Yes, I've lost the password to the TDU podomatic site, so it's TDU time on mine! Here's another break in our winter hiatus, this time at the lovely Discovery Green in Houston, Texas.

This is TDU's performance at Brasil on Friday, October 24th, 2008, with Charlie Naked (MicroKorg, tenor sax), Mike Switzer (trombone, voice), Johnny Freedom (tenor sax), Jim Otterson (guitar), Jeff Miller (bass), and Kirk Suddreath (drums, percussion), along with Chris Kemmerer (trumpet) sitting in on the second set.

John Muzak invited the Last Bastions out to play at his Chinese New Year celebration at Super Happy Fun Land, and so out we came to play. Included herein is our 20-minute set, plus a briefer set of a Vietnamese woman (whose name I will post once I find it out) who asked me to play some Korg synthesizer behind her while she recited Vietnamese poetry. Check it out!

I'm trying to at least make these once a month.... that shouldn't be that difficult, right? Anyway, tonight I'm posting two selections apiece from the five albums I recorded under the name Charlie Horshack. They're not posted in chronological order, but I did keep each album's representative two tracks grouped together. Anyway, this is what I was doing in the time between 1995 and 1998.

1. "The Darkness is All Mine Again" (Lost Radio, 1998)

2. "Wracked" (Lost Radio, 1998)

3. "The Cracked and The Lonely" (The Cracked and The Lonely, 1997)

4. "Oleander" (The Cracked and The Lonely, 1997) [written by D. Gambrell]

5. "Impinger" (Cheap Wine, 1995)

6. "If Jesus Saves" (Cheap Wine, 1995)

7. "Greater Reward" (The Nobody Dogs, 1997)

8. "(I Will Not Be) Burned" (The Nobody Dogs, 1997)

9. "Pretty in Pink" (Cocaine Eyes, 1996) [by the Psychedelic Furs]

10. "Your Dreams Are a Castle" (Cocaine Eyes, 1996)

Ian reminded me that I initiated this podcast exactly a year ago today, November 28th. And since November is almost up with no podcast yet, and I try to keep it to at least one a month, here's a little Charlie Naked / The Defenestration Unit grab-bag.

1. "Salthanikon C" by Charlie Naked (House of Cards, 2007)... This is the third CN version of a piece I first did back in 1995. I haven't put this album up on Cafepress yet, but it's coming soon.

2. "Up Yours, or A Reply to Critics" by The Defenestration Unit (The Mysterious Fifth, 2000)... This was just one album among a BUNCH that the 1999/2000 "third version" of TDU recorded, this time with what was then our current core quartet along with Ann Panopio supplementing. When we mixed this down originally we had been inundated with so many recordings (that version of TDU recorded roughly an "album" a week), we forgot who the fifth player was on the album, hence the name.

3. "Fifth and Sixth Monkeys (scratching at insects)" by Charlie Naked (Seven Monkeys, vol. 2, 1996)... This was part of a double-album I recorded called Seven Monkeys, which was primarily me overdubbing free improv piano with the odd analog synthesizer and saxophone parts here and there, and throwing in some random sudden pitch shifts. I called it "music for nightmares", but this was the first of a very rare series of album where I record something that really interests me to try, but isn't really intended to be easy to listen to. This is the shortest part of the suite, so it's usually the best choice for providing a representative sample of the album.

4. "The Devil's Emissions" by The Defenestration Unit (Dark Haggis, 2000)... I know I showcase the 2000 version of TDU a lot. It's a numbers game really; the only version with more recordings is the current one, and that has it's own podcast (at http://tdu.podomatic.com). During the third version's time, we probably recorded thirty-something albums, so there's a LOT to choose from. This was the full group, which at that time meant something like seven members if I remember correctly.

5. "Gibby (Alternababe's Dreamdate)" by Charlie Horshack (Nobody Dogs, 1997)... I just threw this on to be funny. I have to say though, of all the guitar solos I've ever recorded in my life, I have to think this is my favorite.

Hey all... yes, these are getting a bit sparser I suppose.... that's what happens when life gets busier. Anyway.

1. "The Rolling River of Wasted Water" by The Defenestration Unit (By the Banks of the River Fourcade, 1999)... This was the third recording by the third version of TDU, recorded in December of 1999. At the time we were recording, a hydrant on Fourcade Street had burst, and the whole street had a nice long stream of water running down it. Of course, all the song titles and the album title had to reflect that moment in time.

