Lazy Comet

Burnt offering

2011-12-30T14:53:00.002-05:00

"Oh, same thing."

2011-08-11T15:40:00.005-04:00

Enzo brings us records as part of his regular UPS duties. Fun guy, Italian or, don't wanna offend anyone, possibly Sicilian or hey. Good guy either way. Just look at him:

When he got to the store today, somehow navigating that awesome brown truck through all the TV people and gear choking us for days on end

he found me playing Minor Threat at volume and jumping around like a ~~fucking idiot~~ young hardcore kid -- menacingly, looking for a fight -- which I am not. TV people irate me, is all.

Enzo: "You musta got laid last night."
me: "No, I just [what? ...] -- I'm just well-caffeinated."
Enzo: "Oh, same thing."
me: "?!?"

Then he just left! Now we've got a TV cop out front directing real traffic.

The Ballad of Anna and Renars

2011-07-22T19:46:00.013-04:00

Lots of people walk into the store every day. The majority have crushingly dull things to say by way of explaining their helpless low-grade consumerist lives ("no, Music Hall of Williamsburg is my favorite club"; "do you have Ratatat/Bon Iver/spoon-fed dog-puke-du-jour on vinyl," &c.), but a few have interesting stories, and they're usually the ones who don't volunteer them. I had to dig a bit with Anna and Renars, and the rabbit hole got kinda hysterically, awesomely deep.

Be nice to these two, for the Norns watch over them.

They walked in at peak-boil of the record-melting afternoon today, and in accented but very good, crisply enunciated English, Anna asked to buy Sonic Youth tickets. She also asked if I had any information about the opening acts, but before I could say, her gentleman associate Renars asked, "Is it Magik Markers"? Which would be a good guess under any circumstances but too weird to let slide here, because no they were not on that bill in August but they are playing tonight at Shea Stadium (and last night at Cameo), and they are the best band on earth right now, so hey. Ask why he asked that and then tell them the deal. Cause maybe they half knew it already -- you know the way people get part of something right these days, Internet and all that mess.

Well they were shocked at this news in the best way, so I was happy to show them a map of where Shea is, tell them openers &c. I asked where they were visiting from. Latvia! Cool. Anna proceeded to explain that they knew the band, and what a great surprise that they would get to see them. How do they know the band, oh from some festival over there. And I'm not quite sure what flicked the gates open, but I think Anna dropped an arcane comment like, the only reason she was in the store was because of a Twix bar. Which I couldn't let alone, and so she proceeded to tell an increasingly bizarre story about their trip to NYC, which this was the first day of. She had been grocery shopping one day in Riga when a man rushed past her and knocked her into a display of discounted vodka bottles (I think she said they were flavored, which explains the discount). She stood in horror as one bottle knocked over the next, and her English is good enough for her to say "like dominoes," and suddenly she was standing among several (hundred?) smashed bottles and I guess a lot of liquor. One of those situations, you've had them.

A store employee told her to go to the register and it would be okay, or something -- you can imagine her state of mind at the time -- and she completely forgot her groceries and rushed to the counter. On the way, impulse told her to grab something to buy. Twix bar got grabbed. Fuzzy about the rest of the encounter at the register, but inside was a form for a contest, win a bunch of Twix bars she thought it was. I presume she entered. Some months later she said she was on Friendster -- and this was the only hint Anna and Renars might not be from, like, the west West -- and a bunch of people she didn't know were asking her on Friendster how much chocolate she had needed to buy/eat in order to win. Win what? Wow, a bunch of candy bars, right? No, there was a bigger prize: a trip to Tokyo. Her shame-Twix was the winner; her name had been announced before Twix of Latvia, Corp. could inform her.

This trip to Tokyo was apparently all booked and ready when the massive earthquake and tsunami hit. Anna didn't mention this as if it were an inconvenience or anything callous like that, for the record.

As any sane people would, when told they weren't going to Tokyo they tried to get whatever cash-value instead. Nope, they had to pick a trip somewhere, okay United States. Anna called the random discovery of a Magik Markers show -- her and Renars haven't seen them play in a few years so I'm bringing a bag for them to carry their brains home in -- the latest little chapter in the trail of Fate-moves, and she doesn't think it's done with them yet. I'm going to buy them cheap beers at the show tonight (doesn't qualify as Fate, I'm pretty sure), and you should do the same if you see them at the Sonic Youth show on the Waterfront.

2011-07-04T18:04:00.002-04:00

Sic (sic) Alps and me

2011-03-25T16:31:00.001-04:00

Details of my difficult, altogether too personal but ultimately rewarding relationship with the new Sic Alps record, courtesy of Your Flesh (sir).

What's doing in Sierra Leone?

2011-02-10T22:39:00.019-05:00

Freetown, Sierra Leone, is pretty heavy with history in two directions, having once been a primary departure point for African slaves (via the Portuguese) and later, in 1787, being settled by 400 freed slaves and African-Americans, under the guidance of British abolitionists. After that community collapsed in violence two years later (a "misunderstanding" between Europeans and Africans? The devil you say), it was tried again in 1792, and — well, that's about all I know really, and anyway, this isn't meant to be a history lesson. Let's just say it's still there, despite the French, the British, the diamonds, and Charles Taylor.

Freetown, hanging in there

Why am I telling you this? Because a good friend is in Sierra Leone for a spell as a doctor with a volunteer organization that shall remain nameless, and she passed along a rough story a couple of days ago that I thought I'd share. If you're squeamish you might not want to read on, though it's not all that graphic. The upshot is I won't be complaining about healthcare here for a while.

Would probably win a duel with a motorcycle

Anyway, her first couple of weeks there were uneventful (other than the Harmattan), but then...

"One of my volunteers was mowed down by a motorcycle in a remote part of the country! My worst nightmare! It was night, when we're not allowed to be on the road (for safety reasons — driving is not good during the day, but impossible at night). Fortunately, two other volunteers were in the same town as the injured volunteer, though he didn't know that at the time.

