Drooling while Sleeping

As I sit here writing this, I am effectively putting off a paying assignment in order to pull something out of my ass for your benefit (you being the three people who end up reading this). I love writing for this blog as it affords me the opportunity to stroke my ego, create something, blather about music, and get into fights.

Most film people harbor a fairly high level of apprehension for the films of Harmony Korine. I can’t really argue with this sentiment. He is often juvenile at best, and his apparent desire, if not need, to be provocative more than occasionally gets in the way of his actually making something worth a shit. Having said that, I have thoroughly enjoyed some of his work, including the infamous mess, Gummo, but perhaps even better than the film is the soundtrack.

I knew I was in for something tasty when in an opening scene you see the two hillbilly protagonists (used loosely) of the film riding their bikes through a trashed rural town to the beautiful sounds of Sleep’s Dragonaut.

Dragonaut is one of those songs that is so fucking badass that other songs offer to do its homework in order to not get their ass kicked.

I was first introduced to the majesty of Sleep at one of Ramon and Rosa’s killer Christmas parties. Back when they were still throwing these shindigs, these parties were like a who’s who of Houston retards. Members of many of Houston’s best 90’s bands were not only in attendance, but were also well cidered into the next millennium with years to spare.

While being thoroughly amused to the blatantly Black Sabbath oriented sound of Sleep I was approached by Dave Keith, member of the local grunge monster, Bleach Bath. Dave had clearly partaken in an excessive dose of the cider and was giving me one of his drunken looks.

“Hey man, what the fuck is this stuff we’re listening to,” he asked me.

“They’re called Sleep. Isn’t it amazing?”

“Shit. I gotta tell you, I’m having a real strong sense of Sabba-Vuj-De.”

Short, silent pause as we look at one another, and then suddenly both burst into laughter.

“Would that be the sense that you have heard this somewhere before, but originally created by Sabbath?”

“Something like that.”

Another in a long line of reasons why Dave is so incredibly cool.

Dragonaut is a motherfucker of a track. In fact, Dragonaut is the capper on the top of an album that is as monstrous as you would want it to be. It’s also the most derivative album I may have ever heard and still thought was total genius. It’s so good that I would personally sucker punch anyone who tried to argue its brilliance, so just don’t. The album is called Holy Mountain. I used to own it; well I guess I still technically do, but unfortunately for me, Mr. Sparrows o’ Happiness has had my copy for well nigh twelve years now. Holy Mountain, which I would assume is named after Alejandro Jodorowski's amazing film, is the be all-end all Sabbath tribute band. For me, although it is not the first release to do this, it is the genesis of the modern stoner rock sound, post Sabbath. To hear this album is truly like a bad case of Sabba-vuj-de. Around every corner is a riff lifted right out of Tony Iommi's book, but they do it so well that it only adds to brilliance of the whole thing. The whole time I listen to that album, I am constantly laughing at the obvious Sabbath influence, all while getting blown away by how good it sounds. Basically, if you took the members of Sabbath, raised them in California, kept them loaded down with free NoCal weed (like some Humboldt County shit or something), bought them Orange amps, kicked their ass into next week, and then removed half of each band member's brain you would have Sleep. Cut them loose in a studio and you get Holy Mountain. Totally fantastic stuff.

Another essential release in the Sleep catalogue is the album known (depending on which version you have) as Jerusalem, or Dopesmoker. They are essentially both the same record, but while Jerusalem is the original release that was basically a bootleg authorized by the original band members, Dopesmoker is the revamped version, released full-length, and with no edits. This matters because Jerusalem/Dopesmoker is one long, insanely ridiculous track performed at grindingly slow speed with maximum distortion and sleaze. It is completely retarded and I love every second of it. While Holy Mountain was able to both be inadvertently pants-wettingly, and completely capable of blowing you away at the same time, Jerusalem/Dopesmoker seems to sport a knowing, tongue in cheek quality to it simply by the sheer magnitude of its hugeness coupled with lines like “proceed the Weedian, Nazareth.” Nice. It’s as though Matt Pike (later of High on Fire (also fantastic)) is beginning to get the joke. In actuality he would probably kick my ass for saying that since nothing is funny to Matt Pike. It would appear as though the “Weedian” are some sort of chosen-people, out in the desert, nomadically getting all biblical and shit. I know, I know, it’s fucking ridiculous. Don’t you love it though? Yes, the answer is yes.

Enrique Iglesias could almost perform the rest of the Gummo sountrack after the Sleep track and I would probably still like it, but thankfully his mole-laden visage is nowhere to be found. Unless, that is, he plays in a Norwegian black metal band. Not saying he doesn’t, but if he does, I hope he got that Aryan creature Anna Kornikova to play bass. I’d burn churches with those two. It would totally be worth it.

The whole soundtrack is a pretty enjoyable collection of generally fairly obscure death metal bands with the exception of a few huge names. Brujeria, the joke band that also happens to be brilliant is on there with their anthem to killing whitey, Matando Gueros 97. The New York death/grind outfit, Mortician, has a brutal and merciless track replete with blastbeats that sound like they just might live up to the song title (Skin Peeler). There is a handful of nasty if not entirely goofy satanic sludge tracks like the one by New Orleans monsters, Eye Hate God. Drew from Project Grimm (my old band) is an enormous Eye Hate God fan. Their signature is slow, brutal, Sabbath-like riff oriented muck that leaves you feeling thrilled and hopeless at the same time. Rounding out the album is a couple tracks by dramatically different artists whose pieces both sound as though they belong together in this otherwise brutal collection.

First off is Suite No. 2 in Solo Cello in D Minor Prelude by the Russian composer Mischa Maiski. If I had to guess, this is the track that guys put on their extreme metal mix tapes to convince that girl that’s on the fence that it’s ok to blow him because he is really sensitive at heart. I’d like to believe that this worked on Chloe Sevigny who has twice now shown herself to be a most interesting foil to megalomaniacal filmmakers with a lust for overstatement and unintentionally hilarious imagery. No doubt Vincent Gallo promised her the world if only she would blow him, onscreen, at the climactic moment of his generally underrated film, Brown Bunny (the edited version anyway. I can’t vouch for the extended cut; you know, the one that sent him packing from Cannes with the sounds of boos hot on his ankle-booted heels).

Don’t get me wrong, the Maiski cut is truly beautiful, and it is the perfect compliment to the rest of the soundtrack. I just think that if Korine was going to put the sensitive track on there, he should perhaps mix things up just a wee more. Which, I guess, he arguably does by including the last piece I want to mention off this album.

