Pengo
Stats:
Birth: August 11, 1998
Members: Jason Finkbeiner, John Schoen, Nuuj, Joe Tunis (1998-2005)
Contact:
jschoen@library.rochester.eduwebsite: Pengo website
Bio:
Pengo: noise heathens, bashing out the psychedelic chaos since 1998. Tons of releases on tons of labels from all over the world. Tours all over the U.S. & Canada. Soundtrack to the Center of the Cyclone inside your head.
Releases (22):
a nervous splendor (LP) - Carbon Records CR65 OUT OF PRINTAA Records Compilation Vol II (LP) - AA Records CarbonDist_AA_comp2 BUY NOW
Alchemy and Bullshit (2CDR) - Carbon Records CR101 BUY NOW
Blood in the Vacuum Cleaner (CDR) - Hippie Overdose CarbonDist_HO03 OUT OF PRINT
climbs the holy mountain (CD) - Carbon Records CR22 BUY NOW
Cosmology of the Broken Saints (CDR) - Hippie Overdose CarbonDist_HO04 OUT OF PRINT
Counter Fit Fest TSHIRT (TSHIRT) - Carbon Records CRT_CFF_2005 BUY NOW
counterfeit memories (LP) - Nashazphone CarbonDist_np002lp BUY NOW
Electric Dust, Magnetic Sand (CDR) - Carbon Records CR48 OUT OF PRINT
Hurts So Good - The Cock E.S.P. Remix CD (CD) - V/Vm CarbonDist_OFFAL014 BUY NOW
i don't think the dirt belongs to the grass (3CD) - Carbon Records CR99 BUY NOW
June 2007 Carbon releases package deal (3CD) - Carbon Records CR_2007_06_releases OUT OF PRINT
live at the village gate (CDR) - Carbon Records CR33 OUT OF PRINT
miami made a mess out of me (CDR) - Carbon Records CR27 OUT OF PRINT
Moving Gelatin in a Translucent World (CDR) - Audiobot CarbonDist_BOT009 OUT OF PRINT
Naugacide (DVDR) - Naugacide CarbonDist_Naug001 OUT OF PRINT
No Tribute - Music of the Nihilist Spasm Band (CD) - Carbon Records CR69 OUT OF PRINT
phi-phenomena (CD) - Carbon Records CR53 OUT OF PRINT
the nature of systems (CD) - Carbon Records CR25 BUY NOW
toadstools amongst the tombstones (LP) - qbico CarbonDist_QBICO055 OUT OF PRINT
unt (7inch) - AA Records CarbonDist_AA_PengoUnt BUY NOW
Virus Thoughts (LP) - Gods of Tundra CarbonDist_GOT81504 OUT OF PRINT
tours:
Fall 2006 U.K. tour
Nov.10th Brighton
Nov.13th Leeds
Nov.14th Edinburgh
Nov.15th Manchester
Nov.16h Sheffield
Nov.17th Birmingham
PAST TOURS
Upcoming Shows (1):
Wed Sep 24th, 2008 - John Wiese, Tumul and Pengo (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Past Shows (193):
Wed Jul 30th, 2008 - Hair Police, Pengo and The Bloody Noes (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)Mon May 12th, 2008 - Demons, Pengo, SIck Llama and Helicoptre Sanglante (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Sat Mar 8th, 2008 - Pengo, Dave Smolen (philly), Csection (philly), Snowstorm (philly), City Harvest Black, Albert Einstein and the Hopi (The Landfill - Rochester, NY)
Tue Jan 1st, 2008 - Pengo, No Fucker, Hellcontrol, Bludwulf and Blizzaro (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Sat Dec 15th, 2007 - Three Legged Race, Caboladies, Pengo and City Harvest Black (The Bunker - Rochester, NY)
Thu Nov 15th, 2007 - Up-Tight (Japan), Kohoutek (DC) and Pengo (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Thu Aug 30th, 2007 - Sunburned Hand of the Man, Pengo and Apostles of the Hidden Sun (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Sat Aug 11th, 2007 - Dead Machines, Pengo and Nōh (The Bunker - Rochester, NY) - (photos)
Tue Jun 12th, 2007 - 16 Bitch Pile Up and Pengo (A|V - Rochester, NY)
Wed May 23rd, 2007 - Dennis Tyfus (Belgium - lecture), Sixes, Deathroes, Hardline Elephants and Pengo (A|V - Rochester, NY)
Fri Apr 27th, 2007 - Growing [Olympia, Washington/NYC/Kranky], Pengo [Rochester] and Crush the Junta [Rochester/Carbon] (A|V - Rochester, NY) - (photos)
Sun Mar 11th, 2007 - Sunburned Hand of the Man, Gown and Pengo (Mohawk Place - Buffalo, NY)
Thu Feb 22nd, 2007 - Primordial Undermind (Texas Psych), Bloody Feathers and Pengo (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Wed Feb 7th, 2007 - Demons (inc. Nate from Wolf Eyes), Pengo and Mark Morgan (Sightings, To Live and Shave in L.A.) (A|V - Rochester, NY) - (photos)
Fri Nov 17th, 2006 - Pengo, Withdrawal Method, Gas Shepherds, Cities Prepare for Attack! (The Market Tavern - Birmingham, UK)
Wed Nov 15th, 2006 - Pengo, Withdrawal Method, Stuckometer and Diuretics (The Klondyke Club - Manchester, UK)
Tue Nov 14th, 2006 - Pengo, Withdrawal Method, Chris Corsano and Usurper (Henry\'s Celler Bar - Edinburgh, Scotland)
Mon Nov 13th, 2006 - Pengo, Withdrawal Method, Ashtray Navigations and Mutant Turd (Cardigan Arms - Leeds, UK)
Fri Nov 10th, 2006 - Colour out of Space festival (UK) (Colour out of Space - Brighton, East Sussex, UK)
Sat Oct 28th, 2006 - Venison Whirled, Ethereal Planes Indian, Pengo and Foot and Mouth Disease (A|V - Rochester, NY)
Thu Oct 19th, 2006 - Graveyards, Blood and Bone Orchestra, Suicide Revolutionary Jazz Band (A|V - Rochester, NY)
Sat Sep 30th, 2006 - Wolf Eyes, John Wiese, Pengo and Thames (Club Lambi - Montreal, Canada)
Fri Sep 29th, 2006 - Wolf Eyes, John Wiese and Pengo (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Mon Jul 10th, 2006 - Vampire Belt (featuring Chris Corsano), Pengo and Patti/Reeg/Tunis (A|V - Rochester, NY) - (photos)
Wed Jul 5th, 2006 - Wooden Wand & The Vanishing Voice, Religious Knives and Pengo (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Sat Jun 17th, 2006 - the Suoni Per II Poplo Festivle (featuring Pengo) (Casa del Popolo - Montreal, Canada)
Sun May 28th, 2006 - Hair Police, Graveyards, Pengo ad DJ John Schoen (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Sat May 20th, 2006 - Pengo, Scarcity of Tanks, Killer Whales and Wheelchair Riot (The Church - Cleveland, OH)
Fri May 19th, 2006 - Country Teasers, Pengo and Spires That in The Sunset Rise (Empty Bottle - Chicago, IL)
Thu May 18th, 2006 - Country Teasers, Pengo, Sick Llama and DJ John Olson (The Lager House - Detroit, MI)
Wed May 17th, 2006 - Country Teasers, Pengo, Blood and Bone Orchestra (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Tue May 16th, 2006 - Country Teasers, Pengo, White Mice and Black Clouds (Redrum - Providence, RI)
Mon May 15th, 2006 - Pengo, Eloe Omoe and Anna Rampage (PA\'s Lounge - Somerville, MA)
Sun May 14th, 2006 - Pengo, Watersports and Afternoon Penis (Goodbye Blue Monday - Bushwick - Brooklyn, NY)
Sat Mar 25th, 2006 - Nod, Pengo, Galactic Harbour (A|V - Rochester, NY)
Thu Mar 9th, 2006 - Whitehouse (UK) and Pengo (Icon - Buffalo, NY)
Tue Feb 21st, 2006 - Sick Llama, Cotton Museum, Pengo (A|V - Rochester, NY)
Fri Dec 16th, 2005 - Pengo, Blood and Bone Orchestra and Hall of Justice (featuring Nod and Cavebrides) (Montys Krown)
Sat Nov 26th, 2005 - Graveyards, Pengo, Caustic Solution and Rainbeaux (A|V - Rochester, NY) - (photos)
Mon Oct 17th, 2005 - Auk theatre (Irene Moon), Wizzards, Mudboy and Pengo (A|V - Rochester, NY) - (photos)
Sat Oct 15th, 2005 - Pengo, Six Organs of Admittance, Hush Arbors, Eyes & Arms of Smoke, Warmer Milks (Memorial Hall Amphitheater University of Kentucky - Lexington, KY)
Thu Oct 13th, 2005 - Pengo and The Sapat (The Duck Down - Louisville, KY)
Wed Oct 12th, 2005 - Pengo, Too Tan To Fuck, Arizona Drains and DJ Vixo Soundsystem (The Pressing Plant - Nashville, TN)
Tue Oct 11th, 2005 - Pengo, Ghost Ice, McClain/Doggett/Stone Trio, DJ Vixo Soundsystem (Spooky Action Palace - St. Louis, MO)
Mon Oct 10th, 2005 - Pengo, Jaros & Jaroba, The Mighty Vitamins, Man's Last Great Invention, Nick Hug, Mir and Papier Mache (Tip Top Haus - Omaha, NE)
Sun Oct 9th, 2005 - Pengo, Diamonds, Maths Balance Volumes (Big V\'s Saloon - St. Paul, MN)
Sat Oct 8th, 2005 - Pengo, Davenport, Old Time Relijun, Le Ton Mite, 2% Majesty, Two Prong (Nottingham (Madison WI))
Fri Oct 7th, 2005 - Pengo, Sick Llama, Raven Strain, DJ Dilloway, DJ Vixo Soundsystem (Behind the Green Door - Detroit, MI)
Sat Sep 3rd, 2005 - Sixteen Bitch Pile-up, Okan, The Body, Death's Head Sphinx and Pengo (A|V - Rochester, NY) - (photos)
Sun Aug 14th, 2005 - Pengo and Offensive Orange (Casbah La Luna - Hamilton, CANADA)
Sat Aug 13th, 2005 - Pengo, Gastric Female Reflex, Offensive Orange (The Gladstone Hotel - Toronto, CANADA)
Fri Aug 12th, 2005 - Pengo + Guests TBA (La Sala Rossa - Montreal, Quebec)
Sat Aug 6th, 2005 - Eyes & Arms of Smoke (Lexington, KY), Irene Moon (Lexington, KY), Sapat (Louisville KY), dosdedos (Brooklyn) and Pengo (A|V - Rochester, NY) - (photos)
Sat Jul 9th, 2005 - Tonight Let's All Make Love In Buffalo festival - 1st day (featuring Pengo, Coffee and more) (SoundLab - Buffalo, NY) - (photos)
Thu Jul 7th, 2005 - Warmer Milks (Lexington, KY), Pengo and Hinkley (A|V - Rochester, NY) - (photos)
Sat Jun 11th, 2005 - Counter Fit Fest - 1st Night - Pengo, Carlos Giffoni, Emil Beaulieau, Bernard Gal, Steve Baczkowski trio, Tatsuya Nakatani, Jack Wright/Tom Djll/Tim Feeney (A|V - Rochester, NY)
Sun May 22nd, 2005 - Burning Star Core, Pengo and Caustic Solution (Kitchen Distribution Gallery - Buffalo, NY)
Thu May 19th, 2005 - Burning Star Core and Pengo (A|V - Rochester, NY) - (photos)
Fri Apr 29th, 2005 - Sir Richard Bishop (of the Sun City Girls) and Pengo (A|V - Rochester, NY) - (photos)
Tue Mar 22nd, 2005 - Dead Machines, Hauntings, Right Arm Severed, Sick Llama and Pengo (post NoFunFest mini-tour) (A|V - Rochester, NY) - (photos)
Mon Mar 21st, 2005 - Dead Machines, Hauntings, Sick Llama and Pengo, with Magik Markers and Et Sans (CD Release Launch) (TOC - 6091 ave du Parc, Montreal Quebec)
Sun Mar 20th, 2005 - No Fun Fest 2005 (Pengo playing this night) (Hook In Brooklyn)
Wed Feb 9th, 2005 - Emil Beaulieau, Jessica Rylan (Can't), John Wiese and Pengo (A|V - Rochester, NY) - (photos)
Fri Jan 14th, 2005 - Pengo and The Steel Forest (featuring members of Wolf Eyes, Sick Llama, Hair Police, Death C.O.M.M. etc.) (V.G. Kids. 815 W. Michigan Ave. Ypsilanti MI.)