As I've told you, there's a large Lebanese community here — especially Lebanese/Sierra Leoneans, who although never having been to Lebanon retain many of their terrific qualities of hospitality and caring. The Salones (Sierra Leoneans) are naturally the same way, being very friendly and caring people. So the combination of the two peoples can be very interesting, and certainly proved helpful that day. A Leb/Salone picked up the volunteer (who was profusely bleeding) and took him to a gov't hospital, which I'll describe in a minute. Somehow the word spread like wildfire, and the two other vols showed up at the hospital — thank goodness, because they ended up sleeping with the injured one, and providing the necessary care to him...a head injury, he needed neurological check every two hours throughout the night. I was on the phone continuously between them and the doctor treating the vol. To make a long story short, the volunteer, apart from a bad head injury that required two wounds to be sutured (and that neurological checking), had multiple cuts and abrasions all over his body, and probably a broken ankle (or at least some torn ligament).

[note: italics mine. – mw]

But here we go. The wounds were sutured without any anesthesia, and by the light of the volunteers' cell phones, since there's no electricity and no generator there! And the volunteer, with his open wounds, was laid on a bed where there had been blood spilled by a previous patient! Yes, this is Africa. They do the best they can, but it ain't much. When I arrived at the "hospital" the next day I almost fainted...I've seen bad in my life, but absolutely nothing like what I saw there. The volunteer is a great kid, and really sucked it up, and did all that I told him. Got him out of there, to Freetown, cleaned him up and gave him appropriate exam and treatment, which is still ongoing.

But everything here is such an effort that all my time has been taken up by this event. I've looked into helicopter medevacs for him, etc...but nothing yet, although it's very much in the planning stages. And there are several SL doctors in Freetown that are quite good and have been trained in the U.S. It's just that there is so little in the way of equipment. Tomorrow I'm getting him two CT scans (head and ankle) — price is $500 for both! Get that! (note: I think that's cheap? Or, I dunno, expensive?! –mw) And the hospital — also a gov't facility, is absolutely the worst (even worse than the one in Bo [note: Bo is Sierra Leone's second-largest city, pop. about 215,000. –mw]) that I've ever seen in my life...bare beds with 6-7 people lying in each one...and if there are no family members around to help the patients don't eat, they lie in their own filth...I won't go on, you get the picture.

I took a brief nap today and am sure happy to be back in Freetown; took the volunteer and the driver for shawarma and felafel at a Lebanese place, where I had a terrific conversation, all in Arabic mind you, with the old man, the owner. So that's been my time...it's just very dicey when you can't do what you know you have to for injuries."

Soldiers of Fortune, Zebulon, Wed Feb 9

2011-02-10T19:36:00.005-05:00

The Voice asked about some heavy jams last night, so I went and, you know, told that.

Mike Bones, post-show, not his assigned seat

Kid Millions, post-show, his assigned smile

Jordi Wheeler, Spectacle Theater, Mon Feb 7

2011-02-09T10:42:00.006-05:00

Third time's a charm (but then, so were the first and second). Another core member of Up Died Sound, a band itself not so very documented but modestly exploding with ideas, lit out on a solo hike. I wasn't even sure I'd be writing about Jordi Wheeler's set till partway through his somewhat troubled first song, when he realized what I was already thinking and killed an unnecessary percussion track, leaving just a song, a good one, and after that just songs (though not this splinter) — hermetic, whispered but not quiet by purpose, a few first on piano, stained-glass notes (and starry films behind him) illuminating the dark room, his percussive left hand the only rhythm needed. After a while he switched to acoustic guitar, still seated at his piano, for a few more songs, bedsit in nature but sophisticated, the señor even threading in a Spanish figure on — is guitar still his home instrument, can anybody tell? He returned to piano for another flourish, further smearing, really just banishing the question. Bent over his instruments he looked like a less mannered Peter Jefferies, though this night Jordi was clearly tithing in the parish of Syd Barrett (while John Cale hovered offscreen).

Don't blame the camera

As with a lot of veteran artists (Wheeler was in the Occasion, one of my favorite NYC bands of the early ’00s), this set seemed as much about corraling a wealth of ideas and impulses (like herding cats — and speaking of, the supportive crowd was filled with musicians) as showing off the songs. Which I'm looking forward to hearing again, even though the next time could be completely different.

Hiro Kone, Zebulon, Wed Feb 2

2011-02-04T17:58:00.009-05:00

Felt good to get out after a week and half with the flu (or flus, you know, just lucky I guess), and I celebrated with electric holy water.

A short walk from work through the glazed donut that is Williamsburg (key difference: glazed donuts often filled with something) to Zebulon, where Hiro Kone (a.k.a. Nicky Mao of Up Died Sound, ex–Effi Briest) was making her maiden solo flight. Could that be true? I saw her accompany the 1923 silent Salomé in November, though that isn't quite solo. The few times I've seen UDS her ideas were prominent, so the night was not without measured anticipation (J agreed). Her set — five songs, six? All of some length and considerable presence — established a unique language and (not uncommon for a first gig) (if it was), with it, she had plenty to say. She started with a hand drum

before moving into steady frontierwork along the Korg/Nord axis, evoking Alice Coltrane's devotional music of the ’80s in tone and spirit, only less narrowly focused and in an open relationship with dance music. That last aspect might get her miscategorized (because what are you if you can't be categorized?), but this is psychedelic music at heart, a different state of mind its goal, or states, goals.

Man it's hard to get good photos at Zebulon

What kept me thinking of Coltrane mère was the way whole choruses flared out of already rich orbs of brightly opaque synth, a real instinct for contrast and shape, the way her music moves outward and sometimes diagonal, just always with some sense of further (like, small-p progressive).

