Oax Pick - King Crimson's "Vrooom"

After the release of Three of a Perfect Pair there was a ten year intermission. To make the explanation a bit simple (= my version), Robert Fripp has said that Crimson never cease to exist, but it can take pauses. And the band is not even its members, the band is the music, so when there is King Crimson music that has to be played and recorded, well, up jump the band and who's in it... differs. After TOOPP the gap was for ten years before there was new music that had to be played and recorded, this time by what would become known as The Double Trio, Fripp & Belew on guitars, Gunn & Levin on basses, sticks, whatever you call their instruments with THICK strings and Mastelotto & Bruford drums and percussion of various kind. There was also some samples and electronics. The first sign that showed us fans that the new King Crimson was not only speculations was a 30 minutes EP in 1994, "Vrooom", which was to be followed by full-length "Thrak" following year plus various live sets later. "Vrooom" consists of 6 track (the title track was later split into two, Vrooom and Coda: Marine 475) Four of the six tracks showed up on "Thrak", but in slightly different, more pollished versions. Looking back at the double trio version of Crimson and all their releases, "Vrooom" has always been my favourite, despite its shortness (most Beatles' albums were about half an hour long). The songs are rougher and tougher than the later versions, not with demo sound quality, more like early versions played by a hungry band really enjoying playing together again in a time when no-one knows what will become of it. Will it be more? A full-length album? Tours? Now we know the answer is yes to all these questions, but during the recording of "Vrooom" it sounds like "We're having some great songs, ideas, structures, let's try them, let's just have fun". That's why I like it so much. It sounds like they are really having fun with the new material. O'

Lost Track # 4 - Fire - John Mayall's Bluesbreakers

Who? John Mayall's Bluesbreakers
Where? Bare Wires (Decca)
When? 1968
Why? There can't be said much enough about John Mayall's importance as an expander of the definition of blues. What he did in the late 60's and early 70's is nothing but avant garde, progressive, psychedelic and sometimes even touching free form elements as in this particular track, Fire. It's situated as the fourth part of the Bare Wires Suite on the album of the same title. It's non-rhythmic freely floating, Mayall's wailing voice over the instruments, creating moments that makes me wonder: Could possibly Mats Gustafsson's band Fire! have taken their name from this track? I don't think so, but they should have. It would have been fair. And great. Anyway, it's a marvellous tune, a hidden gem.

 O'

Unique Rarity - Joxfield ProjeX guested by legendary Thomas Mera Garz

Self-Unit - Version Zero feat. Thomas Mera Gartz

This is the orgininal work in progress version of "Kenji Self-Unit" which in another version finally ended up on Numbers & Letters album.
It features the rare one and only guest appearance by legendary Thomas Mera Garz on drums & percussion. For people who have spend the last 50 years or so in a cave: TMG is the legendary stable-as-a-rock-but-makes-the-music-fly-light-as-a-feather drummer & percussionist of some of the most important psychedelic trance rock bands in Sweden ever: Pärson Sound, International Harvest, Harvest, Träd Gräs & Stenar and countless numbers of others. Thomas nowadays also create excellent music and videos. Go for Meramorr on Youtube and you'll find some other treasures.

Heard on Self-Unit - Version Zero is:
Thomas Mera Garz - Drums, percussion
Kenji Siratori - Voice + author of words
Nikke Ström (Yes, another legend in Sweden, but you who have left the cave already knows that) - Bass
Yan - Spiritual Mind
Oax - Guitars
Music & Production by Oax & Yan 2007 - Powered by Tin Can Music

Self-Unit - Version Zero feat. Thomas Mera Gartz by joxfieldprojex

Enjoy!

O'

The Video Hit ! ! ! - Joxfield ProjeX - Have I Been Here Before?

Is this the number 1 video hit by Joxfield ProjeX?
Well, what is a hit?
At least it's the most viewed Joxfield ProjeX video so far of a nice tune from the "Numbers & Letters" album.
Made by AltRev - Thanks a lot!



O'

Oax Pick - Ian Paice

Gillan, yeahyeahyeah, BlackmoreGloverLord, yeahyeahyeah.
BUT, the driving thunderous power force of the band was Ian Paice's drumming. Glorious and send down from the gods. A hard rock heavy metal percussion genius.
Now it was said!!!

We were happy to see the band playing live 4th of February 1973 in Gothenburg during their haydays.

Setlist:

Highway Star
Smoke on the Water
Strange Kind of Woman
Child in Time
Mary Long
Lazy
Space Truckin'

Encore:
Speed King
Lucille
(Little Richard cover)

I use to talk about this concert with my kids, remembering Ian Gillan saying "We're gonna play s song from our new album Machine Head, it's called Smoke on the Water". Those were the days.

O'

colonel XS - A Huge Waste of Time

words & soundscapes by colonel XS (from a collaboration with JoXfield ProjeX)

photo and lettering by [kaiser(schnitt)amboss/laszlo]



Yes,
you better get used.
In the pipeline in a future hopefully close to you there will be an album of some distinct collaborations between Joxfield ProjeX and multi-talanted artist colonel XS.
Be Ware! Be Aware! Keep your eyes and ears opened.

O'

Happy Eastern ! ! !

No matter if you're religious or non-religious - Happy Eastern To You ! ! !

Keep the improvised psychedelic free form space jazz & kraut music opened to your heart and mind ! ! !

