Awake and Asong

Ben Collins - Guitar (2003-2004)

2011-02-03T13:41:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of my recent digging-up-of-old-recordings-I-don't-really-remember-making, here is a collection of track evocatively titled "Guitar". Honestly it was in my iTunes labeled as such and I don't know why I ever called it that but I don't see any reason to change it now.

Anyhow, the record is comprised of four longish tracks of, you guessed it: Guitar. Played by me. I cannot remember recording three of the four, but I can tell that they were all recorded on my tascam four track in my old house in Savannah GA, probably between 2003 and 2004. So there's that at least. They are pretty primitive for sure, for all I know the first track might very well be my first experiment with the e-bow, which I had just bought that year. The two acoustic tracks take up most of the runtime and they are, at least to my ears, sort of delightfully naive. Clearly my ambition and desire to be a player like John Fahey was out-striping my ability as a player or even my understanding of the instrument. And the Prepared track (the only one I can recall) had me playing with silverware and a totally detuned guitar, lying across my lap. I'm sure that seemed Very Experimental to me at the time, but now it sounds just sort of like cool atonal blues or something and I dig that.

So I don't know, if you enjoy the sounds of youthful energy, the sounds of a 19, 20 year old kid trying to get his mind around how to make his instrument interesting then maybe you will enjoy this.

download album HERE

Ben Collins - Odds (2006-2010)

2010-12-30T17:52:00.000-08:00

Here is another archival record of mine. This one is cobbled together out of random tracks that I found in my itunes, which were all recorded for some reason or another, but all of which never found their way onto any other album. Encompassed here are a variety of styles including old standards of mine such as solo guitar and noise but also a few tracks featuring beats and keyboards.

All the tracks are titled just as they were labeled, and I put them in an order I thought would be interesting.

All music by Ben Collins

Download it HERE

Ben Collins - Thoughts (2006)

2010-10-20T19:58:00.001-07:00

I was digging through old hard drives today when I happened on a massive amount of music I recorded in 2005 and 2006. All told there is like 15 hours worth of stuff, some of it I remember and more strangely some of it I do not. This album it a collection of five tracks I have no memory of at all whatsoever, which is probably why I am pleased with it.

It's mostly noise although my voice and guitar make appearances as well and one song seems to be a processed version of a recording I made with Zach Smola and Travis Knowles where we all three play the drums.

There's a part of me that thinks this is some of the best stuff I've ever made and I guess it goes to show you that sometimes you can make something and think you know whether or not it's good but the truth is that it can take years before you approach yr own work objectively.

I should also note that given the date my computer tells me these were created I must have been using a beta version of Audio Mulch on my Dell PC. How I achieved any of these sounds is a total mystery to me, especially the closing track.

So download it HERE

enjoy

Black Thirteen - BIRD light

2010-03-08T20:25:00.000-08:00

It's been more than a year since my last Black Thirteen post. Which makes sense seeing how the band is on a pseudo-hiatus. However the group recorded so much during its active period that I am still in possession of a wealth of unheard material. One of the best and certainly most unusual pieces of forgotten B13 is this little record.

As many of you know, the classic B13 line-up consists of Simon Sharp, Wesley Rose and myself. We always welcomed collaborators with open arms and none more so than Jessica Collins (Née Calleiro) and on this record she played with us, recorded it and then went on mix and edit the session, basically recreating Black Thirteen in her own image. Which we later found out was vastly superior to our own image.

So what you get here are six tracks pulled together from two different sessions, four from an initial set which featured Simon, Jessica, and me. And two tracks from a second session, (lost due to hard drive failure) which (thankfully) features the inclusion of Wesley Rose.

Those familiar with Jess's BERU work will recognize her incredible cut-up/collage abilities employed to very subtle effect here. (Those NOT familiar with her Beru work will kindly stop reading and familiarize yrself now.) And those familiar with Black Thirteen's other records will probably notice the sometimes too-crisp aspect of our low-fi, all-improv approach has been dully soaked in reverb and mellowed out like a lot, turning all of our guitars into this floating pillow for Simon wonderful voice.

Jess just told me she thinks this record is some of the best work she's ever done. I feel pretty strongly about it myself and I know that Simon and Wesley do also. In fact really the only the thing to complain about is the shoddy craftsmanship of Western Digital and their "My Book" hard drive which failed out of nowhere and caused the rest of the session with Wesley to be possibly lost forever and made the resulting record a mere 23 minutes. Don't worry though you'll want to hear it twice in a row.

Simon Sharp sang lead vocals on all tracks and played an acoustic guitar.

Jessica Collins sang backing vocals and whistled sometimes and played a keyboard sometimes and also an acoustic guitar.

Wesley Rose played acoustic guitar on tracks 3 & 5.

Ben Collins played electric guitar on all tracks

and a sample of Joseph Calleiro drumming was used on one song.

Recorded, mixed, edited by Jessica

All songs collectively improvised by the members.

Album photo of Bella, taken by Jessica.

Download the album HERE

The Mooninites - TK Traxz

2010-03-08T19:08:00.000-08:00

Back in 2005 The Mooninites spent a day jamming in a church. We used the mics and PA that were there as well the drum kit and vintage Fender Rhodes. Josh Nelson recorded us and it ended up as a sort sloppy, three piece version of middle period Soft Machine (we wish). Anyhow, at some point Travis Knowles did a handful of remixes of those sessions using some of the old synths he had access to at the dearly departed Atlanta College of Art.

Hear a track:

I'm sure at some point I'll put together a reasonable set of the original recordings, but for now these remixes are way better. And to think they've been just sitting around on my computer, forgotten, for five years now. I feel like a tool. This stuff is really good, it's all loop-based using a keyboard that could make loops which could be both pitch-adjusted and time-adjusted while playing so get all of this cool early Steve Reich-ish stuff.

And if you like this please check out TK's other stuff, especially my previous post of his newest album.

Track listing:

1. Night Train
2. The Heart of the Heart
3. And Other Stories
4. Blue Blood
5. American Pastoral

In case it is worth noting, the original sessions were roughly:

Travis Knowles on bass
Zach Smola on rhodes and guitar
Ben Collins on Drums and tapes

recorded by Josh Nelson

Photo by me of this weird time when Wesley Rose had this strange pixelated giant ruby floating in front of his head while he was sitting on this dock with a cigarette.

Download it HERE

Post Script: Thought I should mention a few house-keeping items about the blog. In case you bother to look through the archives anytime soon you may (or may not) notice the lack of the embedded IMEEM players which used to be featured in some of last years posts. Well I took them all down because IMEEM SUCKS, really really bad and they started replacing my embedded player with some stupid banner ad. So in case you or ANYONE you know ever wonders DON'T USE IMEEM! On the other hand Archive.org is stepping up their game and it looks like I will be able to upload things easier and more effectively on there.

Travis Knowles - Axis Mundi

2010-02-23T12:28:00.000-08:00

I've been delaying this post because I wanted to write something really meaningful about the album so that you would download it and dig it like I do. Well maybe I'll go back and add something later but for now I'll just tell you that this is a new record from Travis Knowles, aka TK, TK 421, etc. Member of The Mooninites and Black Thirteen and Telenovela and sometimes Figurants and all sorts of other things.

If you have followed this blog at all you've heard this man before. He's great, I've literally known him since kindergarten and I recommend everything he does, all of his music and his incredible visual art and photography.

So this album is him doing some kind of minimal electronic noise thing. I'm unclear as to how he is deriving the sounds, but they are great.

Oh and the album art was made in collaboration between Travis and myself.

I might write more on this later, but download it now.

Get it HERE

Untitled Stylophone Improvisation #1

2010-01-02T20:18:00.000-08:00

Happy New year! It's 2010 now and I just recorded my first music of the new year and decade. Yesterday Jessica and I bought a Stylophone, which is a little hand held synthesizer built in the sixties which as been enjoying a resurgence in the past few years because it is inexpensive and easy to play. We purchased ours from Urban Outfitters in Hollywood and I expect many other people will do the same. I wouldn't be surprised if this new decade saw every band with a dedicated Stylophone player so before it becomes too ubiquitous I thought I would throw my hat into the ring with a solo Stylophone improve album.

So that's what I did. So what you have here is a half hour of me playing Styophone through a loop pedal. There is one edit early on where I screwed up and went back to a good part and started again but other than that it's pretty raw, no mastering or anything.

So here you go, enjoy it and I promise to post more soon.

Or download it HERE

Christmas Album 2009

2009-12-23T18:47:00.001-08:00

For the past few years Josh Nelson has been curating Christmas compilations featuring various groupings of our friends playing both originals and covers. I've contributed something each year and it's my opinion that results are usually interesting.

This year was a little slim with only eleven tracks but there is some solid stuff, including three contributions from Beru and two from Colin Alexander's Tiny Specks of Many Things.

Josh didn't include album art, so just to make this post interesting I put up that picture of my cat next to our Christmas tree

Download it HERE

The Mooninites - Experiment Station Road (2003)

2009-12-09T14:00:00.000-08:00

So by now we all know about The Mooninites, (Three dudes, I'm one of them, along with Zach and Travis) if you don't know of our thrilling history check out the older posts. Anyhow, since I've been traveling basically backwards with my posting of Mooninites albums I'll explain that this is pretty much the second thing we ever did. The story, as I understand it is that we had made this one record and Zach played it for his friends at school (UGA, go dawgs!) most notably Lars Gotrich (or Thor, as we know him now) and Lars who ran the local music show, invited us to play at his "Live in the Lobby" event, where a bad would come to the station and, obviously, play in the lobby. Now at this point we had never had an official show (there was an unofficial show, which was videotaped and could maybe maybe be posted at some point) and we didn't really know how to go about doing one. So somewhere along the line we decided to just bring a bunch of instruments and "see what happened". We didn't even know the word "improv" at least not outside of the context of comedy, so we didn't know what we were doing.

So we loaded up the cars and drove to Athens to meet Zach at the station and play. On the way there Travis rear-ended me, (I was driving Simon Sharp's car, which to this day has a trunk that doesn't operate correctly.) and when we after the cops came and left we saw that we had wrecked at the intersection of "Experiment Station Road", so later we named the record after that.

When we got to the station there was little time for any kind of explanation or sound check or anything. We explained to the engineer, Miles Styer that we would just set up a bunch of stuff and sort of move around the room playing each thing at different times and volumes.

And then we played for about a half hour. Joe McNeill was present as were about twenty or so UGA students, all sitting in chairs or on the floor around us as we played. At times the music became incredibly loud and I actually think Joe was the only the one in the audience not covering his/her ears at some points. It got quiet at the end and Zach coaxed everyone into clapping along on the last bit.

The session was broadcast live, recorded somehow and was given to us on a CDR. Upon listening to it we realized that due to loudness of our playing they had turned the master volume down considerably, presumably to control it for the broadcast, which significantly altered the listening experience, making the loudest parts of our playing actually the quietest parts of the recording.

After I posted "Let's Melt Snow" a few months back and this recording was mentioned I revisited it and set about re-mastering it with the goal of at least glimpsing the volume and (dare I say) Power of the actual performance.

So here it is, six years later and I think it's a pretty okay little record. It has an earnest enthusiasm for the playing of weird music that I very much respect and admire now. Were we the masters of experimentation that we wanted to be? Of course not, but we had fun and made some decent music so it shouldn't really matter.

Credits:

Zach Smola: Primary guitar, tambourine
Travis Knowles: Bass, SK-1, organ
Ben Collins: Drum loops, Korg Synth, feedback guitar

(Acoustic Cigarette: Joe McNeill and Simon Sharp)

Engineered by Miles Styer
Produced by Lars Gotrich
Mastered and Edited by Ben Collins

Get it HERE

Update: I now know for sure that the photo was taken by Erin R. White, thanks Erin.

