Dirty Clean: Romulus and Remus

OREGON: DIRTY NW
PENNSYLVANIA: CLEAN BUT MEAN
-------------------------------------------

Can I get a free catalog(ue), or what?

Kicked Around - The Ad-Libs

(I've tried an experiment:
I'm writing two blogs simultaneously, so that you will have shorter posts, and more of them. We'll see if this works.
They are opposed twins, so we'll call them Romulus and Remus.
One was posted a few days back, this one today.)




The Above: another nearly randomly selected old CD, one of a growing number from Pennsylvania's own "Collectables Records", who reissue stuff only BenG has heard of.
I'm going to mail away, at Box 35, Narberth PA, 19072, for the free catalog, and see if this label is still in business: I'll post the results. The copyright on the CD in front of me is from a decade ago, so we shall see.

Originally, the songs on this CD, "The Ad-Libs and Friends" were on the Red Bird and Blue Cat labels.
I got this on a recent buying binge at AKA Music in Old City, next to the bookstore that throws out books every recycling day, around midnight.

This practice of recycling their 'never gonna sells' is what produced the immensely popular "Philadelphia's Most Eligible Bachelorettes" magazine/pamphlet/catalog/ephemerus.
Hard to select an appropriately summery song off this CD; not for lack, but rather because of a surplus, a surfeit, a surprising number of happy, clappy jems.
I mean, how to choose between "Ooh Wee Oh Gee", "Gee Baby Gee", "Merry Christmas Baby", "The Boy from New York City", "Sugar Boy", and "Iko Iko"?
With awesome music comes awesome responsibility, I've been known to say.

The initial attempt was to select the uppermost summerishly one, because part of how I am opposing Oregon and Pennsylvania here is that it so often rains in Oregon, and is sunny in Pennsylvania. ALWAYS. (This is not the very most interesting, or accurate, distinction: that's why I made other distinctions too.)
Summery like flask-flip-flops:


But then I decided to give up on that task- so many so summery songs!- it would be like selecting my VERY BEST BLOG EVER, which, since all are

s o ! g o o d,

would be a task for a Deified Romulus.
Instead, you get this
minimal bidness,
Beyonce-style riddim,
lil' flex of a track.
Dense chiming little percussion, an utterly purified bassline, no fluff there.
This one gets honors for those reasons, and also because it musically has the most in common with the last post (though still not much), and is a bit of a surprise, innit? You know what the rest of the disc sounds like- doo wop. This is the oddball of the disc, and when in doubt, "Even or Odd?", we go with odd.

So maybe this battle should be about whether, now that I have more time for new-music magazines and more inclination to be on the internet (the internet was avoiding me before),
would you care to have more "new now" bands like Salem, or stick to the "old odd" tracks like "Kicked Around"?
This blog ain't a democracy- that leads to chaos, naturally and inevitably- but it is a bit of a Republic. (Remember your 'lessons' from last time about Machiavelli?)
Which means that you, the plebs, the common unwashed uncouth unknown -but not unknowing- masses, do get some say. At the least I am curious what motivates and gratifies you, so that I can better control you. (halfsies kiddies)

THUS SPEAKS YOUR DICTATOR: I COMMAND YOU TO SPEAK
in the comments.

Philadelphia From Salem - Romulus and Remus

I'm trying an experiment:
I'm writing two blogs simultaneously, so that you will have shorter posts, and more of them. We'll see if this works.
They are opposed twins, so we'll call them Romulus and Remus.

One is posted today, the other soon after.

I first was going to have one of my oft-postponed "X-Battles", where I pit two songs in band-to-band combat. This battle then morphed into these twinned posts; which then morphed into a different X-Battle.
There are a series of battles running here:
Oregon X Pennsylvania; (both posts)
Rain X Sun; (next post)
New band X Old band (aka blogbuzz vs reissues); (next)
New band doing a Cover X the Original; (this post)
Scuzz production X Cleanroom production (both).

