Certainly it’s not news that there are new live CDs out from THE FALL, even when they’re from the hallowed 1979-1983 period. I certainly can’t keep up with the flood of releases, but I’ve been buying some of the live discs from this era, along with the “repackagedâ€Â versions of old LPs, complete with alternate versions, demos, live tracks and the like. Remember when the only live FALL stuff you could get from the glory years were the “Totale’s Turnsâ€Â, “A Part Of America Thereinâ€Â and “In A Holeâ€Â LPs? Man, I paid a pretty penny for those last two as well, but then again, THE FALL are one of those half-dozen key bands in my musical development. Once I locked in with them, they earned their place in my head as the single greatest & most influential British act of the last thirty years.
So here are two previously-unknown-to-me live tracks that made their way onto the 2xCD reissue of “HEX ENDUCTION HOURâ€Â, which as I’ve stated before, is the finest of all FALL records. Don’t believe me? Just listen to it. “Session Musicianâ€Â and “Jazzed Up Punk Shitâ€Â are certainly not of the caliber of anything on the original LP, but as stand-alone extras – and as songs that never got waxed into studio versions – they’re great, and are “must-havesâ€Â, as they say.
Make sure to watch this interview. Not allowed: Do not view these and respond with some sort of “this is so inept that it outsider art/savant/experimental!!â€Â No, this is exactly what it looks like.
Now, the mirth disappears. Reason 561 why I stay within 500 yards of most indie films. I can’t bring myself to comment.
The new issue of Harp Magazine just hit the stands, and boy was I excited to see myself featured (in a big way) in the masthead. Boy was I looking forward to reading my lengthy spread on Scharpling and Wurster, plus my smaller piece on David Cross. Boy was I horrified to learn that, in the “History of the Comedy Duoâ€Â sidebar, I made a HUGE mistake. As David Greenburger (of Duplex Planet fame) was quick to point out in a letter to the editor, my entry for Coyle and Sharpe contains quite the error.
I listed the wrong one as being deceased.
I can be a frustratingly oblivious person. I forget keys, I forget to buy cat litter, I forget appointments, I forget to write shit down, I forget birthdays, I forget people’s names….
The horrible thing is, I know the work of Coyle and Sharpe. I KNOW WHICH ONE IS DEAD. It was a quasi-dyslexic mistake. I flipped them for a split sec….in my mind.
It’s foul-ups like these that pry my brain apart. I will obsess over it for days.
Therefore, this is an open apology to the alive-and-well Mal Sharpe. Absorb their official website here.
So,ÂÂ follow my sagaÂÂ as everyÂÂ previously crackedÂÂ or open freelance door slams shut, asÂÂ e-mails and pitches to editors are not returned, as my ten years of writing leaks any of the remaining water that it held.
Be sure to catch my byline in future issues of American Jail, where I’ll be reviewing indestructible phone receivers and tables that can be thrown around a room.
I don’t think I’ve come across a single better track from swinging 60’s France than “Fallait pas écraser la queue du chatâ€Â by CLOTHILDE, a beautiful, complex, uplifting baroque pop masterpiece. I heard it being played at a French bakery last year and I actually asked for the manager to compliment him on his excellent choice in customer ambiance-setting. CLOTHILDE released a mere two EPs, but as I’m coming to find out, several of her eight wonderful songs (they’re ALL fantastic) were re-sung in different languages for other European markets. Such is the case for “Fallait pas écraser la queue du chatâ€Â, which I’m posting for you here in its original form and again as “Sopresa!â€Â, a Spanish-language version of the same tune, with a quicker fade-out toward the end. You judge which is the sexier language– I know who I’m voting for. If you’re like me the first time I heard this song, you’ll be playing it five or six times straight, telling everyone you know about Clothilde, carving her name in your arm, stalking her on the Internet, and naming your firstborn son after her. Thanks again to JA for turning me onto her way back then.
The desire to blog about the cruise has been replaced by the NEED to post my thoughts on this show. Why don’t you watch some YouTube?
Now, I can’t honestly say that Slacker Cats is funny or notably clever, but I watched it. A full hour. Perhaps I was a tad amazed at the crude nature of the show, it being on ABC Family and all (with Wal-Mart spots). It’s Heathcliff (the cartoon), South Park, and Ordinary People (there was a funeral scene) all rolled into one!!
You know, it had moments. I hope it succeeds (it won’t). I’m behind anything cat-related. Most dogs are pests.
