When we ran into Sir Nels Cline last June at the Sky Saxon Tribute Show, he informed us that not only was he battling a pesky toe fungus but that he and the boys from Das Vilco has just completed their installment of Beck Hansen's Record Club ("an informal meeting of various musicians to record an album in a day"). The record chosen this time was Oar, the spooky, whacked-out solo project from Moby Grape's troubled genius Alexander "Skip" Spence.
From Mr. Beck himself: "This one took place last June when Wilco was in town for the release of their new eponymous album. They came by after a long day filming a TV appearance and still managed to put down 8 songs with us. Jamie Liddell was in the studio with me working on his new record. Leslie Feist happened to be in town editing her documentary and heard we were all getting together. Recording took place at Sunset Sound Studios in the room where the Stones did a lot of Exile On Main Street (and looking at the records on the walls it appeared that the Doobie Brothers recorded most of their output there too). Sitting in on drums, we had James Gadson, who's played on most of the Bill Withers records and on songs like 'Express Yourself' and 'I Will Survive.' Jeff Tweedy's son Spencer played played additional drums. Also, Brian Lebarton, from the last two Record Club sessions is back. Running sequentially, the first song up is "Little Hands". Our friend Danny Kalb engineered."
Record Club: Skip Spence "Little Hands" from Beck Hansen on Vimeo.
UPDATE (11/18/09): Goodness gracious Mr. Beckie has been a bizzy beave lately. He's put up an insane 10-minute ode (if one can call it that) to the great Cali composer/
hobo/iconoclast Harry Partch on his website. According to Beck's site, the track is "a tribute to the composer and his desire to make the body and music unified into what he termed 'Corporeality.' The song employs Partch's 43 tone scale, which expands conventional tonality into a broader variation of frequencies and resonances."
Could this make Mr. Partch a topic of hipster conversations at Cafe Stella or Bordello? As Asia once opined: "Only time will tell...."
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