listen all y'all

MCA can beat cancer. My grandpa did it twice.



best wishes for wellness, now keep it on and onnn..

they won’t kill your day job, honey

Just back from California where Los Angeles is cracked and hosting Christmas Eve massacres and San Francisco is like a boys club where you speak in tongues, throwing off names like Vomitron (band), perc-a-swerve (high), waterhead (totally offensive slang).

Humming in the jetstream I got to thinking of a salute through songs, narrowing down not to San Francisco (despite any quality selections from Peggy Lee or Otis), nor California in general (despite quality selections from the Dead Kennedys or the Mamas and the Papas), but specifically Los Angeles songs. Amid the rest of the golden state, Los Angeles has no righteous hopefulness. It has damp, ballooning women built as muscle cars crawling like shiny beetles along the roping, concrete knot of freeways and still-smoking foothills. Not to mention all the assholes. So lets celebrate in song!

Some of my favorites,
to begin: acoustic! And look who it is!:


and not to forget to point out a certain legacy in one of the city’s most primary industries:


more classism


more polluting noise


more guttural grumblings


more loneliness


breathe it out and let it in


all always wanting more



and more.


surely ending somewhere nearing maybe too much.



What you got?

totems

ohh loveys, I’ve been on a getting long bender with little discs that rub it away like so much blessed "forgettol" (see: Lethem), meanwhile turning the Scary-Ass music up to eleven. Animistic forms have been in turn turning my ears on but only if they’re really pretty bloody and bring to mind that horror of J.W. chewing still-beating kitten hearts, i.e. VIVID disturbance in an outwardly serene but naggingly ominous landscape. But anyway, youtube videeeos! Here’s a chance to get all scraped up too, scREEECHH.

First, there's the classics:




and my main squeeze Steve:




Which leads to the blacks:










..proceeding to yellow:


(the quality is garbage but they rip roofs off and named their record The Pissmop LP, gah, love!!)


And then there’s the psychically, rather than sonically, scary:




But, really, back to the wretched:






Yes! more ladies!




(that one goes out to you, sugar)


But, I think I brought up animism??




And, leading in a bit obviously huh, somehow it all seems to find a root here:





Raison d'etre? CATHARSIS!!

nothing we've actually seen has been mapped or outlined

I’ve been thinking of trying to go at this bloggity again, considering that I’m about to stretch into some free time, or at least time spent procrastinating in lieu of achieving. I left because I didn't need an outlet, and that might be changing as change is, if forward-facing, constant. Time immaterial.

Like, expanding toward discussing art, I’ve been seeing a lot of it lately. And books. Lyricism. And more heartache, always! I’ve got all of it.

And treats like these:

Ween - Cocaine (mp3)

makin up for lost time with some heavy riffage!! xx

Top of the Pops, 2008

10 Best
A Silver Mt. Zion, 13 Blues for 13 Moons: The best, hands down. The album that kept me up the most nights. The title track is pure gut-wrenching terror and ecstasy. Get it.
Deerhoof, Offend Maggie
Plants and Animals, Parc Avenue
Fuck Buttons, Street Horssing
Mogwai, The Hawk Is Howling
Black Pus, Black Pus 4—All Aboard the Magic Pus
Silver Jews, Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea
Andrew Jackson Jihad, Only God Can Judge Me
Wolf Eyes, all 4,738 releases they put out this year, yes I am exaggerating.
Crystal Castles, Crystal Castles: I tried to hate it, but I love it.

9 Honorable Mentions, in No Discernable Order
Apes, Ghost Games
The Mae Shi, Hllyh
Zach Hill, Astrological Straits
Why?, Alopecia
Deerhunter, Microcastle/Weird Era
M83, Saturdays=Youth
Tobacco, Fucked Up Friends
Boris, Smile
Love Is All, A Hundred Things Keep Me Up At Night

8 Prime Nights Spent Swallowed in Sound
Liars @ Warsaw, February 9, 2008, NYC
S PRCSS @ Cake Shop, March 15, 2008, NYC
Caribou & Fuck Buttons @ Music Hall of Williamsburg, March 27, 2008, NYC
Boredoms & Black Pus @ Terminal 5, March 30, 2008, NYC
Cursive @ Mercury Lounge, June 3, 2008, NYC
Ween @ McCarren Park Pool, July 25, 2008, NYC
Special Disco Version @ The Mighty, August 7, 2008, SF
Okkervil River @ Webster Hall, October 6 & 7, 2008, NYC