2. "Just Say Neu!" by Avijit (Harbingers of Evil, 1996)... Another one of Avijit's Krautrockier numbers.

3. "Goat" by The Defenestration Unit (Buffaloes and Goat, 1997)... the only known recording by the rather vague undefinable second version of TDU, this time featuring Shane Lauder on drums, Charlie Naked on alto sax, Mike Switzer on trombone, JJ Watson on euphonium, Ajda Snyder on flute, and special guest Phil Gayle on acoustic guitar. There were other members of the second version of TDU, but this was one of the versions where the lineup was pretty fluid, so really there were probably lots of people who could've claimed membership in this version. Unfortunately, we just didn't record very often. This was done at KTRU for the Local Show, almost exactly a year after the "KTRU No-Stars" performance which created TDU in the first place.

4. "The Old Laughing Lady" [Neil Young] by Avijit (Salamander, 1994)... Again off the first recording of what I call "proto-Avijit", featuring Charlie Horshack on vocals and guitar, and Mike Switzer on drums, this extended rendition of Neil Young's classic song has always been one of my favorites.

Following the Sad Pygmy set from the previous podcast of live performances from the birthday party for John Muzak at Super Happy Fun Land, I now present the Last Bastions, experimental duo of Charlie Naked and Mike Switzer. The last time we played in public was at Diverseworks for our Houston Residency there in 2003.

On September 14, 2007, at Super Happy Fun Land in Houston, Texas, we had a big birthday fest for noise musician Muzak John, featuring Black Magic Marker, the Last Bastions, Sad Pygmy, Don Walsh, the Annoysters, and Muzak John himself. These performances (minus Black Magic Marker, who were unfortunately not recorded) will be eventually released on a two CD set, but for now, I'm podcasting some of them. Today's podcast is Sad Pygmy's first performance together in many many years. Sad Pygmy were/are a Houston institution of psych-rock/punk, and it was a HUGE pleasure to get to see them again.

Hey all! It's been awhile, I know, but I'm back with another podcast. This time it's all music made under the "Charlie Naked" project aegis. This is my solo experimental music project, and if you want any more information about what I do or other music I have, go to my MySpace profile: http://www.myspace.com/charlienaked

1. "Saturation (Third Movement)" - SATURATION (2007) This is the third of three shorter tracks on my most recent album. The three variations on Saturation are all based on multiple tracks of malleted electric guitar, in the key of D. The first of these tracks is available on the afore-mentioned MySpace profile. The fourth track on the album is an exploration of incongruent long loops.

2. "Bliss and the Sitar" - THE DRONE WRENCH (1995) I originally conceptualized this piece based on a bass motif I wrote to accompany Bliss Blood (of the Pain Teens and the Moonlighters) who was improvising on a sitar. That recording didn't survive due to a faulty mic cable, but this reimagining on one of my earliest albums is still a pretty nice droney track.

3. "Charge of the Trenchcoat Brigade" - THE MAGNIFICENT OCTOPUS (1999) This was the last analog (non-computer) album that I did, and one of the relatively few largely electronic-keyboard-based and song-oriented albums I've ever done under the Charlie Naked moniker. The theremin playing is pretty bad, but largely I like a lot of the underlying concepts behind these pieces.

4. "Bellydancers' Reunion" - DIVING HOMEWORK (1995) One of only two bass-and-three-saxophone early works that I've done, I always enjoyed how this came out, particularly in the middle of a primarily piano-based album.

5. "The Countess" - THE COUNTESS (2004) This collaboration with Two Star Symphony violist Jo Bird has always been one of my proudest moments. This, the lead-off track, is based around a melody that Jo Bird composed. She played this melody for me, and then I chopped up a copy of it, and processed and recombined the pieces, adding them onto the original viola solo for a result which neither of us alone could've achieved. The rest of the album is based on the edited and processed pieces of a long free improvisation she performed for the project, but this piece was composed beforehand, and represents one of the very few true collaborations appearing in the Charlie Naked project.

All of these songs and albums can be purchased at http://www.cafepress.com/charlienaked for $10 apiece, a very reasonable cost indeed, don't you think?