The track in question is Rundgang Um Die Transzendentale Säule Der Singularität by the Norwegian madman, Burzum. Burzum, for those not already in the know, is the stage name for Varg Vikernes, and Vikernes was at one time a member of the Norwegian black metal band, Mayhem. The founder, guitarist and eventual vocalist of Mayhem, Euronymous (who took over after the original vocalist, Dead, blew his head off in a fit of ironic glee), was at one time great friends with Vikernes, but eventually like all things crazy, all hell broke loose. Apparantly, Vikernes felt his extreme – even for Norwegian black metal – views were simply too much for him to tolerate his friend’s homosexuality, politics, views on the “scene,” and whatever else it takes to set those already teetering people over the edge. Vikernes' solution to their differences was to brutally stab his friend to death. In a music scene already well documented for its complete adherance to violence, Satanism, ultranationalist politics, Norse mythology, extreme one-upmanship, and a slavish hatred for the centuries old influx of Christianity into Viking culture that leads to more violence and church burning, Vikernes is still a lunatic above them all. Quite a feat really. Burzum is the name of Vikernes’ band/solo-project. Early on, Burzum sounded like a particularly bleak and frightening black metal outfit with a penchant for creepy aesthetics suffused through a hushed, ghostly wail of a voice. While guitar based, early Burzum is somehow totally unique to the black metal idiom while still operating well within its boundaries. Eventually, as Vikernes became the only actual member of Burzum, the music morphed into electronic soundscapes that are often disturbing without being brash, and also quite impressive in their stark beauty. A fine example of this is the track used on the Gummo soundtrack. And it brings me back to the topic at hand.

Coupled with Maiski, Burzum is a welcomed respite in the maelstrom of pounding heaviness that otherwise dominates the soundtrack. I suppose, or at least hope, that Korine’s use of the Burzum track as a pleasnt couterpoint to the rest of the metal and noise serves as his way of injecting a little humor in the proceedings, but you know, Korine did write the screenplay for Kids after all. Subtlety isn’t exactly one of his strong points.

Then again, he did get Werner Herzog to drink cough syrup out of a women’s shoe in the film Julien Donkey Boy. That alone is enough for me to defend the guy. If only Sevigny had blown Herzog on film too. Oh well, better luck next time.

Before I go, I just have to mention one quick thing. Ever since Ramon mentioned it in his last post, this has been burning me from the inside out like some sort of hyperactive ulcer after a chili dinner.

It’s that time of year once again when the local “alternative newsweekly,” the Houston Press, gets all goofy under the collar for local music and has their music awards showcase. Fair enough. It’s a good way for people to have some fun and see a lot of music, and also a great way for some of the more popular bands in town to hang out and get blind drunk in bars that would never welcome them otherwise. Dandy. But this is where the horseshit idiocy of epically monumental proportions takes over and the Press shows itself to be the soulless turd hive that it so clearly is so much of the time.

Unless this is some sort of huge joke on the Press’s part, they will be closing out their awards showcase this year with a little band called Saliva. I know who Saliva is, but it is admittedly for dubious reasons. I don’t really know why this is, but I have this horrible ability to remember all sorts of horrible things about popular music, horrible, useless things. And when I refer to the music in question as popular, I mean – in the case of Saliva – on the verge of total anonymity. Saliva had a very minor hit about five years ago. It was one of those Three Doors Down type of rockers that makes you want to buy a rock of crack and go beat down that guy at the corner store like you always dreamed of doing if you could just find the balls to do it. Beyond that completely forgettable little number, Saliva’s main assbag is also known for singing a duet with the single greatest fuckweed in pop outside of that Creed douche, Scott Stapp: Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger. It was recorded to go on the soundtrack for Spiderman 2 and it is truly atrocious. People have been killed for less.

That’s who Saliva is, and that’s who will wrap up the awards show into one neat and tidy little package of shit. Nobody likes this band, nobody, not even the fat, sleazy, Vegas crack dealer of a frontman who sings of unrequited love and big manly guns. They are completely worthless on every level, and then to think that some asshole thought it would be a good idea to put these douchenozzles on the end of a local music awards showcase, as if a national act of the lowest order was still somehow more interesting that anything we have to offer here in Houston, is as fucking brilliant as it is arrogant. It’s like telling all the local bands that, “hey guys, we really think you’re all so gosh-darn groovy. In fact, we think you’re all so dee-lish that we want to punch up the show with a little treat for everyone just to show, A) how little we actually think of Houston bands, and, B) how morally bankrupt our sense of humor has to be in order to think we could ever walk in this town again without being sniped from the top of every building. Enjoy your show, Houston! You rock, baby!”

Idiots. May Rusted Shut finally do the do and burn that fucker to the ground. I might go to that show.

On second thought…

rumours

hehe... this is the result of sliding down that slippery slope of reading, writing, and considering seriously the work of ac/dc and steely dan. sure, there may be a genius unrecognized by the h-word people in their music, but then you're going to force my hand, and i will end up writing about bananarama as a result.

***this just in... bananarama has just released (summer 2007) a new album drama with a new single look on the floor and will be performing at marble hill (london) on august 18th!!! this, combined with the fact there's somebody hiding out in london who needs to have his tongue removed (read below) almost justifies the purchase of an airline ticket. but not quite.***

in all truth, the reason this post is coming so late is because i've been out combatting upsetting rumors and trying to track down their sources, which is why i find this video so appropriate at the moment. plus, looking at their clothes makes me feel slightly better about how i'm dressed today.


there is more to come, but i'm afraid you'll have to check the re-edited version of this post a bit later.

a bit later... the rumors were pretty bad, but they were concerning someone else's supposed drug abuse and borrowing large sums of money from me to pay for it; at the moment, the rumors didn't have anything to do with broken hearts. the loop on these things is very small so i've/we've collaboratively figured out who is changing fact to make things seem like what they are not. unfortunately, this person is a friend of a friend in england and i don't have any immediate plans to fly over there, where i could more easily throttle the culprit. it's so much easier for someone who is once removed, isn't it? it's so easy to take a smattering of details, amplify them, feign concern, and not have any responsibility for the consequences of the relationships back here. broken hearts probably have a lot to do with all of this, but the details would bore you all. they are not different or more special than the broken hearts suffered anywhere else.

last night, by the way, i pulled an all-nighter cleaning my desks at the office. one doesn't get to listen to music while doing this because it requires too much concentration. having papers, drawings, contracts etc. in order lends a bit of peace and tranquility to an otherwise incomprehensible life.

to continue with the trope of all-the-fantastic-live-music- that-has-happened-in-new-york-this-week-that-i-couldn't see-because-i-like-to-pay-my-bills-almost-on-time, i have missed almost all of summerstage in central park this summer, including most a showcase put together by king britt featuring liz mccomb whose "you ain't christian enough" is featured on the podcast. i like soul music even in some of its most commercialized forms. i made it on time for some kind of jam band with roots in philadelphia and new orleans. i couldn't really get into it, but i blame myself and not the music.


sorry for the lack of capitalization in this post. not sorry about the bananarama, though. Goddess on the mountain top, Burning like a silver flame, The summit of beauty and love, And Venus was her name... actually, i have to second someone else's opinion in the steely dan comments section that the new throbbing gristle is really good. i will put myself to sleep tonight listening to that. tschüss.

Twenty Eight

Click on the podcast link in the right margin of this blog to hear episodes of the NONALIGNMENT PACT podcasts. If you need help.... ask.

Please submit guesses for Ramon's mystery tune in the comments section of this post.

Clues may be provided if the songs cannot be guessed. Song and Artist must be guessed in order for you to win and provide the next mystery tune on an upcoming cast.


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once

today is the last day of the Auckland International Film Festival, and in the past 17 days I've seen something like 60 movies. (Actually, I'm writing this Saturday night and I have four more to go, but barring getting hit by a car or something, I'll see them tomorrow. And TWO-LANE BLACKTOP is the last movie, which for anyone who knows how that ends is a very appropriate ending.)

