FUNKY KICKS GOING DOWN IN THE CITY

Going on hiatus for about a week.

The family is coming back from Japan tomorrow morning, and I expect that I'll have a case of Jet Lag By Proxy Syndrome for some time.

See you in Aug!

BLUE RIDGE RANGER

Charlottesville exists in my memory as a place where I left something.

Something less than vital, but more than trivial. Something undefined.

So every time I visit, I feel like I'm looking for it, whatever it is. And of course I never find it...

On Sunday, I stood in Plan 9 flipping through racks of used CDs. Occasionally I picked up a disc in which I had no interest, like Teenage Symphonies to God by Velvet Crush, and entertained the possibility that this exact disc had been part of their stock for the last 13 years. And that I might have passed over this exact disc back in 1994.

And in some strange way, this made me feel almost as if I had found what I was searching for...

OUT OF THE PAST

Here's a short poem I wrote as I drove home from Charlottesville yesterday...

Eurica

Land.
Grandparents' furniture.

Wednesday night prayer service.

Racial hatred.
Shaved ice w/ cherry syrup.

Crystal meth.
A trailer cap.
Two Harris Teeters.

Antiques and junktiques.

Calves for slaughter.
Housesale by owner.

TV PARTY TONIGHT

Just finished watching a couple live performances of note...

Fell in Love With a Girl, The White Stripes (Later With Jools Holland)

I realized watching Deerhoof on Carson Daly (?) the other night that a really great live TV performance should make you squirm a little. There should be just the right mix of nervous laughter, embarassment for the performer, and some kind of awe.

This was apparently The White Stripes' first time on UK TV from back in 2001, and Jack is all twitchy and jibber-jabbery and he rocks, and they nailed it. Meg is cool like Keith Moon on xanax.

And I suppose there's some way to watch this and not develop a huge crush on Meg, but it escapes me completely...

Intervention, Arcade Fire (Saturday Night Live)

If you're willing to buy into the earnest intensity even just a little, this is massive. A new religion, if the room is small enough.

And now I'm kicking myself for missing them at the 9:30 Club, and then missing them again at the DAR Hall.

Because I know that the venues will continue to get bigger, and the gestures will grow more outsized along the way.

Because I know that the new religion will become a sullen ritual...

PHOTOGRAPH

It's Google image search shuffle night.

I do an image search for the title of each song the shuffle deals, and postify the results.

Odds of random unexpected porn: 34%.

SafeSearch is off, baby!


1. Banana Fish, Shonen Knife

2. Coral Moon, John Cale

3. Mellotron, Stereolab

4. Surf's Up, The Beach Boys

5. Venus in Furs, The Velvet Underground (April 1966, Scepter Studios)

MIDNIGHT TO YOU

1. Discovering Japan, Graham Parker and the Rumour
This sounds very different when your family has been there for a month or so. See you soon, guys.

2. Ominous Cloud, Broadcast
If I called this Stereolab's The Flower Called Nowhere played sideways, would you hold it against me? Yeah, I don't really blame you...

3. Half a Person, The Smiths
As I drove home tonight after a 10-hour day at the office, I thought about living in the Maine woods, surrounded by cool air and clean water, and how much that would suck.

4. The Cool Out, The Clash
It's a dubby remix of The Call Up. There's this one part where the guitar sounds kind of New Romantic, and it kind of freaks me out...

5. Nothing to Do With Me, Stereolab
“Well it won't go away overnight/But it will go away in the end” pretty much sums up how I feel about Sound-Dust.

P.S.- That copy of Tigermilk went for $359.33.

ELECTRONIC RENAISSANCE

1. Rhineland (Heartland), Beirut
If he ever adds some emotional resonance to the mix, the kid will be a comer...

2. A You You Never Knew, Future Bible Heroes
Sometimes I feel like a Stephin Merritt side project...

3. Air, Talking Heads
“Air can hurt you too.” See, this is why people worried about David Byrne back in the day.

4. Valentine, The Replacements
It borders on tragic to hear the Replacements burdened with this obnoxious 80s drum sound. As if they were ever meant to belong to a decade...

5. She's Losing It, Belle and Sebastian
There's 21 hours to go on a copy of Tigermilk on eBay, and the bidding stands at $167. Sweet bumbling bees...

