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Friday, June 30th, 2006
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6:23 pm - Why this Post is Not What Was
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So, during my 10-hour days at the library this week I worked on a huge, involved and painstaking post that was very, shall we say, link-dependent, and when I posted it something like 2/3 of the links didn't work.
When I realized that fixing it was going to take at least as much time and effort as writing it in the first place, I just deleted it. And let me tell you, I felt a lot better after that.
So don't be tellin' me about the sanctity of the written word and something is better than nothing and blah, blah, blah. I'll try it again later. But thanks for your concern, and I love you too.
And I have to say I feel a little sorry for you, because I know what I wrote and you don't.
That's all.
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| Thursday, June 22nd, 2006
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4:29 pm - 2006 Favorites, Part 2
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Most Honorable Mentions:
Beans ft. William Parker + Hamid Drake: Only (One of the more noble experiments in jazz/hip-hop fusion. It has moments, but with the greatest living rhythm section in jazz in the pocket, they're pretty impressive freakin' moments.)
The Black Keys: Chulahoma EP (It would be on my main list if only it were longer.)
J Dilla: Donuts (almost parallel to Madlib's 30-some track hip-hop mashup, out in the same year on the same label. Not as inventive, but with added poignance, for this was Jay Dee's final work in this world. RIP.)
Matmos: The Rose has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast (their most highly conceptual work yet--take the guided tour!--and in execution the most baffling, disturbing, and ultimately rewarding. I can do without the rape alarm, cow uterus-and shears sampling tribute to Valerie Solanis, thankyewverymuch, but their "Rag for William S. Burroughs," which morphs from ragtime piano to adding machine IDM to a full-on Jajouka trance freakout and back again, is among the things I was put on earth to hear.)
William Parker: Long Hidden- The Olmec Series (in which the greatest living jazz composer and bass plucker channels the cosmic consciousness of the Great Stone Head of the Olmecs right into your third eye chakra. Free jazz merengue is a lot more fun than you imagined; 14-minute bass solos, not so much.)
Prince: 3121 (Hey, he could be showing up on your doorstep with a Watchtower. Instead, he's back to making swollen purple electro glitter booty jams. The decade is looking up!)
Kokanko Sata: Kokanko Sata (If you buy her album she can build a house in Mali and take care of her family. Says so in the liner notes. Also, if you buy her album it will fill your heart with butterflies of joy. So, whichever.)
Sonic Youth: Rather Ripped ("Sonic Youth are the best band in the universe," according to Robert Christgau. And not just because they wrote a song about him. What once spilled over the banquet table and out into the hall, they can now stuff into peppermints and gumballs. But it still has the same mass: approximately that of the sun.)
Spank Rock: YoYoYoYoYo (I cannot in good conscience recommend what amounts to a brilliantly snazzy and futurized pomo cut 'n' paste of 2 Live Crew--sample song title/full lyric of song: "Put that Pussy on Me"--but I'll tell you about it anyway. 'Cuz it's pretty brilliantly snazzy.)
Reissues:
Miles Davis: The Cellar Door Sessions 1970 (It came out, like, after Christmas in 05. So not really cheating. Thanks, ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) mama_k! Talk about a gift that keeps on giving. This is the Holy Grail, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and, like, the Da Vinci Code of Miles lore. Or like the Ark of the Covenant: everytime you play it, evil people melt and explode. If only I could get a hold of the White House PA...)
Brian Eno/David Byrne: My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (Ideologically unsound? Sure. Better executed since? Probably. But for a primitively spliced-and-sampled ball of ethnic gobbledygook, it doesn't sound dated: it's just too unsettlingly...off... to sound dated. Like a slow cigarette burn through the veil of "reality." )
Soul Jazz presents: A Tom Moulton Mix (Disco? No, no no, child. *removes cap, tousles hair* This is disco TIMES TWELVE. *pats behind* Now move along, child. I've got gettin' down to do.)
Arthur Russell: First Thought Best Thought (acquired with a Jackpot gift certificate from gl. and sven. I wrote this by way of thanks, for the "gorgeous double CD of recordings by my favorite late and long-lost avant-garde composer/disco auteur/singer-songwriter/gay Iowan electric cellist...it's like traveling through the most heavenly sad pastoral America in a moth-winged tugboat." Thanks again!)
Wire: Pink Flag/ Chairs Missing/ 154 (Cold, brittle, steely, bitter, arty austerity never felt so good. Seriously.)
Compilations:
The Beast presents: Invaders (It's Metal, folks! Growling! Pummeling! Crunching! Lyrics cribbed from D&D and H.P. Lovecraft! It's back! And now it's hipster friendly!)
Compost Black Label Series Vol.1 (Unlike this! The Pitchfork/Vice crowd wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot fiberglass hash pipe. Deep, acid-jazzy electro-housey goodness. So 1996. So nothing to be ashamed of. Just dip me in it. Double dip me. Aaaahhhhhh.)
Soul Jazz presents: Tropicalia (That this single helping of Brazil's--and the Galaxy's--most innovative, funky, erotic, soulful and psychedelic music is just the merest sampling of what was produced in the 60s and 70s just makes my eyeballs spin just thinking about it. So I try not to much. SO worth the import price, if you don't happen to live in the indie record store capital of the Northwest. Nyaah nyaah.)
Zealous Records presents: Soul Sides Volume One (No, I wasn't cool enough to download them for free from the blog, either. But I'm here to tell you, brothers and sisters, there is hope.)
Disappointments:
Beirut: Gulag Orkestar (If you have internet access, and you know who you are, you've probably heard some of these songs. I don't want to have to break off some backlash on the baddest ex-Albuquerquean since zevhonith and the Shins, but though the concept is brilliant and a couple tracks I love love love--"The Bunker," "Postcards from Italy"--the album is just too samey, too formless, too blah. I'll rush out and buy his next one, when he's had time to tour and write tight songs. Heck, I'll carry his ukelele.)