Sat Oct 30th, 2004 - Zombie Humano (aka Pengo) and A Real Knife Head (Cleveland) play the ART OPENING: In Flesh and Spirit (featuring Andy Gilmore) (A|V - Rochester, NY) - (photos)
Tue Oct 26th, 2004 - Tanasfuck is Taiwan Deth and Pengo (A|V - Rochester, NY) - (photos)
Tue Oct 19th, 2004 - oVo (Italy), 36 and Pengo (USA) (A|V - Rochester, NY) - (photos)
Sun Oct 10th, 2004 - Pengo, Empty Conquest, Aaron Rosenblum, The SB (Casa Gameboy - Columbus, OH)
Sat Oct 9th, 2004 - Pengo, The SB, Aaron Rosenblum, Cherry Blossoms and Plasma Witch (Rudyard Kipling (422 W. Oak Street, Louisville, Kentucky))
Fri Oct 8th, 2004 - PENGO, THE SB w/ Aaron Rosenblum, MIKE SHIFLET and EYES AND ARMS OF SMOKE (THE CHARLES MANSION (Lexington, KY)) - (photos)
Wed Sep 15th, 2004 - TO LIVE AND SHAVE IN L.A (featuring Andrew W.K.) with Pengo and Foot & Mouth Disease (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY) - (photos)
Thu Aug 26th, 2004 - Plastic Crimewave Sound (Eclipse Records, The Supposed (Locust Music) and Pengo (Haoma/Carbon Records) (VIsual Studies Workshop) - (photos)
Tue Aug 24th, 2004 - EMIL BEAULIEAU, Prurient, CRANK STURGEON and Pengo (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Fri Aug 13th, 2004 - Corsano/ Flaherty/Baczkowsk Trio, Tarpis Tula, Pengo (SoundLab - Buffalo, NY) - (photos)
Wed Aug 4th, 2004 - Hair Police and Pengo (A|V - Rochester, NY) - (photos)
Sat Jul 31st, 2004 - Pengo, Gutterhelmet (members of Barnacled), Christophe Alberijin + more TBA (NorthSix - Brooklyn, NY)
Sat Jul 3rd, 2004 - 2/5 BZ (Istanbul Turkey), Watersports (NYC), Pengo (Rochester) and more... (Access Community - Buffalo, NY)
Mon Jun 28th, 2004 - Nautical Almanac, Pengo and The Blood and Bone Orchestra (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY) - (photos)
Sat Jun 26th, 2004 - Velvet Underground Tribute to Benefit Synaesthesia Arts Collective (featuring Pengo, Blood and Bone Orchestra and more) (Montys Krown) - (photos)
Tue Jun 22nd, 2004 - Laundry Room Squelchers with Dave Cross & Pengo & Nuuj, The Unicorns, Arcade Fire and The Race (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Thu May 6th, 2004 - Corsano/Flaherty/Baczkowski/Conrad, Coffee and Pengo (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY) - (photos)
Sat Apr 24th, 2004 - Ova, Happy Mothers Day, I Can't Read, Pengo and Foot & Mouth Disease (All-Purpose Room - Rochester, NY) - (photos)
Sat Apr 17th, 2004 - Sunburned Hand of the Man, Six Organs of Admittance andPengo (SoundLab - Buffalo, NY) - (photos)
Fri Apr 9th, 2004 - Bushwick Blast (Asterisk Art Space (Bushwick, Brooklyn))
Fri Apr 2nd, 2004 - Synestheasia - Pengo and many others at VSW (VIsual Studies Workshop) - (photos)
Tue Mar 23rd, 2004 - Wolf Eyes, Taiwan Deth, Pengo, Rubber-0-Cement and Vixo SoundSystem (DJ) (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY) - (photos)
Sun Mar 21st, 2004 - Pengo at No Fun Fest 2004 (NorthSix - Brooklyn, NY) - (photos)
Thu Mar 18th, 2004 - QBICO U-nite with Arthur Doyle Electro-Acoustic Ensemble and Andrew Barker/Charles Waters (Tonic (NYC))
Sun Dec 7th, 2003 - Pealed Hearts Paste, Xela Zaid and Pillage Sunday (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY) - (photos)
Sun Nov 16th, 2003 - Mike Shiflet and Burning Star Core(Columbus, OH/Gameboy Records - www.gmby.net), Pengo (Rochester/Haoma/Carbon) (All-Purpose Room - Rochester, NY) - (photos)
Sun Nov 9th, 2003 - Aaron Dilloway & The Cotton Musum, Nate Young, Dead Machines, Black Tent and Pengo (Detroit Art Space (Detroit MI))
Sat Nov 8th, 2003 - Hail Zukas, Mommy Wont Wake Up, The Lotus and Pengo (House Party (Grand Rapids MI))
Fri Nov 7th, 2003 - Drunjus, Mumber Toes, STS, Craig Micro-Cassette System, Bruce Carkiss, Petrol Ardente and Pengo (Nottingham (Madison WI))
Thu Nov 6th, 2003 - Ova, Brown Rainbow and Pengo (The Church - Minneapolis, MN)
Tue Nov 4th, 2003 - Parts And Labor and Pengo (Monkey Mania)
Sun Nov 2nd, 2003 - Growing, Black Japan and Pengo (The Haunt (Seattle))
Sat Nov 1st, 2003 - Pengo (The Dunes (Portland OR))
Fri Oct 31st, 2003 - The Autumn Project, Cheap-Ass Robots, Van Boven, Tri-Cornerd Tent Show and Pengo (21 Grand (Oakland CA))
Thu Oct 30th, 2003 - Bluntfart and Pengo (Henlock Tavern (San Francisco CA))
Tue Oct 28th, 2003 - Pengo (KDVS (Davis CA))
Sat Oct 25th, 2003 - John Weise, The Alarmist, Child Pornogarphy and Pengo (The Smell (Los Angeles CA))
Sat Oct 25th, 2003 - Pengo Tour (West Coast Dates) (Various Places) - (photos)
Fri Oct 24th, 2003 - Rade Zon and Pengo (The Katherine Geianaclis Park for the Arts)
Wed Oct 22nd, 2003 - Drayton Sawyer Gang, Gravity Propulsion System and Pengo (The Conservatory (Oakland CA))
Tue Oct 21st, 2003 - Noxagt, Karaoke Afterlife Experiment, Lonetree and Pengo (LNAC (St. Louis MO))
Mon Oct 20th, 2003 - Noxagt, Dave Clouds Gospel of Power, Meat Wagons and Pengo (Springwater (Nashville TN))
Sun Oct 19th, 2003 - Taiwan Death, Justin Clifford Rhody, Dinosaurs and Pengo (Springwater (Nashville TN))
Sat Oct 18th, 2003 - CD Player Virgins, Dielectic Lull and Pengo (Club Seal (Lexington KY))
Thu Oct 16th, 2003 - COSTES(Psycho-Sexual Ritual from France. http://costes.org), Shatterhand, Pengo (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY) - (photos)
Wed Aug 27th, 2003 - Pengo, Emil Beaulieau and Wolf Eyes (Hallwalls - Buffalo, NY) - (photos)
Thu Aug 7th, 2003 - Pengo, ST37 and Primordial Undermind (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY) - (photos)
Sun Jul 20th, 2003 - Emil Beaulieau, Neon Hunk, Prurient, Immaculate:Grotesque and Pengo (VIsual Studies Workshop)
Sun Jun 8th, 2003 - SubArachnoid Space and Pengo (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Tue May 27th, 2003 - Nautical Almanac, Mystery Brinkman, 50% Beam Splitter and Pengo (VIsual Studies Workshop) - (photos)
Sat Apr 12th, 2003 - Carloner, Nod and Pengo (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Sat Mar 1st, 2003 - Pengo, Hair Police and Monotract (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY) - (photos)
Sat Feb 1st, 2003 - Pengo, Matt Brinkman, Hair Police, Temple of Bon Matin, Irene Moon, Russ Forster's Rake Hell, No-Fi, The Dirt, 36 Orchestra, DJ Twig (Tarantula Hill - Baltimore, MD)
Sat Dec 7th, 2002 - Pengo and Tan As Fuck (Analog Shock - Rochester, NY)
Sat Nov 2nd, 2002 - Pengo, French Flys, Radio Shock, Newton (Analog Shock - Rochester, NY)
Fri Nov 1st, 2002 - Pengo, Radio Shock, Newton (Detroit Art Space (Detroit MI))
Thu Oct 31st, 2002 - Pengo, Crystal Fantasy(aka- Neon Hunk), Xelia Zaid, Radio Shock, Newton (Hunk Haus - Milwaukee, WI)
Tue Oct 29th, 2002 - Pengo, Tan As Fuck, Banjoland, Newton, Radio Shock (Springwater - Nashville, TN)
Mon Oct 28th, 2002 - Pengo, Hair Police, Newton, Radio Shock (Downtown Arts Center - Lexington, KY)
Sun Oct 27th, 2002 - Pengo, Radio Shock, Newton (Southgate House - Newport, KY)
Sat Oct 26th, 2002 - Pengo, Aieros, The Orphans (Tortillas - Atlanta, GA)
Fri Oct 25th, 2002 - Pengo, Yukhonic, Byron House, Pompano Poor People, Baby Robots, Mr. Entertainment, Laundry Room Squelcers (Churchills)
Thu Oct 24th, 2002 - Pengo, Laundry Room Squelchers, Anti-Pope, Monotract, Dopee Fransico, Mr. Entertainment (Churchills)
Tue Oct 22nd, 2002 - Pengo, Cock Robot, Big A Little A, Sodalien (NorthSix - Brooklyn, NY)
Mon Oct 21st, 2002 - Pengo (WPRB - Princeton, NJ)
Sun Oct 20th, 2002 - Pengo, Human Abstract, Noiseboat, Armolux (Organ Donors House - Baltimore, MD)
Fri Oct 18th, 2002 - Pengo, Matt Krefting, Kitty Tomahawk Singers (The Yurt - Amherst, MA)
Tue Oct 8th, 2002 - Pengo, SubArachnoid Space, Arco Flute Foundation, Jason Lowenstein (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Sat Sep 21st, 2002 - Pengo, Sudden Infant, Emil Beaulieau, Howie Stelzer/Jason Talbot Duo, Carlos Giffoni with Newton (Gallery 31 (VSW) - Rochester, NY)
Tue Aug 27th, 2002 - Pengo and Sightings (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Wed Jul 10th, 2002 - Pengo, Son of Earth/Flesh on Bone, Aaron Rosenblum, Sneaky Dragon, Death of Marat (Analog Shock - Rochester, NY)
Thu Jul 4th, 2002 - Pengo, Cock ESP, Nod, LoVid, Asthmatic, U Can Unlearn Guitar (Analog Shock - Rochester, NY)
Sat May 25th, 2002 - Pengo, Davis Redford Triad, Primordial Undermind (Analog Shock - Rochester, NY)
Wed May 8th, 2002 - Pengo, The Lotus, The French Flys (Analog Shock - Rochester, NY)
Thu May 2nd, 2002 - Pengo, Laundry Room Squelchers, Plutonium Pie, Zelia Xeld, Coffee, Asthmatic (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Sun Apr 14th, 2002 - Pengo, Wolf Eyes, Temple of Bon Matin, Leslie Q. film strip (Analog Shock - Rochester, NY)
Sat Apr 6th, 2002 - Guided By Voices (the Continental - Buffalo, NY)
Fri Jan 25th, 2002 - Pengo, Cock E.S.P., Unlearny, Bo-Bo (Analog Shock - Rochester, NY)
Fri Jan 18th, 2002 - Pengo, Monotract, Hinkley (Analog Shock - Rochester, NY)
