The Muffins Box Set

[JKL2000]

Wow, disk 2 is excellent!!

I didn't know that Michael Zentner was involved in The Muffins. Actually, all I knew about Michael Zentner was that he performed on that Genesis tribute album (doing Carpet Crawlers I think), so that's kind of unrelated to his Muffins involvement.

[Steve F.]

Disc 4:

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Listening to Disc 4 from The Muffins Box Set “Baker’s Dozen”. At this point, Paul Sears has become firmly ensconced in the band’s DNA, and The Muffins are clearly mutating into what later became known as the ‘Classic Quartet’. I remember when Paul joined, I thought that not only was he a perfect fit (we all got along with him, and he shared the same musical tastes), but his drumming was at such a high level, really (IMHO) approaching the jazz drummer Tony Williams’ ability. In fact, there were many days when I kept my fingers crossed that he wouldn’t be discovered by some big name musician or group and swept away from us. To hear an example of Paul’s musical telepathy, listen to track 3 “Band Of Brothers”; it’s an improvisation, but we are all listening so closely to one another, everyone taking turns either taking the lead or following the others. That musical push and pull here is fascinating to hear. And listen to Billy Swann on this; not a traditional bass line / pattern in the whole piece. Instead he is playing a strange combination of solos and melodies and sounds. And there are moments later on this disc where Tom and I play our horns together. I always loved the telepathy that we had on our woodwinds, whether because we were both horn players brought up in the high school band tradition or just saxophone soulmates. That loud high pitched ’PING’ you hear on this CD is a home-made metal cylindrical (?) object that Paul added to his kit. I believe it was salvaged from a car? (Paul, can you clarify?) I appreciate and am flattered that Steve Feigenbaum added a piano solo from “Not Alone”; I’m self-taught on keyboards (which probably explains why my chords sound the way they do), so I get to pretend for a moment that I actually know what I’m doing. And Billy’s fuzz bass solo highlighted from “Amelia Earhart” is so good here. For those who don’t know (and Billy revealed this on the Takoma Radio Station interview we did last week with Marc Minsker), there are two settings on Billy’s fuzz / wah pedal: ‘Voice Of God’ and ‘Flame On Bitch’. 😊 The 13 minute “Not Alone” directs us toward the end of the disc, one of my favorite compositions, and the first one, I believe, that was written specifically as a long piece (the previous longer compositions were always separate ideas that Billy and I would piece together). I write linearly, so “Not Alone” started out with that opening idea and then progressed through its many changes until it just naturally and organically resolved itself with that last section. And that last heralding section in “Not Alone” (the band and I would inevitably sing in our heads the words “You are not alone” to coincide with the last 5 notes of the song), I always liked the musical technique of one repeating phrase or note playing while the chord structure changed around it. We were able to do that here with Tom playing that one long continuous note while Billy and I moved the chords along behind him, Billy actually taking the melody on bass. It’s also a great example of Tom demonstrating cyclic breathing (maintaining that high F for a solid 20 seconds!) where he inhales through his nose while exhaling through his mouth in order to move the air through the horn while still being able to breathe! Not an easy thing to do. One last note about this disc, I titled that improvisation “Band of Brothers” because, not only was our playing so spot on and bonded with one another, but I have considered for all these years that Billy, Tom, and Paul were my brothers; I’m an only child, and these 3 were the closest thing I ever had to siblings, with Billy being the oldest, me and Paul the two middles, and Tom the youngest. We hope you like this disc.

and I posted:

This was one of the easiest discs for me to compile out of the set, because I knew exactly what I wanted it to show; the growing confidence and togetherness of the ‘classic quartet’ line up in the first year or so of its existence.
It was simply a matter of reviewing what there were recordings of from 1977 and choosing based on performance and sound (and without duplication of any composed pieces from the 10/77 WAFU show, since I knew that that was a perfect disc in itself and needed to be included in its entirety)

[interbellum]

I didn't know that Michael Zentner was involved in The Muffins. Actually, all I knew about Michael Zentner was that he performed on that Genesis tribute album (doing Carpet Crawlers I think), so that's kind of unrelated to his Muffins involvement.

