A WORLD IN WHITE GETS UNDERWAY
Another new song, since I know you loved Thomas Pynchon to death.
Happy New Year!
GEDDE WATANABE
Long Duk Dong, At Toon
Oishi Kazihiro
Duncan, Hiroshi
Matty, Kuni, Max
Taki Mifune
Tran
Guru Prem
Mr. Takadachi
Mr. Katsuji
Takeo, Steve
Detective Onoda
Play-Tone Photographer
Mr. Oh
Enzo, Yoshi, Chan
Kuni, Ling
Asian Tourist
Ed
Waiter
Nobo Nakamura
Greg
Factory Foreman
Japanese Father
Ling
Ling
Principal Nakamura
Dr. Suzuki
Kenji
Cafe Owner
Japanese Proctor
Cyril
Professor Bob Chen
Dr. Phil Ling
Nurse Yosh Takata
Charlie
Wing
Ling
Art 'Papa Joy'
Milton
Ling
Mr. Yu
Eliza's Dad, The Doctor
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
O TREW OR WET WE ROT WROTE
OK, if you’ve learned anything about me, you’ll probably already know that I went back to Tower one last time. On the last day.
And I was there for last call, when they announced that all remaining stock was on sale for 50 cents or less.
These were my last puchases:
Morehappyness, The Aluminum Group
Instant Wigwam and Igloo Mixture, Go Kart Mozart
Tearing Up the Album Chart, Go Kart Mozart
The Greatest Hit, The Blue Orchids
Zeroes and Ones, Eleventh Dream Day
Tower of Love, Jim Noir
Snap, Crackle, & Bop, John Cooper Clarke
The capper was a CD called The Trip, a two-disc set compiled by Jarvis Cocker and Steve Mackey of Pulp. List price was $33.99, and dig that crazy track list:
Disc 1
Gassenhauer, Carl Orff
Release the Bats, The Birthday Party
Rubber Room, Porter Wagoner
Just Drifting, Psychic TV
Lady with the Braid, Dory Previn
Cool Summer, Bob Lind
24, Sycamore, Gene Pitney
Sock It My Way, Animated Egg
Feel Flows, The Beach Boys
Winter's Going, Bonnie Dobson
I'm Going Home, Arlo Guthrie
Don't Think Twice, It's All Right, Bobby Bare
Jukebox Babe, Alan Vega
Waiting for the Man, Liam O'Mdonlai, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
Rock 'N' Roll/Night Clubbing, The Human League
King Wasp, Add N To (X)
Lost in Music, The Fall
Villain, Lieutenant Pigeon
Pastoral, Moondog
Disc 2
Jet Boy, Jet Girl, Elton Motello
John, I'm Only Dancing, The Polecats
Wop Doowop, ElectroniCAT
In Zaire, Johnny Wakelin
Anonymous Face, Quix*o*tic
Eqypt Reggae, Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers
Pour Man, Lee Hazelwood
Flashing Lights, Lord Sutch
Beasley Street, John Cooper Clarke
Rock On, David Essex
Les Visiteurs, Georges DeLaRue
Pammie's on a Bummer, Sonny Bono
I Wonder If I Care as Much, The Everly Brothers
Purple Haze, Dion
Going Nowhere, Neil Sedaka
Sailing By, Ronald Binge
OK, if you’ve learned anything about me, you’ll probably already know that I went back to Tower one last time. On the last day.
And I was there for last call, when they announced that all remaining stock was on sale for 50 cents or less.
These were my last puchases:
Morehappyness, The Aluminum Group
Instant Wigwam and Igloo Mixture, Go Kart Mozart
Tearing Up the Album Chart, Go Kart Mozart
The Greatest Hit, The Blue Orchids
Zeroes and Ones, Eleventh Dream Day
Tower of Love, Jim Noir
Snap, Crackle, & Bop, John Cooper Clarke
The capper was a CD called The Trip, a two-disc set compiled by Jarvis Cocker and Steve Mackey of Pulp. List price was $33.99, and dig that crazy track list:
Disc 1
Gassenhauer, Carl Orff
Release the Bats, The Birthday Party
Rubber Room, Porter Wagoner
Just Drifting, Psychic TV
Lady with the Braid, Dory Previn
Cool Summer, Bob Lind
24, Sycamore, Gene Pitney
Sock It My Way, Animated Egg
Feel Flows, The Beach Boys
Winter's Going, Bonnie Dobson
I'm Going Home, Arlo Guthrie
Don't Think Twice, It's All Right, Bobby Bare
Jukebox Babe, Alan Vega
Waiting for the Man, Liam O'Mdonlai, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
Rock 'N' Roll/Night Clubbing, The Human League
King Wasp, Add N To (X)
Lost in Music, The Fall
Villain, Lieutenant Pigeon
Pastoral, Moondog
Disc 2
Jet Boy, Jet Girl, Elton Motello
John, I'm Only Dancing, The Polecats
Wop Doowop, ElectroniCAT
In Zaire, Johnny Wakelin
Anonymous Face, Quix*o*tic
Eqypt Reggae, Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers
Pour Man, Lee Hazelwood
Flashing Lights, Lord Sutch
Beasley Street, John Cooper Clarke
Rock On, David Essex
Les Visiteurs, Georges DeLaRue
Pammie's on a Bummer, Sonny Bono
I Wonder If I Care as Much, The Everly Brothers
Purple Haze, Dion
Going Nowhere, Neil Sedaka
Sailing By, Ronald Binge
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Thursday, December 21, 2006
TRANSLATOR
OK, this is the babelfish translation of a message a friend of ours sent to my wife in Japanese.
I'm having a hard time figuring out what my favorite part is, although I have to admit that the translation of "play group" as "plague loop" has a special place in my heart.
"T, Today the card two, it received also メールカード from T, was delightful at all is. As writing on the card, the fact that truly this year the opportunity which the variety meets is many in the family, can encounter with the family for us very was lucky thing. The sunflower the soldier/finishing garden does inside at March, but don't you think? in addition we ask also next year may with the opportunity which meets with プレイデイト and the like not to change. So, also birth meeting of the plague loop of セバスチャン met, it is, don't you think?. It is possible finally relieved with this, don't you think?. Because I finished the Christmas lapping swiftly, enormously in the rear end eye soaking in room, it increases M who is flurried. Today my mother arrives safely, my Christmas preparation ending, is the feeling that with this it will be relieved. By the way, it is case of 29 days, but thank you. There is one schedule during morning, but in the afternoon you think that it is all right. When time and the like and it becomes close, communication it will scramble? Don't you think? or it is Mami's schedule circumstance. Inside, while the mother is, you insert the reservation of the dentist with the notion that where you call, because the り which is what it has done, it meaning that 29 days are most convenient, it does, but if so you say, also 26 days have been less crowded. So returning home on the 25th, perhaps, inside Mami, schedule of the following day is busy, don't you think?. From Mami receiving message in absence electricity, increasing, when we can meet in winter vacation after all? Because with the っ which means saying it is, T and Mami and, in addition meeting soon, it increases the fact that story it is possible in the pleasure. To that, as for first impression it is funny the one which has settled, with each time sliced tongue's of the impression which is said image hears story and others and others to keep being broken bitterly, is. (It does not translate into English and the て well enough is) the tea eye sliced tongue properly doing future participating is expected. ' Please pass cute holiday in sliced tongue. Just the message which ' with is said may even from now on translating into English, please convey? . So with, please pass cute Christmas. ま ど?"
I'll be taking a little break from posting after today, so what more can I say than "Please pass cute Christmas"...
OK, this is the babelfish translation of a message a friend of ours sent to my wife in Japanese.
I'm having a hard time figuring out what my favorite part is, although I have to admit that the translation of "play group" as "plague loop" has a special place in my heart.
"T, Today the card two, it received also メールカード from T, was delightful at all is. As writing on the card, the fact that truly this year the opportunity which the variety meets is many in the family, can encounter with the family for us very was lucky thing. The sunflower the soldier/finishing garden does inside at March, but don't you think? in addition we ask also next year may with the opportunity which meets with プレイデイト and the like not to change. So, also birth meeting of the plague loop of セバスチャン met, it is, don't you think?. It is possible finally relieved with this, don't you think?. Because I finished the Christmas lapping swiftly, enormously in the rear end eye soaking in room, it increases M who is flurried. Today my mother arrives safely, my Christmas preparation ending, is the feeling that with this it will be relieved. By the way, it is case of 29 days, but thank you. There is one schedule during morning, but in the afternoon you think that it is all right. When time and the like and it becomes close, communication it will scramble? Don't you think? or it is Mami's schedule circumstance. Inside, while the mother is, you insert the reservation of the dentist with the notion that where you call, because the り which is what it has done, it meaning that 29 days are most convenient, it does, but if so you say, also 26 days have been less crowded. So returning home on the 25th, perhaps, inside Mami, schedule of the following day is busy, don't you think?. From Mami receiving message in absence electricity, increasing, when we can meet in winter vacation after all? Because with the っ which means saying it is, T and Mami and, in addition meeting soon, it increases the fact that story it is possible in the pleasure. To that, as for first impression it is funny the one which has settled, with each time sliced tongue's of the impression which is said image hears story and others and others to keep being broken bitterly, is. (It does not translate into English and the て well enough is) the tea eye sliced tongue properly doing future participating is expected. ' Please pass cute holiday in sliced tongue. Just the message which ' with is said may even from now on translating into English, please convey? . So with, please pass cute Christmas. ま ど?"
I'll be taking a little break from posting after today, so what more can I say than "Please pass cute Christmas"...
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
HAROLD ANGEL
Holiday malaprop, part 1
I was looking over some holiday cards that my wife was getting ready to mail, and my thumb stopped at one addressed to "Mr. Noir Strange."
"Do we really know someone named Mr. Noir Strange?" I asked, excitedly. "That's goth-tacular!"
Well, a quick trip to the address book revealed that we don't know anyone named Mr. Noir Strange. Just someone with a name that sounds kind of like Mr. Noir Strange.
And we are the lesser for it, I say...
Holiday malaprop, part 2
I took a bit of a long cut back from the market, so the kids and I could see some Christmas decorations.
"Look at that one!" my daughter enthused. "It's got a candy cane, and flashing lights, and a little Baby Genius."
Ah, Baby Genius. That's really what Christmas is all about, isn't it?
Holiday malaprop, part 1
I was looking over some holiday cards that my wife was getting ready to mail, and my thumb stopped at one addressed to "Mr. Noir Strange."
"Do we really know someone named Mr. Noir Strange?" I asked, excitedly. "That's goth-tacular!"
Well, a quick trip to the address book revealed that we don't know anyone named Mr. Noir Strange. Just someone with a name that sounds kind of like Mr. Noir Strange.
And we are the lesser for it, I say...
Holiday malaprop, part 2
I took a bit of a long cut back from the market, so the kids and I could see some Christmas decorations.
"Look at that one!" my daughter enthused. "It's got a candy cane, and flashing lights, and a little Baby Genius."
Ah, Baby Genius. That's really what Christmas is all about, isn't it?
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Monday, December 18, 2006
ENTHUSIASM FOR LIFE DEFEATS EXISTENTIAL FEAR
I don’t expect I’ll ever set foot in another Tower Records again.
One of our four local branches is now shuttered, and the other three are soon to follow.
Of all the items that I picked up there over the last month or so, this is probably my favorite:
It’s a CD single of The Flaming Lips' Waitin’ for a Superman b/w two tracks from Zaireeka-- a neat little gimcrack-tasctical thing that cost me 50 cents. I'll probably never even play it.
I almost can’t explain why I like it so much.
I almost can’t explain why it almost brings me to tears...
I don’t expect I’ll ever set foot in another Tower Records again.
One of our four local branches is now shuttered, and the other three are soon to follow.
Of all the items that I picked up there over the last month or so, this is probably my favorite:
It’s a CD single of The Flaming Lips' Waitin’ for a Superman b/w two tracks from Zaireeka-- a neat little gimcrack-tasctical thing that cost me 50 cents. I'll probably never even play it.
I almost can’t explain why I like it so much.
I almost can’t explain why it almost brings me to tears...
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
SING, ALL YE CITIZENS
For many of my boyhood years, I sang in the church choir.
I sang mostly because I liked to sing. I found the humorless practicing to be a chore, and I thought a lot of the songs were colorless and boring.
I did like sitting in the choir loft, though. It was a great location from which to pursue boyish daydreams of rescuing the congregation from some interloping force or another.
“And just then,” it would go in the retelling, “Just then he swooped down out of the loft, his red choir robe partially unzipped, and landed a staggering blow on the heads of the church robbers/marauding alien forces/zombie hordes. What bravery! And, you know, he’s also quite the alto.”
The one exception was Christmas Eve. I did not daydream on Christmas Eve.
Being up in the loft at night lent the whole experience a tinge of mystery that trumped daydreaming.
Plus we got to sing a whole range of cool songs: Silent Night, O Come, All Ye Faithful, Angels We Have Heard On High, Joy to the World, O Little Town of Bethlehem, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.
Man, Christmas hymns are the new punk rock...
For many of my boyhood years, I sang in the church choir.
I sang mostly because I liked to sing. I found the humorless practicing to be a chore, and I thought a lot of the songs were colorless and boring.
I did like sitting in the choir loft, though. It was a great location from which to pursue boyish daydreams of rescuing the congregation from some interloping force or another.
“And just then,” it would go in the retelling, “Just then he swooped down out of the loft, his red choir robe partially unzipped, and landed a staggering blow on the heads of the church robbers/marauding alien forces/zombie hordes. What bravery! And, you know, he’s also quite the alto.”
The one exception was Christmas Eve. I did not daydream on Christmas Eve.
Being up in the loft at night lent the whole experience a tinge of mystery that trumped daydreaming.
Plus we got to sing a whole range of cool songs: Silent Night, O Come, All Ye Faithful, Angels We Have Heard On High, Joy to the World, O Little Town of Bethlehem, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.
Man, Christmas hymns are the new punk rock...
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Monday, December 11, 2006
IT’S SUCH A GAMBLE WHEN YOU GET A FACE
Back when I was 17, I worked as a dishwasher at a Howard Johnson’s.
The chief benefit was that I was able to boost the occasional industrial-sized carton of cheddar Goldfish when I made my nightly Dumpster runs.
(OK, my conscience requires a brief PSA at this point: Workplace theft kills, kids. Don’t do it. Keep your eye on the sparrow. Thank you.)
Anyway, the night manager was a bit of a well-meaning tool. He was in his mid to late 20s, and intoxicated by the power that comes with managing the restaurant at a HoJo’s.
One night, I was cleaning up my area and listening to music on my JVC box. Suddenly, the manager slid into view, air guitaring and singing along, right near the top of his lungs.
“I’m waiting for my maaaaan!”
I had a look of horror stenciled on my face. “You like the Velvets?”
“Oh, yeah. Me and my frat brothers loved this album!” he enthused, still windmilling at the ether.
Needless to say I was troubled by the image of a whole house full of fratboys like this huckleberry swigging PBRs and listening to the Velvets. This was my music, damnit. My private music.
Well, this past Saturday morning I went to Hollywood Video to rent a copy of stop-motion Rudolph for that evening’s family movie night. I was greeted by a lone clerk, probably 17 himself. He was dressed in black from head to toe, except for the interruption of his moon-blue name tag.
And instead of the usual endless loop of promos for Failure to Launch and Barnyard, the clerk had Richard Hell cranked up on the store’s PA.
As I went to pay, I handed him the DVD and my membership card. “Richard Hell, huh?” I said, nodding in the direction of the ceiling.
And of course he shot me a look. “This is my music, damnit. My private music,” said the look...
Back when I was 17, I worked as a dishwasher at a Howard Johnson’s.
The chief benefit was that I was able to boost the occasional industrial-sized carton of cheddar Goldfish when I made my nightly Dumpster runs.
(OK, my conscience requires a brief PSA at this point: Workplace theft kills, kids. Don’t do it. Keep your eye on the sparrow. Thank you.)
Anyway, the night manager was a bit of a well-meaning tool. He was in his mid to late 20s, and intoxicated by the power that comes with managing the restaurant at a HoJo’s.
One night, I was cleaning up my area and listening to music on my JVC box. Suddenly, the manager slid into view, air guitaring and singing along, right near the top of his lungs.
“I’m waiting for my maaaaan!”
I had a look of horror stenciled on my face. “You like the Velvets?”
“Oh, yeah. Me and my frat brothers loved this album!” he enthused, still windmilling at the ether.
Needless to say I was troubled by the image of a whole house full of fratboys like this huckleberry swigging PBRs and listening to the Velvets. This was my music, damnit. My private music.
Well, this past Saturday morning I went to Hollywood Video to rent a copy of stop-motion Rudolph for that evening’s family movie night. I was greeted by a lone clerk, probably 17 himself. He was dressed in black from head to toe, except for the interruption of his moon-blue name tag.
And instead of the usual endless loop of promos for Failure to Launch and Barnyard, the clerk had Richard Hell cranked up on the store’s PA.
