Fatta la legge, è trovato l'ingano

Bands I've seen live

Joab — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:34:32 GMT

1. My Bloody Valentine 2. The Rolling Stones 3. George Thorogood 4. Journey 5. Hall & Oates 6. Aldo Nova 7. Liz Phair 7a. Pavement (This is under debate) 8. Brian Wilson* 9. Psychedelic Furs* 10. B-52s 11. George Clinton P/Funk 12. Robyn Hitchcock* 13. New Model Army 14. Damned 15. Monkees 16. Stephen Malkmus 17. Grateful Dead* 18. NRBQ* 19. Jonathan Richmond* 20. White Stripes 21. Yeah Yeah Yeahs 22. Neil Young 23. Patty Griffin 24. Dar Williams* 25. Lucinda Williams* 26. Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians 27. Traffic 28. Cracker 29. Camper Van Beethoven 30. Wallflowers 31. Ramones* 32. G. love & The Special Sauce 33. Decemberists 34. Andrew Bird 35. Albert Collins* 36. John Lee Hooker 37. Fabulous T-Birds 38. Jack Johnson 39. Sheryl Crow 40. Foreigner 41. Queen 42. Joe Walsh 43. Roger Waters 44. Aereosmith 45. ZZ Top 46. Lynyrd Skynyrd 47. Steppenwolf 48. Radiohead 49. Beck* 50. Manu Chao 51. B.B. King 52. Lou Reed 53. Nine Inch Nails 54. Carey Bell 55. Drink Small 56. Agent Orange 57. Dashboard Confessional 58. Half Japanese 59. Our Lady Peace 60. Bob Mould 61. The Clarks 62. Blue Oyster Cult 63. Dirty Dozen Brass Band 64. Cassandra Wilson 65. Santanna 66. Cowboy Mouth 67. Bobby Blue Blan d 68. EU 69. Trouble Funk 70. Dale Watson 71. Bruce Springsteen* 72. Kiss 73. Paul McCartney 74. Thelonius Monster 75. Soul Asylum 76. David Lindley 77. Cashmere Jungle Lords 78. All Mighty Senators* 79. Bezerk* 80. Government Issue 81. Sky Cries Mary 82. Bob Dylan* 83. Willie Nelson 84. Joni Mitchell 85. John Prine* 86. Stranglers 87. Sleater-Kinney* 88. Yo Le Tango 89. Old Crow Medicine Show 90. John Fogerty 91. Godspeed You Black Emporeor 92. Magnetic Fields 93. Gang of Four 94. Pixies 95. Frank Black 96. Misfits 97. Christine Lavin 98. They Might be Giants 99. Joe Strummer 100. Wilco* 101. Southern Culture on the Skids 102. Material Issue 103. Agnostic Front 104. The Strokes 105. David Bowie 106. Allman Brothers 107. La India 108. Iggy Pop 109. Ian Hunter 110. Alice Cooper 111. Train 112, Combusytable Edison 113, Modest Mouse 114. The Stars 115. Black Keys 116. kd lang 117. Zappa plays Zappa 118. Porter Wagner 119. Bauhaus 120. Pretenders 121. Cheap Trick* 122. Kevin Kinny/Peter Buck 123. Stereo Lab 124. Jesus Lizard 125. Sonic Youth 126. John Doe/Sadies 127. Evan dando 128. Meat Puppers 129. Chickasaw Mud Puppies

My Life According To...Karlheinz Stockhausen

Joab — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:08:17 GMT

Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, answer these questions. Pass it on to others. You can't use the band/artist I used. Try not to repeat a song title. It's a lot harder than you think! Re-post as "my life according to (band name)" Pick your Artist: Karlheinz Stockhausen Are you a male or female: Mikrophonie II Describe yourself: Spiral (for a soloist with short-wave receiver and live electronics with sound director) How do you feel: Trans (for orchestra and tape) Describe where you currently live? Vibra-Elufa If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Ypsilon, for a melody instrument with microtones Your favorite form of transportation: Etude, musique concrète, Nr. 1/5 Your best friend is: Dr. K-Sextett You and your best friends are: Treffpunkt What's the weather like: Fresco If your life was a TV show, what would it be called: Mixtur, for orchestra, 4 sinewave generators, and 4 ring-modulators What is life to you: Licht-Ruf Your relationship: Spiel Your fear: Klavierstücke What is the best advice you have to give: Refrain, for piano (+ 3 woodblocks), vibraphone (+ 3 alpine cowbells and keyboard glockenspiel), and celesta (+ 3 antique cymbals) Thought for the day: Helikopter-Streichquartett, for string quartet and 4 helicopters How I would like to die: Klang My soul's present condition: Sonatine, for violine and piano My motto: Für kommende Zeiten, 17 texts for intuitive music, Nr. 3

Five albums That Shaped Me...

