It has all the characteristics of a classic hard-boiled mystery novel: a robbery or murder (extra marks for setting it in a locked room in a remote country house); the single, eccentric but irresistible, hard-drinking, hard-loving gumshoe; a monkey-boy lackey doing grunt work or a mousey assistant who consistently solves the crime; the uptown slut who puts on airs and always seems to get laid despite looking like she's been ridden hard and put away wet; a mess o' bungling cops and a mess o' false and "least likely to" suspects. Maybe an unnecessary butler or two.
Actually it has very little of that. But that doesn't mean the life of incurable, mind-maiming recorder and performer John Wiese is any less convoluted than those found in the most ingenious of whodunits. But it is a dunit rather than a whodunit, by someone who does it more than others. When it comes to Wiese, maybe it is best to just throw the info out there and hope it sticks.
The most exciting news is the imminent release of Wiese's debut album, Soft Punk, on Troubleman Unlimited (when you click on this link be sure to check out the message/plea from Wolf Eyes' Nate Young). Wiese wrote us to say he has also been playing a lot with C. Spencer Yeh and hopes that some of that will see the light of day soon and has collaborated with the Japan-improv entity Pain Jerk for an upcoming Harbinger album. The reissue of Remote Whale Control by Sissy Spacek is out now on Misanthropic Agenda.
And there's live news, too. Wiese will be the perfect aural antidote to lovers of fancy-pants foppies when he hits the U.K. in April and May for dates with Yeh, Evan Parker, Tim Barnes, Yellow Swans, Metalux, John Edwards, and Culver. Look, I have nothing against the vast majority of British bands; I just don't see the need for some of them to dress up in a pantaloons-and-ascot combo or as a modern day "Artful Dodger" just to fetch the morning paper. He will then head to Israel at the suggestion of a recently-befriended BBC orchestra conductor to play a couple of shows where he will try to seek out Menahem Golan movies (true) and stalk Roni Superstar (possibly not true). I will only suggest the Golan rock/disco, sci-fi, "futuristic" (set in 1994!) musical The Apple... but I secretly hope he already owns it.
Of course Wiese will be at this year's No Fun Fest in Brooklyn on May 18, as Sissy Spacek. The mouth-watering four-day event has quickly become an annual rite of passage for outlaw fans to see an appallingly appealing crowd of characters, conflicts, causalities, complications, changes, crises, and closures (the "seven C's" to all would-be sleuth writers out there).
$ Honed Bastion, Logic Probe, and Fetal Distress
% Evan Parker, C. Spencer Yeh, Tim Barnes, Yellow Swans, Metalux, John Edwards, and Culver
^ as Sissy Spacek w/ Incapacitants, Carlos Giffoni, Raionbashi & Kutzkelina, Anti-Freedom, Mouthus + Axolotl, Grunt, Princess Dragonmon, and Charlie Draheim