Tue Jan 15th, 2002 - Pengo, Danse Asshole, Mammal, Viki, Neon Hunk, New Faggot Cunts (3rd Street Saloon - Detroit, MI)
Mon Jan 14th, 2002 - Pengo, Viki, Death Beam, New Faggot Cunts, No Doctors, Neon Hunk (Empty Bottle - Chicago, IL)
Sun Jan 13th, 2002 - Pengo, Neon Hunk, New Faggot Cunts w/Thornicabuster, Marcello the Fatman, Mustwakigotzimuzen (Onopa - Milwaukee, WI)
Sat Jan 12th, 2002 - Pengo, Thornicabuster, Rat & Nuuj Duo, New Faggot Cunts, Unlearny, Neon Hunk, Newton, Page Flash Destruction Unit (The Church - Minneapolis, MN)
Sat Jan 12th, 2002 - Pengo, Nod and This Sporting Life (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Sat Jan 12th, 2002 - Pengo, Sistrum, Asthmatic, Laundry Room Squelchers, The Vig, New Faggot Cunts, Unlearny, Tripping on Falling, Cock E.S.P., NewCenturyschoolbook.com (the Soap Factory - Minneapolis, MN)
Fri Jan 11th, 2002 - Pengo, Radar Threat, Thornicabuster, Unlearny, Seawhores, MC Tidalwave, Jesse Petersen, The Vig, Frosting (7th Street Entry - Minneapolis, MN)
Wed Dec 5th, 2001 - Pengo, Flying Luttenbachers, Ex-Models (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Thu Oct 18th, 2001 - Pengo, Reynols, Noumena, Asthmatic (Montys Krown)
Thu Oct 4th, 2001 - Pengo, Wolf Eyes, Viki, OccasionalDetroit (Analog Shock - Rochester, NY)
Wed Oct 3rd, 2001 - Pengo, Asthmatic, Joe+N, Chad Oliveiri, Scott Valkevich, River of Ichtyosis, Titans of Industry, Knox Harrington (Saturn Building - Buffalo, NY)
Thu Sep 13th, 2001 - Pengo, Nod, Praying for Oblivion,Olivia Neutron Bomb, Doersam, U Can Unlearn Guitar, Asthmatic,OVO, Newcenteryschoolbook.com, Ortho, Unconditional Loathing,Laundry Room Squelchers (Montys Krown)
Wed Sep 12th, 2001 - Pengo, Scrappy Joe, Olivia Neutron Bomb, Sound of Sleep, Doersam, U Can Unlearn Guitar, Asthmatic, OVO, Newcentreryschoolbook.com, Ortho, Laundry Room Squelchers, Unconditional Loathing (the Continental - Buffalo, NY)
Tue Sep 11th, 2001 - Pengo, Unconditional Loathing, Panicsville, Zenith Flytrap, Temple of Bon Matin, Dixie Prix, Doersam, Eloe Omoe, U Can Unlean Guitar, Asthmatic, OVO, Newcenteryschoolbook.com, Ortho, Laundry Room Squelchers (Fireside Bowl - Chicago, IL)
Mon Sep 10th, 2001 - Pengo, Dixie Prix, Temple of Bon Matin, Scam Carnage vs Teenage Grandpa, Washout Corporation, Doersam, Eloe Omoe, U Can Unlearn Guitar, Asthmatic, OVO, Newcenteryschoolbook.com, Ortho, Laundry Room Squelchers (Speak in Tongues - Cleveland, OH)
Sun Sep 9th, 2001 - Pengo, Larry Marotta, Dixie Prix, Temple of Bon Matin, Doersam, Eloe Omoe, U Can Unlearn Guitar, Asthmatic, OVO, Newcenteryschoolbook.com, Ortho, Laundry Room Squelchers (Mad Lab - Columbus, OH)
Sun Sep 9th, 2001 - Pengo, Manheringbone, Lotus, Newton, Doersam, Eloe Omoe, U Can Unlearn Guitar, Asthmatic, OVO, Newcenteryschoolbook.com, Ortho, Laundry Room Squelchers/Temple of Bon Matin (Millvale Industrial Theater - Pittsburgh, PA)
Sat Sep 8th, 2001 - Pengo, Rake, Lotus, Newton, Doersam, Eloe Omoe, U Can Unlearn Guitar, Asthmatic, OVO, Newcenteryschoolbook.com, Ortho, Laundry Room Squelchers (MOCA DC - Washington, DC)
Fri Sep 7th, 2001 - Pengo, Demonophonic, Temple of Bon Matin, Lotus, Newton, Doersam, Eloe Omoe, U Can Unlearn Guitar, Asthmatic, OVO, Newcenturyschoolbook.com, Ortho, Laundry Room Squelchers (Dotdash Record - Philadelphia, PA)
Thu Sep 6th, 2001 - Pengo, Newton, Doersam, Eloe Omoe, U Can Unlearn Guitar, Asthmatic, OVO, Newcenturyschoolbook.com, Ortho, Laundry Room Squelchers, Lotus, Vera Mere, Madame Chao, Xela Zaid (Good/Bad - Brooklyn, NY)
Sat Aug 25th, 2001 - Pengo, LoVid, Asthmatic and Cock ESP2 (Montys Krown)
Sun Aug 19th, 2001 - Pengo, No Doctors, Nitrous rOxide and Hilkka (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Mon Aug 13th, 2001 - Barbara Manning and the Go-Luckys and Hinkley (Montys Krown)
Fri May 18th, 2001 - Pengo, Monotract, Animals, Humectant Interruption, Asthmatic and Coffee (Genesee Valley Park - Roundhouse Pavillion - Rochester, NY)
Sat Apr 21st, 2001 - Pengo, Nod and Visionstain (Montys Krown)
Tue Mar 13th, 2001 - Pengo, Cock ESP, Doersam, The Suck, U Can Unlearn Guitar, Rexor, The Greg featuring the Rick, Newton and Laundry Room Squelchers (Boca Pub - Boca Raton, FL)
Sat Mar 10th, 2001 - Pengo, Phi Phenomena festival- Wrong, Newton, Nuuj, Dixie Prix, The Suck, Dopee Francisco, Laundry Room Squelchers, Doersam, Juan Montoya, Xela Zaid and The Greg featuring the Rick (Churchills)
Fri Mar 9th, 2001 - Pengo, Curd Duca, Nuuj, Roger from Monotract, Rexor, U Can Unlearn Guitar and Plutonium Pie (Churchills)
Thu Mar 8th, 2001 - Pengo, Cock ESP, Newton, U Can Unlearn Guitar, Nuuj, Laundry Room Squelchers and Dopee Francisco (Churchills)
Sun Feb 25th, 2001 - Pengo, Wolf Eyes and Suffer (Joe on drums) (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Sat Feb 24th, 2001 - Pengo and Wolf Eyes (The Bunker - Rochester, NY)
Sat Nov 18th, 2000 - Pengo, Born in East L.A., Diggity, Etherdrag, Jacopo Andreini Orchestra and Ortho (Madagascar Institute - Brooklyn, NY)
Fri Nov 17th, 2000 - Pengo, Hijokaden, Solmania, Mikki Sawaguchi and BRXTLNE (Storrs Congregational Church Auditorium - Storrs, CT)
Tue Oct 24th, 2000 - Pengo, Tummler and Zeek Sheck (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Sat Sep 30th, 2000 - Pengo, Fat Day, Hilkka and some other crappy hardcore bands (Ely Fagin Hall - Henrietta, NY)
Sun Aug 27th, 2000 - Pengo, To Live and Shave in L.A.2 and Shambling Mounds (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Sun Aug 13th, 2000 - Pengo, Arthur Doyle and Laundry Room Squelchers (EyeQ Radio - Miami, FL)
Sun Aug 13th, 2000 - Pengo and Mr. Entertainment (Blue Note Records - North Miami, FL)
Sat Aug 12th, 2000 - Pengo, Arthur Doyle, Mr. Quintron & Miss Pussycat, M.C. Tracheotomy and Dixie Prix (Churchills)
Fri Aug 11th, 2000 - Pengo, Arthur Doyle and Dorsch Gallery Orchestra (Dorsch Gallery - Miamo, FL)
Thu Aug 10th, 2000 - Pengo, Arthur Doyle and Laundry Room Squelchers (Churchills)
Sat Jul 8th, 2000 - Pengo, Pelt and Andy Gilmore (Bop Shop Atrium - Rochester, NY)
Tue Apr 18th, 2000 - Pengo and the Flying Luttenbachers (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Sat Jan 8th, 2000 - Pengo and California is Not a Island (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Sun Oct 24th, 1999 - Pengo, To Live and Shave in L.A., Prix and Exoskeleton (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Thu Jul 22nd, 1999 - Pengo (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Sat Feb 13th, 1999 - Pengo, Arthur Doyle and Hilkka (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Thu Oct 1st, 1998 - Pengo and Melt Banana (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Tue Sep 1st, 1998 - Pengo and Bobby Conn (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Tue Aug 11th, 1998 - Pengo and Gaunt (Bug Jar - Rochester, NY)
Media:
Related Reviews (31):
Crucial BlastRELEASE: the curse of abraham
Just found out about this new trio from Rochester, NY, which includes Joe Tunis somewhere in it's lineup. When the fuck does this guy sleep? In addition to running the massive avant-noise label and mailorder Carbon, doing one-day tours where he performs short, fast sets of his solo experimental electronics at various locations around Rochester, collaborating with a million different artists, and playing in the amp-cranking free-rock unit Entente Cordiale, Tunis apparently also operates this killer group alongside Dennis Mariano (also of TIger Cried Beef and Hungness) and Chris Reeg (Blood And Bone Orchestra, The Years). Reeg and Tunis are actually both in Entente Cordiale, and that group's hazy, droning noise rock improv is sort of the starting point for what Crush The Junta are doing. But this outfit however definitely gets more raucous, combining formless guitar riffs and feedback, meandering basslines a la The Dead C and likeminded rock deconstructionists, electronic textures, synths, and freeform percussive splat into waves of amorphous rock action that crest with loud and burly bursts of psychedelic sludgery that come close at times to Grey Daturas-levels of sonic muscle. The Curse Of Abraham is one of the group's first recorded works, a document of two live tracks that each toe the twenty-minute mark, and which run the gamut between brooding, pummeling krautrock workouts, spidery meandering math rock jams, and punishing metallic sludge dripping with woozy, detuned guitars and howling screams. One of the heaviest releases from Carbon to date - keep it up, Joe! I'm looking forward to hearing more from this band. The spraypainted disc comes packaged in a hefty, hand-assembled chip-board envelope similiar to that Pengo disc we carried last year, with full color artwork glued to the front and splattered in dual-color paint, with a color insert.
Smooth Assailing
Pengo - Toadstools amongst the tombstones 12"