Maybe Yr New Here...

2009-11-28T12:37:00.000-08:00

I thought it might be a good time for me to reintroduce myself and this blog. Since moving out to Los Angeles almost a year ago now I've been meeting new people and so I thought I would provide an easy way to understand what we're doing here and a sort of primer to the more popular albums up on here.

So My name is Ben. I'm from Atlanta originally and I went to college in Savannah and recently moved to Los Angeles. Throughout all of that I have recorded a lot of music and made friends with other people who do likewise. I started this blog as a way to post up music for people to download, just as a way of getting it out there in the world instead of forever festering on CDRs made in an edition of five.

So I've posted a lot now, it's close to a hundred, maybe in the seventies and I have plenty more sitting on hard drives waiting to go up. I recognize that if you are new to the site you may have no idea where to start so I thought I would guide a bit and tell you about some of the key bands/albums featured on this blog.

Uncle Owen Aunt Beru - "Black Seas"

It might be the best album on this whole site. Jessica (sole member of Uncle Owen Aunt Beru, now called simply "Beru") is the unquestioned star of this blog, anything she plays on gets downloaded the most and for good reason. Get this record first before anything else.

Download it HERE

Or view the original post HERE

DETH(gate)(cat)PEOPLE

This is another of the most downloaded recordings. It also features Jessica, this time playing drums in our duo Cat People, (which also includes me on guitar). This recording has us playing in double-duo form with Deth Gate, who were (are?) a rad duo in Savannah made up of Stephen Zerbe on keys and Coley Brown on drums.

Download it HERE

Or view the original post HERE

Ben Collins - What is a Lover?

A lot of the records on this blog are mine, simply because I have more of my own stuff than anyone else's. My record vary in style and quality, I have no real objective way of saying what is good at all but in many ways this album is my favorite one I ever did. It has a good blend of styles from noise to acoustic and other...

Download it HERE

Or view the original post HERE

Black Thirteen - Whiskey & Honey

This was the first album I posted. Black Thirteen is a now sort of defunct improv group that had a rotating line up with a few constants. This album is the first to feature the "classic" grouping of Simon Sharp, Wesley Rose and myself: all playing guitars.

Download it HERE

Or view the original post HERE

Will Melton & The Year of Love - Summer of Love

This record features a ton of my friends all playing and singing these songs which are all composed and recorded by Will Melton. I won't break down the various contributions, (see original post) but I'll tell you that it is great eclectic pop music.

Download it HERE

Or view the original post HERE

Wesley Rose - Southern Elegance

This is Wesley's first album. Power. Raw. Noise. Get it.

Download it HERE

Original post HERE

Dixieland Teenbeat Spiritual Waltz

This record is Travis Knowles and myself each playing an organ, as the photo suggests. It's improv, it's fun.

Download it HERE

ORIGINAL POST

Ben Collins & Zach Smola - Guitars and Loops

This record is a improv electric guitar duo by Zach Smola and myself. Sort of like a Fripp & Eno record if it was two Fripps and neither were as good as the actual, real Fripp.

Download it HERE

ORIGINAL POST

Black Thirteen - Plate Tekroniks

Here is a good example of an expanded B13 line up. Here we feature the classic group plus the inimitable Joe McNeill (Featured eating Long John Silver's on the cover). It's also a good example of how we could play long and weird and whiskey-fueled music that would never have occurred to us in any other setting.

Download it HERE

ORIGINAL POST

=========================

So maybe that is a good introduction to the unfamiliar... I'll continue with the new posts soon.

Wesley Rose - Humane Trafficking

2009-11-16T22:19:00.000-08:00

This is Wesley's forth album. If you don't know anything about the guy look up his older posts and learn something. I've talked him up a lot, he's one of my favorite musicians and one of my favorite people. This albums are slowly revealing the musical powers he has at his disposal, and it's just my opinion but I think he has a great deal that we haven't yet seen. After all he is the drummer in Figurants and really did anyone see that coming?

Seriously though this album is good. It's more organic, less power electronics. That old acoustic guitar shows up, which is great. It's mellow noise, you could listen to it before bed (I am doing this right now). My powers of description fail me, and I can only say that you should listen to this. If this blog existed only to support Welsey's albums it would be worth it to me.

I should say that I promised to post this album a while back and it took some time to do so. What can I say other than that I got married and moved across the country? At any rate partly due to the delay and partly because we love him so much, Jess and I each contributed to this release: she in the form of the video below and me in the form of a bonus remix track at the end of the record.

U.H.I.D. Wesley Rose from Jessica Collins on Vimeo.

But other than that, all sounds by Wesley Rose.

Download HERE

The Mooninites - Let's Melt Snow and Rebuild New York City (2003)

2009-10-27T10:20:00.001-07:00

The Mooninites, yes The Mooninites. Ah the follies of youth, naming one's band after silly cartoon characters from a silly cartoon show for stoners. You can really only do that with credibility before you are of drinking age, which is okay because when this track was recorded on the day after thanksgiving 2003 the members were 19 (Travis and I) and 18 (Zach), so I hope you will forgive our frivolities.

Anyhow, this track was recorded on that day because, since we all attended separate colleges, it was the only day we would all be in Fayetteville to record. We had already recorded our (as yet unposted) first record over the previous summer and planed to record our second album that Christmas. This track was a sort of preview/single or something and now, six years later I think it is one of the best things I've ever worked on.

Back then we were fully trying to sound something like a post-rock, experimental, Yes meets Neu! supergroup. The songs were neither collectively improvised nor pre-composed and each part was recorded separately on one of those old Boss digital eight-track recorders(I think it was this one). I mixed it that day and burned it to CD and what you hear now is exactly as it has always been.

Note the three distinct movements, we were really psyched about that.

Note all of the additional and perfunctory post-rock "knob twiddling" that we all thought was so avant garde at the time.

Note how sloppy my drumming is in the first part (we never used a metronome and drums were always recorded first) and yet Travis still plays his bass to it perfectly.

As far as what everybody played and/or what exactly all of the sounds are, I can't exactly tell you that but as best as I remember:

Zach Smola: plays most, if not all of the guitars and probably the wammy-pedal stuff and some of the percussion.

Travis Knowles: plays bass, probably some kind of keyboard and delay pedal or something as well as percussion.

Ben Collins: plays drums, sounds like theremin, probably some other kind of pedals

Produced by: The Mooninites

Or download HERE

Post Script: the photo is from the only Mooninites live show to ever occur, at WUOG is Athens Georgia. There is a recording, but I will need to clean it up a bit before I can post it, someday I swear.

Late Night LA

2009-10-22T12:45:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Last night I was playing around on the guitar and I worked out a series of melodies that I liked. Jessica encouraged me to record it real quick and I did. So here it is. It's sort of demo-ish quality and I wouldn't be surprised if I revisited it and expanded it at some point. Really i should probably try and do a whole album of guitar compositions like this, if I can.

Well I hope you all enjoy it, I'm pretty happy with it myself, it's sort of an ode to the autumn that we aren't having out here in Los Angeles.

you can also download it HERE

Post Script: that picture of my cat has nothing to do with anything, but in the absence of an appropriate picture expect a cat photo every time.

Jessica's physical release debut

2009-10-22T01:05:00.000-07:00

So you all know that under the name Uncle Owen Aunt Beru Jessica released a numer of digital albums, two on the Birdsong netlabel and (I think) two on this very blog. Well she's moved on now. She has cut the name down to simply "Beru" and our good friend Lars has just released her physical album debut. "What would I do without you" is a cassette featuring a 20 minute collage on each side, actually you know what I'll let Lars give his take:

"On her cassette debut as Beru, Jessica Collins unravels a new American folk. What Would I Do Without You is both touched and untouched by tradition, mending the pieces of the world around her in collage. I first saw her destroying drums in the skronk-prov band Cat People, took a photo, and she unknowingly became the logo for TRHP. But as Beru, the LA-via-Georgia songwriter disembodies dub-noise, haunted gospel and improvised folk in loving, sinister ways. Her pastoral drones journey heavenward and pull the silver lining to Earth, collecting songs in the chaos. Limited edition of 100 pro-dubbed and imprinted c48 tapes with artwork by Kevin Phillips printed on vellum paper."

That's what it says on the label site and I won't disagree with any of it. Lars is a great guy and has better taste in music than either you or I, so we should trust him. And really what could I tell you that would convince you that you needed to hear this? That I think that Jessica is one of the most vital, under-appreciated artists working in any field, in America right now? Or that I've known her music longer and more intimately than almost anyone, (We're married in case yr new here.) and I am still consistently surprised and amazed by the directions she goes?

Obviously I don't have this one up to download, so I'm suggesting that you go to the Thorr's Rubber Hammer site and order it. It's a limited edition art object with cover art designed by Kevin Phillips, who directed that Mum video I posted a few weeks ago.

Go to the site, buy it and if you don't like it I'll personally refund yr money, double the cost of the record. how's that?

Two Gents - First Set (Live at Mountair)

2009-10-18T03:11:00.001-07:00

In California, In LA, there is a place called Tujunga. And in this place there is a house venue called Mountair. It's run by a nice guy named John and frequented by bands commonly including his friends who are also very nice. Jessica met these guys on Myspace at some point and they invited her to play there. She did and we had a good time and recognized these guys as being pretty cool.

One of the guys is a multi-instrumentalist known, mysteriously, as Jarrod W. After seeing him play the drums I thought it would be fun to play with him so I asked if he would like to do an improv duo thing and he accepted. A month or so later we met for the second time and played this set.

This was my first improv performance in a while and my first in a long time where I played with a near total stranger. It was Jarrod's first improv performance period.

So especially given the circumstances I am happy about it. But even despite the context I think we did a pretty good job, and I am looking forward to playing with him more in the future. It's short, it's sweet, I suggest you check it out.

Recorded by Jarrod W.
Mastered by Ben Collins and Jessica Collins
Photo by Jessica

Ben Collins: Guitar

Jarrod W.: Drums

Download it HERE

Or stream it Here:

Post Script:

I forgot to mention, if you hadn't already noticed, that this is not a full album. Rather it is a short ten minute set. But who knows perhaps we will have an album at some point. Also I forgot to mention that Mountair maintains a youtube page where they post various videos from the performances. I highly recommend you take the time to check these guys out and hopefully I will post more from them in the future.

News and stuff for this week

2009-10-13T00:22:00.000-07:00

Múm "Sing Along" from Team G on Vimeo.

For starters if somebody somehow missed it, (Joe) here is the music video, directed by Kevin (member of Dolphin Beam for those familiar) and starring my wife, Jessica aka Beru. So there's that, it's awesome, you don't need me to tell you, just watch it.

Additionally, this Friday I am somehow, actually, really going to play a show. Details can be found HERE at the venue's site. It's basically a dude's house and he has shows there and Jess played there a few weeks ago and we met all of these awesome local guys who play music and this one guy Jarrod W. was an amazingly energetic drummer and I just couldn't shake the feeling that I should play some kind of improv thing with him. So I asked him and he was cool with it and so we're going to play together on Friday: he on drums, me on guitar, we've met only once before and have not discussed what we will do. It should be interesting and if all goes well then maybe I will play some more shows.

Also this week Jess is doing something where she tries to record an album in a week. I lack the details at this moment but she'll do it and it will be rad. She already made two songs just tonight and they are awesome.

