Unplug The Jukebox
by Weasel Walter
Digital Superciliousness 00:00 / 04:34 | |||
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1. | Digital Superciliousness 04:34 | |||
2. | My Plan Flailed 03:48 | |||
3. | Day I Met Dave 02:05 | |||
4. | Tableskronk 04:47 | |||
5. | ||||
6. | Famine or Noize 04:15 | |||
7. | Whipping My Police 05:57 | |||
8. |
about
download includes full art with liner notes
PHYSICAL VERSION:
Message me about the limited full color CD-R version, signed, numbered and limited to 20 copies only. nonwave1@gmail.com
=================================================
What remains after the inspiration is muted is its own beast.
My obsession with Adam and the Ants began early, catching promo clips for their outlandish hits as a kid on MTV in the early ‘80s. My first bonafide live rock and roll gig was Adam Ant on the 1984 “Strip” tour in my hometown. By 1997, I was one of the brains behind a full-on Ants “historical reenactment” performance art unit which spent the good part of two years and dozens of gigs aiming to replicate the original unit’s chronology and genesis as close as we could, performing appropriate period material on the correct dates, 20 years on. We even made two faux “Peel Sessions” (broadcast on Chicago radio) and issued a replica of their first 7”! All in the name of good perverted conceptual fun.
Their debut “Dirk Wears White Sox” album (released in the UK in 1979, issued with somewhat different contents in the US in 1983) was an altogether darker, sinister, abrasive, and more complex affair than the “Kings of the Wild Frontier” (1980) and “Prince Charming” (1981) albums most people are more familiar with. One of the key elements was Dave Barbarossa’s elemental and inventive drumming on that initial release. The skeletal, angular structures of the “Dirk” era compositions were pushed further into stark modernist relief by the continually inspired, tricky embellishments of Dave’s awesome performances. As such, I had to deconstruct and learn a lot of his licks verbatim for the ‘90s cover band. I loved working on those things and getting into the feel and execution of these rhythmic devices.
I kept coming back again and again to marvel at those things and, at one point, years ago, I thought it would be a good idea to construct new compositions based specifically on those compact, clever fills of his on “Dirk”. Well, I always have tons of ideas, but sometimes lack the actual motivation to manifest them, but I blabbed about this concept endlessly to tons of people before I finally set the thing into motion. What I have done here is edit down the original tracks to fabricate backgrounds for my hailstorm skronk 12-string guitar assaults and twisted modular synth atmosphere changes. I guess I didn’t actually compose from the ground up like I imagined, but fuck it. Here it is anyhow.
The second half of this release is the resulting guitar and synth recordings ONLY. Maybe you’ll overdub this and make your own album out of it.
The update on this continuing historical saga is that I eventually met Dave in flesh, introduced to me by the late designer, Pam Hogg, in London in the 2010s when I was playing guitar in Lydia Lunch Retrovirus. At the time, Dave didn’t really register that I was a brother-in-arm and huge fan of his work. He kind of blew me off! I sort of gushed about his Ants drumming and he rolled his eyes and didn’t have much to say about it. I didn’t take it personally. We in the music business meet plenty of overly enthusiastic white guys and their names and faces tend to flutter by, in one hole and out the other, unless we have further incentive to commit to memory. (He hadn’t quite yet musically reunited with Adam, but would soon afterwards.)
In 2023, my buddy John Dwyer (Ohsees, etc.) was inspired to fabricate a contemporary ‘post punk’ type record to feature myself on guitar and Dave on drums. This “Chime Oblivion” album turned out pretty great, albeit me composing and tracking my parts in post over the canned rhythm section tracks. Dave was very enthusiastic about the net result as well as complimentary towards my personal contributions, which is very gratifying. We are in touch now and then via email, hoping we can do an actual live gig or tour with this unit someday (fingers crossed) . . .
