Let me draw your attention to two of my favorite links over there on the right.
Over at Clown Central Station, Leonard Pierce (aka The Kong of Clowns) makes right-wing punditry look like the clown car that it is by (and get this, because it’s brilliant) taking the blowhards at their word. He treats them like the words they write actually mean what they say, and instantly – poof! – they are revealed as petty half-wits. The man is in the same league as Colbert or the Daily Show, which I don’t say lightly.
Meanwhile, over at Boy On A Stick And Slither, Steven L. Cloud has created the most thoughtful and funny comic strip since Calvin & Hobbes. OK, since I’m out on a limb, I think it’s actually better than Calvin & Hobbes in some ways. Take some time and flip through the archives.
In other news, I emailed my editor at Continuum today to ask for yet another extension to my deadline for my 33 1/3 book. I’ve been rewriting it since February and really, really like my current direction. I described it for him and hope that he sees it as a valid way to go.
There’ve been some rumbings in the off-stage cockeyed caravan that is my life and I’ve nearly regained the will to blog. While I actually figure out how to turn my brain back on, enjoy this video. It’s an employee training film commissioned by Universal Studios from the South Park guys. For some reason, they never actually ended up using it…
Other than my copies of FORCED EXPOSURE, the one 1980s fanzine I intend to take to the grave with me is the 1982 issue of TAKE IT! magazine, with CHRIS D. and the FLESH EATERS on the cover & nothing but quality on the inside. The magazine perfectly captured the rock n roll zeitgeist of the post-punk, mid-hardcore era, with heavy attention to outstanding bands like The Flesh Eaters, Half Japanese, The Fall etc. & great reviews & columns by the likes of Byron Coley and Don Howland, along with publisher Michael Koenig. It emanated from Florida (!), and this is the only copy I’ve ever seen or owned.
This is a magazine that on at least two occassions arrived with a “flexidisc” inside, as was fairly popular at the time. This particular flexi is a marvel. It features one of the most crazed tracks ever recorded by TEX & THE HORSEHEADS, with Jeffrey Lee Pierce on guitar. It contains an incredible MEAT PUPPETS track, “Teenager(s)”, which features the greatest opening two seconds in the history of music, and which perfectly positions the band between their berzerk-core debut album and their conutry-fried masterpiece “Meat Puppets II”. Finally, a live FLESH EATERS track from the height of their powers, apparently when they shared the stage with DIE KREUZEN on their quote-unquote “Toolin’ for Beaver” tour. All copyright 1982. I’ve taken the Tex & the Flesh Eaters tracks directly from the flexi, but you get the Meat Puppets one from the CD reissue of “Meat Puppets II” (with loads of extra tracks), because – believe it or not – it sounds better. Enjoy!
Good to see that the I (Heart) Huckabees video has become a viral bulldozer. Just punishment for making that official P.O.S.
Two movies that recently left an ill-defined impact on me (meaning, they pop up as I’m drifting off to sleep): Altman’s Long Goodbye and Zodiac.
Three stupid movies that I’m really looking forward to: Disturbia, Slow Burn, and The Reaping. Sunday afternoon triple feature in the works!! I’ll drive around to different theaters!
Have digital cable?ÂÂ You should. Check out the RetroplexÂÂ Channel. I laughed out loudÂÂ during The End. ÂÂ
The highlight of my SXSW this year was getting to interview Joe Boyd, the legendary record producer, on-stage as part of the panels program. I do wish he’d read less from his book (hey, it was on sale right there in the Convention Center; whet the audience’s appetite so they’ll buy!) and given me more time to ask him about stuff that wasn’t in the book (and about his next one, which’ll cover his years as a world music pioneer), but it was an enjoyable time, and he mentioned that he’d be in San Francisco at the same time I was in Marin, so we agreed to hook up at Village Music, the great and soon-to-be-defunct record store.