Although I have some technical issues - shooting 2.35:1 widescreen in DV is a stupid idea since it makes a crappy format look worse - one of the films that moved me most at this festival is ONCE, which if you're not living in Alaska or New Zealand is quite possibly playing at an arthouse near you (unlike the preponderance of films I saw here, from a Korean dystopian animation about a future where the only remaining energy source is excrement to a documentary about the Helvetica font). Basically, this is a kind of romance and very funny at points, but it's not really a romantic comedy, and it's full of music but it's not a musical per se in that characters only sing when they're supposed to, but because the characters are musicians they sing a lot.

There's a scene early on where our lead characters, played by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova (and credited as "guy" and "girl", so I'll just use their names), first decide to try to play a song together, and Glen breaks out this song and teaches it to Marketa. What's remarkable about this scene, first of all, is that it's unlike virtually any other time you've seen somebody teach a band or another musician a song in a movie. Normally, the lead guy says something like, "just follow along", and the band magically manages to follow our hero through unspecified chord changes, four different parts, everything shy of "Cygnus X-1". Here, it absolutely feels (to me, anyway) like they're playing the song together for the first time.

And then there's the song that they're playing, which I had never heard before, and if you haven't heard it I'm tempted to tell you not to watch this til you see the movie, only because its effect on me was pretty magic. Truth is, I teared up just a little bit. But I'm a big softie at heart (the list of movies I've cried in is not a short one, even if you limit it to movies I saw at this festival).

On the other hand, a decent number of people walked out of the movie midway through, basically (I guess, having not conducted exit polls) because a LOT of the not particularly long running time is spent on the songs, and if you don't like the music then, well, there's sod all to offer. So below is "Falling Slowly", in the best version that I could find. It doesn't have the chemistry between the two leads that the movie does, particularly because Marketa keeps disappearing behind some guy's shoulder, but you get what you pay for.

(Hansard, by the way, is the singer of the Frames, who I don't really know but are opening for Dylan who I'm seeing in two weeks and now I'm doubly excited for that show.)

Domokos don't let us down!!!!!!

Here we are again, it's that annual Houston Press Music Awards Showcase. Now to be honest nobody gives a shit who wins. In fact, for quite a few years I would just simply write-in Rusted Shut for every category even if my band was nominated. Why? Just because, well, why the fuck not? I mean, in the end, it's really all about celebrating the local bands, drinking like a horse, and waiting for some shit to blow up around Domokos at some point. If that isn't sweet, I don't know what is.

Pictures and drunken roundup next week! While I'll still poke my head into clubs at random, here are the main things I'm gonna try to catch:


4:00 pm .................Dizzy Pilot (Bar Bollywood). Solid pop indie stuff with a crazy fro- powered guitarist.

4:00 pm .................Poor Dumb Bastards (Grasshopper). Old school guys. We used to play out with them all the time. I'd seen them so many times back in the day that I got kind of burned out on them but I'd been meaning to catch them again - this may be a good excuse.

5:00 pm .................The Jonx (Hard Rock Café). Unbeatable trio of proggy post-punk ass whoopers. Plus their album is one of the best things to come out of Houston this year!

5:00 pm ..................Whorehound (Livé). Whorehound is a trio with bass powerhouse Trevi Biles (he of the infamous Brown Paper Dog back in the day). He alone is reason enough to dig Whorehound but he's also got a solid team along for the ride.

7:00 pm ..................Insect Warfare (Slainte). Get your metal on! I will say no more.

8:00 pm ..................O Pioneers (Grasshopper) Chris Ryan is in this band again I need say no More!

8:00 pm ..................Ragged Hearts (Life Lounge) I'd heard good things about these guys so I may pop my head in.

8:00 pm ..................Satin Hooks (Livé) No they aren't experimental but they do rock! I hope they get nominated for best experimental every year as it's pretty funny. A great live band whose upcoming LP is something I am looking forward to hear!
8:00 pm ..................Drop Trio (Red Cat Jazz Café). Motherfuckin' Smooth Ass Shit! No one else can touch them! I remember one of our biggest thrills was having Ian sit in and play keyboards with us. Ya gotta love people willin' to slum with the apes.

9:00 pm ..................Bring Back the Guns (Grasshopper) Energetic poppie indie stuff and with a new album coming out this fall! Always a fun show!
9:00 pm ..................Sideshow Tramps (Hard Rock Café) Formerly the Medicine Show. The new name doesn't do it for me but there's no denying the band their dues! Maybe this year I can get inside the club to see them.
9:00 pm ..................Sharks & Sailors (St. Pete’s Dancing Marlin) Oh Jesus, are you sick of me praising this band yet? They are just incredible live and, yes, they too have a new album coming out this fall too!
9:00 pm ...................The Dimes (Verizon Wireless Theater) Everyone's favorite sonic youths! Poppy songs, sharp musicianship, and they are playing a theatre which should be pretty amusing.


10:15 pm.................Saliva (Verizon Wireless Theater) Just kidding it's just the lame national act that the Press feels obligated to book. Why? That's the perpetual question. Nobody cares to see these acts so nobody has ever been able to figure why the Press books these "soon to be playing the Scout Bar" national acts but I suspect it's either to attract sponsors or simply some sick joke. Whatever the reason for this, just come on out and have fun.

Get Off My Lawn

I've been trying to figure out why I'm not as interested in seeing live music as I used to be. I guess the obvious answer is that I've seen so much of it that not much live music seems new. Once you've seen a few guys playing guitars a few hundred times, you don't really need to see it again. So then you resort to seeing music that comes with a built-in spectacle. Like aggressively punk rock. Or cute and Japanese. But spectacle doesn't have anything to do with music, does it? You can't exactly take cute and Japanese home and listen to it in headphones. After a while, even the most elaborate shows start to give you that empty feeling again.

But wait. Maybe there are other reasons I don't like seeing live music anymore. Like maybe I'm a cranky old man who hates people. That's certainly a possibility, because I am cranky and old and I hate people. The problem with that theory, though, is that I don't feel like I hate people any more or less than I ever have (I especially hate you) and I used to go to shows all the time. So that's probably not the reason I don't like seeing live music. Or it's at least not the only reason.

As I'm sitting here thinking about this (mostly out of the need to have something to write about), I think that possibly the best explanation for why I don't get excited about seeing live music anymore is that going to most live music shows isn't very participatory. I mean, you go, you stand there, and you listen. I guess you could dance, but that's not always appropriate and--as I've mentioned in this space before--my dancing skills are subpar (to say the least). Usually while standing there listening, I feel like I want to be doing, rather than just passively consuming. The internet has probably spoiled me here, with all its participation. Simply standing and watching seems, like, so twentieth century.

I realize that I could just be playing music--and I've done that before--but then there is that group of people (usually small, in my case) that are just standing there. I guess that's good for somebody who wants attention, but I'm not really that sort. I would rather those watchers were part of the action instead.

That would just turn into a drum circle, wouldn't it? Everybody just banging on things in some sort of freaky love-in. No, that's not what I want at all. Because, you know, I hate people (see above). So there must be some sort of middle ground; some way that everybody can participate in the playing of the music without the whole thing devolving into tie-dye and patchouli.