Calexico: Garden Ruin (Well, I pre-ordered this big chunk-O-artistic-stagnation-and-compromise-and-why-don't-you-ask-me-how-I-really-feel from one of my favorite bands of all time, and I'm glad I did, because the first pressing came with the password for some MP3-only bonus tracks, of which one, "Cast Your Coat," is the best thing they ever did. And it's NOT ON THE ALBUM! Hellooooo...? How did this get a positive review in every blog and website from Tucson to Tukumkari? Has the world been taken over by zombies? Anyway. A couple songs are growing on me: "Cruel," "Panic Open String." And I understand how they didn't want to coast forever on their patented spaghetti-Western mariachi desert-noir schtick, that they're artists and have to mature and yadayada... but to reduce their vision from such a brilliant and bracing and wide-OPEN schtick to what amounts to bland, if virtuosic, Adult Contemporary Alt.Country is a reductive and depressing move. It's like a widescreen epic shrunk down to an iPod screen. I'd still see 'em live again in a heartbeat, though: the live setting might help. And if anything, I appreciate the rest of their stuff even more.
Various: Ghostly International Vol. 2 ("21st Century avant-pop." Whatever. Plop-plop-fizz-fizz. Blah blah blah. Pthpthpp. Still love Vol. 1, though.)
That is all.
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9:20 am - Hey. HEY!
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| Wednesday, June 21st, 2006
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4:34 pm - So, What Have You Been Doing with Your Life?
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I thought it might be appropriate to mark my return with a mid-year reckoning of my favorite 2006 musicka. Anyway, it's the easiest thing to write about and the kids love it.
Absolute tippy-top numbah one with vanilla caramel death rays; also, coincidentally, first alphabetically:
Ellen Allien + Apparat: Orchestra of Bubbles (Best techno album ever? Keeping in mind that techno is not known for albums? It's sexy, it's glammy, it's gooey, it's gothy, it's whimsical and melancholy. If I were left on a desert island and could only have one record: well, I would cheat and pick a Miles Davis boxed set. But if I were left in an abandoned, fully-automated, brightly-colored retro-futuristic space station, I wouldn't have to pack this disc because it would be the muzak.)
Other deadly favorites, alphabetically arranged:
Asobi Seksu: Citrus (Japanese for "play sex." Hmmm... Retro-shoegaze candy coating with a creamy dreamy pop center ).
Boris: Pink (Japanese doom-boogie-psych-metal with a girl guitarist who's, like, all cute and tiny. Still, evil. EVIIIIL.)
Espers: Espers II (& this chamber-folk beauty is as dark and doomy as any metal. Lullabies for after the End of the World.)
Ghostface Killah: Fishscale (Drugs. Violence. Misogyny. Blah blah blah. Like many great works of American literature.)
The Knife: Silent Shout (Okay, so it's the Year of the Creepy in pop music. So go read the news. Under a blacklight. To this.)
Madlib: The Beat Konducta v.1 & 2 (Now that I'm older, I insist that smoking weed inhibits creativity. Except for this dude.)
Serena-Maneesh: Serena-Maneesh (Imagine a torture device combining a roller coaster, a mallet, and your pleasure center.)
Shogun Kunitoki: Tasankokaiku (Umm, from Finland, as you can tell. Church music for pneumatic marshmellow cyborgs.)
Vitalic: OK Cowboy (this trash-techno opus came out LAST year in Europe and was a Pitchfork "best of." Ask if I give a shit.)
More tomorrow! Good to be back, etc. Kiss kiss.
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| Wednesday, June 14th, 2006
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7:43 pm - Friends...
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| Wednesday, October 26th, 2005
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6:17 pm - The Lost Episodes
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So, I'm not posting to LJ anymore.
The reasons are multifarious and have mostly to do with two jobs, one of them teaching. And a five-month-old daughter. Etc. Listen, I haven't even been able to make a mix since August. Or read a book. I can barely watch a freakin' movie.
More importantly, I haven't been writing. And that's just not healthy, and I'm working on it. But this here place, I regret to say, is not the appropriate place for me to get back into it.
What it comes down to, folks, is that this is a social blog. It's set up to enable and highlight the friends/commenting/communities aspect of blogging, and as much as I want to catch up with y'all from time to time, I just can't stay in that game anymore. And besides, I'm more interested in privacy these days than I once was.
mama_k's got us set up on Typepad, so I'll be taking residence there shortly. I'll keep you posted.
In the meantime, here's my recently updated Favorite Albums of 2005. They're in no particular order, but I'll stake my sharp lil' ears on each and every one of 'em.
1. M.I.A.--Arular
2. Antony & the Johnsons--I am a Bird Now
3. Spoon--Gimme Fiction
4. My Morning Jacket--Z
5. Amadou & Mariam--Dimanche a Bamako
6. Wolf Parade--Apologies to the Queen Mary
7. The New Pornographers--Twin Cinema
8. LCD Soundsystem--LCD Soundsystem
9. Konono No1--Congotronics, Vol.1
10. Out Hud--Let Us Never Speak of This Again
11. Four Tet--Everything Ecstatic
12. Caribou--The Milk of Human Kindness
Compilations & Reissues:
Stereolab--Oscillons from the Anti-Sun
Gang of Four--Entertainment!
V/A--No New York (Russian Import)
V/A--New Thing!: Deep Jazz in the USA
V/A--Love's a Real Thing: The Funky Fuzzy Sounds of West Africa
V/A--The Rough Guide to Dub
V/A--Rio Baile Funk: Favela Booty Beats
Almost, But Not Quite:
Dungen--Ta det Lugnt
The Ex--Turn
Jamie Lidell--Multiply
Andrew Bird--The Mysterious Production of Eggs
Sleater-Kinney--The Woods
Mahjongg--Raydongcong
V/A--Run the Road
Yet Unheard:
Isolee--We Are Monster
Lightning Bolt--Hypermagic Mountain
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah--Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Jason Forrest--Shamelessly Exciting
Animal Collective--Feels
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| Thursday, July 21st, 2005
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12:54 pm - How I Spent My Penultimate Day at Work
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A mix for my friend/best man Dan (to whom I shall no longer be referring as "Captain American Studies"; of course, he's still a hero to me), who will be visiting in a couple weeks.
