Friday, June 30, 2017

DAY TO NIGHT


TREE ON FIRE


THE NRA WILL PROTECT THEIR FREEDOM. BY SHOOTING YOU.



A good article here about the NRA bullying people with veiled threats of violence to get them to stop exercising their Constitutional right to peaceful protest and dissent.   It's good to see they're fully embracing the neo-Nazi lifestyle.....




https://www.yahoo.com/news/nra-video-calls-clenched-fist-response-protests-171252401.html




but I thought I'd post the highlights separately.  Good shit to remember:


Jason Stanley, a philosophy professor at Yale University and the author of “How Propaganda Works,” called the video “utterly terrifying” and took particular issue with its allusions to tamping down protests.

“Dissent against the president is represented as an attack on freedom—when in a democratic society, dissent and protest are the essence of freedom,” Stanley said in an email to Yahoo News.

“’Law abiding’ is used as a contrast with ‘democratic,’” he added. “So political protest—for example at airports—is not ‘law abiding,’ even though it is clearly consistent with the constitution. ‘Law abiding’ here means ‘following whatever the leader says.’ This is an authoritarian notion of law, not a democratic one.”





THE NIGHT OF OUR ESCAPE


ELEMENT OF LIGHT


Wednesday, June 28, 2017

SPLIT IMAGE


OUR LAST YEAR SPENT IN A HOUSE ON FIRE



RED LORRY YELLOW LORRY




I’m never going to bitch about Red Lorry Yellow Lorry box sets (even the sourcing from vinyl doesn’t really bug me - you gotta do what you gotta do), but it seems odd that the same company has put out 2 of them in 3 years.

2014’s SEE THE FIRE collects the first 2 albums, most of the non-album singles and EPs from that period, plus some BBC sessions.  All good, essential stuff.
 

The new one, cleverly titled ALBUMS AND SINGLES 1982-1989, repeats a vast majority of the non-BBC stuff from SEE THE FIRE, then adds the 2 major album releases, NOTHING WRONG and BLOW (plus a few bonus cuts for each album).  You can pick it up pretty cheap on Amazon, so why wouldn’t you? 
 

1991’s BLASTING OFF is the only album that hasn’t been anthologized, but from what I’ve read that was mainly Chris Reed and a bunch of studio musicians.  It’s a good album in its own unique way, but really not part of the “official” bands oeuvre.  It’s sort of like leaving CUT THE CRAP off the Clash’s box set, if you know what I mean…..










Monday, June 26, 2017

FEARLESS


THE UPSTATE DESERT


ARTIFICIAL HEART


GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR



THESE GUYS AND GALS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN PRETTY COOL.

HAD TO RECENTLY REASSESS MY VIEWS ON "ASUNDER, SWEET AND OTHER DISTRESS", THOUGH, WHICH TOTALLY FAILED TO IMPRESS ME UPON ITS INITIAL RELEASE. 

I THINK IT'S THOSE DRONE-Y INTERLUDES, THEY JUST REALLY DO NOTHING FOR ME.  THE TWO "SONGS", THO, ONCE I SAT DOWN AND REALLY LISTENED, KICK RIGHTEOUS MOTHERFUCKING ASS.  STILL, WHEN YOU WASTE THE MIDDLE 16 MINUTES OF A 40 MINUTE ALBUM FINGER-FUCKING YOURSELF, IT GETS A LITTLE TEDIOUS FOR THE LISTENER.......


A lo-fi, black and white image of animals grazing, with trees in the background



Sunday, June 25, 2017

SOMEONE ELSE'S PAIN


Almighty


This is your sister holding herself on
the bathroom floor, and this is the
toilet filled with blood.  This is pale
grey light spilling from the same sun that
shines down on all of us.  The roads that
run alongside the railroad tracks.  The
railroad tracks that run alongside the
river.  Its a long fucking way in any
direction to find a god who will
even pretend to care.


RECENT UNTITLED


THE NEW WORLD


Friday, June 23, 2017

KAZIMIR



I DON'T DO COKE AS OFTEN AS I SHOULD.....


