Limbs Like Ghosts

Image: Chris Piercy

The Meaning of Life (Excerpt)

Image: Lines for a Toilet Wall

This is so totally lifted from Sarah’s bathroom wall detective portfolio.  The line of thought followed between these wall artists is like so smart. 

mp3:

• Fela Kuti – Expensive Shit

Buy:

Amazon

Every Time That We Walk the Streets

I admit that I feel an odd form of consumer’s guilt whenever I go to Papa Gjorgio’s.  To say that it is Ada’s best place to consume calories would be quite the local culinary understatement.  It just seems almost culturally inappropriate for a town like this to have a place with a satisfying wine list and where cheese fries and a side of ranch dressing is an impossibility.  Wednesday night I enjoyed a couple hours in the restaurant’s reassuringly intimate Martini Bar with several of my close “buds”.  Though I have been m.i.a. for a few weeks, this became a weekly pilgrimage sometime during my final semester of college.  This is our Wednesday night fellowship.  In place of potluck casserole, Blake and I mutually masticated our margarita pizza, and casual conversation about “The Whitest Kids U Know” skit-lifting from MTV’s “The State” replaced weepy diatribes against the dangers of inter-religion dating.  Sipping on a Will-prepared drink, I listened to Dave D. recount his Radio Shack Story of the Day.  This consisted of a senile lady shopper leaving poo poo in places not designated a toilet bowl and left me wondering what kind of paycheck would balance out selling coaxial cable to potty untrained customers.  Mental answer: medical school amounts.  Will comes to the table to announce that he will indeed be opening the upcoming All These Teepees show as his dance music alter-ego DJ Tanner.  And I end the night reminded of why I find it so hard to leave this home of twenty-four years. 

mp3:

• Hot Chip – We’re Looking For a Lot of Love from Made in the Dark (2008, DFA/Astralwerks)

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Insound

Mixtapes in Miniature

Image: Banksy 

I try my best to keep up with the new hip swinging sounds the kids bop in their boomboxes.  Still, the constant pursuit of finding the next ________ can leave me feeling a bit overwhelmed by information and wanting for lasting impressions.  I just don’t have the time to keep up with bedroom demos of future One Blog Wonders. 

I think of this blog as more of a multimedia mixtape for friends and my mixtapes have always been filled with nostalgia and lost hymns. 

So, here are three songs by bands (The dB’s, The Go-Betweens, and Catherine Wheel) that are about a generation removed from SXSW photo-ops:

mp3:

• The dB’s “Big Brown Eyes” from Stands for Decibels (1981)
• The Go-Betweens “Streets of Your Town” from 16 Lovers Lane (1988)
• Catherine Wheel “Black Metallic” from Ferment (1992)

Joseph Rushmore Eats Babies

Back on the hallowed soccer fields of the Ada Boys & Girls Club it probably never crossed my mind that Mr. Joseph Rushmore would grow up to be such a fine country/folk tunesmith.  But that’s what he gone and done!  From his MySpace page (natch):

After the break up of the now legendary Oklahoma punk band Muy Loco Pollo Fiesta, Joseph Rushmore has gone on to mix a love of musical simplicity with subtle depth as a country/folk singer accompanying himself on guitar. While the songs still carry the remains of the humour, loss, and desolation that came from his former band they have now grown to supply the listener with a deeper sense of what he, as a singer is articulating through his poetic and exalting lyrics. -Wagner Paul: Oklahoma Poet (RIP: 2/17/29-8/22/07).

Many of us in Ada have long mourned the passing of the legendary Muy Loco Pollo Fiesta (Green River was to the Seattle scene as Muy Loco was to the Ada “scene”, right?), but it’s good to see that Joe is still making music to live by, while former Muy Loco guitarist Dave Dickinson is ripping it up with All These Teepees.  The Fiesta continues!  Long live Fiesta!You can catch Joseph live at Strawberry Fields in Denton, TX on March 15!MySpace: Joseph Rushmore

We Wear Leather, We Wear Spikes

Herein lies the video to the almighty Manowar’s “Gloves of Metal”.  You know how hard it is to do anything in gloves of metal?  Pretty hard.  Try squirting ketchup onto your plate of tasty fries…you can’t!  Your fingers don’t bend!  So you know if someone is rockin’ gloves of metal they are about to rock your face with metal.  Or something.  Anyway…wait for the special effects at 3:30. 

The Kids Are Alright

I had to post this video, cuz it gives me some good ol’ Obama hope for the future of America:

See, in the future, the Youth will know Pavement songs AND karate!  The terrorists stand no chance!

Edit: After posting this, I did a Google search and discovered that Stereogum had already posted this video a few months ago.  (Of course).  My apologies for the unintentional syndication, but I think it deserves a second run in the ol’ blogosphere. 

Brian Eno and David Byrne – My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

Between the recording of Talking Head’s “Fear of Music” (1979) and “Remain in Light” (1980), Brian Eno and David Byrne worked on the sonic collage that would become “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts” (a title lifted from Amos Tutuola) (1981). The album’s imprint can be felt today in everything from the melting pot sound-world of M.I.A. to the tape recorder ghosts trapped in The Books. The hallucinatory samples, disembodied voices hovering above and peeking through the funk, were sequenced using analogue recording equipment, making the seamlessness of the final product all the more incredible.

The track posted today features the haunting call of a Lebanese mountain singer over an eternal psychedelic groove that is equally indebted to Funkadelic and Fela Kuti, but one trapped in an aural mist that is distinct to Brian Eno. The Lebanese sample, sung by Dunya Yunis, was lifted from the six-LP box set “Music in the World of Islam”.

mp3:

Brian Eno + David Byrne – Regiment From: My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (Reissued by Nonesuch, 2006)

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Insound

I was escorted before her on this day and stood before her as if I had been dissolved into vapour or no more alive and also dreaming of her terrible, dreadful, ugly, dirty appearance without sleeping.–Amos Tutuola My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, p.100 (First Published in 1954 By Faber and Faber Limited, new and revised edition 1978)

Pavement – In the Mouth a Desert (Live, 1992)

In anticipation of the new Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks album, here’s a clip of the best American band of the ’90s playing at Reading ‘92.  This one is dedicated to Sarah.

Plus, this:

MP3:

• Pavement - Heckler Spray/In the Mouth a Desert (Live)

Buy:

Pavement - Slanted & Enchanted (Luxe & Reduxe)

Catty Fashion Commentary Monday

Image: AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian 

“What could distract people from my Independent Woman Making a Really Bad Permanent Choice Tattoo” asked Diablo Cody, scribe of “Juno” (which for the longest time I thought was a documentary about the Canadian version of the Grammy Awards)?  “Ah yes…I could wear my very best Hanna-Barbara dress!  And then I can make people uncomfortable by crying like Trader Joe’s just ran out of granola suppositories!  Maybe that would distract people from noticing my movie was really just “Ghost World” with a fertilized egg!  I even have Thora Birch’s haircut.  Honest to blog!”

“The Bourne Dependency” won a bunch of awards no one really cares about.  I know I’m not the only one who saw “Good Will Hunting” and thought, “Gee, I sure hope that geeky Matt Damon guy goes on to become the next Pierce Brosnan action hero.”