FIRE MY IMAGINATION
OK, Stevie Jackson from Belle & Sebastian is coming out with a solo album.
The name of the album is "(I Can't Get No) Stevie Jackson."
I think we can all agree that this is the greatest album title ever.
Greatest. Ever.
Stevie Jackson, you magnificent bastard...
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Friday, September 23, 2011
LET'S BEGIN AGAIN
So, the end of R.E.M. sent me scurrying down to the sliced tongue vault in search of artifacts from the early days. Here's some of what I dug up.
The earliest review I could find was a quick and complimentary write up of the original Hib-Tone Radio Free Europe single. This appeared in the "America Underground" section of the April, 1982 issue of Trouser Press:
The December, 1982 "Green Circles" column in TP contained a favorable review of Chronic Town:
The same issue also contained a flexi disc of Wolves, Lower, the other side of which featured one of the two good Lords of the New Church singles (Russian Roulette).
I realize that these black flexis don't scan particularly well. Someday soon I'll do a more comprehensive post on the Trouser Press flexis, which came in a rainbow of cool colors beyond basic black...
Finally, here's a Creem profile from October, 1984, just for kicks:
So, the end of R.E.M. sent me scurrying down to the sliced tongue vault in search of artifacts from the early days. Here's some of what I dug up.
The earliest review I could find was a quick and complimentary write up of the original Hib-Tone Radio Free Europe single. This appeared in the "America Underground" section of the April, 1982 issue of Trouser Press:
The December, 1982 "Green Circles" column in TP contained a favorable review of Chronic Town:
The same issue also contained a flexi disc of Wolves, Lower, the other side of which featured one of the two good Lords of the New Church singles (Russian Roulette).
I realize that these black flexis don't scan particularly well. Someday soon I'll do a more comprehensive post on the Trouser Press flexis, which came in a rainbow of cool colors beyond basic black...
Finally, here's a Creem profile from October, 1984, just for kicks:
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
RAPID EYE MOVEMENT
It was about a week and a half ago, and I was driving home on 7100. My family had returned at the end of August, but I was still experiencing pockets of the anxiety I typically feel when they're out of the country.
My rational mind knows that they will come back from Japan, but while they're gone I tend to get weighted down by a foundational loneliness that does not answer to reason. And I was still stuck in that rut...
I came to a red light and slid my way through the iTunes menu, looking for something I needed to hear. Looking for anything I needed to hear.
“That's it!”
I selected the track, and the drum fills came tripping through the speakers.
“That's great, it starts with an earthquake...”
Now, I don't quite understand the Tufnelian logic behind my car stereo, but I immediately turned the volume up past 40. Loud. It felt good.
Folks did not know what to make of It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) when it came out back in '87. Hell, R.E.M. didn't know what to make of it. I can remember reading an interview with Peter Buck right before Document was released, and he said that it was either the best or the worst thing they'd ever done.
The beauty of the song is that beyond its nihilistic feint, it's propulsive and metallic and goddam life affirming.
It's not the end of the world, remember. It's the end of the world as we know it. And I feel fine.
So thank you, R.E.M., for all the murmurs and reckonings and fables and documents you've left behind.
I just know that somewhere right now at some red light someone is turning the volume up past 40...
“That's great, it starts with an earthquake...”
It was about a week and a half ago, and I was driving home on 7100. My family had returned at the end of August, but I was still experiencing pockets of the anxiety I typically feel when they're out of the country.
My rational mind knows that they will come back from Japan, but while they're gone I tend to get weighted down by a foundational loneliness that does not answer to reason. And I was still stuck in that rut...
I came to a red light and slid my way through the iTunes menu, looking for something I needed to hear. Looking for anything I needed to hear.
“That's it!”
I selected the track, and the drum fills came tripping through the speakers.
“That's great, it starts with an earthquake...”
Now, I don't quite understand the Tufnelian logic behind my car stereo, but I immediately turned the volume up past 40. Loud. It felt good.
Folks did not know what to make of It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) when it came out back in '87. Hell, R.E.M. didn't know what to make of it. I can remember reading an interview with Peter Buck right before Document was released, and he said that it was either the best or the worst thing they'd ever done.
The beauty of the song is that beyond its nihilistic feint, it's propulsive and metallic and goddam life affirming.