Oax 'n' Yan

Joxfield ProjeX - Discography Part 2 - Nothing But Sofas

Joxfield ProjeX - Nothing But Sofas (CDR Tin Can Music 2005)

Encouraged by finding out that we had some music within after finnished our first recording sessions for 30 years in May 2005 we immediately decided to continue (see the Discography Part 1 post).
If "Dark White Morning" was the result of a week of instant composing we now wanted to try to make some structured songs and started to compose wildly. In 4 or 5 months we had about 50 songs, some almost completely finnish in composition, some just a small idea. A lot of them with lyrics.
"Let's make pop songs" we said.
In november 2005 we went to Kolpebo, a very small village in the middle of nowhere in the middle of Sweden. We borrowed the cottage from a couple of Yan's wife's friends.
A perfect place for noise and reflection, beer, whisky and nasty fastfood. No neighbours to disturb, no neighbours who did disturb. Full volume 24 hours a day.
All days filled with structures while trying to add some flesh to these skin and bones of songs and/or ideas. Every night before going to bed we ended with a ten minutes 100% improvisation which we also recorded (see Discography Part 3).

The result of the week was 13 tracks which became a new album, "Nothing But Sofas". 10 of them with vocals, 3 instrumentals. The lyrics was stories, existential reflections, some nods to Sartre etc etc. Maybe a bit pretentious, but it did work. We were very satisfied with the pop album structured project...

But....

Not too long after we'd finnished it and released it in November 2005 in our own way (20 home-made CDR copies given away to friends) we realised one specific thing:
We didn't like it too much! (We listened much more to the companion "live" album of the 10-minutes night jam tracks)
Why didn't we like it? Don't know, but one reason amongst others was maybe that it was too early in our re-established career to try to perform a project of this kind. We were still too amateurish; the production, the playing, the singing isn't as good as it should on a record of this kind. But, the songs are good, the compositions are good. We should have waited at least 5 years before we made it. I think.

Obviously there were people who like it. Jerry Krantz of great Aural Innovations:

"Joxfield ProjeX were on a creative roll and in the same year released Nothing But Sofas, which they describe as their "pop" songs album. "Pop", of course, is a relative term when it comes to a band like Joxfield ProjeX. There are indeed songs, with composed melodies and vocals. But they are far from being pop music. I like the dreamy, drifting, pleasantly melodic quality of songs like "Prince Gong Climbes The Great Wall At Mutianyu" and "As Close As You Are". "Threadmill" is similar, but with heavenly, almost symphonic keyboards. Like some spaced out Nick Drake song. "Hell Is Other People" features chunky, pounding rock, with a dark, demonic prog rock edge. "La Thiene Plateau" is like some long lost Peter Hammill song. There's the dancey space-prog-pop of "This is Paradise" and the noisy "Industry Forever", which brought to mind a robotic dancey Chrome song. And on the flip side we also have the intense, driving progressive rock of the all instrumental "Bass Bass" and "Red Lantern", as well as the grandiose space rock of "Sirens of Titan", which reminded me of Quarkspace but with more of a symphonic edge."

Here a taster, the opening track of the album. Prince Gong was an interesting caracter 150 years ago, maybe the first link between ancient China and China of today (check the back history here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Gong_(Qing_dynasty)). In a fictional scenario we let him sit on the Great Wall at Mutianyu and reflect.
Never mind the false singing and the amateaurish playing, I think the melody and the lyrics is great and if anyone asked me today I would say it should have been a wonderful song for Robert Wyatt to sing in his outstanding wonderful way. Let's make it to the imposible dream project of the future!

And, yes, if you find some connections between the first line of the lyrics and the name of this blog.... well, you're not all wrong.

Prince Gong Climbes The Great Wall At Mutianyu by joxfieldprojex


PRINCE GONG CLIMBS THE GREAT WALL AT MUTIANYU
1
Memories of my illusion,
being Gong, the Loyal Prince
Used for Western Trade as a tool
is this the essence of life.
Sitting on the top of The Wall,
Mother Dowager Kangli,
Emperor Daoguang,
Why am I accused?
2
We´re all dead, but I can see you,
from the Wall at Mutianyu.
Fighting blameful for Old China,
a big shame defending West.
O, Mother, o, Father, you fools,
what is good with locking in?
A foe of our land?
Selling out our souls?
3
But now, with all influences,
prostitution for a dime.
Somewhere someone´s eating my Soul,
will Kon-Fu-Tze or Mao rule?
Consulting the Master of Mind,
force the people to unite.
lightning up my mind,
cannot see the guilt
4
What’s the future of our country,
what will China end up as?
Politics? Warfare? or Protests?
Business mindset? Industry?
Farmers? Religion? And Killers?
Beauty? Nature? Mostly Love?
Will this be the proof,
China red or pink?
5
Our life’s full of contradictions,
as I sit here, being dead.
Climbed The Great Wall at Mutianyu.
Here I watch my life again.
What is good is bad, that is life,
they´ll always try to teach us.
But we will know more,
only Love remain.
6
Yelling at you, the Bad Leaders,
telling lies behind your back.
They will use you as a scapegoat.
You know someone has to be.
At Mutianyu I saw future,
maybe false, maybe true,
Knew that I was right,
as the time will tell


There is no intension to make a physically re-issue of this album, but the curious ones can drop a line to oax.joxfield@gmail.com and receive a download zip-file of the album, including full lyrics insert. Put 'NBS' as a subject.

O'