No title yet, but I would subtitle it "Post-Apocalyptic Driving Songs."
1. The Shins--We Will Become Silhouettes
2. The Decemberists--July, July
3. The Black Keys--Set You Free
4. The Von Bondies--Not That Social
5. Imperial Teen--Lipstick
6. Electrelane--Birds
7. Turin Brakes--Emergency 72
8. Morissey--First of the Gang to Die
9. Ted Leo & the Pharmacists--Bridges, Squares
10. Orange Juice--What Presence?!
11. Spoon--The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentin
12. Finn Brothers--Only Talking Sense
13. Martin Rev--Hop and Scotch
14. Sans Serac--Late Blues
15. John Zorn--Hysteric Logo
16. Pulsars--Wisconsin/Tunnel Song
17. They Might Be Giants--AKA Driver
18. Architecture in Helsinki--Wishbone
19. Beta Band--Broke
20. Out Hud--Old Nudes
21. Scissor Sisters--Comfortably Numb
22. Phoenix--Heat Wave
23. Flaming Lips--Do You Realize??
Dan has long been a cheerful, if sometimes perplexed, recipient of my mixes. I value his patronage as much for his deep and nuanced listening, and his genuine and open love for music, as for his considerable geek capital.
That said, I have been known to enthusiastically drop some real obtusities on his tolerant noggin. He has survived a crucial period in my long and arduous development as a mixtape maker, and while I can attest they've always been INTeresting, I'm not sure they've all been enjoyable.
So, I wanted to express my gratitude and affection by pushing myself to that calm, clear place that Rob in High Fidelity found at last: making a mix full of songs he will like.
Of course, MY idea of what HE would like is entirely subjective, based in some part on things I know he listens to at home, some on mixes he's made me* and some from my perceptions of hits and misses in past mixes I've made for him.
So, in many ways this as much an exercise in good intentions, and a compromise between my tastes and his, than anything else.**
Specifically, it means:
Nothing over the 5 minute mark, and most within the chewable pop song 3.
Strong melodies.
Reasonably coherent pop songwriting structures (though when possible I will always stray from the standard verse/chorus/verse repeat, unless it's a concise and energetic wad-shooter. I like my chords repetitive, not my lyrics. And I like songs with multiple sections; songs that move in ways that detourn or meander from the linear Point A-->Point B formula. Songs that, like a good short story or film or Simpsons episode, start in one place and end up in quite another. Also, in case you were wondering, I LOVE songs with false endings. They make me squeal like my baby girl).
Songs that are energetic and bouncy but not too "indie," in either the "self-consciously dissonant-and-sloppy" or the "painfully hip and obscurist, never-been-out-in-the-sun metropolitan" sense.
I know that Dan doesn't care for hip-hop (except in an American Studies sense), and since he lived through the era of (bad, mainstream, saturation-marketed) disco and he's never done drugs, he's a little wary of dance music. And of course, my favorite spazzy furniture-falling-down-stairs racket is right out.
As a deft and articulate student of pop, he likes it accessible (which is not to say "easy" or "simple"). He's the one who asks the Beatles or Stones question, and he's the Beatles all the way.***
Not sure how closely my mix follows these guidelines, but that's where I started. There's a string of what could be termed dance music (even disco!) at the end, but it's texturally and melodically varied enough (songs, not "tracks") to escape the trap.
And it starts with two Portland bands.**** Represent!
Once again, the first song I came up with, and the initial inspiration for the mix (The New Pornographers' "Letter from an Occupant") had to be dropped at the last minute. Funny how that works.
Anyway, it all holds together well, and I'm enjoying the holy heck out of it. I sure don't make mixes for myself that are this much fun.
Can't wait to see you, Dan! Hope your car has a disc player!
*Here filtered through the lens of HIS idea of what I'D like, which is where things get really interesting; even if he's compiling music with my taste in mind, it's still his music, and he wouldn't give me a tape he wouldn't enjoy himself. So in a way, he's embedding a bit of his image of me into the mix, giving it a mirrored surface on which, if I concentrate, I can catch glimpses of who he thinks I am. Obviously, this is what I'm doing here, for him. I'd like to go further with this aspect of mixetapes in the future, because it sure is fascinating.
**Much like my recent mix for zevhonith, which was my shot at appealing directly to her sensibilities. She should have felt that every song, to a reasonable extent, made a personal connection with her, one built from my knowlege of her musical tastes and her overall aesthetic. While I think I did a pretty not bad job, it was the most painstaking mix I've ever done. And I'm still tinkering with it, even though I gave her the CD weeks ago, because it can't keep still. I'm afraid I'm going to have to start feeding it freshly-killed chickens or something.
***Though he acknowledges that women who like the Stones are probably more fun in bed. To which point I can attest.
****As you know, however, The Shins were an Albuquerque band first. Double represent!
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| Wednesday, July 20th, 2005
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9:31 am - Beamed Up
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| Tuesday, July 5th, 2005
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8:31 pm - Afro-Punk
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My entry for the International Mixtape Project, July 2005:
This month’s mix was inspired by the documentary film Afro-Punk by James Spooner (see disclaimer below).
1. Gil Scott-Heron—Whitey on the Moon
2. Parliament—There is Nothing Before Me But Thang
3. Bad Brains—Pay to Cum
4. Fishbone—Behavior Control Technician
5. Fishbone—Asswhippin’ (interlude)
6. TV on the Radio—The Wrong Way
7. Antipop Consortium—Mega
8. Prince—Head
9. Divine Styler—Directrix
10. Konono No.1—Masikulu
11. Nina Simone—See-Line Woman
12. Jimi Hendrix—Love Love
13. Miles Davis—Willie Nelson (outtake)
14. Love—Gimi a Little Break
15. Rahsaan Roland Kirk—Black Root
16. Public Enemy—Gotta Give the Peeps What They Need
17. Living Colour—Memories Can’t Wait
18. Saul Williams—Twice the First Time
19. Sonny Sharrock—Peanut
20. Chambers Brothers—Time Has Come Today
( Disclaimer )
_________________________________________________________
Some Notes on Afro-Punk (the film, the mix it inspired, and that concepts they share):
When most people think of Black music they don’t think of punk rock.