Damn, i decided to take a bit of a siesta on pengo after climbs the holy mountain, and now they've gone and cut an absolutely fantastic record. i'm waking up just in time, it seems. i loved the holy mountain's trans-love abattoir, though. great track. after that album i pretty much just "collected" their music whenever it would happen to pop up on slsk. i'd give them the quick once over, not find anything that particularly stuck out, shrug and run off to go listen to prurient. i never really got what was so popular about the band, but then again, i wasn't really putting forth interest in finding out. recently, i got the hair police and pengo collaboration, actually listened to it, and was impressed enough by that to give some undivided attention to this release.
this rochester, ny, trio (nuuj, jason finkbeiner and john schoen) have created a beautiful zen-like harmony with their organic psychedelia, electronic and noisier impulses. after the impossible happened would be the quintessential example. sputtering electronics, echoing chimes and barely there guitar strumming will gradually build culminating in a gorgeous track with memorability on every front. outstanding electronic work. the latter half of the track gets more into psychedelic things with an emphasis on the guitar. now, the electronics play out to be more of a noisy background layer. if pengo's got more shit like this in their (sizeable) discography, point me in the right direction, please!
moving on from there, pengo choose to get their hands a bit dirty with chaotic vocal noise and yelps during the onset of doboce. eventually, they'll settle down to a terrific little bit of guitar twang and drone. voices inside the circle seems like an entirely different band altogether as they focus more intently on synth usage. higher and lower frequency tones and buzzing static in the background layer. voices is significantly less dynamic than everything else on here, but taken in the full album context, serves change up the pace a bit. it also segues nicely into the superb the day it came crawling. there's a catchy electronic groove hidden in the back and they're just laying down some great free noise guitar freak outs. one eye looks north also pairs some hooky guitar playing with vocal noise and synthesized tones.
the closing piece, let's levitate the outhouse, lightens the mood considerably with some airy chords and the first appearance of percussion. as outhouse unfolds, the percussion gets fucked up to the point where everything's stuttering and off-beat and believe me, it's a very good thing. the track'll soon explode into a pleasantly noisy conclusion. couldn't have ended this on a better note.
the constants of something attention grabbing on nearly every track, whether it be by guitar or other instrumentation, electronic or not, make this a hell of a listen. additionally, pengo's seamless weaving of instrumentation and synthesized music gives you something else to marvel over when you listen to this. hugely recommended. they've made a believer out of me.
Foxy Digitalis
Pengo "Toadstools Amongst the Tombstones" QBICO
Pengo really do make my favourite kind of music, playful psychedelic music that pushes the boundaries of the genre with a sense of fun and an atmosphere of mystery.
For the completely uninitiated ‘Toadstools Amongst the Tombstones’ could serve as a primer on modern psych modes. Opening with some mbira led minimal rumblings the album moves through absurdist sound poetry, organic drone and ramshackle fingerpicking. It is a mixture of radio and live recordings.
Pengo’s organic approach to music gives the whole record a ritualised feel. Pressed onto brown vinyl and adorned with pictures of toads and toadstools, it is easy to imagine weird creatures and magic spores swarming about the surface of the vinyl as it spins.
‘The Day It Came Crawling’ may be the albums heaviest moment, a squeaking sound of indeterminate source permeates the entire rtrack as metallic guitars congeal from spindly nothingness into a swirling shitstorm. Then it all drops out, people start screaming, faint applause is heard somewhere. It is easy to imagine that by this point in the evening audience/performer barrier is completely shattered.
This is the best thing I’ve heard from Pengo. Essential listening for anyone into the genuine weird shit. (9/10) (27 February, 2007) - Cola Nitida
Somethingawful.com
SHOW: Wolf Eyes, John Wiese and Pengo - Bug Jar (Rochester, NY)
this show was the god damn bomb. every band came out of the gate dominating the small club that a friend and i wandered into expecting some sweet sweet noise.
Pengo is a local noise outfit and they used everything from an elementary school recorder to saxophone to god knows what else. Excellent energy from the 'front' man both on stage and in the crowd during the other performances. they ruled.
John Wiese of Bastard Noise, Sissy Spacek and SUNNO))) fame, as well as a collaborator with the likes of Merzbow and Wolf Eyes, came up next, set up his mac laptop, and let out a furious amount of blastbeats and electronic noises. he was clicking so furiously one would think he was playing diablo ii or something. i guess there was a big button on his laptop that said 'noise' and he was mashing it in a total style. all joking aside he is a legend in my eyes and seeing him do his thang was an honor and i shook his hand and stood with him and my friend while Wolf Eyes set up their shit.
Wolf Eyes absolutely blew the roof off the fucking bar. after the first song ground to a halt they declared they would 'bust a friday night jam for my man [the lead singer of Pengo] over there' because he was going fucking nuts in the audience. they were at least three times as loud as the other two acts and their new dobule-bass technique was incredibly dense and made a freakish amount of sound. they put on a crazy show and it was absolutely worth the 8 dollar cover to get in.
special note: i didn't wear earplugs and that was DUMB AS FUCK.
LastFM
RELEASE: Faster
I picked this CD/DVD set up the day it was released at a show last year in Rochester NY, just played it again for the first time in months. Forgot how sweet this stuff is... Sheet is one of the most intense harsh noise acts in the Eastern US. He has a joy for sound that brings freshness to every one of his projects, including Sheet, Pengo, Asthmatic, Hilkka, and his work with Arthur Doyle. If there are still copies of this out there, I recommend every harsh head pick one up. - burlapwax
Blastitude
[Damaged Casket] (Hippie Overlord) CDR
Daaaamn! Has Pengo made any BAD albums? This is in an edition of 50 but I wish it was more, and is two tracks, which I also wish was more! The first one starts out with a two note low bass groove, with some e-bowed guitar (or something) doing some high pitched diddles over it. Then the super catchy folk guitar comes in, with some muffled drum machine beats, and a repetitive high pitched noise. I always think it is good when bands mix up ranges of frequency. Good looking cover, it has Pengo pictured as a 4 headed beast with small creepy hands, and connected to a stalk of some kind. The back has an advertisement for an 800 number that sells caskets (or possibly repairs them). Track 2 is from some German radio show, which they played over the phone. It’s pretty funny when the Germans talk at the beginning, and try to figure out how to pronounce Pengo! The music starts with some layered vocals of John Schoen talking some sort of jibber jabber, I think they are trying to figure out how to work the phone contraption. It sounds pretty good for being recorded over the phone, it’s an interesting fidelity to work with. They jam mightily, as always. In conclusion, this is one “damaged casket” you WON’T need to “repair”! HAHAHA! - Reggie Queequeg
Foxy Digitalis
RELEASE: i don't think the dirt belongs to the grass
With his Carbon Records imprint, Joe Tunis has been exploring the underground music scene of upstate New York and its environs for over 12 years. Throughout its existence, Carbon has released adventurous music on formats both traditional and obscure – Tunis’ own Joe+N project has released music on entire computer hard drives mounted on unique works of art; various series explore DVD-R and MP3 technology as well as the use of recycled materials in handmade packaging. Tunis has played day-tours, in which Joe+N performs at multiple venues around Rochester in a single day; his band Pengo has recorded an alternate soundtrack to the first 31 minutes of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s epic film, The Holy Mountain. It seems that Joe Tunis has both an immense love for art and music, and that he is constantly searching for ways to push the boundaries of performance and production.
