The NYer privilege of being able to see a zillion interesting shows onany given night has always made me jealous, but rarely so much as itdid when Painkiller was resurrected for a couple of nights with HamidDrake on drums earlier this year. Thankfully, the Japanese havereleased the next best thing on this pair of CDs: an hour and a half ofPainkiller's fatter, funkier brother, the terribly-named Buck JamTonic. The two discs make a neat set: the first was mixed by drummerTatsuya Nakamura, while the second features three Bill Laswellinterpretations of the same sessions. An obvious result is that there'ssome overlap of source material between the discs (see the samples of"Nu," from the Tokyo mix, and "Tzu," from the New York mix), but whereNakamura's tracks are rough-sounding little nuggets of rock, Laswell'sare denser epics that build and ebb dramatically (across a widerspectral range, too) over the course of 20 or 30 minutes. Furtheringthe variety, John Zorn actually played alto and soprano sax that day instead of just honking, and Laswell pulled out some monstrous "boWAAAAAAAOW" noises to really get the blood flowing; the effect is a lot like the ugly muscle of Execution Ground, only with way peppier drumming. Hearing it through two different sets of ears gives BJTsome replay value beyond its fist-pumping qualities, too, so it's morethan just a replacement for a concert experience. Get past the awfulname and hideous cover, and there's plenty to enjoy.samples:
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