--Jamila Clarke, Afro-Punk Seeks a Black Audience
‘When I first heard the Bad Brains, I thought, “Those white boys are bad;” when I found out they were Black, my world just stopped.’
--Angelo Moore of Fishbone, qtd. in Michael A. Gonzales, The New Danger
Given that punk rock is, as Spooner notes, Black music, this illustrates the redundancy of the modifier ‘Afro’ before the word ‘Punk’ in his title. This excessive and disruptive doubling invaginates rock’n’roll, creating ‘a law of impurity’ in which, as Jacques Derrida would have it, ‘the boundary of the set comes to form…an internal pocket larger than the whole.’ Such a law of impurity, dramatizing an inability to assimilate, a participation without belonging, helps unpack what it means to be punk to the punks.
--Tavia Nyong’o, Afro-Punk: The Danger of Safety
Popular culture routinely provides opportunities for escaping the parochialisms and prejudices of our personal worlds, for expanding our experience and understanding by seeing the world through the eyes of others. But it can also trap us in its own mystifications and misrepresentations, building our investment and engagement in fictions that misrepresent the lives of others and hide the conditions of their own production – the contexts of hate, power, hurt, and fear in which we live. Popular culture often reduces the lived experiences of gender, ethnicity, class and race that contain and constrain people to exotic stereotypes that serve to build dramatic tension and texture, but which elide history.
--George Lipsitz, Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism & The Poetics of Place(160).
‘Rick, this is like Black punk rock. How can you waste your time on this garbage?’
--Russell Simmons to Rick Rubin, on Rubin’s involvement with Public Enemy; qtd. in James Porter & Jake Austen, Black Punk Time: Blacks in Punk, New Wave & Hardcore 1976-1983 (Part 1)
‘What many people don’t understand is, Afro-Punk is a state of mind; it’s not just about a style of music. When I think of Black punk, Miles Davis and Nina Simone come to mind.”
--Sasha Jenkins, qtd. in Michael A. Gonzales, The New Danger
‘Rock & Roll is Black music and we are its heirs.’
--Black Rock Coalition Manifesto
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| Wednesday, June 29th, 2005
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9:23 am - Shit! I Forgot To Write About Music
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I'm still trying to figure out how I managed to get from a place where I felt I couldn't take care of myself to one in which I seem to be a functional father.
My parents have told me that "I was meant to be a father," and my dad apparently had a sort of epiphany that this is where all my sensitivity and (over-)thoughtfulness had always been leading. Which was a relief, because as a father himself, he never quite knew what to make of it.
I don't know what to make of all that. I don't seem to be any less self-absorbed than usual. But there are two people in my life now whose needs are always in the foreground along with my own; if not before them, then certainly never behind.
Does this sound clinical, or underwhelming? To me it's a big deal. I married mama_k without hesitation because she struck me instantly as someone I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. It felt like quite a commonsensical decision. All the pieces fit together; the picture was complete.
And of course, having children was part of that decision. I had never given thought to children before, other than the one about "I hope my partner doesn't get pregnant. That would suck." When I met the woman I would shortly marry, the thought "and we will have kids" was as clear and, well, right-seeming as could be.
And therein lies the big deal. Prior to this, while I have always (I think) been proficient at sensing the emotional needs of others, I rarely allowed myself to let that awareness flow into action: into engagement with that person, giving of myself to fulfill their needs. You know, a healthy human relationship. It's difficult to describe, but much more so to practice, on an intimate, day to day basis. At least, so I thought.
When I did want to give of myself, it was inevitably to someone whose needs I could never fulfill, no matter how much I gave or how much I twisted myself into the contours of their lives.
Now that I'm married, I realize how much work and growth took place in my relationships to get me where I needed to be. And I'm grateful, and for all that there were always good things along the way.
But sometimes I'm dazzled by... how inappropriate my love could be. How little it really sustained myself, or others. It's as if the connections were always sort of wonky; as if the energy could not flow freely. Cosmic constipation, to coin a vivid if unfortunate term.
Now, it's easy. My wife's needs are as important as my own, and so are my daughter's. Duh. Where have they been all my life?
This makes life terribly complicated from moment to moment, but the big picture, if we were to pull back, is one of wholeness. Unity. Rest.
Soon it will be difficult to imagine a time when Maya wasn't in our lives. Like mama_k, she appears in hindsight to have always been there, somehow, just out of sight. In the next room, or the next after that.
What I haven't forgotten is how good I am at wasting time. The more free, unstructured time I had, the less I could accomplish. I haven't lost that ability, fersure, but there is something comforting about the idea that free, unstructured time is something about which I need not worry. Probably from now on.
Sometimes it feels as if I've just been waiting. I spent my 20s trying hard not to learn too much (outside of book learnin', that is), or take on too much responsibility, or have too much at stake. It's a nice way to live in the short term.
But now that I'm "growing up," a process whose steps I can't retrace but which has been quietly unfolding all along, I am exasperated at my past self for having so little self-knowledge, so few keys to so many doors. I know I had to start somewhere, but when I look back I see a lot of inertia and a lot of automatic living, all tape loops and repetition. That I suspect I'm afflicted with a mild OCD puts it all in clearer relief.
So now I'm living for my family, and it doesn't feel like a burden. Walls are not closing in; options are not deleting themselves. Rather, my life is taking on a shape.
I've always been one of those people with too many interests, too many talents (or at least competencies) to ever settle on a direction. For such a person, parenthood does not place limits or restrictions. Rather, it is refinement, definition, focus. It pulls my true shape out of the formless block.
Welcome to the world, Maya. I'm honored to have you in my life.
Now if I could just work on that "career" thing.
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, June 27th, 2005
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10:05 am - Brand! New! Music! Meme!
