Is there a worse producer in the universe than Bill Laswell?

i miss dave q

he's kept this thread going for 7 years, surely that's got to count for something

― Edward III, Thursday, August 14, 2008 10:49 AM (3 years ago)

Also enjoyed NTI's elaboration of his "soup" stance in the following post.

I don't miss the 2001 me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3CZPNT9GSs...pertinent...

Speaking of Laswell on the Whitney Houston RIP thread, somebody says Nona Hendryx is better suited to Laswell's purposes. I liked Nona with Proproganda, especially live, but she always seemed too compressed on (my already ancient stereo's impression of) the first pressing of One Down. Maybe Laswell as more suitably rank-n-filem than Whitney. Here's the way Alfred and I discussed "Memories":

Only things wrong with "Memories": Shepp, struggling with his lip for years, overplays the very first note of his solo, a little "ethereal" breathiness/brain fart, but then redeems himself (thing of no wrong notes if you can come up with the right context); also, do we really need kitchen percussion to show how real this is? But the song, the singer the feeling merge perfectly.

Gamble & Huff also recalled Ms. Houston’s strong Philly connection:
- A then-unknown Whitney Houston recorded “Hold Me,” a duet with Gamble & Huff recording artist Teddy Pendergrass for his 1984 Elektra album, “Love Language,” his first following the automobile accident that left him paralyzed.

― dow, Sunday, February 12, 2012 3:14 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Only things wrong with "Memories": Shepp, struggling with his lip for years, overplays the very first note of his solo

I wondered about this! I agree. At any rate it's too loud for a few seconds.

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, February 12, 2012 3:17 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Kind of a "Hahhh", quietly overwrought stage whisper--not just the lip, maybe also the perils of what the young Shepp mocked as "my Stan Getz shit", talking to Leroi Jones. But when they were on it, Getz and Shepp made a lot of good records fueled by that shit (among other things).

missed cutting the beginning of the Gamble & Huff press release, sorry

Also clipped "Maybe Laswell heard Nona as more rank-n-file than Whitney" (so maybe deliberately compressed her)

more of a starship trooper

more ship than stars, except to us fans of the in-crowd

I adore the Whitney track...soooooo downtown NY '81

i'm still p fond of the early laswell, right up to last exit i guess -- it was VERY patchy, but i think that was part of the point (free improvisation is patchy!)

Happy birthday, Bill Laswell.

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=nona+hendryx+ghost+love&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDEQtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DuYNEuOHeL1o&ei=xUE4T5ylJcf38QO1hc2dBA&usg=AFQjCNFYsRdX1yBTesBXSfDjvTHrKad5Hg

haha i was actually planning a "laswell: where is the LOVE" thread, so i searched to check it wasn't a repeat and found tarden-as-was (from 11 years ago!)

"laswell: where is the LOVE (ON HIS 57th BIRTHDAY)?"

Material's Memory Serves and One Down have aged v well

yup. 2 really good albums. Was he involved in the Zillatron album? That was the best Bootsy album in the last 25 years.

Ask The Ages, Low-Life, and "Bonzo Goes To Washington" are all killer.

also: Sly & Robbie's Rhythm Killers (though may have co-produced w them), Motorhead's Orgasmatron.

Unfuckwithable: Ronald Shannon Jackson's Texas

and "Bonzo Goes To Washington"

Did Laswell actually had something to do with this? I've never heard that he did. Wasn't it produced by Arthur Russell?

I had a few of Laswell's projects over the years, these three I kept. If you like what he did with the Miles Davis recordings, these things are pretty much in that vein, if perhaps a bit more electronic in nature.

Material - Hallucination Engine
Sacred System Dub - Chapter 1 & Chapter 2

i miss dave q

― mark s, Sunday, 12 February 2012 22:18 (Yesterday) Permalink

You don't even post here any more.

xp You're right, Laswell didn't work on BGTW. Not sure why I thought that, unless I confused him with Jerry Harrison.

he does too sometimes.

x-post

the first Colorcode record smokes with RAW POWER!!

2nd the many mentions of sharrock's ask the ages. one of my very favorite albums. and motorhead's orgasmatron is alright. not the most sympathetic production they've ever had, but far from the worst. remember loving the two sacred system albums earlnash just mentioned, though it's been a while.

also remember digging some of the releases on the "strata" offshoot of laswell's subharmonic imprint, especially halo by azonic. earth-style heavy drones produced by laswell and andy hawkins. cool shit.

I interviewed him last year; we talked about Last Exit, Painkiller, some of his other industrial-metal-dub projects, the John Zorn/Fred Frith/Laswell/Dave Lombardo band, recording Pharoah Sanders in North Africa, and lots of other stuff. Here's a link.

As a producer I think he's done some cool (and terrible!) stuff. As a player, much more hit or miss, but some of those hits hit hard, like Painkiller, Massacre, Last Exit and Peter Gabriel's "This is the Picture."

I don't think his hit/miss ratio is bad at all. He's just done so fucking much. It's easy to point to a lot of good projects if you like the guy and easy to point at a lot of middling to poor stuff if you don't feel like being generous towards him.

ooh for an extended/remastered edition of rhythm killers.

it has to happen soon surely ?

I think some of his misses, like in my opinion the Miles Davis remixes or Bob Marley remixes, are so bad they really offset his frequent high points. At the time I really liked his sort of new age dub he was up to with the later golden palominos records, but I have a feeling they have not aged well.

I need to listen to Panthalassa (the Miles record) again. I listened to Divine Light (his remix of Carlos Santana's Love Devotion Surrender and Illuminations) recently and it's good; kind of an ambient reimagining of those records, but with enough guitar fireworks to keep it from dissolving into a puddle of sugar water.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hev2qx1y2IU

Dude produced "Rockit" so...yes, there is a worse producer out there somewhere. Only know that b/c yesterday I heard a Sly and Robbie album from '85 that Laswell produced called Language Barrier that sounded so much like "Rockit" I had to look it all up. Album had a bunch of the same musicians on it as Future Shock (and Dylan somewhere on it, too, but didn't hear him on the song I heard.

I remember being like downright angry after I bought Panthalassa, like I had literally been ripped off. I just listened to a bit of it and it didn't bother me as much as I remembered. Still not sure what it adds to the picture or why I wouldn't just listen to the miles records.

I just bought three old Axiom releases from Laswell's Bandcamp page - Billy Bang's Outline No. 12 (conducted by Butch Morris), Henry Threadgill's Too Much Sugar for a Dime, and Maleem Mahmoud Ghania and Pharoah Sanders' The Trance of Seven Colors.

I like his Miles remix record

I do too.

I haven't heard all that many Axiom records, and the hit/miss ratio is pretty terrible for what I've heard, but I remember being very captivated by the fold-out catalog that came with one of the cds I got in college. It felt like he was creating a world, throwing together with all these different genres, musicians I'd heard of, and mysterious titles and artwork. That was a bigger influence on me than the music, a lot of which is, like, bad trip-hop and funk jams.