This will require more thought.

Week 39: Memorable Quotes 2, Steely Dan’s Letters

Ok, I’ve gotten the feeling over the past year we’ve been doing this blog, that Steely Dan is not the most popular choice among us. But you know what, I love Steely Dan. As a matter of fact if I had to pick a genre of American music that I like almost as much as Metal, I would pick Yacht, as a genre that is. Just like Metal there is a bunch of it I can't stand and very few that I really love, but if I had to pick, I'd choose all that nice smooth rock as a group – Hall and Oates, Toto, Kenny Loggins, Doobie Brothers, it’s all alright with me.

Steely Dan often gets thrown into the newly defined Yacht genre, and I can see why. But to me they are far and above the bunch. They are really in a category well on their own. And yes, I know we’re all tired of Reelin in the Years and Rikki Don’t Lose That Number and Do It Again, etc etc etc. But to me they are just like Rush. The same way I’ve been able to consistently go back to Rush year after year now for 3 decades, in the same way I have been able to go back to Steely Dan and always find them enjoyable. There is always some new little nuance I hadn't notice and the songs just don't get old. Come to think of it, from my perspective Steely Dan and Rush pretty much fall within the same genre, one band is more ironic, the other one more earnest, one is more jazzy, the other one more metally, but both are ugly, geeky, both obsessed with their instruments, and with constructing carefully crafted songs with strong instrumental sections and both write lyrics that would make most people cringe. Yeah, Steely Dan and Rush, definitely born from the same mother and father... one raised in California, the other raised in Canada. Now what would that genre be called? I'm gonnna go listen to Tom Sawyer and Kid Charlemagne back to back see if I can figure it out. Or maybe the answer lies between A Passage to Bangkok and Bodhisattva.


So I like Steely Dan and what follows are two open letters that Steely Dan wrote, one to Luke Wilson a second one to Wes Anderson.

And I’m not a reporter, so the letters I'm linking below are not news and most of you might have already seen them. My interest in these letters is purely creative. I see them the same way I see songs, stories, paintings, etc. It’s all art to me (yes I went to art school so fuck off), and by the same token all are true on a certain level. The level of truth in these two letters is to me simply auto-hilarious.

This is the first one and in my view the more successful one of the two.

This one came out afterwards, following the well established tradition of sequels.

For other Memorable Quotes, click on the link below.

Busin' in der Bronx

Horace Andy recorded in the Bronx
and I was riding through the Bronx on a Greyhound bus
with an elderly Jamaican woman
verbalizing behind my head
into a cellphone.
She was letting everybody know, from Jimmy to Leon to Rita,
that she was okay despite accidentally roaming the New England highway system
for twenty-four hours
because she got on the wrong bus.


"I'm on my way Leon. De bus is rollin'. Ear it? Ear it rollin'? Me alright. Me don't go hungry. Me got plenty money."

Anyway, Horace Andy has the most unique falsetto in Dance Hall music outside of Musical Youth.

His first two albums were recorded in Jamaica then in the early 70's he wound up in the Bronx and recorded my favorite album, Dance Hall Style.

Dance Hall Style was recorded for Lloyd Bullwackie's Wackies label with the house band, not surprisingly called the Wackies. He recorded several reggae standards including some great takes of Money Money Money and Cuss Cuss.

My favorite track is the original song Spying Glass, a sly rant against rasta-harrassment.

Massive Attack adopted Horace Andy and recorded a good version of Spying Glass with him.

That's all well and good but you must go back to Dance Hall Style and hear the artist's original work with the competent Wackies house band.

Song
Spying Glass


Alright me breddahs.

Give thanks.

It's been a pleasure.

Keep it up same way like me do.



And 'ere is Horace Andy doing the dance hall thing in the early 80's.







The other thing on my mind while riding through the Bronx was my cousin John who quit a 250K salary job on Wall Street to form a friary in the second saddest borough of New York. A German film crew made a documentary about his personal mission. The documentary is still shown on German TV.

That was several years ago and John is now a priest in the Order of the Franciscans of Primitive Observance.

Tricia and I drove Father John to a wedding on Saturday where he performed the ceremony. In the car we spoke of the value of a simple life, the satisfaction derived from building your own house;
we discussed moles, and child abuse.

In church he spoke of true love and how it requires sacrifice. Makes some sense.

How HR Tugged His First Load

My wife likes shitty music. It’s a bone of contention. Of course, if you ask her, I like shitty music too. We fight about it. I hate her Dixie Chicks CD and she detests my Jandek records. I’ll never let her down for liking Edie Brickell, and she will never understand what is so goddamn magical about Dio era Sabbath. But if there is one thing I’ve learned through my life, it’s that you can’t define someone by his or her tastes. At least you can’t honestly do so categorically. Well, you can, but you would be a retard if you did.

All this talk about hipsters and rock bands and the like has had me thinking on this subject. I gave up knowing what was and wasn’t hip years ago. You know why, because I’m almost forty. I’m too old to fucking know the difference. When young people started calling me sir, it was over. That game is for young people.

I’m not above wanting to fit in somewhere; I’m just not so concerned with who thinks I’m cool and who doesn’t. I’ve learned that some folks like me and some don’t. I care about this, but at the same time, I don’t. My tastes change, and I try my best to keep up with them. I also try my best to follow my tastes without leading them too much in any one direction.

Of course I have my areas of specific interest, and I have bands, or musicians, or what have you that appeal to me more than others, but I try to stay open to the possibility that the beauty of music lies every-fucking-where.

My wife loves music. When we met (at one of my shows), she demonstrated a strong natural ear for melody and stylistic techniques. I was drawn to that (among other things) about her.

Notice I didn’t say that I completely embraced her tastes, because I didn’t, and I never will. There have been many exceptions, many bands that we love together (such as the Grifters, and (some) Calexico, Crowded House, etc… blah, blah, blah), but for every one that we agree on there are thirty or forty that I adore that simply bore here, or else straight out piss her off.

The reason I am using her as an example is because while our tastes in music (and other creative areas as well) are different, at the end of the day we are together because we care about and respect each other. I love that she cares so much about music even, and especially, if it is on her own terms. So what if I want to extinguish my own flame with a hand grenade every time she touches her Big Head Todd and the Monsters CD? Fortunately we’ve reached an agreement about the shitty stuff: neither of us will force the other to listen to it. Problem solved.

When I say I don’t like a band, like say the Ramones, it isn’t to be taken as a gospel truth no matter how much I joke about it being so. It just means this guy doesn’t think the Ramones are all that great. So what.

I’m sure I’m botching this here, but when Daniel posted a comment about how Bad Brains used Ramones lyrics to name themselves, or how Lemmy dug the Ramones, or how that windbag douche, Little Steven professes his love for the Ramones (he also loves Sugar Shack – as do I), I must say that I don’t really give a shit. Jim fucking dandy. Great. If HR from Bad Brains prattled on in his own blog about how he tugged his first load at a Ramones show, good for him. I’m not trying to deny that. It’s his blog after all. In mine I compared AC/DC to the Ramones to make a point. This seems to have stuck in people’s craw, but not for the right reasons. It would appear as though I have offended the very idea of liking them. I didn’t, for the record. I stated my dislike for them and did so in a particular context.

