Just Stompin', by La Monte Young, The Forever Bad Blues Band

Just Stompin'

by La Monte Young, The Forever Bad Blues Band

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pat Originally paid $57 for this in tape form and burned it out driving around.

horst_k Saw them mid-90s in Vienna. They were a real knockout.

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	1.	Young’s Dorian Blues in G (B♭= 60 Hz), 1 of 2 01:01:52	info
	2.	Young’s Dorian Blues in G (B♭= 60 Hz), 2 of 2 01:00:23	info

about

The music of The Forever Bad Blues Band represents Young's latest contribution to the ongoing dialogue with his plugged-in rock and roll progeny. Out of Young's early sixties performing group came most of the original lineup of the Velvet Underground, a band that syncretized the sounds of the machine shop and the blues bar and eventually inspired several generations of sonic rockers. In the early eighties, Rhys Chatham's and Glenn Branca's compositions for massed electric guitars in just intonation became a finishing school for a new breed of rock musicians who went on to challenge the hegemony of equal temperament -Sonic Youth, Band of Susans. These bands, along with a slew of compatriots from the U.S., England and Europe, have been moving from the "alternative" rock ghetto into the mainstream, bringing with them an elaborate lore of non-equal-tempered guitar tunings that ultimately derives from Young's groundbreaking work.

In the Village Voice, Kyle Gann rephrased a statement originally made by microtonal composer Ben Johnston: "One cause of society's problems is that people grow up bathed in loud rock in the usual equal-tempered tuning, and ... the irrational intervals of that tuning create an unconsciously disturbing disharmony in the ear." If that's the case (and didn't Plato say something similar?), then the growing tendency in rock toward a more just/Pythagorean tuning approach is a welcome development indeed. And Young's pioneering, systematic investigation of ancient, non-Western, and other tuning alternatives qualifies as a public service.

Now, with The Forever Bad Blues Band, Young is reminding his rock and roll "children," as well as the rest of us, of the basic blues verities. Looking back over his career as a composer, it's evident that he was zeroing in on the core of the blues experience all along, moving from an early concern with macro-structure (the blues chorus, blues modes) to micro-structure (the microtonal architecture of melodic language and syntax). And this is perhaps the essence of Young's singular contribution to the music of our time: like a sonic archaeologist, he is always digging for fundamental truths. And finding them.

—Robert Palmer, 1993

*included with purchase is a PDF of the original liner notes*

credits

released June 17, 2021

La Monte Young

The Forever Bad Blues Band
La Monte Young, Korg 01W Synthesizer in just intonation
Jon Catler, Electric Just Intonation and Fretless Guitar
Brad Catler, Electric Just Intonation and Fretless Bass
Jonathan Kane, Drums
Music composed by La Monte Young.

Produced by MELA Foundation
under the artistic direction of La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela.
Bob Bielecki, Recording Engineer and Mixing
Chris Muth, Digital Mastering
David Meschter, Live Concert Sound Production

Jung Hee Choi, Digital Release Producer
Micah Feinberg, Digital Release Production Assistant

Cover, calligraphy and package design © Marian Zazeela

℗© 1993 La Monte Young. All rights reserved.

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about

La Monte Young New York, New York

La Monte Young pioneered the concept of extended time durations in 1957 and for over 60 years contributed extensively to the development of just intonation and rational number based tuning systems in his performance works; his work had a wide-ranging influence on contemporary music, art, and philosophy, including Minimalism, Fluxus, performance art, and Conceptual art. ... more

melafoundation.org

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