Also her tape will be available to purchase on Lars' site soon, so I'll give you the details when that happens. And I'll post a new album soon, if anyone (yes, you Joe) has any requests I wouldn't mind...

till next time.

Cat People+Wesley Rose - Aztec Knife

2009-10-02T17:46:00.000-07:00

This has taken way to long to be posted and I'm sorry. At this moment I cannot recall the date this was recorded although I will figure it out when Jess gets home from work... I only remember that it was a very rainy day and that it was recorded in Joseph's old studio space in the house Jessica's family used to live in. At this point the house had been sold and was empty, but the studio was still there so we got in and recorded for an hour. My guess is maybe November 2008?

Correction: Jess just called and she says it was July 2008, that was a long time ago...

Anyhow, this is Wesley Jessica and myself playing loud, electric, improv stuff. Basically Cat People with Wesley added on bass, and a wonderful addition he is.

I dig this stuff, I listen to a lot of stuff like this, in fact if you wanted to you could mock me for this record being basically a showcase of how badly I wish I was Matthew Bower. But if yr like me and you love that kind of Skullflower, Fushitsusha, free type stuff then maybe you can dig this too.

Really, I think I love this album because it's me getting to play loud music with two of my favorite musicians on this planet. And I guess it does get me a little wistful about the fact that Jess and I now live on the other side of the country, making it impossible to have this trio play together regularly. One day I'm sure we'll have a documented reunion, but for now there's this record.

Ben: Guitar
Jess: Drums
Wesley: Bass

Download it HERE

Figurants - Unauthorized Demo 2009

2009-09-21T16:23:00.000-07:00

Yes, that title is appropriate. I had no permission at all whatsoever to post this record on here. But you know, try and stop me I guess.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Figurants is a new band featuring various members of Black Thirteen, Telenovela etc. To be specific the band is:

Simon Sharp - lead vocals
Zach Smola - guitar
Joe McNeill - bass
Wesley Rose - drums
Stephanie Clayton - everything else

So for any of you Telenovela fans out there wondering what Z&S have been up to, this is it. So what this Demo is is just a recording of one of their practices last week. I only have it because for weeks I have been begging various members of the band to bootleg a practice just so I could what the music sounded like at all. So they finally did it and when I received the file it was almost inaudible, so to really listen to it I brought it into pro tools and did some mastering. Then I thought I ought to make it worth my effort and just put it up so other people could hear it as well. So here it is.

As far as like a description or review I'm not entirely sure what to say. I guess I could tell you it is certainly NOT noise or improv or jazz or ambient or any of the other things that I typically put up on this blog. This doesn't mean it is without interest to me. In fact it's a really interesting record and I think one that shows what an enormous amount of potential this group has. We've obviously heard plenty of polished music from Z&S over the years so their combined powers don't come as a surprise, especially not to anyone who frequented Telenovela live shows which were always more loose and rockin' than the recordings suggested and more in line with what this demo shows us. I'll go on a limb and say that both Wesley Rose and Joe McNeill are in top form as musicians. I've known them both for quite a while and I am very pleased with what I am hearing, especially since each are playing secondary instruments (they are both typically guitarists) that I've only ever heard them play in very loose Blackthirteen jams. So it's cool to have these two pairs basically meeting in the middle as far as style in concerned and uniting to create the groundwork for what is the best use of Simon Sharp's vocals to date. Listening to this record it's a bit embarrassing that a band like this wasn't formed sooner given Simon's availability and talent.

I can only imagine what they must be like live, supposedly there is a video out there somewhere which is heading my way and will certainly be posted when I can. So everyone check this out and if you live in or around the Atlanta area keep your eyes open for their shows.

Download it here

Post Script: I wrote this entry before I had made this album cover. I don't know what to say about it... insert yr own joke about how I make everything look like either Jandek or Black Metal...

This new thing I'm doing

2009-09-16T08:43:00.000-07:00

So Joe McNeill recently visited me in Los Angeles and encouraged me update this blog more, even if I didn't have music posts every time. He blew my mind by saying that he just liked to read whatever was going on and didn't mind there not always being music. I guess I just needed one person to say that to get me going. So starting today I will write occasionally about other things, though probably still music and try to keep this thing going while I try to get back on track with standard album posts.

I hope that all makes sense.

Joe also brought me a rough copy of his new band's demo and at least one song from that will be posted soon. I also hope to bring you some sort of something from the other band Joe is playing in these days, which also features just about everyone else on this blog namely: Simon Sharp, Wesley Rose, Zach Smola and Stephanie Clayton. They are I believe called Figurants and they just played what i hear is a very successful first show in Atlanta, hopefully more to come soon.

Out here music is different, or well, I should say that Los Angeles hasn't really impressed me yet. Okay that's not true either. I've seen some amazing shows here because basically any band that is touring will come to Los Angeles. So there are dozens of shows to see all the time which is awesome. But all of these bands come from somewhere else to play here, I'm hard-pressed to name ten bands in Los Angeles that I care about at all... I'm scratching my head and John Wiese and Chris Schlarb are all I'm coming up with. Now granted those are two of my favorite dudes but in a city this big there ought to be tons of bands, right?

To be fair this is the home of hair metal and a lot of dumb hippy rock stuff and gangsta rap so what should I have been expecting...

Okay okay Pocahaunted is out here as well.

Really though I'm sure there is plenty of music for me to love I just have to find it. I mean Schlarb is in Long Beach anyway which is the second largest city in LA and I've never even been there so clearly much of the city and its music scene is still to be explored. But I guess it just goes to show the pro/con type situation with cities and music: in a place like Atlanta there may only be one cool show every month and so you can feel totally connected very easily and inexpensively and you are allowed to complain all of the time because it will never get any better and you can always wish you lived in a better city etc. Or you can live in Los Angeles and not know where to go or what to do and miss all of the shows except for the few amazing ones you actually hear about and can afford to go to (John Wiese Burning Star Core and bunch of other dudes for five dollars!) and still complain that there must be all of this cool stuff happening, only you don't know about it.

Eeeeeeee. this seems boring. In other news:

-Jessica is finishing an amazing new album called Gathered Souls, the future of which is still unknown, any suggestions?

-Her Cassette will be released soon on Thor's Rubber Hammer, details when I have them.

-She is also playing on my new album which will go up whenever I finish it (2025 anyone?)

-Jon Lynn's Uncolved Mysteries' new album is possibly days away from completion and it features Jessica and I guesting on one song each, a wistful nod to those days of yore when we had nothing better to do than to constantly play free shows in Savannah. The album is amazing and I'll let you know where to find it when I am told such things.

So anyway, I'm going to end this now. I hope it wasn't too boring. I'll try and put up real music next time.

-ben

Upcoming

2009-03-19T12:06:00.000-07:00

Okay, hi all two of you. I have been slow on stuff recently so I thought I would give an update or two about what's happening.

I've got a crazy amount of albums to be putting up. Particularly the last classic line up Black Thirteen album, and the two most recent records from that group, the ones that don't have me playing on them, (but are unsurprisingly good). Also I think Wesley Rose has something new he's supposed to give me.

And you know there's always like two billion other things to put up. "Aztek Knife" for instance is this awesome record that Jessica and Wesley and I did one day during a crazy rain storm. It was basically Cat People plus Wesley on bass, which is to say great. I remember that I was listening to a lot of Skullflower around the time we recorded it and I thought we should sound like them. Well we don't, but it's pretty rad anyways. So there's that too that will be up soon.

Other than that I had a little scare the other day when I heard rumor that Archive.org is only giving free users (like myself) two weeks on uploads rather than their previous, Forever. I have still yet to confirm this rumor. It doesn't seem to be true because all of the links I put up more than two weeks ago seem to still be working, but if anybody starts finding dead links please let me know.

All in all I think I'll be okay either way. They still have the Net-Label program on Archive and so worst comes to worst I think I just have to do that instead, which is probably more legitimate anyway, but also a boat-load more work for me and I don't really want that, but I'll do what I have to do.

Some of this does seem to beg the question of why does it even matter? This is a question I avoid like the plague, or maybe I avoid it more like the plaque, which is to say it comes up, I brush it off and don't think about it again until the next time it inevitably comes up. So I guess now is that time: Does it even matter? Does anyone care about this blog or the music I put up on it? I am pretty sure the answer is no and don't try and argue me out of this one, I know how little people care about this, I deal with it everyday. There are housewives in Arkansas who blog about cookie recipes that get more traffic than this site. But I guess I don't really care. It doesn't matter to me if anyone reads this. I'm just gonna keep doing it anyway.

But if I have to switch to net-label status some of you are going to have to help me.

Well I guess I just needed to rant today. Sorry, I've been sort of down recently. New music soon!

New blog for a very special project

2009-03-17T18:13:00.000-07:00

http://thickcutz420.tumblr.com/

Is the home of my new remix project. I made a different blog so that if I get in trouble with copyright stuff this blog doesn't get shut down. I will continue to put stuff up on this blog but I will be adding stuff to the new one as well.

Ben Collins (SFCD) - Not Sleeping/Plus a Darkened Room (2009)

2009-03-15T00:01:00.000-07:00

I was bored out here recently, up late and scanning my hard drives for old unfinished sessions and I found these two tracks which were originally recorded in my old house in Savannah, in like 2007 I think.

They were done on two separate nights where as far as I can remember, I couldn't sleep but didn't want to make an entire album and furthermore wanted to play something loud and electric. So I did these, which are comprised of my Fender Jaguar (Red Alone) plugged through a distortion pedal or two and straight into the m-box and with a ton of different reverbs added afterward.

So it was recorded two years ago and mixed the other day here in Los Angeles.

It's just a short little record, only about fourteen minutes.

Check it out.

DOWNLOAD

Ben Collins (SFCD) - HewaitsforHer (2009)

2009-02-20T12:47:00.001-08:00

Hello everybody,

I am here in sunny Los Angeles with my first post since moving out here, which is also the first record I've made since moving out here.

It's a single thirty-nine minute track of processed electric guitar. I would say it is ambient, drone, glacial, and probably good to sleep to. As a note to the listener though: the sound was processed to be heavy on the low frequencies, so if you attempt to listen to it on yr laptop speakers it will seem to be very quiet because laptop speakers can't handle the frequency range that nice speakers, or a car or even headphones can. So for the optimal listening experience I would suggest another form of playback.

It's also worth noting that this is the first record I've made that was in some ways inspired by David Foster Wallace's novel Infinite Jest, which I am reading now and would recommend to any reader who has a mind that needs to be blown.

More to come.

thank you.

Enjoy.

DOWNLOAD

update: thanks to Colin I figured out that this link was screwed up, so I fixed it, sort of. You have to option click, (or right click, save target... PCs) to save this one.

Ben Collins - Tapeworks/Guitarworks (vol. 1)

2009-01-26T15:28:00.000-08:00

So I'm in Fayetteville right now, packing my bags to leave for Los Angeles on Wednesday, two days away. And I was just importing some recordings that Simon and Wesley and I did the other night as a sort of farewell to the classic Black13 set up we do. I'll post that record soon, but listening to it got me thinking about the guitar and the guitar style my friends and I play and I started mentally wandering down old musical roads in my mind, some of the places I've been, and things I've recorded and what not. And I suddenly remembered an old album I made in 2003/2004 called "Tapeworks/Guitarworks."

So I was about nineteen years old (yes dark tower fans) when I made this album, although I'm sure there are pieces of it that were recorded when I was younger, the gist of it was made in my house in Savannah GA, during my sophomore year of college. What the record is, as the title might imply, is a collection of tape collage and guitar composition. This was really my first foray into either form and even now I find the results pretty satisfying.