The only song I recognized is the sublime "AION A" (which you can just have). One song pulsed with a 5/4 (or was it 4/5, what order do they go in again?) pillow-thump and one crisp clack to mark the darkness; a bit of Laika, or Richie Hawtin loosening up with a color or two, but mostly just like Hiro Kone. Kind of a long set for first of three, but that didn't matter, it was one of those sounds you just wanna let alone for a while, so despite what I'd heard about Pillars & Tongues, and knew about Highlife (Sleepy Doug Shaw), I headed out, happy, blissy.

Bombogenesis: 6.3 times per year in the USA, twice in a month just on First Ave

2011-01-27T01:36:00.012-05:00

Bombogenesis: because "thundersnow" has already been beaten into the ground, as is the way of things today. (I think it happened around midnight. You're already playing yourself if you say "thundersnow" — like how your eyes can't roll far enough when someone says "snowpocalypse," and you can't beat them severely enough if they say "snowmageddon.")

Seconds after the dramatic, increasingly less rare results of bombocyclogenesis

Haven't sorted out exactly how it works yet — "bombogenesis" being derived from "cyclogenesis" (naturally) and both, I think, describing the set of necessary conditions rather than the event itself. Whatfuckingever. I know it's rarer than radium, reported on average just 6.3 times per year in the whole US. I know it's said that a guy in Bucks County, PA got hit by snowlightning this evening (all in all, my guess is lightningsnow is more survivable — either way, this is less dramatic than both double-rainbow…). And I know that for the second time this winter I was walking down First Ave and I saw, then heard, lightning and thunder, while snow blasted around us. Figuring the world is dying and/or my luck is changing I bought lottery tickets immediately. On First Ave, of course. I'll cut you in, don't worry.

Letha Melchior Rodman benefit: Capsul + the Mad Scene + Home Blitz + Tom Surgal, Cake Shop, Sat Jan 22

2011-01-24T11:38:00.003-05:00

A bloody good time on Saturday night to raise money for veteran rocker and excellent human being Letha Melchior Rodman. The Voice asked me what happened.

Random Cutting (and other assassinations), Chashama, Fri Jan 21

2011-01-22T11:58:00.010-05:00

Caught a set from Tyler Nolan (of Vaz and Up Died Sound), who plays solo as Random Cutting, last night at Chashama, the p-r artspace that's right where you'd never think it should be: E 42nd, right across the street from the Helmsley Hotel.

Living out of a suitcase

Last time I'd seen Nolan solo he accompanied an edited-down (to 30 minutes or so) Robocop, drawing laughs and whoops from a half-full but fully attentive Zebulon. And there is something intrinsically sci-fi to his bright and loud style — not à la Chrome, but formally somehow, visions of glassy spires crashing up out of the ground, like an Arthur C. Clarke paperback cover set on •>awe<•. One fleet five-note run that started a new passage (he plays straight through, with brief pauses) last night kind of suggested the light-tones at the end of Close Encounters. What's rare (in a solo electric-guitar set, at least) is there's no indulgence in his playing; he neither wastes a shred nor underplays, everything is hemmed and purposed without feeling tight or restrained. The cuts are anything but random. Check out two pieces named for tall black men at his site, linked at top.

Also on hand at Chashama were a bunch of hacked and rigged old video games, the most popular being JFK: Reloaded, which is exactly what it sounds like. It really was impressive and only a bit unnerving; while I don't think anyone old enough to remember the day is currently coding video games, I couldn't help but think of the function of history in severing emotional ties to traumatic events. The people (hmf, kids) clustered around the machine were laughing their asses off, and who am I to criticize? I wasn't born till ’67.

Top 10 inflation: apologies to Glass Rock

2011-01-18T18:43:00.058-05:00

Every year I send in my Top 10 to the Village Voice's Pazz & Jop poll, and every year, starting about 20 minutes later, I go back and start fucking with it. Continue, I mean. Why? Because of all the really, really good records being made. And 10 is just not the round number it used to be back before the world got all blown-out and untrackable. Also because I'm an editor, i.e., bit of a mental case.

This year, I waited till just about the very literally very last moment to submit my P&J. Longer actually — that afternoon, seconds before it was nearly certain that I was about to do it, a couple of friends dragged me out and we got good and hammered (the holidays and all that, "just one beer" and all that). When I got back and tore off my list, confident in that drunkenly authoritative way that everything was in its place, I um…completely left off one of my real favorites of the year. … Sorry, Glass Rock. To quote Marc Masters, "Imagine if this mattered."

Anyway, these days you can go back and fix pretty much everything. You just can't go back and give everything the 10 or so points it deserved in Pazz & Jop.

And so, I moved stuff around (soberly) and here, now, below. It's got 24, but by the end it may be 25, cause I'm pretty sure I'm still forgetting something. Just about all of them at one point of the year felt like mortal locks for my Top 10. But I'm only fucking apologizing to Glass Rock.

1. Major Stars Return to Form (Drag City)
Yeah. Best yet by the best-yet sextet. Maximal psych-rawk splendor, featuring two of the Stahs' three ostensibly active singers; for proof of their discrete dopeness go back-to-back with "Low Grade" (Sandra Barrett) and "The Space You Know" (Amanda Bristow). Really though, no recording matter can contain what this band is about. You just haven't lived until you've been kicked in the back of the head during a Wayne Rogers guitar solo. By Wayne Rogers.

2. Sun City Girls Funeral Mariachi (Abduction)
Here.

3. Phantom Payn Days Phantom Payn Daze (De Stijl)
Tensely lazing electric shocks from this non-bastard offspring of Suicide, Peter Jefferies and the Velvets, which is impossible of course, how could three things have one baby, and yet, here he is, and in case you're wondering — he's not confined to that bedroom, just happier there. 39 Clocker Juergen Gleue made these dark and sexy (a.k.a. "never released") recordings in the mid-’90s, and they go deep with a South Island vibe, Germanically poised. We can know that "cool" still means something because of this album.

