“Little Howlin Wolf” (Used 4 times)

I don't think I really need to do much of an introductory speech, folks, when writing about an artist who goes by DJ DOG DICK; I mean, most of that attention-grabbing expostulation takes care of itself; if I tried, all I'd end up with'd be so much empty patter. Nah, DJ Dog Dick--Baltimore's reigning champ of the slimily-saw-waved backing tracks and beats that'll outbass most anything (like, upgrade your woofers, drown out your neighbors)--needs no introduction.

If you insist, though, here's all what I know about the man (whose real name's been variously rendered as "Eisenberg Max Eisenslime Eisenbergler Max Eisenberg Max Max Max Eisenberg," oh, and "Dogsynth"; your guess, reader, is as good as mine). He's been on the constant-touring warpath for years and has played everywhere and with everyone. He was a member of the venerable (and universally beloved) Nautical Almanac, and has logged time with countless other acts the world over, even stopping by the WFMU studios in 2006 as part of Little Howlin' Wolf's ensemble when it played a set on Brian Turner's show. He produces fine and exceedingly grimey comic zines for his homegrown press/label Oceans of Missouri. And he's been to see the Insane Clown Posse play live.

Not to mention he's got this new banger-replete 7" Grease That I Got which he's been kind enough to sanction for your FMA consumption. If these songs aren't the most jammed at your next party or board meeting or other social function, you've blown it. Likewise for if you miss DJ Dog Dick on tour through the USA and Canada this June and July (with a European tour on deck for the fall?! no excuses for the full population of two continents). Seriously, the live experience is one to be treasured--dig the frowny-faced lightbox, you don't believe me.

An all-timer of avant-garde creation myths is the one, apocryphal though it may be (all the good ones are), that tells of a conversation between Brahms and Mahler held along the Danube’s Vienna banks, wherein the former, decrying the state of contemporary composition, lamented for the lost spirits of Mozart and Beethoven and the long-gone golden age, in response to which der Mahler merely pointed to the river, noted it was impressive, sure, but that its flow ensured new waters for every consequent glance, so that one could never greet the same river twice. The Danube, yea though it may be immortalized time and again in story and song, doesn't even really exist, not as a changeless constant at least. So was it for music, constantly flowing, never at rest. Heraclitus, probably talking about a different river, nonetheless sez it best: "the river is never the same river, nor the man the same man."

Then there are those who get in on the river-flow act in different ways, not content to fight the current or transform with it or get dumped out into the Black Sea of time or, uh, wherever. Nah, some folks might be better thought of as prowling the edges, like a 'Big Ole Bear' of song on the lookout for prey, poaching discrete ideas and forms from the ever-shifting waters of musical tradition like a grizzly poaching those salmon from the river. And like poached salmon, the result is often weird and tasty. One such practitioner of a timeless mixture of musical forms is LITTLE HOWLIN' WOLF, whose presence on the FMA enables you, lucky listener, to get in touch with some of your own time-animal tendencies.

Little Howlin' Wolf's work is somehow simultaneously junkyard cutup from the American Folkways archives, noisy outstrumentation, and wild animal sound that'd be equally at home nowadays as in the days of neolithic river worship. There's lots of essential stuff on that FMA page, including the 2006 set from Brian Turner's show to which you had better just listen--I'll stop blathering, as I can't compete with the essential indescribability of these riverrun fragments--just start prowling 'em yourself.