Thursday, June 15, 2017
Wednesday, June 14, 2017
SURVIVNG WORK.
Musically Speaking.
Started off w/a few Fugazi albums on the old mp3 player, just to get the blood pumping.
Moved on to Hole's LIVE THRUOGH THIS, the only musically worthwhile thing Courtney has ever done with her life.
From there, it was a short jump over to the Soft Boys obscure masterpiece UNDERWATER MOONLIGHT.
The logical follow-up to this was a selection of cuts from the first 2 Mercury Rev albums . Only decent albums they ever made, really, but damn were they awesome....
Mellowed out for a bit after this with a selection from Felt (and a couple of tunes from Denim thrown in, too, just because that Lawrence is one damn fine songsmith).
Wrapped up the day with the Residents, mainly from their DUCK STAB/BUSTER & GLEN----COMMERCIAL ALBUM---MARK OF THE MOLE era.
Drove home with Husker Du's FLIP YOUR WIG on the cd player.
Tuesday, June 13, 2017
DINOSAUR JR
They'll be at the State Street Theater up in Ithaca in September, just picked up tix last week. I think they were $8 last time I saw them, ticket prices are just insane and getting insaner these days.
Last time I saw them was back in the grunge heyday, about 25 years ago, Lou was long gone but Murph was still playing the drums. Lots of assholes kept trying to crowd surf, they all hit the ground when they got passed over to me. I don't spend good money to pass sweaty asshole strangers over my head, you know? I'll join the Moose or the Elks if I want to do that......
Monday, June 12, 2017
Sunday, June 11, 2017
Saturday, June 10, 2017
Friday, June 09, 2017
Thursday, June 08, 2017
U2
I know it’s fun to slag them off these days, hell, I do it
myself. And when you do an “anniversary
tour” of your 30 year-old album, you kind of seem to be negating everything you’ve
done after. And you know what? They’re right to do so. Even if I include Rattle and Hum, which was about 75% of a decent single album, I’d
be hard-pressed to compile a quality cd of post-1987 U2unes.
Like a lot of bands (REM comes to mind immediately), once they
lost that young, up&coming band hunger, they lost their way. Bono’s pretentiousness, The Edge’s
baldness-shame, it all just overwhelmed the music at some point. Now they’re a shit-dull nostalgia act, like
the Stones.
Still, though……
Boy was
an amazing album by any standard.
Wide-eyed and filled with wonder, it was like an early-autumn trip
through the minefield of adolescence.
October
got shat on by a lot of critics if I recall, but I love it. Darker than Boy, but with a more expansive musical palette, and who gives a
crap if they were winging a lot of it because their studio notes got stolen? GodDAMN it’s some powerful stuff.
And of course, War. Much more direct and hard-hitting, much less
echo and reverb, and still with room for incredible atmosphere pieces like “Drowning
Man”.
I’ll admit, I was a teeny-bopper and I wanted more obvious
hit-me-over-the-head stuff like “New Year’s Day” or “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, so The Unforgettable Fire was originally a
disappointment. I think hearing the
non-album tunes “Boomerang I” and “Boomerang II” for the first time is what
helped put everything into perspective for me, and make me realize how great
the songs and production on this album really are. “Pride” ended up becoming my least-favorite
song here, simply because it WAS such an obvious tune. Hell, I even love “Elvis Presley and America”,
which seems to get singled out for scorn in almost every review I’ve ever read
of Fire.
And then The Joshua Tree. Good times, good times. I think my first copy was one of those goofy
long-box cassettes. “Red Hill Mining
Town”? “Running to Stand Still”? “One Tree Hill”? Holy fuck, what tunes…… One of my first college-age records, I think
the band played in Buffalo around this time, but I saw no attraction in
watching a band on a jumbotron in a football stadium. Ended up seeing The Screaming Blue Messiahs
instead, still have no regrets.
And don’t forget all the b-sides and obscure tracks and quality
bootlegs the band had between ’79 and ’87.
Always an important measure of how good a band is.
And now they just make me sad, like dead kittens or ice cream
cones that have fallen on the ground.