We’re all full of stupid assed ideas in this world. It takes a life to fill us up to the brim with our own bullshit. And we all build a mythology to live up to, myself most definitely included.

Claire’s right, cool doesn’t mean anything worthwhile anymore, and it never did. But anyone who thinks that there isn’t a desire for people to cling to precepts and idiosyncrasies because it helps them identify themselves in society is blind.

My wife and I take digs at one another’s tastes; it helps us rectify the fact that we are choosing to spend our lives with a person from a different universe than our own. Granted, I often wonder if I am the sole inhabitant of my universe, but that is something of a digression that I will avoid just this once. But after we tease each other we move on because it isn’t really that big a deal in the first place.

I think snobbery is a better way of identifying what is at work when our ire is raised, instead of hipsterism. Loosely defined, a hipster is someone who clings to fashionable trends in order to belong. A snob is someone who defines things within narrow parameters for the sake of limiting the access to those concepts. That idea is deplorable.

A hipster might think they are better than you (it really isn’t even necessary to being a hipster), but a snob fucking knows they are better than you.

Damn near no one calls me a hipster, but I am well versed in the accusation of being called a snob. Personally I think that claim is always from someone who doesn’t really know me very well. If they knew me well, then they would know that at heart, I hate everyone so much that I couldn’t really care less what they like as long as I don’t have to hear about it. If you sing in the shower to AFI, I’m sorry for you, but really, I don’t give a shit. I just hope you really like it. If you do, then fuck the rest of the world. They can have their John Coltrane and their Opeth, and you can still keep enjoying that Limp Bizkit CD that gets you so moist in the loins. My wife loves KD Lang’s voice. I hate it. And yet, I couldn’t be happier for her. Seriously. That’s called dignity, and I may have given up a lot to be who I am in this life, but I haven’t given that away. Well, at least not all of it anyway.

And a la-di-fucking-da to you all.

(I should perhaps add that I am taking certain liberties with my wife’s musical taste. Most of the stuff that I’ve used against her in this post has vanished from her collection years ago. I should also add that I almost never listen to Jandek, as most of his music is, in all honesty, fairly terrible.)

(I am hoping, quite possibly in vain, that the above footnote will somehow save me from a testicular stabbing in the next few nights.)

(At the end of the day, the Ramones really do suck. Really, they do.)

Twenty Seven

As you may have noticed, sometimes I list albums and sometimes I don't. It comes down to how much space I have, and how much shit I have to type. This was one where I didn't provide album names. So, if you listen to the cast, and you want to know the specific album name that the song came from, just ask.

Click on the podcast link in the right margin of this blog to hear episodes of the NONALIGNMENT PACT podcasts. If you need help.... ask.

Please submit guesses for Kilian's mystery tune in the comments section of this post.

Clues may be provided if the songs cannot be guessed. Song and Artist must be guessed in order for you to win and provide the next mystery tune on an upcoming cast.


If you want to do a podcast, guest host a podcast, submit music, or submit artwork, or anything else relative EMAIL ME HERE.

Sorry I spelled your name wrong on the playlist Kilian, and I failed to put Ms Rosa as the submitter for the last Johnny Thunder's song.

buzzing static

I’m over the global hegemony of the English language in popular music. All of you musicians for whom English is not your first language, please sing, rap, chant, and make song titles in languages we don’t yet understand. The American, English, Scottish, Irish, Australian, Kiwi, South African and Commonwealth Caribbean and other countries include fans that should be sophisticated enough to listen and appreciate the diversity of languages representing other cultures. If you want, throw in a few subtitles to help us out. Otherwise, f*** it. Why bother creating lyrics in English when most of our market listens to crap? The portion of the market that doesn’t listen to crap has enough curiosity to find you if you’re any good.

Given a couple hours to think about what I wrote, I'm going to try pulling my foot out of my mouth. Stereo Total, The Low Frequency in Stereo, zZz, General Electrics, and Röyksopp all sing in English and they are among my favorite bands. Cesaria Évora does not sing in English and she's one of my favorite singers. It doesn't really make sense to argue against the market; it is what it is. I just wish it were different.

Now that I’ve gotten that little rant out of the way, I’m going to add to the buzz surrounding 65DaysOfStatic. They’re good (and ok, they sing in English they don’t sing, for the most part they’re instrumental, but if they did, it might be in English because they’re from Sheffield, England; so, this doesn’t exactly reinforce the point I would like to make above). People describe them as post-rock and compare them to Explosions in the Sky. My friend Scott likes them. He likes them so much that he was willing to make all the necessary phone calls to get them rebooked somewhere else on a Friday night in New York when Europa tried to cancel their show because they arrived half an hour late for their scheduled slot (due to U.S. customs). Somehow, common sense prevailed and 65dos ended up headlining.* They are currently touring the U.S. and I would catch them now at a smaller venue if possible. Their September schedule includes places like Madison Square Garden and the Toyota Center in Houston because they will be opening for (ahem?) the Cure on the second leg of their tour.

Here is a video of Don't Go Down to Sorrow.

* I was not present at this show because I was moments away from getting some much needed sleep when my friend called me. I regretted not seeing them as much as I regret missing the entire Siren Festival, Hal Wilner in Prospect Park, Matmos at Lincoln Center, and the Brazilian Girls at Summerstage. Sometimes, I need to rest before I can even enjoy music. Oh, now that I see Head Stapler has included them in the podcast, I recall that Gogol Bordello was scheduled to perform on Friday at Irving Plaza too.

the cusp

so I saw Pavement back in '92 on the SLANTED + ENCHANTED tour, opening for Sonic Youth, with Gary Young drumming. This probably should have been some kind of religious experience, but truth be told it didn't do much for me at the time, partially because they took forever between songs and partially because the Unicorn's sound system did them no favors but mostly because I'd only heard the album twice, if that, and didn't really know their stuff at all. A few months later, I really got into the album, and somehow felt like I'd missed my chance to see Pavement, even though I'd seen Pavement. Does that make sense?

Maybe put it this way: I think there's an ideal point in your fandom to see a band. If you don't know the band very well - particularly if they're a song-driven band - it's unlikely you'll walk away from the show with a religious experience. On the other side, if you know a band really well and love everything they've recorded, the best you can reasonably hope for is that they'll slightly surpass their quality on record, which given the vagaries of sound men, being on tour for months on end, what have you, is hard to do.

So the right time to see a band, in my humble opinion, is just as you're really starting to get into them, but before you know all their material backwards and forwards. This may be why I had such a great time at Nina Nastasia and Jim White tonight.

To be sure, I've seen Nina Nastasia play twice before, and enjoyed both times, and really got into her previous record quite a bit. On the other hand, she has several other records I don't know nearly as well, and a new record with Jim White (drummer for Dirty Three, and frequently for Cat Power as well) that I picked up last month that I'd listened to several times but never quite coaelesced. And I don't really know any of the song titles.

But at the show I realized I knew plenty of the songs. And, unsurprisingly, virtually any song from Nastasia's is improved with Jim White's virtuoso drumming - he drums the way some people form sentences, or walk, or cook, as an astonishingly organic process that seems completely unpremeditated but absolutely appropriate, engaging, stunning.