Taking over a year to compile, assemble and produce, this three-disc compilation collects tracks chosen by Tunis from a large handful of the many musicians he has worked with during his dozen years running Carbon. The packaging is exquisite – the CDs are housed in a DVD-sized case with beautiful full-colour artwork, which is then sheathed in a natural cotton bag that is ink-stamped with a minimalist logo. The dirt/grass motif is explored thoroughly on both the insert artwork and the artwork that adorns the CDs. Each successive disc explores a geographic region of increasing size: disc 1 represents Tunis’ hometown of Rochester, and features at least three of his musical endeavours (Joe+N, Pengo, Hilkka); disc 2 reaches out across the United States, while disc 3 explores the entire globe. There is no easy visual cue to distinguish among the three discs, which according to Tunis is to demonstrate “the differences and similarities between artists next door and half-way around the world.”
The styles of music represented on this mammoth release range from quiet ambience to full-on noise freakouts, from dazzling guitar explorations to computer-based sonic mayhem. Many of the artists’ names will be recognizable (The North Sea, The Davenport Family, Carlos Giffoni, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Dead Machines, Thurston Moore, Antony Milton, Pumice, Neil Campbell, Taurpis Tula), while others should be (the entirety of disc 1, for example). To say that this compilation is highly recommended is an understatement – if you’re reading this right now, you should already own it. If you don’t, what are you waiting for??? - Bryon Hayes
NoiseWeek
[Pengo - Cosmology of the Broken Saints]...not to mention the fact that the best thing I heard this week (if not this year) is an un-mp3-postable two-track live CD-R from Pengo entitled Cosmology of the Broken Saints on the Hippie Overdose label. Each track is super-long, plus I'd feel weird offering half of a release for free - and an excerpt would just be wrong, since my fave, "Seven Sparrows," is such a wholistic work of sound construction that it must ONLY EVER be listened to from start to finish. It starts with incredibly textured noise-drone, builds into a dilating climax of howl, then falls back into reflecting guitar chimes that evoke the Velvet Underground circa "Black Angel's Death Song" or "Hey Mr. Rain"... only to climb into another Green Monster-sized wall of storming noise. Maybe it's just my particular cortex, but every portion of this piece digs into my brain and stirs up cells that usually spend the day/week/year dormant. I beg you to find a copy - Fusetron, Volcanic Tongue, and Carbon all seem to still be holding. - Martyn C.J Thomas
View Magazine
Ever attempt to Google the word Pengo before? If you have, chances are you found websites dedicated to the video game, information about a form of Hungarian currency, and maybe even a German techno music label.
If you dig a little deeper, you'll find Rochester, New York noisemakers Pengo. Described in their bio as a "four* headed avant/drone/noise/psych hy-dra," figuring out what this band is, isn't an easy task at all. At first listen, Pengo comes off as a bunch of guys with loud amps, and even louder imaginations. Comprised of John Schoen (electronics, saxophone, floor bass & vocals), Jason Finkbeiner (guitar), and Nuuj (electronics and homemade instruments), this band was built to piss some people off. "Some people definitely don't like what we're doing," quips Schoen after beating local traffic one Friday afternoon.
"Sometimes people come (to our shows) and have no idea what to expect and they've really, really dug it because they come with an open mind," he adds. "Sometimes people come to see the other bands, and they just can't stand us at all."
Understanding as to why some might find his band hard to handle, Schoen appears enthusiastically defiant when it comes to Pengo's musical prowess. Preferring to be thought of as a psychedelic act, Schoen and company's anti*mainstream sound is no accident.
When they started off in the summer of 1998, Pengo was a reaction to what was going on in the Rochester scene around them. Seeing that a lot of the bands were relatively the same in sound and delivery, Pengo took a sharp 180. Instead of crafting the typical radio/audience* friendly ditties, they decided to take their instruments and make as much uninhibited noise as possible. "Our music was just this insane, no*wave noise stuff*it was pretty much to piss people off," Schoen remembers. "Then we started slowly making music for ourselves. "When I listen to what we've recorded, it is music that I would like to hear myself. There are a small handful of people in Rochester who are doing 'outsider' music, but for the most part, we're creating in a vacuum here," he elaborates. "There are really no other bands locally that we play with too much."
With so few bands around town to share a bill, Pengo usually winds up waiting for friends from other areas of the world to come around and tour with them. However, the diversity and challenging nature of the band's music has allowed them to play with a wide range of musicians*everyone from jazz artists to Turkish musicians.
As a result, Pengo manage to release a pile of music. When between full*length albums, Pengo treats their fans to homemade CDRs as a way to keep their momentum moving.
Luckily for the Pengo lovers out there, they will be able to get real deal LPs sooner, rather than later. Schoen believes that the band will release three full*length recordings between this fall and February or March of 2006.
In the meantime, Pengo will continue to do what they do best*and that is be as different as they can possibly be, even if that results in a few war wounds. "The thing that bores me the most is when you see a certain style of band and they do exactly everything you've seen a band that style do, over, and over, and over again," Schoen explains. "I'm more into breaking down the whole lexicon of stage performance. "When we began, people would throw bottles, or try to unplug us*but that didn't really bother me. The way I look at it is any reaction is a valid reaction." - Adam Grant
NOSOAPREDIO
RELEASE: the nature of systems
In addition to drumming with Terrastock 1 performers, Hilkka, Joe Tunis also runs the Rochester, NY-based Carbon Records label and loops tapes and other exotic electrical and "found" instruments as leader of the algebraic equation, Joe+N (where n= his number of collaborators.) Talk about wearing your math rock credentials on your (CD) sleeve! For Carbon's 25th release, Joe has solicited contributions from several T'stock cohorts (and their various side projects) and Carbon label stalwarts and offers up this (mostly) successful experiment in the exploration of sonic textures. The Arthur Doyle Electro-Acoustic Ensemble break out their toy penny whistles on "Flue Song," while Andy Gilmore's "She's Settin' HerAssin A Bathtub" gathers conch shells and warped Carribean-styled kettle drums (bathtubs?) and sets his assdown in a cone of silence. The dichotomy between sea and sky (or water and air, to be more precise) is simulataneously unsettling and fascinating. Tom and Christina Carter will be making a rare live performance at Terrastock 4 in Seattle in November and "Mansfield Dam," recorded a mere six months ago is a tasty teaser of what fans may expect from this husband and wife duo who record under the enigmatic name Charalambides. Plucked guitar strings, recorded forwards, backwards and across all points in between are layered upon Christina's ethereal chanting, where notes and tones (not exactly "singing," per se) combine to form an angelic choir under the direction of ersatz Cocteau Twin, Liz Fraser. Christina may chastise me for making said comparison, but it is actually meant as a compliment. No amount of compliments, however, can save Finkbeiner's super distorted, melodic chaos, "Yes, It Can" from the obvious rejoinder. This sci-fi guitar extravaganza seems to be directed towards answering the musical question, "Can your guitar do this?" My response, "Perhaps; but maybe it just doesn't want to." Staten Island's Golden Calves Eskimo Lime Band is represented with the mercifully short noise experiment, "Hostel Song." The Flying Luttenbachers' "Maximum Cruelty" lives up to its name as Einsturzende Neubauten meets Faust on the dissecting table under the musical direction of Coltrane in the throes of withdrawal. Painful stuff. Burlap drop by with the sound of a cassette tape fast forwarding over a Cure-like single bass note ("Coming Home"), while T'stock vets, Pelt present a Dream Syndicate drone accompanied by Amy Shea's Conradian violin touches. "The Dream of Leaping Sharks" even sounds like a title that escaped from the clutches of Young and co. and is the highlight of the first half of the disk. Host Joe Tunis steps outside the skronk and squalor of Hilkka for some electro-astral projections which catalog certain "Types of Interference" and T'stock fave Loren MazzaCane Connors does the same with his guitar in "I've Had Trouble, I've Had Joy," a piece so quiet and meditative it lives up to the adage: I will strike no string before its time. The six string equivalent of a Low vocal. Nod break out all their Neil Young wah-wah distortion pedals and harps for a good ol' fashioned backporch, backwoods toe tapper, "John Henry vs. The Smog Monster." Can you say "Soo-eeee?!" Paging Mr. N(o)d Beaty! We began with the carny-like strains of Arthur Doyle and we now present the carnival from hell strains of Mick Turner's "Carny's Dance." It'll scare the kids (and weak stomached adults) sh*tless! Hilkka's Rich Nuuja tortures his guitar in his side project, Sheet and "Quick Stomach" will empty even the staunchest NiN fans' and is strictly for Japanese noise afficianados. Carbon Record's SQ pours Borbetomagus into the Lhasa Cement mixer and the resulting block of musique concrete should have Neubauten and Faust fans quaking in their kneehigh goose- stompers, while Bardo Pond continue to expand the gap between the quality of what they're capable of delivering (Amanita) and what they're actually releasing as the two notes and a prayer "Vagabond" goes nowhere in a hurry. Side Projects 'R' Us continues as The (other) Dream Syndicate's Karl Precoda and Pelt's Mike Gangloff meet in a "Metal Shop," fire up the blade sharpener (which often morphs into a police siren and is actually – I'm guessing – Karl's guitar) and layer the whole shebang on top of Mike's extended drone (also, presumably, his guitar) and in the process forge a whole new entity I've christened Inside the Dream Syndicate, aka IDS. It sure beats the s**t out of Table of the Element's recent snippet of the (other) Dream Syndicate (aka EGO)'s work in (and out of) progress. Tunis and Finkbeiner (assisted by John Schoen on percussion) return under the guise of Pengo, whose "New Loft Elevation 2001" again begs the industrial comparisons with Neubauten although, instead of "collapsing new buildings," this approximates erecting them. At the beginning of this review I referred to the sonic/texture exploration that can be found within these grooves (bits and bytes, actually.) Tunis has assembled a fine collection of pieces that, while occasionally derivative of areas that the past masters have delved into, offers a 21st century take on how music FEELS, as opposed to how it SOUNDS. To experience these pieces is to be enveloped within the machinery – the hardware – of the musical voices of their creators and not the typical heart (or software) that one usually expects from a composition. This is music of the body, not the mind. Don't spend too much time thinking about it (I've just done that for you), get out there and feel it. This, then, is the "nature of systems:" they act upon each other to "push society forward" as Joe says in his liners. Action, not necessarily thought (or discussion which, if you think about it, is actually IN-action or stasis) is the key.