The tapeworks are, it should be clarified, cassette tape works, which are comprised of various sounds and musics recorded by me over a few years and then dubbed together in different ways. A few interesting notes on the sounds: the drumming that opens the first track is played by myself and a then eighteen year old Jessica Calleiro and was intended to be used in Kevin Phillips' film Silo. Also in that track you can hear what is probably my first use of full-on noise, which I believe is achieved here by playing a data disc in a CD player. On the second track there is a lot of screwing around with amps and feedback stuff and then there is a big section of guitars (all played by me) being layered out of time so that they sound like two people, instead of the same recording played on two tape players simultaneously. Then there is a bit of dialogue from "L'Avventura" and at the end is an extended blues guitar part that I have never in my life remembered playing, even only a month or two after finishing this album. I can tell it is me, but I'm not sure I even know how to play like that now.

The Guitarworks are simple enough, I had not reached the point of being comfortable with myself as a solo improv player, nor really did i have any understanding of what the idea meant. So these tracks are sort of imrov, in a sense. "Guitar 1" is three tracks of guitar and the other tracks each has four. Each track is played improv on top of the others but probably with some thought before-hand. I did not have any effects pedals at time and I don't remember using any of the built-in effects on the digital recorder I was using, probably a little bit of reverb though.

All in all I am proud of this record. It's probably one of the best things I've done. It stays true to itself and seems pretty comfortable with its existence. It doesn't sound too dated, to me anyways, I would have been proud to record this album yesterday, not to mention when I was still a teenager and I had never heard Keiji Haino, or Ray Russell or Loren Connors or even Derek Bailey or most of the other people I now revere on the guitar.

Not to get too sentimental, but very soon I am moving forward, so I thought it might be nice to look back a little bit at a previous time in my life where I made something I was happy with. I only hope that I can still be as uninhibited now as I was as a the weird kid who thought this record was a cool way to spend afternoons and weekends while in college.

So again, all sounds by Ben Collins, except I think some drums at the beginning played by Jessica Calleiro and the movie clips which are obvious.

Download HERE

Wesley Rose - Agressor's Energy is Key

2009-01-12T23:54:00.000-08:00

And now the Rose's third album is upon us. The mere existence of this record came as a surprise to me, one day Wesley just told me he had another album and then he gave it to me. I'm not sure when these tracks were created, only that they were, like his other albums, using Audiomulch software.

I've listened to it three times already and I don't really know quite what to tell you. Obviously the fact that I listened to it that many times is a positive thing. I could tell you it is mellower than his other two records, but I don't want to make it sound like he lost his balls somewhere and started burning a lot of incense or something, but it definitely has a different tone, while still seeming to be a continuation. Fans of noise will have a lot to be happy with here, but there is still the presence of Wesley's acoustic guitar changing things up and a few turns that will probably surprise anyone listening.

I'll just tell you that Wesley is one my favorite people making music today. I say this because he is making things that are new to him with very little to guide him and when I listen to his music I feel that excitement and uncertainty and it is refreshing. When I listen to Merzbow or Prurient I am hearing the sounds of a seasoned vet, dudes who have been doing this stuff for a long time and know how to do it right. But with Wesley's music it's the sound of a dude just trying to figure out what he wants and whether or not anyone else will give a damn. And I think that is an attitude most of us could understand.

This is raw, fresh, exciting music, good for headphones or out loud. It's electronic, it's noise, it's improvised and yet tight and composed.

It's real and I think you should check it out.

All sounds by Wesley Rose.

Cover art by Ben Collins

Download HERE

Black Thirteen - In a Small Room (2006)

2008-11-15T23:41:00.000-08:00

This an old one, one of the first Black Thirteen records ever recorded. It features the original lineup of Simon Sharp and myself. It was recorded in the laundry room at my house and by now I don't think I need to tell you that it was all improvised.

I'm pretty proud of this record, I think it sounds pretty great even now. Hearing how good the chemistry between Simon and I was even back then makes me very happy.

It's good autumn music, give it a try, you might like it.

Simon Sharp: Lead vocals, guitar
Ben Collins: Guitar, backing vocals

recorded by: Ben Collins

1. The Barrens
2. Rite of Thunder
3. Yr Girlfriend Makes Me Nervous
4. Oneric

Download HERE

Various Artists - Songs With No Home (2004 & 2004)

2008-10-25T12:10:00.000-07:00

I'll probably write more about this later, and put up a cover or something. But in short this is an old bundle of songs made by many of the people who are regulars on this blog now. Including proto versions of Cat People and Black Thirteen.

Like I said more info later, but the basic breakdown is:

-Saint Francis is me, (although I think Mike Flemming plays drums on one song)

-Pretty in Pink was the first band that Travis and Simon had together.

-Faux La Tengo was a joke name for Travis Jessica and I playing together, (the song "Hip Hop No" features Mike Flemming on drums)

-TK 421 is of course Travis (and note these are his first solo recordings)

-Cat People is Jessica and I.

-and the track credited to Black Thirteen is Simon and I improvising.

Enjoy.

DOWNLOAD HERE

2008-10-25T11:57:00.001-07:00

I put up a bunch more links on this page, more cool places to find all sorts of music. So you know, check it out.

Out with the old out the new...

2008-10-04T12:20:00.000-07:00

I hesitate to post anything new when there are still some of you who have not downloaded Jessica's most recent album Black Seas. If you are one of the poor unfortunate souls who does not yet have this album then stop reading this instant and get it.

Now that that's all dealt with I'll move on to the completely worthless other things I have for you.

More of my albums! I know I know, no one cares, at all. I don't blame you, I don't even care! But I got all these albums here and I gotta do something with them!

And honestly though I really just have more albums of my own than I do albums from other people, so I have to pace myself with posting the good stuff so that I don't run out. But I am getting a little sick of the rate all this is going so here, in this post, I'm offering three albums at once.

They are:

After I Dream (2008)

Fragments of a Great Event Viewed from a Tiny Room (2005)

The Grey Shoes (in G major) (2003)

As you can see from the dates one of these is recent and the other two are old. In fact the Grey Shoes is actually the forth SFCD album I ever made, and I think Fragments etc. is the fifth. Both are more song-based affairs and pretty embarrassing to me in many ways, but oh well, who cares NO ONE will listen to them anyways.

So click on the titles to download. I will be really offended if someone leaves a comment, even more offended if someone actually downloaded an album, and probably reduced to tears in the fetal position if any one of you so-called "friends" actually listened to one of these albums. I would hate it so so much. In fact I hope that none of you have even read this far, that you all got bored and clicked over to boingboing where you are excitedly reading about some new creative commons steampunk Iphone crack app that makes yr apartment into a precocious geek paradise while satisfying you sexually and electing a democratic president orwellian super-economy free gas wi-fi..............................................

Uncle Owen Aunt Beru - Black Seas (2008)

2008-09-17T18:55:00.000-07:00

The last time I told you about Jessica's upcoming albums I mentioned the beat-driven BloodLionAngelHouse and the folk collage Daughter of Eve. Well both of those albums are being mixed and mastered at the moment, and soon they will be with us. As I'm sure I've said elsewhere, both of those records are incredible beautiful experiences.

So while she's waiting for her two brilliant albums to be released, what does Jessica do? Why record another brilliant and completely different album and here it is: Black Seas.

So if somehow you are ignorant of Jessica Calleiro's music as Uncle Owen Aunt Beru, then I strongly suggest that you remedy that pathetic state of being and download this, and all of her other albums (two of which are available at Birdsong, a link to which can be found in the links section of this page.) I make it no secret that I think she is one of the best writers of song out there today, totally amazing and not quite like anyone else who has ever made music. However if you need comparisons, I would say that Vashti Bunyan playing with Current 93, commonly comes to mind as a way of describing Jessica'a music.

About this album Jessica offered this:

“ I dream of a day when they may rise above the billows to drag down in their reeking talons the remnants of puny, war-exhausted mankind – of a day when the land shall sink, and the dark ocean floor shall ascend universal pandemonium.”
~H.P. Lovecraft from the story Dagon~

All songs recorded and played by Jessica Calleiro.

Download it HERE

Black Thirteen - Harp's Crossing vol. 1

2008-09-14T14:28:00.000-07:00

So this record was recorded almost a year ago, I think, at Travis' parent's church. Playing on the album are Travis Knowles, Simon Sharp, Wesley Rose, Josh Nelson and Myself. If I am not mistaken this is Josh's first (and possibly only) Black Thirteen appearance thus far. Not including his "appearance" on the cover of the earlier "Grounds of Pleasure" album.

I'm not really sure who did what at any given point, but if you have heard other B13 records that you will probably recognize Simon's vocals, Wesley's classical guitar playing and me playing I think either drums or electric guitar at different times. Travis and Josh each play the piano at different times and I'm sure there are tons of other ins and outs, but that doesn't really matter.

What does matter is that it is a pretty cohesive, mellow, mostly instrumental improv session that would probably be good music for reading or taking a nap or something. The acoustics in the room where pretty interesting and we used two minidisc recorders to mic different parts of the room and then I blended the two together recording together to interesting effect.

So you know, download it, it's pretty good.

1. Icarus Blues
2. Chapel Skull
3. Hymn of the Long Shadows
4. Through Empty Nighttime Streets

Download it HERE

SFCD - I Wish You Were Here 2007

2008-08-31T12:13:00.000-07:00

So okay I know that I lost whatever few readers I had for this blog. It's probably my fault. And if there were ANYONE left who cared about this blog I know that the last thing they would want to listen to is another solo acoustic album from me. But the other day Jessica told me that she was listening to this record and that it is one of her favorites. I honestly didn't even remember ever making it, but I went back and listened to it and I think it is pretty okay. So here it is.

Just me sitting outside my house playing Ed's acoustic guitar and singing a little. I think it is more focused than some of the other records I have done in this style, but whatever, NO ONE is going to download this. Yes that includes YOU the person reading at this very moment.

And really you probably shouldn't download it, poor Wesley's second album is so awesome and less than ten people have heard it, if yr going to get something off this site it ought to be that anyways.

Whatever though, right?

Download HERE

The Mooninites - The Thirty Minute Moon

2008-07-25T01:24:00.000-07:00

Ahh yes here is another lost record from my old band the mooninites. For anyone who didn't see my previous posts about this band all you need to know is that it consisted mainly of Zach Smola, Travis Knowles and myself with a slew of guests appearing on various recordings.

This particular record is one that I actually had never heard in its completed form until two days ago when Zach randomly gave it to me. What it is is a collection short clips edited out of longer recordings that Zach compiled into a thirty minute long album. He would probably describe it as the "good parts" of all the songs, and I don't know that I disagree with him. Some of the clips have appeared in other mooninites records, so in effect it becomes sort of like a greatest hits record or something.

I think it is the most accessible record we ever made and with twenty-four tracks and only thirty minutes in length I think it can keep anyone interested for its duration.

So no track titles. And other than the primary members I am unsure of who all is playing on this disc, but I am certain that both Simon Sharp and Stephanie Clayton are in there somewhere.

Enjoy.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Post script: upon further listening I now believe that Josh Nelson plays somewhere on this album, and that he recorded some of the tracks as well.

Wesley Rose - Trapper Redux

2008-07-11T01:05:00.000-07:00

I am happy to bring you Wesley's second album, TRAPPER REDUX. And I apologize for taking so long to do so. It's a great record and a step forward from his first effort. If you are like me, and you felt that that little fragment of acoustic guitar in the last six seconds of 'Southern Elegance' was a bit of a tease then you will be happy to hear that the guitar makes many more appearances on this album.