Wednesday, June 07, 2017
Tuesday, June 06, 2017
BETTER THAN A SHARP STICK IN THE EYE
15% OFF ALL PRINT PRODUCTS AT LULU
USE CODE LULU15
EXPIRES JUNE 8
Monday, June 05, 2017
Sunday, June 04, 2017
Saturday, June 03, 2017
eating the bones of the poem
suicide factory,
6 a.m.,
and rothko is always
waiting at the door
has his pills and his
ideas about transcendence
wants to paint you
in shades of black and
grey
wants me to listen to the
sound of
razor blades through bare
flesh
calls it music and he
calls it holy and
what matters here is that
i am
less than i was
when you and i were
together
what matters here is the
possibility
that the pale blurred
sunlight
of my childhood might
return
that the dead lawns up
and
down this bitter street
are
nothing more than
premonitions
after fifteen years of
february
i am ready to start
breathing again
MEET THE NEW KLAN, SAME AS THE OLD KLAN
James B, this isn't a Trump thing, altho his xenophobia is at the root of it. Shit like this sort of defines some of what I write, so this article is kind of important. The idea of a privileged group of inbred assholes beating up others they view as "different", and doing it in the name of AMERICA and FREEDOM is pretty fucking scary. To ignore it is to condone it.
I used to taunt bullies back in school when they were picking on others, just to draw their attention away from their victims. It was a poorly thought out plan, obviously, and the consequences for me weren't always the best, but it just seemed like the right thing to do.
Anyway, if the scumbag asswipes in this article were all to die tomorrow, all it would do is help make the world a better place.....
GOT LIVE IF YOU WANT IT
New Swans live CD, Deliquescence,
is just as kick-ass as their 4 post-reunion studio albums. Has a few unreleased tracks, a grand total of
7 tunes spread out over 2+ hours. Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiicccce.
I always thought they were kinda goofy back in my
younger days, too serious and monochromatic, altho I liked the PiL disco of “A
Screw”. They started to turn the corner
w/ Children of God, and The Burning World (despite everyone
seeming to hate it) was nice, with its actual songs and melodies and whatnot. White
Light from the Mouth of Infinity was their first stone-cold classic, and
then they rode a hot streak for a few albums.
Soundtracks for the Blind was
nice, but had a lot of filler, I thought.
Could’ve easily been trimmed down to a single CD.
Liked Angels of Light, too. They started off good and only got
better. Last 2 albums were their best.
And then the reunion.
After the overly-long Soundtracks, it’s funny how all of these new 2 CD sets just seem to
float on by with no filler.
I also love the Young God website, where Gira seems to
talk a lot about sunlight and the power of love and how that’s always been one
of his underlying messages. It’s nice
that he’s happy, even tho the music hasn’t mellowed in the slightest. I suspect that growing older, becoming a
father and getting off the drugs have brought out these new facets of his
personality. Or maybe he’s just batshit
crazy.
In any event, Swans fucking rule.
Friday, June 02, 2017
JUDGEMENT CALL
Does a self-professed pussy grabber who likes to sexually objectify underage girls really have the moral maneuvering room to be offended by this?
HELP LULU!
They usually offer a FREE SHIPPING special sale every few months, which is nice because they kill you in shipping fees, but I haven't seen one lately. Maybe they've over-extended themselves, maybe they owe their loan sharks some big time $$$$$, who knows?
I was hoping to announce this in conjunction with a free shipping promo, but it seems like I may be old and/or dead before that happens, so here it is - lots of smaller chunks of good fun rolled up into one bigger, more economical blast of FUCK YEAH!!
"A John Sweet omnibus, this collection contains the complete texts of False Hope (2007), Between Truth and Mercy (2007) and Slow Drift Into Exile (2010), along with a selection of previously unpublished work. 226 pp., 1st edition 2017."
motherfucker
words written in frost against
the cold april sky and what is truth buta failure by those in power to
control you?
what are the reasons
need to kill a child?
maybe get it addicted instead
a lot of money to be made smearing
poison across the eyes of god
a lot of sleeping widows waiting to
be crushed beneath your hobnailed boots
man comes running at you with a
knife and you’d damn wellbetter start looking for your own
Thursday, June 01, 2017
OCCASIONALLY......
I encounter a scenario where a book and a movie are
almost equal in awesomeness, where they both exploit the best parts of their
particular medium for a totally satisfying experience.
CLOUD ATLAS managed to attain this ideal this for
me. The stories in the book are excellent,
as is the way they’re set up like a nesting doll. Very cool idea.
The movie took a much more scattershot approach to
presenting the 6 stories from 6 different times, but I think it worked. Everything gelled eventually, and I think the
movie can be understood by someone who hasn’t read the book. And if it can’t, the lazy assholes should put
down the bong, turn off the THE WALKING DEAD and read the goddamn thing. Expand your horizons, and all that happy
horseshit.
But I digress.
5 years after the fact, I finally get around to giving
the movie 2 thumbs up, and then 2 more for the book.
Hard to believe this is the same duo who directed the
absolute piece of shit that is JUPITER ASCENDING…..
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