27 heaven

Yeah, kurt/burt sang in a raspy bluesy voice, which hey, I like Tom Waits, I can't knock a raspy voice, but that wasn't kurt's modus operandi. jimi rapping? no. jim and janis rapping together? again, no, please god no. And the whole "sly" references to the musicians' work -- the jim character singing about "the snake" instead of a lizard, jimi playing a harpocaster (technical aside, if you're going to have a jimi character, do try to tell your guitarist to try to play stylistically -- even if your point is to transcend idol worship or whatever, jimi's sound is his sound for a fucking reason; even if his point is that you need your own sound, he's not going to throw his own away. It's not like you can anyway.)

Otherwise, not so bad. Good company (heretofore referred to as "The Good Witch") made it bareable, though I wish I'd had wine. If only I hadn't been driving. As a gesture, Tai-tai came through in spades, she's a fucking gem of a person.

Also, although I've always been into really disparate sounds, low low low basses and high trebles, playing The Good Witch's guitar with the missing strings really drove that home and made me think about re-fingering chords differently. In standard tuning it was hard to tie both the bass and the high strings, but maybe in vestapol or open G tuning it'd work better. I really must try this. It sounded kinda like a banjo and I had totally forgotten how much fun a nylon string guitar can be, even if they sound like shit with a slide.

and I know I won't shut up about 'em, but there's a video for "Sing" by the Dresden Dolls:

xiu xiu

"Loneliness isn't being alone, it's when someone loves you/ And you don't have it in you to love them back." Xiu Xiu, "The Wig Master"

Except I couldn't find a video or other streaming for "The Wig Master", so you get other Xiu Xiu. They're a bit emo and melodramatic, but they do have a streak of cheap comedy in 'em, as evidenced by this interview with Pitchfork:

Pitchfork: Are you currently dating anyone?

Xiu Xiu: I am the mayor of shyberg when it comes to the first move. It's a wonder I've ever dated anyone. I am so single. Please give my number to anyone you know.

Xiu Xiu: Boy Soprano, probably my most recent favourite.


Xiu Xiu: Muppet Face


Xiu Xiu: Clowne Towne (live)

Back at the ranch

The quick and dirty version: dad might lose a kidney, loneliness is my new best friend, sunny's leaving, i am writing songs much easier than before but am weirdly having problems with lyrics now, naples was boring but calming, mills is back in my life which is cool, i have new friends that are kind and loving and surprising, thanksgiving sucked but i have a lot to be thankful for. I wanted to go to Alabama w/ Dad & Miriam but the prospect of a 12-hour drive with them did not fill me with a burning desire to go. I still have to write that industrial song for Xristophr ("she'll bring you down to your face" quote unquote).

This week's postsecret includes a bit about meeting people anonymously by going to the movies alone with a white hat. The idea that you might meet, if not a familiar stranger, but someone who is emotionally analogous to a familiar stranger is neat.

I got weirdly emotional and forgiving and sappy during the holidays, but I wound up just going to sleep instead of making phone calls that will lead to nothing but grief and heartache.

Shell smashed, juices flowing. Don't get sentimental, it always ends up drivel:

One day, I am going to grow wings, a chemical reaction.

And last night, Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me:

Take me anywhere, i don't care, i don't care

A ukelele rendition of "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out"



So unbelievably pretty that I can't say anything more.

He is REAL!

RAMEN!

Why do you do what you do?

I just ran across Why Do You Do What You Do?. It's beautiful.

All Hallow's Eve: The King In Yellow

So I just found out that one of my favorite horror books is actually freely available as an audiobook online: LibriVox » The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers

Hallowe'en comes quick, kids.

Reviewing Mike Judge's Idiocracy. By Reihan Salam - Slate Magazine

Of course it's not going to be popular. The truth rarely is, even in farce.

Whatever: How to Make a Schadenfreude Pie

Whatever: How to Make a Schadenfreude Pie

Gotta love it. Gotta love it.

Even the rain bows down, let us pray

Tori performing "Cruel" live on Jools Holland.