I give it the highest recommendation, for lovers of noise, or Wesley. For those who totally dug his first record, or those that didn't. For all people really.

DOWNLOAD HERE

A Jerusalem punk music space

2008-06-13T16:57:00.000-07:00

Jessica, Gil and I recorded almost three hours worth of music on our last night in town. Jessica is currently editing it into an album and I will post it up as soon as I can. I'll go ahead and say that it is guitar/bass/drum improv stuff, it is loud and messy and I loved every minute of it.

Also, I hope to be posting Wesley Rose's second album sometime in the next few days. I don't know what it is called or I would say, but I have heard one track from it already and it was awesome. So look forward to that.

Jerusalem part II

2008-06-09T06:55:00.001-07:00

So last night Jessica and I randomly got into a conversation with Adam from the Jerusalem band "The Pit that Became a Tower". We ended up going over to his house where he and his wife Betheny (who is also in the band) fed us and gave us wine. They are wonderfully kind people who have four beautiful children (with another on the way).

Everyone should visit their website and check out their music because they are genuinely cool people who are making truly independant music that is full of their love and kindness.

check them out HERE

Also: we have plans to play some music with Gil from Birdsong tomorrow night. I hope that this happens and I look forward to sharing the fruits of that session with you.

Jerusalem

2008-06-08T05:54:00.000-07:00

So I don't have any music for this post... but i thought it worth mentioning that Jessica and I are in Jerusalem at the moment and that we played a brief Cat People set the other night at the best venue in the whole city: a place called Uganda.

We also hung out with Gil, the founder of Birdsong and may possibly be playing some music with him before we leave. If we do, we will record it and I hope to have it for you at some point.

So although I have no music, here is a video I just found of OM playing at Uganda. I didn't even know about it at the time but I feel honored that Cat People have played in the same space as one of my favorite duos.

Also: everyone should go to the birdsong page (check the sidebar links column) and download Gil's album "Homunculus". It is under his band name Tiny Creatures and it is an awesome record of fantastic lo-fi pop stuff, just incredible music from one of the nicest guys I've ever met.

Albums you might have missed:

2008-05-15T11:28:00.000-07:00

Black Thirteen - Whiskey and Honey

Original Post

or

DOWNLOAD HERE

SFCD - Consideration

Original Post

or

DOWNLOAD HERE

Black Thirteen - The Six Hundred

Original Post

or

DOWNLOAD HERE

Wesley Rose - Southern Elegance

2008-05-04T20:10:00.000-07:00

I am very proud to be posting here, on this blog, the debut solo album from Wesley Rose. The album is called "Southern Elegance" and it is a hypnotic, noisy experience. Fans of noise will find this a welcome listen, with early digital-era Merzbow, later Whitehouse and Birchville Cat Motel coming as reference points. And for people who do not consider themselves fans of noise, I urge you to consider giving this a listen, it is music of joy and excitement, of discovery and freedom, or just basically music of a dude at his house freaking out on his computer for the first time.

It seems like only yesterday I was watching fourteen year old Wesley flailing away to an out of tune Misfits cover at the high school talent show and now with the help of audio mulch he is shredding my ears with this beauty.

And like I said, it's his debut album! I think that deserves a listen from all of us. And so, noise fan or not I highly suggest everyone sit back, dim the lights, pour a glass of yr favorite beverage and grab a mirror so you can watch in awe and ecstasy as Wesley's music tears the skin from yr face!

Enjoy.

Download album HERE

Ben Collins (SFCD) - What is a Lover? (2008)

2008-04-27T12:05:00.000-07:00

I've been posting too many of my own albums and not enough by other people. I know this and I will change that soon. But in the meantime here is another solo albums of some noise, and drone and some song-like parts as well. I did this over the past two weeks or so.

Download album HERE

The Cat (2003)

2008-04-16T11:30:00.001-07:00

This is a collage piece I did in the 2003 that compresses an entire afternoon into about an hour of time.

Not many people have ever really listened to this record, but it should be mentioned that Jon Lynn (of Unsolved Mysteries) is not only one of few people who have heard it in its entirety, but that he specifically likes this record among all of the other records of mine he has heard.

As far as how it sounds: Luc Ferrari is the main reference point, although I didn't actually hear his music until later. But "The Cat" has some conceptual similarities to his album "Cycle Des Souvenirs".

Download HERE

Post script: I have this fantasy of a sort of role-call with anyone who reads this. What that means is that maybe, just maybe, if you are reading these very words, that you will leave a comment and say hello and what yr name is. Something as simple as, "it's me Simon Sharp" or "hey it's Joe McNeill, I'm sitting in the same room as you." Just a thought, but it would be nice.

Ben Collins (SFCD) - Upon the Shaving of my Head (2008)

2008-04-06T18:12:00.000-07:00

This album is pretty much an all-out noise affair. The first four tracks are done with tape loops and vocals, and the last two tracks are guitar based. It's all just me, each track is performed live and unedited.

Enjoy.

Download the album HERE

Two SFCD albums

2008-03-30T15:24:00.001-07:00

Natural

Download it HERE

and

Late nights and quiet afternoons

In two parts, download part one HERE and part two HERE

I finished these records today and so they are being posted together.

Natural is an album that I have been working on for a few weeks. My approach for this record is incredibly simple: about half acoustic songs with singing (and some form of lyric) and half old-fashioned harsh noise, made primarily with voice and tape loops.

All of the music was recorded in garageband, over the course of four sessions, two for noise two for songs. Then I brought it all into pro tools and edited it over this past weekend.

I haven't made a record quite like this before and I am eager to hear what anyone thinks of it.

1. Maybe yr favorite
2. Too many words
3. Strengths
4. Calls
5. Young voices
6. n/a

Late nights and quiet afternoons was actually recorded a few months ago, over a couple different sessions. It is a drone album. Each track is made with just my guitar plugged through a distortion pedal and a loop pedal and recorded direct into the computer. It is a long record (just under 80 minutes) but I think it could be a rewarding listen.

1. Sunday
2. Citizen Cannon
3. Snow
4. Redwine

All sounds made by Ben Collins

MEGA - MEGA (2007)

2008-03-22T13:27:00.000-07:00

I had forgotten about this album until Jon reminded me of it the other day. And now that I remember it I have to post it for you.

This was one of several albums I recorded in February 2007, intended for submission to the RPM challenge, that for some reason I didn't take the few seconds it would cost me to send it to them. Oh well whatever.

MEGA is a duo of Jon Lynn and myself. Many of you will know Jon Lynn from his band Unsolved Mysteries (whose album is available on I-tunes and finer Marc Jacobs stores nation wide). This album was recorded in more or less real-time one Sunday afternoon. I probably don't need to tell you that it is all improvised, but you should know ahead of time that it not like much of the other improvised music I have on this blog. I would describe MEGA as a garage-rock, no-wave, punk band.

Jon plays guitar and sings on the majority of the albums twenty tracks. I play guitar and sing on the last seven tracks and whoever is not playing guitar is playing drums. The music is certainly different depending on who is leading, with Jon doing more of the garage-rock thing involving songs with more coherent lyrics. My stuff skews more no-wave, and features more wailing and screaming.

I don't know what to say about the experience as an album, because the tracks are just in the order in which they happened, but at thirty-eight minutes, it's not an incredibly long record and since most of the songs are two minutes long I think most people will be entertained.

Please listen, please enjoy, tell yr friends, and although I am going to try and keep a shred of dignity and not beg you all to post comments, (because no one other than awesome Ian and Lars will) I will tell you that I have so much un-posted material from the different bands that I usually just follow my whims with what to post and when. But if anybody has specific stuff they want to hear (say for instance: more records featuring Jessica, or more noise stuff, or more folkish stuff) they can tell me and I will try and carry out their wishes. Otherwise I will continue to do whatever I want and hope that it pleases the unmoving stony gaze of you, o "reader/listener," if you do exist after all.

Download the MEGA album HERE

Note: the cover photo was taken by Jessica Calleiro

Cat People- Long Distance

2008-03-10T22:36:00.000-07:00

I am sometimes slow to put things out, I'll admit it. Take for instance this Cat People record: it was recorded in the Summer of 2006. Why have I not previously made this available? I don't know. But here it is now.

This Cat People record is so old (how old is it?) It's so old that when we recorded it we hadn't yet decided to call ourselves Cat People, that decision came a few months later. But still this album features only myself and Jessica Calleiro and as the title implies we were at a long distance from each other when it was made. in fact I was in Rutland Vermont and she was in Fayetteville GA. All the songs began their lives as guitar tracks recorded by me and came to fruition after Jessica overdubbed vocals and percussion and keyboards and all sorts of interesting sounds.

Those familiar with Jessica's music as Uncle Owen Aunt Beru will recognize her style and that's a good thing. Those familiar with the noisy power-duo format that we usually do as Cat People might be surprised in these mostly not-noisy folkish songs, but hopefully all can enjoy.

The cover photo is from a short trip to New York I made during the time we were recording this album, as referenced in the track titled "English Breakfast Tea".

Download

Black Thirteen - BlackXIII

2008-03-10T20:10:00.000-07:00

This is a Black Thirteen album from sometime in autumn 2007. Again it features the classic lineup of Simon Sharp, Wesley Rose and myself. Simon sings and plays steel-string acoustic guitar (sometimes with a slide or an e-bow) Wesley plays the classical guitar and I play an electric bass.

The sound is similar to other Black Thirteen albums: long form, improvised folk music, but the instrumental parts seem more repetition based and less erratic than they sometimes are. In comparing it to other music I would meekly suggest that it bears some similarities to (my hero) Jim O'Rourke's album Bad Timing. I credit this sound mainly to Wesley's playing, (so don't think I am patting myself on the back too much).

This is peaceful music, not incredibly emotional, probably good for an afternoon or a late night listen.

Enjoy.

1. The End
2. The Record
3. The Night

Download

Post Script: I am going to go back and tag each previous post with the band name as well as the names of the people playing, so that it is easier for you to find other albums on this blog featuring musicians you have grown fond of, collect 'em all!

SFCD - Two Songs for Jessica

2008-02-20T02:28:00.000-08:00

The title is literal, and maybe a little too emotionally on-the-sleeve, but oh well. These "two songs" are slightly less improvised than most of my recordings are, but still pretty loose. They are more song-like than most anything I've done in a while, in that they have normal chords and lyrics. Both tracks were done live with a guitar and a distortion pedal, a loop pedal and an amp, and recorded into the built-in microphone on my macbook pro in garage band. The recordings are are understandably crappy, but I guess if garageband is the new four-track then the sound of spinning hard drives is the new squeaking tape wheels.

enjoy.

Download

Uncle Owen Aunt Beru - Fall & Summer 2003

2008-02-15T18:13:00.000-08:00

I somehow doubt that I really need to introduce anyone to Jessica Calleiro and her musical pseudonym Uncle Owen Aunt Beru (or UOAB), but just in case, here goes: Jessica Calleiro has been making music for awhile now, since 2000 or 2001, and as far as I remember she first used the Uncle Owen Aunt Beru moniker sometime in early 2002.

In 2006 she became incredibly productive, posting at least a song a week on her myspace page and eventually getting her first album released by Israeli netlabel Birdsong.

She has recorded more than one hundred songs in the past two years alone and has a new album due out on birdsong any day now.

This record is a collection of songs that was under-heard at the time and thought to be lost forever due to Jessica's computer crashing a few years ago. But when I was going through all the old music in my collection I found the two discs that comprise this album. As the title implies these recordings are from 2003, when Jessica was only eighteen years old. Fans of her music now will be surprised to hear that even five years ago, at this early stage all of the main elements of her sound are present. Including early use of electronic beats, which haven't reappeared in her music until 2007.