As I went to pay, I handed him the DVD and my membership card. “Richard Hell, huh?” I said, nodding in the direction of the ceiling.
And of course he shot me a look. “This is my music, damnit. My private music,” said the look...
Friday, December 08, 2006
COME INSIDE
I should note that Karn Evil 9 wins some kind of weird daily double, since it comes from an album that also bears one my least favorite titles ever: Brain Salad Surgery.
I mean, it’s no Tormato, but it’s pretty damn bad.
Turns out they nicked it from Dr. John’s Right Place, Wrong Time. Huh. Strange bedfellows...
Oh, and Tom? You sing like a stuck pig.
I should note that Karn Evil 9 wins some kind of weird daily double, since it comes from an album that also bears one my least favorite titles ever: Brain Salad Surgery.
I mean, it’s no Tormato, but it’s pretty damn bad.
Turns out they nicked it from Dr. John’s Right Place, Wrong Time. Huh. Strange bedfellows...
Oh, and Tom? You sing like a stuck pig.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
SEE THE SHOW
This “song title that sucks” brought to you by the good folks at Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. Personal injuries a specialty.
Karn Evil 9, ELP
The main thing to hate about this is that ELP clearly think it’s clever.
But really it’s just designed to give stoners pause while they clean the seeds out of their red.
“Karn? Dude, what’s karn? Is that, like, Australian or something?”
And then the moment of revelation:
“Oh, man. Karn-evil. I get it! It’s like, like, carnival, except it’s evil. These guys rock, progressively!”
I confess I’m not stoned enough myself to know what the 9 is for. Nor why they needed to break it down into 1st Impression, Part 1; 1st Impression, Part 2; 2nd Impression; and 3rd Impression.
Fecking proggers...
This “song title that sucks” brought to you by the good folks at Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. Personal injuries a specialty.
Karn Evil 9, ELP
The main thing to hate about this is that ELP clearly think it’s clever.
But really it’s just designed to give stoners pause while they clean the seeds out of their red.
“Karn? Dude, what’s karn? Is that, like, Australian or something?”
And then the moment of revelation:
“Oh, man. Karn-evil. I get it! It’s like, like, carnival, except it’s evil. These guys rock, progressively!”
I confess I’m not stoned enough myself to know what the 9 is for. Nor why they needed to break it down into 1st Impression, Part 1; 1st Impression, Part 2; 2nd Impression; and 3rd Impression.
Fecking proggers...
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
DECISION ROCK
Bad title. Bad.
Puncture in the Radax Permutation, Stereolab
OK, my Franco-Brit friends, you know I pledged my troth many years ago.
But this is just brutal.
I still don’t know what the hell “radax” is. A game for the Commodore 64? A prescription antidepressant? A really bitchin' guitar?
What doesn’t help matters is the fact that the lyrics read like a sketchily translated synopsis of episode 6 of Bubblegum Crisis. “Humble biped you’ve come undone/You detached the mechanical”...
But just to prove my love, here’s a compensatory list of Stereolab song titles that kick the collective ass of all comers:
Our Trinitone Blast
Pack Yr Romantic Mind
Lock-Groove Lullaby
French Disko
John Cage Bubblegum
Avant Garde M.O.R.
Ronco Symphony
We’re Not Adult Orientated
Three-Dee Melodie
Fiery Yellow
Pop Quiz
Heavenly Van Halen
Metronomic Underground
Cybele’s Reverie
Tomorrow is Already Here
Diagonals
Velvet Water
Bad title. Bad.
Puncture in the Radax Permutation, Stereolab
OK, my Franco-Brit friends, you know I pledged my troth many years ago.
But this is just brutal.
I still don’t know what the hell “radax” is. A game for the Commodore 64? A prescription antidepressant? A really bitchin' guitar?
What doesn’t help matters is the fact that the lyrics read like a sketchily translated synopsis of episode 6 of Bubblegum Crisis. “Humble biped you’ve come undone/You detached the mechanical”...
But just to prove my love, here’s a compensatory list of Stereolab song titles that kick the collective ass of all comers:
Our Trinitone Blast
Pack Yr Romantic Mind
Lock-Groove Lullaby
French Disko
John Cage Bubblegum
Avant Garde M.O.R.
Ronco Symphony
We’re Not Adult Orientated
Three-Dee Melodie
Fiery Yellow
Pop Quiz
Heavenly Van Halen
Metronomic Underground
Cybele’s Reverie
Tomorrow is Already Here
Diagonals
Velvet Water
Monday, December 04, 2006
IT AIN’T EASY BEING GREEN
Welcome to least-favorite-song-title week...
Skank Bloc Bologna, Scritti Politti
First things first: I don’t think I’ve ever actually heard this song.
I doubt that hearing it would improve my opinion of the title, though.
I mean, I’m sure the song is an urbane, witty, and caustic social commentary.
Or something. Sweet Jiminy Fuckit, for all I know it’s an instrumental.
But let’s diagram this.
OK, point one: Skank.
Skank is just an ugly word, independent of its meaning as a descriptor for an unwholesome woman.
And even if it’s being used more in the ska sense, it still hurts my brain.
I don’t have a connotative opinion about “bloc” but its use right next to skank only serves to bring out the ugly in it.
And then there’s “bologna”...
Yes, bologna— the most put-upon of all the pressed deli meats.
“Hey, Bologna, somebody named Tony called and wanted to know where the hell you get off rhyming with him, being spelled like that and all,” shouts Mortadella.
“Hey, Bologna, what’s your first name again?” taunts Salami.
And all the while, Head Cheese turns away silently and faces the German potato salad, weighed down with equal measures of guilt and empathy.
Bad choice, Scritti. Bad choice...
Welcome to least-favorite-song-title week...
Skank Bloc Bologna, Scritti Politti
First things first: I don’t think I’ve ever actually heard this song.
I doubt that hearing it would improve my opinion of the title, though.
I mean, I’m sure the song is an urbane, witty, and caustic social commentary.
Or something. Sweet Jiminy Fuckit, for all I know it’s an instrumental.
But let’s diagram this.
OK, point one: Skank.
Skank is just an ugly word, independent of its meaning as a descriptor for an unwholesome woman.
And even if it’s being used more in the ska sense, it still hurts my brain.
I don’t have a connotative opinion about “bloc” but its use right next to skank only serves to bring out the ugly in it.
And then there’s “bologna”...
Yes, bologna— the most put-upon of all the pressed deli meats.
“Hey, Bologna, somebody named Tony called and wanted to know where the hell you get off rhyming with him, being spelled like that and all,” shouts Mortadella.
“Hey, Bologna, what’s your first name again?” taunts Salami.
And all the while, Head Cheese turns away silently and faces the German potato salad, weighed down with equal measures of guilt and empathy.
Bad choice, Scritti. Bad choice...
Thursday, November 30, 2006
THE NEW WORLD
As Tower’s bankruptcy sale winds down, it is interesting to see what kind of merch continues to clog the racks even at near-giveaway prices.
The rows of Poison CDs speak of a store buyer too confident that hair metal was due for a comeback, and a hard comeback at that. Perhaps somewhere a Duane Reade is overstocked with Aquanet...
And apparently not even the most ardent jam-band fan needs a live CD of every show that the String Cheese Incident played in 2005. Imagine that.
But I do have to confess to a certain sadness and resignation when I see all the unsold copies of the first three X albums.
I want to get on the PA and make an announcement:
“Hello. Do you people realize that you can get a copy of Wild Gift, with bonus tracks, for $5.20? Back away from that David Gray CD very slowly, and meet me over here at the end of the alphabet.”
But still it remains the unheard music...
As Tower’s bankruptcy sale winds down, it is interesting to see what kind of merch continues to clog the racks even at near-giveaway prices.
The rows of Poison CDs speak of a store buyer too confident that hair metal was due for a comeback, and a hard comeback at that. Perhaps somewhere a Duane Reade is overstocked with Aquanet...
And apparently not even the most ardent jam-band fan needs a live CD of every show that the String Cheese Incident played in 2005. Imagine that.
But I do have to confess to a certain sadness and resignation when I see all the unsold copies of the first three X albums.
I want to get on the PA and make an announcement:
“Hello. Do you people realize that you can get a copy of Wild Gift, with bonus tracks, for $5.20? Back away from that David Gray CD very slowly, and meet me over here at the end of the alphabet.”
But still it remains the unheard music...
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
DADDY COULD SWEAR
OK, OK, under great pressure I’ve been forced to take the following oath:
I, sliced tongue,
I, sliced tongue,
Do hereby solemnly swear
Do hereby solemnly swear
That I will never again
That I will never again
Build a post
Build a post
Around something I did
Around something I did
While I was in the shower.
While I was in the shower.
And that means “never”
And that means “never”
As in “the twelfth of...”
As in “the twelfth of...”
As in “never say...”
As in “never say...”
OK?
OK.
Got it?
Got it.
I mean, seriously now.
I mean, seriously now.
Like, if something noteworthy does happen in the shower,
Like, if something noteworthy does happen in the shower,
For the purposes of this blog
For the purposes of this blog
I will pretend
I will pretend
It happened
It happened
Somewhere
Somewhere
Else.
Else.
OK, OK, under great pressure I’ve been forced to take the following oath:
I, sliced tongue,
I, sliced tongue,
Do hereby solemnly swear
Do hereby solemnly swear
That I will never again
That I will never again
Build a post
Build a post
Around something I did
Around something I did
While I was in the shower.
While I was in the shower.
And that means “never”
And that means “never”
As in “the twelfth of...”
As in “the twelfth of...”
As in “never say...”
As in “never say...”
OK?
OK.
Got it?
Got it.
I mean, seriously now.
I mean, seriously now.
Like, if something noteworthy does happen in the shower,
Like, if something noteworthy does happen in the shower,
For the purposes of this blog
For the purposes of this blog
I will pretend
I will pretend
It happened
It happened
Somewhere
Somewhere
Else.
Else.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
DO IT CLEAN
I wrote a song in the shower this morning.
Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Pynchon does not exist.
If you think you’ve read his books, you haven’t.
If you think you’re him, you aren’t.
And if you think this is a song
About Thomas Pynchon
You’re wrong.
I wrote a song about gladiolas
And Thomas Pynchon stole it.
He’s a drunken whore and you know it.
But if you think this is a song
About Thomas Pynchon
You’re wrong.
Because Thomas Pynchon does not exist.
His library card is made of chintz,
And your imagination is a magnet.
So if you think this is a song
About Thomas Pynchon
You’re wrong.
And if you think this is the end of the song
You’re wrong, you’re wrong, you’re wrong.
It is the beginning...
I wrote a song in the shower this morning.
Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Pynchon does not exist.
If you think you’ve read his books, you haven’t.
If you think you’re him, you aren’t.
And if you think this is a song
About Thomas Pynchon
You’re wrong.
I wrote a song about gladiolas
And Thomas Pynchon stole it.
He’s a drunken whore and you know it.
But if you think this is a song
About Thomas Pynchon
You’re wrong.
Because Thomas Pynchon does not exist.
His library card is made of chintz,
And your imagination is a magnet.
So if you think this is a song
About Thomas Pynchon
You’re wrong.
And if you think this is the end of the song
You’re wrong, you’re wrong, you’re wrong.
It is the beginning...
Monday, November 27, 2006
MR. SPARKLE
My good friend brain coral was talking the other day about Mark Linkous’ pre-Sparklehorse days, and he mentioned something that I damn sure should’ve known, but damn sure never did: Linkous was in the Dancing Hoods.
Now, the Dancing Hoods were a mid 80s Long Island band that received some local airplay on WLIR. What I remember most about them is that they sucked.
But wait, maybe they didn’t suck. Maybe my reverse provincialism colored my opinion to such a degree that I was blind to their inchoate brilliance.
Maybe their music was made of flowing ribbons of color, ribbons worn supple in a warm, rippling milkbath of sound.
Perhaps their music was informed by the melancholy of the ages, sung sweetly with a tongue forged of ice and fire.
Or maybe it was a future sound. The sound of gleaming crystal spires and the open synapses of biomechanical connectivity.
Nah, I think I’ll just stick with my original story: They sucked...
My good friend brain coral was talking the other day about Mark Linkous’ pre-Sparklehorse days, and he mentioned something that I damn sure should’ve known, but damn sure never did: Linkous was in the Dancing Hoods.
Now, the Dancing Hoods were a mid 80s Long Island band that received some local airplay on WLIR. What I remember most about them is that they sucked.
But wait, maybe they didn’t suck. Maybe my reverse provincialism colored my opinion to such a degree that I was blind to their inchoate brilliance.
Maybe their music was made of flowing ribbons of color, ribbons worn supple in a warm, rippling milkbath of sound.
Perhaps their music was informed by the melancholy of the ages, sung sweetly with a tongue forged of ice and fire.
Or maybe it was a future sound. The sound of gleaming crystal spires and the open synapses of biomechanical connectivity.
Nah, I think I’ll just stick with my original story: They sucked...
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
BEAT SURRENDER
That's entertainment, cassette style.
Setting Sons, Sound Affects, Snap! THE JAM
I picked up The Gift at the Tower flameout, but not these. I have a sentimental attachment to the disc that outweighs its general merits because it is where I hopped on with The Jam.
Little did I know that when I hopped on, they were just about getting ready to pull into the station. Which led to the gloomy sequence of breakups that dotted 82/83: The Jam, The (English) Beat, and The Clash.
I remember hearing about The Clash breakup on MTV. I was at my friend Larry’s house, and his punk cousin from SF was visiting. Right after the news, they played Spandau Ballet’s True video, and the cousin remarked on the negative connotations that song was sure to carry for me until the end of time.
Ironic then, that at the same exact time, about 8,000 miles away, the woman I would one day love was busy knitting a sweater for Spandau’s Gary Kemp.
Life can be gloriously strange, you know?
That's entertainment, cassette style.
Setting Sons, Sound Affects, Snap! THE JAM
I picked up The Gift at the Tower flameout, but not these. I have a sentimental attachment to the disc that outweighs its general merits because it is where I hopped on with The Jam.
Little did I know that when I hopped on, they were just about getting ready to pull into the station. Which led to the gloomy sequence of breakups that dotted 82/83: The Jam, The (English) Beat, and The Clash.
I remember hearing about The Clash breakup on MTV. I was at my friend Larry’s house, and his punk cousin from SF was visiting. Right after the news, they played Spandau Ballet’s True video, and the cousin remarked on the negative connotations that song was sure to carry for me until the end of time.
Ironic then, that at the same exact time, about 8,000 miles away, the woman I would one day love was busy knitting a sweater for Spandau’s Gary Kemp.
Life can be gloriously strange, you know?
Monday, November 20, 2006
A LUGGAGE LABEL TIED TO HIS TONSILS
Random thoughts on last Friday's Raconteurs/Bob Dylan concert...
-The Raconteurs portion of the show worked best when they stowed the egalitarian bullshit and acknowledged that Jack White is the only qualified front man in the bunch. That this shift occurred during a delirious cover of Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) made it all the better.
-One of the good folks with whom I went to see the show misheard The Raconteurs as The Raccoon Tours. And sweet underlined, boldfaced, italic Jebus, would I pay $60 to see that! They could just set up garbage cans all over the stage and have those cute little buggers knock them over for an hour or so. Sure, one or two rabid ones might get into the first couple of rows, but that front-row population could use some thinning anyway, so no biggie...
-There’s something to be said for sitting in a college-basketball arena and hearing Like a Rolling Stone performed by its author. There’s something to be said against it as well...
-Overheard, from the grayed boomer to my left: “The only protest singers this generation has are the Dixie Chicks.” OK, first of all: What? And second of all: What?
-AARP card + hippie dancing = CASH ENTERTAINMENT!
Random thoughts on last Friday's Raconteurs/Bob Dylan concert...
-The Raconteurs portion of the show worked best when they stowed the egalitarian bullshit and acknowledged that Jack White is the only qualified front man in the bunch. That this shift occurred during a delirious cover of Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) made it all the better.
-One of the good folks with whom I went to see the show misheard The Raconteurs as The Raccoon Tours. And sweet underlined, boldfaced, italic Jebus, would I pay $60 to see that! They could just set up garbage cans all over the stage and have those cute little buggers knock them over for an hour or so. Sure, one or two rabid ones might get into the first couple of rows, but that front-row population could use some thinning anyway, so no biggie...
-There’s something to be said for sitting in a college-basketball arena and hearing Like a Rolling Stone performed by its author. There’s something to be said against it as well...
-Overheard, from the grayed boomer to my left: “The only protest singers this generation has are the Dixie Chicks.” OK, first of all: What? And second of all: What?
-AARP card + hippie dancing = CASH ENTERTAINMENT!
Thursday, November 16, 2006
PAGING JANET PLANET
Still more Morrison on the cassette front...
Moondance, Saint Dominic’s Preview, Irish Heartbeat, VAN MORRISON
Moondance was Brother Van’s apotheosis of the pop/jazz/mystic. I probably can’t stand 90% of the people who really love this, but I love it too.