Carpet Crawlers it is (on the CD Supper's Ready, released by Magna Carta in 1995). Great band Zentner plays with: John Goodsal, Jeff Berlin, Tos Panos, Ty Parr and Susan Willett.
Well, not a surprise, as on his two solo-albums (Present Time and Playtime) he had a lot of great players too.
https://www.discogs.com/artist/747790-Michael-Zentner

B.t.w. nice to see Bakers Dozen is on Discogs already: https://www.discogs.com/release/2466...s-Bakers-Dozen

[Steve F.]

Wow, disk 2 is excellent!!

I'd like to mention for those who are only 'lightly' interested, that each disc is also available on our BandCamp page individually, if there is a specific period or show you want to own, but not the entire thing.

[roylayer]

I'd like to mention for those who are only 'lightly' interested, that each disc is also available on our BandCamp page individually, if there is a specific period or show you want to own, but not the entire thing.

Very cool. You can also download the entire collection for less than buying all of the individual downloads. And, of course, the full download is considerably less than buying the physical boxed set.

But the dilemma is that I WANT the physical product! I just don't want to pay the price (which does seem like a fair price). ;-)

https://cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.com/

[rcarlberg]

But the dilemma is that I WANT the physical product! I just don't want to pay the price (which does seem like a fair price). ;-)

As someone who has transitioned (largely) to downloads over physical product in the past few years, I knew I had to have the physical box for the Muffins set, primarily for the booklet of EXTENSIVE notes & recollections. But also, it turns out, the pictures of the reels on each disc, and the ultra-fab packaging. This thing out-Propers Proper (if you get the reference).

[Dave (in MA)]

I could never understand why people would settle for downloads over physical until I started running into releases where the download was the only option, and after buying those I realized that I wasn't really missing them all that much, so I've been getting Bandcamp downloads in a lot of cases rather than buying and waiting for the physical CD to show up. In this case, though--ditto to #481, though I don't get the reference.
As for the booklet... It's a lot easier for me to zoom in on the PDF than it is to use a magnifying glass on the booklet.
Also, maybe I wasn't paying close attention, but I didn't realize we were getting the Palindrome album until I received the set. Woo!

[rcarlberg]

Muffins-adjacent recordings:

* David Newhouse

***Soldier's Book (cassette 1989, recorded Fall 1975)
***Cyclorama (cassette 1994, recorded 1977-1993)
***Daughter of Paris (cassette 1994 + Bandcamp)
***This Week Ending (reel 1970s, cassette 1994)
***Incidental Music (reel 1970s, cassette 1994)
***Beauty is in the distance (with Federico Zenoni & Luciano Margorani, CD 2016)
***Finding Things (with Bret Hart, CD 2020)

* Illegal Aliens ("basically The Muffins with friends")

***The Round Window (cassette 1991 + Bandcamp, recorded 1974-1981)
***Territory (CD 2020 + Bandcamp, recorded 1975-1978)

* Manna/Mirage

***Blue Dogs (CD 2015 + Bandcamp)
***Rest of The World (CD 2018 + Bandcamp)
***Face (CD 2020 + Bandcamp)
***Man Out Of Time (CD 2021 + Bandcamp)

* Nick Prol & The Proletarians (with David Newhouse)

***Loon Attic (CD 2017)

* Bluehouzer (with David Newhouse)

***Live at the Pyramid Atlantic Art Center (CD 2010 + Bandcamp)

* Moon Men (with David Newhouse)

***Tales of the Space Pirates (CD 2020 + Bandcamp)

* Diratz (with David Newhouse)

***Diratz (CD 2020 + Bandcamp)

* Moon X (with David Newhouse)

***Zap! (CD 2022 + Bandcamp)

* Paul Sears

***Angels & Demons That Play (CD comp. that came with his book, 2018)
***Pepper Tree (with Steve Freeman, Bandcamp, recorded 1971-2)
***various unreleased collaborations

* 4S'd (Sears, Swann, Scott & Stanley)