Crucial Blast
RELEASE: the nature of systems
This excellent compilation has been out for awhile, but we've never carried it before, and with the great mix of artists/bands on this CD, we just had to offer it for anyone who hasn't come across this stellar psyche/drone/free noise/deathjazz comp previously... Featuring exclusive songs from CHARALAMBIDES, THE FLYING LUTTENBACHERS, PELT, LOREN MAZZACANE CONNORS, BARDO POND, as well as THE ARTHUR DOYLE ELECTRO-ACOUSTIC ENSEMBLE, Andy Gilmore, FINKBEINER, THE GOLDEN CALVES ESKIMO LIME BAND, BURLAP, JOE+N, NOD, MICK TURNER, SHEET, SQ, Karl Precoda/Mike Gangloff, and PENGO. Arthur Doyle Electro-Acoustic Ensemble starts off the disc with "Flue Song," a queasy flute melody delivered overtop what sounds to be field recordings of frogs with some spacey whoosh appearing throughout. Nice. Andy Gilmore follows with some pleasant string-bending ambient guitar abstraction, all subdued haze and hum with a strange voice sample appearing briefly halfway through, and ending with a chime-driven climax. Charalambides donate "Mansfield Dam", a minimal, glacially paced piece of abstract folk drift, not too far from their "Being As Is" material released on Crucial Blast, though it sounds strangely "digital", with the sporadically plucked acoustic strings being processed into little blips of melody that zip by via tape editing and masking. Eventually a minimal riff appears reminiscent of LOW and Charalambides "Home" and "Houston" CD, as Christina Carter's angelic voice loops in and climaxes the track with an absolutely GORGEOUS haze of droning bliss as her vocals become layered upon each other into infinity. Next up is FINKBEINER, with a dusty, cosmic drone-jam that straddles the line between sublime 70's sci-fi sound effect bleepery and Ennio Morricone style epics. Golden Calves Eskimo Live Band emerge from the shadow of TOWER RECORDINGS, with a brief duet between a roughly Jandekian acoustic guitar and what might be the weird recorded laughter of a battery-operated talking doll. Thoroughly creepy. The Flying Luttenbachers appear next with "Maximum Cruelty", a BORBETOMAGUS -esque blast of improvised-with-cues free-jazz-meets-death-metal splatter. Burlap 's "Coming Home" features a haunting, repetitive bass and guitar melody with wheezing electronics and shimmering blip noise. Pelt's track is recorded live and is more of their basic ethno-forgery drone sound, being a cavernous/ominous jam by an actual violin quartet, reminiscent of Sun City Girls collaboration with Eyvind Kang. Joe+n delivers some droning vinyl pops layered over ORGANUM -esque metallic shimmer. Loren Mazzacane Connors coaxes a dreamlike melody from gently reverbed guitar. Nod do their usual shambolic garage-rock, although "John Henry vs. The Smog Monster" infuses it with a country blues vocabulary, making it a wistful, vaguely Dixieland-sounding burst of free-rock stumble. Mick Turner of the Dirty Three follows and defies expectations with a rather wild cut-and-paste plunderphonic 'contemporary classical' type piece. Sheet is another Rochester-ite doing 'sheets' of noise. Kind of John Wiese-y, though with less "digital shock" and more on the "incendiary robo-drone" tip. SQ brings back the free-death-chaos with "After Being___So Long", an icy room-ambient piece with distant amp buzz, improvised cymbal splatter, and eternal feedback that mutates into shrieking skree collapse. Bardo Pond lumber through "Vagabond", a gnarly drone rock abrasion that sounds like SHELLAC drunk on cough syrup and stuck on a merry go round. Karl Precoda and Mike Gangloff team up for "Metal Shop", fusing field recordings of the aforementioned locale to a lower-register bowed-string drone. And Pengo end the disc with a jam called "New Loft Elevation 2001." At the raucous beginning, John Schoen's 'sound sources' create a feel more like To Live and Shave in L.A. than what one would expect from these guys, although it soon dissipates and out of the dust emerges a percussion-driven ethno-forgery jam with weird multi-tracked reed playing by Joe Tunis. The last few seconds are really great stuff, as the percussion groove morphs into a lurching electro-glitch groove. Overall, a superb diverse collection of drones, psyche-folk, free-noise, and deathjazz!
Volcanic Tongue
RELEASE: i don't think the dirt belongs to the grass
Massive, genre-defining 3xCD set packaged in a DVD case with full-colour artwork and full colour card stock insert housed in a natural-colour cotton bag with single-colour ink stamp art/logo and featuring exclusive tracks from a gob-stopping selection of underground players orbiting the Carbon universe. Limited to 500 copies. Tracks from: Aaron Rosenblum, Andy Gilmore, Anla Courtis, Antony Milton, Asthmatic, Autumn In Halifax, Blood and Bone Orchestra, Blood Stereo, Carlos Giffoni, Carpentry, Caustic Solution, Chad Oliveiri, Chris Reeg, Cock ESP, Coffee, Craig Colorusso, Crawlspace, Crush The Junta, The Davenport Family, Dead Machines, Entente Cordiale, Foot and Mouth Disease, G55, Gastric Female Reflex, Heathen Prayers, Hilkka, Hinkley, Howard Stelzer, Irene Moon, Joe+N, John Charlton, Justice Yeldman, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Lunt, Mike Shiflet, Nancy Garcia, Neil Campbell, Pengo, Phroq, Pumice, Rainbeaux, Sindre Bjerga, Sindre Bjerga/Jan-M Iversen, Sq, Taiwan Deth, Taurpis Tula, The Body, The North Sea, Thurston Moore and Tinnitustimulus. Highly recommended.
The Wire
RELEASE: Carbon 10YR.Series BOXSET
In order to mark ten years of consistent marginal agitation, the Rochester, New York based folk-format label Carbon Records released 10 specially commissioned CD-Rs every 36.5 days for the whole of 2004. 10 Yr. Series gathers all of these releases plus a bonus DVD-R in a handsome wood and metal box that stands as one of the most defiantly beautiful manifestations of home-made, non-corporate packaging to come out of the CD-R revolution to date. In a way, whats happening with CD-Rs right now parallels much of what has been going on in the bootleg scene for the past few decades, where a potent combination of subterfuge and love has birthed product of a quality that has far out-stripped the vision and capabilities of the official record labels, while dispensing with their legitimising stamp altogether.
As well as setting an exemplary standard for would-be basement infidels, 10 Yr. Series provides a capsule overview of some of the most intriguing marriages of avant theory and punk-primitive modes currently orbiting the mainstream. Besides masterminding the whole Carbon Records project, Joe Tunis is a formidable guitarist and sound-thinker in his own right. Along with his activities as a member of the post-LAFMS aggro unit Pengo, he moonlights under the solo guise of Joe+N. Joe+N contribution to the box is Live At Christchurch, where Tunis plays guitar, pummels piano and tears chunks of feedback from thin air. Theres more than a hint of Loren Mazzacane in the subtle thrust of his playing, but theres a stubby majesty to the way that he wrestles with fuzzy single notes that is all his own. Blood Stereo, the UK-b ased duo of Dylan Nyoukis and Karen Constance, are represented by 30+ minutes of Hymn For The Crippled Mulatto, a phased fog of sick, toxic strobe that moves according to an intuitive structural logic that is supernaturally satisfying. Tom Carter of Charalambides hooks up with ex-Ash Castles On The Ghost Coast member Shawn McMillen for Colors For, a series of still, low-level improvisations that vibrate with a tense, apocalyptic air. Carters slide work is particularly hypnotic, the slightest flick of his wrist sending small buckles of metal straight up your spine. Eddie Flowers legendary Crawlspace unit cross lurching group sprawl with a weird flux of cut-up sound and comedy shorts on Melbourne Cabbage Ratio while Dead Machines, the duo of Wolf Eyes John Olson and Wooden Wand & The Vanishing Voices Tovah ORourke, navigate zero gravity with nothing but a pair of lead boots, some loose spools of tape and a huge grid of tactile electricity on Mystery Of The Fall Off Islands Part Two. There are also worthwhile sides from Ming (aka Campbell Kneale of Birchville Cat Motel), Andy Gilmore, Howard Stelzer And The Cherry Point, Coffee and Mike Shiflet. File this one alongside Revenants Albert Ayler box for a combined lesson in the best way to prime a counter-cultural time-bomb.. - David Keenan
RIT Reporter Magazine
Pengo used a drum loop from Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" while they wrenched their guitar strings with metal bars, fists, and the speaker box. Before the guitar-thrashing started, however, they opened with a ten-minute video showing black women shaking it down in clubs, which placed the audience in a very uncomfortable situation: people entering Monty's Krown saw roughly two dozen men listening to a drum loop and staring at this video like perverted zombies. - Ben Gonyo
Slippytown
Pengo reminds me of mid-60's Sun Ra, with an approach that's very modern free-rock spontaneous. Lot's of swells waves surges, tap clatter pling, detuned sound-findin' horn bellowin' cymbal tappin' spaciousness, clatter, and brain damage. - Eddie Flowers
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
Here was the scene a few weeks ago at Monty's Korner: Jason Finkbeiner and Joe Tunis are strumming acoustic guitars to no discernible melody for perhaps 10 minutes, before John Schoen joins in on zither, Tunis abandoning his guitar in favor of a Tibetan prayer bowl. He plays it by running his finger around the edge, producing a high-pitched tone, like one of those novelty acts massaging half-filled wine glasses on the Ed Sullivan Show. This group is Pengo, one of the darkest of the leading lights on Rochester's noise scene. - Jeff Spevak
Chicago Reader
SHOW: Hail Zukas, Mommy Wont Wake Up, The Lotus and Pengo - House Party (Grand Rapids MI)
In the past, Pengo 's performances have involved attaching contact mikes to sheet metal, ambling around in costumes made of trash, being strangled by audience members, and playing nose kazoo. - Liz Armstrong
Blastitude
RELEASE: climbs the holy mountain
Ah, but what do Pengo sound like? On here, they come off as one of the more accomplished contemporary bands playing in that style I'll call The New Ominousness. Alot of noise/psych/improv artists play in this style. I think it mostly comes from AMM and MEV, which came from Webern and Stockhausen. On the rock side, it comes from the thousands of bands that have been influenced by the Doors, Velvets, Sonics, and Stooges. (The one-chord riff of The Doors' "The End" is sort of the ground zero for The New Ominousness.)
