Arthur Russell

yeah those talks don't sound particularly pretentious. i was preparing for much worse. this sounds pretty neat.

"Love is Overtaking Me" is kinda how I want Jonathan Richman to be.

ive come round to this lately, really disliked it a lot at first on a/c of it not really being "arthur russel"

to me, it's even more amazing because it's like damn the dude could do something totally different from what he's known for and, to me at least, it could totally stand among some really great folky singer/songwriters

yeah i know what you mean, but when i read the descriptions i still thought, it being AR an all, that it was gonna be a little weirder, and it is pretty conventional but that is not really a barrier to appreciating it for me anymore.

um does anybody know what the chords are to close my eyes?

finally saw the doc.

ahhhhh his dad is saw rad when hes talking about going on blogs to talk about arthur. here's to a hundred more releases!

― 69, Saturday, 2 May 2009 06:30 (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

just watched this over the wkend + this is otm - his parents are so awesome

Via aerosmith on FB:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/293331_266616450047608_100000977657735_823308_472754695_n.jpg

hahaaaa.
can kind of hear his comments as arthur russell lyrics

uneventful
this guy's in trouble
who knows what this guy is up to
you figure it out
you figure it out!

ha tyler, a+ exclamation mark use

heehee
tbh, if i was a WB exec in the 70s, i don't know what i would think of arthur russell's demo tape. i mean, i hope i would have an open mind and dig it, but it's hard to know how you'd react to something so different.

M. Daddino did some checking and said exec signed the Modern Lovers to Warner Bros. and was Mo Ostin's assistant, so a little latitude might be needed here!

oh huh, that does change things!
he should've known! i figured he was just a suit looking for the next Journey or something.

if i'd been A&R for WB back then i'm sure i'd have turned him down too. the original rough trade 12" of let's go swimming sold about 100 copies in the uk. his (non dance) music was way too out of kilter / ahead of its time to be understood by most people at the time it was made.

Also I'd guess coercing him to produce "product" would have been an unending nightmare.

I hope nobody minds if I point out the Kickstarter page for Red Hot's Russell tribute album, This Is How We Walk on the Moon:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/798547390/red-hot-arthur-russell-this-is-how-we-walk-on-the

The lineup so far:
Twin Shadow
Washed Out
José González
Rubblebucket
Robyn
Glen Hansard
Javelin
Hot Chip
Nico Muhly + Owen Pallett
Cut Copy, Sandro Perri
The Revival Hour
Will Sheff (Okkervil River)
Sam Amidon
Ólöf Arnalds
Devendra Banhart
Dan Boeckner (Handsome Furs / Wolf Parade)
Chad VanGaalen
Scissor Sisters
Oh Mercy
Laurel Halo
Thao with The Get Down Stay Down

OK, and nobody cares, I guess. The Kickstarter is kind of languishing too; if it keeps going at this rate, it's not going to be funded by September 8.

I care, and went straight to the site and pony'd up, really hoping that it comes to pass.

Don't know almost any of these artists, and doubt any will hold a candle to Arthur--but if it raises some $ for AIDS awareness and gets more people to hear Mr. Russell's music, I'm in.

love arthur russell

have almost zero desire to hear covers of his work by anyone

^^^ this

For a good cause but ... nope. Leave him alone, folks.

i love his stuff so much but it feels so magic and delicate, i don't like to think about why i like it or even think about it....there's a spooky kinda distance in it i can't quite understand

i learned how to play "close my eyes" sometime a while ago, but that's like his most singer-songwriter tune, i think.

the love is overtaking me stuff could be covered the best i think

but a lot of the stuff is barely SONGS, like in the long view but it's so great

I have high hopes from some of those involved, and also the last few albums compiled for the same cause were pretty good.

i think the singer from electrelane sung our last night together, playing the piano, for another comp, & it was nice. i am similarly ambivalent to people trying to cover arthur russell if there's an idea that it's going to capture any of the thing that made his recordings so magical but then obviously they are really good songs so i'm sure someone'll do something good. also there's a robyn cover, right.

have nothing against arthur russell covers, though i'm not dying to hear this particular album. in general, i'm all for anything that might attract new listeners to his music.

The Four Songs covers EP with Jens Lekman and others was completely forgettable and I never want to hear that Arthur's Landing album again.