***Man or Muffin (CD 2017)

* Steve Feigenbaum & Tom Scott

***Things are More Like They Are Now Than They Ever Were Before (LP 1980)
***Cold Wars (unreleased 2nd LP)

* Michael Zentner

***Present Time (LP 1983, CD 1993)
***Playtime (CD 1995)

* Random Radar Records

***A Random Sampler (LP 1977)

* Michael Bass

***A Non-Linear Sequence (reel)
***In Case of Rain (reel)
***The True Story of Christmas (reel 1977)
***Blood From A Turnip/Happy Birthday ___ (reel)
***Parchesi Pie (LP 1978)
***The Blue Story of Christmas (reel 1978 + Bandcamp)
***Painting By Numbers (LP 1979)
***Painting By Numbers Live (recorded 1978, 2019 Bandcamp)
***Things I Thought I Knew (2020 Bandcamp)
***Better Living Through Chemistry (2020 Bandcamp)
***Watch Me Pull A Rabbit Out Of My Hat (2022 Bandcamp)
***Other People's Songs (2022 Bandcamp)

* Mars Everywhere

***Industrial Sabotage (LP 1980)
***Visitor Parking (recorded 1976, cassette 1989)
***Live & Unrehearsed (recorded 1978-1980, cassette 1989)
***Live at St. Alban's Cathedral (recorded 1979, unreleased)
***The Random Radar Demo Tape (1979, unreleased)

* However

***Sudden Dusk (LP 1981, CD 1993)
***Calling (LP 1984, CD 1995)
***Live (recorded 1978-1980, unreleased)

[Steve F.]

^ ^ ^ ^

Michael Bass

A Non-Linear Sequence (reel-reel album)
In Case Of Rain (reel-reel album)
The True Story of Christmas (reel-reel single)
Blood From a Turnip / Happy Birthday ____ (reel-reel album)


Dave Newhouse
***This Week Ending (cassette 1994)
***Incidental Music (cassette 1994)

(both of these were reel-reel albums in the 70s)

There's more, but it was a LONG time ago....

[rcarlberg]

Keep talking, I'll keep adding

[Polypet]

What a fun, deep and meaningful project this must've been for you, Steve. Most excellent. I will certainly be checking it out.

Congratulations to you, your team and to Paul and company for getting this done

[Polypet]

What is the However connection? Just curious...

[Steve F.]

What is the However connection? Just curious...

Tom Scott grew up playing in Langley High School Jazz Lab with Bobby Read and possibly some of the other members, and immediately before joining the Muffins, he was in a band with Peter Princiotto (and also possibly some of the other Howeverz) called Black Orchid, hence the Scott / Princiotto credit for Egress Gnome Odd, which was a Black Orchid song.

[Steve F.]

Keep talking, I'll keep adding

If anything else comes to mind, I will.

The unreleased 2nd Feigenbaum/Scott album was called ‘Cold Wars’

[Steve F.]

What a fun, deep and meaningful project this must've been for you, Steve.

It was personally very satisfying. Now I just have to convince a couple hundred more people that they will also find it so!

[Steve F.]