Broken Face
RELEASE: a nervous splendor
Pengo is a Rochester, NY trio that consists of John Schoen, Jason Finkbeiner and Joe Tunis, who all should be familiar names by now. If it doesn't ring any bells you have lots of catching up to do and might as well start by exploring Tunis' great experimental label Carbon Records which includes work of all three. Whilst shopping from Rochester make sure to pick up a copy of A Nervous Splendor, the second full-length album from Pengo. The press kit states that this LP should float the boat of fans of the Fugs, Sun City Girls, Nurse With Wound, Les Rallizes DeNudes, Syd Battett and Quaaludes. That list alone should tell you that there is absolutely no way on earth I could describe this record accurately. But since I'm a man who takes my mission seriously I will give it a try anyway. The record sounds like the sonic equivalent to the dizzying mess of an apartment that hasn't been cleaned in months. THere are papers everywhere, magazine and list of what should have been done in piles all over, and even though you can't find a thing you're looking for, it still feels like home. Call it slacker attitude, call it garbage culture, call it whatever you want, but when Pengo present their fold/drone/psych/chant/improv mysteries to the public, I'm not the one that's going to do any complaining. Their sort of clattering primitive chaos really works for me no matter if they choose the folky side of things or if they veer off into loud deconstructed rock that would make old-time Dead C pale with envy. A Nervous Splendor is a disjointed but beautiful mess that comes recommended. - Mats Gustafsson
City Newspaper
RELEASE: a nervous splendor
A Nervous Splendor opens with a prayer bell; a call to the heavens that will remain unanswered. For this outing, Pengo's vinyl debut, the Rochester trio's lingua franca seems to be a combination of any or all of the following: sundry folk instruments, feedback, found recordings, burbling electronics, distortion (of instruments and of the recording itself), infrequent drumming, and post-Beefheart garbled vocals.
The LP's artwork incorporates stolen imagery of mid- to late-1970s Africa and former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. But not all the pieces of the design puzzle fit together perfectly. Without the Charlie Manson namecheck, the full-color jacket could pass as some sort of African Brass Band thing.
The fact that Pengo has managed to piss so many folks off (myself included) is a testament to the band's willingness to forge ahead as major risk takers in a town where burning bridges can mean the end of your musical life. A Nervous Splendor 's highly developed and unique musical language will be shared and enjoyed far outside the most toxic city in America. - Dave Cross
The Wire
RELEASE: a nervous splendor
Dressed in a cover resembling those of the 60s French free jazz/experimental label BYG/Actuel, the second LP (and the debut release from their own Haoma Recordings imprint) from Rochester, New York based bohemian trio Pengo is a set of disjointed jams with additional sound samples that falls straight into the camp of No-Neck BLue Band, Jackie-O Motherfucker and Sunburned Hand of the Man. The group, made up of John Schoen, Jason Finkbeiner and Joe Tunis, cite influences like The Fugs, Sun City Girls, Nurse With Wound, Les Rallizes Denudes, Syd Barrett and the Quaaludes, but their music is much more down to earth and almost primal in its execution than that list might imply. Perhaps Pengo should have used the French ethnic recordings label Ocora as a cover motif rather than BYG/Actuel, as their sound more resembles ancient ritual music rather than anything even remotely associated with spiritual blowing.
Pengo summon up their ancestors through a series of electric guitar led jams peppered with found spoken word segments that loosely deal with finding God and hunting for Pokemon. This approach is best expressed on "What Do You Mean, Idi Amin?" which fills up the entire second side. Opening with what sounds like amplified cat purring, the track soon unfolds to usher in the sinister snarl of former Ugandan dictator and self appointed King of Scotland, Idi Amin. Around this monstrous presence Pengo unleash a crazed war whoop of pounding drums, electric strum, electronic gargle and flailing saxophone that is spiked with acid menace and apocalyptic threat. Here the group drill deep inside the damaged brain of a madman and send back their chilling report. Not since John Moran's opera The Manson Family has the disturbed personality of a mass murderer been so perfectly portrayed. A Nervous Splendor may not have had the big budget that Moran enjoyed on his project, but Pengo prove here that they are just as full of ideas for future shocks and surprises. - Edwin Pouncey
Arthur
RELEASE: climbs the holy mountain
Pengo are from upstate New York, and for some reason we usually think of them as being associated with a somewhat brutal form of post-industrial freeform noise-hunch and/or bass-heavy ass-rumblage. And yeah, they still do that, but on this new LP, A Nervous Splendor (Haoma Recordings) they visit all kindsa other space, as well.
There's good avant-psych formulating, passages of free-jazz honk, answering machine messages, mock ethnological field recordings, and even semi-folk-swabbage in a vein that would appeal to fans of the Sun City Girls.
That all these shenanigans emanate from inside a great cover design, swiped from the BYG Actuel series, is only icing on an already rich cake. - Byron Coley
Fake Jazz
RELEASE: a nervous splendor
Pengo, a trio from Rochester, NY, have been in existence since 1998, but A Nervous Splendor is only their second full-length release. Issued as the premiere offering of Hahoma Records, a label run by Jason Finkbeiner and John Schoen, 2/3 of Pengo, the album's faux-Actuel packaging and guerilla warfare imagery combine to provide a good sense of Pengo's sound: strains of more established avant-gardisms taken over aggressively by an underground sensibility and a rough, ragged dismissal of the "rules" in favor of more primal tactics.
On their second release, the group, made up of Schoen, Finkbeiner, and Joe Tunis exhibit a sense of almost rustic musical exploration. The first side's banjo-led pieces offer, in a sense, a loose, modern take on Henry Flynt's hillbilly drones and ramblings. The group's warped shamanism, equal parts middle eastern and backwoods Appalachian, is augmented by vocal samples which, due both to subject content and Pengo's manipulation of them, don't come off nearly as ill-advised as one might think. Languid banjo lines dance among the clangs and rings of bells and cymbals, while more fervid strumming fuels escalating drones of increasing intensity.
The LP's second side, taken up entirely by the long-form "What Do You Mean, Idi Amin?" features the group, augmented by the mysterious figure known only an Nuuj, begins as a plodding, menacing drone that slowly but surely gains steam before hitting its stride in a full-on explosion of ecstatic dizziness - Adam Strohm
Nashville Scene
RELEASE: climbs the holy mountain
Holy Mountain / Show Preview - Kinds of the Rochester NY noise scene -- larger kingdom than you might suppose -- this three-man ensemble most recently recorded a pulsing, clanging suite to accompany the wordless first 31 minutes of Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky's surreal odyssey The Holy Mountain. There's no word on whether the footage will accompany the group's show at Springwater, but without Jodorowsky's assaultive visuals of deformity and exploding frogs, the piece unfolds on CD as a sonic squall that swells, rages and recedes -- a recipe for a potentially mesmerizing live show. Adept at instruments ranging from zithers and amplified sheet metal to Tibetan prayer bowls, Pengo headline a five-band bill of electronic experimentation and drone-rock that includes one-man Toys R Us-noisemaker Radio Shock, Breathmint label chief Mat Rademan's band Newton and Nashville's own Tan As Fuck and Banjoland, both featuring former members of the New Faggot Cunts. (Oct 24, 2002) - Jim Ridley
Dusted
RELEASE: a nervous splendor
Apocalypse Now: Luxe & Reduxe
Pengo are a dark-bright beacon of madness in the subterranean swamp of psychedelic junk collectors and crummy mystics scavenging the wreckage of our ongoing cultural meltdown. The web of like-minded misfits stretches to Brooklyn, to Montreal, to Sun City, Arizona, to Tokyo, and now, thanks to Pengo, there's another pin on the map in Rochester, New York. Rochester fancies itself "the Flower City," but that's all just a half-truth, a cover. Due to the city's many flour mills, somebody long ago decided to swap homonyms and the name (and all of its attendant sunny promise) understandably stuck. This is a minor point, but it is a pertinent one - as Pengo proclaim on the back of their new record sleeve, "there is faith that is actually denial and there is denial that is actually faith." The Rochester trio (Jason Finkbeiner, John Schoen, and Joe Tunis - all very active in a host of other musical projects) view their mission as "reliving the bad vibes of the post love generation and the failed utopia that became the 1970s and now." In other words, in 2003, they've taken it upon themselves to reassert the '70s then-reassertion that we've all just been fooling ourselves, and in order to prove it you've got to play the dream and the nightmare simultaneously.
The lp-only A Nervous Splendor is the trio's second full-length, and first for their Haoma Recordings imprint. It sounds very little like their first record, which is as much of a trademark as the band cares to possess. Live shows are equally unpredictable, so it's impossible to know whether a Pengo concert will consist of cheesy love songs and fake blood, broken turntables playing Metal Machine Music, or band members reading the newspaper aloud for nearly an hour (shows 2/13/99, 10/4/01, and 1/8/00 respectively). For their first record - on band member Tunis' fantastic Carbon label - Pengo penned a score to the first 31 minutes of Alejandro Jodorowsky's film The Holy Mountain. With A Nervous Splendor they're tumbling down from their trip, and things are funny, violent, bleak, and wondrous.