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1. What was the first album you owned? Cassette: Asia, by Asia. Vinyl: Music from Purple Rain, by Prince & The Revolution. CD: Bitches Brew, by Miles Davis. Digital: Congotronics, by Konono No.1. I never had any 8-tracks.
2. What's your most soothing album? Apparently, Brian Eno's Music for Airports. We used it to put the baby--and ourselves--down to sleep last night (I would have said Enya, but I've had bad experiences with Enya. It's a long and sordid story. Anyway, I'd appreciate your suggestions for more baby sleepy goodness).
3. What album would you put on to get a honey's clothes right off? I happen to know, as a happily married bunny, that Al Green's Greatest Hits is the solid sender. But without Enigma's first album, I might have been a virgin throughout my entire 20s (note modifier).
4. What album would you pull out to impress a visiting music geek? I would go nuclear by putting on my re-creation of the rare-to-the-point-of-nonexistent No New York compilation using releases from its individual groups Mars, DNA, The Contortions, and Teenage Jesus & The Jerks (okay, I haven't ACtually done it. But I could. And I would RULE FOR ALL TIME IN THE MIGHTY GEEK TOWER!).
5. What old album have you recently discovered that you wish someone would have told you about in the first place? Nowhere by Ride. This is the ultimate shoegazer wall-of-sound psychedelic brain spatula right here. Additionally, it contains "Dreams Burn Down," the Song I Most Want to Hear on My Brother-in-law's Ridiculous Sound System).
6. What album do you own that just doesn't belong but that you can't ever get rid of for sentimental reasons? Never Enough by Melissa Etheridge (Shut UP).
7. What album did you buy that was such a bad idea you wanted to cut off the joint of a finger in recompense? Everywhere and Right Here by the Six Parts Seven (I bought it on the strength of one brief, gorgeous track--not included on the album--that led me to believe that the rest of their work wasn't the indie equivalent of Kenny G ear tapioca. WTF? Fastest used trade-in ever).
8. What album would you throw on to clear out an overlong party? Why, the perfectly titled Get Out, by Pita.
9. What album do you most covet that someone should send you if they ever find it because they're such a good person and they love you and want to go to Heaven? Running, Jumping, Standing Still by 'Spider' John Koerner (thank you in advance).
10. Finally--and thanks to my friend Dan--Beatles or Stones? Velvets. HA!
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| Wednesday, June 22nd, 2005
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11:33 am - The Best I Can Do at Work
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Music Often Described as Cold and Unfeeling That Nevertheless Turns My Crank:
1. Gang of Four
2. Wire
3. Autechre
4. any and all Electro
5. anything with vocodered "robot" vocals
Music Characterized by its Warmth and Emotional Content That Leaves Me Dead Inside:
1. Eric Clapton
2. Contemporary R&B (except Maxwell, who fucking ROCKS the cradle of love)
3. The Doors (except for The End, but only in the opening credits of Apocalypse Now)
4. any and all "Blues Rock" (except Free, Janis Joplin, the occasional Allman Brothers and the eponymous 1970 Humble Pie album)
5. anything by sensitive, granola eatin' folkie singer/songwriters (selected James Taylor jointz excepted)
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(comment on this)
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| Tuesday, June 21st, 2005
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5:06 pm - Keeping Raffi at Bay
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Music played for Maya:
Mozart (lots o’ Mozart)
Bach
Verdi
Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Samite
Miles Davis (since conception, yo)
Dave Brubeck
George Russell Sextet
Bill Evans Trio
The Beach Boys
James Taylor
Over the Rhine
Alison Krauss
Cat Stevens
Smokey Robinson
Nat King Cole
Al Green
Bob Marley
Duke Ellington
Four Tet
Caribou
The Irresistible Force
Brian Eno
Santana (we danced to the ridiculous conga breaks!)
Various bluegrass
Various Sufi music
Various doo wop
Did you know that the rush of blood in your mother’s womb had a volume range of 80-90 decibles? That’s louder than a vacuum cleaner. Babies like loud, sustained drones, which makes Maya an instant fan of the early Velvet Underground.
Whotta week. Parents and brother in town to meet the baby girl. As a result we made several very exciting outings with Maya, which for the most part went very well. Our big lesson: when she’s hungry, fortheloveofgod feed her. THEN start driving.
Visits also from zevhonith, who brought me book of short stories, A Dove of the East, by Mark Helprin after I subliminally let slip that it was my birthday while she was at Powell’s, and Mirah, who brought copies of her MFA thesis in Creative Writing. Sweeties, I’ll read them as soon as my gift from mama_k, Simon Reynolds’ new book on post-punk, releases me from its merciless grip.
We just learned that our friendly, recently-mommied apartment manager is leaving, and is looking for someone to take over. I’m going to call her from the library tomorrow and make my pitch. Imagine being able to work right next to my family!
Kindly perform a brief serendipity dance in my honor. Thank you.
Happy Solstice! Longest day of the year means that, even if Maya keeps us up all night, it’s not that long. Enjoy the full moon as well.
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| Monday, June 13th, 2005
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12:09 am - Tableau (2005, text on screen, 12 in. by 14 in.)
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So we--mama_k, Maya and me—woke up at 10 pm after having slept for the last four hours.
What this means, in objective terms, is that we have finally conformed to Maya’s sleep schedule. For the first time we all managed to sleep in the afternoon, while she’s out, and were inordinately happy to wake up in pretty much the middle of the night for nursing, sandwiches, Shrek and burping.
This schedule is, of course, completely intractable. It wouldn’t work except on a day off, and for any one of us to get used to it would be a bad idea. But it sure was nice for everything to click in unison.
The result: one happy baby, and two parents who will for one night be okay with going back to bed at 2 (or 3) and rising at 7.
Two things of note took place to inspire an impromptu post. But first: how could I have forgotten that Shrek features a scene with Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah” on top of it? How strange is that?
The first thing: in my homeopathically-allergy-medicated state I dreamt of an abandoned theatre. It was one of those grand old theatres with the balconies and the velvet seats and the sweeping proscenium. It had been taken over by what I can only describe as a band of guerrilla bloggers. Solitarily or in tight, suspicious circles, these radical journalers scratched away on notebooks or tapped on laptops (presumably this squat had Wi-Fi) and posted their forbidden truths from this darkened and besieged sanctuary.