4. Islaja Keraaminen Pää (Fonal)
Honestly, I still haven't sorted this album out exactly. Which is weird because it's Islaja's most accessible, for one. It could in fact be that very thing, the proximity of these elegant, stained-glass-future torch songs to "normal" pop that makes it so jarringly other. Why does a white Finnish lady make me think of Sun Ra without having anything to do with him in any way? Still haven't sorted it. [Just realized, days later, that it's also or perhaps instead Abbey Lincoln, early ’60s with Max Roach, her blues, just the powerful suggestion of being out, relaxed and regal in it where she was, commanding, stately but not stuffy. Analagous in some crucial unnameable way, Abbey and Merja, but otherwise unlike. Not sure I've sorted it though.]

5. Glass Rock Tall Firs Meet Soft Location (Ecstatic Peace)
Sorry, again, really. It's hard to believe I could've simply forgotten about this one, no matter how much whiskey, especially since it contains 2010's most unforgettable instant: the very first blow of the very first song, itself called "Glass Rock" — just this huge exhale, all the weight fallen off your shoulders as you slump into a chair. It's a life-up-to-this-point moment that's followed with Kathy Leisen declaring everything permanently okay by asking, "Whatchoo think about loosin' it up?" Only recently decided that line's not missing a syllable. Take care to note that I've talked only about the first half minute of this mind-blowing, tender-hearted, sinking-yacht-rock album, and also please notice that its title track is named for the band, and its title instead explains what's going on here. Everything else in history explained at the band's totally natty blog.

6. Sharon Van Etten Epic (Ba Da Bing!)
She sings at you from an angle with this almost lurid voice that swerves around forcefields, like she's emotionally drunk from her own lyrics. Dramatic results. Would've been only slightly the less if it were just "A Crime" and "Peace Signs," but I'm glad it isn't.

7. Fabulous Diamonds Fabulous Diamonds II (Siltbreeze)
Bliss of haunt, stately psych that ghost-patrols the darklands, where your nervous system lives low to the earth. Drums, synth, vocal incant; so simple, so right. Suddenly want to make sure these two have heard Phantom Payn Daze.

8. The Dead C Patience (Ba Da Bing!)
On returning to form and staying there.

9. Noveller Desert Fires and Bleached Valentine split (Saffron)
At the moment I'm not sure I can think of anything other than "Bleached Beach," one song from her recent split LP (with unFact) that soars high and heavy, like a jetstream of lava. At first I missed the noise guitarist; Desert Fires burned the thought clear out of me.

10. Rangda False Flag (Drag City)
Bishop, Corsano, Chasny, demons. If you think I need to say more, that's your problem.

11. Alastair Galbraith Mass (Siltbreeze)
A bookend to Morse, 18 years later, too perfect. A string theory in a feathered hat, the South Island dark horse gives truest meaning to the words "experimental pop."

12. Doug Paisley Constant Companion (No Quarter)
"Who could be so cruel to someone like you? No one but you. Who would make the rules for the things that you do? No one but yooouuu." Drop your weapons, the war is over.

13. Effi Briest Rhizomes (Sacred Bones)
Brooklyn's brightest darkness, an arcane notion dusted off and lured from the attic of 4AD's old manse out into the woods for an all-night session. You're surrounded by trees but you notice only the air. Like a lot of good psychedelic music its persuasion is its pacing, and since the valence is distinctly female, maybe this is one of those cases where it's okay that every single review mentioned it (even if no one talked about why it might matter). Singer but not songwriter Kelsey Barrett has left, so what's next is bound to be different, and worth waiting for (this one took years), even if what's most noticed then is still mainly that did you know the band members are all female.

14. Neil Young Le Noise (Reprise)
Neil, burning, overwhelming you in a sea of guitar flames. Neil Young is an all-male band.

15. Endless Boogie Full House Head (No Quarter)
When Top Dollar speaks his mind, everybody else shuts the fuck up. Quel jammage! Endless Boogie is all-male.

16. Tyvek Nothing Fits (In the Red)
They razored off everything but the snarl, which will razor everything off your bones. Punk as fuck for them outta luck.

17. v/a Angola Soundtrack (Analog Africa)
One of the best comps of ’60s/’70s Africa ever, a spectrum of sounds whose ranginess will blow your mind. Angola's on the southwest coast of Africa but judging from this record it's the dead center of the world.

18. Wounded Lion Wounded Lion (In the Red)
Number one in punk-rock fun, raw and elemental pop with its pants pulled down. I did not jump around to any record more this past year.

19. Digital Mystikz Return II Space and Urban Ethics (DMZ)
Dubstep didn't leave them behind — very much the other way around. Both albums in here even though they're different — Return is Mala, Ethics is Coki — because the DMZ continuum is just that strong. It's no slight on their mid-decade singles — some of the best sounds of the ’00s, any genre — to wonder if this is the better straight-up listening music, thoughtful and deep darkness that's madly in love with your ribcage.

20. Rikki Ililonga and Musi-O-Tunya Dark Sunrise (Now Again)
Sansa kuwa, sansa kuwa, sansa kuwa… More African brilliance from the past, this time from Zambia. Find Zambia on a map and erase the borders, now it could contain all of what is Rikki Ililonga.

21. The Fresh & Onlys Play It Strange (In the Red)
This year's achingly wistful Bay Area pop record. Took a while to get past the mysterious power of opener "Summer of Love," which feels so much more like the end of summer, the end of love.

22. Gunn-Truscinski Duo Sand City (Three Lobed)
Steve Gunn is one of NYC's best guitarists, and definitely our most distinct — immediately identifiable the way he bends and frays notes, and conjures resolve out of shadows. Hushed and heavy, Sand City is the first duo record from him and percussionist John Truscinski, though they've played together plenty on the intrastellar earthways.

23. Thee Oh Sees Warm Slime (In the Red)
Sort of a lifetime (so far) achievement award. Warm Slime might not be any better than the last four hundred Oh Sees records, but since they're all so damn good…

24. Rene Hell Porcelain Opera (Type)
Jeff Witscher, man of a thousand aliases and one heavy dot of a record. I think of Coil, I think of Cluster, I think of Porter Ricks, I think of high-tension cables, I think of synthetic concrète, I think I need to track this fucker down on vinyl.