Also included in the folder are two songs from Candace Calleiro (Jessica's Sister) from the around the same time. Candace records music under the name Marie Byrd Land.

Download

Me, Jessica and Simon 2002

Jessica on Marta

Will Melton & The Year of Love - Summer of Love

2008-02-15T13:08:00.000-08:00

Okay, I am very pleased to tell you all about this album. If any of you have heard this before then I'm sure you have fond memories and if you haven't ever heard it then you have fond memories ready to be made.

Oh but before any of that:

POP, POP MUSIC, THIS IS POP MUSIC

NOT drone, noise, improv, folk, metal or any of it.

POP POP POP

I just wanted to draw the distinction, because it is very different than much of the other music that I have given to you on this site.

I am calling this an album, but actually it was originally given to me by Will Melton as a random collection of music he had made that he was happy with. I don't know that the track listing or thematic shifts were really in the forefront of his mind when he sequenced he whole thing, but over time, the more I listened to it in this order, the more I started to think that there was a sort of "Faust Tapes" or Guided By Voices "Bee Thousand" charm to all the short, possibly unrelated songs.

So what this collection consists of are various recordings made between apx. summer of 2002 and I think summer of 2004. All of the music is basically written by Will Melton, who plays all of the piano and midi elements, he also write sthe lyrics on many of the songs and frequently sings lead and backing vocals (listen to the track "Tomorrow Girl" to hear him doing everything). But often, as you will hear, there are guest musicians guest vocalists and guest lyricists. I'll go and a limb and say that the most notable of the guests are Luke Piotrowski and Stephanie Clayton.

Luke sings lead vocals and writes lyrics for roughly ten of the songs, his are the songs frequently about monsters and marvel comic characters, (listen to "fairy brothel" for his crowning achievement.)

Stephanie, some of you might know, is half of the thought-entity known as Telenovela. I think she plays or sings on five of the songs here and I'll tell you that I think all of her stuff is pre-Telenovela, (but still not the earliest Stephanie recordings that I am aware of.)

Other guests include: Joe McNeill playing acoustic guitar (AND SINGING!) on a few tracks, Simon Sharp singing on a few tracks, Travis Knowles playing bass and possibly drums a few places, myself playing drums on one track and guitar on another, Missy Piotrowski singing backing vocals and Rachel Nelson singing on one track.

This is fun music, it is sad music, it owes a big debt to They Might Be Giants and any piano-pop you can think of. It is a good introduction to the rich musical world of Will Melton and I urge everyone to give it a few listens.

download

A note from the editor: I think I was reaching a little with this album cover, if I find a way to improve it I will take this one down and post up a better one.

SFCD - inandoutofdoors

2008-02-08T20:10:00.000-08:00

And here is another of my SFCD albums. This one is fairly recent actually, it was recorded at my old house in Savannah in the summer of 2007 and was edited and mixed here in Fayetteville around Christmas 2007. I'm not exactly sure why I am only just now posting it, but whatever.

The album consists of two tracks, one recorded outside the house in the daytime (the scene on the cover is from this event) and one recorded inside my house at nighttime. All the sounds are made by guitar drums and vocals all played by me and layered on top of each other to give the illusion of synchrony.

The music is very free, the drums rarely keep any kind of consistent beat and often the guitar is frantic, noisy and atonal. The second track features some more melodic playing and singing with a healthy dose of free-noise spattered on top.

Two of my big heroes on the electric guitar are Ray Russell and Keiji Haino, so I'm sure that their influence can be heard throughout the record.

All sounds played and recorded by Ben Collins

download

Ben Collins & Zach Smola - Guitars and Loops

2008-02-08T18:16:00.000-08:00

I failed to mention in my previous posts that Zach Smola (of the mooninites) is also, and primarily, the front-dude of Telenovela who were voted fifth best unknown band of 2007 by NPR, (check it out).

At any rate this record is Zach and I both on effected electric guitar setups. Zach is playing a Fender Jazzmaster through a bunch of pedals and a roland sampler and I am playing a Fender Jaguar through a bunch of pedals including a line six looping pedal.

It drones and stretches out in long noisy passages slowly evolving and changing. Fans of Robert Fripp, Growing, Rafael Toral, etc. will find these sounds familiar.

1. Guitar Heaven
2. The Caveman and the Motorboat

recorded at my dad's house in Fayetteville, GA sometime in 2007 (maybe January?)

Download

TK&BC - Afternoon

2008-02-08T16:32:00.000-08:00

I had briefly forgotten about this one. I think this is from October 2007, it was recorded at TK's parents' house one afternoon before he went to work. I don't remember too much about what we did, except that I think TK played most of the electric stuff and I played most of the acoustic stuff.

To describe the music I would say that it is fairly dynamic, energetic, noisy, free improv. When TK does this stuff he has this whole rig with keyboards, broken microphones, and a mixer and stuff. So there are a lot of indeterminate electronic sounds, feedback and the like. Also in the room was an old out of tune upright piano, which I played for some of the time. I also seem to have played an acoustic guitar and some bongos.

It is instrumental and largely atonal with aspects of free-jazz and minimalism.

So again: Played by: Travis Knowles and Ben Collins

(cover photo by Travis Knowles)

Enjoy.

Download

Music for Coffee and Grapefruit Juice (Sine Wave Quartet Version)

2008-02-08T00:24:00.001-08:00

I could have sworn that I already uploaded this album, but I guess I didn't...

Anyways, this is a composition I did a few months ago (July, August, 2007?). It is performed here by four Sine Waves. It is a very linear piece with six distinct movements, which is where the track breaks have been placed. It marks my second solo electronic piece to be posted, and as opposed the other one (which I thought of as a primarily night-time record) this album, I think can be enjoyed on a calm morning (as well as at night).

Made by: Ben Collins

Download

The Mooninites - ACA Sessions (2004)

2008-02-07T00:24:00.000-08:00

In my previous post I made mention of unfinished mooninites records. After I thought about that I checked and saw that I had on hand some of that material and it was ready to be uploaded. So here are four tracks of long improv synth jams the mooninites recorded at the now defunct Atlanta College of Art.

I've also been thinking that one of my failings as a blogger thus far has been that I don't adequately describe the albums I post, so as to further entice one to listen to them. So here goes.

This record is a collection of four long, free-form jams. The longest is twenty-one minutes and the shortest is eight minutes. Fans of the Black Dice, Fripp & Eno, and the crazier seventies Sun Ra records will find many of these sounds welcome. The sounds are mostly derived from vintage analog synthesizers, although digital keyboards, electric bass and guitar are present as well.

The music is performed live, collectively improvised by only three people, (myself, Travis Knowles and Zach Smola) but often times there are more sounds being heard than three people could normally produce. This effect is derived by having all of the instruments plugged in at all times, which made it easy for all of the players to move around the room and play multiple instruments at once.

Although the tracks are all longer than standard pop music length they are all very linear and frequently go through several movements in the course of a single piece. Sounds and instruments, some recognizable and others pure noise, appear and disappear seemingly at random, giving the music a very dynamic quality.

This record is, in many ways, one of my favorite things I have ever played on. The biggest reason for this is that the setting allowed for total improvisation, without the sonic sacrifices one often has to make when recording improvised music.

I think this record can be a very rewarding experience if it is given a fair chance.

Credits:

Played and produced by the Mooninites

mixed by Ben Collins

Zach Smola, Travis Knowles and Ben Collins played all of it and it is hard to distinguish who did what except on "part 6" where Zach played keys, Travis played bass and Ben played guitar.

Download

The Mooninites - Gentlemen Behold! (2003)

2008-02-06T18:11:00.000-08:00

Continuing with this series of records from a few years ago I bring you the second Mooninites album.

I guess I should first explain that the mooninites were a band formed during the summer of 2003 by Zach Smola, Travis Knowles and myself. We recorded intermittently, (as each of us attended a different college in Georgia) completing three albums in a year, playing one show at the UGA radio station, and leaving at least three albums unfinished to this day (which makes me think I should cobble those together at some point). Due to the atmospheric nature of the music and its lack of vocals, many of the tracks were used by fellow art students I knew at SCAD to score various video projects they made.

The mooninites never officially broke up or anything, we just all got busy and stopped going out of our way to make time to play together.

In any case, I like this record. Travis and I were nineteen years old at this time and Zach was only eighteen. We did it all at my Dad's house in Fayetteville Georgia during Christmas break that year.

Credits:

Composed, Produced and Recorded by the Mooninites

Mixed by Ben Collins

-Zach Smola played most of the guitars but also other things.

-Travis Knowles played most of the bass parts and many of the keyboards and other things

-Ben Collins played all of the drums as well as some keys, tape manipulation and noise and other things

Featured on the last track are Joe McNeill on Trombone, Jessica Calleiro on Clarinet and Mike Flemming on strings

1. Luke Song Title Go!
2. Battle Royale pt. 1
3. Luxury Travis
4. Burning Cars
5. Teeth, Wisdom
6. Deaf Jam
7. Closer

Download

Oh yeah, there is a very old and barely updated mooninites myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/themooninites

Oh and again if anybody actually downloads any of these albums, please leave a comment or something just so that I know if I truly am writing this to no one (I am).

TK&BC - "Radio Edit"

2008-02-04T11:10:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's post got me nostalgic for other times where TK and I have jammed as a duo. So I decided to post this unheard gem. This half-hour long session was done in the same day that most of the LIGHTSNAKE material was recorded. This is basically us doing a kind of DJ set, I'm operating a minidisc player and a delay pedal and Travis is messing with filters and effects and stuff.

It's very loud and noisy and features a wide array of popular songs being mutilated live on the spot.

recorded in May 2006

Download

Dixieland Teenbeat Spiritual Waltz

2008-02-03T18:25:00.000-08:00

Shortly after purchasing my four-track cassette recorder in the summer 2004 I had a very strange weekend where I traveled to Savannah and then to St. Augustine Florida and purchased two upright organs. My good friend Travis 'TK' Knowles was vacationing in Florida and called me to tell me about a thrift store with several organs for sale, each with a price tag of $50. He wanted to purchase one but had no way of driving it back to Atlanta. He sheepishly asked if there was anyway I could come to St. Augustine and drive the organ home in the back of my Ford Ranger. Looking back I can only say that it must have been 'just that kind of day.' So I drove there, met TK and we went to the store. The proprietor recognized Travis and saw the opportunity for a sale, he saw me and decided it could be a double. "Two for $75," he said. "Sold," we said. We strapped the organs into the back of my truck as best we could and I took to road. Under constant threat of rain, I gritted my teeth through what turned out to be the worst drive of my life. After several failed attempts at covering the organs I decided the best course of action was to constantly rebuke the sky, in full shout, with no one to hear but me and God. Eventually I arrived safely at home and with both organs intact.

A few days later we recorded this album.

It is all improv, Travis is in the right channel and I am in the left.

enjoy.

download

SFCD - Sketchbook (Summer 2004)

2008-02-03T17:30:00.000-08:00

As often seems to happen to people who record music, today I came across a box of tapes that I had not seen in a while. It contained mainly tapes of weird stuff that was recorded three and four, sometimes even five, years ago.

As to be expected, some of this stuff is so embarrassing I dare not even speak of it, but some of it is surprising to me.

This tape was the first one I made when I purchased my tascam four-track back in 2004. It is an odd collection of random stuff I recorded. As far as I can remember I am playing all of it with the exception of the viola at end which was played by my friend (and former member of the now defunct band "I Would Set Myself on Fire for you") Lindsey Harbour.