I ran into this surfing. I first heard Tori listening to WVUM on the way to waste time somewhere. I don't remember much about it, just that it was on Bird Rd. and the song was "God" and I fell in love with the feedback guitars and the sweet and ethereal bitch-voice. I loved Tori from then on, and she remains probably the only musical act I've seen more than once (others being Tool and Smashing Pumpkins). Tori's the reason I'm good friends with LauraChikon; I posted on usenet's rec.music.tori-amos asking for a bootleg of the first show I'd seen (from '96's "Boys for Pele" tour) and she answered. We've been friends over ten years now. That show was the first time I met Cecie, one of the three times that music so touched me that I felt completely numb and the first time I saw girls kissing in public. I can still remember the girl a few rows in front of me, shaking and screaming "can you believe it? sick! sick!" during "Precious Things". And the guy dressed as a priest. Who showed up at the next show. I started losing interest in Tori's music after she got a half-assed band and started wandering. Maybe I got too serious for the music. Whatever. "From the Choirgirl Hotel" is possibly the last album I enjoyed, and I barely like half of it ... "Spark", "She's Your Cocaine", some of the b-sides ("Purple People") and this song, "Cruel". At the time I remember not getting it; I just didn't feel it, I guess. So I ran into this link for "Cruel" and I didn't even know what album that song was on but I listened to it and goddamn but I felt it. I can be cruel. A well-intentioned friend trying to fix a broken glass called me, cajoling me into trying to put the toothpaste back into the tube. quote-unquote: "I think you're being stupidly hard-headed about this". And I'm not just being spiteful, although that's there too. I don't feel it anymore. I don't want it anymore. The poison worked it's way in. The cynic inside wants me to say that Sterling just wants a peace accord so that things will be better, back to where they were. But I'm not being spiteful for the sake of it and I'm not going to be a chump either, and I have so far resisted temptation to be cruel even though I want to very, very badly. I'm done with having my friendship wasted and returned with feigned concern. I was lied to, lied about and hurt...and in the bullshit insincere apology, lied to again. I mean c'mon: Too bad, so sad. No rancor...I mean, would you blame a dog for biting you? That's just what a dumb animal does. You try to heal yourself, and maybe heel it (ha ha, only serious), but all crows under heaven are black, after all.

So don’t give me respect / don’t give me a piece of your preciousness
Flaunt all she’s got in our old neighbourhood / I’m sure she’ll make a few friends
Even the rain bows down let us pray / as you cock-cock-cock your mane
No cigarettes only peeled havanas for you

I can be cruel / I don’t know why
Why can’t my balloon stay up in a perfectly windy sky
I can be cruel / I don’t know why

Dance with the sufis celebrate your top ten in the charts of pain
Lover brother bogenvilla my vine twists around your need
Even the rain is sharp like today as you sh-sh-shock me sane
No cigarettes only peeled havanas for you

off your cross, son

So. I was recently very hurt, and got the opportunity to speak to the person-impersonator who did the hurt. She said, seemingly apropos of nothing, "I found my soul".

What. The. Fuck?

i have no mouth and i must scream

So, one of the most famous paintings in the world, Edvard Munch's "The Scream" has finally been recovered.

I don't want to like that painting, but you know, there's something comforting about knowing that even a long time ago, someone somewhere was feeling like that. There's a bit of solace in being able to say "yes, this is Not Fun, but it's completely normal."

I think that people are the greatest fun

Arthur Lee of Love passes.

Sadly, unless you were around in the late 60's or you're a music obsessive (like me) then you've probably never heard the greatest psychedelic album of all time, Love's "Forever Changes".



Rock, flamenco, pop, folk, soul and funk all mixed into one. Here's a good song-by-song dissection. The whole album is gold, and that's rare enough these days, but those first three songs, "Alone Again Or", "A House Is Not A Motel" and "Andmoreagain" are, simply put, genius.

RIP, Arthur Lee.

in your blue eyes, in your sly smile

Ever miss something you've never experienced? Then you'll probably enjoy Iron & Wine's "Your Blue Eyes", here, courtesy of passing afternoon.com.

An Effervescent Elephant

Rest in peace, Syd.

strangers when we meet

Sorrow, grief, rage, hurt, betrayal. Sadness. I have lost the very last person I trusted.

I have lately developed a nervous tic, wherein the upper left lip starts twichting and I find myself snarling involuntarily.

Pop and rock are helping me cope. Also, friends. God, I love my friends.

Coil - Bang Bang (live)

The Rolling Stones - Far Away Eyes

I got scumbagged today. [this post was edited to remove pointless angst. you can't blame an animal when it attacks, so why write about it?]

But enough of my angst, bring the noise:

So I bring you Cursive's "Am I Not Yours?" my most favorite recent find, topically handy and poignant and although it's not my situation, it's close enough that I can feel the truth behind the hurt behind the vocal.

