Boards
Bob Drake (semi Halloween-centric)
It seems the right time to plug one of my favourite musicians in the world so here I go plugging one of my favourite musicians in the world.
His name is Bob Drake and I finally tracked down all of his solo albums (including a lovely signed "unreleasable material" CD that he sends to people who order directly from him) earlier this year and think a lot of you would absolutely adore his stuff.
He used to be a recording engineer working on all sorts (including Ice Cube's AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted), has played with proggy bands like Thinking Plague, 5uu's and Hail and does great horror-folk/noise stuff for his solo material.
All six solo albums are absolutely brilliant but the last three are probably the best/most accessible.
The Skull Mailbox (and other Horrors) is made up of loads of short ghost/evil thing stories with some brilliantly odd music to back it up. It's probably the most critically acclaimed and the best starting point.
13 Songs and a Thing is better music (mostly instrumental) and is one of my top 10 favourite records. Warped jazz, folk, blues and noise plus a 12 minute "thing" that you'll probably only listen to once.
Last year's The Shunned Country is made up of 52(!) ridiculously short songs which all again tell some sort of horror story. The lyrics are often laugh-out-loud funny but somehow disturbing as well.
He's an artist/photographer as well as an engineer/writer/musician and has a really funny section on his website concerning a fake layout of his studio (ghost weighing apparatus etc). Sadly he's moving to a new server at present so the website is down. It's at http://www.bdrak.com anyway if you want to look at the cache. I recommend you do.
He has a MySpace with a lot of tracks (recorded onto single tracks because they're short) from most of the albums at:
http://www.myspace.com/bobdrakemusic
Allmusic (rightly) praises everything he puts out:
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:1ihqoa8abijn
Pitchfork also love him:
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/17133/Bob_Drake_The_Skull_Mailbox_and_Other_Horrors
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/17134/Bob_Drake_13_Songs_and_a_Thing
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/17135/Bob_Drake_The_Shunned_Country
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/17136/Bob_Drake_What_Day_Is_It
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/10303/Profile_Profile_Bob_Drake
If you care about such things.
He's got quite a big cult following (hopefully including some of you folks) but not one nearly big enough considering how ridiculously talented he is (plays and records just about every instrument himself).
Any fans of folk, noise, jazz, blues and even electro would be wise to check his material out as would anyone interested in horror writing.
It's my first proper plug/jag on this website and possibly my last as you seem to chat about everything else I like yourselves so I'd very very much appreciate it if you gave him a listen. I don't know the guy at all, I'm just a big fan.
Here's a picture of all the solo records I took when I finally got them:
http://www.bluejumpers.com/myspace/bobdrakealbums.jpg
and here's the myspace again: