Showing posts with label Mysteries and Lies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mysteries and Lies. Show all posts

10.23.2012

Halloween!: Soft Cell-oween Edition

Okay, so you gotta play these back to back, okay? They run directly into each other on the album, so let's try to mimick that magick.

Fair warning: there are totally nipples in the sexdwarf video- actually, there is all manner of batshit shit going on- so don't try watching it at work. Ain't nobody need to get fired in "this economy".

If you've already been fired, fantastic! Because not only musically and lyrically, but also *visually*, these videos are a match for the current Halloween theme.





(love that line: "luring disco dollies to a life of vice")

These songs come off the Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret album. This album has "Tainted Love" on it, but it is no exaggeration to say that every song on this album is good. So if you see it in a record bin, don't be scared to buy it.

By the way, it looks like this:

Except bigger, you know? Like 12"x12".

Also, it doesn't fit at all with the Halloween theme, but Kyle might recognize this Soft Cell song too. But nobody else click on it! Promise?

11.23.2009

Serious Serial Vol. 2: Titular

OH PART TWO!!!
As I just posted, new things happened (which is, of course, the same old story: new things Just Keeping Happening).
I got some new-old books, all with great titles (hopefully, they read well too):
Middlemarch, by Georg Eliot. (Georg is a GIRL!, by the way.)

Diary of a Madman, and other stories: Gogol. This is the actual cover of the book that I bought: used, very, I'm sure you can see.

N. Gogol is well-known for his novel, Dead Souls, ahem:



An Even Better song, everyone's new favorite Joy Division song, is below. Be a deary and listen to both, why don't you? You ask: why put both then? I reply: because the theme of today's blog revolves around TITLES- that is what 'titular' means, you little dirty- and so I was compelled to post the song enTITLEd "Dead Souls". You recognize the decisive and deciding logic now, I'm sure.



More Books. Thomas Mann's Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man.

Flounder, by Günter Grass. The Flounder of the title is a character:

a talking fish.

I started watching movies again. Recents: Jesse James meets Frankenstein's Daughter, and Hour of the Wolf (another great title); this movie is a little more serious than the other. It is directed by Ingmar Bergman, and deals with
Love,
Art,


and Madness.


Oh, how very Euro.


Both were worth watching. Well, JJ VS FD is worth it, if you are me (you aren't) and were sick (you might have been). Don't tell me if you were- I don't want to hear about it. I get enough detailed descriptions of my students' illnesses, thx.

8.24.2009

Cure-Light

I went to the dentist today, for the first time ever.
Well, for the first cavity ever.



download Songs:Ohia- Two Blue Lights

It went well and went fast, except for one bit. The compound didn't set up in part of the filling, because the light that one uses to 'cure' the compound, to get it to set, wasn't strong enough.

I thought that she had a hair-dryer in my mouth, from the way it sounded, but, turns out, it was a BLUE LIGHT LASER, which she kept calling a cure-light.




After she figured out that her cure-light was jenky, she borrowed another. This is Penn's Dental School, and so they borrow stuff all the time.

So she used Two Blue Lights.


Songs:Ohia, despite the odd spelling and the odd punctuation, are very good. You know this already, from the above YouTube video. Basically the same people as Magnolia Electric Co.
Like Neil Young, if we need a little shorthand to get you to listen to more. A little more 'sad bastard music' than Ol' Neil, but, you know, he wants you to cry sometimes too.

7.25.2009

It's not a Blog- It's a Blog Lobster (Pirate Radio 2 mix)

Another Mix! This is 'Lost- Pirate Radio 2'!
I posted another mix based upon the TV show a ways back (here). Since I have never seen the show, I had to do a lot of research. This 'research' consisted of thinking about sunny weather, daydreaming that I was a pirate, and swimming some.
Arduous.
Out of that came these two great mixes: highly appropriate for sitting around drinking margaritas, dancing in living rooms, wearing thongs/flip-flops.

You'll enjoy this, I promise.
Download 'Lost- Pirate Radio 2' with just one lil' clicky.

And what do we have on such a mix?
A song sung like a boy, like a girl, like a frog. We might hear this song sometime at Bouffant Bangout.

A song about being protected on the subway by the Guardian Angels. This is a finger-snappin', clap-happy disco tune.

This group is a sort of vigilante city patrol, and they mocked it in Sunny.


[{(download the freshly mixed fresh mix here.)}]

More sunny day, happy time, mellow Calypso. Island music.

A song about being stranded in the Jungle, that, if it weren't potentially racist (cannibals in the jungle?!...), you also might hear at BB-out. Is it racist, or not? You'll have to listen to it and see!

One of those new-wave, dance-punk-before-the-fact, snotty girl song. It says: 'Can I have a taste of your ice cream? Can I interfere in your crisis?'
'No! Mind your own business!'


[{(download it here.)}]


A song that sounds like those Indian Youtube singalongs.

Thanks to Charlie for showing these to me a while ago. GIRLY MAAAAAN!


[{(download it here.)}]

A sort of pseudo-cover of a Misfits song, but by Miss Kittin and the Hacker- you can dance to this one, despite the fact that it's lyrics are all like thus: "Mommy, Daddy, can I go out and kill tonight?".

"It's not a rock:

It's a Rock Lobster!"

Here is the track listing for
Lost- Pirate Radio 2 , complete:

Mind Your Own Business--- Delta 5
Rippin Kittin (Glove Radio Mix) ---Golden Boy With Miss Kittin
Rock Lobster ---B-52s
Ten Speed (Of God's Blood And Burial) ---Coheed & Cambria
Standed in The Jungle --- the Cadets
The Guardian Angel Is Watching Over Us--- Golden Flamingo Orchestra Featuring Margo Williams
New Hollywood Babylon ---Don Cavalli
Water--- The Esso Steel Band & Lloyd Simmons
Anna ---Brute Force Steel Band
Cool running ---Champaign
Ain't got not home --- Clarence 'Frogman' Henry
Sunny side of the street --- Big Shell Steel Band
Camilla ---George Symonette


[{(download 'Pirate Radio 2' here.)}]

10.30.2008

Futurist Revelations - the Second (secular) Coming - Be Thankful!

Yeeeeuh... another mix, matched so mean! This one is the originally planned mix for The Second (Secular) Coming: this one deals not with my colossal narcissism, but rather with the purity of spirit which is my Divinity Proper.
HELL YES!

Link it up : The Second (Secular) Coming.zip

As a mix, it moves from slow-burning but intense/driven (1-3), to sprawling dirty grandeur (4-5), quietism without passivity (6-8), a darkness (9-11) pefiguring The End and Resurrection (12-13). Quite a history here...


Here is the cast of characters, in the order in which you ought to listen to them:
1 Eternity Is Here *The Gun Club* Danse Kalinda Boom
2 Coded Language *Krust (Featuring Saul Williams)* Coded Language
3 The Prophet *The Make-Up* Untouchable Sound—Live
4 Revelations *Panthers* The Trick
5 Dead Souls *Joy Division* Permanent
6 My Body Is A Cage *The Arcade Fire* Neon Bible
7 City Of Refuge [Acoustic Version] *Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds* B-Sides And Rarities Volume I
8 Be Thankful For What You've Got (orignially by Devaughn - live cover) *Yo La Tengo*
9 Death To Everyone *Bonnie "Prince" Billy* I See A Darkness
10 Share the Fall *Roni Size and Reprazent (Grooverider's RMX)*
11 I Swear *Tulipomania*
12 Back *Alpha* Come From Heaven
13 I Am The Resurrection *The Stone Roses* The Complete Stone Roses

DOWNLOAD : The Second (Secular) Coming.zip


Share the Fall- sparse and epic. Like Fitzgerald, as 'read to me' (i.e. quoted) by Deleuze:
"twilight on a deserted range, with an empty rifle in my hands and the targets down. No problem set — simply a silence with only the sound of my own breathing." The sound of a faraway, lifeless planet: it bakes during the day and it freezes at night.

Body is a Cage: Church organs, giving the grand sweep, the operatic heights, appropriate to the Declaration of Divinity.


Eternity is Here: Once started, this song begins to instantly, insistently proclaim itself. Whipcrack drums, plaintive guitars. Its insistence is almost a prosyletizing.

Death to Everyone: see the cover for a picture of the aforementioned planet.



Lyrically, this songs does this:
"Stars turn, balls burn / Coming kids are raging

Death to everyone is gonna come / And it makes hosing much more fun"

"So strap me on and raise me high / Cause buddy I'm not afraid to die
But life is long and it's tremendous / And we're glad that you're here with us".

Dead Souls- Joy Division made this song, which later was covered by NIN (on "The Crow" Soundtrack). You know what this one sounds like. It sounds like JoyDiv, so how could it not go on a mix about the Second (secular) Coming?:
Ian Curtis died by his own hand (as did Jesus- well, His Dad asked Him to die, and He consented - since He is, in a mysterious but essential fashion, His own father. He consented to His own death: that is, He is a suicide),
and the Crow character COMES BACK FROM THE DEAD to avenge wrongs done him. And what is Divine Justice if not supernaturally aided punishment of the wicked?

DOWNLOAD : The Second (Secular) Coming.zip

Back- Alpha is always slept on: I told you this already. Some fantastic male crooning here; you'd do well to check it out if you like Rufus Wainwright, or the more sedate Morrissey even. This song has a hazy quality: incense floating through a still afternoon.
But In A Barn.
A barn with a record player. And records (for sampling): old ones, very scratchy and mellowed with age.

I = Resurrection- Manchester Madchester : Woodblock like the cowbell in a Will Ferrel SNL skit. "I put my raver-sized corduroy pants on the same way you do, mate: except when I put on my pants, I make GOLD RECORDS!" (cue laugh track)
(please?).

Coded Language - Man, when this one breaks, it B R E A K S out for real. Massive world consuming clattering drums. Some lyrics (By the great poet Saul Williams):
"Motherfuckers better realize, now is the time to self-actualize.
We have found evidence that hip hop's standard 85 rpm, when increased by a number of at least half the rate of it's standard, or decreased at a third of its speed, may be a determining factor in heightening consciousness.
[somehow, he is actually rapping all these words -
- believe, brudda, It Works]
Thus, in the name of:
Robeson, God's son, Hurston, Ahkenaton, Khalo, Kali, Whitman, Baldwin, Ghandi, Gibran, Shabazz, Hamer, Holiday, Davis, Coltrane, Morrison, Joplin, Gaye, Hathoway, Nostradamus, Nefertiti, Shiva, Ganesha, Yemaja, Kennedy, King, four little girls, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Marley, Cosby, Shakur, Those Still Aflamed, and the countless unnamed!"


By this point of the song, trust me, we are all aflamed. Lit up by millenia of song and millenia of thought, all compressed into (the Coded Language of) quantized drums. INTENSE.

DOWNLOAD : The Second (Secular) Coming.zip

Be Thankful- a mellow little interpretation of the ol' soul-ish/reggae-ish classic. Be Thankful that I put this on there. (You might even snap your fingers during it!) Yo La Tengo is supremely good at covers- get into it and see what I mean...

Revelations- Panthers started out super-Futurist, very much in the vain of !Nation of Ulysses!. The Kids wanted their revolution, by gum, and they were going to knock on the squares until they got one. Now, Panthers seems more gripped by the ennui of being a hipster who knows that he's a hipster, and who also knows what this means: they have become nearly paralyzed by awareness of self-awareness. But the music hasn't frozen - oh no - they have moved away from any formulaic punk and added that rad heavy stoner drone psych grind that the Kids these day like so well: more Black Sabbath and less !Nation!. It's a good mix- heavy, but still with momentum/propulsion.

DOWNLOAD : The Second (Secular) Coming.zip

DEATH TO ALL KINGS
LONG LIVE THE PRINCE OF PRINCES

10.13.2008

Narcissistic Revelations

Or, NarciCHRIStic RevelAWESOMEs. Take your pick.
In a former post, I revealed to you my divinity. (It was of world-historical import. But trans-historical, too.)

As was said about me in Oscar Wilde's 'Salome', "When he cometh the solitary places shall be glad. They shall blossom like the rose. The eyes of the blind shall see the day, and the ears of the deaf shall be opened. The sucking child shall put his hand upon the dragon's lair, he shall lead the lions by their manes."



Here are some of the first fruits of my new rule over man and beast.

A MIX! (the opening of ears!)

NarciCHRIStic RevelAWESOME.zip

TRACKLISTING =--=


I Wanna Be Adored>> The Stone Roses>> The Complete Stone Roses

I Am Pentagon>> The Make-Up>> Untouchable Sound—Live

New Morning>> Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds>> Tender Prey

More Than This>> Bryan Ferry & Roxy Music>> Street Life

(It Will Have To Do) Until The Real Thing Comes Along>> Wibert Harrison>> An Introduction To Wilbert Harrison

Didn't I>> The Delphonics>> WIBG 99

I Am Mister Big Stuff>> Jimmy Hicks

Me Myself And I>> De La Soul>> 3 Feet High And Rising

9 Lashes (When Michael Smacks Lucifer)>> Vast Aire>> Look Mom...No Hands

Touched by the Hand of God>> New Order>> Salvation Original Sdtk

Y.T.T.E. (Yield to Total Elation)>> Matmos>> The Civil War

My Week Beats Your Year>> Telefon Tel Aviv

U Don't Know Me>> Armand Van Helden

Bunk Trunk Skunk>> Be Your Own Pet>> Be Your Own Pet

Time of the Season (Zombies cover)>> Snowden

JUSTIFICATION of Tracklist:

So this mix came out of the attempt to put together a series of songs having to do with revelations, prophets, etc. But as a ran through some CDs, I also started thinking about the monumental narcissism of proclaiming myself as the Second (although Secular) Coming.
I have no problem with my monumental narcissism; it's just something I noticed.
So out of that mix (coming later) came this series of songs, which combines my posturing and my awesome nature.