Joab — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:15:00 GMT

(More Facebook cross-posting).... 1. Monkees, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones LTD: Taught me at a wee age that albums could be more than just a group of songs and that going slightly off-center can produce best results (http://blip.fm/~3dc11). 2. Pink Floyd, Animals: Albums could adhere to a single, coherent narrative, with music & lyrics reinforcing each other. Also, spare the frippery: Not a wasted note or word here. Sum: Dark, menacing, & still enjoyable on the right night after 30 years (http://blip.fm/~3dc9o) 3. Brian Eno, Another Green Word: Music could create its own space, and could follow its own internal logic. Also Multi-layering: This is pleasing to hear in the background and charmingly alien at close listen (http://blip.fm/~3dck6). 4. D.J. Shadow, Endtroducing: Another dark one, but in which songs were built (sampled from other songs) rather than "played." For me, it pointed to new ways of doing things (compositing, recontextualization) and revealed the secret loneliness of kitsch. (http://blip.fm/~3dd93) 5. "Rolling Stones, "Let It Bleed": I picked this more as a representative sample of everything the Stones did from 68-71. Even the boots. Especially the boots. There have been songs that rocked harder than these, but none have pulsed as deeply or as richly. Filled w/ humor, melody, beauty, horror, evil, honesty and insincerity, these songs are guttural and luminescent all at the same time. They taught me that art is subtle and that life always offers more than what first appears to the eye, if you just dig at it a bit. (http://blip.fm/~3de3c).

My 10 Desert Island songs

Joab — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 22:49:41 GMT

1. "It's a Long Way to the Top (if You Want to Rock n Roll)"—AC/DC 2. "In The Heat of Venus"—Steve Roach 3. "The Hexx" (live BBC version) -- Pavement 4. "That's the Way the World Goes Round"—John Prine 5. "Nadine"—Chuck Berry 6. "It's All Right Mama, I'm only Bleeding"—Bob Dylan 7. "Streets of Baltimore," -- Gram Parsons version 8. "Time" -- Pink Floyd 9. "Saturday Gigs"—Mott the Hoople 10. "This Land is Your Land," – Pete Seeger

The 10 Worst Albums I've Ever Heard....

Joab — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 22:43:03 GMT

Can you name the 10 albums that offended you the most? Here's a handful for me. I loved a few of these for their awfulness, but the rest just let me down. 1. "Scarlet Love" (Palmer Rockey): Around 1979, so the story goes, a mysterious and charismatic man showed up in the upwardly wealthy social circles of Dallas. He claimed he was Hollywood hotshot and that he was making a movie. Through artful mingling, he got more than a few of the well-to-do wives to act out a role or two for the project (as well as nudge their husbands to contribute some financial assistance). Needing a soundtrack, Mr. Rockey recorded this album with some anonymous pick-up studio musicians. A slapdash endeavor, it sounded like it took about a day to record, and trucked in all the muzak styles of the period—light funk, light rock n' roll, light country, light blue-eyed soul. Palmer crooned, badly and obliviously to the players behind him. At one point, he even cops Elvis' Shakespearean spiel about life-being-a-stage-and-we're- all-players-especially-you-&-me-babe. Sleaziness: Maximum! btw: The movie was shown once at some local theater. All reports made it to be worst ever seen. Rocky made a quick exit, vanishing from Dallas forever. So the story goes. 2. "Tonight" (David Bowie) --This is the album that ended Bowie's 15 year run as someone whose latest album you needed to hear. Half the songs are Iggy Pop covers, and the remaining original songs fall apart from their own forced cleverness. Or at least they did for me. If there was a concept--something Bowie up until that time tags albums with better than just about any of his peers--it was lost on everybody. Even the title was undescriptive. This, just after "Let's Dance." How did things go so bad, so quickly? (See also: Stones: "Emotional Rescue") 3. "Live 93" (The Orb). The sound of the ecstasy wearing off. Even the whoops of enthusiasm from the audience sound soaked of weariness. To amuse the numbed attendees, the Orb race the sound of a motorcycle back and forth between the speakers. For 4 minutes, or maybe more. And though the Orb kept their beats to a minimum, this is a 2 CD(!) package. 4. "Midnight to Midnight" (Psychedelic Furs): It's like a friend, with whom you bonded in the fully-flaming glory of youth, suddenly assuming the role of a stereo salesman, 24/7. 5. "The Magician's Birthday" (Uriah Heep): Almost everyone has a theory about who the real band was that inspired "Spinal Tap." Uriah Heep is my vote. Having decided that their former epic "Demons & Wizards" might have been too highbrow (or frightening) to their intended audience (who was, my guess, the younger brothers of the stoner boys listening to Yes and Deep Purple), these Brits opted for crafting a 12 minute opus to a card-carrying trickster. Smell the leather. (See also: Emerson Lake & Palmer's "Brain Salad Surgery"). 6. "Full Circle" (The Doors): As much as I wanted to believe at the age of 15 that the Doors really really really were more than just Jim Morrison's backing band, their first post-Mr.-Mojo-Rising album just couldn't sell the idea. But at least they were trying. This is the second post-Jimbo album! I suspect they were just hoping not to get sued by their record label. (See also: Mott's "Drive On," Billion Dollar Babies' "Battle Axe") 7."Saved" (Bob Dylan): Dylan has changed the course of my life. Twice, at least. But not with this album. At least, Dylan's first gospel album had fire and brimstone. I can't remember a single song from this. I think this was the bottom for him, and the power of having God on your side did not impress me, either. 8. "The Beauty of the Rain" (Dar Williams): Once there was a fairly-talented folk songstress who wrote witty, sharply-observed vignettes about the funny little moments that happen in life, you know those passing, off-hand events that later take on momentous heaps of emotional significance? She was great. But perhaps she saw more money in the alternative adult contemporary market (I think that's what they call the genre) and so started writing songs that play well on such radio stations—namely vague and meandering but lightly-soulful pop songs about clouds and your ambitions and all that. 9. "Bilious Paths" (M-Ziq): I love me some noise and found-audio-collage as much as the next pretentious music snob, but this Musique concrète (synthétique) offends me on so many levels, I'd actually prefer silence. (See also Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music," anything by Aphex Twin, Throbbing Gristle, Negativland, Einstürzende Neubauten et al. O.k., Maybe I don't love noise that much) 10. "The Madcap Laughs" (Syd Barrett): Sitting a musician in front of live recorder before he or her has their mental shit fully-together is a deeply, deeply sadistic act. And Mr. Gilmour, no matter how many millions you made with Pink Floyd, this deception of your former (and illing) mate will always haunt you. Deeply, I hope.

