the bleeding horse, avenged: May 2017

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

GROWING FAT ON THE SALT OF YOUR TEARS

TAD!

Those re-issues of the glorious music of my dubious younger days just keep rolling on….

Seriously, tho – will a TAD remastering job bring out previously hidden nuances and subtleties in the music? Hell no. This is Tad, for christ’s sake. Nipple Belt? Cyanide Bath? Wood Goblins? Throat Locust?

On the other hand, is it nice to see TAD’s Sub Pop years being dragged back out into the light of day, with the added bonus of some unreleased stuff and a few tunes previously only available 25 years ago on vinyl? Shit yeah!

TAD were fun. Not nearly as stupid as they wanted you to believe, but nowhere near pretty or “cool” enough to break out into the big time. They were heavy, they were one of the first Seattle bands of the grunge era, and Nirvana was their opening act for a little while. Good stuff.

And wouldn’t you rather have a TAD re-issue than the umpteenth re-issue of Sgt. Pepper? Of course you would.

Plus, that original 8 Way Santa album cover that got them into legal trouble was awesome…..

in cities without wars

there on the third floor where we

believed in nothing

said she was engaged while she got undressed

and i remember that her pants
laced up the sides

eight o’clock in the pouring rain, but i

forget if it was spring or fall

i knew my father was still alive, that i was

paying $320 a month for these two
small rooms

i knew that i still loved her

was sick with it

four years now of scraping my wrists

over jagged glass, of putting my fists through
unadorned walls, of waiting for the phone
to ring

four years now of simple regret

shot through with fear
and i remember the silence we invented

held it like a sustained note, like

wind through an empty house,
midnight and then one and then two

four o’clock in the morning and

she said i have to go and
that was it

got dressed, drove her back to her car,

head foggy with lack of sleep,
taste of ashes in my mouth,
of cold metal and rust,
and she looked at me like i was a
stranger, and i was

opened the door, said good-bye

and the rain kept falling

the starving

continued to starve

nothing you’d ever notice with

your eyes closed

FEAST

WALLFLOWER 2

Monday, May 29, 2017

Sure, Band of Susans were never going to be the next Pearl Jam or Nirvana or whatnot, but damn they kicked up some dust. Getting lumped in w/ the No Wave shit coming out of NYC at the time didn’t help. They were way too tuneful for that crowd, but critics love pigeon-holing, and I guess that was the best they could do to try and fit them in somewhere.

I think BOS would have had a little more success if they had started a few years later, or maybe been from the west coast. Unlike Sonic Youth or Swans, they kicked ass right from the get-go. Unlike the grunge crowd, they seemed to lack a sense of lyrical irony and eye-rolling (which, I have to d=say, is a very good thing – irony and sarcasm in music is highly overrated). The Wired for Sound comp was a nice gesture, but I’d love to see a box set for these folks.

Sunday, May 28, 2017

ELIZABETH

GREGG ALLMAN

Me & Dawn were out in Corning for GlassFest this weekend, as is our wont. It kicked ass, I didn’t hear about Allman’s death until after we got back home. I took this picture out at GlassFest when I saw it hanging in one of the Artist’s booths. The ’73 Summer Jam was in my neck of the woods, and I’ve always liked the Allmans, so I figured it’d be a nice little pic. The Band are so-so for me, the Dead make me want to stick a sharpened pencil in my ear. I had no idea Ticketron had been screwing the little guy for so long….