The Stone Roses are British, and British rock bands often have God-complexes. Remember Oasis, and how they claimed to be as big as the Beatles? And remember how the Beatles said they were bigger than Jesus?



My Divinity has been geometrically demonstrated, according to Spinoza's mos gemetricos. Turns out the damn thing's a Pentagon! Who'd've thunk it?

There's nothing more than this [this=me].

And even if there IS something more than me, it ain't here yet, is it? So you'll have to wait, then, until the real thing comes along.

With that clear, irrefutable reasoning just then- didn't it just blow your mind?

Either that, or it only makes sense to me. Maybe I'm a little 'touched'...
TOUCHED BY THE HAND OF GOD more like it! (!zing!)

Plus, I went to RUBA this weekend -Before Sunday!- then back to mine. Proof positive that "My Week Beats Your Year".

And if I'm not JC Jr., then certainly Armand Van Helden is. That guy... I mean that guy, he invented speed garage, made guitars work in house music (mixed blessings, that), etc. He made a Tori Amos song cool- if that's not magical power, then what is?

We'll just close out this justification with some lyrics from the final song by the Zombies



(but our version is a cover by Atlanta's Snowden):

"What's your name?
Who's your daddy?
Is he rich like me?

Has he taken
Any time
To show you what you need to live?
Tell it to me slowly
Tell you what?
I really want to know..."


Wait, wasn't Jesus a Zombie too?


T H E C I R C L E I S C L O S E D

10.06.2008

Older Gents - In Suits - With Tasteful Arrangments

Time to go see some shows. Shows that will be well-populated by older gents.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds tomorrow.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Opium Tea.mp3, from their "Rarities and B-Sides" compilation.



When I saw them in Portland, it was all German men in suits. Plus me, alone, because I have BETTER MUSICAL TASTE than all my friends (oh, except you!, don't be naff! I'm not talking about you at all!) I wonder what sorts will come out for it this time, in Philly rather than Portland (I know that Liam and Greg and Alex will be there- I mean what Other sorts?).

I just mentioned Kid Congo Powers to you in my post about his former band, the Gun Club; he is opening for N.Cave and B.Seeds this Tuesday at the Electric Factory. (He used to be in the Bad Seeds, too). Here he is, as a picture - He is the one with the gun over his heart.







I should have a nickname like his. "Kid Christophresh Physis"?









Perhaps not (at least I didn't haz teh epic fail).





OH! As I am writing this, I just saw a man in A SUIT, AND a woman with DYED BLACK HAIR! It's like I'm at the show already!

Also, related to this show, I recently bought the new Tindersticks album. It's good. However, it's a bit quiet; too quiet for me to prove to you, decisively, that they are a band for whom you must demonstrate devotion.
Here is a stream of a song from another album:




Tindersticks are great, and this song has some of their key elements: strings (which produce dramatics), Stuart Staples' warbly voice, hotel rooms (hourly, perhaps- I think Tindersticks' library must include a fair bit of Bataille- this song has "when the cab ride seems to long, we go have sex in the bathroom" going for it [lyrically, I mean]), ricocheting drums to keep you uneasy, drinking, arguments (not exclusive of drinking), and a whole world of destructive desires and fantasy ("I could've drowned in all those so-called dreams", Stuart informs), mournful horns, usw.
("usw." is German- it means "und so weiter", which fairly literally means 'and so forth' but is translated well by "etc.", which itself is Latin.)




Download another fantastic song by Tindersticks here; it's called "Can We Start Again". Many of their songs sound like 'starting again':
within an old love;
with a new love;
in a new place;
fresh out of rehab, usw.

Or, instead of downloading, you can listen at this object:




I'm also going to see TV On The Radio on Friday. I'm going because it's free; they are a fine band, but I never felt like listening to their first album.
So I sold it. But I didn't get much money for it, because it was one of those heavily-promoted records that is sold much cheaper for the first few months. It was something like $8.99, $9.99 new. No, really. So when I sold it, people already had it.
Oh, and you thought I would never come back to it, but here is the icing for those patient souls who get ALL THE WAY TO THE BOTTOM:

there will be lots of old men at this show too, because this is a nerdy,
much blogged about and beloved band (a much be-blogged band),
because they are slightly obnoxious,
different in terms of makeup (there are black men in the band, which is rare in indie),
and, actually pretty interesting....
so older music critics (and the older men who want to be music critics- you know, like, actual journalists, with 'end of the year top tens' and bios and all that) love love LOVE them.