My favorite 10 songs of 2008

Joab — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 04:12:16 GMT

...According to my iTunes playcount, which is based on SCIENCE!! Jazz/Classical factored out. Mind you: I cheated--these are songs that I *liked* in 2008--they could have been recorded anytime. 1. Strapped for Cash (Fountains of Wayne) 2. Soldier Jane (Beck) 3. Dallas (Flatlanders) 4. Wilder than Her (Dar Williams) 5. Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? (Carole King) 6. Coconut (Nilsson) 7. Out of Touch (Lucinda Williams--Live at the Fillmore version) 8. Who am I (What's My Name) (Snoop Doggy Dog) 9. Love is All (The Checkmates) 10. Shapeshifting (Bark Psychosis) Embarrassingly enough, Fountains of Wayne tops my list again this year. What can I say, as I get into my mid-40s, I dig literary articulation. The rest is further proof I'm turning into a 13 year old girl. (this was last year's: http://people.tribe.net/aa4b2238-6e09-49e7-8a99-dc1852338d7a/blog/f23e27c2-0689-4c6c-9106-699b6b062539.

Rock-Starring it....

Joab — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:12:24 GMT

From the Smoking Gun: "It has taken nearly a decade of searching, but our hunt for the most famous backstage concert rider in rock and roll history has finally hit pay dirt. Yes, we're referring to Van Halen and the band's irrational fear of those tasty brown M&M's:" http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/1211081vanhalen1.html

Some bitching about CDDB entries

Joab — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 01:29:50 GMT

I've been ripping a fair number of CDs in iTunes, and when the software fetches the track info, many of them come back as marked in the "Alternative-Punk" genre! Gar! Gar! Alternative-Punk is NOT a genre. These are two different musical genres, from two different time periods of rock. Something is either "alternative" or it can be "punk," bot not both! Clash: punk; Nirvana, alternative. The Sex Pistols: punk; Good Charlotte: alternative. Got it? True, there are few confounding specimens: Green Day and the Offspring come to mind as alt-punk (as are many bands that started punk, but then as their musical skills and/or ambitions for radioplay grew went alternative--Wire, The Damned, etc...). But this small number of genre-straddlers do not warrant throwing at least 40 percent of today's youth-music into some not-very-well defined bucket. So every time one of these CDs come back as Alternative-Punk, I have to go and change it, to either "alternative" or "punk" (or "new wave" but that's another rant) CDDB went as far as to remove "alternative" category altogether. It takes up all of my valuable time. I suspect this evil amalgamation came Real's Rhapsody music service, which bunched the two genres together (alternative-punk) in its own limited list of music categories. It snowballed from there. Also, while I'm railing against CDDB contributors, I should also point out the "compilation" is not a greatest hits or best-of album by one artist. It's is compendium of multiple artists. That's why iTunes files it under the compilation folder, so you have all the various artists albums in one handy folder. Placing albums by a single artist (even with guest musicians) in a compilation folder means they are not filed with the other albums by that artist. When one slips in, I have to go and fish it out of the compilations folder and place it in the artist's folder, and then delete and then re-import the tunes back into iTunes. Double-plus ungood.

My Favorite Dog-the-Bounty-Hunter quotes!!

