rock critics and jounalists need to listen to this all the way through, which will hopefully discourage them from applying cliches like "relentless" or "immersive" to luke-warm wank. from Musicianguide.com:
"Many of Young's performances in the 1990s have been with the Forever Bad Blues Band, which, as of 1993, consisted of Jon Catler on guitar, Brad Catler on bass, and Jonathan Kane on drums. Describing this band in Down Beat, Young said, "It's a lot like a rock band, but we play one song for two hours." In an interview with Martin Johnson in Pulse!, he noted that working with the band helped him regain his enthusiasm for performing, which he had come to miss. Young told Johnson, "The Forever Bad Blues Band came out of the fact that in my bigger works ... I had set up the situation that was very difficult for sponsors to produce, whereas this band can go in, we can do the sound check at 3:00 and do the concert and pack up and go on to the next situation."
"The playing seemed to create an auditory space with its own dimension and depth, within which the music took place," reported New York Times contributor Edward Rothstein about a performance of Young and the Forever Bad Blues Band at the Kitchen. 'As in Mr. Young's other works, the listener was always discovering something about the sound, the way it shimmered around the edges or seemed to change color.' Rothstein concluded, 'The music emerged as an intriguing combination of blues, 1960's happening, Eastern esthetic, rock and Minimalism.'
Young has performed on a regular basis in New York City in recent years, often adding a touch of performance art to his concerts. A typical example was his appearance at Merkin Concert Hall in 1993, when he placed his musicians around the hall as if beckoning members of the audience to be a part of the performance. Many of his concerts have featured lighting designed by Marian Zazeela, his wife and collaborator, that imbues the stage with a New Age aura.
Young recorded Just Stompin': Live at the Kitchen with his band in 1993. Clearly influenced by the blues of John Lee Hooker and John Coltrane, the album also somewhat resembled the work of the Velvet Underground and modern rock experimentalists Sonic Youth. David Fricke gave the album four stars in his review in Rolling Stone. 'Two hours, one song (never mind 'song,' one chord progression), no break--and zero boredom,' noted Fricke. In his review of Just Stompin' in the Detroit Metro Times, Jurek said, 'The band plays dynamically, from soft to hard and back, gradually building in both intensity and tension, laying back just enough--without letting the air out--to allow the musicians (and listeners) to breathe and start again, until the music reaches an unbearable pitch [that] shatters all divisions between blues, Indian classical music, punk, heavy metal, grunge, modal jazz and noise, because it's all of them and none of them at once.'"
my copy has been destroyed and lost a long time ago, but just last week found a 192k version -- and here reupped for your temple of eternal beer and BBQ.