7 Favorites I Continued to Wear Out
Big Black, Songs About Fucking
Caribou, Andorra
CocoRosie, The White Sessions
Liars, Liars
Mindflayer, It's Always 1999
PJ Harvey, Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea
Unwound, Leaves Turn Inside You

6 Bits of Total Trash
No Age: Whatever on the albums. I’ve seen them live several times, and the hype surrounding them is like the greatest caper or conspiracy of all time. So, fuck you Silverlake! You cannot fool me, don’t even try.
Jay Reatard: To quote Dave Berman: “Punk rock died when the first kid said ‘punk's not dead. Punk's not dead!’”
Vampire Weekend: Don’t make me laugh.
Girl Talk: No one will find this valuable in a few years, I promise you.
Vivian Girls: Cute and entirely unimpressive.
MGMT: OMGWTF,UGGH.

5 New Favorites
Dark Meat
Oxes
31Knots
Atom Heart
Marnie Stern

4 Reunions that Blew My Tiny Mind
MY BLOODY VALENTINE!!!!!!
LIQUID LIQUID!!!!
POLVO!!!!
THE FEELIES!!!!

3 Bands that Need to Put Out Already
Comets On Fire
Belle & Sebastian
Autolux. Seriously, where is it?! Quit making babies and put out your record, gah.

2 Special Releases that Require a Mention
Ween, Live At the Cat’s Cradle. Probably the most lovable thing I own at the moment.
Pavement, Brighten the Corners: Nicene Creedence Edition. Arriving as we speak? Please, oh please.

#1 Thing I Tried and Tried to Do this Year, to No Avail

i'm missing i'm missing i'm missing, gah,

muh.

I went to Fuck Buttons at the Merc, studied and frowned during Sightings, positing that watching some of the turgid, cramping movements erupting from the bassist and guitarist/singer while eclipsed in the dark of the venue floor was perturbingly similar to watching someone jerk off, to which I blushed mildly.

Then in between sets, I spotted the first of several ghosts making their appearance this night and my anxiety level shot up and bubbled out and over the lip of the awfulblack beaker, amplified by an innocent lack of accompaniment. I ducked out for a walk round the block, probably not soon enough though. I ordered another whiskey. I wore my hood up the rest of the show (which was good, though not as good as Music Hall where there is so much more room for FB's unfurling sound to spread and swell and overwhelm you). I didn't receive any quick relief. I had to make several confessional calls to old friends when I got home in order to assuage this mingled beast of shame, shock, boredom, regret? and get to sleep.

All meaning, I swear, this scene, it's.. too small. Lately it's bursting with unease.

The DJ seemed to be responding to my outputs, because he quickly inputted one of my more recent track obsessions, linked here with this disquieting little recollection, in the hope of turning it all into something better, our shared pleasure:

The Breeders - "Bang On" (mp3)

xo

you pity him for what he wants it for

I'm really loving on pitchfork tv. It's so much better than their editorial, it's absurd. Probably because there are no overwrought opinions involved.

Take, for example, this bursting little beauty:





accompanied by the soft sounds of sighs and timid hearts opening like magnolias.

and just push and pull ourselves until we're deep inside of sleep

these all completely kill me:

Spectrum - "How You Satisfy Me" (mp3)

My Bloody Valentine - "Cupid Come" (mp3)

Arab Strap - "To All A Good Night (live)" (mp3)

Otis Redding - "These Arms of Mine" (mp3)

what a drag it is getting old

Partly due to a strict program of strategic avoidance, I in fact did not attend the Pissed Jeans show at the Knit on Friday. Instead I went to the shhh! secret Deerhunter show at Todd P's Market Hotel to hear them debut their new record Microcastle in its entirety.

And I went way too fucking early, FOR REAL. And was "treated" to four opening bands- Golden Triangle, Rings, Knyfe Hyts, and AIDS Wolf. Yes, I was there for a stretch that allowed AIDS Wolf to play the Knit show I had skipped (partly avoidance, partly because I really dislike AIDS Wolf) and make it from lower Manhattan to Bushwick in time to bang and clatter and squawk around 2 am. What have I done, basically.