And then there's Nina Nastasia, who uses her acoustic guitars and voice to create a wistful sound while destroying the notion of wistfulness with her lyrics. Right now, I'm listening to "Our Discussion" off the new record, with the chorus like so:

I don't believe in the power of love
I don't believe in the wisdom of stone
I don't believe in a god or the mind
but I'm not alone

- which in print sounds like something you might hear Patti Smith howling, but what's truly stunning is that it doesn't sound rueful at all when Nina Nastasia sings it. It just sounds as real as a wave crashing on the shore, which is the quietly forceful and beautiful inevitability her music has. And I'm going to be listening to it a lot more after tonight's show, and I'll be curious the next time I see her if the wave has the same potency.

Syrup City!!!!

A really long explanation of why I am missing something so awesome as Jana Hunter playing at Diverse Works tonight.

This week I've been deathly ill with a nasty cold/flu/whatever. It started as the good kind of cold. You know, the kind where you are too ill to go to work but you can still surf the internet and watch TV - where miserableness is offset by watching Hal Hartley's Simple Men for the first time in years and remembering why you loved the film so much the first time. Well, by Thursday it went to the bad kind of cold where you couldn't bear anything that required being upright or the simplest attention - where your body feels like a bunch of mob heavies did a number on you. Well here we are on Friday and things are getting somewhat better but not good enough.

I had hoped to go see Jana Hunter at Diverse Works tonight. Even if I'd called-in sick to work and was on-and-off all day, I still thought there was a chance of going until I drove to the Walgreens this afternoon. On the way, I discovered a curious thing about my muscles and my brain - they were talking like a bunch of stoners on really really good weed. "OK uhhh light's yelloooow lets sloooow down. uhhhhhhh.... oh yeah ummm maybe ummm maybe we should ummm push dowwwn fast enough to ummm stop before the white line? Oh ho dude you like are sooo in the intersection!" Luckily, that was at an intersection at a park where there isn't much traffic and I quickly figured out to overcompensate for the slower reaction time but clearly I wasn't going anywhere. To give you people outside of Houston some perspective as to why this sucks, let's just say that Jana is to Houston Music what Yao Ming is to the Houston Rockets. She's an exceptional talent; she has a distinctive voice, guitar phrasing, and songcraft that anyone should envy. So, sorry I'll miss the farewell show but, pretty soon here, I'll be doin' that Houston tradition of drinking some syrup. This Robitussin's for you. Gulp! May the road rise with you, Jana!

Short Sharp Shots - New Stars and Spoon Albums

Stars - OK last album had a couple of gems and showed some promise but this new one - nope. Easily the most boring album I've heard in a while. I'm talking throw your head back and go "UUUUUHHHHHGGGG!" uninteresting.

Spoon - Maybe I need to spin it a few more times. I guess it's not bad but it sounds to me like a retread of their last album - except that last one sounded fresh.

Insert "but the hipters are going to love these albums" line here.*

The Hipster Bebop Junkie

Hipsters! Everyone fucking hates them. Hell, even this week in the commentaries someone linked to blogs about hipsters. I've been hearing for years about these hipsters who stalk the clubs in the latest ironic fashion, indulge in music only if it is deemed to be cool, and just as quickly as they embrace that new sound they instantly discard it for the next big thing. John Lomax is always telling me how he's going to write this big screed about hipsters that he never gets around to writing. Others say "Oh, I don't go to that club it's all hipsters." Goddamn it, those fucking hipsters are just everywhere leaving those who truly love music forced to suffer their vacuous existence.

Now, call me crazy but here is my take on the hipster plague - it's rubbish. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough. Maybe that's it but I swear I've never seen one. I just think that they are nothing more than a convenient bogeyman. I mean the reason I have a problem with it is it's kind of a moving target. One person says they are X and another person says they are Y and others simply say "You'll know 'em when you see 'em." Doesn't it seem odd that nobody can give me a concrete unequivocal description when I go anywhere?

Well this begs the question of why there is even a need for this bogeyman? Here's my theory. I think that part of music culture is people trying to say that they have a deeper and more extensive knowledge of music. The hipster bogeyman gives people a simple target on which to prop themselves up. It distinguishes them from those shallow music-as-fashion hipsters. So to be pithy about it, let's say for the sake of argument that these hipsters are everywhere; if they are as shallow and insipid as they are made out to be then who gives a flying rats ass about them? Really? I'm just sayin'.


* How's that for a segue?


Links:
Jana Hunter
Spoon
Stars
Diverse Works


Credits:
Jana Hunter Photo Unknown
Big Moe cover from City of Syrup 2000 Wreckshop Records

Moving Pictures

This week I'm in New Mexico and the only thing related to music that I've done is listen to my iPod on the plane. It's a short flight, so I managed to listen to Cat Power's The Greatest and maybe sleep a little. I don't have much to say about that album other than that I like that Ms. Power does her own backup vocal lines. This amuses me.

Speaking of amusing, as I was driving a couple days ago, I ended up behind a minivan, which if you've ever driven with me is a common occurance. Minivan drivers are usually the slow, cautious sort and the front of my car seems to have some sort of magnet to attract these sorts of drivers. I need to figure out how to turn that off. Anyway, this particular minvan had both a century club sticker, presumably for the purposes of warding off traffic tickets, and a customized license plate, which said "YYZ." Now, I suppose it's entirely possible that this could be a YYZ other than the one that you and I are both thinking right now, but I like to think that it's not. I mean, what else could it be? I didn't get to see the driver, but in my head I invented a whole look and back story for this guy (we both know he had to be a guy). I encourage you to invent your own look and back story and post it here in the comments and we'll see if it sounds anything like mine.

I whipped out my phone to snap a picture of the minivan, but I am unable to free the picture from my phone with my current technological situation. I promise that I will add the picture to this post as soon as I can. In the meantime, use your imagination and post it to the comments.

Week 38: Songs with the Most - Saddest

By now you must know that I like serials. So here’s the start of yet another serial. This is the Songs with The Most series. On various weeks, the focus will be on different categories of songs with the most of a given quality. This week is for the saddest songs. Other weeks might focus on the funniest, heaviest, stupidest, funkiest, cutest, fastest, quietest, whateverest. Ideas for categories are currently being accepted.

Sadness is a key human emotion and as such it gets plundered by songwriters over and over again in the effort of reaching that soft spot in their listeners. The result of course is a barrage of crappy sad songs about lost love. Occasionally a lost love song rises above the rest, but in general the songs that fill me with the most sorrowful pathos have something more than a sad melody and a broken heart.

The songs that come to mind reach into the basic sadness of the human experience. There are many sad instrumental songs, but without the human voice, instrumental music can only go so far into sadness. The human voice is at once the bridge and the safety net that allows to really dive into the sorrow. The efforts of a voice trying to rise over its insignificance while being cradled within the existential beauty of creation as only music can play it, well that is sadness.

