recent song titles

the fish that got away
thrush to go
god knows, xxxxx
the bad man's prayer

i'm still writing 'the fish that got away'.

this one's called "god knows, *****"

what do you want
misbegotten whore
your every word like something fetid
another abortion
scraped from the drooling maw of your cunt-mouth
you never tire
of hurting the ones around you
you set the hooks deep, god knows
god knows
you played the victim so often
you forgot it was a part
the world doesn't owe you,
god knows.

I really must talk to Aik about getting him to drum, if only for just this song.

Set Theory Primer

I just stumbled on a site about Set Theory Primer as it relates to music theory. Which reminds me of my favorite story about music I wrote that no one ever heard.

Bunny called me up, "hey there's a gallery opening, we're doing a music/performance/installation -- the theme of the gallery is Summerian/Babylonian art, they're showing some pieces etc etc"

I dig Sumer, cradle of civilization etc etc and I've read through Snow Crash so I know just a bit more than nothing about their language construction (atonal glosolalia? or some shit. doesn't matter, i'm not writing poetry). So I look up Summerian music. Turns out it uses a 60-tone scale. Because I am S-M-R-T smart, I figure OK, I can make music akin to atonal 12-tone theory pieces, but I have to use 1/2 and 1/4 microtones (ie, bends and half-bends) and viola, 12-tone automagically becomes 60-tone. So I write this long droning piece in an open D tuning and because it would be a bitch to be bending whole chords (although you get some really awesome dissonances, some sonic youth/glenn branca shit going on where the notes beat against each other in the air) I go and get me a slide. So it's like this blues hawaiian indian drone monster thing. It's made of pure, concentrated awesome.

And then the day of the show, come to find out they go on an hour before they said they would and also that the music has been relegated to the alley behind the gallery. Which is OK, since that's where the party people's at anyway. Ran into solo and other people from the wayback.

humming

Earth's Hum

awesome sound is awesome.

that bad bad man, stagolee

maybe remaking stagger lee to be about delia day? the grateful dead's version names delia as billy's woman....hmmmm....

capo II:
Em11 -> E shuffle, B7, G

Em11 000000


switch to

E - E7 / E7b5 - Bb13
xx2100 - xx2103 / xx0100 - xx0103

new song, "oh"

G / / / Cm / / / G / / / Cm / / /
oh don't you go oh won't you oh

Dsus4 D Dsus2 G / / / Cm9/x33543
look at me when you say goodbye

state of love and trust

i almost called today. how's that for breaking news, eh?

moving on, people. man, whenever i say that i miss mr jones. but no man's dead while his name is still spoken.

i had the worst day at work today

i seriously haven't felt like this since my boss at fiu spent 45 minutes detailing how he wanted to kill me and the various ways he would do it if he could.

and then i get home and i realize:

oh shit

they hired me because of my political suaveness
i'm fucked

aside: i found a transcription for martin simpson's "betsy the serving maid". it's not bad. (power tab format on ultimate-guitar if you're interested) and no fucking wonder i coudln't figure the goddamn thing out, i was trying dropped-D and DADGAD and it's in some weirdass G tuning (DGDGCF# -- seriously, what the fuck). also capo on V. aside to the aside: no actual clips of martin simpson on youtube, but here's some dude who learned some of his stuff. aside to the aside to the aside: martin simpson is one of my mixtape secret ingredients. no one expects it. my top four songs that you should download (but i will unhelpfully not provide for you, because the man earns his money,) are: "the company you keep", "betsy the serving maid", "lord gregory" and "dreamtime". I actually learned 'the company you keep' and 'dreamtime' but still kinda suck at them (actually dreamtime I got not too bad at...). if you buy an album (and you should, he's seriously omfg great), i highly recommend his 1996 LIVE AT OXFORD album above all others (although "when i was on horseback" is a good 2nd).

that bell's been ringing now for years. it sounds like needles in my ears.

Low. Mormons from Minnesota -- home of Garrison Keillor and other very white folks -- write glacially slow minimalist music. Except lately they haven't. It's strange, but the last few albums have had a decidedly wider sound to them. Which is good, but strange -- more instruments, more complex songs, but they still sound harrowingly bare, austere and distant. Even the painful songs are just...far away. Removed.