Along the way in the dream, I came across a tattered paperback that looked to be of 60s or 70s vintage. The book was pocket sized and its crude, lurid cover painting depicted an Earth emblazoned with a burning pentagram. It was a tract laying out the doctrine of a Scientology-style cult of apocalyptic Pagans; its central tenet was that bringing about the extinction of the human race was the only way to save Mother Nature.
(By the way, I have had to use the “z” twice so far (okay, now three times) and apparently our “z” key (there’s four) is sticking egregiously. The second time I actually had to use the Insert menu to put it in. Such are the things I reveal at this strange hour.)
So then I woke to phone’s final ring before the answering machine snorted to life. I couldn’t make anything out from the brief, faint message, but mama_k said, “Isn’t that Gretchin?” I discovered that this was, in fact, the second time she had called from the front door of our apartment building. We had been sleeping the whole time.
I flailed around for clothing and was about to run downstairs, well after she would have reasonably given up and left, when there was a knock on the door.
Gretchin and Sven had slipped in with our nice Unitarian neighbor, and were in the process of dropping off not only a homemade cheesecake [edit: it's a key lime pie!] topped with raspberries from their backyard, but also the June issue of The Believer, the music issue that includes a CD of some of my favorite artists covering songs by some of their (and my) favorite other artists—the prize (that’s five) for me is Spoon doing Yo La Tengo, but there are a lot of good people out there who will want to buy it for The Shins doing Postal Service—and for which I had spent the last two weeks combing the city, completely unbeknownst to gl. and sv.
What a couple of angels.
What a blessed life I lead.
What a lot of phlegm in my bean.
Goodnight.
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| Thursday, June 9th, 2005
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2:39 pm - Ten Superfluously Numbered Observations
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1. Used nappies, when nicely folded over and taped, are like little warm ration packs. Like mama_k said, "Pull string for hot meal."
2. People without children don't really want to hear amusing stories about poop and spit-up.
3. Neither of those substances, it turns out, are really bothersome at all. I think that I shared the fear of many men that the worst part of parenting would be changing diapers. Puh-leeze.
4. The worst part of parenting, of course, is the Terror.
5. I think of the fear as an investment; one for which the returns are exponentially vast. Also, the dividend is Love.
6. I've been shelving books all morning, and this brings several ruminations to mind.
a.) There are a huge number of fascinating and useful books in the library. Not just mine. Any library. Yours. When's the last time you stopped by?
i.) Also, I get all my movies and most of my music at the library. For free. Why are you buying shit? What's wrong with you?
b.) At a small community college library (like this one), all of the newest and most popular books tend to be on the shelves; whereas at larger ones you pretty much have to get on a list to read them. The students' loss = my gain.
c.) It's just amazing how much thought and time and research and heart and money and resources and PAPER goes into the publication of each one of these thousands upon thousands of books. Most of them end up on a dusty, underlit shelf with little or no attention until they crumble or are eaten by insects (especially if you stick Post-It Notes on the pages, fool!).
They might not even be in call number order.
d.) Really, aside from paying rent for a writer for a couple months, or padding the bib of the occasional grad student, did most of these books really NEED to get published? I mean, really?
More and more books are published every year. Then there are the magazines and newspapers full of reviews of the books, the books about the books, the books about those books, and my god, this is madness! There are a lot of books that I want to read before I die. Not nearly as many as several people I know--I'm talking to you, zevhonith--but still, a BUNCH. Well, it's just not gonna happen.
Not only will I not live nearly long enough to cover the essentials, but I've got to allow for all the time spent reading record and film reviews, the liner notes of albums (not always worthwhile, really; and that's not counting the list of thank-yous I'm always compelled, against all reason, to peruse), the backs of cereal boxes, ads and signage, Best Erotica collections, stray copies of Parade left in the staff lounge, and second-rate crime fiction.
7. Things I'm grateful for:
a.) That Maya and mama_k are healthy. And that my life took me to the places where they could find me.
b.) The DJ at KDOX, this college's little radio station that could, played a Deerhoof song today. I don't think he understood my gesturing through the window, but I was trying to get him to let me in so I could kiss him on the mouth. Okay, maybe he did understand me. But in my country, that's how we tip the DJ.
c.) The new Batman movie is going to kick SO. MUCH. ASS.
8. Parenthood allows instant membership in a vast, but heretofore hidden, secret society. You think that all those breeders are aboveground and in plain sight, but wait until you're walking down the sidewalk with a baby in a sling and you pass another parent, and you get The Glance. Affirming, conspiratorial and even vaguely guilty, The Glance binds all parents everywhere even as it snips us out of the metaphorical group photo of the ignorant, childless masses.
Try it sometime. Buy a stroller or a baby sling and drop in a sack of potatoes. Then go outside. It's like the Rosicrucians and the Crips all in one.
9. mama_k had some time to get used to the status of her pregnant body as public property, to be poked, stroked and invoked at will by various and sundry freaks. But now when I carry Maya, I take on secondary aspects of the pregnant woman. And strangers tend to talk to me anyway, especially in grocery stores, and sometimes even when I try to make them think I'm a serial killer straining desperately to keep the red haze from overtaking my brain as I root around in my messenger bag for the kabob skewers.
Now with the cutest baby on earth in my arms, who will believe me?
10. Parenthood also works like nothing else has in making me want to examine, and finally embrace, the nature of masculinity.
Something about the viscereality of motherhood, the warm, solid fact of what a woman can do that a man can't--the gestation, the lactation, the hormonal prestidigitation--makes me wonder who I am as a father, and what, as a man, I can and cannot do or be or become for my daughter.
Celebrating the fluidity and social constructedness of gender is one thing. But when the baby is hungry, and I can't make her a sandwich, I'm at a loss for theory.
Trying not to put our child in a gender box is another. But when relatives and coworkers are gifting us willy-nilly with little pink outfits with puppies and chickies on them, I'm at a loss to problematize.
