THE RESIDENTS release a brand new album, TWEEDLES, on 30th October 2006 Tweedles is the follow up to 2005’s Animal Lover of which the Metro newspaper said “The Residents have been disregarding genres and musical conventions for 30 years and this album, astonishing in its range of styles and references, shows no sign of them slowing down or drying up”.

Tweedles will be available as a limited edition hardback book package with sleevenotes and illustrations.

As we discovered in The Godfather, there are offers one cannot refuse. In the fall of 2005 The Residents got such an offer: a young gentleman in Romania had built himself a state of the art recording studio and had the wild dream of asking his favourite band, The Residents to try it out.  As it happened, The Residents' own studio was undergoing a process known as seismic upgrade (strengthening the building to withstand a major earthquake) and could not use the facility for a year. 

Fate had again stepped in and The Residents saw no reason not to have a look at the studio. The group boarded a jet for Bucharest in early 2006 with the idea of recording a couple of tracks while taking a nice vacation in a country they had never visited.  Since no ideas had been formed in advance as to what would be recorded, they felt it was appropriate to record everything during the trip, including the jet's take off.  Once on the plane and bored, ideas started coming and soon The Residents were roughing out an idea for a whole album. 

The group’s ultimate destination was not Bucharest, but a town 400 kilometers way, Hunedoara.  Hunedoara was in the area of Romania known as Transylvania, historically the home of Count Vlad III, fictionalized by Bram Stoker as the vampire Dracula.  By the time they landed in Bucharest, they had outlined an album about a "vampire" of sorts.  Not a Bela Lugosi vampire, but one that feasted on broken hearts; a man who devoured the romantic emotions of others as a source of power.  A man who took the stance that anyone who would stoop so low as to love him was not worth loving in return.

As it turned out, the group fell in love with Hunedoara and as they produced their story of sexual compulsion, their impromptu recordings of street musicians, church bells and a small traveling circus with its strong Felliniesque presence, soon made it into their electronic pieces.  The Residents product manager at Mute happened to be Romanian and he had connections with classical musicians in Bucharest.  As a result, The Film Orchestra of Bucharest interpreted some of the group's electronic compositions and these recordings were also integrated into the new work. 

Focussing less on harmonics and melody than their previous release, Animal Lover, the new compositions could be described as a patchwork of new and often exotic textures. For the group, this patchwork was the reflection of an often chaotic, but uniquely immersive experience.

Very very new from The Residents, THE TWEEDLES. Out on 30th October 2006.
 

THE RESIDENTS – WHAT WE THINK WE KNOW

• The Residents are credited with “inventing” the form of the music video. Five of their earliest videos are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

• After recording an entire album of songs that were one minute long in 1980, The Commercial Album, the group purchased one minute advertising spots on San Francisco’s most popular Top 40 radio station and had the entire album, all 40 songs, played by the station over a period of three days. Billboard Magazine wrote an editorial about it questioning whether it was advertising, payola or art.

• In 1991 The Residents released their album, Freak Show. In a show of media strength it came out as an LP, CD, soft and hard bound graphic novels, video, award winning CD-ROM, and a live production that ran for 21 performances at the Archa Theater in Prague, Czech Republic.

• The Residents, in 1993, wrote a ten hour score for The Discovery Channel nature show, Hunters.

• They have also scored 5 shows of Pee Wee’s Playhouse and assorted things for MTV.

• Two years in a row, they won awards from Entertainment Weekly magazine for top computer entertainment software. 1995: Freak Show CD-ROM, 1996: Bad Day on the Midway CD-ROM.

• In 2002 The Residents released their first DVD, Icky Flix. It was NOT concert footage.

• Penn Jillette (Penn & Teller) was part of the touring Mole Show in 1982-3.

For further information you can explore - www.mute.com / www.myspace.com/theresidents
 

John on the phone......