Nearly three years ago the first official PRIMITIVE CALCULATORS CD came out, packed with a crateful of lost extras (live tracks, home recordings) that in many ways outshone their officially-released stuff. I love it when that happens. Here’s a meta-meta-meta post, one that references both a 4/20/05 post I did on the band, and then a 1/23/04 post I did as well:
“…Taking the lazy man’s approach to review-writing this time in order to herald the release of the official PRIMITIVE CALCULATORS CD. A year+ ago I reviewed a CD-R that had their live album + debut 45 on it — this one takes out the 45, but adds an incredible batch of unreleased bonus tracks that are leagues better than their official stuff. In particular, a piercing indutrio-punker called “Glitter Kids” from 1979 rules the roost here, & sounds like everything you wished THE SCREAMERS had been, with a cranked-up metronome keeping time over scattershot guitars and screeching keyboard blips. Moreover, there’s this hot, metallic, shards-of-sound number called “Casualty Ward” (1977!!) that approximates the URINALS’ “U” and SPK’s “Mekano” in barely over a minute. You’ll flip. Here’s what I said last year about the live album:
“….Among the lost artifacts of the late 1970s Australian underground that are now beginning to surface are recordings from Sydney’s PRIMITIVE CALCULATORS, a polyrhythm- and experimentation-heavy synth-attack outfit who probably tilted closer to their outré countrymen SPK and the SLUGFUCKERS than to similar combos in the UK and US. After being wowed by their berserk “Pumping Ugly Muscleâ€Â on the Australian post-punk CD “Can’t Stop Itâ€Â, I then had the fortune to become privy to a CD-R containing their debut 45 from 1979, “I Can’t Stop It / Do That Danceâ€Â, as well as tracks from their 1979 live album (recorded supporting the BOYS NEXT DOOR, aka the nascent BIRTHDAY PARTY). The whole package is decidedly not for the faint of ear; there are not a few moments where the band’s funky, African-influenced slop-rock breaks down into a maelstrom of raw electronic chaos and pure gibbering idiocy. And yet it’s not so messy that you couldn’t stack it next to New York’s leading “no waveâ€Â of the day and have it compare quite favorably. A little bravery, patience, and love of well-crafted, ultra-savage electronics will go a long way here. Aficionados of early industrial racket, the aforementioned no wave, or those still bitter over what PiL should have been should check out the Calculators….”
That sentiment has now been multiplied by the discovery of these lost tracks, with the aforementioned caveat and strong warning of bravery & patience. The live album is still not an easy nor consistently pleasurable listen, but the outstanding bonus crap certainly makes up for it…..â€Â
Or, of course, what you call the dog days. Supposedly ruled by Sirius, the dog star, which is strong in the sky at this time of year. But whatever you call them, they’re days not exactly filled with excitement around here. Nervous tension, yes, but excitement? Nope.
Still, one has to do this and that, and so here are three extremely silly things I noticed in recent peregrenations around hip! edgy! Berlin.
* * *
Like that huge poster on the building they’re renovating on Rosenthaler Platz, which gets sold to one advertiser or another for a while. Current occupant is Coca-Cola, and the part of the ad I see, doubtless having something to do with some download scheme or another (I think they’ve got something going with iTunes, actually), and it screams “Music on the Coke Side of Life!”
You can tell this is an ad aimed at younger folks, of course. The rest of us who lived through the ’70s have had quite enough of music on the coke side of life. Every time I pass that thing I think “What, do you want to chain me to a chair and make me listen to David Crosby albums?”
Meanwhile, elsewhere in Rosenthaler Platz, the derelict building across from the Coke billboard, which once housed a Beate Uhse and then part of Sony’s ill-considered street-art cooptation, sprouted some ghostly inhabitants a few weeks back:
But I guess they wanted privacy, because the last time I walked past, the place looked like this:
* * *
One of my weirder international moments came one night in the ’80s in London, as some friends and I were passing through Soho, and they — all British — stopped and pointed. “Wow, look at that!” I saw a very well preserved ’52 Mercury. “Cool car,” I said, and they all gave me a weird look. “It had Texas number plates!” someone said. Well, I’d just come from Texas the night before, so that didn’t even register: most all the cars in Texas have Texas license plates.
Still, it was a valuable lesson in paying attention to where you are, which is why I did a double-take while waiting for the light yesterday at Friedrichstr. and Unter den Linden. A genuine Ford Crown Victoria with New York Police Department markings, a visibar on top, and what looked, in the seconds it took to turn the corner, like two of NYPD’s finest in the front seat.
Turns out it lives here and you can rent it for special occasions. Like, I dunno, arresting your ex or something.
Not that they have a monopoly on this. There’s a more generic, Blues-Brothers-y, black-and-white for rent at Sage Cars, who have a lot on Brunnenstr. I pass often. They’ve also got a yellow Checker cab, which brings back memories of the Checker Metropolitan I once had. But that’s another post.
* * *
Advertising in this country has always made me a little crazy, but then, it’s not aimed at me. That’s been driven home by the creepiest ad campaign I’ve seen in a while, BVG’s “Augenblicke” posters. As you can see from the website, it’s sort of a lonely-hearts thing, where you submit the story and they illustrate it. The artist is so bad that the posters attract attention to themselves, actually, so while whether he/she’s capable of actually rendering a human visage so someone would recognize it is questionable, it might (shudder) accidentally work.
Ah, well, it’s better to look out the window anyway, right?
Certainly it’s not news that there are new live CDs out from THE FALL, even when they’re from the hallowed 1979-1983 period. I certainly can’t keep up with the flood of releases, but I’ve been buying some of the live discs from this era, along with the “repackagedâ€Â versions of old LPs, complete with alternate versions, demos, live tracks and the like. Remember when the only live FALL stuff you could get from the glory years were the “Totale’s Turnsâ€Â, “A Part Of America Thereinâ€Â and “In A Holeâ€Â LPs? Man, I paid a pretty penny for those last two as well, but then again, THE FALL are one of those half-dozen key bands in my musical development. Once I locked in with them, they earned their place in my head as the single greatest & most influential British act of the last thirty years.