I DON'T CARE WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT US ANYWAY

1. Pagan Poetry, Bjork
Jose Pagan was a middle infielder with the Giants and the Pirates in the 60s and early 70s. A lifetime .250 hitter, he finished 11th in the NL MVP voting in 1962, a year in which he batted .259 with 7 HR and 57 RBI, and sported a .312 OBP.

2. Alarm Call, Bjork
Well, someone's feeling a bit Bjorky tonight, huh Mr. iPod?

3. Soul Survivor, The Rolling Stones
The early 70s can be summed up by the fact that the Stones use the phrase “bell bottom blues” in this song, nicking it from the Derek and the Dominoes track of the same name.

4. Buddy Holly, Weezer
I remember brain coral mocking my love of this song while we moved aimlessly one day through the music section of the Charlottesville K-Mart back in 1994...

5. Summer Crane, The Avalanches
The first time I owned a radio with a tuning knob, I spun it with as much torque as I could muster. It sounded like an avalanche...

THE GRAY SHARK

Life is full of random edits.

I left the office tonight 15 minutes or so later than usual. My family is in Japan for a month, so there is less imperative to get home for dinner by 6:15.

The area around my building was crawling with traffic, so I made a right turn where I normally make a left. This led me to a large traffic circle.

Cars were backed up a bit along the circle, and I waited for a light to change ahead of me, so that things would unclog and clear the way for me to circumnavigate my way around.

As I sat there, a dark gray Range Rover pulled up next to me. I powered down my passenger-side window when I saw the driver gesturing at me.

“Do you know the nearest place to get gas? I'm really low.”

I explained to him the route to the nearest station, which was maybe a mile or so down the road.

“I'm almost empty. Is there anywhere closer?”

I shook my head, and wished him luck as the light turned green. He would need to get in my lane to follow my directions, so I found it a little curious when he said “You go,” and waved a hand over his side-view mirror.

I began to make my way around the circle, and noticed immediately that he was behind me. I turned off the circle, to head for the avenue that would take me to the beltway, and he made the same turn.

I did not think too much about it at this point. I figured that he had made a strange decision, given his apparently dire gas situation, but people make strange decisions all the time.

I made some incidental lane changes as I went down the road, and I took notice of the fact that he mirrored my changes precisely. My grip on the wheel grew tighter.

I came to a red light, and he pulled up next to me again. He mumbled something about needing gas, and I said “You have to make a right here.”

“I'm going to keep following you,” he said, and I saw vacant menace in his eyes. He now had a small ragged white towel wrapped around the steering wheel.

“I'm not going anywhere near a gas station,” I said. I left the stop line in a hurry when the light changed.

Sure enough, he worked his way behind me. We were heading for the beltway.

I took out my cell phone and flipped it open right up by my ear. I pantomimed pressing a few numbers, and moved my lips as if in conversation for about 15 seconds, pointing periodically to the Range Rover behind me.

I folded the phone, and made the left turn that would take me to the beltway. He stayed close behind me.

When I hit the entrance ramp, I accelerated dramatically, in an effort to put some cars between us. It worked momentarily, but he sped around any slower cars and resumed his place behind me. I made a couple of other evasive moves, but they all had the same end result.

I had at this point seen enough to convince me that some other action was needed. I called 911 and narrated my situation to three different people, the last of whom was a cop.

“I'm coming up to my regular exit. Should I get off here, or keep going?”

He told me to get off, and began explaining how I should navigate the cloverleaf traffic pattern I was about to enter, in an effort to shake the Range Rover from my tail.

I had to cross over a solid white line rather suddenly in order to make the exit, and the Range Rover did the same.

The cop told me to take the west-bound exit. I explained that this was my normal route home, so I was familiar with the area.

And suddenly, as I headed for the west-bound exit, the Range Rover veered quickly onto the east-bound ramp. I explained this to the cop, and then gave him a quick description of the vehicle.

For the rest of my drive, I kept one eye on the rear-view mirror, half expecting the Range Rover to pop up like a predatory shark...

As this evening goes on, I'm sure that I will eventually start to walk past windows without grinding my teeth a little. As this evening goes on, I'm sure that I will eventually stop stealing furtive looks at the street outside my house. As this evening goes on, I'm sure that I will eventually sleep.

Eventually...