25. Dum Dum Girls I Will Be (Sub Pop)
I gave it short shrift when it came out cause it wasn't as good as the singles and EPs. But lately I've been listening to it constantly and coming to terms with being wrong.

Marked for life: Magik Markers and some other shit, Fri Jan 14, Psychotropa

2011-01-18T13:35:00.003-05:00

Got to wax and wane on one of my favorite bands, Magik Markers, and their show the other night at a new spot in Brooklyn.

Trish Keenan of Broadcast, RIP

2011-01-14T16:05:00.004-05:00

This news took my legs out. Trish Keenan, the singer and, for the past few years, one half of Broadcast, perhaps my favorite band of the last decade, passed away this morning after battling pneumonia for two weeks. I was fortunate to get some hastily assembled memories together for the Voice.

Ege Bamyeezy

2010-12-15T13:43:00.005-05:00

I like Kanye's Dark Beautiful Miasma, but it's his second straight album that won't be on my year-end list. Graduation, from 2007, was on that year's.

I was lucky to be invited to the advance-listening session for press for it (and for the two that came before). For this one, which was at a movie theater in Midtown, he stood onstage and took questions afterward. I was totally floored when this song had come on, to hear the booted melody line (from Can's "Sing Swan Song"). Against form, I strenuously raised my hand in an effort to get his attention in a theater of possibly a thousand people. He pointed to me and I realized I didn't really have a question; it was more that I somehow had to acknowledge that he used a Can song. I blurted out, "Where did you first hear the Can song you used as a basis for 'Drunk and Hot Girls'? People sitting around me turned to look (and afterward, a bunch of them descended on me, notebooks and pens in hand, to ask who Can was), but Kanye either didn't fully hear me or he was just rolling so hard on his cocktail of adrenaline and pride that he heard only what he wanted. "Yeah, that was a Can song," was all he said, before launching into a long and weird and somewhat caddish explanation of what the song is about. Which is summarized well by its title.

On the passage of time

2010-12-10T13:47:00.006-05:00

You'd think by now that any real music fan has got to be pretty fucking sick of the Pixies.

Lear Town

2010-10-12T15:14:00.006-04:00

The idea today, of Anne Carson's, that madness precedes winter, roused me from slumber, and set my heart racing, despite my ignorance.

Record Store Day

2010-04-17T16:23:00.004-04:00

Thought I'd wander toward Other Music this morning to see what was to be seen, and dis is what I saw:

A line around the corner at a record store made me wistful for the days of camping out for tickets, and also wistful for a time when not everybody knew everything instantly and acted as one cell in the hive mind. That's indie rock for you. So I wandered over to the newish location of what used to be known as the other big store in the Easterly Village, and not only was there no crowd whatsoever at Kim's, clerks who'd never even acknowledged my existence before were downright regular and friendly. The Moby Grape 7-inch? Why yes, it's right over there and we have plenty, well thank you. Oh, is that the new Fall record over the p.a., why yes it is, isn't it good, well yes it is! Picked up a few other specials of the day but decided to save most of my cash for whatever the Jooklo Duo is selling tonight.

On the way to Kim's I saw perhaps the truest expression of record-store-ism when I passed Rockit Scientist — still closed on Record Store Day, almost an hour after their posted opening time. What's more record-nerdy than being late?

Jooklo Duo + Barker/Carter

2010-04-16T20:33:00.007-04:00

Zebulon the other night after a frustrating/fulfilling ba gua, looking for a flight off this stone. Found it. Andrew Barker and Daniel Carter went first (well, first as of my arrival; woulda liked to have seen Nate Wooley's duo), and if I tell you they were "regular," promise you won't read that as an insult. I found a table — joint was only half full! Or rather, all the way full, but only half with people — behind a cute hippie couple making goo-goo eyes and whispering cheek-kisses to each other, she a slight figure in a stripey shirt (not an uncommon sight at Zebulon) and he a slight figure with hair obscuring a tye-dyed T-shirt. Barker/Carter were "regular" only because NYers have seen them do this a lot, together and elsewhere — Barker hitting two drums, three notes and four directions at once, Carter the consummate inside-outsider, swirling melodies around pillars of sound driven down to Earth's core. At one point Andrew announced the set's end by way of thanking everybody, except — Carter wasn't done. This led to a pretty glorious passage, ten or so minutes of bonus time (or in my case, injury time).

Jooklo, Jooklo, Jooklo Duo were next. Knew nothing about them other than their Italian base of operations and Conklin's effusive praise (not to mention his having booked them), proof of which was proved further when my favorite new hippie couple took to the floor and made it the stage. It was them! What the hell. Stripey shirt is Virginia Genta, and she is an earthy intergalactic badass of effectively limitless power. She wasted no time and went right at the fabric, tearing huge swaths of truth from the sky with her tenor, ripping, rending, turning gold into wine and wine into bread and roses. Incredible power — pierced, pinched tones blasting forth in a spectrum of color tones so far above where we live and work and wrestle the daily pain. She was tearing down sky-castles and replacing them with affordable sky-housing for the people. He is David Vanzan on drums, and he is right there with his pal, driving hard, more linear than we often get in Fire Music and refreshing at that; S remarked wisely (as is her wont) that he probably came to this freedom from a rock background, and also that she couldn't remember ever seeing these two so unfettered. After a spell, Virginia went for a melodica — to my chagrin for a moment, as she started tentatively in a space David had cleared out. Then I realized she wasn't tentative, only her part was, and Jooklo sense quickly came back in. Soon she went to tin whistles, two of them in a V formation, before returning to reeds and docking us all back in safely, happy to be home and much the better for the trip. Pretty fuggin' rewarding, and at 28 minutes, their set could not have been more fit. Dropped a few dimes at their merché table and have listened to nothing but for the past two days.

