The Flying Luttenbachers

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The Flying Luttenbachers

Background information
Origin Chicago, Illinois
Genre(s) Noise Rock
Punk jazz
Years active 1991–2007
Label(s) ugEXPLODE Records
Skin Graft Records
Troubleman Unlimited
Website Official site
Members
Weasel Walter drums
Former members
Hal Russell sax, trumpet (1991-1992)
Chad Organ tenor sax (1991-1994)
Ken Vandermark reeds (1992-1994)
Jeb Bishop bass, trombone (1993-1994)
Dylan Posa guitar (1993-1994, 1998)
Chuck Falzone guitar (1995-1998)
William Pisarri bass (1995-1998)
Kurt Johnson bass (1998-2000)
Michael Colligan reeds (1998-2000)
Fred Lonberg-Holm cello (1998-2000)
Julie Pomerleau violin (1998)
Johnathan Hischke bass (2001-2002)
Alex Perkolup bass (2001-2002)
Mike Green bass (2003-2005, 2006)
Mick Barr guitar (2005)
Ed Rodriguez guitar (2003-2006)
Rob Pumpelly guitar (2006)

The Flying Luttenbachers were an instrumental unit led by multi-instrumentalist / composer / producer Weasel Walter.[1] The Luttenbachers have created a large body of work focusing on an agenda of musical extremity and dissonance. Over the course of the band, the personnel has shifted numerous times around the artistic leadership of Walter, each line-up revealing a different part of the Flying Luttenbachers' aesthetic. The music has run a gamut from intense, all-acoustic free improvisation, to complex, modernistic rock composition; pure electronic noise to primitive punk-inspired jazz. The music defies idiomatic cliché and is steadfastly abstract, choosing to work outside of pre-existing genres in order to attain an original fusion.[2] Walter has been quoted as drawing inspiration from the fields of hardcore punk, black metal, progressive rock, free jazz, no wave, electronic noise, contemporary classical, Balinese gamelan and Noh music.

Contents

[edit] History

The Flying Luttenbachers were formed in December 1991 in Chicago, Illinois as a punk jazz trio, with Hal Russell (tenor and soprano saxophones, trumpet), Chad Organ (tenor saxophone) and Weasel Walter (drums). The band derived their moniker from Russell's birthname, Harold Luttenbacher.[3] Russell left the band in June 1992, and was hastily replaced by Ken Vandermark for the recording of the Flying Luttenbachers first 7" record.

The band has since featured a constantly shifting cast of notable musicians from free jazz and experimental rock realms including Fred Lonberg-Holm, Kurt Johnson, Jeb Bishop, Alex Perkolup, Mick Barr, Ed Rodriguez, Mike Green and Jonathan Hischke. The Flying Luttenbachers have toured Europe and the US extensively with bands like The Locust, Arab On Radar, Lightning Bolt, U.S. Maple, Erase Errata, Bobby Conn, and Wolf Eyes. Walter moved from Chicago to Oakland, California in 2003, beginning yet another incarnation of the group. The live band played their final concert in November 2006. The Flying Luttenbachers project officially ceased operation in November 2007 upon the release of a final studio album (recorded solo by Walter).

[edit] Conceptual continuity

Since 1996’s Revenge album, the Flying Luttenbachers’ musical output has been underlined by a gradually unravelling storyline concerning the self-obliteration of the planet Earth and the resulting aftermath. The 2006 album Cataclysm concerns an interstellar battle between two monolithic entities: The Void (a dark, silent spectre detailed on 2004’s album of the same name) and The Iridescent Behemoth (a massive planetoid being whose tale was told on 2003’s complex Systems Emerge From Complete Disorder album). The music energetically utilizes deliberate harmonic dissonance and the material operates on a principle of intelligent transformation of concise amounts of interrelated themes.

[edit] Discography

[edit] Singles

  • 546 Seconds Of Noise 7" (Quinnah/ugEXPLODE, 1992, Quinnah 01/ug003)
  • 1389 Seconds Of Noise 7" (Quinnah/ugEXPLODE, 1993, Quinnah 02/ug004)

[edit] Albums

  • Live At WNUR 2-6-92 cassette/CD (ugEXPLODE/Coat-tail, 1992)
  • Constructive Destruction LP/CD (ugEXPLODE/Quinnah, 1994)
  • Destroy All Music LP/CD (Chimp/ugEXPLODE/Skin Graft, 1995)
  • Revenge LP/CD (ugEXPLODE/Skin Graft, 1996)
  • Live in the Middle East cassette (Chimp, 1996)
  • Gods of Chaos CD (ugEXPLODE/Skin Graft, 1997)
  • Retrospektiw III CD (ugEXPLODE/Quinnah, 1998)
  • "...The Truth Is A Fucking Lie..." LP/CD (ugEXPLODE/Skin Graft, 1999)
  • Alptraum CD (ugEXPLODE/Pandemonium, 2000)
  • Trauma 2LP (ugEXPLODE, 2001)
  • Infection and Decline LP/CD (ugEXPLODE/Troubleman Unlimited, 2002)
  • Retrospektiw IV CD (ugEXPLODE/MNTCIA, 2002)
  • Systems Emerge From Complete Disorder LP/CD (ugEXPLODE/Troubleman Unlimited, 2003)
  • The Void LP/CD (ugEXPLODE/Troubleman Unlimited, 2004)
  • Spectral Warrior Mythos Volume 1 CD (ugEXPLODE, 2005)
  • Cataclysm CD (ugEXPLODE, 2006)
  • "Incarceration By Abstraction" (ugEXPLODE, 2007)

[edit] Compilations

  • Camp Skingraft 33 Hits! Now Wave Volumes 1-3 CD (Skin Graft Records, 1997, GR50)
  • Hayfever EP No. 4 7" (Hayfever Magazine, 1997, #4)
  • Knormalities 7" (Dephine Knormal Musik, 1998, DKM 03)
  • Troubleman Mix-Tape 2xCD (Troubleman Unlimited, 2001, TMU-050)
  • Troubleman 2003 Sampler CD (Troubleman Unlimited, 2003, TMU-109)[4]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Chicago Reader Interview http://www.chicagoreader.com/hitsville/021108.html
  2. ^ Scene Point Blank interview http://www.scenepointblank.com/features/47
  3. ^ Epitonic feature http://www.epitonic.com/index.jsp?refer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.epitonic.com%2Fartists%2Ftheflyingluttenbachers.html
  4. ^ Grunnen Rocks Flying Luttenbachers Discography http://www.grunnenrocks.nl/bands/f/flyingluttenbachersthe.htm

[edit] External links