The air quotes are starting to show on Saint Dominic’s Preview, and the two 10+ minute tracks either make you see visions or the inside of yer eyelids.
Working with the Chieftans, it would’ve been hard to eff up the mostly traditional songs on Irish Heartbeat, and he didn’t. Nice, pleasant, ruly, and as essential as a bell on a beagle...
Still more Morrison on the cassette front...
Moondance, Saint Dominic’s Preview, Irish Heartbeat, VAN MORRISON
Moondance was Brother Van’s apotheosis of the pop/jazz/mystic. I probably can’t stand 90% of the people who really love this, but I love it too.
The air quotes are starting to show on Saint Dominic’s Preview, and the two 10+ minute tracks either make you see visions or the inside of yer eyelids.
Working with the Chieftans, it would’ve been hard to eff up the mostly traditional songs on Irish Heartbeat, and he didn’t. Nice, pleasant, ruly, and as essential as a bell on a beagle...
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
KIMCHI WILD
And by the way Korean grocery store, thanks ever so much for the $5 copy of the Criterion DVD of Gimme Shelter with the easily suppressed Korean subtitles.
Please acquire for future sale $5 copies of the following: Kiss Me Deadly, Heimat (the region 2 Tartan print, ideally), and The Tube Anthology: The Best of Series 1.
Thanks in advance Korean grocery store...
Your pal,
sliced tongue
And by the way Korean grocery store, thanks ever so much for the $5 copy of the Criterion DVD of Gimme Shelter with the easily suppressed Korean subtitles.
Please acquire for future sale $5 copies of the following: Kiss Me Deadly, Heimat (the region 2 Tartan print, ideally), and The Tube Anthology: The Best of Series 1.
Thanks in advance Korean grocery store...
Your pal,
sliced tongue
Friday, November 10, 2006
CASUAL JOYS
Morrissey. Morrison. More cassettes I never replaced.
The Queen is Dead, Louder Than Bombs, THE SMITHS
Louder Than Bombs comes within a few hairs of being all I need of The Smiths. I’d be happy to own it on disc/download, but I know in my heart I’d rarely have cause to listen.
Strange Days, Morrison Hotel, THE DOORS
When I was a mid teen, a friend of mine bought me a new copy of Strange Days for my birthday three years running. The first two copies were out of necessity, as I had worn out the cassettes. The third was a joke, as I had worn out The Doors. Hey, Kenny, my birthday’s in a month and a half or so. I have an idea for a gift...
Last week was pleasure travel—now business travel will eat a couple of days off my calendar. Back next Wednesday...
Morrissey. Morrison. More cassettes I never replaced.
The Queen is Dead, Louder Than Bombs, THE SMITHS
Louder Than Bombs comes within a few hairs of being all I need of The Smiths. I’d be happy to own it on disc/download, but I know in my heart I’d rarely have cause to listen.
Strange Days, Morrison Hotel, THE DOORS
When I was a mid teen, a friend of mine bought me a new copy of Strange Days for my birthday three years running. The first two copies were out of necessity, as I had worn out the cassettes. The third was a joke, as I had worn out The Doors. Hey, Kenny, my birthday’s in a month and a half or so. I have an idea for a gift...
Last week was pleasure travel—now business travel will eat a couple of days off my calendar. Back next Wednesday...
Thursday, November 09, 2006
TAKE IT IT'S YOURS
The Replacements, Tim
"The ones who love us best are the ones we'll lay to rest
And visit their graves on holidays at best.
The ones who love us least are the ones we'll die to please
If it's any consolation, I don't begin to understand them"
If it's any consolation? I can't think of anything more consoling...
The Velvet Underground, VU
More than just fag ends. I have most of this scattered about Peel Slowly and See, but I should really have the whole thing. Forgive the sacrilege, but I'm more likely to listen to this all the way through than I am the first album.
Various, DIY: Blank Generation
This is awesome from head to toe. And hot cans of piss, the CD's even better...
The Replacements, Tim
"The ones who love us best are the ones we'll lay to rest
And visit their graves on holidays at best.
The ones who love us least are the ones we'll die to please
If it's any consolation, I don't begin to understand them"
If it's any consolation? I can't think of anything more consoling...
The Velvet Underground, VU
More than just fag ends. I have most of this scattered about Peel Slowly and See, but I should really have the whole thing. Forgive the sacrilege, but I'm more likely to listen to this all the way through than I am the first album.
Various, DIY: Blank Generation
This is awesome from head to toe. And hot cans of piss, the CD's even better...
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
SHOPPING
My laptop monitor got cornholed somehow, so getting access to my list of cassettes would require some patch work that I'm not up to at present. Damn you, cornholed laptop monitor. Damn you to hell.
What I did on my fall vacation: Trawled the aisles of the Huntington Tower. I promised I wouldn't bite until the discounts hit 30%. They did, and I bit, as follows:
The Jam-- The Gift
Dusty Springfield-- Dusty in Memphis Special Edition
Deerhoof-- The Runners Four
Broken Social Scene-- You Forget It In People
The Jesus and Mary Chain-- Psychocandy (reissue)
TV on the Radio-- Return to Cookie Mountain
DJ Shadow-- Endtroducing
X-- The Unheard Music (DVD)
New York Doll (DVD doc on Arthur "Killer" Kane)
All in all, a nice haul...
My laptop monitor got cornholed somehow, so getting access to my list of cassettes would require some patch work that I'm not up to at present. Damn you, cornholed laptop monitor. Damn you to hell.
What I did on my fall vacation: Trawled the aisles of the Huntington Tower. I promised I wouldn't bite until the discounts hit 30%. They did, and I bit, as follows:
The Jam-- The Gift
Dusty Springfield-- Dusty in Memphis Special Edition
Deerhoof-- The Runners Four
Broken Social Scene-- You Forget It In People
The Jesus and Mary Chain-- Psychocandy (reissue)
TV on the Radio-- Return to Cookie Mountain
DJ Shadow-- Endtroducing
X-- The Unheard Music (DVD)
New York Doll (DVD doc on Arthur "Killer" Kane)
All in all, a nice haul...
Friday, November 03, 2006
HOME TAPING IS DESTROYING MUSIC
The Clash, Give ‘Em Enough Rope, Combat Rock, 1977 Revisted, THE CLASH
I received the Clash on Broadway box as a gift back when it came out, and I’ve let that function as a stand in for The Clash, Give ‘Em Enough Rope, and Combat Rock for far too long. I’ve seen all three CDs (four, if you count the UK edition of the debut) hit the racks for $7.99, so it’s pretty hard for me to claim that the dollar made me do it.
The 1977 Revisited comp was a godsend when it came out in 1990, as it was the first real release to include the tracks that had been removed from the original version of the first album when it finally dropped in the states (1977, Deny, Cheat, 48 Hours, Protex Blue), as well as Groovy Times, Gates of the West, and a couple of others that had not seen the light of US day.
I’ll be on the road early next week, and will return to the cassette survey on Wednesday.
May you have a 120-minute, chromium-dioxide, write-protected, Dolby II, Type IV weekend...
The Clash, Give ‘Em Enough Rope, Combat Rock, 1977 Revisted, THE CLASH
I received the Clash on Broadway box as a gift back when it came out, and I’ve let that function as a stand in for The Clash, Give ‘Em Enough Rope, and Combat Rock for far too long. I’ve seen all three CDs (four, if you count the UK edition of the debut) hit the racks for $7.99, so it’s pretty hard for me to claim that the dollar made me do it.
The 1977 Revisited comp was a godsend when it came out in 1990, as it was the first real release to include the tracks that had been removed from the original version of the first album when it finally dropped in the states (1977, Deny, Cheat, 48 Hours, Protex Blue), as well as Groovy Times, Gates of the West, and a couple of others that had not seen the light of US day.
I’ll be on the road early next week, and will return to the cassette survey on Wednesday.
May you have a 120-minute, chromium-dioxide, write-protected, Dolby II, Type IV weekend...
Thursday, November 02, 2006
YOUR CASSETTE PET
Can't buy a thrill. Haven't bought an upgrade...
Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde, BOB DYLAN
Subterranean Homesick Blues kicks off Bringing It All Back Home with a khat-y rush, and then the words just keep on coming...
Some of my favorite lyrics from this period:
Take what you have gathered from coincidence (It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue)
Well, John the Baptist after torturing a thief
Looks up at his hero the Commander-in-Chief
Saying, “Tell me great hero, but please make it brief
Is there a hole for me to get sick in?”
The Commander-in-Chief answers him while chasing a fly
Saying, "Death to all those who would whimper and cry"
And dropping a bar bell he points to the sky
Saying, “The sun's not yellow it's chicken” (Tombstone Blues)
Now when all of the flower ladies want back what they have lent you
And the smell of their roses does not remain
And all of your children start to resent you
Won't you come see me, Queen Jane? (Queen Jane Approximately)
Oh, the ragman draws circles
Up and down the block... (Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again)
For good measure, I should note that I’ve also never replaced Blood on the Tracks.
And for the life of me, I can’t tell you why...
Can't buy a thrill. Haven't bought an upgrade...
Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde, BOB DYLAN
Subterranean Homesick Blues kicks off Bringing It All Back Home with a khat-y rush, and then the words just keep on coming...
Some of my favorite lyrics from this period:
Take what you have gathered from coincidence (It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue)
Well, John the Baptist after torturing a thief
Looks up at his hero the Commander-in-Chief
Saying, “Tell me great hero, but please make it brief
Is there a hole for me to get sick in?”
The Commander-in-Chief answers him while chasing a fly
Saying, "Death to all those who would whimper and cry"
And dropping a bar bell he points to the sky
Saying, “The sun's not yellow it's chicken” (Tombstone Blues)
Now when all of the flower ladies want back what they have lent you
And the smell of their roses does not remain
And all of your children start to resent you
Won't you come see me, Queen Jane? (Queen Jane Approximately)
Oh, the ragman draws circles
Up and down the block... (Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again)
For good measure, I should note that I’ve also never replaced Blood on the Tracks.
And for the life of me, I can’t tell you why...
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
BOW WOW WOW
What’s all that barking in the Classic Rock pound?
Why it’s these puppies, who never made the upgrade from tape...
The Rolling Stones, Aftermath
Anybody can write a song about masturbation. Lord knows anybody can write a masturbatory song. But rare’s the song that is actually the act of masturbation. So a cramped thumbs-up to you, Going Home. And aside from some awkward “I am so the new Lord Byron, dammit” lyrics from Mick (“Like a withered stone/Fears will pierce your bones”), I Am Waiting sure is purty...
The Rolling Stones, Between the Buttons
The sound of life becoming irretrievably strange. One of my favorite things when I was a kid listening to my sister’s album collection was the way Mick sings the word “from” in Ruby Tuesday. It’s actually the kind of sound you’d expect to come out of the frog-like, three-quarters—dead Brian Jones pictured on the album cover...
The Rolling Stones, Beggars Banquet
This is really kind of slight, which is one of its overlooked charms. Sure, Sympathy for the Devil is all self-consciously “heavy” and Street Fighting Man is a slippery revolution, but most of the rest is loose country bluegrass and blues (and other music for urban gourmandizers). And about Street Fighting Man. Let’s take a minute to imagine what might have been if Mick had kept to his original vision. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you perhaps the Worst Lyrics Ever. Pay Your Dues:
“Chief to scorn his friends make love to his re-la-tions
He beats his wife and made her life a to-tal wet va-ca-tion
Now did everybody pay their dues?
Now did end up with tribal blues?
All the braves and squaws and the maids and the whores
Did, everybody pay their dues?
He's a tribal chief his name is called dis-order
His flesh and blood he tears it up when acting right is nor-mal
Now did everybody pay their dues?
Now did any of them try to refuse?
All the braves and squaws and the maids and the whores
Did, everybody pay their dues?
See all the children roses pi-ling
What's all with us to be grown up is to be good at ly-ing
Now did everybody pay their dues?
Now did any of them try to refuse?
All the braves and squaws and the maids and the whores
Did, everybody pay their dues?”
I mean, sweet sunstriped Jebus...
The Rolling Stones, Some Girls
Sure, they stooped to offend, sometimes to good effect (When the Whip Comes Down), and sometimes to ill (Some Girls), and the country stuff was, oom, yawn— oh, excuse me— but yeah, this was pretty decent. Call it a comeback...
What’s all that barking in the Classic Rock pound?
Why it’s these puppies, who never made the upgrade from tape...
The Rolling Stones, Aftermath
Anybody can write a song about masturbation. Lord knows anybody can write a masturbatory song. But rare’s the song that is actually the act of masturbation. So a cramped thumbs-up to you, Going Home. And aside from some awkward “I am so the new Lord Byron, dammit” lyrics from Mick (“Like a withered stone/Fears will pierce your bones”), I Am Waiting sure is purty...
The Rolling Stones, Between the Buttons
The sound of life becoming irretrievably strange. One of my favorite things when I was a kid listening to my sister’s album collection was the way Mick sings the word “from” in Ruby Tuesday. It’s actually the kind of sound you’d expect to come out of the frog-like, three-quarters—dead Brian Jones pictured on the album cover...
The Rolling Stones, Beggars Banquet
This is really kind of slight, which is one of its overlooked charms. Sure, Sympathy for the Devil is all self-consciously “heavy” and Street Fighting Man is a slippery revolution, but most of the rest is loose country bluegrass and blues (and other music for urban gourmandizers). And about Street Fighting Man. Let’s take a minute to imagine what might have been if Mick had kept to his original vision. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you perhaps the Worst Lyrics Ever. Pay Your Dues:
“Chief to scorn his friends make love to his re-la-tions
He beats his wife and made her life a to-tal wet va-ca-tion
Now did everybody pay their dues?
Now did end up with tribal blues?
All the braves and squaws and the maids and the whores
Did, everybody pay their dues?
He's a tribal chief his name is called dis-order
His flesh and blood he tears it up when acting right is nor-mal
Now did everybody pay their dues?
Now did any of them try to refuse?
All the braves and squaws and the maids and the whores
Did, everybody pay their dues?
See all the children roses pi-ling
What's all with us to be grown up is to be good at ly-ing
Now did everybody pay their dues?
Now did any of them try to refuse?
All the braves and squaws and the maids and the whores
Did, everybody pay their dues?”
I mean, sweet sunstriped Jebus...
The Rolling Stones, Some Girls
Sure, they stooped to offend, sometimes to good effect (When the Whip Comes Down), and sometimes to ill (Some Girls), and the country stuff was, oom, yawn— oh, excuse me— but yeah, this was pretty decent. Call it a comeback...
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
C30, C60, C90, GO!
A little weekend archeology turned up my cassette collection, and over the course of the next week or so I'm going to list the albums that to date I have not upgraded to digital (CD or download).
Soundtrack, Sid & Nancy
You might have guessed that I didn't buy this for the four Pray For Rain tracks, nor for Joe Strummer's Love Kills (which is pretty excellent), nor for John Cale's She Never Took No For An Answer (which is likewise). Rather, The Pogues were the draw-- a couple of instrumentals and Cait doing Haunted, which Shane redid in more lugubrious fashion with Sinead O'Connor on his solo debut. Too bad this stuff and the Straight to Hell soundtrack pieces didn't make it onto the recent Pogues' reissues...
XTC, Waxworks
I lost them as the 80s wore on (did Dear God suck or what?), but wearing this one out was a giggle.
Black Flag, Damaged
Desperate for daddy love, and not afraid to skronk about it. TV Party was fun, and Rise About was good and anthemic. The rest was risible noise...
Joy Division, Unknown Pleasures
Black, and white.
Joy Division, Closer
White, and black.
Camper Van Beethoven, Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart
One of the few of the 80s indie crop whose major-label debut (that would be this) outstripped their cred-building early efforts. In the back of my mind, I've been thinking of Neutral Milk Hotel as a less-well-adjusted version of CVB, and now I realize that both “Sweetheart” and “Aeroplane” have instrumentals titled The Fool...
R.E.M., Chronic Town
The sound of coalescing sound.
A little weekend archeology turned up my cassette collection, and over the course of the next week or so I'm going to list the albums that to date I have not upgraded to digital (CD or download).
Soundtrack, Sid & Nancy
You might have guessed that I didn't buy this for the four Pray For Rain tracks, nor for Joe Strummer's Love Kills (which is pretty excellent), nor for John Cale's She Never Took No For An Answer (which is likewise). Rather, The Pogues were the draw-- a couple of instrumentals and Cait doing Haunted, which Shane redid in more lugubrious fashion with Sinead O'Connor on his solo debut. Too bad this stuff and the Straight to Hell soundtrack pieces didn't make it onto the recent Pogues' reissues...
XTC, Waxworks
I lost them as the 80s wore on (did Dear God suck or what?), but wearing this one out was a giggle.
Black Flag, Damaged
Desperate for daddy love, and not afraid to skronk about it. TV Party was fun, and Rise About was good and anthemic. The rest was risible noise...