Which we did, on Tuesday morning. Showing remarkable self-control, Joe only bought a small stack of records and arranged to have them shipped to his house in London. Then, in one of those remarkable coincidences that happen all the time at Village Music, in walked an old friend of his, the woman who’d given him the biggest hit of his career, Maria Muldaur! She scampered back to her house to get him an advance copy of her new record, and Joe and I went for some coffee at a nearby shop. She met us there, and I got to snap a pic:
After we went our separate ways, I sped over to Berkeley to meet my friend Jaan for lunch at the remarkable Vik’s Chaat Corner, a place I’d heard about but never gone to. It’s basically a South Indian snack bar, and I was numbed into indecision by the choice. I finally settled on Bel Puri for myself, a dish I’d read about in countless Indian novels.
Described in the takeaway menu I picked up as “Crisp puffed rice mixed with onions, cilantro and potatoes with tamarind, mint, and garlic chutnies,” it wasn’t as exciting as it sounds, as perhaps the photo hints. Jaan, though, went for the Dahi Batata Puri, which rocked:
The description on the menu is “crisp puffed puris stuffed with potatoes and garbanzos covered with spices, yoghurt, and tamarind chutney,” and it was one of those great South Indian things that balances a whole lot of different disparate elements perfectly. Afterwards, we hit the grocery store next door, and I marvelled at how much fresher the spices in there were than the ones at the Indian markets here. I also picked up a couple of those tiny Indian regional cookbooks (I’m a sucker for them, always have been) and once I decode them (ingredients often have Hindi names, but I’m getting better at them) I see some great meals in my future.
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Probably the best discovery at SXSW was that Bobby Patterson, a legendary Dallas soul singer, is alive and performing. He was on the Ponderosa Stomp showcase, but went on at 1:30, which is too late for me, but the Stomp also had a day party on 6th St., so I made it over for that. The man is in top form, he had a great little band, and his between-song comments, delivered in rapid-fire surrealistic jive, made me want to hear his radio show. I managed to get a few performance shots, one of which even came out!
My old pal John T. Davis took two pix of me and Bobby afterwards, but I forgot to show him where the zoom button was, so I’ll spare you those. It doesn’t look, from the current Ponderosa listing, as if Patterson’s playing this year’s show, which is a shame, but I have to say, the lineup is, with the exception of the previously-unknown-to-me Jay Chevalier (a man with no discernable talent except for irritating the audience), absolutely incredible. If I were going to be in New Orleans on May 2 (and I’m not), I’d be there!
Another great singer and songwriter who won’t be Stomping closed out SXSW for me: a rare performance by the enigmatic Swamp Dogg, who, I’m glad to say, is still in rare form. He’s got a new album out, Resurrection, which I haven’t listened to yet, but at least one of the songs, “They Crowned An Idiot King,” is as angry as the Swamp Dogg of old. “It’s 1970 and he’s mad again,” enthused Art Fein, who’s been pushing the Swamp Dogg cause for years. I’ll be doing a Fresh Air piece on him shortly. Swamp, I mean, not Art.
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There were other highlights, musical, culinary, and social, and as always SXSW was overwhelming enough that I was glad for the week after so I could come down and do something else, even if that something else was an almost equally frantic trip to California. Everywhere I went, people asked me the same questions, so I felt like passing out a FAQ card:
* I thought you were moving to France. So did I; I’d anticipated selling my book proposal, but the woman who helped me develop it misrepresented herself as an agent. She wasn’t, so I fired her. I’m now on my fifth agent, and he told me just before I left that he doesn’t get it, either.
* So what’s keeping you from moving? At the moment, €12,441.57, which, at today’s Euro-Dollar exchange rate, is $16,569.65. That figure includes paying back debts, paying all my back rent, getting a new apartment in France, moving, and buying a new washing machine and couch.
* That doesn’t seem like a whole lot. I hear you on Fresh Air. Don’t you have any other work? Actually, no. Most editors no longer even answer queries. There’s almost no work out there that I can see. That’s why I’m trying to sell the book.
* Yeah, I know what you mean. I lost a lot of work this year, too. Thank heavens my wife has a job. Thank heavens you have a wife. With a job. Wouldn’t mind having one of those myself.
Okay, it’s Monday, New York’s almost awake. Time to start moving that book forward again. One thing the past few days of being back here brought to my attention is that I don’t want to be here any more. Thus, better start dealing with the cure.