Jealousy Jealousy
am I am I am I
not yours not yours not yours?
We stopped for some alcohol and you stayed in the car
The bars had gotten out that line was so long and
I saw you over on the pay phone well so I
was thinking who do you ever call at one a.m.?
I wondered who that was
Jealousy Jealousy
I am I am I am
not yours not yours not yours

Sonic Youth's "Shadow of Doubt" from EVOL:

I met a stranger on the train

I bumped right into him

I swear I didn't mean it

I swear it wasn't meant to be

must have been a dream

from a thousand years ago

kiss me
kiss me in the shadow of doubt

kiss me.

Ani DiFranco's "As Is":

I got no illusions about you

Guess what

I never did

When I said

When I said I’ll take it

I meant

I meant as is

And Dave Matthews Band's "Hallowe'en":

And in this dream,
Tell me,
Are you satisfied with fucking?
Don't walk away
I'm talking to you.

Odds and ends

Ubuweb has the coolest shit you didn't know you wanted to know about. Case in point. Momus (about whom I'll write more later, some other day,) moved to New York and made his album "Folktronic" (which imo is just OK, not nearly as good as 20 vodka jellies or ping pong) and in order to make enough money to live off of in the meantime, he made a documentary and sold it in a gajillion places. Out of print for years, find it now for the low low price of free over at Ubuweb.

Their People Like Us collection is great as well, including the hard-to-find-even-when-it-came-out People Like Us album "Hate People Like Us" which is basically a bunch of folks covering PLU songs. PLU is a one-(wo)man-band, run by Vicki Bennett who has turned PLU into a sound-collage assault that's very....unique. People Like Us' Hate People Like Us has songs by (and this is just my personal 'oh that's cool' list) Christoph Heeman (HNAS, Mirror,) Negativland, Coil, Death In June, Cyclobe, Dr. P Li Khan, Stock Hausen and Walkman. I love Coil's "An apology" wherein Balance calls to apologize for being so late with the mix they had promised Vicki.

Photo of Vicki Bennett from the peoplelikeus.org website.

But moving right along, ubuweb's even got Zappa reading from Burrough's "Naked Lunch" (the talking asshole section, if you're familiar).

Interviews (and the music of) Marcel DuChamp (yes, THAT Marcel DuChamp), Patti Smith reading stuff for Jim Morrison, Max Ernst, Burroughs, Gysin, Ginsberg, Abbie Hoffman (preparing gefilte fish of all things.)

more on the sexes later, as well as momus, and maybe hip hop

if it's not news, it must be...

Olds, I guess:

The pope gets an iPod.

best game ever

that soda gives you cancer...maybe Well, it's UK sodas (which isn't to say USian sodas don't have benzene...). Just avoid drinks with vitamin C, I guess.

Bronze Age disc deciphered.

Paying off your debt could get you on Homeland Security's watchlist, apparently. Your tax dollars at work, folks.

a quote, so i don't forget it.

"You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly." Sam Keen

There is this thing that's like talking except you don't talk

It's funny, but I came to the conclusion somewhere along my early 20's that half of life is just fucking going for it, faking your way through it. There's this passage in David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest" where he rattles of a list of things that you learn in AA -- homilies and things that are basically amusing one-liners etc -- and the one that stuck with me the most and the longest was "fake it until you make it", ie, giving lip service to something (like that you will not drink,) until you actually get there. Half of doing something scary is faking your way into making others think you can do it and then actually following up on it. I was never a great musician, poet, writer or lover (on the last I have no actual proof, but statistically it's unlikely, although I haven't gotten any complaints,) but got by largely on bravado and some glimmers of talent and promise. An inventive turn of phrase, a neat line or idea, some of my ludicrous overabundance of romance and sincerity. I'm a big fan of daring yourself to do something and then doing it and finding out that it turned out quite alright.

Or better than alright, but really good. Really fucking good.

So few people sing aloud -- in cars or bars being the big exceptions I bet -- I never see people singing to themselves or to others for no reason other than that it feels good to sing. For the longest time, the Legendary Pink Dots' motto has been "sing while you may". A sort of shorthand for the "eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die", I guess. It's a damned shame that so few people do sing, though. I love hearing amateurs sing, especially when they're not half-bad. Something about just going for it just makes people smile and laugh and glow inside in a way they normally don't.