Nico and I are doing "Wild Combination" so y'all can go have safe sex with yourselves

Oh man, it's not looking good :(

Anyone else heard the Lonnie Holley album yet? It's reminding me of the more abstract/synth-y Russell stuff.

that's a really good call. didn't know lonnie holley at all but enjoying this a lot so far.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNKwr1Ne9G8

Rome Neal 1 year ago
I'm very proud to have been one of the male vocalists on this tune as well as the Shakere player!!!!

My friend thinks that Arthur Russell sounds like Kermit the Frog

:/

Did he perhaps watch this?

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

henry flynt sounds much more like kermit imo, especially on graduation

From the Robyn thread:
http://www.npr.org/2014/10/12/354284791/first-listen-master-mix-red-hot-arthur-russell

Arthur Russell can be a vexing subject for tribute, for all the many reasons he was peculiar and unique. Few other expressive cellists have proven to be especially good with disco, as he was, and the same applies even more the other way around. Add his capacity — from the 1970s until his death in 1992 — for expressive synth-pop, free-flowing folk and even airs of country music, and the makings of a truly inimitable character are born.

Count it as a feat, then, that Master Mix: Red Hot + Arthur Russell pays tribute by throwing more at Russell's musical persona than a musical persona would seem suited to withstand. Assembled as a benefit for the Red Hot Organization's ongoing fight against AIDS (which counts Russell among its victims), the double-length collection gathers figures from indiedom and outsider-music circles of various kinds. José González starts stirringly with a spacey take on "This Is How We Walk On The Moon" that captures the wavering, quavering grain of Russell's singing voice while wandering through sonic flights of fancy that sound out-there and bizarre, but also totally natural. A haunting short bit by the mystical keyboard tickler Lonnie Holley follows before the mood shifts abruptly into one of disco exaltation, by way of Robyn's bright, joyful, intensely horn-strewn cover of "Tell You (Today)."

― Indexed, Wednesday, October 15, 2014 9:16 AM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes, came here to post about that--her track is deelightful! The whole thing's really good (although Hot Chip should pump up the volume, esp. if 11 minutes plus, by far the longest, I think; feels it, anyway)(and Banhart is a bit murmury for "Losing My Taste For The Night Life," but esp. considering it's him, not bad). Good range and cohesion, tho my personal faves are disco prisms: versions by Scissor Sisters, Vega Intl., and Robyn.

― dow, Wednesday, October 15, 2014 2:18 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I really like the Jose Gonzalez cover even thought he does nothing particularly innovative with it.

― boxedjoy, Thursday, October 16, 2014 4:01 AM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

@0wlred
Master Mix: Red Hot + Arthur Russell contributors get eternal remixo AR's slightly refracted intimacy x art-pop adventurism (x=rhythm).

Dinosaur--Is It All Over My Fave 12" B-Side
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uUB0qz1_Pw&feature=youtu.be

i guess it's an odd comparison, maybe, but i think a lot of phil elverum's microphones/mt. eerie stuff is similar to World of Echo. similar emphasis on production as an instrument, painfully intimate recording, a wandering sensibility, achieving repetition without being able to put a finger on what's repeating. there's even a similar performance style. russell's series of deadpan introductions on "the name of the next song is" could be mistaken for a microphones bootleg.

just mentioning it because i doubt there's much overlap b/w the world of russell and elverum fans, but there should be!

That's a really interesting comparison; they might also be bound together by the constitutive unfinished quality or openness to revision of so much of their work (I'm thinking about this in relation to Elverum's Dawn, for example, but also to the way he handles answer-songs like "Moon Sequel".

the most frustrating thing about arthur russell is... what genre tags do I put on his records in iTunes? not that it really matters, but thinking about it tends to break my brain.

i mean, most of his music is very non-generic. in both senses of that term.

xpost yeah, the revisionism especially! i'm not familiar enough with world of echo to be very specific with my references(somehow i only got around to listening to it this week, even though i've been listening to The World of... for a long time!), but the album seems to function as one long crazy ass dream that folds in itself repeatedly. he could have repackaged it as a single song and it might be even more renowned than it already is.

Did the Red Hot Compilation come out eventually? Must check. Muhly & Pallett doing AR is one thing I gotta hear.