You know, like this guy (don't ask...)

9.26.2008

Mystery at the Gun Club

I know that you have all been slavering at the mouth, waiting for my next blog. It would have come sooner, but I have been busy. Busy traveling, and reading, and buying more music.

Download The Gun Club's 'Come Back Jim' on Mediafire

or, maybe Download The Gun Club's 'The Fire of Love'

I was recently chided for ‘still’ buying music, but I don’t mind.
Because I know I’m right; I'm in the black and all that. (See below for an apologia of music purchasing- it's not what you expect...)
Thinking that it is goofball to buy music is simply false; in fact, I might go so far to say it's a LIE!!

Download The Gun Club's 'The Lie' on Mediafire
Or watch it !LIVE! on Youtube:


Plus, what would I spend my money on instead? I am running out of room for thriftstore kicks. I have already constructed a Foucaultian counter-archive (that means ‘lots of odd books’ about prisons, sexuality, state institutions, ‘abnormal’ individuals, militaries, and history history history). You know that I would just spend the $16.25 (no sales tax) on stickers from the dollar store (or worse, dollar store hardware/tools), caviar from Asian Invasion, SEPTA tokens, ceramic knickknacks or bric-a-brac, etc.
(just reflect for a moment upon how good this last part of this last sentence sounds and looks: “Caviar from Asian Invasion” [‘a’ and ‘i’ make such a good vowel-team!], and just say “Ceramic knickknacks and bric-a-brac” out loud. “My, what a Pleasant Blog!”)
I don’t need that junk.
Oh, what $16.25? I got *3* CDs in Portland for that paltry sum. All by one of my new favorite groups: GUN CLUB .



Right?!?!?




Big dramatic sweep. Wild-eyes and Snake-eyes. Very American: Blues, Country, Skuzzy, 'end-of-the-road' Guitars. My understanding is that Gun Club sort of helped spawn rockabilly (while not being rockabilly themselves), and the lead singer, Jeffery Lee Pierce (he’s one of those who writes almost all of the songs too) died young: drugs, prolly.
Listen to the way he sings, and tell me it’s not drugs that killed him. Look at him, and tell me if he doesn’t look like Brando crossed with Gerard Way.








Kid Congo Powers is in the band too, of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds fame, and also The Cramps.

A surprising amount of the Gun Club that I have is live; two full albums, and half of two more. Related to his death, and to label-related issues and troubles (some of their stuff is released on “Sympathy for the Record Industry”, as in, sympathy for the Devil). More interestingly, however, it’s probably related to how good they were live. A singer that sounds like he IS drugs, actually high, in front of you, live?: gots to be good, right?

Here’s the liner notes- in their entirety- from “Danse Kalinda Boom”:
”Yes its true kids, this is an authentic “live” album for the first time. In response to the overwhelming amount of illegal & incorrect recordings purporting to be “live” Gun Club albums, Kid Congo, Patricia Morrison & myself have found it necessary to release an “Authorized” live album representing the Gun Club experience at its best and as it truly went down. So guaranteed this is not an album of poor quality tapes licensed clandestinely to some dodgy label by disgruntled & frustrated ex-members. I can promise this record features the Gun Club at its “live” best and definitive line up. Rest in Peace. [signed] Jeffery Lee Pierce”

Funny- signed “Rest In Peace” to us ( but he dies); “disgruntled ex-members”; “how it truly went down”; “dodgy labels”. Plus, did he misspell his own name? Or did someone else write the whole thing- seriously undermining all the rhetoric of “authentic”- since the CD’s copyright date is 7 years after he died? A Real Jeffrey Lee M Y S T E R Y.



As promised, here is the apologia of buying music 'in this day and age':
First, if you just download it all, you are guided only by what you already know you like, or what someone else ‘knows’ to be ‘good’.
(On the other hand, presented with a random assortment of used CD’s or vinyl, you can find new stuff, get reminded of old stuff, and with CDs at least, give a little listen before a wholesale acquisition an entire downloaded back catalog, which, it may turn out, you don’t really like that much anyhow.)

Second, used music isn’t even really random, is it? It's better than random. Because someone had to like that CD enough to purchase it, so you actually have a built-in regulator of quality, although it’s far from failsafe: Cf. “ ‘knows’ to be ‘good’ ”. Whereas with mp3s, all that can be shown in someone else having it is that they probably have 'heard about it', and have the internet. Not a stellar recommendation, is it?}