THE FRAGILE DEFENCE OF WORDS

1. Ocean of Noise, Arcade Fire
The attempt to rhyme “noise” and “voice” sounds like a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas, people. Nails on a chalkboard. Dry fingers rubbing styrofoam...

2. Unreleased Backgrounds, The Beach Boys
Fifty seconds of random wordless harmonizing from the Pet Sounds sessions. It has cleansed mine ears...

3. Stutter, Elastica
Well, hello 1995. How have you been? Seen Weezer around?

4. Come and Play in the Milky Night, Stereolab
I think they actually nicked the “come and play” part from the Sesame Street theme, which is wholly appropriate. This is coin of the same realm...

5. Oh, You Pretty Things, David Bowie
I imagine that a line like “Gotta make way for the homo superior” made some newspapers shake down round the pub in 1971. So points for that, DB...

RISE IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING

1. Sacrificial Bonfire, XTC
See, now that's a beauty way to end an album. And then the American label tacks on the cack single and fecks it all up. Dear god...

2. Jack-Ass, Beck
Odelay seems like a relic from a far-away place and time. This one made me misty in that long ago (“gravity shackles” and braying donkeys notwithstanding), and it's still pretty damn affecting...

3. Skip Steps 1 & 3, Superchunk
Step 2, apparently: Start proto-emo band.

4. Devil House, Shonen Knife
The first time I went to Japan, I met someone who recorded on the same label as Shonen Knife. He gave me a small coin purse to remember him by, and I gave him my Zippo.

5. Go Mental, The Ramones
Speaking of Shonen Knife. And this is sad and self-parodic like a good half of Rock Animals...

THE SCENERY CIRCLING THE MALL

1. Venus, Bananarama
OK, this is the 'Rama at their soulless fembot worst. Shocking Blue says shame on you...

2. Purr, Sonic Youth
All the smart/dumb SY stuff the kids love so much. Smart being the noise, dumb being the words.

3. One More Time, The Clash
I'm looking out of the corner of my eye at a Casey Stengel baseball card from 1962 that's sitting on my desk. We still miss you, Joe Strummer...

4. Washington, D.C., The Magnetic Fields
This was our theme song when we were considering our move from NY to the D.C. area. And I don't see how anyone could hear this and not move to D.C.

5. The Villain, Lieutenant Pigeon
As if the name Lieutenant Pigeon was not cool enough, they were actually an offshoot of another band: Snavely Makepeace. May the sun never set on you, 1970s Britain...

PEOPLE WHO DIED

On this date in music history, both Brian Jones (1969) and Jim Morrison (1971) died.

What say you in tribute, iPod?

1. Lucky Number, Lene Lovich
OK, not for Brian and Jim it wasn't. Full confession: the name “Lovich” makes me laugh...

2. Tell That Girl to Shut Up, Holly and the Italians
My obsession with female-fronted New Wave acts of the early 80s continues unabated. Apparently.

3. The Jury, Morphine
I kid you not, and holy shit: Mark Sandman, lead singer of Morphine, died on July 3, 1999. That's just fucking weird, man.

4. When Doves Cry, Prince
Leave it to 1984 Prince to give a song a silly name like When Doves Cry, and then have the pure genius to actually make it sound like doves crying. And then to get the avant-funk shit up to #1...

5. HiBall Nova Scotia, The High Llamas
See, Sean O'Hagan has spent his musical life trying to make his songs sound like his titles. But still no When Doves Cry...

MATH ROCK

A quick Monday shuffle.

1. What Is Happening, Cornershop
Any song that repeats a sample of someone saying “turkey gravy” can't be all bad. Just mostly bad.

2. Come Live With Me, Heaven 17
“I was 37, you were 17/You were half my age...” OK, first of all, this sounds biographical, so: Yuk. And douchebag, 17 isn't half of 37...

3. Beginning to See the Light, The Velvet Underground
More math: This is 50% a goof, and 45% the sound of your life being saved. The remaining 5% is inactive ingredients...

4. Psychotic Reaction, Count Five
Frug. Just, frug. That is all.

5. You Got The Silver, The Rolling Stones
Not the Let It Bleed version, with Keith on vocals, but an early Mick take. The backing instrumentation is pretty much the same, but I have to say Keith brought this a certain vulnerability that Mick could not really muster...