Promoter-mook Conklin (left) with Jooklo Duo: David Vanzan, Virginia Genta

And I will go back expecting the same or even better: Jooklo Duo hits Cake Shop Saturday night (the 17th) and Public Assembly I think the next night (deets and more here), but I don't care cause I'll be behind bars that night and I'm feeling selfish these days. You can get your own freedom.

Lookit me, off to the Notekillers now — whose next record may or may not or definitely will not be called Expired Links. More to come, more than likely.

The 25th Frame

2010-02-20T01:14:00.007-05:00

"…brain can't make sense of it…or stop it."

Went to the Kitchen tonight for the second of three performances of The 25th Frame, the new dance/theater work from Brooklyn's Alex Escalante confronting the way manipulated language and the ceaseless swarm of messages we live in and under completely fucks us up. The piece was performed by Escalante, Nancy Garcia and Jon Moniaci, and it was a 55-minute jolt.

Escalante, doing things on a ladder

Dark and funny, The 25th Frame opens with Escalante and Garcia up on stage-bookending ladders engaging in rapid-fire tag-team psychobabble, peppering the room with repeating syllables that bleed and morph into others: "buy-buy-buy-buy-buy," "true-true-true-true-true-truth-truth-truth-truth-justice-and-the-American-way," mimicking/mocking the way we're hypno-bludgeoned by advertising, polit-speak and propaganda. This went on for 10 minutes or so and was set off crisply by the next movement, with the pair descending for a long, elegantly expressive dance, struggling on the floor under the crushing weight of invisible forces and slipping in and out of symmetry and synchronicity. Excellent choreography (by the pair in collaboration) and the silence in the room made the sweep of arms and legs across the Kitchen floor all the more dramatic — that is, until Moniaci's live electronic score crept into range, eventually growing into prickly presence as Garcia and Escalante, upright now, vibrated around the room, caught up in the manic energy field that's replaced our old atmosphere of oxygen and nitrogen and other useful stuff. Watching Nancy Garcia the performer vibrate like that made me think of the way Nancy Garcia the musician's still-pretty-new album, Be the Climb, vibrates out of the same frustration and with some similar tactics ("I wanna make something clear — I-I-I wanna make something clear — I wanna make something clear"). The rest of the piece moved briskly and pushed the commentary (as the performance itself already was) into true artfulness, utilizing video, animated Soviet prop-films (though an eagle that gobbles a steroidal diet of money and weapons could be labeled as objective reportage, too) and an ending meta-auction conducted brilliantly by Moniaci, involving more vibrating and the piece itself being sold for a nice five-figure sum.

It was great to be reminded by smart people that the very nature of this society (kind of all of it) is corrupting and corroding…regardless of whether there's fuck-all to be done about it on anything but a personal level. Do we not talk about it because it's already so suffocating?

One more night of Escalante's piece tomorrow (Saturday the 20th), which could be a nice lead-in to gigs by Evangelista and Zola Jesus back on the LES, if you know what's good.

Pretty good snow

2009-12-20T15:46:00.010-05:00

Big ups to the hardy farmers who made it down to Avenue A this morning, guaranteeing my next half week will be filled with good stuff to eat. That includes you, stern bread lady…

…but especially you, comedy-bickering-and-cider couple. That cider he's pouring is in me now. ("Do you feel me, cider?") Also got an acorn squash from them for no good reason, since I already have one in the fridge. Maybe I just didn't want it to be lonely?

East Village–style snowbastard. I mumbled that it looked like he needed a new cig and some lady earnestly jabbed a Pall Mall in my hand. "Some people are veryyyy kiiind…"

I cidered while watching my favorite reality show: snowfall dog run. Hounds in particular look so thoughtful. As usual, I began to imagine having one in the house, and then he opened his mouth. FOGHOOOooorn!

The real adventuring was last night, as it was coming down (and across and over). After mixing martinis and such for the first half of the night (apparently successfully), I packed a flask and headed down to Damon Dash's house to see Talk Normal. (Huh…that sentence looks just as incongruous now as it did last night.) Crosshatch winds slashed me to ribbons at every intersection, but I knew you were counting on these poorly framed point-and-shoot photographs, so with the Balvenie as guide and courage-maker…

St. Marks Church corner. You can't really see the wind-tunnel of blowing snow along the ground.

First Ave, storm hitting its stride.

Sixth Ave at 10th St.

Long shadow of the MAW, 10th St.

E 10th St between Second and Third Aves.

I asked Mr. Balvenie where this was exactly and he couldn't remember either. Manhattan, we're both convinced.

Snowstorm, meet flash.

Looking at Fifth Ave. There's a street there somewhere.

Hey Balvenie, you remember this??

This door leads nowhere but it looks nice anyway.

Like the queens and kings of old

2009-11-24T15:04:00.001-05:00

A one-year mourning period. Moving on now.

Renewed

2009-11-09T09:54:00.003-05:00

I saw Broadcast! And the Phillies are going back to the World Series!

2009-10-22T00:27:00.006-04:00

I saw Broadcast!

And the Phillies are going back to the World Series!

Taking the low road

2009-10-13T10:41:00.001-04:00

It pays off sometimes.

On and on with Endless Boogie

2009-09-16T13:07:00.007-04:00

Not much to say about last night's Endless Boogie show apart from the fact that it was in the 99th percentile of Endless Boogie–oriented excellence. They were hitting on cylinders the likes of which haven't come out of Detroit in 35 years. They are so manly, these men.

At the same time, they are quite feminine in their sound and way. I'd like to be the first to get out in front on this issue: I think Endless Boogie really is the band for all genders and dispositions. Mets fans too.

The Studio at Webster Hall is a good room for rock music (needs more Os for the marquee though), the sound just spread like night creeping over the high plains. One particular monster jam sounded fresh to my ears, but a well-placed source informed me that it was an unrecorded oldie. That'll hopefully be redressed soonly. Endless Boogie are hitting the road for a coupla weeks, so look alive out there in the South and Midwest.