So but see their video for "Breaker": QuickTime, from their website (or here if you prefer YouTube). It's homey, but creepy.

I saw them live with Dr Robert, professional guitarist/lawyer person thing, and they are just as chill-inducing in person. (aside: Mimi Parker is achingly pretty in person. Very tall and with a kind face, but with that way that really nice people have about them that you just know if you actually manage to piss 'em off you might as well just kill yourself then and there.)



Here's more Low for you:
Dinosaur Act: http://youtube.com/watch?v=kTGghNXgxnk
Because You Stood Still: http://youtube.com/watch?v=QPFDix37UZw
Whore: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ArPQvYGrM_w (live)
(That's How You Sing) Amazing Grace: http://youtube.com/watch?v=y2Res0JMuI4 (live but such excellent quality. Very spacey.)

you raise me up just to bring me down

The Ubiquitous Mr Lovegrove, Live in DC. Well over a year later, this song still reminds me of all that misery. On the bright side, that bass line is fucking wicked.

And I hope when you think of me years down the line you can't think of one good thing to say

This is amazing: an audience sing-along with the Mountain Goats' "No Children"

Courtesy of Largehearted Boy, whose music blog is one of the few that doesn't suck on a variety of levels. Seriously, check out the blog -- full concerts by bands that don't suck etc etc.

Lyrics here in case you want to sing along yourself.

different poerformance:

when i broke, i became normal?

staggolee Stagger Lee Stack-A-Lee Stacker Lee

The Stagger Lee Files, about the different versions of the song.

The Annotated "Stagger Lee", about the Grateful Dead version specifically but also includes some history. ...and the actual Stag Lee story that inspired the song(s).

I really love how it's this one mutating story that moves from musician to musician and it's the same thing, but always a bit different, for example, check out the lyrics to Nick Cave's surprisingly filthy version and then compare Dylan's.

Versions:
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: Album version, and live.
Grateful Dead, live.
Isley Brothers.
Lloyd Price.
RL Burnside.
Samuel L. Jackson.
Mississippi John Hurt.
Tony Furtado.

I'm still looking for the James Brown and Bob Dylan versions.

probably come to die in this town

brutal music:

Big Black's "Kerosene", live. Steve Albini, one of the most antagonistic and principled people in the music business. Check the credits in your record collection, I bet you've got something he's producedrecorded.


My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult's "A Daisy Chain 4 Satan", live. I recently found the MLWTTKK website again and now it's got PDF's of the lyrics. Whoa, I've been singing this song wrong for ~10 years now. I like my version better, even if the only lyric I could make out was, in fact, wrong. (I keep singing "dream war" instead of "dream why").

who's got the happy bag?

2nd performance at the whauses; didn't actually play guitar but did live video while bunny ran off to drink beer and whatever else and dj ipod dropped aphex and autechre next to nicole mixing in wicked shit with the chaos pad. nel and her boyfriend showed up; this one is normal-ish and apparently not bad for her. which is a refreshing change. saw solo, life's been rough lately looks like, but he's still hanging on. motherfucker escaped his country on horseback, so playa can take the hits i guess. i kept getting "who's got the happy bag" cos the little green bag was next to me and i didn't even know it. dude standing next to me going "whoa" and giggling in a disturbing way for like 15 minutes while i faded the video in and out and fluttered the nature footage.

dream 21jul07 -- i dreamed i dream

i am in a huge hosue -- many floors, rooms, almost an apt bldg or office bldg -- and organizing a tribute or compilation album and sonic youth is there, and lee ranaldo was being a total dick to me, second guessing my every choice on the record; "why are you doing it like this? what's wrong with that?" etc etc. amusing because i don't think i've ever even heard the man speak. lots of things happened -- friends showed up etc -- but nothing really bad or sad. i wake confused.

remember: capo iv & ef#gab cmaj7 & the 8vadream

Corbin, I got fire

olds:
AZIZ! LIGHT! "When the guy who played quiet, introspective Nino Quincampoix starts shrieking “GIMME DA CASHHHHHHHHH,” it’s an odd, yet kickass moment." executive summar of fifth element: B+. The message is heavyhanded, but the symbolism is nice, and the medium (particularly the use of the absurd) is beautiful. Worth noting that it's all from the comic -- Gary Oldman didn't just choose to be a nutjob; that's the fucking part.