It's not the end of the world, remember. It's the end of the world as we know it. And I feel fine.
So thank you, R.E.M., for all the murmurs and reckonings and fables and documents you've left behind.
I just know that somewhere right now at some red light someone is turning the volume up past 40...
“That's great, it starts with an earthquake...”
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
LET'S ALL EMOTE
I tend to serialize albums.
Back in the day, I spent months listening to the first side of Murmur, then eventually, more months listening to the second side.
When I fell for Hissing Fauna, it was initially enough to listen up to or through The Past is a Grotesque Animal, and then stop. After about six months of that, I would either start with that song or right after it, and then on through to the end, my obsession unabated.
I've now made it through the first five songs of David Comes to Life by Fucked Up. Which, frankly, is further than I might have expected to get with an album that is so centered on retro hardcore hoarse-whispering vocals. I mean, Christ, I had no use for Henry Rollins in 1984, let alone now...
But I am finding something charming about the whole affair, right down to its four-act rock-opera lightbulb-factory soul.
In my dream world, where EPs are king, this thing would have come out as four individual one-act discs, with a new disc released every other month or so. Which would have saved me the trouble of trying to self-serialize the damn thing.
But since the responsibility is on my shoulders now, I don't know if I'll ever get past Act 1...
I tend to serialize albums.
Back in the day, I spent months listening to the first side of Murmur, then eventually, more months listening to the second side.
When I fell for Hissing Fauna, it was initially enough to listen up to or through The Past is a Grotesque Animal, and then stop. After about six months of that, I would either start with that song or right after it, and then on through to the end, my obsession unabated.
I've now made it through the first five songs of David Comes to Life by Fucked Up. Which, frankly, is further than I might have expected to get with an album that is so centered on retro hardcore hoarse-whispering vocals. I mean, Christ, I had no use for Henry Rollins in 1984, let alone now...
But I am finding something charming about the whole affair, right down to its four-act rock-opera lightbulb-factory soul.
In my dream world, where EPs are king, this thing would have come out as four individual one-act discs, with a new disc released every other month or so. Which would have saved me the trouble of trying to self-serialize the damn thing.
But since the responsibility is on my shoulders now, I don't know if I'll ever get past Act 1...
Friday, September 09, 2011
SEE SPOTIFY RUN
I'm finding that Spotify is a great research tool.
For example, let's say I was reading an interview with Kevin Ayers in the Oct/Nov 1976 edition of Trouser Press, and the references to Soft Machine made me realize that there's a whole strain of English art rock about which I know some of the history, but precious little of the sound.
I could then use Spotify to listen to a bit of Soft Machine, and probably find I didn't have the patience for it. Then, I might listen to some of Ayers solo stuff, and determine that his most-lauded tracks left me unmoved.
From there, I'd indulge a long-term curiosity in Robert Wyatt, and come out of it kind of obsessed with his 1997 album, Shleep. I'd probably think that Shleep reminds me of solo Jim O'Rourke, except with a gravity and whimsy that I didn't realize I was missing in O'Rourke until I heard Wyatt.
This is all theoretical, you understand. The thought that I might actually sit around reading 35-year-old copies of Trouser Press is just absurd.
Um, yeah...
Anyway, here's a clip of Wyatt performing September the 9th. Because, well, check your calendars...
I'm finding that Spotify is a great research tool.
For example, let's say I was reading an interview with Kevin Ayers in the Oct/Nov 1976 edition of Trouser Press, and the references to Soft Machine made me realize that there's a whole strain of English art rock about which I know some of the history, but precious little of the sound.
I could then use Spotify to listen to a bit of Soft Machine, and probably find I didn't have the patience for it. Then, I might listen to some of Ayers solo stuff, and determine that his most-lauded tracks left me unmoved.
From there, I'd indulge a long-term curiosity in Robert Wyatt, and come out of it kind of obsessed with his 1997 album, Shleep. I'd probably think that Shleep reminds me of solo Jim O'Rourke, except with a gravity and whimsy that I didn't realize I was missing in O'Rourke until I heard Wyatt.
This is all theoretical, you understand. The thought that I might actually sit around reading 35-year-old copies of Trouser Press is just absurd.
Um, yeah...
Anyway, here's a clip of Wyatt performing September the 9th. Because, well, check your calendars...
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