Joab — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 03:17:02 GMT

I'm stuck in a hotel room this week, so I got the chance to see, for the first time EVER, the Dog-the Bounty Hunter show. Wow, Dog wears some very complicated clothing. And what's up with his old lady's breasts? Plus, the stuff that he says sometimes sounds exactly like Jack Handey, except he's serious! [Describing his disappointment at not catching a criminal his posse spent all day tracking]: "It's like Christmas when you are expecting to get a bicycle, but when you open the big box it turns out not to be a bicycle at all, but a Christmas tree." [On finding a hiding place to wait for a suspect]: "Can you see through the peephole? ... Is there a peephole?" "In our life, there is one man running the show and his name has three letters. And those three letters are G-O-D."

Why I Love Mr. Freedom!

Joab — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 03:48:43 GMT

Kasey turned me onto this 1969 movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064674/), and I just laughed my ass off when I saw it. It's about an American superhero, Mr. Freedom, who comes to France to save the country from the Swiss communists. It's fiercely anti-American and, given the country's actions after 9/11, quite prescient. *the first scene depicts the country as rife with riots and gun-fire, yet the sheriff, who turns out to be Mr. Freedom, is nonplussed by it all. *Mr. Freedom's costume is a red,white & blue football uniform (#1). *In the Freedom headquarters, each floor on the elevator control is named after a large American business (i.e. General Motors, United Fruit) *"Make red cry uncle..Uncle Sam!" *"Let me tell you about the French. They are 50 million mixed up sniveling crybabies who haven't stood up on their 2 feet since Napoleon...and that wasn't yesterday. And Napoleon wasn't even French. So the French are the white man's burden...." *"I only beat up a broad when I have to." *Dig those names of the operatives: Corporate Dick Discount, Freddy Freak, Mr. Drugstore. "The anti-this, the anti-that, the failures, the misfits--we're not afraid of anybody!" *A the end of the freedom rally, the piano player (Serge Gainsbourg as it turns out), seems like he will start playing a song, but his song consists of running his hands down the keys and saying "I like...freedom!" Boy those French are self-loathing! *From Mr. freedom: "Yeah I was poor, dirt poor. My father worked in the sewers. Then came the depression and they closed the sewers." *The U.S. embassy is a supermarket. Wherever Mr. Freedom goes, he is surrounded by dancing cheerleaders. *Super Frenchman is made of balloons. *Mr. Freedom has hypnotic glasses! *Jesus shows up for some strange reason during the meeting of China and Russia. I didn't get this, buy it sure was funny. *After a kid calls him a fascist, Mr. Freedom goes into depression and gets a stigmata. He is made better by a big bowl of corn flakes. *Here is Mr. Freedom's plan: Cold war, demoralize the population, and if that doesn't work, drop the big one... *"I'm glad to announce that we've destroyed at least half of the country. I hope they understand now that aggression does not pay."

Notes for some mix CD I'm making

Joab — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:49:05 GMT

"Isis" (Bob Dylan): Maybe 5 or 6 times in the past 20 years I offhandedly heard a Dylan song that would end up defining my life for some period of time. He's that good to me. Isis was the latest, which I heard maybe 3 years ago walking around 5 AM in Alexandria. The story's astounding, even though it doesn't make a lick of sense. "Wilder than Her (Dar Williams): I love that a guy sang this about a girl. I love how Dar sung it w/o changing the pronouns. "TKO" (Le Tigre): 22-year old dykes rocking out harder than Jesus. When the first chorus comes around, I feel the full heat of what rock and roll is meant to be. And dig that groovy instrumental break. "Out of Touch"(live @ Bogarts version) (Lucinda Williams): The band rocks out, mean and not too fast. Mmmm Crazy Horse. "Tonight I'm Gonna Give the Drummer Some" (Amy Rigby): There are aging guys who are even more immature than I am...and they are getting laid by hot singer chicks!! "Banana Pudding" (Southern Culture on the Skids): Even when I'm 80 years old, I'll still be eatin' up some banana pudding. Easy on the gums and teeth... "Lonely Sea" (Beach Boys): A piercing falsetto voice bobs over an almost non-existent backing track, the singer lamenting how everything meaningful gets washed away. Nothing about the song suggests that it was recorded in 1963 as album filler. It's not "deep," as the hippies used to say; rather, it whispers of depths. "Teenager Winter" (St. Etienne): I woke up one morning at 4 am, startled from a dream where I was accused of murder, with even my loved ones doubting my innocence. This song was playing. "Holding on to something and not knowing...exactly what you're waiting for." "Galaxy of Emptiness" (Beth Orton): Coming out of Burning Man last year, traveling through the beautiful desolation of Nevada, I played this song over and over, too burned to take in anything more stimulating. I just drifted in the vast emptiness.

And those crazy burners will smite you if you don't agree enthusiastically enough!!