I’m sure there are sadder songs for you, but here’s my list, not necessarily in order*:

- Candy Says, by the Velvet Underground. I’ve known so many Candy’s. "I'm gonna watch the blue birds fly over my shoulder" gives me shivers even when I play it in my mind.
- In Germany Before the War, by Randy Newman. “I’m looking at the river, but I’m thinking of the sea.” Combined with the background strings and piano, and Newman's voice at it's most honest, this may possibly be the saddest line ever written.
Here's the song mixed with a scene from Fritz Lang's 1931 movie M:

- El Polen, by Café Tacuba. Like that acid trip when you realized we are no different from pollen, and it's ok.
- Hobarts, by the everybodyfields. These guys are really mining this territory with a lot of success, and there are several of their songs that really qualify for this list, but this one was the one that first got me.
- Theme from Mahogany, by Michael Masser and Gerry Goffin, sung by Diana Ross. An existential song wrapped up in a love song, and then sung by an angel, a brutal combination.
- Let Them Roll, by Guy Clark. The only real love song in the group and a great story song too. (The version here is the Bobby Bare, Sr. version which is excellent and the only one I have on MP3.)

* A couple of these will be on the NAPcast, others are available on this post for one week.

+ Image is Melencolia I by Albrecht Dürer.

The Mousy Girl Scream Violence Violence

The pitchfork festival was a scream; it was a marathon of adrenaline fueled feel good music with pit-stops here and there to catch a well deserved acoustic guitar induced trance. Of Montreal isn't Canadian and shouldn't move to Canada but maybe they should move from Athens, Georgia to Athens, Greece, home of the epic. Their epic song, "The past is a grotesque animal", spans 10 exulting minutes and everybody in the audience knew the words! Everybody in the audience knew the words! That is, they all knew the words to the lyrics that were repeated twice, like, "The mousy girl screams Violence, Violence" which must be the greatest most poetic and anthemic sing-a-long lyric in the history of indie dance music. "The mousy girl screams violence violence". And I'm so touched by its simpleness, because I can picture some small girl that has one defense mechanism that she utilizes all the time to stave off emotional and physical damage to herself and her soul. But was this the same girl that doesn't mind discussing "The story of the eye" at a Swedish festival? Because even admitting to knowing of this book signals some level of deprivation from which you can't save yourself. This mousy girl that tries to protect herself through accusations, public or private, of violence really doesn't have a soul worth protecting anymore, she's already slipped below.

This band Of Montreal are meta physicians of evil and the crowd ate it up, and I assume the crowd eats it up everywhere they go. What does this say for our collective soul that we revel in a band that purveys depravity? Or are we just elated to see a truthful reflection of the hidden portion of society? Can the inflamed feelings evoked by this band be soothed by the introspectiveness of Cat Power? Chan Marshall in her opening song of her set at pitchfork declares that she wanted to be the greatest and I feel her. I feel her music immensely, cause its the music I want for myself. I want to play quiet music intensely. I want people to have to lean in to hear; its an aesthetic that I think is underused cause its easy to play louder but really really hard to play quiet. I went to a show once at the empty bottle where they had all these "Please be quiet" signs set out. On the pool table. On the bar. On the ledges. It was for this Norwegian jazz band that wasn't even mic'ed. And I loved it. They made beautiful quiet sounds and it was transfixing. It was mesmerizing. Chan Marshall sings this way and her Dirty Delta Blues band plays this way and if I could play my trumpet with half as much control and beauty then I'd be lucky.

These were my favorite moments of the pitchfork festival. I had one more favorite moment, Deerhunter. They play ambiance for ten minutes and then break into the exact driving rock pop groove you felt like you were waiting for all throughout the ambiance. Then. More Ambiance. The singer Bradford Cox sings through delay pedals and samplers and sings about his life which through interviews and through his lyrics I've gathered is one rougher than most and you feel like its the truth. There is a look and a feel of people that give you the truth that makes you think that truth giving and telling is exhilarating. Deerhunter has it. Deerhunter doesn't give a damn if you like their band or not and don't care if they are the next big thing or not, which they are. They want to make music for people that love the music they make and they want to have fun and express themselves. Thats awesome.

Oh this is awesome too. Its today!

Never Underestimate the Power of Stupid

Hating what comes out of the mouths of fools.

This is a legacy worth pursuing. I dedicate great resources to just that principle.

I’m negative. I’m sarcastic. I hate everything.

Or so it would appear. Ask anyone who has decided they don’t like me and they will tell you that I hate everything.

Don’t let these idiots taint your view of reality. Hating everything is retarded. I don’t hate close to everything. Having said that, though, I think it’s fair to say that there is a lot to this life that I do hate. Like people who are little more than trash with feet. I hate that shit with an undying passion.

What I do not hate, is early AC/DC.

Ever since Warner Cable got the fuck out of Dodge and moved on to greener pastures, Comcast has been pillaging its way across the Houston cable TV landscape like a hoard of Mongols on meth. What this means to me is that I am now an unwilling member of yet another corporate monolith and their hold on not only our wallets but also our imaginations. Whatever, I’m not cool enough to really go off the grid like you all keep hoping I will actually do one day. Since the takeover it has come to my attention that we have acquired a stable of new stations on our already bloated lineup of shitty shopping channels, pituitary sports wankathons, and channels with no discernable function other than to hawk worthless wares to an ever-growing army of impotent morons. Among the new channels is VH1 classic. Among the Bon Jovi Unplugged performances, and barely-closeted homoerotic 80s hair band videos is a little show called BBC Crown Jewels. The show is basically a trip down memory lane to the late 70s to the mid 80s, or so. All the show is is generally poorly shot semi-professional videocam recordings of bands from the aforementioned eras doing their thing before a live audience. In one week I’ve seen Siouxie and the Banshees, the Smiths, Crosby and Nash, James Taylor, and best of all, AC/DC. Drop the Crosby and Nash, and the fucking James Taylor and you’ve got yourself a fairly entertaining show. But none of it was worth a shit once I had the chance to see the AC/DC episode last night.

This was the Bon Scott AC/DC. This was the AC/DC that could smoke just abound anyone that was dumb enough to bring their guitar anywhere near the same venue as the minute Aussies monsters. The set included songs like Let There Be Rock, Jailbreak, Whole Lotta’ Rosie, Sin City, and others. It was a blistering performance from a band that delivered on every cylinder. Goddamn, they were fantastic. While I was watching this show for the second time I began to think about other bands that try to do a similar thing with their sound and how nobody really gets it right quite like Scott era AC/DC: for instance, the fucking Ramones.

Truth be told I have never really liked the Ramones. Ever since my burgeoning punk-rock days I always found the Ramones to be clowns heavy on attitude and light on talent. And I’m not talking about technical chops either. AC/DC plays like they are using sledgehammers. Their technique is marginal at best, but their execution is spot on. The Ramones always sounded like retarded monkeys bashing out uninteresting garbage. There is a focused energy that threatens to burn the building down whenever Bon Scott sang in that nasally squeal of his. And Angus Young always sounded like H.P. Lovecraft’s demons would be sure to engulf him were he not able to maintain his boiling intensity. They just pulled it off like their lives depended on it. The Ramones always seemed to be auditioning for the next spot on the “Look How Cool We Think We Are” show. For all the prattle about how balls out and in your face the Ramones were supposed to be, I would love to see a showdown between the two in each band’s prime. AC/DC would mop the floor with those no-talent circus clowns in about two seconds and then immolate them upon the coals of rock. It would not be pretty.