SECOND JOHN PEEL DAY PLANNED - BBC Radio 1 has announced it will hold a second John Peel Day on 12 Oct to mark the anniversary of the late great DJ's final show on the music station. As last year, bands, artists and DJs all over the world will be encouraged to stage gigs and club nights that honour Peel and, where possible, his passion for new and alternative music. Confirming her support for the second John Peel Day, Peel's widow Sheila Ravenscroft told reporters: "I hope many bands and venues will want to celebrate John's anniversary. Everyone should have a fantastic night." Last year more than 500 events took place as part of the celebrations. Radio 1, for their part, will repeat a number of classic 'Peel Sessions', as well as reporting on John Peel Day events. Let’s hope it’s a little more in the real spirit of the great man this year. Last year’s event really wasn’t – we actually got asked to leave the South Bank where the official Radio One event was happening because we were (shock horror) giving out Organs and flyers, someone else was asked to leave for handing out their demos – all over town venues seemed to just tag a John Peel day banner to whatever gig they happened to have on that night – metal bands, pub rock bands, whilst band he championed or clearly would have done just couldn’t get involved. The only place we found anything near the spirit of Mr Peel was down at Metros in Oxford Street where Spizz Energy had gone out their way to make sure they were playing and paying tribute that night.

ORGAN ON YOUR RADIO @ RESONANCE 104.4FM - NOW IT'S WEEKLY! - every Sunday night, 10.30pm, one hour of us on the radio. X

What's it all about? Simple, just good music, and the art of good video making...  Same musical policy as we've always had with Organ - the labels are just handy signposts, as long as the music and video making has that X factor - expect a healthy eye/earboiling mix of metal, punk, prog, beats, post rock, post punk, post man pat, hardcore, indie, alternative, pronk, whatever..... music and creativity for the open minded 

(and if you think your video should be on then shout in our direction) 

Music TV done ORGAN style 

Coming up in the next few weeks things such as Mastodon, Weapons, Liars, Colt, MC Lars, Trencher, High On Fire, Tiger Force, 65Daysofstatic, Spit Like This, Gene Serene, Hafdis Huld, Against Me, Soviettes, Amon Tobin, Deerhoof and who knows who or what.... 

DEMO OF THE WEEK

FTSE100 - You see, you just never know when or why or who is going to bite you next. Millions of demos are thrown on and off the music player in various shades of excitment or rage, electronic pages are surfed, dogs are barked at and then it happens, that rare stop everything moment - whooosh, stop, what kind of alligator is this snapping at our ankles with its bendy pointness? Ah yes bendy, we like that word and so should you, it’s always a good sign when that word jumps into a review, plug your attention head in, you need to take note of this one – stop whatever you’re doing and go hunt it down right now. FTSE100 seem to be from Cardiff, FTSE100 are not big on information, we do not need information, we need earfood, we need new musical fuel to snap at us and make is do this thing we do and and and FTSE100 are making us very happy indeed.... bendy bendy bendy and spiked and pointy and dog like sparky. Six intricate clever hard-boiled instrumental tracks; tracks that run up and down the stairs in awkwardly good and magnificently clever clever ways. FTSE100 are cleverly bendy in a relentless urgent Battles/Hella kind of way. Come on, a band good enough to compare with the mighty Battles and the brilliant Hella! Those aren’t ordinary bands we’re name-dropping there, those are big big compliments we’re throwing around and while we’re here we should mention Upsilon Acrux as well. Can it be true? Oh yes, Godspeed and get it you black emperor you and Don Cabaliero and early Cardiacs too. We are not talking clones or copies though, we are not talking bandwagon jumpers, FTSE100 are the real I can’t believe it’s not butter full on deal. Clever time swinging and proper angular and pronk as a pronk thing and jagged and a rich full meaty plum pudding of a sound (where others tend to be a little thin), fluid and oh look, stop reading this and go find out for yourselves (then come back and say thank you), this is excellent and you need a slice or two in your life, there's just something extra, an unpretentious edge, a slice of soul, this is special - www.myspace.com/ftse100

ALSO CHECK OUT
SMILEX – Some rather dirty seedy scuzzy rock ‘n roll, like a mean nasty indie Motley Crue with carpet burn knee scars , a rash of urgent riffs, gruff vocals and who know what this disc is all about, they’ve had a number of singles and things out already, go look on their website if you need to know – www.smilex.co.uk

