[jico.]

i was glad to receive news from the professor. mr. richard kane sent me an e-mail telling me that they have just released a collection of live recordings.

 

r.kane
r.kane/r.kive
© 2007 r.kane (634479554193)




55 minutes of abrasive post-punk noise-rock, recorded by 3 r.kane bands in the Vestry St. basement studio in lower Manhattan, 1980-82.


the only dance there is
2 phalange
3 desire
4 arabian nights
5 suspect circumstances dictate
6 bullet train
7 eyes right
8 strange equipment
9 new shoes
10 bombs in belfast
11 vanity
12 trouble in paradise

NOTES
Thurston Moore,"Noise trip: memoriez of Noise Fest"
(myspace.com/sonicyouth, Dec. 11 2005):
"there was one weird band called Fakir who had this really messed-up sounding 7" which they brought in and asked if they could play. They were kind of young and hippieish and how they came to find me at White Columns I’ll never know. I said they could play and
they were awesome, odd and sensual, as opposed to some of the mostly stringent angularities being projected by the Soho heavy squad . . ."
OK, HERE IT IS: r.kane/r.kive
an hour of 3 NYC no-and-noise wave bands from back in the day, featuring r.kane on guitar and drums:
FAKIR (1981), tracks 1-4
UGLIGENS (1980), tracks 5-8
WHITE HARLEM (1982), tracks 9-12
THE LEGEND OF R.KANE
r.kane and bob solete arrived in nyc in 1976 just as anyone with money was leaving. Caught up in the diy post-punk scene they dropped out of grad school and with fellow students formed the short-lived Young Hegelians.
Out of the ashes fell the Ugligens, just r.kane on guitar and bob solete on drums, although sometimes not. The dynamic duo "practiced" in a vestry street basement divided up into a warren of cinder-block spaces for the aspirants; for a while r.kane even called it home, coming back to sleep with the amps, pipes, and mice after all the other bands had quit for the night. In 1980 the band played all of 4 live gigs - the first was in-between sets at Raul’s in Austin, courtesy of the Big Boys (rip) - each under a different name (the Ugligens, God’s Lounge, Che Ole, Robert Yesco), probably to ensure our continued anonymity should anyone have liked us.
"r.kane/r.kive" presents excerpts from the Ugligens’ only recorded basement sessions, shortly after which bob solete quit playing music. r.kane hooked up with bill schilling, a guitarist and vocalist, bill’s bass-playing girlfriend janine gentile and brother bobby to form Fakir. They had a strange driving but strangled sound, with great and unintelligible vocals, as evidenced on their extreme low-fi 7-inch, featuring "the only dance there is" b/w "phalange". Only 100 copies were sold at 99 Records, each with a different spray-painted cover by bob solete. Fakir also played live 4 times, starting with the "Red Brigade Benefit" at Club 57 and ending in summer 1981 at Noise Fest, a 9-day and night art/music exposition at White Columns where the song "desire" was recorded live.
Then r.kane disappeared into the south of Mexico for
two months, looking for the revolution, finding instead the Guatemalan police-state, and exiting via Belize. Upon returning he teamed up with vinnie, a talented vocalist-songwriter, and his bass-playing girlfriend debbie to form White Harlem. This 1982 set from the basement captures vinnie at his edgy and charismatic best, not always guaranteed live at clubs like A7, where the show was often secondary to the excesses that eventually caught up with him. Note that in White Harlem it was vinnie distorting, not the guitar.
In July 1982 r.kane rehearsed on drums for a week with
Sonic Youth, and did a show with them at the Mudd Club. A decade later r.kane was in Austin, playing drums with punk-garage favorites the Inhalants. Another decade later, and he’s at it again, playing guitar, bass, and drums on the first "r.kane" CD, released in December 2006, and adding vocals on "r.kane2", to be released in summer 2007. bob solete, enfeebled as he is, continues to supply his friend with artwork as necessary.

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rkanerkive