Now, we will have drugged drugged drugged band SALEM trying to outdo the BOSS himself (who is probably really sober) .

Brustreet - SALEM

Above is Salem covering Bruce Springsteen's great "Streets of Philadelphia". Salem has an EP called "Yes I Smoke Crack". Here is a picture of an historic building in Salem, Oregon, with a crack in it:



This band Salem is probably named after Witch-Trials Salem, but Salem is also the meth-addled capital of Oregon. (I'm more concerned with getting things stolen in OR than PA: meth = stealing, and meth is not much of a drug out here in PA, because meth also = country.)
Salem the band sound like (recently legalized) Absinthe mixed with Oxycontin instead of sugar; like cough syrup mixed with boxed wine; like My Bloody Valentine mixed with the Knife and with strains of chopped and screwed Southern/Midwestern hip-hop : CHOP the pill; and unSCREW the wine.
Oregon is the only state with a two-sided flag. The flag, other than that, is very boring, and why are the letters all crooked??.

Salem is the capital of Oregon- and you ask, "Why not Portland, which I've actually heard of? Or at least Eugene, which has a big ol' university in it?"
Almost all state capitals are the not-biggest city, and this is done on purpose: it is to counteract the very real and very natural power (economic, cultural, geographical) that cities possess more of than do rural areas. This discrepancy occurs even when the cities hold significantly less people in them than the countryside.

(In Oregon, it is a rough balance, #-wise, between quasi-libertarian rightists and "Little Beirut" leftists: left lives in cities, and so has the upper-hand. IT'S A FACT!!)

Placing the capital outside of the largest city helps to strike a balance of the "naturally opposed humours"; the haves and the haves-less.
I steal this idea from Machiavelli. It occurs in both "On Principalities", his most-famous text (aka "Da Prince"), and his "Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius" and is key to uniting his championing of both quasi-tyrannical power and quasi-democratic republicanism.

--this is Prince on a high-school b-ball team:


Ahem! But, see, Rome's battles, with external enemies and with itself (have X have-less; city X country; Citizen X slaves), are appropriate here:
Rome itself was a productive clash of discipline (the Boss- how long has he been around? about as long as Rome itself: this requires discipline),
and the insanity of a dark violent youth: what do you think propelled and compelled them to take their many older neighbors as enemies, again and again? What do you think pushed citizen against citizen, time and again? (It wasn't drug disputes.)
What do you think drove Rome, with little rhyme or reason (but with plenty of instrumental rationality), to move from ruling nothing, to ruling 7 hills, to ruling from England to Africa to India?.
So Rome itself must be understood as a clash between Salem and Bruce Springsteen- this much has obviously been established- and the question is, who gets the greater share of the legacy?

Streets Of Philadelphia - Bruce Springsteen


Who won the battle? I expect you to argue, to battle this out in the comments section.

Brief News In Brief

[A] Mr. Lif is at Johnny Brenda's coming Monday (May 18th, my dad's birthday). That's him up der. A very Public Enemy-ish beat, which can only be understood as high praise.
[B] The Roots, at their Roots' Picnic, are playing with Public Enemy, doing "Nation of Millions" all the way through. {also with TV on the Radio, The Black Keys, & Santigold}
If you have $50, go; if not, see Lif with me. (He lives in Philly now.)

[C] Woody Allen is engaged in a legal spat with the founder of American Apparel. Dov Charney used Woody's image sans permission. I think Dov's billboard might have been saying that anti-Semites want to drag down any Jew who has sex? Maybe yes? Anyway, check the summary of AA's defense:
1)The Meteoric Rise of Dov Charney and His Company, American Apparel
2) The Media Vilifies Mr. Charney and Turns Against American Apparel
3) The Woody Allen/Annie Hall Epiphany
4) The Display of the Images [booty]
5) The Images as Mr. Charney's Artistic Expression, Social Commentary and Art Parody
6) Mr. Charney Consistently Champions the First Amendment's Freedom of Expression
(full analysis by real lawyers here, NJK)

[D] Roxana Saberi was released from prison. She's an American reporter who was jailed for espionage, after a 15-minute trial, in Iran. Then she was let out.
You already knew that, huh? Well, how about this: She used to be a "Miss North Dakota". She wears the charming white one-piece below, and says she would like to end both world hunger and politically motivated, judicially suspect jailings.