Something about the whole night felt so hopelessly SCENE, probably because of the very nature of the all-age-illegal-venue-loft-party beast. I don't want to begrudge them what is surely a very special getaway, but there were moody young'uns pulling frantically at 40 ozs and smoking like their life depended on it, which I suppose it does, and it all made me die just a little. Oddly, the last time I was at MH I, perhaps too giddy over Gibby, did not take much notice of the wafting smoke. But this time, even arriving on the earlier side of the long night, walking into that pentagonal room was accompanied with an immediate and wrenching gag. So much smoke it was morbid. When I finally got home, inordinately late, I had taken on the olfactory character of an overflowing ashtray and in retrospect I cannot believe that I used to spend so much time in that back room at Delirium.

But, summaries of some bands:


Arrived for the latter portion of Golden Triangle, who chugged and shimmied and slapped a bunch of tambourines and weren't all that bad, just a little muddled and clearly having a total blast. In a word, charming.


Rings are a threepiece of guitar, keys and drums operated by pretty ladies who were unable to complete a soundcheck even after 45 minutes of tinkering. COME ON. Also, some seriously CocoRosie-aping crap that borrowed a quality of bawling cat. I did not like it, no. Nevertheless:

Rings - "Mom Dance" (mp3)


Knyfe Hyts were better than the last time I saw them, not as detached, much more energy and audience moshing. They kept on their creepy Kubrick masks the entire time and were joined in their finale by an MC from the crowd, who I recognized from a conversation about the Rush tour earlier in the night, enjoyed while in line for three more cans of Busch. It was really amusing because he was completely out of place and didn't seem like the type who gets called up to chant "throw yo hands up!' at the end of a stoner metal set, especially considering our in depth discussion of "how does it get so high?" Geddy Lee and community centers in Holmdel, NJ. Things are not always as they appear to be.

Knyfe Hyts - "Running Free" (Iron Maiden cover) (mp3)

At this point I was getting pretty stinking drunk, crushing cans with my bare hands and dreaming I was really able to twist steel, wobbling and finally languishing against a dear, friendly pillar, wishing that Deerhunter would just play already, man oh man. But, the night was not without its amusements in the interims. Meaning, two dudes, whose names I can't recall, approached me, calling out "hey, is this you?" while holding up a picture of me on one of their phones, taken at a random Queens party a few weeks ago. Yes, it was, the hair cannot be mistaken. But, more importantly, why the hell do you have a picture of me on your phone?? They were unable to answer this question to my satisfaction, which was both hilarious and frightening. I mean, HUH?? Why? What? Too Weird.


Time then folded in on itself like boozy orgami and next thing I knew I had meandered up front for a fresh taste of AIDS Wolf, just to see if I was wrong... and I'm not. Some of the crowd was loving it, as you can HEH see above, but even through the fog I still think it is a bullshit excuse for metal. I can't even bring myself to look for an mp3. Ick.


See all the smoke?!?

Finally, LONG story short, Deerhunter got going around 2:30 am. They opened with a cover of Pylon's "Cool" (sidenote: The Feelies? Yay! Can we have The Soft Boys, or even just Robyn Hitchcock, and Pylon play reunions too, pretty please?!?) then rolled out Microcastle. By my estimation, it's going to be GOOD, as good as Fluorescent Grey foretells. It was a little sloppy (poor word choice/I am empty), but so was I, I really mean it. And I don't have any song titles. I didn't make it to the end either. I stumbled out into pouring rain, got a hot dog, good lord it was snappy and delicious, and got on the train out of Brooklyn in order to get back into Brooklyn, aka upended logic.

(thanks to, yeesss, P4K for the Golden Triangle and AIDS Wolf pics, though I think thanks actually belongs to staticsilence and an unknown. And to Hyperliving for all the rest of the sweet shots, and sweet blog. Your account of the evening also nails it.)