It goes to show you that we musicians idealistically chuck our stuff out into the ether in an act of blind faith and we never know who it will effect, how it will effect, or if it will effect at all. If you had told the teenaged me that I would be on a record/in a band with one of my favorite rock and roll drummers of all time, he probably would have said, “Yeah, sure. So?” Keep on dreaming, kids. Sometimes things actually happen because they should.
- Weasel Walter, March 20, 2026
PHYSICAL VERSION:
Message me about the limited full color CD-R version, signed, numbered and limited to 20 copies only. nonwave1@gmail.com
=================================================
What remains after the inspiration is muted is its own beast.
My obsession with Adam and the Ants began early, catching promo clips for their outlandish hits as a kid on MTV in the early ‘80s. My first bonafide live rock and roll gig was Adam Ant on the 1984 “Strip” tour in my hometown. By 1997, I was one of the brains behind a full-on Ants “historical reenactment” performance art unit which spent the good part of two years and dozens of gigs aiming to replicate the original unit’s chronology and genesis as close as we could, performing appropriate period material on the correct dates, 20 years on. We even made two faux “Peel Sessions” (broadcast on Chicago radio) and issued a replica of their first 7”! All in the name of good perverted conceptual fun.
Their debut “Dirk Wears White Sox” album (released in the UK in 1979, issued with somewhat different contents in the US in 1983) was an altogether darker, sinister, abrasive, and more complex affair than the “Kings of the Wild Frontier” (1980) and “Prince Charming” (1981) albums most people are more familiar with. One of the key elements was Dave Barbarossa’s elemental and inventive drumming on that initial release. The skeletal, angular structures of the “Dirk” era compositions were pushed further into stark modernist relief by the continually inspired, tricky embellishments of Dave’s awesome performances. As such, I had to deconstruct and learn a lot of his licks verbatim for the ‘90s cover band. I loved working on those things and getting into the feel and execution of these rhythmic devices.
I kept coming back again and again to marvel at those things and, at one point, years ago, I thought it would be a good idea to construct new compositions based specifically on those compact, clever fills of his on “Dirk”. Well, I always have tons of ideas, but sometimes lack the actual motivation to manifest them, but I blabbed about this concept endlessly to tons of people before I finally set the thing into motion. What I have done here is edit down the original tracks to fabricate backgrounds for my hailstorm skronk 12-string guitar assaults and twisted modular synth atmosphere changes. I guess I didn’t actually compose from the ground up like I imagined, but fuck it. Here it is anyhow.
The second half of this release is the resulting guitar and synth recordings ONLY. Maybe you’ll overdub this and make your own album out of it.
The update on this continuing historical saga is that I eventually met Dave in flesh, introduced to me by the late designer, Pam Hogg, in London in the 2010s when I was playing guitar in Lydia Lunch Retrovirus. At the time, Dave didn’t really register that I was a brother-in-arm and huge fan of his work. He kind of blew me off! I sort of gushed about his Ants drumming and he rolled his eyes and didn’t have much to say about it. I didn’t take it personally. We in the music business meet plenty of overly enthusiastic white guys and their names and faces tend to flutter by, in one hole and out the other, unless we have further incentive to commit to memory. (He hadn’t quite yet musically reunited with Adam, but would soon afterwards.)
In 2023, my buddy John Dwyer (Ohsees, etc.) was inspired to fabricate a contemporary ‘post punk’ type record to feature myself on guitar and Dave on drums. This “Chime Oblivion” album turned out pretty great, albeit me composing and tracking my parts in post over the canned rhythm section tracks. Dave was very enthusiastic about the net result as well as complimentary towards my personal contributions, which is very gratifying. We are in touch now and then via email, hoping we can do an actual live gig or tour with this unit someday (fingers crossed) . . .
It goes to show you that we musicians idealistically chuck our stuff out into the ether in an act of blind faith and we never know who it will effect, how it will effect, or if it will effect at all. If you had told the teenaged me that I would be on a record/in a band with one of my favorite rock and roll drummers of all time, he probably would have said, “Yeah, sure. So?” Keep on dreaming, kids. Sometimes things actually happen because they should.
- Weasel Walter, March 20, 2026