Joy Division, Unknown Pleasures
Black, and white.
Joy Division, Closer
White, and black.
Camper Van Beethoven, Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart
One of the few of the 80s indie crop whose major-label debut (that would be this) outstripped their cred-building early efforts. In the back of my mind, I've been thinking of Neutral Milk Hotel as a less-well-adjusted version of CVB, and now I realize that both “Sweetheart” and “Aeroplane” have instrumentals titled The Fool...
R.E.M., Chronic Town
The sound of coalescing sound.
Monday, October 30, 2006
EGGSHELL MIND
It's Sliced Tongue at its most ireful today, as we debut a new feature, the Shut-the-Fuck-Up-No-I-Mean-Really-Shut-the-Fuck-Up Award.
The worthy winner is former Doors' drummer John Densmore who, commenting on the death of Arthur Lee, had this to say:
“Then, in Arthur's honor, I lit some white sage given to me by some Native American musician friends, to help him with his crossing.”
Um, John? Shut the fuck up. No, I mean really. Shut the fuck up.
It's Sliced Tongue at its most ireful today, as we debut a new feature, the Shut-the-Fuck-Up-No-I-Mean-Really-Shut-the-Fuck-Up Award.
The worthy winner is former Doors' drummer John Densmore who, commenting on the death of Arthur Lee, had this to say:
“Then, in Arthur's honor, I lit some white sage given to me by some Native American musician friends, to help him with his crossing.”
Um, John? Shut the fuck up. No, I mean really. Shut the fuck up.
Friday, October 27, 2006
COME OUT OF THE CUPBOARD
Fridays was ABC’s attempt to counter SNL with its own brand of hip, edgy sketch comedy.
The show itself sucked in myriad ways. It was crass, loud, vapid, and about as funny as an oil slick.
One occasionally redeeming quality was the music.
At the time, it was deathly hard to find decent music on TV. SNL itself generally betrayed the fact that it was being run by a clutch of wayward fecking hippies. Anne Murray? Oooh, I hope she does “You Needed Me”! Andrew Gold? Come on, “Lonely Boy”! The Yale Whiffenpoofs? The Yale Whiffenpoofs? But please sir, it’s Christmas...
Hope they can work out a way to get some of the musical performances from Fridays released on DVD one day.
But for now, here’s the American TV debut of The Clash, in dodgy res.
Happy Friday, y’all.
Fridays was ABC’s attempt to counter SNL with its own brand of hip, edgy sketch comedy.
The show itself sucked in myriad ways. It was crass, loud, vapid, and about as funny as an oil slick.
One occasionally redeeming quality was the music.
At the time, it was deathly hard to find decent music on TV. SNL itself generally betrayed the fact that it was being run by a clutch of wayward fecking hippies. Anne Murray? Oooh, I hope she does “You Needed Me”! Andrew Gold? Come on, “Lonely Boy”! The Yale Whiffenpoofs? The Yale Whiffenpoofs? But please sir, it’s Christmas...
Hope they can work out a way to get some of the musical performances from Fridays released on DVD one day.
But for now, here’s the American TV debut of The Clash, in dodgy res.
Happy Friday, y’all.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
PF PS
Back when Syd Barrett died, I gave you an establishing shot of my complete and utter lack of use for post-Syd Floyd.
The other day, however, I did spend a few nice minutes with Shine On You Crazy Diamond.
If you’d care to do the same, feel free to follow my surefire path to listening pleasure: Start from the beginning of the song, and turn it off the very second you hear the drums start to come in. And I mean right away— you should not even hear the drums finish coming in.
Triumphal!
Back when Syd Barrett died, I gave you an establishing shot of my complete and utter lack of use for post-Syd Floyd.
The other day, however, I did spend a few nice minutes with Shine On You Crazy Diamond.
If you’d care to do the same, feel free to follow my surefire path to listening pleasure: Start from the beginning of the song, and turn it off the very second you hear the drums start to come in. And I mean right away— you should not even hear the drums finish coming in.
Triumphal!
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
IN THE MIDDLE OF THINGS
Holland, 1945 is the wounded heart of “Aeroplane”:
“The only girl I've ever loved
Was born with roses in her eyes,
But then they buried her alive
One evening, 1945,
With just her sister at her side...”
It is the death of Anne Frank told in strokes of magic realism, which seems appropriate for something as phantasmagorical as the Holocaust.
The song starts with singer Jeff Mangum counting off “2, 1-2-3-4.”
And starting the countoff with 2 seems appropriate as well.
Because we are always falling in and out of events in medias res.
And things don’t often start at 1...
Holland, 1945 is the wounded heart of “Aeroplane”:
“The only girl I've ever loved
Was born with roses in her eyes,
But then they buried her alive
One evening, 1945,
With just her sister at her side...”
It is the death of Anne Frank told in strokes of magic realism, which seems appropriate for something as phantasmagorical as the Holocaust.
The song starts with singer Jeff Mangum counting off “2, 1-2-3-4.”
And starting the countoff with 2 seems appropriate as well.
Because we are always falling in and out of events in medias res.
And things don’t often start at 1...
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Monday, October 23, 2006
SIGNALS THAT SOUND IN THE DARK
Back in ’97 or so I picked up a disc by the Apples in Stereo.
It struck me as frothy and weightless. Let’s call it egg-white soul.
So I broke out my broad brush and painted all the Elephant 6 bands with it.
I’d been through one Paisley Underground already, thank you very much...
This is all by way of explaining my quite-delayed intro to Neutral Milk Hotel’s “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.”
Sure, I’d heard the growing rumble of raves buiding over the years. Seen it pop up on the heady end of many best of the 90’s lists. Heard the title track a number of times and thought it pretty swell.
I finally took the plunge and downloaded the album using my trial subscription to eMusic.
“Aeroplane” is framed by the fear of death, the love of Anne Frank, and the love of death.
It straddles the zigzag line between commitment to a theme and incipient mental illness: “I will float until I learn how to swim/Inside my mother in a garbage bin.”
It is scary, exhilirating, and in the end, life-affirming...
Back in ’97 or so I picked up a disc by the Apples in Stereo.
It struck me as frothy and weightless. Let’s call it egg-white soul.
So I broke out my broad brush and painted all the Elephant 6 bands with it.
I’d been through one Paisley Underground already, thank you very much...
This is all by way of explaining my quite-delayed intro to Neutral Milk Hotel’s “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.”
Sure, I’d heard the growing rumble of raves buiding over the years. Seen it pop up on the heady end of many best of the 90’s lists. Heard the title track a number of times and thought it pretty swell.
I finally took the plunge and downloaded the album using my trial subscription to eMusic.
“Aeroplane” is framed by the fear of death, the love of Anne Frank, and the love of death.
It straddles the zigzag line between commitment to a theme and incipient mental illness: “I will float until I learn how to swim/Inside my mother in a garbage bin.”
It is scary, exhilirating, and in the end, life-affirming...
Thursday, October 19, 2006
EVERYDAY I WRITE THE BOOK
I realized many years after the fact that the action in just about all of the stories I wrote in 6th grade commenced on October 19th. And I wrote a lot of stories...
My teacher Mrs. Trueman was a rare bird. She encouraged creativity without bounds. She was unconcerned with my pre-adolescent predisposition to the grotesque, the snarky, the wry, and the whimsical. Room 224 was a safe haven, a place where I could adopt the nom de limerick “The Porno Poet” with no fear of reprisal. Mrs. Trueman would simply conceal a blush, and ask for more poems, more stories...
One of the October 19th stories was set on the Roosevelt Island tramway, and centered on a tram car throwing a wheel off the track, stranding me and my family in midair. By the second page, I realized that I didn’t have much more than the setup, so this was the payoff when the reader turned to page 3:
“Aw, the hell with it. The line snapped, the car plunged to the ground, and we all died. The end.”
She returned it with an “Oh well, back to the drawing board” comment, and a small handwritten smiley face.
Mrs. Trueman helped me navigate through a year of hazards that saw my father hospitalized in March and dead by May.
She sponged off any embarassment I might have felt when the $150 check my mother wrote for the annual 6th-grade trip to the Poconos bounced.
She nursed the wounds of my unrequited crush on dark-haired Shelley.
I looked her up on the internet four or five years ago. I wanted to thank her, and to let her know that for all the stories she might’ve heard over the years— about the long hair and bare feet, the drinking, the drugs, the punk rock, the dropping out, and any other rebellions great and small— that for all these stories, I had made it through.
All I could find when I searched “Eileen Trueman” was her obituary from about a year earlier. Cancer.
So now the tale I tell myself each October 19th is a story about this tolerant, kind, gentle-humored woman. A story that always ends exactly the same:
“I love you, Mrs. Trueman.”
I realized many years after the fact that the action in just about all of the stories I wrote in 6th grade commenced on October 19th. And I wrote a lot of stories...
My teacher Mrs. Trueman was a rare bird. She encouraged creativity without bounds. She was unconcerned with my pre-adolescent predisposition to the grotesque, the snarky, the wry, and the whimsical. Room 224 was a safe haven, a place where I could adopt the nom de limerick “The Porno Poet” with no fear of reprisal. Mrs. Trueman would simply conceal a blush, and ask for more poems, more stories...
One of the October 19th stories was set on the Roosevelt Island tramway, and centered on a tram car throwing a wheel off the track, stranding me and my family in midair. By the second page, I realized that I didn’t have much more than the setup, so this was the payoff when the reader turned to page 3:
“Aw, the hell with it. The line snapped, the car plunged to the ground, and we all died. The end.”
She returned it with an “Oh well, back to the drawing board” comment, and a small handwritten smiley face.
Mrs. Trueman helped me navigate through a year of hazards that saw my father hospitalized in March and dead by May.
She sponged off any embarassment I might have felt when the $150 check my mother wrote for the annual 6th-grade trip to the Poconos bounced.
She nursed the wounds of my unrequited crush on dark-haired Shelley.
I looked her up on the internet four or five years ago. I wanted to thank her, and to let her know that for all the stories she might’ve heard over the years— about the long hair and bare feet, the drinking, the drugs, the punk rock, the dropping out, and any other rebellions great and small— that for all these stories, I had made it through.
All I could find when I searched “Eileen Trueman” was her obituary from about a year earlier. Cancer.
So now the tale I tell myself each October 19th is a story about this tolerant, kind, gentle-humored woman. A story that always ends exactly the same:
“I love you, Mrs. Trueman.”
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
DEADHEAD STICKER ON A CADILLAC
Late in 1984 I abandoned the unexamined life.
By 1985, one of the things that came under reconsideration was my lifelong love of baseball.
For the first time since I was a few steps out of toddlerhood, my beloved Mets were playing meaningful baseball.
Keith Hernandez came over from the Cardinals, Darryl Strawberry emerged with a colorful name and a long loping lefthanded stroke, and Dwight Gooden arrived as a force of nature.
The team finished second to the Cubs in 1984, and with the off-season importing of Gary Carter from across the northern border, 1985 was shaping up to be special.
But early in the season, I could not find any real enthusiasm in my heart. I could not reconcile the absurdity of having my emotional temperature regulated by the performance of a bunch of well-paid athletes.
As the season wore on, I made my peace with the notion, and quickly reembraced the sport and the team.
By September, I was spending evenings sitting in my car in a hurricane-ravaged parking lot, my apartment without power for 10 days, listening on the radio to key pennant race games.
The 1985 team came up short to the Cardinals. In 1986, the Mets won 108 games, and played a couple of memorable game 6’s on their way to the World Series title.
And now tonight, in a conflation of 1985 and 1986, the team is again facing the prospect of losing out to the Cardinals, this time in a playoff environment, in the arena of another game 6.
My intellect tells me that there are no miracles in store this year. Or rather, that the miracles might belong to the Cardinals, and ultimately, the Tigers. The Mets’ pitching staff has taken some critical hits of late, and a number of the key young players on offense are clearly tired from the strain of the longest season in their young lives.
So if heartbreak is necessary, it won’t be acute. I am ready for it.
Let’s go Mets.
Let us go Mets...
Late in 1984 I abandoned the unexamined life.
By 1985, one of the things that came under reconsideration was my lifelong love of baseball.
For the first time since I was a few steps out of toddlerhood, my beloved Mets were playing meaningful baseball.
Keith Hernandez came over from the Cardinals, Darryl Strawberry emerged with a colorful name and a long loping lefthanded stroke, and Dwight Gooden arrived as a force of nature.
The team finished second to the Cubs in 1984, and with the off-season importing of Gary Carter from across the northern border, 1985 was shaping up to be special.
But early in the season, I could not find any real enthusiasm in my heart. I could not reconcile the absurdity of having my emotional temperature regulated by the performance of a bunch of well-paid athletes.
As the season wore on, I made my peace with the notion, and quickly reembraced the sport and the team.
By September, I was spending evenings sitting in my car in a hurricane-ravaged parking lot, my apartment without power for 10 days, listening on the radio to key pennant race games.
The 1985 team came up short to the Cardinals. In 1986, the Mets won 108 games, and played a couple of memorable game 6’s on their way to the World Series title.
And now tonight, in a conflation of 1985 and 1986, the team is again facing the prospect of losing out to the Cardinals, this time in a playoff environment, in the arena of another game 6.
My intellect tells me that there are no miracles in store this year. Or rather, that the miracles might belong to the Cardinals, and ultimately, the Tigers. The Mets’ pitching staff has taken some critical hits of late, and a number of the key young players on offense are clearly tired from the strain of the longest season in their young lives.
So if heartbreak is necessary, it won’t be acute. I am ready for it.
Let’s go Mets.
Let us go Mets...
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Monday, October 16, 2006
CAN YOU NAME, NAME, NAME, NAME THEM TODAY
In my job, a passel of interesting names crosses my desk year in and year out.
These are two of my favorites from 2006: Swan Swan Leong and Janna Journeycake.
No doubt Swan Swan has siblings named Cuyahoga Leong, Hyena Leong, and Superman Leong.
And no doubt Janna’s ancestors were big fans of Steve Perry and the gang.
And, um, cake. Yummy, yummy cake...
In my job, a passel of interesting names crosses my desk year in and year out.
These are two of my favorites from 2006: Swan Swan Leong and Janna Journeycake.
No doubt Swan Swan has siblings named Cuyahoga Leong, Hyena Leong, and Superman Leong.
And no doubt Janna’s ancestors were big fans of Steve Perry and the gang.
And, um, cake. Yummy, yummy cake...
Friday, October 13, 2006
I'M NOT NO LIMBURGER!
In Preston Sturges’ “Sullivan’s Travels” Joel McCrea plays John Sullivan, a successful director of comedies who comes to believe that it is his mission to helm a serious film.
He sets off on his quest to make “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”
This will be his big statement. It will be a drama of great Meaning and Purpose.
Well, what he ultimately discovers along the way is that comedy is important, and that it too has great Meaning and Purpose.
He realizes that the ability to bring joy into peoples’ lives is a singular gift.
Substitute “Mesopotamia” for “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and you pretty much have the story of The B-52s.
And on a side note: Veronica Lake, I love you.
In Preston Sturges’ “Sullivan’s Travels” Joel McCrea plays John Sullivan, a successful director of comedies who comes to believe that it is his mission to helm a serious film.
He sets off on his quest to make “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”
This will be his big statement. It will be a drama of great Meaning and Purpose.
Well, what he ultimately discovers along the way is that comedy is important, and that it too has great Meaning and Purpose.
He realizes that the ability to bring joy into peoples’ lives is a singular gift.
Substitute “Mesopotamia” for “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and you pretty much have the story of The B-52s.
And on a side note: Veronica Lake, I love you.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
THE PEACH PIT
More funny.
A little Electric Company rock from The Moldy Peaches.
Who, no, were not nearly as clever as they seemed to think.
But I once saw them open for The Strokes and blow Fab/Nik/Albert/Nick/Julian’s dour downtown downtrodden trust-fund asses off the stage by sheer force of an infectious love of trash culcha.
They’ve got the crack...
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
A DISQUISITION ON THE DEATH OF TOWER RECORDS
It has been clear for some time now that Tower was not waving, but drowning.
I’ve lived near one Tower outlet or another for many of the last 15 years, and I’ve spent time disproportionate to money there.
Because Tower for me has always been more a communal experience than a consumer experience...
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I often seem to spend a couple of hours there on Christmas Day.
I get in my car, hit the quiet winter streets, and soon round a corner to see a scarred moon struggling to lift itself above the red backslanted type.
I wend my way through the aisles.
I look, but I do not covet.
I am at peace.
Goodbye Tower.
It has been clear for some time now that Tower was not waving, but drowning.
I’ve lived near one Tower outlet or another for many of the last 15 years, and I’ve spent time disproportionate to money there.
Because Tower for me has always been more a communal experience than a consumer experience...
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I often seem to spend a couple of hours there on Christmas Day.
I get in my car, hit the quiet winter streets, and soon round a corner to see a scarred moon struggling to lift itself above the red backslanted type.
