Zach Hill has stopped hearts and blown minds in Crime in Choir, Hella, Team Sleep, and Nervous Cop with his pummeling drumming style, leaving fans asking, "What will he conquer next?" Hill has begun to explore combining his music, illustrations, and writing with Masculine Drugs/Destroying Yourself Is Too Accessible, a full-length album and book. Masculine Drugs is 14 songs of collaborative mayhem featuring the Holy Smokes: Hella guest vocalist D. Elkan, former Flying Luttenbacher Jonathan Hischke, and Pinback's Rob Crow. Hill's signature technique anchors and dominates the songs, but drum sounds are almost unrecognizable! Layers of effects are added to virtually every percussive element, even Hill's cymbals, producing a whirlwind of distortion drenched in reverb. The crowning achievement is "Mountains in Thy Chest," a collaboration with Crow, whose spot-on vocals and agile guitar playing keep time with Hill's manic percussion. Touted as a children's book, Destroying Yourself Is Too Accessible presents more than 100 pages of cryptic illustrations alongside an even more confounding story line. Fraught with misspellings and its own rules of grammar, it's like a cross between a Dr. Seuss book and Ulysses. If locked in a time capsule, the CD and book may explain the rise and decline of the human race, but for now, they might possibly rereinvent rock 'n' roll. (John Lombardo)

Jackie King and Richie Cole
A Phone Call for Charlie Parker (Indigo Moon)

Ever notice the smiling guitarist picking blistering double-time bebop lines behind Willie Nelson? That's Jackie King, a Texan who's been quietly living in Marin County since the late '60s. Besides recording with Nelson, King has put out several excellent CDs on his own Indigo Moon label, of which 1999's Moon Magic is especially recommended. Unfortunately, A Phone Call for Charlie Parker, King's live collaboration with alto saxophonist Richie Cole, falls far short of his usual standard. The concept couldn't have been better. King and Cole teamed up last year to salute the legendary saxophonist at Gobblers – a club at which Parker once performed and which was once booked by Chan Parker, Charlie's widow and later the wife of Phil Woods, a Parker disciple who's Cole's primary influence. King and Cole rip through a repertoire that includes flag-wavers "Scrapple from the Apple," "Little Suede Shoes," and "Red Top." Cole sometimes wanders off-mic, however, and their flights are sabotaged throughout by an embarrassingly inadequate rhythm section in which the bassist provides no firm harmonic underpinning and the drummer trips over his grooves at least twice a tune. It's a real disconnect. Jackie King plays Mon/13, Yoshi's, Oakl. (510) 238-9200. (Lee Hildebrand)

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