I am pleased with the discovery of this tape and if you listen to it I hope that you will be as well.

download

Post Script: I will likely continue with a few more of these "Archival" posts. I have some other stuff from 2003 and 2004. Expect at least "Dixieland Teenbeat Spiritual Waltz" the dueling organ record Travis Knowles and I did, and probably the "last tape" from Homeless Joe Navarro, the dead free-folk, stoner improv band I was in during my freshman year in Savannah.

Black Thirteen - Plate Tekroniks

2008-01-26T13:10:00.000-08:00

hello friends,

Another Black thirteen album, a rather band-like one this time. With drums and bass and guitars and all that. It was recorded in Wesley's garage sometime in early 2007 or late 2006, and though I think everything on the record is good, it still stings a little to hear because that night we fell victim to quite a bit of equipment malfunction. For whatever reason the minidisc recorder kept shutting off in the middle of recording. So at some point we completed our session only to realize that about half of it did not take, and so we played for much longer than we intended to and in a sort of bad mood because everyone had liked what we had done.

But in the end I think we got it all back and finished probably just as good as we had before, only I'll never truly know that for sure.

All music improvised collectively by: Ben Collins (drums, guitars)
Joe McNeill (bass, guitars)
Wesley Rose (Guitars, drums)
Simon Sharp (Vocals, guitars)

1. Cut Off
2. Dark Lolita
3. Going On
4. Truth and Treason
5. Blood Red Dress

download

Black Thirteen - Guitar Duets

2008-01-26T12:35:00.000-08:00

The title is pretty self-explanatory, this album has two tracks and each is a duet of two guitar players.

Recorded over two nights at my Dad's house in Fayetteville GA last year in January.

1. Moonshine blind (played by Joe McNeill and Ben Collins)
2. Somewhere Shadows are moving (played by Simon Sharp and Ben Collins)

download

SFCD - Consideration

2008-01-24T19:19:00.000-08:00

Hello friends,

Two in one day!

Another solo guitar and voice record. Probably recorded in Savannah, although I couldn't be sure.

I don't remember much about what was going on when I recorded this and the titles of some of the songs are bewildering, especially the fifty-one second gem album closer "Trapped Moment by the River." What that means and where that song came from is a complete mystery to this day.

All songs by Ben collins.

1. Personal
2. Never had a chance
3. When the Wine runs out
4. I'm still okay
5. Trapped moment by the river
6. Slate

download

SFCD - arewerewill

2008-01-24T18:09:00.000-08:00

hello friends,

So With this new post I give you all an old album, two years old anyway. I haven't really heard it in quite a awhile, but Jessica told me the other day that it is one of her favorites of mine, so I thought it would be worth putting up.

This album is called "arewerewill" and it is the first album of solo guitar and voice improvisation I ever made. And so could be seen as the genesis of much of the other music on this blog.

Enjoy.

download

DETH(gate)(cat)PEOPLE

2007-09-19T13:01:00.000-07:00

For anyone who was aware of the existence of this recording: I know that it is long overdue for a post and for that I am sorry.

But here finally is the epic collaboration of Deth Gate and Cat People known as DETH PEOPLE! What we did was the two bands set up in two rooms in my house and with Jon Lynn conducting us, we improvised, sometimes able to hear the other band and sometimes not.

The microphone was placed in the kitchen at approximately equal distance between the two bands and although the sound bounces all over the place one can roughly discern Cat People on the left and Deth Gate on the right. I had planned for a more extensive mix of this recording, utilizing multiple mic set-ups throughout the house, but at this point some of that material has been lost. There may be another mix at some point, but for now I think this will suffice.

Cast and Crew:

Deth Gate = Stephen Zerbe on keys and stuff and Coley Brown on drums

Cat People = Jessica Calleiro on drums and Ben Collins on guitar

Recorded by: Ben Collins

Conducted by: Jon Lynn

get it here:

download

Black Thirteen - Fairweather&Tune

2007-09-02T02:20:00.000-07:00

Hello again,

Today I have an interesting Black Thirteen album, or albums called Fairweather&Tune. It actually is two albums but they were recorded two days in a row and on the same minidisc, so upon playback they felt like one album and so they are presented here separate but together. They are intended to be listened to as either a one album or two, it is completely up to you.

Both feature the same lineup of Wesley Rose, Simon Sharp and Ben Collins (me) which is quickly becoming the standard Black Thirteen lineup, and I'm totally fine with that.

We are in top form on these discs. If I remember correctly these were recorded in spring of 2007 and at that time we hadn't recorded in a month or two so we were pretty keen to get some stuff out of our collective system.

Fairweather features both Simon and Wesley on guitars the whole time with me playing a drum and a recorder for some of it until eventually forsaking them for an acoustic guitar as well.

And Tune features all of us on acoustic guitars.

We are happy with these and somewhere I have video footage of us playing Fairweather, so maybe that will be posted as well one day.

download

Black Thirteen - Awake and Asong

2007-08-29T23:25:00.000-07:00

Ahhh, the namesake of this blog.

This album was an early record featuring the "classic" Black Thirteen lineup of Wesley, Simon and I. I think this was actually the album recorded immediately following Whiskey and Honey but don't quote me on that.

This record features the same setup as Whiskey and Honey, which is Simon in the center on the electric and Wesley and I on the right and left, respectively, with acoustic guitars.

It is a long album and mostly instrumental, but for me it is one of the most listenable albums we have. The third track is specifically of note, at thirty-three minutes it has several distinct movements beginning with Simon's solo electric guitar noise and ending with some kind of traditional sounding jam ostensibly titled "Blood-red Dress" that became the first Black Thirteen song that we were able to replicate on a later album, (the as yet to be un-posted Plate Tekroniks).

So enjoy, and if you listen to it please comment so I know if I really am talking to nobody here.

Download

Black Thirteen - Grounds of PLEASURE

2007-08-29T17:41:00.000-07:00

As far as I know this is the only Black Thirteen album not featuring founding member Simon Sharp. If I remember correctly he had a test or a doctor's appointment or some thing else not very punk to do in the morning and so he couldn't play that night.

Wesley Rose and myself are on the album as is Joe McNeill, in (I think) his third Black Thirteen appearance. And joining the band for the first time is Ben Hurst. Ben is a very talented guitarist and songwriter who went to high school with us and afterward promptly moved to Arizona. He was back in town for the holidays and so we invited him to play.

With the involvement of both Joe and Ben the album has a bluesier flavor than the band has had on previous albums, to what is, I think, an interesting effect.

I'm honestly not sure who is playing what on every song. I know for certain that I played drums on the first two tracks, so based on what I hear and remember I will guess that:

Joe played acoustic on tracks 1 and 2, and electric on 3 and 4.

Wes played acoustic on tracks 1 and 2 and drums on 3 and 4

Ben Hurst played electric on 1 and 2 and acoustic on 3 and 4

Ben Collins played drums on 1 and 2 and acoustic on 3 and 4

It is a long album, but I think a rewarding experience.

Enjoy.

Download

SFCD - Something Else, Something Black

2007-08-29T17:07:00.000-07:00

This was an album for a friend that died. It obviously has sentimental value for me, but I think it is a decent record as well.

1. Up to Some Good
2. Cooped Up
3. More Than I Meant to Say
4. Too Soon Whenever
5. My Love of Grey
6. Ride
7. 23
8. Slate Nov. 27

All songs played by me: Ben Collins

Dedicated to my friend Picasso.

Download

Random cool news

2007-08-26T09:55:00.000-07:00

I am very excited about music and this blog. I received this is sudden surge of excitement yesterday after I had emailed Hiroyuki Usui of the band L and he actually responded to me!

For anybody who doesn't know Hiro was in Fushitsusha with Keiji Haino at some point and later made the album Holy Letters under the band name L. He has done a few things since, but most are difficult to find here in the states. Holy Letters was reissued recently thanks to enthusiasm from Ben Chasny of Six Organs and last year Chasny and Hiro made an album of through-the-mail collaborations under the name August Born, this album rules as well. Both of these albums have been very important to me and have certainly effected the aesthetic of this blog.

I had emailed him randomly and he responded and now he is mailing me some more records and I will be mailing him some things, some of which are things posted on this blog!

Black Thirteen - Firesteed

2007-08-25T23:10:00.000-07:00

Finally a new post! Well for anyone who is keeping track I believe this will be the fifth Black Thirteen album to be posted here and the second in what I am starting to consider the "classic" lineup, meaning it features Simon Sharp, Wesley Rose and myself.

The album is titled Firesteed, named after the brand of wine we were drinking while playing that night. I think it is a pretty good album, with a nice balance of different sorts of playing and singing throughout. But for me the best thing about this record is that simultaneous to our playing, on the other side of town, our friends Travis and Martina gave birth to their son Odin Benjamin Knowles. So this album is dedicated to him and hopefully one day he can listen to it and appreciate that his father had a bunch of lazy friends who sat around drinking and recording improv folk music instead of getting up at a decent hour and having real jobs.

So here's the tracklist:

1. Sing for You
2. Don't Go Down
3. Two Hand Blues
4. Call Me Back
5. Never
6. Always Dancing
7. Baby

Simon and Wesley played guitars, and I think sometimes Simon's was electric. I played Banjo. We all sing at different times.

download link

updating

2007-08-08T13:17:00.000-07:00

Hello,

It's been a while since I posted, and in that time most of the rapidshare links expired, so I am in the process of re-uploading all of the albums already listed and hopefully adding some new ones. Not that it really matters because nobody ever comes to this thing anyway...

DOLPHIN BEAM 5.5

2007-05-16T16:02:00.000-07:00

Ah Dolphin Beam...

Those were the days.

We were so young and full of energy, it feels like it all happened a year or two ago... and yet it DID!!!!

Okay Dolphin Beam was founded in one way or another by: Colin Alexander, James Chapman, Ben Collins (me), Jon Lynn and Kevin Phillips. We used to play a lot of shows and it was fun and crazy. It was all improvised, as you will certainly be able to hear.

We haven't played in a while but in total I think we did like ten or so albums, a couple of them lost forever. This record was toward the end of our time being productive as a live band and the start of time as more of an album band.

Playing on this record are:

Colin Alexander: playing mostly clarinet, I think some percussion and probably some keyboards

Jon Lynn: Singing lead, playing mostly organ, and maybe percussion and he might even play clarinet at some point.

Kevin Phillips: playing the more strummed guitar stuff and percussion

Ben Collins: playing the more lead-ish guitar, recorder, some percussion, backing vocals, and keyboard at some point.

Colin recorded and mixed it

Tracks:

1. Here comes the fog
2. Ride the sky
3. The Dolphin rides again
4. The Hero's journey

Maybe one day The Dolphin truly will ride again... until that day we will console ourselves with glorious abstract, improv folk-pop of this album.

Download it here

LIGHTSNAKE

2007-05-04T01:34:00.000-07:00

Two days in a row, a guess I'm on a roll.

Anyway, this album should have been posted up sooner. It was completed almost a year ago and has been waiting to be heard since then. LIGHTSNAKE is a record of noise music performed by Travis 'TK' Knowles and myself. I put those names in that order for a reason: this record is TK's baby and I am honored to have played on it, (by the way travis does have an actual 'baby' which can be viewed here).