Dave on CD five

Listening to Disc 5 from The Muffins Box Set “Baker’s Dozen”. This is a full live set from a WAFU (Washington Area Free University) Coffee House gig in October of 1977. WAFU was a venue that we played probably more than any other place aside from Orion. I agree with Ian Beabout about this one; it’s our Manna/Mirage album with ”Amelia Earhart”, “The Adventures of Captain Boomerang”, and ”Monkey With The Golden Eyes” but all done live. The recording for this gig is wonderful (thank you Ian for saving this from the vaults). But the Disc starts off with a ’beat improv’ called “Monkey In The Middle”; The Muffins would oftentimes perform improvisations that had a particular beat / structure to them so they came out sounding like a composed piece but were actually made up on the spot. And no nets . Tom Scott does particularly beautiful work on flute on this one. Onto a 13 minute long piece titled “Lady in a Brown Paper Bag”, one of my favorite longer tunes. I wish we had gotten a true studio recording of this one, but I think what happened was that we had written and arranged “Amelia” and “Captain Boomerang”, and we were anxious to get those 2 recorded, so “Lady” took a back seat. That opening ‘yawning’ bass line was Billy Swann’s idea; it really shows off that fretless bass. I especially love the bass and alto clarinet shared line in the middle quieter section. Such a lovely melody there that moves the composition along, with Paul Sears and I madly drumming around it all (I was hitting wood blocks, tingling bells, and tooting bicycle horns. Yes, I said ‘TOOTING’!) A great example of Tom’s Oboe chops on this one. And I love how we work the pauses and the dynamics throughout. The ending jam is a good example of a time signature technique that I’ve used (and probably overused all these years - I still do it on my Manna/Mirage albums) of playing 2 measures of 4/8 but we drop the last beat in the second measure, so that the full time signature / phrase actually counts out as 15/16, but it sounds like 4/4 but with a skip in it at the end. This results in a seemingly impossibly fast bass line, which Billy pulls off with apparent ease (how did he do that?!) I knew we had found a great drummer when Paul played that time signature without even thinking about it; it was organic and natural to him. He easily felt it. (A little known fact here, and I’ll probably get in trouble for saying it, but Paul used to tell us that he could only play a complicated time signature when he felt it in his ‘peter’. ) The very ending clarinet (Tom) / alto recorder (Billy), tenor recorder (me) / xylophone (Paul) part was written by Tom. I had written myself into a corner with that last clarinet line that Tom plays, and he came to the rescue with a quite complex ending for us. We used to call Tom ‘Mr. Upbeat’ because he loves writing lines with lots of upbeats in them rather than downbeats. Truth be told, we didn’t always get that ending correct, but when we did, it was a good night.



I posted

This was the easiest CD to program; I’ve had that tape of the WAFU gig since it was done and it was ALWAYS a favorite.
I knew it had to be on there in its entirety. The only decision I had to make was what track to leave off of CD5 so that it would fit.
It’s all there except the incomplete version of Not Alone, which I slotted into Disc6. I think that it is incomplete because the band took a break and started up again, and Colleen was a little bit late to roll the tape.
If you want to put the show back in the original order, just slot Not Alone in after Amelia.

[proggy_jazzer]

It was personally very satisfying. Now I just have to convince a couple hundred more people that they will also find it so!

Call it a couple hundred minus one

I've been digging pretty deeply into M/M, Open City and <185> (all purchased digitally through the BC page), and have listened to enough samples and read enough here to know that this is music I need in my life right now. I've been in a non-playing space for several years now after spending most of my life actively making music, and part of my problem has been a serious case of inertia, facing the thought of picking up the instruments again and going through the necessary phase of suckage before the chops come back. But this music, man...no lie, given a different set of circumstances I can easily see it as being in a direction I and some of my mates might have taken back in our younger days. There's just such commitment behind everything I've heard that it's infectious and makes me want to get off my ass and dig in again. And reading Dave's insights into each disc sealed the deal. I can't wait to check it all out and start sharing it with my fellow musicians. Thanks for your work, thanks to the musicians for their playing and spirit, and thanks to all of you for the inspiration! 🙏

[Steve F.]

^^^^^^^

Thanks for the nice words!

[interbellum]

* Paul Sears

***Angels & Demons That Play (CD comp. that came with his book, 2018)
***Pepper Tree (with Steve Freeman, Bandcamp, recorded 1971-2)
***various unreleased collaborations

* However

***Sudden Dusk (LP 1981, CD 1993)
***Calling (LP 1984, CD 1995)
***Live (recorded 1978-1980, unreleased)

Paul Sears also was the drummer (and co-composer) on Chainsaw Jazz' DisConcerto (1993), one of the first Cuneiform I reviewed back in those days.

Calling by However was the first LP I bought from them after I read Kit Watkins from Happy The Man-fame played on some songs.

[auxfnx]

Muffins-adjacent recordings:

* David Newhouse

***Soldier's Book (cassette 1989, recorded Fall 1975)
***Cyclorama (cassette 1994, recorded 1977-1993)
***Daughter of Paris (cassette 1994 + Bandcamp)
***This Week Ending (reel 1970s, cassette 1994)
***Incidental Music (reel 1970s, cassette 1994)
***Beauty is in the distance (with Federico Zenoni & Luciano Margorani, CD 2016)
***Finding Things (with Bret Hart, CD 2020)

And don't forget Dave Newhouse's many guest appearances across the Rascal Reporters discography!

