Mark Bingham

Mark Bingham
photo machine, late -70's

I like New Orleans. I like its music, its vibe, the ‘debris’ at Mother’s, the architecture, the crawfish, the Circle Bar and much of what comes out of Piety Street - Mark Bingham’s recording studio in the 9th Ward. If you want Pro-Tools or 2 inch analog, orchestra or solo, modern or vintage equipment, Piety's got it all, plus a squad of in-house talent that help make things sound like records used to, before they all got weedy and naff. Mark’s an accomplished arranger, producer, instrumentalist and writer whose resumé lists stints with The Screaming Gypsy Bandits, The Brain Sisters, The Social Climbers, the Glenn Branca Orchestra, Shannon MacNally and sessions with Natalie Merchant, Jon Cleary, Dr. John, Ed Sanders, Peter Stampfel, MX-80, Hal Willner, Wharton Tiers and the Nevilles to name but a diverse, yet glorious few. The studio’s seen Harry Connick Jr., Korn, Lennie Kravitz, Mudvayne, Ryan Adams, Robin Thicke, Bobby Charles and Ray Davies all pass through its doors in the last few years, though (unfortunately) not all at once.

Natalie Merchant, Mark Bingham
photo machine, 1988

The first time I met him was in Bloomington, Indiana when I flew there to see MX-80 Sound. He was the first person I ever saw drink carrot juice. There, he gave me a couple of albums he'd produced - Caroline Peyton, a sampler of Bloomington artists he'd produced, Bloomington 1 (BRBQ Records), a reel-to-reel quarter-track tape of the unreleased Chinaboise album, featuring MX-80's Rich Stim and Dave Mahoney and Andrea Ross (who went on to become Mrs. Stim and Angel Corpus Christi) and 3 albums' worth of tapes by his own band, The Screamin' Gypsy Bandits - a sort of Tubes-meets-Zappa psychedelic, funk-rock outfit (with marvelous horns) which occasionally featured Bruce Anderson and a terrific Dale Sopheia vocal on 'Foggy Windows' - both also members of MX-80. Tune into the station to hear the 'Bloomington Sound'.

Social Climbers
A. Leroy (Dick Connette), Jean Seaton Shaw, Mark Bingham
Gulcher Records' publicity photo

From Bloomington, Mark moved to New York where partnered with Philip Glass in a downtown loft studio, near the Mudd Club, calling it The Living Room. During an early visit, I was impressed to see Mark actually building the interior walls, hammer in hand.
In the late 80's, I went slightly off the rails and Mark sent me a letter that cut clean to the quick. It told me to shape up and get it together or I'd lose him as a friend. It seems my vices were getting the better of me. He shocked me back to reality. I was grateful for the warning.

Eddie Murphy, Mark Bingham
photo: Patti Perret

Mark always sent copies of what he was working on and I have a ton of tapes containing his own music that regularly gets featured on the station. Now, much of it has been collected onto several cds which will, hopefully, see a release someday. As a rapacious consumer of all sorts of interesting music, he turned me on to Xenakis, Bonerama, Kurt Weill, Morning 40 Federation, Brother Tyrone, Rudy Ray Moore and he introduced me to the considerable delights of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Mother’s Restaurant, the incredible brass bands and fabulously greasy menu at Donna’s Bar & Grill, Ernie K-Doe’s Mother-In-Law Lounge and all sorts of wild hangouts in New Orleans.

Mark Bingham, John Sinclair
New Orleans
photo: Patti Perret

Mark Bingham
New Orleans
photo: ht

22 Pistepirkko

The mail brought 3 cds from Finland today - the latest from 22 Pistepirkko, "(Well You Know) Stuff Is Like We Yeah!", their first EP "Ou Wee!" and "Monochromeset" by their cover version alter-egos, The Others which, quite brilliantly, opens with a rare Ray Davies classic "This Strange Effect". Somewhere in the back of my mind, I have a nagging feeling I might have brought this song to their manager, Tiina, a long time ago but don't take my word for it. Those days are hazy and I could be imagining it. I suggested this song to a few people back in the early 90s. Anyway, they do a terrific version (likely to chart next week!) and I'm going to enjoy listening to the rest of the package over the next few days. I once went to Helsinki to see 22P and they were fantastic. Lovely people, too. I did all the usual tourist stuff. Ate venison, drank lager, bought Stones bootlegs. They liked all the right music (Buddy, Beefheart, the blues, the Velvet Underground) and managed to sound like nothing I'd ever heard, then or since. I saw them in Amsterdam (they were good) and when they came to NYC in 91 to play a "Finland Rocks" night at CBGBs for the New Music Seminar, they managed to sound lost and out of place. Somehow that night, they couldn't find the magic and I couldn't persuade Elektra to open the chequebook. Too bad. They've released a series of wonderful records since the late 80's and regular listeners will recognize songs like "Swamp Blues", "Texacoson", "Birdy","Frankenstein", "Don't Play Cello", "Don't Say I'm So Evil", "This Time" and "Rally Of Love" when they hear them. Suicide's Martin Rev told me last month that he did some work on "Swamp Blues" so if anybody out there has a spare copy of their (now deleted) remix album, "Zipcode", let me know how much.