I wend my way through the aisles.
I look, but I do not covet.
I am at peace.
Goodbye Tower.
Friday, October 06, 2006
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
ICB
My five-cent knowledge of Existentialism characterizes it as the realization that existence is pointless, which makes it our imperative to find a point.
Nihilism, on the other hand, is the simple opinion that existence is pointless.
And yes, nihilism sucks.
So to illustrate, this performance of Transmission by Joy Division is Existentialism embodied. Especially the part where Ian Curtis rips the mike from its stand and starts howling about how “the things that we’ve learnt are no longer enough” and incanting “dance, dance, dance, dance, dance to the radio.”
If you’ve never felt exactly like this, I envy you and I pity you, simultaneously.
Ian Curtis’ suicide was pure nihilism...
My five-cent knowledge of Existentialism characterizes it as the realization that existence is pointless, which makes it our imperative to find a point.
Nihilism, on the other hand, is the simple opinion that existence is pointless.
And yes, nihilism sucks.
So to illustrate, this performance of Transmission by Joy Division is Existentialism embodied. Especially the part where Ian Curtis rips the mike from its stand and starts howling about how “the things that we’ve learnt are no longer enough” and incanting “dance, dance, dance, dance, dance to the radio.”
If you’ve never felt exactly like this, I envy you and I pity you, simultaneously.
Ian Curtis’ suicide was pure nihilism...
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
GENTLE PEOPLE WITH FLOWERS IN THEIR HAIR
What was it in the hippie zeitgeist that made the May-September Mrs. Robinson/Summer of ‘42/Maggie May axis so resonant?
I think a clue can be found in Maggie May itself:
“But you turned into a lover
And, mother, what a lover, you wore me out.”
Now, I realize the intention here is to use “mother” as a mild oath, but it doesn’t take much syntactical trickery to tease out the Oedipal:
“But you turned into a lover and mother,
What a lover, you wore me out.”
So in this scenario, what the hippies were craving was a return to “original” love— in a broad sense, a return to the womb. Perhaps they were feeling the third-law pull of vulnerability that attaches to the impulse to rebel.
I’d argue that this drama plays out quite openly in the grooves of the mid-60s Beatles’ albums, where you can hear the band entering gradually into a tuck, which culminates in the full-on fetal position that is Sgt. Pepper’s.
So, kill the father and fuck the mother?
OK Jim. OK...
What was it in the hippie zeitgeist that made the May-September Mrs. Robinson/Summer of ‘42/Maggie May axis so resonant?
I think a clue can be found in Maggie May itself:
“But you turned into a lover
And, mother, what a lover, you wore me out.”
Now, I realize the intention here is to use “mother” as a mild oath, but it doesn’t take much syntactical trickery to tease out the Oedipal:
“But you turned into a lover and mother,
What a lover, you wore me out.”
So in this scenario, what the hippies were craving was a return to “original” love— in a broad sense, a return to the womb. Perhaps they were feeling the third-law pull of vulnerability that attaches to the impulse to rebel.
I’d argue that this drama plays out quite openly in the grooves of the mid-60s Beatles’ albums, where you can hear the band entering gradually into a tuck, which culminates in the full-on fetal position that is Sgt. Pepper’s.
So, kill the father and fuck the mother?
OK Jim. OK...
Monday, October 02, 2006
Friday, September 29, 2006
PB&J
And speaking of Dead or Alive, shouldn’t someone as flamboyant as their lead singer have had a less pedestrian name than “Pete Burns”?
I mean, that was the name of my 6th grade gym teacher. Or my crabby neighbor across the street who was obsessed with his bluegrass lawn. Can’t remember which...
No, Pete should have been named Plexi Shiningstar, or Ray D.O. Antenna, or Lockie McGlow, or Sweetpepper Gingersnap, or Mr Mister Mister, or Fishnet Twango, or Pendelum McDuff, or January Flipflop, or “Cowboy” Cal Stern, or Bobbing Flopsy, or Ducker Al-Shoot, or Wickie Fern, or Blanket Cuddleswap...
But not Pete Burns.
And speaking of Dead or Alive, shouldn’t someone as flamboyant as their lead singer have had a less pedestrian name than “Pete Burns”?
I mean, that was the name of my 6th grade gym teacher. Or my crabby neighbor across the street who was obsessed with his bluegrass lawn. Can’t remember which...
No, Pete should have been named Plexi Shiningstar, or Ray D.O. Antenna, or Lockie McGlow, or Sweetpepper Gingersnap, or Mr Mister Mister, or Fishnet Twango, or Pendelum McDuff, or January Flipflop, or “Cowboy” Cal Stern, or Bobbing Flopsy, or Ducker Al-Shoot, or Wickie Fern, or Blanket Cuddleswap...
But not Pete Burns.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
YOUTHQUAKE, BITCHES
Satellite roulette.
Brand New Lover— Dead or Alive
OK, we're all in clear agreement that this is actually a better song than You Spin Me 'Round (Like a Record), right?
Kind of like Coming Up Close is a better song than Voices Carry.
The one-hit wonderdome is a place of great whimsy and caprice...
Satellite roulette.
Brand New Lover— Dead or Alive
OK, we're all in clear agreement that this is actually a better song than You Spin Me 'Round (Like a Record), right?
Kind of like Coming Up Close is a better song than Voices Carry.
The one-hit wonderdome is a place of great whimsy and caprice...
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
FORGETTABLE FIRE
I’m generally pretty cold to U2. Always have been.
Occasionally I’ll let them in, if they promise to behave, wipe their feet, and leave the messianic crap out in the Mini.
In their journey from young punks, to Christian new-hope rockers, to self-important prigs, to postmodern “R*O*C*K” stars, to Classic Rock icons, the following bits and pieces have resonated with me:
-Two Hearts Beat as One, 12” extended mix.
-Bad (live), from Wide Awake in America. Compare this Christian new-hope version to the self-important prig version of the Rattle and Hum era for a dramatic rendering of that particular trajectory.
-Three Sunrises. Psychedelicious!
-Most of The Joshua Tree, except of course Bullet the Blue Sky. And those last two songs. Otherwise, it’s the perfect version of what it is.
-Lemon. Because, come on— Lemon.
I’m generally pretty cold to U2. Always have been.
Occasionally I’ll let them in, if they promise to behave, wipe their feet, and leave the messianic crap out in the Mini.
In their journey from young punks, to Christian new-hope rockers, to self-important prigs, to postmodern “R*O*C*K” stars, to Classic Rock icons, the following bits and pieces have resonated with me:
-Two Hearts Beat as One, 12” extended mix.
-Bad (live), from Wide Awake in America. Compare this Christian new-hope version to the self-important prig version of the Rattle and Hum era for a dramatic rendering of that particular trajectory.
-Three Sunrises. Psychedelicious!
-Most of The Joshua Tree, except of course Bullet the Blue Sky. And those last two songs. Otherwise, it’s the perfect version of what it is.
-Lemon. Because, come on— Lemon.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
EMPIRE BURLESQUE
I can't tell you anything about Bob Dylan that you don't already know.
Once upon a time I thought he was nothing but a charlatan.
Then I grew up and realized that he was a charlatan and so much more.
And now I'm making plans to see him in concert for the first time.
He is enveloped in twilight, and I am in its early tinge.
I can't tell you anything about Bob Dylan...
I can't tell you anything about Bob Dylan that you don't already know.
Once upon a time I thought he was nothing but a charlatan.
Then I grew up and realized that he was a charlatan and so much more.
And now I'm making plans to see him in concert for the first time.
He is enveloped in twilight, and I am in its early tinge.
I can't tell you anything about Bob Dylan...
Monday, September 25, 2006
ICICLES MELT
Satellite roulette.
Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream)— The Icicle Works
Suburban New Wave, like its bastard cousin I Melt With You by Modern English.
The sound of days spent studying for the SATs in a 5BR, 3BA split ranch, and nights spent stealing joints from your parents’ stash.
A life sacrificed for the new nirvana...
Satellite roulette.
Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream)— The Icicle Works
Suburban New Wave, like its bastard cousin I Melt With You by Modern English.
The sound of days spent studying for the SATs in a 5BR, 3BA split ranch, and nights spent stealing joints from your parents’ stash.
A life sacrificed for the new nirvana...
Friday, September 22, 2006
YES YES YES
True confession Friday.
The other day, I listened to Roundabout. The whole thing, nearly.
I mean, mountains came out of the sky, they stood there, and I kept right on listening.
It helped that every minute and a half or so it basically turned into a different song.
Which explains the original title:
Suite: (i) The Wizard Meets the Gnome and They Dance With Small Sacks of Colored Stones Around Their Necks. (ii) Lotusland Doth Rejoice at No Longer Being Overswept by the Shadow of Pinthorn the Dragon. (iii) The Mouse and the Maid Lie Down Together in the Barley, and Their Dreams Evanesce.
Would history have been as kind to the song if Rick Wakemen hadn’t objected to the implied slaying of Pinthorn in that title?
I guess we’ll never know. I guess we’ll never know...
True confession Friday.
The other day, I listened to Roundabout. The whole thing, nearly.
I mean, mountains came out of the sky, they stood there, and I kept right on listening.
It helped that every minute and a half or so it basically turned into a different song.
Which explains the original title:
Suite: (i) The Wizard Meets the Gnome and They Dance With Small Sacks of Colored Stones Around Their Necks. (ii) Lotusland Doth Rejoice at No Longer Being Overswept by the Shadow of Pinthorn the Dragon. (iii) The Mouse and the Maid Lie Down Together in the Barley, and Their Dreams Evanesce.
Would history have been as kind to the song if Rick Wakemen hadn’t objected to the implied slaying of Pinthorn in that title?
I guess we’ll never know. I guess we’ll never know...
Thursday, September 21, 2006
STILLS GNASH
Satellite roulette.
I’m going to push a button. I’m going to hear a song. I’m going to write about that song.
Didi mau! Didi mau!
Love the One You’re With— Stephen Stills
From 1970, a distillation of why the 60s had to die.
Now, I’m not being fogyish and hating on all the free-love babble, as weedy and opportunistic as it might be.
I’m not denying the patent pending harmonies and the organ-grinding organ, thick and redolent as patchouli.
But “There’s a rose in a fisted glove/And the eagle flies with the dove”?
Is that supposed to be sexy? Or worse yet, sexual?
Because, I have to say, that “rose in a fisted glove” image is pretty damn terrible either way.
Take a bath, hippie.
Satellite roulette.
I’m going to push a button. I’m going to hear a song. I’m going to write about that song.
Didi mau! Didi mau!
Love the One You’re With— Stephen Stills
From 1970, a distillation of why the 60s had to die.
Now, I’m not being fogyish and hating on all the free-love babble, as weedy and opportunistic as it might be.
I’m not denying the patent pending harmonies and the organ-grinding organ, thick and redolent as patchouli.
But “There’s a rose in a fisted glove/And the eagle flies with the dove”?
Is that supposed to be sexy? Or worse yet, sexual?
Because, I have to say, that “rose in a fisted glove” image is pretty damn terrible either way.
Take a bath, hippie.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
I ENVY YOU, SO MUCH ROCKING TO DO
My goal yesterday was simply to blog Yo La Tengo’s Sugarcube video.
Before I even set about to do that, I learned that the Sugarcubes were going to be reuniting for a single show.
Sugarcubes, sugarcubes everywhere...
Now, I actually kind of sort of really disliked the Sugarcubes back in the day. Bjork was obviously a cool force of nature, but I couldn’t stomach the hectoring Sugarcube, the one I call Sven. “That leetle girl showed great interest in all the mo-tor crashes in the neigborhood...” Shut the fuck up, Sven.
Anyway, YouTube was being all uncooperative, and wouldn’t let me blog the YLT video. So instead, I’ll just describe it for you.
It opens on the highland moors, a great mist washing over three lone figures draped in red. The mist rises, and finally clears, revealing... Yo La Tengo! They smile knowingly as the opening drums trip in. There is then a quick cut to the band riding in the cab of a pickup, crossing the George Washington Bridge. It must be the 4th of July, because this huge, awesome American flag is hanging from one of the towers of the bridge.
The footage is then sped up, like one of those videos where you watch a flower bloom, and when it finally slows down the band are set up on a softball field in Edgewater, New Jersey, with the Manhattan skyline as their backdrop. They continue to rock, and a mist comes in off the river and envelopes them as the song comes to a close.
Oh man, it’s just so cool.
I didn’t really do it justice, so feel free to head over to YouTube and search for “Yo La Tengo Sugarcube”...
My goal yesterday was simply to blog Yo La Tengo’s Sugarcube video.
Before I even set about to do that, I learned that the Sugarcubes were going to be reuniting for a single show.
Sugarcubes, sugarcubes everywhere...
Now, I actually kind of sort of really disliked the Sugarcubes back in the day. Bjork was obviously a cool force of nature, but I couldn’t stomach the hectoring Sugarcube, the one I call Sven. “That leetle girl showed great interest in all the mo-tor crashes in the neigborhood...” Shut the fuck up, Sven.
Anyway, YouTube was being all uncooperative, and wouldn’t let me blog the YLT video. So instead, I’ll just describe it for you.
It opens on the highland moors, a great mist washing over three lone figures draped in red. The mist rises, and finally clears, revealing... Yo La Tengo! They smile knowingly as the opening drums trip in. There is then a quick cut to the band riding in the cab of a pickup, crossing the George Washington Bridge. It must be the 4th of July, because this huge, awesome American flag is hanging from one of the towers of the bridge.
The footage is then sped up, like one of those videos where you watch a flower bloom, and when it finally slows down the band are set up on a softball field in Edgewater, New Jersey, with the Manhattan skyline as their backdrop. They continue to rock, and a mist comes in off the river and envelopes them as the song comes to a close.
Oh man, it’s just so cool.
I didn’t really do it justice, so feel free to head over to YouTube and search for “Yo La Tengo Sugarcube”...
Monday, September 18, 2006
I GOT IT
Dear Yo La Tengo,
We first met over 13 years ago, when you released Painful. I was living down in Charlottesville, and I heard From a Motel 6 on TJU.
I loved the Dylan reference in the title, the Velvets reference on the noisy bridge, and the reserved post-punk cool of the vocals. I made a few mix tapes that year, and this had a spot on all of them.
Thing is, I wasn’t as charmed by the rest of the disc. I liked Georgia’s turn on Nowhere Near, and I guess I was impressed that you included an Only Ones cover that was not Another Girl, Another Planet. But really I didn’t often play it from end to end.
Still, I was involved enough to buy Electr-O-Pura, with its bedeviling hyphens, when it came out a couple of years later. This time, it was Tom Courtenay that grabbed my attention. And again, unfortunately, not much else. It was starting to feel like my late 80s relationship with The Wedding Present.
When I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One came out (and sweet Jebus, has it really been 9 years?) I was naturally wary. The reviews were good, but they usually are. But I decided to give it one more shot.
Well, I’m glad I did, because you really got me with this one. It was waaayyy expansive and way terse at the same time, and I dug it from start to finish. I’d say that with ICHTHBAO you created one of my top 15 favorite albums to date, and for that I’m most grateful. And that Sugarcube video kicks ass.
From this high, I went back to being mostly nonplussed by And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out, so much so that I confess that I didn’t even purchase Summer Sun.
And now it is late September 2006, and I am vulnerable to all manner of autumnal melancholy. You guys fit that program perfectly (Autumn Sweater and all that), so yesterday I picked up I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass.
I’ll drop you a line sometime soon and let you know how everything worked out.
Best regards,
Sliced Tongue
Dear Yo La Tengo,
We first met over 13 years ago, when you released Painful. I was living down in Charlottesville, and I heard From a Motel 6 on TJU.
I loved the Dylan reference in the title, the Velvets reference on the noisy bridge, and the reserved post-punk cool of the vocals. I made a few mix tapes that year, and this had a spot on all of them.
Thing is, I wasn’t as charmed by the rest of the disc. I liked Georgia’s turn on Nowhere Near, and I guess I was impressed that you included an Only Ones cover that was not Another Girl, Another Planet. But really I didn’t often play it from end to end.
Still, I was involved enough to buy Electr-O-Pura, with its bedeviling hyphens, when it came out a couple of years later. This time, it was Tom Courtenay that grabbed my attention. And again, unfortunately, not much else. It was starting to feel like my late 80s relationship with The Wedding Present.
When I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One came out (and sweet Jebus, has it really been 9 years?) I was naturally wary. The reviews were good, but they usually are. But I decided to give it one more shot.
Well, I’m glad I did, because you really got me with this one. It was waaayyy expansive and way terse at the same time, and I dug it from start to finish. I’d say that with ICHTHBAO you created one of my top 15 favorite albums to date, and for that I’m most grateful. And that Sugarcube video kicks ass.
From this high, I went back to being mostly nonplussed by And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out, so much so that I confess that I didn’t even purchase Summer Sun.