      SO I DON'T KNOW IF THIS IS A GOOD DEAL OR NOT.





DELIRIUM



WHINING ABOUT OBSCURE MUSIC FOR FUN AND PROFIT





I read somewhere the Catherine Wheels’ FERMENT was reissued a few years ago,  w/ bonus tracks, but then I read somewhere else that it was sourced from crackly vinyl, which sort of sucks.  Of the major 90s guitar bands (shoegaze, if you have to call it that), these guys seem to have consistently gotten the shit end of the reissue stick.



Slowdive had all three of their original albums reissued, bonus discs, all that happy crap, plus I think they’ve had TWO 2CD compilations.  They’re worthy of it all, of course……



Swervedriver had their first 3 albums reissued with some bonus tracks tossed in, plus a 2CD retrospective that encompassed some of their singles and the 4th album, so that’s not bad.  Still, they had so much killer non-album tuneage, that a more extensive overview would be quite nice.



Ride was way too spotty to be a first tier band, but even THEY had a box set greatest hits/rarities/live thing, plus the admittedly excellent reissue of their gonzo first album.  Hell, even their so-so second album got the re-issue treatment…..



Lush just never really did it for me, but their box set is pretty nifty-looking.



Chapterhouse, another decent 2nd tier band (only 2 albums), I think has also been extensively repackage.



So what the fuck is the deal with Catherine Wheel?  First album was awesome, as was the 2nd.      HAPPY DAYS 90% sucked ass, sure, and WISHVILLE is best left unspoken about, but all of the early singles and the ADAM AND EVE album are amazing.   LIKE CATS AND DOGS was a pretty nice gathering of b-sides, but there are still plenty more out there.



I assume someone is jumping all over this egregious oversight, now that I’ve spoken.






LOSS IN THE AGE OF SUBTLE MERCIES


STATIC AND HOLY LIGHT


Wednesday, June 21, 2017

YOU AND I AS WE TRULY WERE


all ghosts sighing



its the punchline where you
cant stop bleeding and he says he
forgets the joke but offers you $50 for
a night with your sister


gets you a tank of gas maybe or
enough beer for the weekend and you just
gotta finally feel these chromium days
deep down in your veins,
                           you know?


you gotta run to the edge of the highway
before the crows find the body


listen


i have yet to find a god i would
get down on my knees for


i keep talking the pills
but the pain wont go away


and i am not the man offering money
and i am not the man receiving it
but ive met the sister


was driving to work when I
heard about cobains suicide


was sitting in my apartment thinking
about getting high when my mother called
to tell me about my father and i kept
waiting for the punchline


kept hearing small stones hit the
window next to my head


this fifteen year old kid down in the
drive who said
hed seen the face of god


said his sister was on her way over and
this is how we end up lost


this is the year of election in a land
where the starving
are devoured by the obese


where your children spend slow afternoons
torturing and killing dogs in the
muddy stand of trees down by the river,
and someone asks how it ever came
to this, of course,
because willful blindness is a gift


because we have always been fond of
the taste of someone elses blood


and the superheroes are dead in this
age of inevitable despair and
the politicians all just want
to fuck you hard


they dont get the joke but they
know that youre the punchline


they know how deep
the knife has gone in


easiest thing in the world,
laughing at someone elses pain


AND WE WERE FUCKED, AND WE WERE HOLY


AGNOSTIC


ZERO BEAUTY


Sunday, June 18, 2017

small poem to fill an empty page



summer of ’92, before the
flood, before the abortion, before she
tells me whose baby it is

a rusting trailer at
the edge of a cornfield

buzz of cicadas, neverending rumble of
trains passing in the distance and she says her
husband ignores her or
he yells at her

says he hasn’t fucked her in
almost three years
doesn’t even hit her anymore and
what we’re waiting for is winter

the possibility of escape that
never becomes a reality

the inevitable future
which is only ever a less hopeful
version of the defeated past


PORTRAIT OF THE SUN


AMNESIA


MONOLITH