[Steve F.]

Disc 6

Listening to Disc 6 from The Muffins Box Set “Baker’s Dozen”. I’d like to point out here the great job that Eric Kearns did duplicating our individual reel-to-reel tapes as the CD disc images. Especially Disc 5, where you can see some of the tape starting to unravel. Looking at those discs really brings back those old tape memories - those tapes were such an important part of our lives. Two important shows highlighted here on this hour and 10 minute long disc, the ZU Manifestival in NYC in October of 1978 and The Trinity Theater concert in Washington DC two months later in December. Tracks 1, 2, 7, and 8 are from the Trinity Theater, a gorgeous old theater in Georgetown, which John Paige secured for us. Track 2 “Whistling While We Work” is a group improv; if you listen carefully, you can hear Paul Sears’ exceptional soprano sax work.
(I always loved Paul’s Captain Beefheartian soprano playing.) Tracks 3 and 4 are from a gig we did in 1977 at the great DC Space, an important jazz and rock venue also in Washington DC. Some very good energy here (Paul particularly tears it up around 14 minutes into track 3). They had a gorgeous acoustic grand piano there (which really helped my keyboard playing to rise to the occasion), so we decided to do an all improv set with just our acoustic instruments, aside from Billy Swann’s electric bass. We were joined here by our dear friend Scott Raffel (RIP), who often played sax with us on our live shows. Lovely moments of woodwind trio work at this gig with Scott and Tom Scott and me). An interesting addendum to this DC Space show, Tom and his wife at the time, Colleen (she also recorded the gigs here), had been growing a ‘magic’ peyote button in their room. I did not know this at the time, but Tom, Colleen, Billy, and Scott had all eaten said peyote button prior to hitting the stage. Which may explain some of the music and antics here (you can hear Billy laughing hysterically in parts). I think that Paul and I were the only musicians on the straight and narrow, as it were. This gig was also where a big star (at the time), jazz sax player Brother Ya Ya, walked off with all the money from the door, leaving The Muffins skint. Track 4 “Children and Art” opens up with a gorgeous example of the sax duets that Tom and I used to come up with. The telepathy we had together on our horns is still astonishing to me even now. Track 5 “Under Dali’s Wing” is the one tune we were able to rescue from The ZU Festival (thank you, Ian Beabout and Paul Sears for your audio magic - we still have not heard a decent recording yet from that show). But what I love about this ZU track is the wonderful audience reaction at the end. Does my heart good. Tom introduces his double horn composition “Horsebones” on track 7 (and interesting story behind the title), and by track 8 we hit “The Grammy Snap”, a composition that I wrote specifically for Fred Frith to play with us, which was such a treat for us Muffoons . Many wonderful musicians joined us for this Trinity Theater gig, including Peter Blegvad and John Greaves. In retrospect, it was amazing that we were able to pull this massive concert off, but we did and we were very proud to be able to do that.

[rcarlberg]

Paul Sears also was the drummer (and co-composer) on Chainsaw Jazz' DisConcerto (1993), one of the first Cuneiform I reviewed back in those days.

I hesitate to include Chainsaw Jazz in a list of "Muffins-adjacent" music since they're in a completely different universe. Paul has played and can play an incredible variety of music.

[rcarlberg]

I have a small question on the set. Richard Milhouse Nixon resigned on August 8, 1974, yet the Muffins track "President Nixon's Retirement" (disc 3 track 3) was recorded October 2, 1976. I know the boys say they never had a TV in the band house, but did it really take two years for the news to reach them? It was kind of a big deal at the time.

[calyx]

I have a small question on the set. Richard Milhouse Nixon resigned on August 8, 1974, yet the Muffins track "President Nixon's Retirement" (disc 3 track 3) was recorded October 2, 1976. I know the boys say they never had a TV in the band house, but did it really take two years for the news to reach them? It was kind of a big deal at the time.

Isn't there a difference between resignation and retirement ? I'd say by 1976, Tricky Dick was two years into his retirement, and that's the phase of his life that inspired the Muffins track/title, not the resignation.

[rcarlberg]

The speech they played onstage was from August '74.