought to sound like a poor man's edition of something you
didn't.

The first three albums aren't really that cut-and-paste Hendrix-y except for instro-noise moments with the guitar. Marino was a lot less commercial, very dark sounding with a strong hippie hard rock bent. Of course he knew how to play guitar prior to his Hendrix "vision" which was just a good p.r. story, anyway.

Plus, Marino was never much of a songwriter. He was much better at creating atmospheres and orchestrations on themes.

Yep, and according to the sleeves it usedta be Frank[e]. Great woozy painterly cover art on the albums, too.

I'm sure I'll say more about M2M in the future.

revive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUxADCsPV8s

.

!