Joab — Wed, 28 May 2008 22:10:57 GMT

You know what I love about burners? The way how the first time you hear of something going wrong is by them saying NOTHING went wrong and everything went fine. They got this "No discord-here, please move along," shit down!!!* Case in point, the local-for-me regional Burning List was all a'buzz not only about PDF, the regional burn held last weekend, but also of a second, new, burn related event in the area held that very same weekend, called Wickerman. Wickerman was not an official regional burn per se, but something put on by a religious commune (http://www.4qf.org/) who, despite their crazy religious ways, seem to truck with many Burner attitudes (Self reliance, gifting, pyrotechnics, etc.). The commune provided the land, electricity, showers and even a gigantic wickerman to burn, all gratis. Despite the fact the two were held on the same weekend, and were within a few hundred miles of one another, these two events were not competing, multiple e-mail posters insisted. But that's not what this post is about. Well, PDF seemed to rock out as per usual and Wickerman? Well that was great too, except for one small teensy-weensy little incident with one camp, Porn & Eggs. It took the mailing list about 2 days to actually get around to discussing the event, and they backed into it because it seemed that everyone was denying ANYTHING was wrong, and thanking their hosts to no end. The gory details were actually posted not on the Balt-Wash Burning list, but rather in a post entitled "4QF: A Tale of Harassment, Violence, and Intolerance" that appeared on the Wickerman site itself!!: http://www.wickermanburn.org/forum/messages/108/344.html?1212000617 I don't want to get into the details, because it is a rabbit hole of accusations not adding up to any sort of coherent narrative. Something about music too loud, fire zones, brutal on-site policing and the typical hippie entitlement bullshit. Be sure to scroll down to the bottom for the commune's response. I dunno there seems to be fucked-upness all around. The younger crazy religious folk seemed to be overzealous in their tossing P&E out, though at least few members of P&E seem annoying as hell too... *See lead story in last summer's SSM: http://www.smrl.org/fileadmin/user_upload/SSM_Media/PDF_Editions/2007/SSM07-02.pdf

The proper way to disengage the icing-hardened cookie shell from a Marshmallow Pie

Joab — Tue, 27 May 2008 21:09:57 GMT

The proper way to disengage the cookie shell from a marshmallow pie is, as I found, not to directly pull the cookie from the marshmallow. This will only crumble the cookie, causing its delicious artificial banana-icing to flake off. The marshmallow is simply too adhesive. The appropriate way to do this is to slowly, carefully rotate the cookie until the thousands of marshmallow tentacles release their grip from the surface. Important: You must not apply any direct pull onto the cookie itself, the stress will snap the desert treat. Simply turn. Only when the marshmallow is fully separated from the cookie may you hold them apart without shattering the structural integrity of the cookie. You can rotate the cookie either clockwise or counterclockwise. It does not matter. I have spent a surprising amount of time refining this technique.... FOOTNOTES: Little Debbie defines a banana marshmallow pie as "two crunchy cookies with a layer of marshmallow and coated in artificially flavored banana icing." (http://www.littledebbie.com/products/BananaPies.asp)

Just paid off my truck this month!!

Joab — Fri, 23 May 2008 23:22:27 GMT

Thousand dollar car it ain't worth nothin' Thousand dollar car it ain't worth shit. Might as well take your $1000, and set fire to it. $1000 car ain't worth a dime, You lose your $1000 every time. Oh why did I ever buy, a $1000 car. $1000 car is gonna let you down, More than it's ever gonna get you around. Replace your gaskets and paint over your rust, You'll still end up with something that you'll never trust. $1000 car's life was through, 'bought 50,000 miles 'fore it got to you. Oh why did I ever buy, a $1000 car. A $1000 car ain't even gonna roll, til you throw at least another thousand in the hole. Sink your money in it, and there you are the owner of a 2,000 dollar 1,000 dollar car. (guitar solo) If you've only got a $1000. You ought to just buy a good guitar. Learn how to play it it'll take you farther, than any old $1000 car. If a $1000 car was truly worth a damn, then why would anybody ever spend ten grand. Oh why did I ever buy, a thousand dollar car. -"$1000 Car," Bottle Rockets