EMPYREAL DESTROYER – Old school technical thrashing battle/death/black/blue/green/whatever the hell metal, tales of cyclonic beasts and inverted circles and why use one note then a thousand can be shoehorned in. These people do not deal in subtlety, they do deal in galloping histrionics and growling vocals, epic constructions piled up on towers of screaming guitars and thrashing drums and about as metal as metal can be. They’re good, they come from London, and if busy extreme metal be your thing then impress thee will be – hail, raise the horns and eat your carrots. Impressive stuff. – www.empyrealdestroyer.co.uk

Last week's demo of the week - STEAL GANDHI / ALL DARK MORNINGS

Previous demo's of the week -SHADY BARD / SHILOE / THE RAMPTON RELEASE DATE / BATTLEWITCH / THE FLESH HAPPENING / VESSELS / BLACK JACKSON / INNER RAGE / ALLERGO / BROOKE / CARTRIDGE / PERHAPS CONTRAPTION / THE PROCESS VOID

SQUAREPUSHER - Hello Everything (Warp) - Shockingly accessible tenth album from the legendary Squarepusher!  Not that shocking - between previous excursions into the harsh, drum n bass-driven broken-glass landscapes often associated with Squarepusher, his albums often diverted into warm, easy and sophisticated grooves.  On 'Hello Everything' there's simply more of them: packed with tunes, redolent with deeply pleasurable fat analogue synth sounds, verging on seventies' TV themes one moment and stuttering with polyrhythmic edginess the next.  The latter comes in classic form later in the album with Rotate Electrolyte and The Modern Bass Guitar, and combines with dark, superbly virtuoso lead-mooging in Planetarium (accidentally surfing the same zeitgeist as Plaid, by the sound of it...).  Everything - including classical and bass guitar, funky and Latin licks used with aplomb, subtle originality and complete lack of cheese - is the work of one Tom Jenkinson, aka Squarepusher.  Each track, including the more ambient interludes, has the Squarepusher stamp of quality, a depth of ideas, orchestration and delivery that keeps it on repeat and add another legion to his army of devotees across the world.  www.warprecords.com

ALBUM OF THE WEEK

HATEBREED – Supremacy (Roadrunner) – They kick in with some nice gentle wussy mellow AOR and a Bon Jovi flavoured radio friendly pop rock lollypop sucking thing about picking flowers and love and  spewing hatred at reality, are you just a speck of putrid sick? Ok, I lied about the mellow Bon Jovi pop rock bit, and the love and flowers -  it’s the same old puss splaying boiled up hate-metal and relentless survival of the strongest brutal hardcore confrontation. It’s another uncompromising barrage of blistering riffs and blows and now they’re stronger than ever. What the hell are we supposed to say about Hatebreed in 2006? They’re sounding as brutal and nasty and uncompromising as ever, they’re back on form and brutally spiting in the face of defeat once more, and just how we want them, venting rage, lashing the venom. Hatebreed on top form doing it just the way you want them to. Recommended - www.hatebreed.com

ALSO CHECK OUT 

ARDENCY – Dear Human – The Nottingham band’s rather good self-released debut album is here (we really liked the demo that landed a couple of years ago so...) Dear Human does sound a little more ‘conventional’ than that fine demo did, it is however a rather healthy step on up in to the serious underworld of classic melodic prog(ish) rock. Ardency deal in that fine brand of wholesome progness that for a few years back there, in the middle of the 80’s, ruled the roost (and the Wardour Street Marquee), those early Marillion albums, IQ, the better moments of the rather erratic Pendragon, Pallas, Tamarisk - it’s an acquired taste, but hey if you like(d) those bands then this is certainly for you.  Those gliding melodic Pink Floyd lines, those silky Camel hints, those (pre Duke) Genesis slices that cause people to gather in dark corners - clandestine organisations, spreading the word of the last great musical taboo that is prog rock. It’s an English thing (those bands like Spocks Beard just don’t have ‘it’), it’s an English thing learnt at garden gates, from chip shop walls, learnt in visceral surgeries - abandoning potential, creating a scar. What Ardency do so well it take all that was good about those bands – especially Marillion - and add little hints of current melodic post rock along with bits of Spiritualised, Mogwai and such. It’s easy on the ear, the vocals are good (Fish-like, Gabriel-ish). Fine fine fine. www.ardency.co.uk