It's kinda like I have to start over. Reset.
All I have to do is get to the core of what makes me who I am, and tap into it.
Is all.
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| Wednesday, June 1st, 2005
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7:39 pm - Part of the Family
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Hey, turns out I put a bum link in my last post.
For more than you could ever want to know about Maya, mama_k, myself, or my sparsely-haired naked torso, go ye to this here blog.
You may or may not be impressed that, as one who has never posted photos or revealed my right true name on my journal, I now offer full disclosure. Eat it up with a spoon.
Pay particular attention to mama_k's eloquent and heart-rending post about the link between love and terror. I wish I had written it, but alas, I married a genius.
I can't wait to post more about m'behby, but I want it to be good, not the usual lies and dissembly and crap I toss up on LJ (as edifying and, dare I say it, life-changing, as that crap may be). Besides, I'm wonky and exhausted. So I'm workin' on it.
In the meantime, I've got to knock out some of the pebbles that have been rattling about in my head.
So now, ladies and gentlemen and otherwise, some crap.
A victim of its own success, the newly public International Mixtape Project actually shut down for the month of May; all assignments were recalled and addresses of recipients withdrawn.
The Project's leaders met in secret somewhere deep in the Kremlin; one of them had been "taken by a sudden illness" and has mysteriously, if crudely, been erased from group photos. Official reports now deny his having ever existed, and suggest that anyone who thought otherwise might have eaten some bad salt herring.
Now they're back, and within 24 hours I had my new mix burned, packaged, and sent off to a fellow geek in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
Hope he's ready for some next-level shit, because while my first mix at least grounded itself in a familiar and time-worn style, this one is straight out there.
For those interested in such things, there are myriad angles of approach for a mix. This time, I built it around a kernel of one specific song: "Part of the Family" by Chunk, aka Sam Bennett, a veteran of the downtown NYC scene who has worked with John Zorn, Elliott Sharp, Joey Baron, Ikue Mori, and all them avant-garde cats.
As integral a fixture as he is, it has been nearly impossible to find information on him, and this group in particular (his entry at allmusic.com links us to a rapper named Chunk who is, shall we say, not the droids we're looking for. Move along).
The song is from the compilation Live at the Knitting Factory Vol.2, a platter I pulled at random from the vinyl graveyard at my college radio station back in The Day, and subsequently spent the next 8 years tracking down on CD (it also has Gary Lucas' gorgeous solo guitar version of the Albert Ayler perennial "Ghosts," which I put on my last mix. Also, a free jazz cover of "Foxy Lady" with a singer who makes Yoko Ono sound like Nat King Cole).
Anyway, "Part of the Family" is one of those songs that are so singular, so UNLIKE anything else I've ever heard, that it actually disturbed me. Actually made me want to throw up a little bit.
If this sounds a bit extreme, it's not an unheard-of mode of musical appreciation. My hero John Fahey* had exactly that reaction the first time he--brought up in an all-white community and raised on classical and bluegrass music--heard records by the great Black Delta blues singers. It was such a shock to his sensibilities and his sense-world that it affected him bodily.
My response was not life-changing or iconic, as was Fahey's. But the song, with its eerie synth and theremin, gong-like trashcan percussion, and mournful, almost grieving vocals, stuck with me like a cold.
I recently tracked down one of Chunk's albums and listened to it in the store, thinking I had hit the jackpot, but really knowing there couldn't be such a rich vein of this keen, tender strangeness anywhere on Earth.
I was right. The album was utter crap; at least, from the perspective of my hopes. Nothing is worse than white avant-gardists trying to do funk (a generalization that dips a toe into a vat of racist bullshit, and don't I know it. But you either got it or you don't). In any case, what "Part of the Family" had, it kept to itself.
So, that song, captured in a singular live performance and hidden away in the dusty grooves of history, became only more strange, more potent, and more alive.
And I wanted to see what would happen if I made a mix that grew from that song. Where do you go from there?
Some pretty scary and beautiful places. And appropriately, full of that wobbly, queasy tone on which I've written previously.
HOLLOW (5/31/05)
1. To Rococo Rot + I-Sound--Along the Route
2. Out Hud--How Long
3. Brian Eno + David Byrne--Mountain of Needles
4. Chunk--Part of the Family
5. Persona--drm solo
6. .O.Rang--Seizure
7. Themselves--Good People Check (Hrvatski Remix)
8. Agata--Ice Diver
9. Animal Collective--Who Could Win a Rabbit
10. Laika--If You Miss
11. We--Granular Timor Time
12. Muslimgauze--Possess a Poppyhead
13. Black Dice--Endless Happiness (Eye Remix)
14. Fussible--Trip to Ensenada
15. Lawrence--Teaser (Sci-9 Remix)
16. Luomo--Cold Lately
17. Scissor Sisters--It Can't Come Quickly Enough
18. Simian--The Tale of Willow Hill
19. Arthur Russell--The Deer in the Forest, Pt.1
Funny how things don't work out. I often start with a small group of songs that work--as in this case--as seeds for a mix, only to find that what I started with no longer fits.
It's a bit like using a mold that is later broken out and discarded. Removing the seminal song leaves a space that is in the shape of that song; an absence which defines and comments upon the substance.
The second song I chose, New Order's "Your Silent Face," with its cold, elegiac sweep of synths, is a case in point. I really, REALLY wanted to include it, and in the month and a half that I've had to prepare this mix, most of my tinkering and agonizing turned out to be an attempt to make it work. Once I finally gave it up, the mix was done.
Somewhere therein is a profound life lesson. I'm sure.**
So that's a relief. It's nice to be able to listen to it in the knowledge that I've already sent it out; that what the recipient hears is what he gets. Now I can let it go and just enjoy it.
Have I bored you to tears? Good. You should know what to expect by now. And I still love you.
Have I mentioned that my baby is the most perfect of all?
I love you Maya!