The first side sticks its trowel into the same fertile, black earth as primitivist/psych/eastern/drone/whatever collectives like NNCK and Sunburned Hand of the Man. Bells tinkle, a kazoo-like banshee wails, cymbals crash irregularly, and Pengo strum for the high heavens. Eventually the band settles into a cyclical groove, and a field recording of a born-again Christian's (obviously well-rehearsed) conversion testimony floats over the proceedings. The man's voice sounds tired and lethargic, so, mid-sentence, Pengo kick it up a few RPMs. The tinny, racing monologue now sounds a bit like Richie Cunningham on a trip that's bound to end badly - its balance of frenzy and serene certitude communicates an aura of transcendence and hysteria coupled perfectly. "The Ill Fitting Tourniquet" is a dark, swampy, and repetitive dirge that sounds like one of Ben Chasny's deeper meditations. Its thunderous, vibrating rumble eventually culminates in a maddening banjo stomp, "The Miraculous Gimp Returns From the Moon." There's lots of hissy incantation, hand-clapping, trilling flute sounds, and a rasping satanic presence reminiscent of the Sun City Girls' Dante's Disneyland Inferno. A barely intelligible answering machine message, a seven-year old's multiple-choice quiz about Pok*mon, is like the gatekeeper's riddle in some epic quest narrative.
The specter that haunts A Nervous Splendor, and all of the pomp and regalia of the record sleeve's imagery, is former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. The entire b-side, "What do you mean, Idi Amin?" is a sonic chronicling of the '60s boundless promise crashing and burnin g in the wake of Amin's barbaric reign from 1971 - 1979, in which half a million Ugandans were brutally slaughtered. Along with Carbon records regular Nuuj, Pengo paddle into Amin's (and the 1970s and the 2000s) heart of darkness. Drums thunder, sludgy guitars moan, birds chirp from the jungle trees, and a free jazz saxophone squawks. You almost yearn to hear Richie Cunningham return again, quaking in dread and soaked with terror. Instead, Amin's voice emerges, calmly recounting his own Horatio Alger story of rising from humble peasant beginnings to become the powerful murderer of hundreds of thousands. Nearly ten minutes of a Red Crayola-worthy Free Form Freakout promptly ensue before Amin returns to share an aphorism worthy of the Pok*mon answering machine message: "The people love me very much. The reason I am very popular is because I always speak the truth and if I don't have anything to tell them I keep quiet." A Nervous Splendor ends, and the sound of the needle lifting will creep you right out. - Nathan Hogan
Blastitude
RELEASE: a nervous splendor
For all the rave this rec was getting, I thought it started on a slightly dubious note, with what is officially the 1,014th combination of post-Siltbreeze "atmosphere" and post-Fahey "roots music" on record, but it's really short and you quickly realize that it's just a bookend, a fanfare, a prelude, or whatever, and the record immediately begins to rule when an extended sample emerges, of a chipper young fellow, who is obviously a narc, telling a story, fragments of which include ". . . and then I met some Christian brothers" . . . "I was really surprised at all the love they had!" . . . "So that night I asked Christ into my life, and it's been a joy ever since."
And then, track two, "The Ill Fitting Tourniquet," fully turns my appreciation from tentative to full-fucking-on, as the Pengos take a one-chord folk pattern and soak it in the very mud of, well, Hades! (Y'know, the muddy banks of The River Styx?) Loudness, distortion, overbleed, "the red," it's all here. This is Doom. Side one stays great, finishing out with some free jazz freak-flutter and more samples of people talking, some sort of weird-ass phone stuff.
And side two is where the Nervous Splendor really gets a chance to roost and lay mutant pterodactyl eggs in your mind's eye. Of course, it takes time for that sort of incubation period, like at least 20 minutes, and when side two of any band's record is just one song, you know something's up. Pengo pull it off with another brooding jam, kill zone bystander music. Lead vocals by Idi Amin Dada.
So everybody's right: great record. Definitely better than the not at all bad Pengo Climbs the Holy Mountain. By copping the BYG Actuel design for the cover, they predict with complete accuracy their own shit-hot appearance as 'token white freaks' on a theoretical JAZZACTUEL-type compilation to be released 30 or 40 years from now.
Indie Workshop
Pengo comes from the barren, broken, industrial wasteland of Rochester New York Their newest release entitled "Moving Gelatin in a Translucent World", on the Audiobot label out of Europe, features three new pieces numbingly laced with psychedelics This releases is a limited edition CDR encased in a richly hand screen-printed book. A breathtaking package limited to 160 copies, it is well worth the fairly modest price being asked. Occupying a total of forty-six minutes, these three new tracks feature a much thicker sound, than that which is found on their last release "A Nervous Splendor." Pengo creates a wall of sound that confronts the listener like a dense fog. Synthesizers hover like clouds over a landscape that is woven and shaped by guitars, drums and other various forms of percussion. These tracks are lush sound-scapes, describing and or creating locations, at times in a broad sense with sweeping generalizations, at times with pinpoint precision right down to the very last detail. The book containing the cd is more than just cleaver packaging; it exists as a work of art in itself. Roughly 8" x 5 1/2" and fourteen pages in length, it has multi-color screen prints made from images both found and hand drawn. From simple half-tone dot patterns screened lightly in one color to a busy three color spread featuring sideways birds, grids and scrawled faces, the images vary in subjects and execution yet are unified by repetition. One of the strongest releases both aesthetically and musically, of the year. - Ryan Brown
Blastitude
Jeethush! (Translation: "Jesus!", slurred because I'm a little drunk right now.) This CD is packaged inside an amazing art book! The artist is Dennis Tyfus. He's from Belgium (I think), and for this book he's done a bunch of heavily full-color silk-screen paintings of birds that may never be featured in Juxtapoz, those hipster chumps, but would sing clear and true in that forum and any other. The art book is why I'm saying "Jesus" so loudly -- holding this thing I feel like it should cost $80 or something -- but damn, the music is pretty Jeethush!-worthy too. If you're looking for more of the same Pengo you found on their A Nervous Splendor LP, this might not be the one for you, because that LP had a lot of ominous delicacy and quietude, and this CD has three long tracks of pretty much full-on bludgeon. It sounds like it was recorded live, and the band is pretty much in giant-wall assault mode and the result just might blow your chair over. That upcoming Pengo/Hair Police collaboration LP is starting to make a whole lot of sense. Track three is especially a stormer, sounding like a cross between a Glenn Branca symphony, a Japanoise shitstorm, and Terry Kath's "Free-Form Guitar" all at once. (Um, yeah, I was right with all that storm imagery, the track is called "Sandpaper Storm" -- and yes, two of the three tracks were recorded live -- I guess I should read the liner notes earlier in the review next time.) And hey, props to the Belgian label that put this out, Audiobot, who is also Freaks End Future -- they're doing a lot of quality work, so catch up with 'em if you haven't.
Skyscraper
RELEASE: a nervous splendor
The neo-folk and outsider weirdness genres have certainly collided head on, and the attention of critics and fans has been growing phenomenally. While groups like Sunburned Hand of the Man and Six Organs of Admittance garner the most praise (although completely deserved), smaller acts like Pengo help fill out the modern genre with output worthy of such notoriety. A Nervous Spendor starts off with a front porch-styled banjo and cymbal duet, with a speech of Christian rebirth clearly stating that Pengo is to be taken as a holy experience, not a silent head-bobbing affair. Strings slowly drone like waves on a beach, as if Vibracathedral Orchestra were stripped of their possessions and sent to a Midwestern American farm. It's not until the second side, however, that Pengo truly blows the hay off the stack. Electronics and deep bellows knock the wind from your lungs and into your stomach. Slowly, the vague outline of a ship clears through the fog, providing enough time to realize that this harbor is doomed. Pengo provide a small masterpiece with A Nervous Splendor, hopefully far from their end as a cohesive group. - Matt Kosloff
Patchwork Collective
RELEASE: Alchemy and Bullshit
PENGO MAN.
4 monsters from Rochester have got the art of mind fuckery down to a science. "Alchemy and Bullshit" is a 2 disc retro of sorts that complies their insanely hard to pin down style. I mean, its aloof in the sense that they have moved passed their 3 piece heavy drone unit that dawned the organ heavy "A Nervous Splendor" in 2001, to a 4 piece incarnation they've been working with as of late... This slab really does bring out the raddest sense of complete ambivalence in the most fun way possible. Heavy as shit, Harry Pussy like guitar work, bright eyed hysterical sax spurts, fast paced narcoleptic drumming, and over blown organ work is just the beginning. Similar instrumentation spans throughout both discs, but you're hard pressed to find congruence. The first track of disc one is a seamless jointing of what seems like six of seven live shows. Its all "covers" of a genre catch all. The Stooges, Rush, the Organization, Neil Young, and Negative Approach (if you think they were just mediocre hardcore, go back to bed shit stain). They rip apart the essential elements of each song to the barest, and slap on their own sound. It's repetitive, but totally insane. But its fun see. They take themselves out of the lame self important avenues of typical drone, and basically blend together 142 styles into one snot rocket of GROSS ROCK. Quotin' John Schoen from a Blastitude interview last year, he shows his love for Chilean schlock director Alejandro Jodorowsky. "(Jodorowsky) treads the same fine line between mystic and bullshitter..." That line is never defined with this band. It's psychedelic in the sense that it resists categorization. Released in December of 2005, you can still snag a copy of this at the Carbon Records website. 2 black-bottom CDRs, glossy print insert, sealed in a 6"x8" silkscreened and spray painted chipboard mailer is what you're going to be staring at. Keep it scummy. - Brock Kappers
200LBU
RELEASE: Alchemy and Bullshit
Rochester's Pengo have carved out a truly unique spot for themselves in the past few years. Live, they can sometimes come off like some manic tribal ritual that would of taken place on the Spahn Ranch right before a creepy crawl. Their recorded output can be a confusing though fulfilling stew of found audio, grey noise clouds and ham fisted guitar wrenching that would send any strong blooded struggler for the Geritol in no time. This double disc set, entitled 'Alchemy and Bullshit', is made up of various live recordings done around their hometown a few years back and it showcases the various forms of dementia this unit is capable of. The first disc is a perfect soundtrack for a late night wander through old newspaper clippings and various forms of mildew found behind the toilet. The boys attempt to cover Blue Oyster Cult, Thin Lizzy, Negative Approach and Organization only to end up sounding like pygmies dropped off in the middle of Sunflower City with only a bamboo shoot and a paper thin guitar pick to fend with. The gem of this disc is the closing 'Official Genius' which meanders through much fog and steam to relieve itself in a way only Captain Beefheart or Ansley Dunbar would find fitting. How quaint. The second disc is made up of shorter pieces of subtle mud slapped guitar crap that'll have ya heavin' in no time. Swap a copy of your Hunger Artist 12" to the fine folks at the Carbon label and maybe they'll throw ya one - Tony Rettman