And now it is late September 2006, and I am vulnerable to all manner of autumnal melancholy. You guys fit that program perfectly (Autumn Sweater and all that), so yesterday I picked up I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass.
I’ll drop you a line sometime soon and let you know how everything worked out.
Best regards,
Sliced Tongue
Friday, September 15, 2006
ELEGY
Some of the last poems that I wrote tracked the dissolution and death of my brother.
Time and tide had abraded my lyricism, and turned my verse angular and ironic.
Taurus
Have you ever seen
The ashing of a soul?
The agent fire
Beating its black wings
To rise above
The trespass of a song
Jeff showed up for Thanksgiving dinner with a bloated belly, sitting high on his thin frame. My mother, who had seen this before in dramatic close up, knew instantly that he was in real trouble. I tried to reassure her that it was a simple beer belly, but to her the complexities were clear.
A month later I was called to the emergency room. The slow course of suicide was beginning to have its effects.
Compulsion
Do not worry about the cups--
They are in the 2nd drawer,
Prone, interlocked,
On top of your cassettes
And the box of sour gum + hard candy.
Do not worry--
They preceded you by a bottomless age,
And will float past your death
To eternity.
We sat in Jeff's room at Mt Sinai Hospital, biding the time with small talk and periodic glances up at an elevated TV. The murmur of passing daytime talk shows filled the empty holes in the conversation.
He was propped in bed, a new liver sewn inside to yank him back from the edge. And still he was typically condescending and gruff, particularly to my mother. He fussed about things of no consequence, culminating in a blowup regarding some misplaced cups.
When my mother left the room, I shot him a look informed by a mix of plain disgust and pity. “She drives 100 miles to see you here almost every fucking day, and you treat her like this?” I hissed, “The way you've always treated her.”
I drove back home with my mother, still furious at Jeff's behavior. “I know he loves me,” she said, “And he doesn't have anyone else. I'm his mother.”
Elegy morphine
Are you
worthy of
the putrid swans
whose sooty wings extended
War with
Grace
The funeral was quiet and quick. An urn with Jeff's ashes was interred not more than 200 yards from the altar on which the service was offered, in the graveyard on the grounds of the 'Neath the bell tower church.
Because my father was in the army, my mother has a plot reserved for her in the local national cemetery. But she waived that right some years ago, opting instead for a spot on the church grounds right next to my brother.
My life as a poet ended about a dozen years ago.
I live now a narrative life. A life that requires narrative. A life that could not stand on lyrics.
But I will never forget who I was, I will never forget what I was:
A poet...
Some of the last poems that I wrote tracked the dissolution and death of my brother.
Time and tide had abraded my lyricism, and turned my verse angular and ironic.
Taurus
Have you ever seen
The ashing of a soul?
The agent fire
Beating its black wings
To rise above
The trespass of a song
Jeff showed up for Thanksgiving dinner with a bloated belly, sitting high on his thin frame. My mother, who had seen this before in dramatic close up, knew instantly that he was in real trouble. I tried to reassure her that it was a simple beer belly, but to her the complexities were clear.
A month later I was called to the emergency room. The slow course of suicide was beginning to have its effects.
Compulsion
Do not worry about the cups--
They are in the 2nd drawer,
Prone, interlocked,
On top of your cassettes
And the box of sour gum + hard candy.
Do not worry--
They preceded you by a bottomless age,
And will float past your death
To eternity.
We sat in Jeff's room at Mt Sinai Hospital, biding the time with small talk and periodic glances up at an elevated TV. The murmur of passing daytime talk shows filled the empty holes in the conversation.
He was propped in bed, a new liver sewn inside to yank him back from the edge. And still he was typically condescending and gruff, particularly to my mother. He fussed about things of no consequence, culminating in a blowup regarding some misplaced cups.
When my mother left the room, I shot him a look informed by a mix of plain disgust and pity. “She drives 100 miles to see you here almost every fucking day, and you treat her like this?” I hissed, “The way you've always treated her.”
I drove back home with my mother, still furious at Jeff's behavior. “I know he loves me,” she said, “And he doesn't have anyone else. I'm his mother.”
Elegy morphine
Are you
worthy of
the putrid swans
whose sooty wings extended
War with
Grace
The funeral was quiet and quick. An urn with Jeff's ashes was interred not more than 200 yards from the altar on which the service was offered, in the graveyard on the grounds of the 'Neath the bell tower church.
Because my father was in the army, my mother has a plot reserved for her in the local national cemetery. But she waived that right some years ago, opting instead for a spot on the church grounds right next to my brother.
My life as a poet ended about a dozen years ago.
I live now a narrative life. A life that requires narrative. A life that could not stand on lyrics.
But I will never forget who I was, I will never forget what I was:
A poet...
Thursday, September 14, 2006
LYRICAL BALLADS
Rice Farms
Ably, with a tongue of dust
Came the riders of a golden knit,
With an eye of smoke and a tender trust—
The women were more lovely for it.
They ambled precious on the wing,
Those lyric young undaunted,
And I could not but softly sing
“The women are more lovely for it.”
This Rice Farms was half a mile down the road from the church referenced in ‘Neath the bell tower.
When I was 16, a couple of my friends took horseback riding lessons there on Saturday mornings, and I would walk over to watch.
Black Pants
When the cream goes bitter on the spoon
The children stray, children stray.
The tailor sings his folly tune
And we slip away.
And we fall flat from the bastard’s hand
On such a day, such a day.
We turn the dirt off our shoulders and
Shhh... slip away...
I see now that this is largely “about” transcending decay and death.
Also, all of my pants were black. It was not a goth thing. It’s just, all of my pants were black.
I have typed up three different ways to summarize this post, and each one reads like an apology.
An apology for being anachronistic. An apology for being a poetaster.
But you know what? I’ve decided not to apologize...
Rice Farms
Ably, with a tongue of dust
Came the riders of a golden knit,
With an eye of smoke and a tender trust—
The women were more lovely for it.
They ambled precious on the wing,
Those lyric young undaunted,
And I could not but softly sing
“The women are more lovely for it.”
This Rice Farms was half a mile down the road from the church referenced in ‘Neath the bell tower.
When I was 16, a couple of my friends took horseback riding lessons there on Saturday mornings, and I would walk over to watch.
Black Pants
When the cream goes bitter on the spoon
The children stray, children stray.
The tailor sings his folly tune
And we slip away.
And we fall flat from the bastard’s hand
On such a day, such a day.
We turn the dirt off our shoulders and
Shhh... slip away...
I see now that this is largely “about” transcending decay and death.
Also, all of my pants were black. It was not a goth thing. It’s just, all of my pants were black.
I have typed up three different ways to summarize this post, and each one reads like an apology.
An apology for being anachronistic. An apology for being a poetaster.
But you know what? I’ve decided not to apologize...
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
DISARRAY
Forgive the indelicacy of today’s post, but it is all in the service of delivering some important information:
Poetry can get you laid.
Prism
Dance a broken step with civil disguise,
Give not a handsome tremble to the blacking rise,
Lay no bed in the violet waves of winter.
Things established are demonic vice,
Disarray, a ritual blend.
Dance with me angel!
Dance a broken step!
A couple of years after I wrote this piece, I met a girl. She was a statuesque bottle-blonde surfer, entering her sophomore year. She liked LSD and scaring her parents.
We spent only a couple of weeks in each other’s company, and I’m left with a disjointed collection of memories:
A night spent house sitting, in a den that was literally crawling with crickets...
A night out with some of her friends to see The Deceivers...
Meeting her parents as they sat and watched Matewan on video...
I thought back to this poem when I first met her, so I wrote it out longhand and dropped it in an envelope, along with a crystal prism I snatched from a decorative lamp.
She melted, and I confess I did not discourage the idea that the poem was custom written for her.
When she went back to school, we continued for several more weeks with a flurry of regular phone calls, effusive letters, and new poems.
But soon she returned to her broken steps, and I to my civil disguise...
Forgive the indelicacy of today’s post, but it is all in the service of delivering some important information:
Poetry can get you laid.
Prism
Dance a broken step with civil disguise,
Give not a handsome tremble to the blacking rise,
Lay no bed in the violet waves of winter.
Things established are demonic vice,
Disarray, a ritual blend.
Dance with me angel!
Dance a broken step!
A couple of years after I wrote this piece, I met a girl. She was a statuesque bottle-blonde surfer, entering her sophomore year. She liked LSD and scaring her parents.
We spent only a couple of weeks in each other’s company, and I’m left with a disjointed collection of memories:
A night spent house sitting, in a den that was literally crawling with crickets...
A night out with some of her friends to see The Deceivers...
Meeting her parents as they sat and watched Matewan on video...
I thought back to this poem when I first met her, so I wrote it out longhand and dropped it in an envelope, along with a crystal prism I snatched from a decorative lamp.
She melted, and I confess I did not discourage the idea that the poem was custom written for her.
When she went back to school, we continued for several more weeks with a flurry of regular phone calls, effusive letters, and new poems.
But soon she returned to her broken steps, and I to my civil disguise...
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
NO COUNTRY
I once believed that I remembered every word I ever wrote...
Then one day several years ago, I was going through some manila envelopes stuffed so full of papers that their seams were splitting.
The envelopes were filled with four or five years worth of my poems, some crammed onto found pieces of stationery, some written and rewritten on expansive lined paper.
I thumbed through all the old familiar files, the Xs and arrows on each page helping to reconstruct the essential DNA of all the old familiar words.
The final page that I found in one of the envelopes contained the following, with not an X or arrow in sight:
'Neath the bell tower sits a well,
Where colonies of uniform grass
Awakened, bend and draw to glance
Upward at her knell.
'Neath the bell tower sits a well.
'Neath the bell tower they converge--
Brassy children sprung out from mothers' side,
Agitated by restraining ties,
In her toll there are none to be heard.
'Neath the bell tower they converge.
'Neath the bell tower I stand,
A-cast in silent revelry,
Prizing the four winds' buoyancy,
And the clap of her simple hand.
'Neath the bell tower I stand.
It was instantly clear from the subject matter that I had written this, a remembrance of my boyhood churchgoing days.
But that moment of clarity was clouded quickly by a betrayal of memory. This was the only poem in the reams of paper that I just did not recall.
I lost my equilibrium as I tried to bring back the experience of writing the poem, in an effort to place it in my personal timeline. But I was never able to elevate the experience much above the category of a light fever dream.
And as I made my peace with that fact, my dizziness was tinged with a bit of sadness. I thought back to that 21/22-year old with a formal 9th grade education, aspiring to be an impractical poet.
Who, with Hopkins and Yeats in his head, but without steady knowledge of sprung rhythm or scansion to get him through the night, wrote on through that night nonetheless.
Some of it is embarrassing for sure, but some of it has a luster partially borrowed, partially earned (“Colonies of uniform grass/Awakened, bend and draw to glance” and “Prizing the four winds’ buoyancy/And the clap of her simple hand”).
Welcome to poetry week on the Tongue...
I once believed that I remembered every word I ever wrote...
Then one day several years ago, I was going through some manila envelopes stuffed so full of papers that their seams were splitting.
The envelopes were filled with four or five years worth of my poems, some crammed onto found pieces of stationery, some written and rewritten on expansive lined paper.
I thumbed through all the old familiar files, the Xs and arrows on each page helping to reconstruct the essential DNA of all the old familiar words.
The final page that I found in one of the envelopes contained the following, with not an X or arrow in sight:
'Neath the bell tower sits a well,
Where colonies of uniform grass
Awakened, bend and draw to glance
Upward at her knell.
'Neath the bell tower sits a well.
'Neath the bell tower they converge--
Brassy children sprung out from mothers' side,
Agitated by restraining ties,
In her toll there are none to be heard.
'Neath the bell tower they converge.
'Neath the bell tower I stand,
A-cast in silent revelry,
Prizing the four winds' buoyancy,
And the clap of her simple hand.
'Neath the bell tower I stand.
It was instantly clear from the subject matter that I had written this, a remembrance of my boyhood churchgoing days.
But that moment of clarity was clouded quickly by a betrayal of memory. This was the only poem in the reams of paper that I just did not recall.
I lost my equilibrium as I tried to bring back the experience of writing the poem, in an effort to place it in my personal timeline. But I was never able to elevate the experience much above the category of a light fever dream.
And as I made my peace with that fact, my dizziness was tinged with a bit of sadness. I thought back to that 21/22-year old with a formal 9th grade education, aspiring to be an impractical poet.
Who, with Hopkins and Yeats in his head, but without steady knowledge of sprung rhythm or scansion to get him through the night, wrote on through that night nonetheless.
Some of it is embarrassing for sure, but some of it has a luster partially borrowed, partially earned (“Colonies of uniform grass/Awakened, bend and draw to glance” and “Prizing the four winds’ buoyancy/And the clap of her simple hand”).
Welcome to poetry week on the Tongue...
Friday, September 08, 2006
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
DAMAGED GOODS
I have an order sitting in my Newbury Comics’ shopping cart. It’s been there for a couple of days now.
One of the items in the cart is the new Broadcast comp, The Future Crayon, which has occasioned me to take this role as the Prince of Denmark.
To buy or not to buy, though, is not really the question. I will buy. The question turns more on how I will buy...
I can click the order button over at Newbury and have delivered to my door an 18-track CD for $12.95 plus whatever portion of the shipping will be attributable to one disc in a multi-item order.
Or I can one-click my way to a 20-track download of the same CD over at iTunes for $9.99.
So the math that counts here is as follows: iTunes offers two extra tracks and costs about $3.50 less. Seems like a no-brainer.
And yet. And yet.
And yet I pause...
I’m still enough of a pop-culture fetishist that I prefer to drop my dimes on tangible objects.
I like the anticipatory struggle with the CD wrapping, which can be as challenging as prying a Giger alien off a host face.
I like sliding out the accompanying booklet to see what manner of liner notes have been provided, and reading through them at the dinner table.
I like the game of sliding the booklet back into the case under the little plastic nubbins that will ultimately keep it from shifting around all willy nilly. Shit, I ripped a corner!
I like to see if there was any effort to screen print a personality onto the actual face of the disc.
I like to see the final results of all the artistic and practical decisions that went into creating the object in my hands.
And yet I pause...
I have an order sitting in my Newbury Comics’ shopping cart. It’s been there for a couple of days now.
One of the items in the cart is the new Broadcast comp, The Future Crayon, which has occasioned me to take this role as the Prince of Denmark.
To buy or not to buy, though, is not really the question. I will buy. The question turns more on how I will buy...
I can click the order button over at Newbury and have delivered to my door an 18-track CD for $12.95 plus whatever portion of the shipping will be attributable to one disc in a multi-item order.
Or I can one-click my way to a 20-track download of the same CD over at iTunes for $9.99.
So the math that counts here is as follows: iTunes offers two extra tracks and costs about $3.50 less. Seems like a no-brainer.
And yet. And yet.
And yet I pause...
I’m still enough of a pop-culture fetishist that I prefer to drop my dimes on tangible objects.
I like the anticipatory struggle with the CD wrapping, which can be as challenging as prying a Giger alien off a host face.
I like sliding out the accompanying booklet to see what manner of liner notes have been provided, and reading through them at the dinner table.
I like the game of sliding the booklet back into the case under the little plastic nubbins that will ultimately keep it from shifting around all willy nilly. Shit, I ripped a corner!
I like to see if there was any effort to screen print a personality onto the actual face of the disc.
I like to see the final results of all the artistic and practical decisions that went into creating the object in my hands.
And yet I pause...
Friday, September 01, 2006
Thursday, August 31, 2006
SPY VS SPY
I was 21 years when I wrote this song
I'm 22 now, but I won't be for long...
These, of course, are the opening lines to A New England by Billy Bragg, from lo, those many years ago.
But it was just yesterday that those lyrics put me in a crisis.
Let’s parse the ontology, as the French kids like to say...
One would think that the phrase “wrote this song” is meant comprehensively, that is, I wrote the music and the words. But if that is indeed the case, how does that “now” come into play?
Did he write the song when he was 21 with a different second line? Say,
I was 21 years when I wrote this song
Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong
Then, by the time he scored a record deal and hit the studio, he was 22 and updated the lyric to its present state?
That has to be it. Otherwise, this song bends all known laws of temporal physics. And gives me a splitting headache to boot...
I was 21 years when I wrote this song
I'm 22 now, but I won't be for long...
These, of course, are the opening lines to A New England by Billy Bragg, from lo, those many years ago.
But it was just yesterday that those lyrics put me in a crisis.
Let’s parse the ontology, as the French kids like to say...
One would think that the phrase “wrote this song” is meant comprehensively, that is, I wrote the music and the words. But if that is indeed the case, how does that “now” come into play?
Did he write the song when he was 21 with a different second line? Say,
I was 21 years when I wrote this song
Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong
Then, by the time he scored a record deal and hit the studio, he was 22 and updated the lyric to its present state?
That has to be it. Otherwise, this song bends all known laws of temporal physics. And gives me a splitting headache to boot...