Personal fave: Deerhunter - "Wash Off" (mp3)

Bradford's inspiration: Pylon - "Cool" (mp3)

I got in my door nearing 5 am and tore off my monoxide reeking clothes and threw my boots across the room. I collapsed. I thought of my sudden swooning disdain for the youth and their vices, being part of a scene enough that random men have portable photos of me, how I was ultimately unable to make it to the finish line and my overwhelming relief to be in my bed, alone. And I laughed. Then I thought of all the Stones songs they were playing between sets during the night, "Sympathy For The Devil" and, towering above it all, "Mother's Little Helper" and its opening words like a pennant pinned through my flesh-- "what a drag it is getting old..." and maybe I cried a little.

the hangman's got a hard-on

Ohhh, ecstasy tremors! I struggle to estimate how much I love thee new Silver Mt. Zion record.

As close as I can get, in contrast to my adoration, to me it's made from loveless, thrashing, desperate sex. It makes me think of a few, and those thoughts manifest fleeting or false sadness-- precisely how I like my music best, because I am a big faker. In dreams you're mine, all the time.



It's apparently pretty hard to locate a fifteen minute-plus full mp3, so here is a sliver missing the latter two thirds of perfect recess and surge:

Thee Silver Mt. Zion and Tra-La-La Band - "Thirteen Blues For Thirteen Moons" (mp3)

May 19 & 20. Cannot wait.

uttering the lush banalities

End Zone is the best book I have read in a long, long time.

On contemporary morbidity:
I liked to think of huge buildings toppling, of firestorms, of bridges collapsing, survivors roaming the charred countryside. Carbon 14 and strontium 90. Escalation ladder and subcrisis situation. Titan, Spartan, Poseidon. People burned and unable to breathe. People being evacuated from doomed cities. People diseased and starving. Two hundred thousand bodies decomposing on the roads outside Chicago. I read several chapters twice. Pleasure in the contemplation of millions dying and dead. I became fascinated by words and phrases like thermal hurricane, overkill, circular error probability, post-attack environment, stark deterrence, dose-rate contours, kill-ratio, spasm war. Pleasure in these words. They were extremely effective, I thought, whispering shyly of cycles of destruction so great that the language of past world wars became laughable, the wars themselves somewhat naïve. A thrill almost sensual accompanied the reading of this book. What was wrong with me? Had I gone mad? (p. 21)

On seclusion:
We were in the middle of the middle of nowhere, that terrain so flat and bare, suggestive of the end of recorded time, a splendid sense of remoteness firing in my soul. It was easy to feel that back up there, where men spoke the name Civilization in wistful tones, I was wanted for some terrible crime. (p. 30)

On bombast:
My tongue emitted wisdom after wisdom. Our words floated in the dimness, in the room’s mild moonlight, weightless phrases polished by the cool confident knowledge of centuries. I was eager for subjects to envelop, timeless questions demanding men of antic dimension, riddles as yet unsolved, large bloody meat-hunks we might rip apart with mastiff teeth. Nothing unromantic would suffice. (p. 48)

On fantasy:
I prepared myself to think of night, desert, sorrowful forests, of the moon, the stars, the west wind, baptismal mist and the rich myrrh of harvested earth. Instead I thought of tits. I thought of flaming limbs, a moody whore’s mouth, hair the color of bourbon. Quietly I sweated, motionless on the steps. A girl in a cotton dress on a bed with brass posts. A ceiling fan rubbing the moist air. Scent of slick magazines. She’d be poorborn, the dumbest thing in Texas, a girl from a gulf town, movie-made, her voice an unlaundered drawl, fierce and coarse, fit for bad-tempered talking blues… Women came and went, a few I’d known, some more magical than that, not memories and therefore absurdly sensual, exaggerated by cameras. It was wonderful to sit in one’s own sweat and feel it bathe the tight muscles, tickling at this or that crevice, and to grow slightly delirious in the terrible sun and think of a woman’s body (women in warm climates), someone to know when the room at the back of the house is damp and black until she is in it, the round one now, a quite unlikely woman to take you through this first silent winter, body of perfect knowledge, the flesh made word. Then I heard Bobby Luke scratching at his belly or neck. "Pussy," he said. (p. 55)

On cognizance:
But I’ve got a nose for terror. I can sense it. I can hear the engines revving. (p. 163)

