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.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
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...
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