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For awhile there it looked as though the Masons’ 1999 debut album was going to be their only album. Band leader and songwriter Kraig Mason never stopped writing songs, though, and gentle prodding from a friend who just so happened to run a record label (75 Or Less) spurred him to properly record the songs with a band. And not just any band —The Masons mach 2007 includes such local luminaries as Dave Narcizo (Throwing Muses) on drums, Don Sanders (Medicine Ball) on guitar and vocals, and Jeffrey Underhill (Honeybunch, Velvet Crush) on guitar and keyboards. All these great players work to put Kraig’s charming stories front and center. “Theo”, for instance, draws on the author’s own experience of falling for a dog who’s already taken. (Thankfully he gets visitation rights.)

The band are playing a couple of shows in RI this summer.

The first is at Jake’s on Richmond St on June 9th. The excellent Blizzard of ’78 headline.

The second show is at July 29th at Billy Goode’s in Newport, RI.

I’ll be at Jake’s ’cause Newport at the height of summer is too much for me to handle. (The crowds, the drunken idiots, the traffic jams…) But either show will be well worth your while.

The Masons’ album is available from 75 Or Less Records. More samples and info at the band’s MySpace page.

The Masons, “Theo”

IMAGE BY JULIE DOUCET FROM HER NEW BOOK ELLE HUMOUR

The past week has been busy and decidedly un-bloggy. C’est la vie. I’ve been listening to some very good music, just haven’t been struck by the urge to write about it. Also, c’est la vie.

Sunday afternoon I’m off to Cambridge, MA to see Kristin Hersh at Mark Sandman’s old studio, Hi & Dry. She’ll be joined by her 50 Foot Wave confreres, Bernard Georges and Rob Ahlers, and the extra-special addition of string duo the McCarricks, who weren’t able to make Hersh’s last Boston date back in April due to Visa woes. This time they’ll be there, and it’ll undoubtedly be very special indeed.

There’s a whole spate of amazing and/or surprising shows coming up, too. Let’s see: there’s Jandek at the Boston ICA on June 8th (couldn’t ask for a better venue), These Are Powers at Machines with Magnets Studio in Pawtucket on June 14th. June 23rd is the most surprising show of all: AR Kane.

Yeah, you heard me.

AR freaking KANE playing one show only (as far as I know) at Faison Firehouse in Harlem at 8 PM. A mere $10. It’s part of the URBNALT Festival, and since I can’t get their website to work (hopefully they’re working on that) I’d urge you to look at NYPress for more info.

You know, just a year ago news of a JANDEK show would have been the jaw-dropping item in this litany. Now it’s practically like, “Oh, another one?”

You can buy AR Kane tickets here.

Throwing Music | Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Jandek/ | Jandek On Corwood[incredible documentary about jandek’s work] | AR Kane [unofficial MySpace page] | These Are Powers

Jandek, “Nancy Sings”

AR Kane, “Butterfly Collector”

DECOUPAGED BOX BY SUZI COZZENS

There’s plenty of music out there that aims for —er, cordance. Fall leader Mark E. Smith has devoted his entire cantankerous career to discordance. But his curiously appealing grit-in-the-oyster, rant-tastic schtick has made the very idea of collaborations thorny to say the least. His inimitable MES-ness cannot be tamed or tampered with, or watered down to mass-popularity-loving levels. Now, this is a good thing in my book, but it means that collaborations with the man must be undertaken with mating-with-porcupines levels of extreme care. When they work, there’s a breathtaking quality that can only come from operating without safety nets. (Exhibit A: his work with British dancer Michael Clarke.) When they fail, well, to paraphrase the tale of the girl with the curl: when they’re bad they are horrid.

It’s early days yet to decide which side MES’s latest album-length collaboration with Cologne Dadaists Mouse on Mars settles into. Group name: Von Südenfed. Song title: “Family Feud.” Initial response: you’ve got your chocolate in my peanut butter. And it turns out I don’t like chocolate in my peanut butter. The recent Wire cover story made it sound like much more of a true collaboration, with each party influencing the other and pushing their respective boundaries. But so far I don’t really hear it. The resulting track is very much MES-bluster welded to MoM’s trademark bleeps + bloops. I’d like to hear more in order to get a more full-rounded picture of it, but so far I’m distinctly underwhelmed.

Just for kicks, I’m posting a few other MES-flavored collaborations from the near-past. I must sheepishly admit to being partial to the Elastica one, A) ‘cause it’s freakishly catchy and B) I never could resist a Fall in –joke.

The Long Fin Killie song I cherish the most, though —not simply because of Luke Sutherland’s undersung talent, but also because of the way Smith’s sharp-tongued, all-angles enunciation plays off of Sutherland’s gentle lilt. It’s one of the few times where I feel that Smith has been well-matched with a vocal-duetting partner.

“Family Feud” taken from the album Tromatic Reflexxions, out 6/5 on Domino US. More info atDomino or via the band’s MySpace page.

Von Südenfed, “Family Feud” [2007]

Long Fin Killie, “Heads of Dead Surfers” [1995]

D.O.S.E. with Mark E. Smith, “Plug Myself In” (7” Mix) [1996]

Elastica with Mark E. Smith, “How He Wrote Elastica Man” [from 2000’s The Menace]

IMAGE TAKEN FROM CALEB JOHNSON’S BRILLIANT INTERACTIVE COLLAGE ANIMATION, NFCTD.