So you get a few songs about singing:

Morrissey's "Sing Your Life"

Morrissey gets a bad rap for being a sad sack all the time. It just isn't true. His Smiths work had a bit more (melo-)dramatic I-am-young-and-misunderstood tinge to it, true enough, but there was also a lot of really mordant humor to it. His solo stuff has been on the whole much more varied and lively. It's just as likely to be something really weird and wickedly funny as it is to be something depressing. "Sing Your Life" really covers the whole "sing while you
can, and fuck 'em if they can't take a joke" ethos:

"make no mistake my friends,
all of this will end.
so sing your life:
the things you love and the things you loathe"

as well as a really sweet affirmation of how you're alright after all, man:

"you have a lovely singing voice"

I love love love the Legendary Pink Dots. They're not everyone's cup of tea (although I really really really mean it when I say: it's your loss, man), but that's not my point. My point in bringing them up is that I've been on their mailing list for ages -- cloud-zero, in case you care -- and so has Amanda Palmer of The Dresden Dolls. In fact, that's how I found out about The Dresden Dolls. They're kind of a punk cabaret thing (their label,) although if I have to describe them to friends it usually winds up being something like: If Tori Amos had a drummer, was way more neurotic and less obtuse, and really liked Cabaret music , it'd probably sound like that. So anyway, they sing about sex changes and sex toys and are really fun, and their new album, "Yes, Virginia" is coming out pretty damn soon, although it's already leaked on the 'net. It has a bunch of great songs (of note: "sex changes", "my alcoholic friends", "mandy goes to med school" and the one that I am going to hook you up with, "sing") and you should check it out. "Sing" is kind of a call to arms to not be afraid and to just uh...sing. So while it's not like Amanda and I are friends -- I very much doubt if she'd ever be able to remember a post of mine on the list, seeing as I post really rarely, and also she's apparently been beyond busy with her band and touring etc -- I was aware of the Dresden Dolls since before their first album came out (mostly because Jon Whitney of brainwashed.com going on about them, not that Amanda was pushing her stuff on folks).

life is no cabaret
we don't care what you say
we're invading you anyway
you motherfuckers you sing something

"Sing" by The Dresden Dolls, from their new album, Yes, Virginia.

The whole album is beyond great and you're missing out if you haven't already fallen madly in love with the band (which is really just Amanda and her drummer, Brian ("he is a nice man, fairly reliable, he's in a rock band" as the song "Mandy goes to med school" describes him).

They also have a lovely little blog of their own (although it appears that it's mostly Amanda writing -- at least I've not read a post by Brian yet) which is full of very amusing and surprisingly honest writing. My favorite little snippet at the moment is this bit here:

we went into the studio on an off-day and there was a local community group called Girl Authority laying down vocals for a record of cover songs ranging from pink to madonna to joan jett. picture nine 8-13 year-old girls in a recording studio for the first time, running around like maniacs. they had given themselves Girl Names a la the spice girls....there was Fashion Girl, Rock n roll Girl and Bohemian Girl (my personal favorite) to name but three. i was in complete heaven watching this spectacle. they didn't know about the band (except rock n' roll girl, who was familiar with, surprise, coin-operated boy), but they were fascinated by me and brian ("are you Real Rock Stars? are you Rich? do you Travel the World?") and i saw myself through my own eyes at age 12. it was beautiful and heartbreaking. i wish i knew now whatever i knew back then. according to paul and sean, after we left the studio there was a mild uproar of dresden-dolls mania as they all fought for use of the computer to get on our site and download the videos. apparently, they downloaded the Halloween Strip-tease Skit and they all decided that they Loved Brian (and i assume, Wanted To Marry Him). Sometimes I think I'd like to skip the rock circuit altogether and just visit grade schools.

Also, she's totally spot-on about the Jesus Christ Supercop thing: it's hysterical.

...and one last thing: http://www.dresdendolls.com/video/index.htm has excellent video stuff...

Project Censored / WanttoKnow.info

Top Ten Censored Stories in the Media

Man, I sure do hate that liberal media.

one - yet another netlabel

one - yet another netlabel

excellent ambient music .....on the tip from emptyfree.com

the man with two shadows

just a bunch of links:
an excellent idea if you use usb drives
hmm, i wonder if you can make clothing out of it.
too bad i'm so stressed and have no hope of making use of this anytime soon.
music apps

also, the new placebo album is really great.

Online puzzle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Online puzzle

fuck, i started playing notpron again

goddamn it all to hell and back

spoke with the rents about the missus

stress and then less

i had a great new years but would have been better if my head were not broken

i've been listening to fucking def leppard