[E] Popped! musical goings-on is free and in my area June 20th.

You can 'rent a tent' for $125.

[F] Steven Wright, who I web-blabbed about here, is playing the Keswick Theater. I don't really go see live comedy (do you?), but I though this presented me a golden opportunity to link to myself, which is done by any mature blog worth a hill of beans.
He says things like this:
One time a cop pulled me over for running a stop sign. He said, "Didn't you
see the stop sign?" I said, "Yeah, but I don't believe everything I read."

Children in Bars 'n' Drivers in Cars

Today is nice, so I will tell you a (nice) story from the other nice day.

Young Turks - Rod Stewart

{{ This song is just great. I'm thinking I'll play on my BBC Essential Mix, when I am finally a world-befamed DJ. }}

First, let's just state, forthrightly and with feeling, that I saw extra clowns.

Not only are clowns notable as such, but the first one was outside of a bar, getting ready to do her thing.
Of course, since she's a clown, she's got a bunch of kids around her, all ready for balloons and jokes and smiles and BEER i guess, because it is a bar after all. Also, clowns=fun and beer=fun, so Beery the Cheery Clown must be FUNfunFUN.


I also saw a few clownish things:
Outside of Rob's comic shop, I saw a giant inflatable HULK ( ! Hulk Smash ! ), so I went in and said Hello to him.

I later saw a giant inflatable cross, with a nipple on it --IT'S ART : DON'T HAVE A COW MAN!!-- that was printed with the pattern of a Holstein cow.

I did a clownish thing: while walking out of Old City Coffee, I hooked the handle of my umbrella on the door. I then made a face, which included a smile (clowns smile or frown: always one-or-the-other). Amelia saw me and laughed, because that's what clowniness makes you do. Also, it wasn't raining that day, so it was like a prop, this umbrella, and clowns love props.



I also saw lots of poor driving, as if there were 8 clowns in the car: all harmless. Lots of turning left from the center lane: eh, who cares. My magnamanity regarding other people's various shortcomings is really touching, I think. It's the sort of thing you could totally praise me for, basically non-stop.
And you can also praise me for the bounty of my blog, which is about to increase a fair bit. My time zone is now "summertime". So you will get a more-frequently logged blog. In fact, just in the last week or so, here are some topics, mixes, etc., that I have thought about generating.

Gary Numan: "Are Cars Electric?"

Putting pickles in salads : Good but intense (identical to me in this regard). Strictly, they were cornichons, 'cos I'm quality, but cornichons are just glorified, if glorious, pickles.

Maybe something about PJ Harvey, since she has a new album and will tour in Philly soon. June 7th (??...Tix as Birfday Gif...??)

A blog about blog-driven connections, including the world's oldest pharmancy, paintings and mom-as-muse(-maybe?). Oh, what's the connection? You Will Have To Tune In To See!!


Mixes:
"You can't even DRIVE yet!"

This would be drawn from CDs I've owned forever that are still classics -They can't just be old (I must have bought them long ago too), or obvious gems, like say Neil Young. They have to be something you might care, or need to, learn about. Aphex Twin-, Stone Roses-type things.

Underrated Albums or Bands; can we call this one "Slept On"? Elegant, innit?

More versions of "Shower Jamz!", which Kyle liked (Cf. Previous Post)

"Talky No Singy": songs where the singing is more talking than singing. No, not rap, ya goof. So far I'm considering Billy Bragg, this Pretenders song, Lou Rawls, maybe Sonic Youth (because they do this, but are they really that great?: jury's out man), Suicide, Jonathan Richaman's "Monlogue about Bermuda", which I talk about with regularity. Arab Strap too, natch.
Suggestions welcome for any of these, by the by.