On implicit absurdity:
…you look up suddenly and there’s sixteen thousand Shriners and Masons with their comical Turkish hats and they’re covering every inch of the playing field with, in the middle of them all, three hundred and eighty five high school girls dressed in red, white and blue who are prostrating themselves on the cold earth as they assume the shape of an American flag being dragged through yak dung by syphilitic foreign students and off to the side there’s some crippled television personality in a wheelchair and pulleys singing the national anthem as the cystic fibrosis child of the month poses in the nude for the cover of Life. I tend to worry about such spectacles. (p. 165)

On quiescence:
Everywhere it was possible to perceive varieties of silence, small pauses in corners, rectangular panes of stillness, the insides of desks and closets (where shoes curl in dust), the spaces between things, the endless silence of surfaces, swallowed by methodically silent clocks, whispering air and speechlessness of sentient beings, all these broken codes contained in the surround calm, the vastness beyond the window, sunblaze, a clash of metals no louder than heat on flesh. (pp. 191-192)

On modern political morality:
After all, the ultimate genius of modern weapons, from the purely theoretical standpoint, is that they destroy the unborn much more effectively than they destroy the living. We can go on from there to frame any number of provocative remarks, but we will resist the temptation. We all know that life, happiness, fulfillment come surging out of particular forms of destructiveness. The moral system is enriched by violence put to positive use. (p. 215)

On fucking in a library:
The words were ways of touching and made us want to speak with hands. (p. 217)

big things happen every time we meet

amid all my little recollections, I forgot this gem

Do you know of that sensation when opportunity and abandon so sweetly converge as to create a moment of perfect contentment, where contentment is actually employed through a stolen moment of perfect ruckus?? Do you??

I did.

I was coming home from a show, not too late on a Thursday night, and party to a few G-train highlights like beggars, mumblers, moaners, leer-ers, a man who lit up a cigarette and smoked with a practiced air of "what?," until Fulton St where all these fresh characters exited. Leaving me alone. With my own subway car. For three stops.


It was mine, all mine. And when I mention providential convergence, "B(ombs) O(ver) B(aghdad)" decided to pop up on the ipizzle shuffizzle at the exact moment I realized what would come to be--

--me seizing a golden opportunity to have my very own private subway train dance party madness.

I wish you had been there. It was amazing.



155 beats per minute, yeeah

oh I KNOW.

I know, ok? I know I know. I have completely skipped out on my responsibility of recollecting how frickinfrackin awesome a.) Caribou & Fuck Buttons were, b.) Boredoms at Terminal 5 were, c.) Boredoms at Other Music were, d.) all of the above. I'm sorry, a sorry excuse. But, I have been ill. I nearly fainted on the train last night, and I don't think I have ever nearly fainted before. Wouldn't I remember? I was pretty narced up and it was potent. It was packed, I got flushed, I took off my coat, I got freezing, everything became blindingly bright, the din of the crowd bloomed and bloomed until it filled up my ears with a foreboding roar, I mumbled no, a man helped pull me out at 2nd Ave where I had to chill out for a while. So, I can't write about bands because right now my only active noun is "repair."

Except! Real quick- just bought a ticket to WEEN. And, really, thank The Oneness for them coming around again because I just did not get enough last time, not enough truth was revealed. Speaking of truths, I have a diary entry post coming up surrounding the same song I am about to mention.

This is how it works when you find yourself in strange places with strange people: say you're alone or uncomfortable at some absurd party. Maybe you even have a friend with you, but mainly you are feeling in the minority and looking for someone special to talk to. Suddenly the solution strikes and you know what you must do. So inconspicuously you swim into the center and, boldly, growl "with my OWN! BARE! HAANDS!!" over the top of all the voices.

Spot any ears perking up with recognition? THAT, definitively, is who you want to talk to.

Just a little advice. xo.

Ween - "Object" (mp3)

reeling

Still reeling from Boredoms and Black Pus (Holy. Shit.) last night and reeling from the idea of a second dose this evening

in the meantime, this amuses me to no end. Spot the blonde:

P. and I were at the very lip of the bar area, a step or two above the crowd and the view was perfect.

thanks to Trent Wolbe for the sweet shot

ooooh, FACE!

A mere FIFTY slots to see Boredoms burst the confines of Other Music Monday night and guess who got one? This bitch right here.



That's the Sevena, the seven-necked guitar I'm going to be a few feet from, right before I die from an overdose of awesome.

OMG, yr so jealous.



(ps- Caribou/FuckButtons? Oh YES. Recollection coming soon.)