Synopsis of a short story I never will write

Joab — Fri, 23 May 2008 03:31:54 GMT

In the drive to my last job, every day I'd go by this weird slice of land in southeast D.C. between the Anacostia and the I-295 (where for some reason, stolen cars were always deposited on the side of highway). It was and is desolate stretch of land. It had not only the sewage treatment plant for D.C. but also some sort of behemoth-but-secret military air traffic control building, with tiny windows and a gray exterior. Well, it look secret anyway, I had no idea what it was. Also, on the other side of the fence that went along the highway was this hideously ugly ramshackle wooden building that stood at the entrance of sewage treatment plant. So maybe it was a sewage treatment plant building. Or maybe it was a NSA or CIA spook building. I really couldn't tell. It was yellow. Also, that whole area reaked of sewage, the kinda of oily Fat Cat sewage only downtown D.C. .would produce. The whole place is immensely depressing. So anyway as I drove by every day I imagined who would work at such a building. Perhaps it was the guard building. And there was this man and a woman who punched a timeclock there each day. Both would be kind of emotionally stunted. They both had an extremely low threshold of excitement and lived dull though neat and orderly lives. The woman was a bit butch. Her face had hard features, but maybe a trace of sexiness too. The guy was skinny as a beanpole and combed his hair relentlessly and wore highly pressed cotton shirts. He had darting eyes. They made $6.50 an hour, but could make overtime as well. Every day at work they'd dutifully do their rounds and then fill out their paperwork. They had one joke between the two of them. "Smells like roses" one might say to the other on those days when the D.C. stink would be extra pungent! The other would quietly laugh "Yup, smells like roses." This was their bonding ritual. Well, one day on my commute to work I noticed the big ugly yellow building was torn down, which kinda doused my little idle fantasy of the sewage plant guard workers. I figured that one day the Powers That Be realized that in fact, they didn't really need to guard the sewage plant after all. So the building came down. But what happened to the two lonely guards, you may ask? Well on the last day, the skinny man worked up the nerve to ask--in a trembling voice--if the female guard would perhaps like to meet for coffee some day and perhaps reminiscence about the good ole days, since they wouldn't be seeing each other any longer, or possibly forever. Maybe he was interested in her. I couldn't tell. You can't tell with these types of introverts. In any case, she looked at him with disdain and scorn, saying that it would not be appropriate nor professional to meet under such circumstances. A long pause ensued and he muttered somewhat under his breath, "Smells like roses."

The new aesthetic: Bad is good

Joab — Fri, 16 May 2008 16:49:38 GMT

I just saw this early 80s KC recommended, "Summer Lovers." It's basically some half-baked fevered dream of a coked-up producer about doing a romantic comedy about an extended threesome (Staring Daryl Hannah and the young-but-already creepy Peter Gallagher). Truly awful, but in all the right ways! Now, Netflix wants me to rate this film--give it something between 1 and 5 stars. But I'm not sure what rating to actually give it! It is a really bad film (Sorry KC) but I had endless fun watching it. So do I give it 1 stars or 5? My enjoyment can not be contained by a one-dimensional rating system!

Music Geek Out: Who WERE the Monkees anyway?

Joab — Sat, 10 May 2008 21:14:46 GMT

(Feel free to ignore, just thinking out loud): true the music of the Monkees was shamelessly derivative. This band was created solely as a money-making endeavor, merchandise for the television, really. But who were all those the L.A. musicians backing this endeavor? I have no idea. I think what I'm getting at is why do we not think of (Those of us who think about such things anyway) about the "Monkees" as a project of mercenary musicians. A group of well-off musicians whose livelihood was threatened by British popular music of the moptop variety? Yes, I was branded by the TV show when I was 10, like every music loving kid who caught the show here and there. But even today, 30 some years later, "Steppin' Stone," or "She" or at least two dozen others put a chill down my spine. How are these songs not great rock n' roll? True, they said nothing, but what rock song says something? I mean look at "Stepping Stone." First of all, you have to find the right version of the song (Triple geek alert). It was the back of the 45 of "I'm a Believer" It had SIX extra beats--the best six--the follows the first drums-and-organ break (1.11 if your following along). Those measures is where I learned how brutal and beautiful rock music could be, all at the same time. Also, its a great fuck-you song!

Chris' bachelor party: 14 go to Philly, 13 come back....