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
GASSED AND FLACCID KIDS
Guilty pleasure
Along Comes Mary—The Association
My music teacher in middle school— Ms Cutler?— was an unreconstructed hippie. She reveled in the opportunity to share with us kids the wondrous sounds of the 60s.
Unfortunately, the wondrous sounds of the 60s to her meant the likes of Simon and Garfunkel’s Richard Cory (social commentary!), CSN’s Marrakesh Express (drugs!), and Along Comes Mary (more drugs!).
We’ll-call-her-Ms-Cutler used to try to replicate the whole psychedelic experience by flipping the classroom light switch on and off maniacally while a crackly version of one of the above songs played on a portable record player.
Sigh. Fecking hippies.
Still, though, Along Comes Mary survives in my esteem...
Guilty pleasure
Along Comes Mary—The Association
My music teacher in middle school— Ms Cutler?— was an unreconstructed hippie. She reveled in the opportunity to share with us kids the wondrous sounds of the 60s.
Unfortunately, the wondrous sounds of the 60s to her meant the likes of Simon and Garfunkel’s Richard Cory (social commentary!), CSN’s Marrakesh Express (drugs!), and Along Comes Mary (more drugs!).
We’ll-call-her-Ms-Cutler used to try to replicate the whole psychedelic experience by flipping the classroom light switch on and off maniacally while a crackly version of one of the above songs played on a portable record player.
Sigh. Fecking hippies.
Still, though, Along Comes Mary survives in my esteem...
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
DIE CUT
If I ever bothered to make a list of my favorite videos, this would be a resident.
I've never technically had a dream where I came to on a typical suburban street after a car accident, wended my way past the wreckage, wept at the sight of a burning chair, ran off into the woods, found a box, opened the box, and was bathed in a pod of light.
But fuck, I actually sort of have...
Broadcast-- Tender Buttons
If I ever bothered to make a list of my favorite videos, this would be a resident.
I've never technically had a dream where I came to on a typical suburban street after a car accident, wended my way past the wreckage, wept at the sight of a burning chair, ran off into the woods, found a box, opened the box, and was bathed in a pod of light.
But fuck, I actually sort of have...
Broadcast-- Tender Buttons
Monday, August 28, 2006
NEWS OF THE WORLD
I mentioned to my friend Tom a past affinity for Spread Your Wings by Queen, and he was kind enough to send along a link to the video.
It took a minute for me to reconstruct what the song had meant to me.
Hearing it again, it sounded harsher and more abrasive than I remembered. I think in my memory it was meeker.
But really it was me who was meek...
I stood in Michael’s basement, an expansive room crowded by a pool table, a ping pong table, and scores of orange Hot Wheels’ tracks. I stood, an 11-year old among a party of 12-year olds, and cried. Michael had slapped me across the face for sport.
He was a year older, and I called him my friend. And he was once, but as time wore on, the relationship became defined by his abuse and my passivity.
I left this party in tears, and ran out into the teeth of a winter storm...
By the time we reached high school, I enacted some empty revenge by terrorizing Michael when he strayed into a bathroom to which me and some of my buddies had staked a claim. But this did not wash away the aluminum aftertaste of my former timidity.
And so in Spread Your Wings, part of the soundtrack to those days, I do not hear perseverance and victory, but rather the echoes of humiliation and defeat...
I mentioned to my friend Tom a past affinity for Spread Your Wings by Queen, and he was kind enough to send along a link to the video.
It took a minute for me to reconstruct what the song had meant to me.
Hearing it again, it sounded harsher and more abrasive than I remembered. I think in my memory it was meeker.
But really it was me who was meek...
I stood in Michael’s basement, an expansive room crowded by a pool table, a ping pong table, and scores of orange Hot Wheels’ tracks. I stood, an 11-year old among a party of 12-year olds, and cried. Michael had slapped me across the face for sport.
He was a year older, and I called him my friend. And he was once, but as time wore on, the relationship became defined by his abuse and my passivity.
I left this party in tears, and ran out into the teeth of a winter storm...
By the time we reached high school, I enacted some empty revenge by terrorizing Michael when he strayed into a bathroom to which me and some of my buddies had staked a claim. But this did not wash away the aluminum aftertaste of my former timidity.
And so in Spread Your Wings, part of the soundtrack to those days, I do not hear perseverance and victory, but rather the echoes of humiliation and defeat...
Friday, August 25, 2006
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
KISS THIS GUY
I picked up a copy of the Dolls' Too Much, Too Soon in Japan-- it appears to be out of print over here.
Reading the lyrics in the CD booklet is as disconcerting as listening to a lunatic rant.
Like, occasionally there are moments of lucidity where they flat get it right.
Then there are moments where, with some effort, you can reconstruct a bit of the logic behind the babble:
“That reminds me of Will Rogers
Back in 1933
And that was the year when he crashed on down
And his engines all packed up”
OK, yeah, Will Rogers died in a plane crash. Sure it was in 1935, but it was a plane crash. And I suppose that would cause one's engines to, um, pack up.
Of course it makes zero sense contextually. Here's the real deal:
“That reminds me of Buck Rogers
Back in 1933
That was the year when he crashed on down
And all the decos got stacked up”
And in moments like “Dad's gonna sell your womma” (“That's when I saw your momma”) I succumb to human frailty and avert my eyes...
I picked up a copy of the Dolls' Too Much, Too Soon in Japan-- it appears to be out of print over here.
Reading the lyrics in the CD booklet is as disconcerting as listening to a lunatic rant.
Like, occasionally there are moments of lucidity where they flat get it right.
Then there are moments where, with some effort, you can reconstruct a bit of the logic behind the babble:
“That reminds me of Will Rogers
Back in 1933
And that was the year when he crashed on down
And his engines all packed up”
OK, yeah, Will Rogers died in a plane crash. Sure it was in 1935, but it was a plane crash. And I suppose that would cause one's engines to, um, pack up.
Of course it makes zero sense contextually. Here's the real deal:
“That reminds me of Buck Rogers
Back in 1933
That was the year when he crashed on down
And all the decos got stacked up”
And in moments like “Dad's gonna sell your womma” (“That's when I saw your momma”) I succumb to human frailty and avert my eyes...
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
IT IS TIME, TIME, TIME, TIME, TIME, TIME, TIME, TIME, TIME...
I have an awesome video of Arthur Lee performing You Set the Scene on Later from a few years back that now plays like a valedictory.
It laughs at life, and it laughs at death. It stresses that decay is just a trite physical process.
Because the soul does not decay.
I can't find a clip of that video, so here's a vintage promo film for Your Mind and We Belong Together.
RIP Arthur Lee.
I have an awesome video of Arthur Lee performing You Set the Scene on Later from a few years back that now plays like a valedictory.
It laughs at life, and it laughs at death. It stresses that decay is just a trite physical process.
Because the soul does not decay.
I can't find a clip of that video, so here's a vintage promo film for Your Mind and We Belong Together.
RIP Arthur Lee.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
THE SHINE OF YOUR JAPAN
I’m leaving on Friday for two weeks in Japan, and the next couple of days will be dizzy with last-minute preparation, so I’ll see you again on August 21, jet lag willing...
Here are some Japan lyrics off the top of my head. Ganbatte!
I'd rather be in Tokyo,
I'd rather listen to Thin Lizzy-oh,
And watch the Sunday gang in Harajuku,
There’s something wrong with me— I’m a cuckoo...
-I’m a Cuckoo, Belle and Sebastian
Oh no, there goes Tokyo—
Go go Godzilla!
-Godzilla, Blue Oyster Cult
"This is a special news report.
Godzilla has been sighted in Tokyo Bay.
The attack on it by the Self-Defense Force has been useless.
He is heading towards the city. AAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!!"
-Superman, R.E.M. (Japanese-language opening)
My woman from Tokyo
She makes me see,
My woman from Tokyo
She's so good to me.
-Woman from Tokyo, Deep Purple
Turning Japanese,
I think I'm turning Japanese
I really think so...
-Turning Japanese, The Vapors
I will wait here for my man tonight, it's easy when you’re big in Japan.
When you’re big in Japan, tonight,
Big in Japan, be tight, big in Japan, where the Eastern sea's so blue.
Big in Japan, alright, pay, then I'll sleep by your side,
Things are easy when you're big in Japan, when you're big in Japan...
-Big in Japan, Alphaville
She rode to Japan,
And we entered a town...
-My Wild Love, The Doors
I dreamed headlong collisions in jet lag panavisions,
I shouted “Sayonara!” it didn't mean goodbye.
But lovers turn to posers,
Show up in film exposures,
Just like in travel brochures
Discovering Japan, discovering Japan...
-Discovering Japan, Graham Parker and the Rumour
Everywhere in the world is good,
But Osaka is the best town, Osaka is the best town...
-My Favorite Town Osaka, Shonen Knife
I’m leaving on Friday for two weeks in Japan, and the next couple of days will be dizzy with last-minute preparation, so I’ll see you again on August 21, jet lag willing...
Here are some Japan lyrics off the top of my head. Ganbatte!
I'd rather be in Tokyo,
I'd rather listen to Thin Lizzy-oh,
And watch the Sunday gang in Harajuku,
There’s something wrong with me— I’m a cuckoo...
-I’m a Cuckoo, Belle and Sebastian
Oh no, there goes Tokyo—
Go go Godzilla!
-Godzilla, Blue Oyster Cult
"This is a special news report.
Godzilla has been sighted in Tokyo Bay.
The attack on it by the Self-Defense Force has been useless.
He is heading towards the city. AAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!!"
-Superman, R.E.M. (Japanese-language opening)
My woman from Tokyo
She makes me see,
My woman from Tokyo
She's so good to me.
-Woman from Tokyo, Deep Purple
Turning Japanese,
I think I'm turning Japanese
I really think so...
-Turning Japanese, The Vapors
I will wait here for my man tonight, it's easy when you’re big in Japan.
When you’re big in Japan, tonight,
Big in Japan, be tight, big in Japan, where the Eastern sea's so blue.
Big in Japan, alright, pay, then I'll sleep by your side,
Things are easy when you're big in Japan, when you're big in Japan...
-Big in Japan, Alphaville
She rode to Japan,
And we entered a town...
-My Wild Love, The Doors
I dreamed headlong collisions in jet lag panavisions,
I shouted “Sayonara!” it didn't mean goodbye.
But lovers turn to posers,
Show up in film exposures,
Just like in travel brochures
Discovering Japan, discovering Japan...
-Discovering Japan, Graham Parker and the Rumour
Everywhere in the world is good,
But Osaka is the best town, Osaka is the best town...
-My Favorite Town Osaka, Shonen Knife
Monday, July 31, 2006
Friday, July 28, 2006
BORN INSIDE THE BELLY OF ROCK ‘N ROLL
Fifty percent of what there is to know about me can be extracted from this simple fact: The video for Memphis, Egypt by the Mekons brought me to tears last night.
Why?
-The fact that there is such a thing as a Mekons video.
-The fact that in said video they are simultaneously taking the piss and touchingly earnest, because they didn’t give a shit and they most certainly did...
-“Destroy your safe and happy lives before it is too late.”
-The fact that my three-year old had slept with me the night before and through some wild somnambulistic gymnastics managed to kick me in the head at least twice, leaving me past exhausted come the morning.
-Sally Timms dancing.
-Rock ‘n roll!
Fifty percent of what there is to know about me can be extracted from this simple fact: The video for Memphis, Egypt by the Mekons brought me to tears last night.
Why?
-The fact that there is such a thing as a Mekons video.
-The fact that in said video they are simultaneously taking the piss and touchingly earnest, because they didn’t give a shit and they most certainly did...
-“Destroy your safe and happy lives before it is too late.”
-The fact that my three-year old had slept with me the night before and through some wild somnambulistic gymnastics managed to kick me in the head at least twice, leaving me past exhausted come the morning.
-Sally Timms dancing.
-Rock ‘n roll!
Thursday, July 27, 2006
WHEN UPTOWN COMES DOWNTOWN
The New York Dolls got me into grad school.
One of the pieces of supporting documentation that I sent with my application was an essay on Frankenstein I had written for a Romantic lit course. The piece took in Shelley’s book, Whale’s movie, and the Dolls’ song, with a few words spared for the Edgar Winter Group.
It was, um, lightly researched, but I suppose it had a certain brio/moxie.
Little did I know that the director of the program was an old-school New York punk fan, and had spent many formative hours at CBGB and Max’s in the company of the Dolls, Patti Smith, Ramones, Television, et al. We had an enthusiastic discussion about it at this pre-semester meet-and-greet cocktail-party type thing.
He seemed to think that I might add a bit of topspin to an entering class heavy with Lacanians, Foucaultites, and Derridaistes.
It is one of the few measurable regrets in my life that I instead spent my time quietly harvesting A minuses...
The New York Dolls got me into grad school.
One of the pieces of supporting documentation that I sent with my application was an essay on Frankenstein I had written for a Romantic lit course. The piece took in Shelley’s book, Whale’s movie, and the Dolls’ song, with a few words spared for the Edgar Winter Group.
It was, um, lightly researched, but I suppose it had a certain brio/moxie.
Little did I know that the director of the program was an old-school New York punk fan, and had spent many formative hours at CBGB and Max’s in the company of the Dolls, Patti Smith, Ramones, Television, et al. We had an enthusiastic discussion about it at this pre-semester meet-and-greet cocktail-party type thing.
He seemed to think that I might add a bit of topspin to an entering class heavy with Lacanians, Foucaultites, and Derridaistes.
It is one of the few measurable regrets in my life that I instead spent my time quietly harvesting A minuses...
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
TRASH
Or it can kill you if you want to die...
That guitarist who was sharing the mic on the choruses in yesterday's clip? With the hair that looks like a Breck girl gone for a couple of spins on the Cyclone? That was Johnny Thunders.
Waiting for Johnny to die became a sort of sick sport in the early 80s. (See Johnny's Gonna Die by The Replacements for some further context.)
Here's the sad spectacle of Johnny attempting to perform Sad Vacation, his paean to another formal nihilist, Sid Vicious.
Watch it once, never watch it again, and never forget it...
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Monday, July 24, 2006
SOMETHING MUST HAVE HAPPENED OVER MANHATTAN
On the eve of the release of a new New York Dolls album, we are left to ponder the fate of a name...
Which is appropriate, because if the Dolls were “about” anything, it was identity: losing it, finding it, and holding onto it.
By 1975, the Dolls name was industrial-strength commercial poison.
So David Johansen’s first solo album sported a look-at-me-I’m-a-regular-guy-no-fishnets-and-mascara-here-no-siree-bob cover and a bunch of look-at-me-I’m-a-regular-guy-no-fishnets-and-mascara-here-no-siree-bob tunes.
The best of those tunes were the ones written by Johansen/Sylvain.
And here we sit in 2006— with Nolan, Kane, and Thunders having gone to that great plastic bordello in the sky— awaiting an album full of new Johansen/Sylvain songs.
A New York Dolls’ album.
It is a New York Dolls’ album because the Dolls name has evolved into a viable brand: The epitome of scuzzy cool, but with the real scuzz scrubbed away.
Much like New York, New York itself, I guess.
So tomorrow, I’ll pop on my CBGB t-shirt (available in a wide variety of colors and styles), and hit the local Best Buy for my copy of One Day it Will Please Us to Remember Even This.
I’ll get back to you on that title...
On the eve of the release of a new New York Dolls album, we are left to ponder the fate of a name...
Which is appropriate, because if the Dolls were “about” anything, it was identity: losing it, finding it, and holding onto it.
By 1975, the Dolls name was industrial-strength commercial poison.
So David Johansen’s first solo album sported a look-at-me-I’m-a-regular-guy-no-fishnets-and-mascara-here-no-siree-bob cover and a bunch of look-at-me-I’m-a-regular-guy-no-fishnets-and-mascara-here-no-siree-bob tunes.
The best of those tunes were the ones written by Johansen/Sylvain.
And here we sit in 2006— with Nolan, Kane, and Thunders having gone to that great plastic bordello in the sky— awaiting an album full of new Johansen/Sylvain songs.
A New York Dolls’ album.
It is a New York Dolls’ album because the Dolls name has evolved into a viable brand: The epitome of scuzzy cool, but with the real scuzz scrubbed away.
Much like New York, New York itself, I guess.
So tomorrow, I’ll pop on my CBGB t-shirt (available in a wide variety of colors and styles), and hit the local Best Buy for my copy of One Day it Will Please Us to Remember Even This.
I’ll get back to you on that title...
Friday, July 21, 2006
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
NIX
Memo to The Hold Steady:
The Humbert Humbert stuff is fine-- it's the clever clever stuff that palls.
Like, in a blind taste test I can barely tell if this is you or the Barenaked Ladies on their period:
"Silly rabbit, tripping is for teenagers..."
So just be careful out there, OK?
Sincerely,
sliced tongue
Memo to The Hold Steady:
The Humbert Humbert stuff is fine-- it's the clever clever stuff that palls.