I've been Simpsonized.

I need to find a reputable tat place. At BestBuy of all places, I found the new Sunn O))) and Boris disc. No drives under 100$ or smaller than 120GB though. Which sucks.

dug through old poetry books, found old bits of myself and other people. i remember reading a song lyric to an old band and them laughing at a line "beat beat freak cheat you beat yourself again boy" because they thought it was a j/o reference, but really I was just counting off Nelly's boyfriends.

Chicken's peck after the moz show was kinda depressing; it really drove home how not in that arena I am. I made a wise choice not moving in w/ her. Oh God, the dramabiotics necessary would have killed us both.

I cannot stop playing "Speedway". It's such a pretty song.

as i live and breathe you have killed me

best Saturday ever? in the last 24 hours, I have:

• played a show with olde friendes (see previous entry)
  
• seen the new harry potter movie (shut up)
• gotten drunk dialed by saltdog again at 4 in the afternoon, who hung up on me while telling his girl "hey you wanna have hogwarts sex? i got my magic wand..."
• gone to a morrissey show with laura squirt; despite getting lost (twice) and the long ass drive it was so fucking worth it. They played "please please please let me get what i want" and "the boy with the thorn in his side" and "girlfriend in a coma". also, it was like a guitar-porn orgy up there: gretsch's, tele's (fat and classic), hollowbodies, a firebird (during "how soon is now?"), some custom strat-style thing with a hole in the headstock (maybe alternate tuning system? boz boorer beat the fuck out of it. heard two new songs "all you need is me" and "that's how people grow up" which were great and had a lot of really dry humor.
  
• speaking of the show, i walked in and stood in the aisle for like 2 seconds and got a slap on the arm: it was nelly and savina (and savina's Mr, first i meet him) who I haven't seen in forever and ever (literally: savi now has 2 kids and last i saw her she was preggers with the first. who is now 7 years old. nelly is still crazy. loveable, sweet, still hunched over and a lot more tattoo'd, but crazy as fuck.)
  
• long phone convo and plans to hang tomorrow with litltrublgrl

Best part of the moz show: everyone, absolutely everyone in the audience singing along to "girlfriend in a coma". A sense of maybe not unity but a general "yeah we're all here and having fun". Of course, 30 minutes later the boorish drunks started getting annoying...

into ether

So The Blackroom broke up and no more band for me. BUT last night I did in fact play with Bunny & Nestor (who is dating the Good Witch, odd bit of synchronicity) and some chick who I promptly forgot her name; apparently she's primarily a DJ but last night it was 3 laptops and one guitar -- me. Bunny did live video loops, Nestor dropped live ambient and the chick dropped a few loops too. Things to remember: the Dm shape on the mid strings, bending. the walking bassline with the stutter strut. the dub line. the high diads+low drop. I wasn't real happy with the clean guitar sound, wish I hadn't given Eden those pedals before he left (or at least gotten them back...) oh well, what goes around comes around.

Last night was just a birthday party for Nicole (another DJ), but end of month we're doing it again to celebrate the film they got into the festival thing that won something or other. You're invited. Yes, you.

You live your life like Love's on ration: where's the passion?

Jesus, I want this so badly: New drug to erase traumatic memories

Title from Fad Gadget's "I Discover Love", but I can't find that on the web, so you get Fad Gadget's video for "Collapsing New People". I'm kind of surprised that Marylin Manson hasn't covered FG yet.

book

tracklisting so far:
someone you know is one of us
anon.penet.fi
lullaby
your faithful serpent,
hunter / hunter
when Medusa saw your heart
what the leopard was looking for
wilderness of mirrors
sioni bod da
curio shop
malthusian cloud projection