Amy Annelle, atop the East Village

2009-08-28T19:49:00.015-04:00

Amy Annelle brought the nurture of nature to my East Village roof last night, reprising a low-key appearance from last summer (or was it the summer before?). This time, I endeavored to actually tell people about it, and a coded message during her WFMU live set the day before also helped gather a crowd of about 20, which was just right for the space we had.

In fact, pretty much everything was just right: The sky, glowing and bruised; the breezes on full breeze; and Amy, who played for about 75 minutes at a volume that dueted (not dueled) with the city ambience that drifted up seven stories.

Folks spread out across the roof on throw rugs, blankets, dirty jeans. A batch of declared fans, a few old friends (Amy's and mine), a handful of curious neighbors who stuck around, a trio of effusive Oklahomans converted into believers on the spot, a couple who just moved from SF and felt like they'd won the lottery in learning of the show, and one sweetly hyperactive puppy. The natural tremble in Amy's voice reminded us all of the infinite. Time didn't stop, but it did seem a little less indifferent to everyone for a while.

"Where did you learn your TRADE?"

2009-08-21T20:40:00.007-04:00

Like a comet that swings into our orbit every so often, this fire-in-the-night-sky of a scene. The actual best line: "I'm gonna be with you in a second."

Touching magic

2009-08-14T00:35:00.003-04:00

An old friend "in the business" helped remind me today why I work in and around music, where the compensation is something to sneeze at (or even puke on). It's important to be reminded of things we already know. Today, unfortunately, I was reminded of two magic memories for the saddest reasons.

I saw Les Paul play only once, maybe five or six years ago. The old man was gigging in Midtown every Monday, for years, at Iridium. My friend Maggie was in town for a few days and I had the idea that it would be fun and not the same as just going to any old rock club for whatever band. At the time I enjoyed the sort of life where I could simply ring someone up and ask, and there'd be two tickets at the door, with nice reserved seats, and "No no, don't worry about meeting the minimum," which is good, cause I might not have been able to. Les Paul was 89 or 90, and still as in love with his guitar and the playing of it as anyone can love anything. If he had lost a step over the years, it really seemed only a step, even dealing with arthritis. Watching his long, craggy fingers dance on the strings was quite literally amazing — amazing in the true Webster's sense (as opposed to the modern vernacular). This master was funny and outgoing, not like an uncle or grandfather but like us, sharp and crass and not missing a beat, a glance or a comment. He ragged on his bandmates playfully, traded jabs with the crowd, told us every story that passed through his mind. Sometimes I wonder what people mean when they use the word "generous" to describe an artist, but that was him. He was playing one night a week, sometimes two shows a night I think, well into his 90s. He pretty much invented this stuff and was pretty much the best at it all along the way. Les Paul, ladies and gentlemen. Do follow the link on his name at the top of this graph — just incredible.

And Rashied Ali. I got to see him play a number of times earlier this decade, solo and in small groups, at Tonic, where I DJed with my friend Chris (we were The Polar Bear Club, extending a cool tradition that had started in Minneapolis). Man, did I see a lot of great music in that room. Friday nights at Tonic were usually my first chance to relax and have some fun after a stressful week at the magazine. We went from 9pm to 3 or 4am most nights, so I'd often walk outside for a break; Norfolk Street then was dark and quiet in a way no part of the Lower East Side is anymore. Rashied had a solo gig upstairs at Tonic one Friday night, maybe 30 people there. That whole thing always struck me: Rashied Ali...is playing the drums right here, now, in this room...for 30 people. We had more than that downstairs (our thing was free, though).

I had watched most of his set, caught up in the storm of his playing, and some time later in the night walked outside to decharge my batteries. Across the street, a big old sedan was parked. I noticed a silhouette in the driver's seat. My eyes focused, and I realized the silhouette was looking at me; my eyes focused more, and I realized the silhouette was Rashied Ali, the guy who copiloted all the way out with Coltrane and spent the years since punching tickets for comparably heavy trips to other unmapped planes with all kinds of big hitters.

We stared at each other for a few seconds, or maybe an hour, who knows, and then he waved for me to come over to the car. When I got to the window I noticed a ribbon of smoke in the darkness. I think I laughed, and then like it was no big deal he asked if I wanted to help him finish his jazz cigarette, which he held up in the biggest fingers I thought I'd ever seen on a man. We sat right there on Norfolk Street and talked like regular people who'd known each other for a while. Except for when he spoke about the importance of "getting free," which he did with an uncommon authority, a relaxed, confident fervor that identified as religious way more than anything I know of as "religion." I didn't talk then, just listened.

I was a little bowled over by the experience afterward, but when I mentioned it to some friends working at the club they all were like, wave of the hand, "Oh yeah, Rashied's hilarious," like they were talking about an old aunt or something.

Rest in peace, Les Paul and Rashied Ali. Two real masters who may not have had a thing in common other than greatness before today.

The second part

2009-07-30T22:56:00.005-04:00

I always thought it was what you know.

It's also the way you react to bullshit. Increasingly so.

Caught very live: Cass McCombs, Joe's Pub

2009-07-27T21:36:00.013-04:00

Cass McCombs, who's never been through NYC with the same band twice, played tonight at Joe's with what was undoubtedly his best-looking assemblage yet, including local all-stars Andy Macleod (drums — worth pointing out as Andy plays everything, and well, in his particular idiom) and Melanie Moser (keybs, vox, sparkly dress).

It was all about Cass though. The scorpio (if they got the date right) has been one of Earth's best songwriters since he burst from some Grecian forehead earlier this decade, but his newest, the spacious Catacombs — very good, not nearly his best yet aligned perfectly in constellation with his others — arrives in tune with some vibey awareness tipping point about his persistent mercurial excellence. Last August he played the South Street Seaport (great venue, free show) to a middling crowd (by the by, he had an entirely different band, looked pulled from a Tennessee chain gang in the ’30s), and it seemed he was just destined to live in the interstices. Less than a year later and it feels like everybody's talking. Halleluwah. For people who try to make sense of life through the lens of music, McCombs's five records so far are like an observatory on top of an old volcano in Hawaii. And you can step right up to the telescope and have a look, and see whatever you see.