GOD IS AN ASTRONAUT – All Is Violent, All Is Bright (Rocket Girl) – Pleasant instrumental uplifting post-rock breezy niceness with all the fragile peeks and Sigor Ros bits and birds fly fast and where’s that hand-glider documentary and all very nice.... www.godisanastronaut.com

TOURETTES SYNDROME – Sicksense (Armageddon)  - Australian dark edge industrial nu-metal (dark) colour for disciples of Marilyn, Static X and the like. They do it with an edge of their own, they do it with a lot of class and a certain amount of style and besides the doggy band name, they’re not bad at their chosen thing. www.tourettes.com.au
 
 

Last week's album of the week - YOU SAY PARTY! WE SAY DIE! Previous album's of the week -OPTIMIST CLUB  / THE MINOR LEAGUES / WHORES WHORES WHORES / THE LOW LOWS / WEAPONS / THE SOUND MOVEMENT / PINK MOUNTAIN / YOU AND THE ATOM BOMB / VIKING MOSES / MOTORHEAD / THE WEEGS / JOHNNY CASH / TRIGGERMAN / FRESHKILLS / THE DEATH SET / ABOUT / DODDODO /

Uninvited guests in the shape of the riot squad crashed a free party in Chesterford, Essex over the bank holiday weekend. All was going well for the 1,000 or so twinkle-eyed party-goers until the Saturday, when hundreds of cops from five different forces surrounded a sound system and waded into the crowd with truncheons swinging. Some indignant punters defended themselves with sticks and, showing their commitment to preventing climate change, burnt out a cop car. Police claim the revellers acted "disgracefully", going so far as to "attack police dogs". Any one who's been faced with a police dog will doubt the likelihood of anyone being daft enough to attack one, no matter how many drugs they've taken (not that the pills are any good any more!)

Contrary to reports in the tabloid rags it was heavy handed police that kicked off all the violence and eyewitnesses report seeing police beating and injuring dangerous threats such as young girls and people chilling on the floor. Out came the CS gas and many revellers' Saturday night out ended with bruises after a battering, and a few severe bites from police dogs which had been let off their leads into the chaos. A number of police and ravers were hospitalised and 34 arrests were made, but this was just the most brutal in a series of busts over the weekend. In Gloucester, cops used batons and CS gas to attack and shut down another small party in a business park. Farmland in Cornwall was sealed off as cops heard wild rumours that a vicious and deadly party was to be held there.

All this repression harks back to the (not so rose-tinted) cat-and-mouse days of the early 90s, when tens of thousands of ravers engaged in a weekly battle of wits with the authorities. The Criminal Justice Act was meant to be the final nail in the coffin of the rave culture but as last weekend's events prove, outdoor partying ain't going nowhere - despite the pub and clubs getting ever later licences. Free parties with loud music and ever-willing dancers are going on up and down the country every weekend. The mainstream media imagines, because the Old Bill have stepped up the baton practice and got more busts in lately (overtime drive anyone?), that this indicates some kind of 'resurgence of rave' - 'rave' meaning that tabloid catch-all middle England-threatening brainwashing-cult-stealing-our-kids
invention all of its own.

In fact, shortly after the smiley-faced* Acid House craze, (way back in the last century) 'rave' mutated and eventually splintered in to many sub-genres, all with their own dress codes, drug choices and attitudes. The truly large scale parties of the early 90s might not have been repeated. However, large numbers of people who like a bit of uncomplicated partying to their preferred choice of repetitive beats have helped build up a regular rota of successful events all over the country, all year round. What has changed is the numbers of people these 'raves' now attract - smaller groups of mates with their own sound systems, sometimes teaming up with others here and there to provide their own entertainment outside of the corporate sector. As usual, it's just taken a while for the media big boys to catch on.