Joab — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 23:25:38 GMT

So last Saturday, I went up to Pa. for my long-time friend's Chris' bachelor party. His friend Joe painstakingly planned quite a day: He rented a school bus that would take the party first to a "Bikini Club" and then to the Phillies game. Why do the stripper club first? We would get there at, like 12:30 in the afternoon. Turned out it was a good idea, as none of us were any sort of respectable state after the game. Chris' peops were hard drinkers. One guy, who I'll call T* (in case his wife is on the Tribe) finished up a pint of Vodka (with a 2 liter jug of diet coke) on the trip up. More on him later. But Chris is the King of the Hard Drinkers. Joe tells me the story of how Chris passed out once *before* a Jimmy Buffet concert and they carried Chris *in* to the concert. It's a pretty usual occurrence for hard partiers, esp. the younger ones, to pass out *at* a concert; It takes a real commitment to fucked-up-ness to pass out before the concert and still go (or be taken in, as it were). Anyway, by the time we hit the stadium, we had indeed enjoyed many refreshing beverages. I don't think I've downed that much spirit since I was, oh I dunno, 24. Kinda depressing actually. But, hey. It's a bachelor party. It's the time to put such youthful endeavors behind us. After one last go-round. So at the Philly's new stadium (Which is still kinda crappy compared to Baltimore's Camden Yards, but I digress). Me and T* made a pit stop at McFaddens, a faux Irish pub attached to the stadium, for a few refreshing beverages during the early innings of the game. We chat up some ladies, hang out with some frat kids, and so on. But here is the weird part, we decide to hit the bathroom before heading up to our seats. I finish peeing before he does and I'm waiting outside the urinals and next thing I know he is being escorted by two burly bouncers to the door. I have no idea *what* he did. I mean I lost site of him for maybe like 3 minutes. But it must have been pretty extreme, because they were hustling him out of there post-haste. So him being my wing man, I felt an obligation to stick with him, even if it meant tossing aside my own still-unfinished beverage. Anyway, we went into the stadium, procured two replacement beverages and staggered around trying to find our seats. It was at that point that a pair of security guards approached us aggressively and tell us we've had TOO much to DRINK! Which was absolutely true, but I figured that, despite some swerviness in the gate--we were (or I was, anyway) quite discrete about it. We were told to throw out our beverages (And to promise not to buy any more) or leave the stadium. And just to emphasize the point, three MORE security meaner, more menacing-looking guards roll up, like this was some drug bust or terrorist-attack-narrowly-averted or something. I mean, Philly is a rough town for sports fans. You just don't want to fuck with South Philly Flyers fans. They'll bitchslap a dad to the pavement just for being too pasty. So I can see the need for hired muscle at these supposedly family-friendly events. But we were no bangers. We were drunken somewhat-overweight middle-aged men! In any case, we did as we were instructed and rambled on to our seats. Well, a few innings later, I was feeling desirous of a cool refreshing beverage, so I headed down to the snack bar. When I got back T* was gone. In fact, he stayed gone for the remainder of the game. We all got back to the bus and he was no where to be found! We called his cell phone but he didn't answer. What happened to him? Was he taken out by the guards? Did he pass out under a urinal? The trouble was if we would have left him there in Philly, he would have been seriously fucked!! His car was like 60 miles away, at Joe's home in the middle of Bumfuck Nowheresville, Pa. And T* lived like 150 miles away! He would have had to call his wife asking her to pick his sorry drunken ass up in the middle of the night. Or maybe he would have stumbled around South Philly before being taken out by some hooligans. Whatever. We waited for like 20 minutes or so and then got tired and took off. I felt slightly bad, him being my wing-man n' all. Fuck it, he's an adult. He should have known better. We're not baby-sitters (well, except for the groom, pictured above, enjoying the game). I'll have to get the story next week at the wedding.

Clowns, strippers and writers

Joab — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:12:48 GMT

I was grousing with a friend of mine who also does a bit of freelance writing. We were talking about taxes. The IRS asks anyone with extra income from a second business (I.e. freelance writing) to fill out a check box of what *type* of business it is. The closest fit for us is on the category of "artists, entertainers and writers" In other words, writers are in the same category of clowns and strippers. How appropo....

Thew new Moby album sucks. Surprise, surprise

Joab — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 17:01:13 GMT

I donloaded the new Moby album this week. It sounds tired. So I'm a dilettante when it comes to the various forms of electronic dance music, but it just seems to me that the artists who recorded some of the best music I heard in the 90s are absolutely falling apart here in the aughts. To geek out, here are the electronic albums of the last decade that still knock me out, ten years on: D.J. Shadow, Endtroducing Banco De Gaia - Ten Years (Collection of singles) Air, Moon Safari (Not techno, strictly speaking, but along the same lines) Moby, Animal Rights, Play All these albums I've loved deeply, and played them to people who say they hate techno music. Endtroducing just has this dark tense vibe I've never heard elsewhere. Ten Years is gloriously cheesy and energetic. Moon Safari is breezy and cosmic and laid back all at once. None of these people has done anything half-decent in this decade. And same holds doubly true for their less consistent brethren (Orbital, Orb, Chemical Bros, Massive Attack, Utah Saints) So back to this Moby album. He just does the same tricks he's been doing for the past 15 years though with less energy. There's a lot of sampled gospel piano, a lot of breathy soul singing that could sound like house music. But its pretty lousy for house music and its pretty lousy for ambient techno and so it just ends up in the middle of both, and excelling at neither. I actually saw Moby "live" in a D.C. warehouse in 92, along with Orbital, Aphex Twin and a few others. he came out in a mylar suit and reminded me of Billy Idol. But over the next few years his music gloriously transcended the limitations of techno. So in all honestly, I don't know *what* Moby would have to do make that happen in 2008. But, really, that is not my job. My job is to buy the music. His job is to come up with something that is compelling. If I knew how to do that myself, I wouldn't pay him to do it. Though he's not exactly doing it anyway. Also, I'm not sure we live in the times where it could be done. At least easily. This also kind of reminds me of all those musical acts who were considered "heavy" in the early 70s (Like Yes, Emerson Lake & Palmer) who just looked silly by, say, 1979. The cultural climate changed and it was only the really smart bands who created the music that survived the tumult (Steely Dan and Pink Floyd come to mind). None of these guys are smart enough to make this jump. Oh well, back to listening to my Brian Eno art installation bootlegs.