*[Funny, he's the second musician I've identified as a "hero" in the last couple days. What does that word even mean? Both he and Miles were iconoclasts and geniuses; both relentlessly pursued their vision, at the cost of personal health, public acceptance and relationships with loved ones. Both were as fucked up and contrary as their work was singular and beautiful. But-- I'm not like that. Aren't "heroes" supposed to be civil rights martyrs, or firemen or something? What does it mean when I claim them, or when I claim what John Donne called a "strand of gold" between us?]
**[Actually, what gave me the courage to nix New Order was having just watched the deleted scenes on the DVD of Garden State, with the commentary accidentally turned on***, in which the writer/director expounds on the painful necessity of paring down a labor of love. I'ts a damn good film, by the way, if you've been reluctant to see it. Funny in the absurdist way I like, but also very tender. Nicely done. And, yeah yeah, great frickin' soundtrack. I still don't see what the big deal is about "New Slang" though.]
***[Don't ask. It's still a sore spot with mama_k.]
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| Monday, May 30th, 2005
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12:37 pm - Maya
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Maya Dawn Elizabeth was born Thursday, May 26 at 7:47 am.
She was 8 lbs. 1 oz. and 19 and ½ inches long.
You may have met, or had, or have been, a baby you thought was the most beautiful and most perfect of all. I can only gently present my case to the contrary. Thank you for your indulgence.
She has golden brown hair, chipmunk cheeks, rosebud mouth, and almond eyes that are brown or blue or possibly both, or one of each, like David Bowie (only he wasn’t born that way). Time will tell in any case.
Maya already exhibits an array of facial expressions that range from the “faux smile” (a brief but heart-melting flicker which predates even the famed “gas smile” and which we can only at this point place in a file next to crop circles and constellations that spell out “We love you”) to the Robert De Niro sequence which speaks of impending somethin’ somethin’, to the 2-3 seconds during which her little head scrunches up and turns red like the fist of a kung fu tomato before cutting loose with her lack of amusement with the whole situation.
In between, she sleeps, snurfles and looks about with a wonder accompanied by the almost audible sizzle of new neural pathways.
Oh, this is just the best thing ever.
Maya shares her birthday with my hero, Miles Dewey Davis III (1926), whose “Kind of Blue” we played twice in the course of the birth.
Also born on May 26: Lenny Kravitz (1964), Pam Grier (1949), Peter Cushing, of Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Who and Star Wars fame (1913), Miss Peggy Lee (1920), Levon Helm of The Band (1942), astronaut Sally Ride (1951), Jackie Liebesit of Can (1938), Stevie Nicks (1948), Bobcat Goldthwait (1962), and Hank Williams, Jr. (1949).
On May 26, 1521, Martin Luther and his followers were outlawed by the Edict of Worms.
In 1805, Lewis & Clark got their first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains.
In 1896, Nicholas II of Russia was crowned as the last Czar.
In 1924, Brazil was recognized by the United States.
In 1930, the US Supreme Court ruled that buying liquor did not violate the Constitution, thus ending Prohibition.
In 1961, the Freedom Ride Coordinating Committee was established in Atlanta.
In 1977, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope made its premiere.
In 1994, Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley were wed.
In 2005, one girl would blow them all away </voiceover>.
Birth story still to come.
Pictures as soon as I can figure out how to do it, or when I have a Flickr executive at gunpoint. Whichever comes first.
Meantime, go here.
I love you, mama_k!
I love you, Maya!
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| Wednesday, May 25th, 2005
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2:49 pm - Rocking Surveys is Harder
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2:20 pm - Rocking Hard is Hard
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David Stubbs attended the UK publication party/panel discussion for Simon Reynolds' new book Rip it Up and Start Again: Post-Punk 1978-1984 (my birthday present from mama_k!)
Stubbs ruminates on video footage of seminal bands:
"It occurs to me that much of the air of meticulousness, of intensity exuded by many of the post-punk players isn’t so much that they’re seized by the angst of the times but that as not-natural musicians, they’re having to concentrate and strain every sinew simply to keep time, rhythm and pace, even when playing relatively rudimentary riffs. This is by no means a put-down; it’s something I find profoundly endearing and thrilling..."
If I was in a band I would be VERY intense.
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| Tuesday, May 24th, 2005
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6:40 pm - Killin' Time
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My Favorite Albums So Far This Year:
Antony & the Johnsons -- I Am a Bird Now
Caribou -- The Milk of Human Kindness
The Ex -- Turn
Konono No.1 -- Congotronics
Mahjongg -- Raydongcong
M.I.A. -- Arular
Out Hud -- Let Us Never Speak of It Again
Over the Rhine -- Drunkard's Prayer
Spoon -- Gimme Fiction
Compilations & Reissues:
Gang of Four -- Entertainment!
Mogwai -- Government Commissions: BBC Sessions 1996-2003
Stereolab -- Oscillons from the Anti-Sun
V/A -- Love's a Real Thing: The Funky Fuzzy Sounds of West Africa
V/A -- New Thing!: Deep Jazz in the USA
V/A -- The Rough Guide to Dub
V/A -- Run the Road
Almost But Not Quite:
Andrew Bird -- The Mysterious Production of Eggs
Dead Meadow -- Feathers
Gang Gang Dance -- God's Money
Larsen -- Play
Oneida -- The Wedding
Six Organs of Admittance -- School of the Flower
Contenders I Haven't Heard Yet:
Angels of Light -- The Angels of Light Sing 'Other People'
Architecture in Helsinki -- In Case We Die
Bloc Party -- Silent Alarm
Fannypack -- See You Next Tuesday
Four Tet -- Everything Ecstatic
LCD Soundsystem -- LCD Soundsystem
New Order -- Waiting for the Sirens' Call
Okkervil River -- Black Sheep Boy
Thievery Corporation -- The Cosmic Game
Old Shit I Got Recently:
Fishbone -- The Reality of My Surroundings
Elton John -- Elton John (1970)
Living Colour -- Vivid
International Harvester -- Sov Gott Rose-Marie
Prince -- Crystal Ball
Nina Simone -- Anthology
Slowdive -- Souvlaki
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