Cue a headrush of editorials and feature pieces, as tired hacks (like us) attempt to reclaim their youth and analyse the current 'scene'. The London Evening Standard even points the finger at your dear old SchNEWS, as one of the 'radical orchestrators' of the new rave movement - just 'cos we had a listing for the Chesterford bash on our website (Cheers for the pukka plug, though).

Recent events would seem to suggest that the police may now be turning their attention back to the dangerous subversives who see dancing in a field as having a good time, rather than the dangerous, illegal and possibly terrorist activity it really is. And in keeping with their general 'crackdown' remit the cops are prepared to use whatever force they fancy to remain the country's top party poopers (handy training for the riot boys don’t cha'know). It's handy then, for the media to be full of the frightening rave resurgence stuff, helping build up another straw man which may legitimise an even heavier clampdown by police - well they've got to protect the terrified vulnerable public from this evil drug-fueled, rioting menace, haven't they? For one forum site supporting DIY partying, see www.squatjuice.com

* Sign of the times: appropriating ol' Smiley for surveillance-Britain's 'You are on CCTV' signs - oh how they must've all had a such a laugh at that one.
 

Anarchist Yellow Pages
Find a friend, a radical bookshop or a campaign -  http://ayp.subvert.info
 

The official Intrepid Fox site has gone up. At the moment it's just the one page with a list of relevant contact details in regards to the Save the Fox campaign  - www.intrepidfox.com. You can also check this other site which has the same list of contact details
http://www.fogofeternity.com/savethefox.aspx
 

Last week's single of the week - THE GRESHAM FLYERS

Previously - THE DRESDEN DOLLS / THE ANSWER / DEAD DISCO / THE BLACK TULIPS / METRO RIOTS / PATCHWORK GRACE / TANGAROA / SHRAG / LOSTPROPHETS / STASI / DOLIUM / SERENA-MANEESH / DECORATION / i LIKE TRAINS / THE OXFAM GLAMOUR MODELS / PSAPP / GREENSPACE
 

PAST ISSUES -

ORGAN 171

ORGAN 170 - STEAL GANDHI, ALL DARK MORNINGS, THE AUTHENTICS, OPTIMIST CLUB, ESTRADASPHERE, WOLFGANG BANG, ELECTRONIC, CURSIVE, AGAINST ME, TRANSIT KINGS, TRANSMISSION, DUN 2 DEF, THE RUSSIAN FUTURISTS, PHOENIX BODIES, THE DRESDEN DOLLS, THE ANSWER, THOM YORKE....

ORGAN 169

ORGAN 168

ORGAN 167

ORGAN 166 - 

ORGAN 165 - THE FLESH HAPPENING, MOTORHEAD, RUSSIAN CIRCLES ,TERROR, THE HUCKSTERS, TANGAROA, SHARP END FIRST, TOUCHSTONE, And just who is MOIST PAULA?

ORGAN 164 -

ORGAN 163 -

ORGAN 162 -

ORGAN 161 -

ORGAN 160 - 

ORGAN 159 - INNER RAGE, THE GHOSTS, ALPHA DISTRICT, INTEROGATE. ABOUT. DODDODO, DEADSTAR ASSEMBLY, AD AAD AT, ROBIN GUTHRIE, BANG! BANG!, FEU THERESE, CERBERUS SHOAL, HERESY, SERENA-MANEESH, PUNISH THE ATOM, The RampArt Community, GO SPIDERMUM - A gang of anarchist Robin Hood-style thieves, ORGAN TV will be back for more, ORGAN on your radio 

ORGAN 158 -

ORGAN 157 -

ORGAN 156 -

ORGAN 155 - 

ORGAN 154 - 

ORGAN 153 - 

ORGAN 152 - 

ORGAN 151 - Out in print now, 40 pages 

ORGAN 150 - NEXT LIFE, CRETIN, HAWNAY TROOF, SYMMETRY, GREENSPACE, DRUGDEALER CHEERLEADER, LAST PARTY, ALEX WARD, BURNT, INTENTION, TRACTOR SEX FATALITY, THE DRESDEN DOLLS, PROUDFLESH, THE GHOSTS, SPEED THEORY, EL TOPO, THE CULT WITH NO NAME, THE PROCESS VOID. 

all the past has been deleted (for now)