After The Flood: The 13 Favourite Albums Of Howe Gelb, Aged 12-16
Stewart Smith
, June 11th, 2012 08:21
In a neat twist on our 13 favourite albums feature, Giant Sand's Howe Gelb talks Stewart Smith through his formative records from his teenage years in Pennsylvania
Otis Spann – Cryin' Time
I go to the cheap record bins just to see what's there and I see this guy Otis Spann, the piano player, blues guy, and also Champion Jack Dupree, and man, the sounds on those records were so good I started listening to them all the time. There's a record I bought in 1970, I used to listen to it all the time, might have been Cryin' Time. I guess what we're seeing here is - here's the common thread - I go off looking for piano because I got a piano in my house and they want me to play piano, they want me to practice, and I don't want to do it, I hate to read music. I think I stopped at 'Polly Wolly Doodle' because it had black notes in it and I was like, 'What?' And then my mom antiqued the piano and she killed it for me, I wouldn't go near it after that. She painted it all white and gold and shit. Then the big flood in '72 came - it was two metres over our house - and smashed our piano to pieces.
BUT! The thing that had survived was the mural I had drawn on my wall of my favourite rock bands at the time. I had two small beds in my room, and the mattresses had washed up and protected the mural that I'd drawn on my wall in magic marker. So there was some kind of voodoo at work in the river.
Jun 11, 2012 5:51pm
coolest thing this summer would be a dozen by El-P. or Greg Sage. and that Cactus record is beinhart. thank you
Jun 11, 2012 7:23pm
For a kid in Bumfuck, Pennsyltucky... right on! More dueling keyboards!
Jun 11, 2012 7:46pm
Boy, Howe sounds like a barrel of laughs, doesn't he? The list might be good but it's hardly insightful stuff, is it?
Jun 14, 2012 6:40pm
In reply to Stavros P. Leibowitz:
...Or perhaps he prefers to keep his mouth shut when he has nothing to say, unlike most of the whimpering gobshites on here? Anyway, his anecdote about Bowie's space capsule is fab, & I'm going to track that Cactus LP down IMMEDIATELY on the basis on the hilarious sleeve... OK duck?
















Kanye West
Polysics
The Cleaners From Venus
Melt Yourself Down
Zambient One
Kode9
Jun 11, 2012 3:23pm
Now that's a goddamn list! Compare to the utterly lazy and inane offering from Butch Vig recently...
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