Mark E. Smith beans squirrels, flattens seagulls!!

Joab — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:29:41 GMT

An animal protection group is investigating claims made by British band The Falls Mark E. Smith that he killed two endangered red squirrels and condones the deliberate running over of seagulls, it said Thursday. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080410131147.1qs6zioh&show_artic

One day, I'll experience a moment as sublime as a Fountains of Wayne song

Joab — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 03:04:02 GMT

I found a song off the latest Fountains of Wayne album, "Strapped for Cash." that just fills my soul with joy. It's a friggin 3 minute character study that rocks and is hummable. They make it sound so damn easy. So this song is about, basically, this guy who owes all his bookies serious money, and it is sung in the exact sort of tone of someone in that position. In other words, he's very smooth at reassuring his creditors, explaining with the utmost confidence that they will get their cash very soon, once his luck changes. Of course, it is obvious to everyone--his creditors, the listeners, everyone but himself really--that his luck will never change. If you pay attention, there's just the lightest wiff of serious desperation between the slick reassurances. And where to start on the details? They just fill it with these great lines not only cinematic and concrete but also just *sound* melodic just rolling off the tongue ("So I headed out west to invest in the races/all the god-damn horses kept falling on their faces." or "I was sitting in the kitchen/checkin' out the women on Spanish television"). The arrangement is smart pop and smooth. Not Steely Dan, but close. My fave moment comes near the end of the song, when the phrase "heart attack" is heavily echoed, "heart attack-ack-ack-ack"--just like Billy Joel did with "Movin' Out" so many years ago. Fuckin' brilliant allusion, that. This is not the first Fountains of Wayne song I've fixated on ("Utopia Parkway," "Mexican Wine," "Hailey's Waitress," "All Kinds of Time") Maybe I'm getting old and too easily awed by smart-ass pop songs with narrative structure. Is the fashion for singers still to string together vague non-sequiturs or wail on how no one understand them, while each and every band member plays as hard as he or she can throughout the entire song, regardless of whatever direction, if any, that song should take? I read someone that FoW had to self-finance their "Welcome Interstate Managers" album -- meaning they took jobs as insurance agents or something, just to record the CD. In a world where Cold Play-flavored mood wallpaper makes millions, this is truly a sad commentary on the state of the pop music world, if true...

Streets Of Baltimore

Joab — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 04:00:24 GMT

Words and Music by Tompall Glaser and Harlan Howard Well I sold the farm to take my woman where she used to be We left our kin and all our friends back there in Tennessee And I bought those one way tickets she had often begged me for And they took us to the streets of Baltimore Well her heart was filled with gladness when she saw those city lights She said the prettiest place on earth was Baltimore at night Well a man feels proud to give his woman what she's longing for And I kinda liked the streets of Baltimore Then I got myself a factory job, I ran an old machine And I bought a little cottage in a neighborhood serene And every night when I'd come home with every muscle sore She'd drag me through the streets of Baltimore Well I did my best to bring her back to what she used to be Then I soon learned she loved those bright lights more than she loved me Now I'm a going back on that same train that brought me here before While my baby walks the streets of Baltimore While my baby walks the streets of Baltimore

Martin Scorsese has a (old) man crush on Mick Jagger...

Joab — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 03:16:56 GMT

I just saw Scorsese's new doc on the Stones, "Shine a Light," and how else can I explain the obsessive amount of camera time taken on Mick's sometime-geriatric gyrations, except to say that Martin must have a man-crush on Mick. It's that still-viable mid-riff of Mick's, I'm sure. But ummm ewwww. Besides everyone knows Charlie Watts is the sex symbol in that band now....There was way too little footage of Watts, or even that much of Keef and Ron Wood playing, for that matter. This is a documentary on a band? As always, singers do 15 percent of the work and get 85 percent of the attention. The Stones did rock it out though. Some really discordant guitar on "Some Girls" came within spitting distance of Sonic Youth, believe it or not...Keith taunted Buddy Guy and Buddy Guy taunted Mick and that was fun to watch. The interactions of a good band are difficult to catch, as the best moments tend to be mercurial. I will say Scorsese did carefully catch a few choice moments, and missed others. Too bad Scorsese filled the front rows with skinny shiny-haired models, casting the more ummm..seasoned fans back into darkness. What's up with that? Hasn't this guy seen "Heavy Metal Parking Lot" Come to think of it "Last Waltz" was pretty heavily romanticized as well.

Watch this!

Joab — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 22:03:43 GMT

Saw this at last fall's D.C. Shorts. Thanks to uncontrollable market forces, the creators finally posted to YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/v/3XGJq8wrw5I&hl=en (Above-link really goes to YouTube, but check with your browser pointer-finger to ensure address is the same. Word!)