Like, in a blind taste test I can barely tell if this is you or the Barenaked Ladies on their period:
"Silly rabbit, tripping is for teenagers..."
So just be careful out there, OK?
Sincerely,
sliced tongue
Monday, July 17, 2006
HORNETS!
Forgive a latecomer, but I've been spending a fair amount of time with The Hold Steady's Separation Sunday over the last couple of months.
The Springsteen comparisons are duly noted, and classic rock fans will indeed have much truck with the music.
But what I'm taking away from it is the assonance, the flow.
Like this:
“You came into the party with a long black shawl, and the guys from the front lawn were making jokes about the white swan.”
The shawl/lawn/swan triptych is faceted, and made brilliant in its setting of long shiny surrounding vowels and sharp en sounds.
I haven't heard words roll out of a white guy with such seeming ease and apparent connection since peak Eminem...
Forgive a latecomer, but I've been spending a fair amount of time with The Hold Steady's Separation Sunday over the last couple of months.
The Springsteen comparisons are duly noted, and classic rock fans will indeed have much truck with the music.
But what I'm taking away from it is the assonance, the flow.
Like this:
“You came into the party with a long black shawl, and the guys from the front lawn were making jokes about the white swan.”
The shawl/lawn/swan triptych is faceted, and made brilliant in its setting of long shiny surrounding vowels and sharp en sounds.
I haven't heard words roll out of a white guy with such seeming ease and apparent connection since peak Eminem...
Friday, July 14, 2006
FUCK THE MAN
A component of the Sex Pistols' creation myth is the story of young John Lydon skulking down the streets of London with the words “I HATE” scrawled on a Pink Floyd t-shirt.
But watching that interview clip from yesterday, wherein the right Hans Keller larded the discussion with condescension and disdain, helped draw for me a straight line from Floyd to the Pistols...
A component of the Sex Pistols' creation myth is the story of young John Lydon skulking down the streets of London with the words “I HATE” scrawled on a Pink Floyd t-shirt.
But watching that interview clip from yesterday, wherein the right Hans Keller larded the discussion with condescension and disdain, helped draw for me a straight line from Floyd to the Pistols...
Thursday, July 13, 2006
GAMES FOR MAY
In my zeal to get the best of Pink Floyd up yesterday, it seems I elided Pink.
It wasn't until today that I realized that Syd is not even in that See Emily Play promo clip.
So, to redress the oversight, I give you this. Skip past Astronomy Domine if you must, but be sure to catch the interview at the end...
In my zeal to get the best of Pink Floyd up yesterday, it seems I elided Pink.
It wasn't until today that I realized that Syd is not even in that See Emily Play promo clip.
So, to redress the oversight, I give you this. Skip past Astronomy Domine if you must, but be sure to catch the interview at the end...
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
I HATE PINK FLOYD
Fuck Nick Mason.
Fuck Echoes.
Fuck Dark Side.
Fuck David Gilmour.
Fuck Wish You Were Here.
Fuck Animals.
Fuck Rick Wright.
Fuck The Wall.
Fuck The Wall again, for good measure.
Fuck The Final Cut.
Fuck Roger Waters.
Fuck drugs.
Fuck mental illness.
Fuck death.
Fuck all that.
Fuck all that.
Rest in peace Syd...
Fuck Nick Mason.
Fuck Echoes.
Fuck Dark Side.
Fuck David Gilmour.
Fuck Wish You Were Here.
Fuck Animals.
Fuck Rick Wright.
Fuck The Wall.
Fuck The Wall again, for good measure.
Fuck The Final Cut.
Fuck Roger Waters.
Fuck drugs.
Fuck mental illness.
Fuck death.
Fuck all that.
Fuck all that.
Rest in peace Syd...
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
MERRIWEATHER REPORT
About the show itself...
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists had the power-trio thump of The Jam, the working-class humanity of The Jam, and twice the sense of fun of The Jam. Good stuff.
I want Broken Social Scene to play for two hours in my basement. (OK, I don’t actually have a basement, but you get the point...)
Belle and Sebastian struggled a bit with the venue.
Stuart Murdoch noted that he felt like they were playing to three disparate audiences at once: the Saturday-night dancers up front, the cinema folks in their seats, and the picnic crowd on the lawn.
As a result of this somewhat schizo setup, the group never really found the right pace. When they soared, they soared pretty high (If You’re Feeling Sinister, Sleep the Clock Around, I’m a Cuckoo), but when they were pedestrian, they were footsore...
About the show itself...
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists had the power-trio thump of The Jam, the working-class humanity of The Jam, and twice the sense of fun of The Jam. Good stuff.
I want Broken Social Scene to play for two hours in my basement. (OK, I don’t actually have a basement, but you get the point...)
Belle and Sebastian struggled a bit with the venue.
Stuart Murdoch noted that he felt like they were playing to three disparate audiences at once: the Saturday-night dancers up front, the cinema folks in their seats, and the picnic crowd on the lawn.
As a result of this somewhat schizo setup, the group never really found the right pace. When they soared, they soared pretty high (If You’re Feeling Sinister, Sleep the Clock Around, I’m a Cuckoo), but when they were pedestrian, they were footsore...
Monday, July 10, 2006
Friday, July 07, 2006
MY GENERATION
Tomorrow: A summer night out with mr. and mrs. brain coral, brain coral's brother, a couple of their friends, Ted Leo, Broken Social Scene, and Belle and Sebastian.
It's enough to make a boy not give a fuck about being 40...
Tomorrow: A summer night out with mr. and mrs. brain coral, brain coral's brother, a couple of their friends, Ted Leo, Broken Social Scene, and Belle and Sebastian.
It's enough to make a boy not give a fuck about being 40...
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
LIVING IN THE PAST
I come not to bury Jethro Tull, but to praise them.
Well, not really. But I did hear the Tull parody No New Tale to Tell the other day...
And would anyone really be willing to join the argument that Love and Rockets were in some intrinsic, verifiable sense a “better” band than Tull?
I imagine that the mid 80s Love and Rockets kids were basically the same as the late 60s Tull kids: White, comfortably middle class, and longing to be a part of the Alternative or the Underground (take your pick). Just so long as the Alternative didn’t alternate too much, and the Underground didn’t run too deep...
I come not to bury Jethro Tull, but to praise them.
Well, not really. But I did hear the Tull parody No New Tale to Tell the other day...
And would anyone really be willing to join the argument that Love and Rockets were in some intrinsic, verifiable sense a “better” band than Tull?
I imagine that the mid 80s Love and Rockets kids were basically the same as the late 60s Tull kids: White, comfortably middle class, and longing to be a part of the Alternative or the Underground (take your pick). Just so long as the Alternative didn’t alternate too much, and the Underground didn’t run too deep...
Friday, June 30, 2006
LED IT BE
For some mysterious reason, preset number 4 on the satrad has been stuck on a classic rock station all week. I tried switching it to old-school hip-hop, I tried switching it to whatever the hell the determinedly eclectic station is called, but no dice.
It's made for an average of one amusing moment per day. And yesterday it was What Is and What Should Never Be, that mockjestic Zep text rimed with the hoarfrost of 35 stoned winters...
Sure, it's got a castle, and a trip way up high in the sky.
But the best thing bar none is that channel-jumping riff that precedes the gong. And oh yeah, the gong...
Fucking hilarious.
For some mysterious reason, preset number 4 on the satrad has been stuck on a classic rock station all week. I tried switching it to old-school hip-hop, I tried switching it to whatever the hell the determinedly eclectic station is called, but no dice.
It's made for an average of one amusing moment per day. And yesterday it was What Is and What Should Never Be, that mockjestic Zep text rimed with the hoarfrost of 35 stoned winters...
Sure, it's got a castle, and a trip way up high in the sky.
But the best thing bar none is that channel-jumping riff that precedes the gong. And oh yeah, the gong...
Fucking hilarious.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
YOU KNOW I'M ALRIGHT NOW
Guilty pleasure
Feelin' Stronger Every Day— Chicago
Chicago was as doomed from the point of conception as poor Tristram Shandy, what with all that incessant cocking about with Got to Get You Into My Life horns. I mean, sweet muted Jesus, of all the Beatles tangents on which to base a career...
But this one crackles with so much winter-into-spring, got-to-tape-it-off-the-radio energy, that for 4:14 you forgive the soulless bastards.
Especially that part where the tempo shifts and gets all metronomic and in your face.
Nyah-nyah-nyah...
Guilty pleasure
Feelin' Stronger Every Day— Chicago
Chicago was as doomed from the point of conception as poor Tristram Shandy, what with all that incessant cocking about with Got to Get You Into My Life horns. I mean, sweet muted Jesus, of all the Beatles tangents on which to base a career...
But this one crackles with so much winter-into-spring, got-to-tape-it-off-the-radio energy, that for 4:14 you forgive the soulless bastards.
Especially that part where the tempo shifts and gets all metronomic and in your face.
Nyah-nyah-nyah...
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
WOMEN OF THE WORLD
I pulled out Jim O’Rourke’s Eureka to play for some friends as we navigated our way to Georgetown for lunch last week.
“He’s a post-rockin’ genius!” I exclaimed, with two parts enthusiasm, one part consciousness that they were staring at the CD cover of a rotund bald dude coyly hiding his genitalia behind a stuffed rabbit.
What I didn’t mention was that O’Rourke’s version of Women of the World was the soundtrack to my daughter’s birth...
It was around 11:30 pm on May 29, 1999 when my wife went into labor. We tiptoed out of our bedroom, each tipping of her toe punctuated by a heavy breath.
Her parents were visiting from Japan and sleeping on the floor in the living room, and as we stepped out the sliding door, her mother lifted her head slightly and watched us exit into the darkness.
It was a Saturday night, but the Long Island Expressway was uncharacteristically serene and cooperative. We made it to the hospital in about 30 minutes.
Our daughter was born—quivering, beautiful, and from another world— at 6:47 am on Sunday morning. My wife’s blood pressure spiked right after the delivery, so she was moved to critical care as a precaution.
For the next three days I shuttled back and forth from the house to the hospital, bringing visitors and gifts.
In quiet moments, I held my daughter to my chest, and brushed the hair from my wife’s forehead with my fingers.
And as I drove up and down the Expressway for those three days, I listened to Women of the World almost exclusively.
“Women of the world, take over, for if you don’t the world will come to an end, and it won’t take long...”
I pulled out Jim O’Rourke’s Eureka to play for some friends as we navigated our way to Georgetown for lunch last week.
“He’s a post-rockin’ genius!” I exclaimed, with two parts enthusiasm, one part consciousness that they were staring at the CD cover of a rotund bald dude coyly hiding his genitalia behind a stuffed rabbit.
What I didn’t mention was that O’Rourke’s version of Women of the World was the soundtrack to my daughter’s birth...
It was around 11:30 pm on May 29, 1999 when my wife went into labor. We tiptoed out of our bedroom, each tipping of her toe punctuated by a heavy breath.
Her parents were visiting from Japan and sleeping on the floor in the living room, and as we stepped out the sliding door, her mother lifted her head slightly and watched us exit into the darkness.
It was a Saturday night, but the Long Island Expressway was uncharacteristically serene and cooperative. We made it to the hospital in about 30 minutes.
Our daughter was born—quivering, beautiful, and from another world— at 6:47 am on Sunday morning. My wife’s blood pressure spiked right after the delivery, so she was moved to critical care as a precaution.
For the next three days I shuttled back and forth from the house to the hospital, bringing visitors and gifts.
In quiet moments, I held my daughter to my chest, and brushed the hair from my wife’s forehead with my fingers.
And as I drove up and down the Expressway for those three days, I listened to Women of the World almost exclusively.
“Women of the world, take over, for if you don’t the world will come to an end, and it won’t take long...”
Friday, June 23, 2006
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
WHAT WOULD I DO TO BELIEVE?
So here I sit, a committed agnostic. And yet, I am drawn to faith...
The woman I love is a devout and lifelong Buddhist, and I am warmed to see my children kneel before her altar and chant.
My mother, after many years in retrograde, has returned to the very church that I abandoned on that long-ago Christmas Eve, and I find myself encouraging her to attend.
And as long as they do not proselytize too aggressively, I connect very well with folks like Sufjan and Stuart Murdoch. Committed Christians.
I guess that the mystery inside me never truly died away...
So here I sit, a committed agnostic. And yet, I am drawn to faith...
The woman I love is a devout and lifelong Buddhist, and I am warmed to see my children kneel before her altar and chant.
My mother, after many years in retrograde, has returned to the very church that I abandoned on that long-ago Christmas Eve, and I find myself encouraging her to attend.
And as long as they do not proselytize too aggressively, I connect very well with folks like Sufjan and Stuart Murdoch. Committed Christians.
I guess that the mystery inside me never truly died away...
Monday, June 19, 2006
ANGELS WE HAVE HEARD ON HIGH
The last time I attended a church service was the Christmas Eve when I was 15.
It was the first time that I recall incense being incorporated into the ceremony. The priest slathered it on until the elderly portion of the congregation was clasping wrinkled silk handkerchiefs to their collective noses. The elongated vowels of Gloria in Excelsis Deo competed with brisk, spirited coughing.
It all seemed so absurd at that moment, in the special unvarnished way that things seem absurd when you’re 15.
I excused myself from my mother’s side and slipped out the front door. I walked the mile and a half home in a damp cool midnight, with still-white streetlamps throwing large dots of light across the periodic darkness. It was peaceful— Christmas Eve peaceful— and all I heard was the faint hum of mystery dying inside me...
The last time I attended a church service was the Christmas Eve when I was 15.
It was the first time that I recall incense being incorporated into the ceremony. The priest slathered it on until the elderly portion of the congregation was clasping wrinkled silk handkerchiefs to their collective noses. The elongated vowels of Gloria in Excelsis Deo competed with brisk, spirited coughing.
It all seemed so absurd at that moment, in the special unvarnished way that things seem absurd when you’re 15.
I excused myself from my mother’s side and slipped out the front door. I walked the mile and a half home in a damp cool midnight, with still-white streetlamps throwing large dots of light across the periodic darkness. It was peaceful— Christmas Eve peaceful— and all I heard was the faint hum of mystery dying inside me...
Friday, June 16, 2006
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
TONIGHT I’M GONNA PARTY LIKE IT’S 199
It’s the Sliced Tongue 200th Post Gala Black Tie Celebration!
Now without further editorial ado, here are the best 10 and worst 10 posts to date...
BEST
August 12, 2005
September 8, 2005
September 16, 2005
October 7, 2005
January 26, 2006
March 3, 2006
March 8, 2006
May 22, 2006
May 24, 2006
June 12, 2006
WORST
August 3, 2006
September 22, 2006
October 3, 2006
November 2, 2006
February 6, 2006
February 7, 2006
February 17, 2006
March 30, 2006
April 17, 2006
May 12, 2006
It’s the Sliced Tongue 200th Post Gala Black Tie Celebration!
Now without further editorial ado, here are the best 10 and worst 10 posts to date...
BEST
August 12, 2005
September 8, 2005
September 16, 2005
October 7, 2005
January 26, 2006
March 3, 2006
March 8, 2006
May 22, 2006
May 24, 2006
June 12, 2006
WORST
August 3, 2006
September 22, 2006
October 3, 2006
November 2, 2006
February 6, 2006
February 7, 2006
February 17, 2006
March 30, 2006
April 17, 2006
May 12, 2006
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
I AIN’T GOT NO PAPERS ON MYSELF
I periodically spin on my chair to open a drawer and catch my eye wandering out of my sixth-floor window to the green below, where more and more people gather in shirt sleeves to eat, smoke, sun, and gab.
For the last couple of days I’ve played nothing but the Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim CD, in an effort to bring a little outdoors indoors...
I periodically spin on my chair to open a drawer and catch my eye wandering out of my sixth-floor window to the green below, where more and more people gather in shirt sleeves to eat, smoke, sun, and gab.
For the last couple of days I’ve played nothing but the Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim CD, in an effort to bring a little outdoors indoors...
Monday, June 12, 2006
DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC?
I spent a couple of hours yesterday scouring the perimeter of the Wolf Trap parking lot, hunting for bottle caps with my three-year old son.
We got a good three-year old’s handful, some shiny and pristine, some rusted, nicked, and flattened.
At one point, I picked up a discarded ticket stub from the New Cars/Blondie Road Rage Tour. I showed it to my son, who threw it on the ground with quick disdain.
“That’s not a bottle cap, silly!”
Rock on, Sebastian. Rock the fuck on...
I spent a couple of hours yesterday scouring the perimeter of the Wolf Trap parking lot, hunting for bottle caps with my three-year old son.
We got a good three-year old’s handful, some shiny and pristine, some rusted, nicked, and flattened.
At one point, I picked up a discarded ticket stub from the New Cars/Blondie Road Rage Tour. I showed it to my son, who threw it on the ground with quick disdain.
“That’s not a bottle cap, silly!”
Rock on, Sebastian. Rock the fuck on...
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