Mimi Goese (singer with Hugo Largo) doing an unrecorded AR song, first time I heard it was in the documentary just after he dies, set to a tracking shot of corn fields, it broke my heart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bF3dNllTzIA

Bass – Tony Maimone
Instruments [All, Except Bass] – Hahn Rowe
Vocals – Mimi Goese
Written-By – Arthur Russell

holy shit I gotta hear that, always liked Hugo Largo

wow Hector Zazou is all over that record as well

i saw a live performance by zazou to the film 'nanook of the north' and it was one of the worst things i've ever heard. not just bad music but offensive and tacky. i haven't bothered to check out anything else he's done after that.

The whole record 'Soak', is smart.

warm place in my heart for fellow outdoors mumblers phil + arthur

there's some really nice arthur russell things up at ubuweb at the moment, nice to have playing as you bop around but beautifully filmed, too, by phill niblock.

also momentarily hyped seeing this- https://twitter.com/AudikaRecords/status/517943699662065664; i kinda forget there are other recordings

Did the Red Hot Compilation come out eventually? Must check. Muhly & Pallett doing AR is one thing I gotta hear.

― Rita, Sue and Peter Gabriel Two (MaresNest), Thursday, November 20, 2014 12:17 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the muhly/pallett track didn't make the final tracklist :'(

I'm not a big fan of disco but oh god this is a belter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVCY4nUC7oo

Tues May 19 at Baby's Alright in Brooklyn, NY

Peter Gordon and Love of Life Orchestra perform play selections from Arthur Russel’s Instrumentals and Peter Gordon’s Symphony 5, the first new Peter Gordon album in two decades.

LOLO:
Peter Gordon, sax, organ, synth
Peter Zummo, trombone
Max Gordon, trumpet
Ned Sublette, guitar(musician/author)
Randy Gun, guitar
Steve Bartek, guitar
Bill Ruyle, percussion
Ernie Brooks, bass (from Modern Lovers)
+ more TBA

They were in Dublin and are headed to:

May 24 Islington Assembly Hall, London
May 25 Cecil Sharp House, London
May 27 Primavera Sound 2015, Parc Del Forum, Barcelona
May 29 Karlstorbahnhof, Heidelberg
May 30 Bad Bonn, Switzerland
Jun 01 Schauspiel Köln, Cologne

Love is Overtaking Me is so beautiful
It's so trad pop rock but so personal and human and real to me, what a talent he could do anything

It's just astonishing, like a great cellist, great experimental music composer, great producer, great dance music artist, then made these little server power pop guitar songs

yup.

the 'instrumentals' show was lovely, and as i hadn't remotely expected anything other that material it was also a very very nice surprise to have them close with SPOILER 'is it all over my face?' SPOILER

Rhys Chatham
‏@rhyschatham

Photos from Arthur Russell concert in London last night. I'm playing flutes, W/Peter Zummo-trombone, &Peter Gordon: https://www.flickr.com/photos/fabiolug/sets/72157653361516576

Another good AR thread, used more often than this 'un, I think:

Ok . MORE Arthur Russell (But This Is Great)

boom!

https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=594

OH MAN.

oh wow. oh wow. oh wow.

Holy fuck!

can't stop listening to this all week

New live release

https://arthurrussell.bandcamp.com/album/the-deer-in-the-forest-march-2-1985-live-at-roulette

Good to have it on his already bountiful bandcamp, although, as has been said on
Ok . MORE Arthur Russell (But This Is Great):

s this AR recording any different to - https://roulette.org/event/arthur-russell-2/

?

― stirmonster, Saturday, December 26, 2020 7:03 AM (eight hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

It is the same recording, it started popping up in the springtime this year, at least on YouTube.

― Maresn3st, Saturday, December 26, 2020 7:32 AM (eight hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

...and on that page, first linked itt in March :)

― huge rant (sic), Saturday, December 26, 2020 7:48 AM (eight hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes, i discovered it via here back then. just curious if there was any additional audio enhahcement etc. but i can hear it's the same. still wonderful.

― stirmonster, Saturday, December 26, 2020 8:25 AM

and there's more -

https://arthurrussell.bandcamp.com/album/picture-of-bunny-rabbit?from=fanpub_fb