For all this ridiculous talk of prog’s conservatism versus punk’s liberalism, which is at best, stupid, the real arguments ought to be about why people are so stupid as to overlook AC/DC as being almost a quaint sort of deceit over a band like the Ramones who in all honesty were simply in the right place at the right time.

The only, and I mean only, reason the Ramones weren’t burned at the stake was because they showed up right at the exact moment in time that would be receptive to their brand of complete sham and posturing. The only crowd sillier and more boring to read about in American underground history that the LA punks is the fucking New York ones with their impeccably placed aping and cloyingly self-conscious arty pretense.

Fuck all of them. I love a lot of that stuff, but fuck ‘em. AC/DC beat them without even trying and didn’t care one whit while they did it. In fact, AC/DC was virtually the embodiment of what those fags in the Ramones wished they could be despite being neither the least bit aware of this. At heart, AC/DC played a proto-metal boogie that incorporated elements of blues and turned it all into the quintessential expression of pure electric rock.

Stupidity is something that runs rampant over the land like a plague sent from the skies. The Ramones took stupid and made it even more stupid, and this didn't help their cause at all. At least it didn't help their cause in the eyes of those with actual taste. Everyone else bought it lock and fucking stock.

As for the Sydney midgets, they took stupidity and turned it into something so primal and base as to render it reptilian, but they also injected it with an authenticity that lent it the ability to be considered ingenious. Only a true imbecile could take the roots of sex and youth and turn it into a palpable sound. AC/DC personified stupidity in all its beautiful glory. The Ramones were just plain dumb. And worst of all, they sucked.

So take that, bitches.

I don’t hate everything, but I probably hate you.

Let the party begin.

26

Click on the podcast link in the right margin of this blog to hear episodes of the NONALIGNMENT PACT podcasts. If you need help, just ask.

Please submit guesses for John AND Ms Rosa's two mystery tunes in the comments section of this post.

Clues may be provided if the songs cannot be guessed. Song and Artist must be guessed in order for you to win and provide the next mystery tune on an upcoming cast.


If you want to do a podcast, guest host a podcast, submit music, or submit artwork, or anything else relative EMAIL ME HERE.

I enjoyed this episode... maybe because four of the songs were mine. That was a joke. Only goes to show you, I always need submissions. I haven't really come to terms with my DJ Shadow submission, mostly because i associate it with Tokyo Drift, but... it was either that or Cult of Luna's "Marching to the Heartbeats"... I'll probably wish I had used that instead.. Hell, I almost used Nervous Norvus "The Fang", so no telling where my head is at.

"I didn't see nothing"

I’ve got to be honest with you all today: I’d rather not spend any amount of time pretending like I’ve had a great week or that I’ve had any life-altering musical experiences. I’d rather spend the precious few hours of free time I have today/this week reading over other people’s posts, commenting where I can, and listening to the podcast.

Symptom of a shit week: I managed to lose two cell phones. Left one in a taxi. The other fell off the back of a motorcycle. Thought I had just misplaced the first one, so didn’t bother to cancel service until I noticed someone else had been checking my voicemail and, rather politely for a thief, had been saving my new messages for me. T-Mobile confirmed that the phone was used to make more than a few calls to Mexico City, but fortunately, since I already pay T-Mobile an outrageous amount of money for my calling plan, the charges don’t add up to much. Those phone numbers in Mexico City calls will show up on my statement and, uhuh, somebody in Mexico City will be getting a call from me next month.

Ok, so it was time to replace that old phone anyway. T-Mobile’s phones are all crap and not unlocked, so I head to the neighborhood gray market dealer to get a nice new tiny LG phone imported from the Spanish market and negotiated a really fair price for it. It was just unfortunate timing, you know- these things happen, occasionally, especially to me. My friend had rather generously offered me a ride on the back of his Suzuki from EMU’s Festivus in Central Park to Kate #1’s birthday dinner downtown. Since I prefer to hold on with two hands, we strapped everything down to the back- birthday gift, my bag, and a Harpers magazine. Then, we encounter an unassuming divet in the pavement of Central Park West that sends us airborne for a bit. Upon landing, I notice immediately that the stuff on the back is missing. We do a u-turn after no more than two blocks to look for the missing items. I knew it was all gone for good when I approached a woman who immediately said “I didn’t see nothing” before I even asked her a question. All that was left was the top of a broken wine bottle and a splash where it had all landed. Somebody must have wanted that Harpers magazine really badly. Motorcycle friend feels semi-responsible for the incident and chivalrously helps me to get to birthday party on time with newly purchased replacement birthday gift. Later, a copy of my keys are handed off through friends at One Night of Fire, and I go for another motorcycle ride from Coney Island to the LES, because, to tell you the truth, I like the motorcycle even though I understand the odds of having a horrendous accident that is not the driver’s fault are rather high. If you work in the Neurology department of a hospital and happen to be reading this, please don’t add any statistics in the comment section- we're all going to die sooner or later. In the meantime, do you think I should take this as a sign from Upstairs that I am destined to have an iphone?

The crowd at the Yiddish Carnival

I did also see Frank London’s Yiddish Carnival at the Prospect Park Bandshell and the beginning of Soul Summit in Fort Greene Park. I missed the DJs at McCarren Park Pool because I’m boycotting JellyNYC. Jennie said it was great and that they missed me and promised not to ever make me stand in line for a Boredoms performance again.

The crowd at Soul Summit

listen with your eyes, watch with your ears

The (Sponsor Elided) 39th Auckland International Film Festival has begun, and so this is my life now. I planned to see 54 films, in that I pre-purchased tickets to that many, but with game day decisions I am already up to 56, three days into the festival. Where the madness stops? It won't be clear til the end. (And possibly not even then, if I repeat last year's mad decision to append a visit to Wellington, whose film fest is staggered a week after Auckland's.)

Every year, there's usually one or two events that combine music in film in some interesting way, and this year is highlighted by the appearance of Metamkine. They consist of two guys each with a couple film projectors, a bunch of mostly abstract homemade film loops, various reflective and refractive devices, and flashlights improvising live in conjunction with one guy making musique concrete with tape loops, a keyboard, a CD player, a mixing board, some effects, and various other gizmos.

Let me step back a moment. (If you're like most people and don't give a shit about abstract film, feel free to bail at this point, but do pay attention to the Editors song on this week's podcast, which is rocking my world currently. Bye!)

The relationship between image and sound is a torturous one, and one many abstract films fail at. (As well as most narrative cinema, where music is oft-used to prop up unconvincing drama, and music video, where the image is either gratuitous or supplants the text of the song.) Some of the best avant-garde filmmakers, like Stan Brakhage and Peter Hutton, deal with it by avoiding sound all together. Unfortunately, this can lead to their films (Brakhage's in particular) being pirated as visual wallpaper for music performance, rather than being presented in their intended context.

Playing live with film accompaniment is also usually a recipe for disaster, because typically the film is of a static duration and fixed narrative or shape, and either a score is being played which must fastidiously match the visual cues, or else is ignored entirely (like the time I saw Cat Power play the "soundtrack" to PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC and stop playing 15 minutes before the end of the movie).

Metamkine evade all of these obstacles several ways. The first is their approach to performance, which while being entirely reliant on film imagery - no digital video to be fo