The material that makes up this album was recorded in a few hours one afternoon at the now defunct Atlanta College of Art. I think I was on spring break, it was my senior year of college and I was downtown in Atlanta, I think, buying the last Liars album. Travis and I made plans to record some and I went by his school, (which at the time had a great sound lab full of analog syths). We jammed for a while on computers, synths, minidisc and delay pedal, and we got "the best falafel in town" at the a place in colony square. I don't remember which came first, the falafel or the jamming. It was all over very quickly and a few months later Travis gave me this record.

Some of it was recorded by him at a later date, and all of it was edited and mixed by him. So I don't think I am stroking my ego when I say I think it is amazing. It is dynamic and well structured, especially for a noise record. If you like noise I think you will dig it, and if you don't: I think you might be surprised.

Credits:

Travis 'TK' Knowles: Computer and electronics
Ben Collins: Minidisc, synth, and electronics

Recorded and mixed by Travis Knowles

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B. Davis Collins - Calm Sounds (for Molly)

2007-05-03T00:50:00.000-07:00

So this one is a big change of pace for me. This album is one of the first of electronic compositions that I have completed in quite a while. Although electronic music was the first type of music I ever made I don't often finish an electronic album that I am pleased enough with to play for people.

But the circumstances surrounding this record are very different from other albums I have made. It all started when my friend and frequent collaborator Colin Alexander mentioned that his girlfriend Molly Evans (also my friend) had requested that he make some music for her to meditate to. I heard this and for whatever reason wanted in. Molly is a good friend of mine and the idea of making something just for her was appealing, also appealing was the idea of making music I wouldn't have made under other circumstances. And so a month later there is this album.

It is comprised of only rain sounds that I recorded and processed. I made it all on my computer, usually at night.

All sounds by Ben Collins

1. The Rain
2. The Ghost of the Rain.

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Black Thirteen - Knock it off

2007-03-25T23:56:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Here is an interesting album for you. If I remember correctly this was Black Thirteen's first attempt at what might be considered a more traditional "band" setup: one with guitar, bass, drums, and keys. This is also, I believe, Travis "TK" Knowles' first Black Thirteen appearance. For those of you who don't already know Travis is an incredible musician whom I have had the pleasure of playing with in many different settings and bands, his music can be found here.

So all in all this album features Black Thirteen regulars Simon Sharp, Wesly Rose, myself (Ben Collins) and TK. With the expanded setup we chose to play in Wesley's garage, going on the idea that his parents "wouldn't give a shit". A half hour into the session we found out how much of a shit they did in fact give, (an exchange that can be heard at the end of the second track) and we decided to take a few instruments and go into the woods where we hopefully wouldn't bother anyone.

As a recording engineer I apologize for some of the sound of this record, it was a new setup that I had never tested and in some cases the levels were not what I expected them to be. As a player however I think this record is very rewarding. So often we talk about improv music putting us in spaces that we are unfamiliar with and so often this is not exactly true. And although I had played with all these dudes before this session, this exact group had never played together before and I really don't think any of us had any real idea of what it would sound like.

As a listener I will say that probably the most interesting aspect of this record is how the changing location effects the music being played, specifically in how when we are in the garage we are playing more instrumentally and when we move into the woods we resort to more vocal driven music.

So, if you will, join Black Thirteen on this improv journey, see if you are as surprised as we were when you hear where we arrive.

Credits:

Simon Sharp: guitar tracks 1, 2; Lead Vocals and stuff tracks 3, 4
Wesley Rose: bass track 1; guitar tracks 2, 3, 4; vocals 3, 4
Travis Knowles: keys track 1; bass track 2; keys and vocals tracks 3, 4
Ben Collins: drums all tracks, vocals and other stuff tracks 3, 4

recorded by: ben collins, all music freely improvised by the four players.

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SFCD - The Brood

2007-03-25T20:16:00.000-07:00

Hello again,

This is another of my Saint Francis and the Christmas Donkey albums. And again on this one it is me by myself playing acoustic guitar and singing a little bit. I don't really remember much of what was going on when I played this one, based on the slate info I guess I was back in Fayetteville for thanksgiving, but other than that I can't really tell you what was going through my mind at all. I do remember that I titled it "The Brood" because I thought it was maybe a little more moodier than some of the other records I had done around that time.

Once again all music freely improvised by myself, recorded at my father's house in fayetteville, GA.

1. Can't Find it
2. Someone Else's Guitar
3. Enough Anger
4. Slate nov. 20 (28)

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Black Thirteen - Winter's Sun

2007-03-22T00:10:00.000-07:00

There are basically three different types of Black Thirteen albums: 1. The trio of Simon Wesley and myself 2. Any members of the trio with other friends of ours who may or may not have ever played with us before and 3. Simon and I as a duo. Types 1. and 2. have gotten play on this blog already so I thought it would be nice to offer one of the duo records.

To be fair though, this record is somewhat of a departure from the norm as far as duo records go. Usually simon and I duo on accoustic and sometimes electric guitars, but on this night we thought it would interesting to change things up a little bit. So I played electric bass and simon played electric guitar. Also, rather than breaking it up into pieces we chose to play for one solid half hour, the resulting session is "Winter's Sun".

I am happy with this record for a few reasons. I don't usually get the oppertunity to play bass and enjoyed doing it quite a lot. But also, with me on bass Simon was left alone on the guitar which gave him more freedom than he usually has on the instrument. Simon is a very interesting guitar player and his playing definitely benefits from the freedom he is given here. Usually he takes a lead or solo role with Wesley and I as chordal backing but with this he really had to step out and find the music himself, where I mostly provided rhythmic structure and textural additions to what he was already doing.

The record is mostly instrumental but in the last minutes Simon's vocals emerge from the mix, as though they had been hibernating and were ready for spring time. It is a trick that maybe we pull too often, but honestly I never tire of it, bringing in vocals so late in the performace has a way of imbuing everything previous with a certain amount of importance that you didn't know was there when you listened to it at first, as though everything was building up to this.

All in all Winter's Sun maintains a fairly somber late night, reflective tone, something which Simon and I appreciate greatly on many Loren Connors albums. I hope you enjoy it as well.

As usual this was recorded by me, live and freely improvised by Simon and myself. We played in a room at my father's house in Fayetteville GA.

Winter's Sun

Simon Sharp: Electric guitar, lead vocals
Ben Collins: Electric Bass, backing vocals

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Cat People - Lost in Magnus

2007-03-21T20:06:00.000-07:00

This Cat People album is, in many ways, very different from the previous one I posted (The Collective Memory of the Future). For starters, I do play guitar on this record, but instead of a Ray Russell free jazz skronk I do a subdued Ebow thing that serves as ground water for my fellow cats to drone on top of. Speaking of fellow cats this is the first time anyone other than Jessica or myself has played on a Cat People record. And who is this mysterious player? Why none other than Unsolved Mysteries mastermind Jon Lynn.

As I recall this was recorded after Jon, Jessica and I had a day-long adventure into the wilderness of middle Georgia. As with many of these records this was recorded by me, at my home in Savannah, it was all collectively improvised by the three people present.

Credits:

Jessica Calleiro: Clarinet, loops, vocals, cymbals
Jon Lynn: Organ, electronics
Ben Collins: Guitar, vocals

1. Magnus Major
2. Magnus Minor

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Saint Francis and the Christmas Donkey (SFCD) - You Don't Need To...

2007-03-07T22:16:00.000-08:00

Hello again,

This is another of my albums which features only me. It is called "you don't need to," which is something I think I remember somebody saying to me.

This album is one of two dozen or so that I have recorded, late at night, by myself with a guitar, and completely improvised. So in all honesty I can't remember too much about what was going on when I did it, or else I would tell you. In fact, I can't even remember what city I was in when I recorded it, I think it was Atlanta, but the emotions and tone of the room seem more Savannah to me.

The nice thing, for me, about these improv records is that when I listen back to them it is the closest I get to becoming you. See there is no way I could ever remember all of the stuff I play. It's totally free, I'm not even trying to remember it. So After I record it, it may months later before I hear it again, when I put it into the computer. And by that point the music is about as distant from me as it can get. Sometimes I will say, "Wow, why on earth did I play that?" or "How on earth did I play that? I don't even know what's going on here." At the end of each of them I always "slate" them, I record myself saying what the date and time was during the recording, so that I at least have some idea of what's going on. Recently I have been adding what tuning I am playing in on the guitar, so that I can at least try and imagine what it was that I was playing.

Anyway, all that said, I think this record is pretty good. I can sort of remember not thinking so much of it when I recorded it, but when I heard it for the first time I thought it was at least interesting, which is the least I can ever really ask for.

So yeah, no track titles.

All played and recorded by me: Ben Collins

Download Here

Cat People - The Collective Memory of the Future

2007-03-05T08:02:00.000-08:00

Cat People is a Power Duo consisting of Jessica Calleiro and Ben Collins. This is the first Cat People Album, it was recorded live at Auntie-Em studios by Ben Collins

1. Dancing Music (Jess: Guitar, Ben:Drums)
2. Teeth Sinking (Jess:Drums, Ben:Guitar)
3. I love the Drums (Jess:Drums, Ben:Guitar)

The cat on the cover is named Doyle.

photo from cat people's recent show in savannah at the desoto row music space

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SFCD - How St. Francis Tamed the Very Fierce Wolf of Gubbio

2007-03-05T06:39:00.001-08:00

Hi,

Saint Francis and the Christmas Donkey (SFCD) is basically just me, sometimes other people play, but most of the time I get my musical ideas when nobody else is around. This album is no different than usual except that I am using loops and amps feeding back and drums and stuff so even though it was recorded live in one take it sounds more like a band is playing it.

This is the second album I've made in this mode that I have called "metal" any of my friends who have listened to it tell me that I am not in fact playing "metal". They are probably right, so I am wondering if the compromise "noise-metal" can be reached.

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Black Thirteen - The Six Hundred

2007-01-15T22:47:00.001-08:00

This is the second album I have posted and it is another good one, some might say the best one. It is called "The Six hundred" and in the inaugural Black Thirteen appearance from both Jessica Calleiro (Uncle Owen Aunt Beru) and Courtney Burton. Also appearing are Black Thirteen founding members myself (Ben Collins) and Simon Sharp. It was a long session and one full of energy and surprises. Please listen and enjoy and post Comments to tell us what you think.

Tracklist:

1. The Other Side
2. Someone to Follow and Someone to Lead
3. Courtney Plays Tambourine
4. True Heart
5. Jessica Plays Guitar

Credits:

Courtney: Percussion, Vocals
Jessica: Clarinet, Acoustic Guitar, Vocals
Ben: Acoustic Guitar, Vocals
Simon: Electric Guitar. Vocals

recorded by: Ben Collins in December 2006

link:

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Black Thirteen - Whiskey and Honey

2007-01-08T15:53:00.000-08:00

Black Thirteen is a band that was started by myself and Simon Sharp in November of 2006. The band plays exclusivly freely-improvised music and always records at night. This is (I think) our seventh album, and the first to feature someone other than me or Simon in a full playing capacity, that person being Wesley Rose.

credits:

Simon Sharp: Lead Vocals, Electric Guitar
Wesley Rose: Right Channel Accoustic guitar and vocals
Ben Collins: Left Channel Accoustic guitar and vocals

recorded by: Ben Collins

link:

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In the beginning...

2007-01-05T23:49:00.000-08:00

Hello to the nobody who is reading this!

This is a first post of what will hopefully be many more. My name is Ben Collins and I play a lot of music with several bands. My intention with this blog is to post up albums from some of these bands for people to download and enjoy. I registered here on a total whim tonight and know very little about what it takes to post albums on rapidshare ar whatever, so it might take some time or I might not do it at all. If you somehow stumbled upon this please stop by occasionally to see if I have posted any more.

Okay, good bye for now.