First post of mine in a while that doesn’t contain an mp3, sorry about that folks – always throwing curveballs over here. Last Thursday night I attended a pretty good one @ San Francisco’s Hemlock Tavern, my first chance to see a couple of these bands, and a third date for me in as many months with local psych wizards the WOODEN SHJIPS. I learned a few things, too. Like that all that noise the NOTHING PEOPLE make on their 45 comes out of just three people, two of ‘em married if you can believe it! The band were every bit of hot n heavy as I’d imagined they’d be, a full-on take-me-back-to-’75 blend of heavy pre-punk space-out in the mold of Simply Saucer and Debris, featuring long-ish jams built into compact and punkish song structures. They traded instruments like they were fantasy baseball players a week before the season, lining up 3 different ways for only six songs by my count. Fantastic band, easily one of the best going right now.
WOODEN SHJIPS I’m almost getting used to now. They always play four songs, each usually clocking in around 8-10 minutes, three of which have been the same each time I’ve seen them, along with one “wild cardâ€Â. This time it was “Shrinking Moon For Youâ€Â, the biker-damaged art/psych monster that introduced the band to the world on last year’s 10â€Â. Having played that thing several hundred dozen times, I guess a live version that didn’t hue to the script in my head would be a little disappointing, and it was, which probably says more about me than them. The bass player is the secret weapon of this band – the guy who looks & moves almost exactly like a pokerfaced Bob Weir, holding down an unchanging rhythm for the entire song while total keyboard & guitar chaos swirls around him. It’s that sort of Teutonic krautrock efficiency, among other things, that distinguishes this band from others who pretend to hold a foot in their camp. I’m counting on more nights out in front of crowd making these guys totally unstoppable a year from now.
I’d only heard a few songs from RESIDUAL ECHOES(pictured here) previously (loud, free, knuckle-dragging wooly mammoth rock), and some folks were muttering about how they’d recently recast the cut of their jib. No kidding! They were an absolute note-perfect knockoff of an SST band, circa 1984-87 or so, and if Greg Ginn had been in the audience and this was twenty years ago there’d have been backstage contracts signed & champagne a-flowin’ after the show. The smoking-fine female bass player even looked & headbanged the part perfectly, like she was Sylvia Juncosa or Kira Roessler reborn. I tried egging her on in encouragement, yelling “KIRA’S GOT THE 10 AND A HALF!â€Â after every song, but getting no response, I slunk to the back of the room. But seriously folks, the RESIDUAL ECHOES’ “new directionâ€Â sounded like “Metal Circusâ€Â-era HUSKER DU crossed with some weird amalgamation of DAS DAMEN, late-period BLACK FLAG, and SWA. I dug it, if only because I felt like I was back at the Anti-Club in LA in 1987 at an SST barbeque, hoping I wouldn’t get caught with a beer in my hand. Maybe take that away and they were just OK, but I’m interested in hearing where they’ll take this on vinyl.
As a completely live and improvisational recording with spoken word by Alex Caldiero and the accompaniment of 5-piece cello/bass/drums/slide-guitar/keyboard combo Theta Naught, Disc 1 is good to listen to at night when you feel like being at a jazz joint or a coffeehouse but you don’t want to have to leave the house. How Long Did It Last? is my favorite track, track 8, and that may be because by then the performance collaborations between music and poetry has finally stewed to just the right temperature for all the songs on the rest of the disc. Or, because by then my ears and mind have finally tuned to the proper channels for the attentive listening this record deserves. Disc 2 is an instrumental bonus disc that is on the same expressive ambient music plane. After being inspired by the voice of Alex Caldiero, it’s fun to listen to and decide what words it makes me want to say.
Only 6 tracks long, but the simple sonic atmosphere of The Sister has that slow timeless feeling of a journey on a leaky paddleboat through a swamp or an amusement park ride, with a mumbling old man and his sad lil’ granddaughter as your underpaid tour guides. Is this a Funeral March record? I don’t think so. You’ll feel bad about the fate of the curious Squid Boy, and be glad to move on to another track until you realize it’s about Sssix Foot Albino Penguins! You’ll wonder if the Earl On Mars doesn’t really know he’s putting on a show, and then google Alexandra Elsbeth to find out how to bring her flowers! All the songs were written and performed by one guy named Dan who is very good at pulling out the dark somber moods from his guitars and keys. Highly recommended, even if you already are depressed.