Onstage McCombs moves within a studied modesty so note-perfect that it couldn't be contrived; he's never seemed uncomfortable up there, but I couldn't remember if I'd ever heard him really say anything directly to the audience before. (He shyly removed his jacket at one point, and by commenting on it, primed the crowd to do its best impersonation of an ’80s sit-com studio audience.) His set tonight omitted "Deseret," the 21st century's secret-most-beautiful song, but included many of the rest, including a coolly tamped-down "City of Brotherly Love" and a sweet "Crick in My Neck," with McCombs — also a judicious handler of space and time on the guitar — spraying chord-arrows through the veil.

The only thing missing from tonight's gig was the low-light anarchic radiance of Karen Black:

Shut and open

2009-07-22T01:20:00.008-04:00

I'm sure she's quite good

She's just got the wrong last name. Which is no more her fault than the fact that I'm in the wrong hemisphere twice over for the eclipse, but hey. Who wouldn't rather know what the person below has been up to?

No compromise in defense of Mother Earth (photo: Dennis Keeley)

But as the saying goes, one door that wasn't really there is just a wall, and another swings open on the L to Brooklyn. Nobody's consolation prize, Sophia Knapp played a solo set at Bruar Falls on the night her band Lights' new record, Rites, came out. Rites, which was recorded, will be getting a lot of proper attention this summer; no album in memory has taken an arrow for your psychedelic disco love quite like this one. But Sophia played an entire set of her own pointedly direct songs, which I hadn't heard before. They were great—or, well, maybe they'd seem less so in anyone else's hands, but Sophia has a way of snatching back near and total clichés of beauty and romance from the Hallmarxists, blowing away the dust and replacing it with…different dust. I might not stand or even sit for anyone else singing of golden mountains and love that goes by "love," but Sophia's a guilelessly pure spirit; she isn't getting away with anything. And she'll probably never get her due as a guitarist—one of those seemingly simple yet calmly precise players who doesn't strike, stroke or strum a note without purpose.

Sophia Knapp, in rainbows

In search of...

2009-07-21T10:31:00.011-04:00

…our generation's Anne Briggs.

This week at the Lakeside Lounge

All respect to Eric and Amy, but it was the sight of Kendra Smith's name that gave me long pause. Could it be? Nah. I mean, could it? Last name as common as trees, first name less so; a city of 8 million–plus. But no, no way. Here? Now? Then again, her long-ago bandmate Steve Wynn drops in on the Lakeside semiregularly, so it's less completely impossible than it would be otherwise. A quick consultation with Sherlock Google indicates that tonight's music will be provided by a different Kendra, meaning the writers of this here chalkboard screwed up royally, for Kendra Smith is nothing if not musical royalty, and not just for her (five) way of disappearing. Still…I should probably be there, just to make sure.

Lucky 13

2009-06-22T00:46:00.006-04:00

Summer babe dug winter just fine.

Black Monk Time: Akitsa + Bone Awl + Ashdautas

2009-06-20T22:20:00.015-04:00

Naeth (enrobed) with Ashdautas [photo: gravemusic.com, swiped from Nuclear War Now]

A bit delayed on this (and everything), but the Long Malaise hangs heavily at the moment, compounded by the fact that NYC seems to have swapped springs with Seattle.

Friday night brought a killer underground black-metal show to the unlikely Fontana's, a site chosen by the promoter for its lack of associations. Success there -- the upstairs, a nice and roomy but nondescript, kinda rocker-yuppie-vibed space, was generally empty except for the metal kids between sets downstairs, where the misanthropic chaos unfurled in dungeony comfort.

I was too late to catch Volahn's set but hey, three bands of any sort is a full meal at my age. When I arrived, he and his bandmates in Ashdautas were in the demonic throes of…lots of tuning and tweaking. The youngish crowd was antsy. Finally, vocalist Naeth ringwraiths his way onto the stage and—harwhoosh!—they commence with a brutal blackened attack. As in the photo above (not from Friday), Naeth's's hood hung several inches over his face; his throaty shrieks came beamed up from some satanic sub-basement, and with the moonbursts of spikes on each wrist, the total effect was thorough and intense and without any extraneous theatrics. The drummer had a weathered face of corpse-paint that looked like it had been applied three days ago, and it was all the more convincing for it. These fuckers walk through the valley of the shadow of death like they own the place. I was so taken that I bought both the CD they had, 2007's Where the Sun Is Silent…, and a shirt—the deciding factor there being that they'd ingeniously used bleach, rather than ink, for the design, which grimly replicates that record's cover, which is rather awesome.

Bone Awl I had heard on record (one awesomely titled offering: Meaningless Leaning Mess) before—the sort of metallic fury that any old punk or hardcore fan would appreciate, but too monochromatic to hold interest over the length of an album. I expected to like them better live and was right: They spat out a super-raw, primal thrash onslaught with black-metal vocals and zero frills whatsoever, musically or look-wise—these three guys could've been gone-nowhere skater burn-outs (they are from Cali, like the placeless Ashdautas) rather than angrily ambitious cult-favorites with a long discography, much of it released on their own label. A handful of their songs were overly plain, like on record, but they're all hardcore-short and Bone Awl just kept barging forward with mercilessly single-minded purpose. (Opinions, photo and links to more on Hank Shteamer's blog.)

Headliners Akitsa I had heard on a couple of Hospital releases, so I thought I had an idea what was coming. Not exactly. Instead of the tortured bleakness I recalled from the records, the Quebecois quartet (as with many black-metal bands, their touring lineup likely augmented the core group on record) came hard and businesslike, a classic black-metal blitz with another top-shelf throat-ripper, O.T., whose static, sneering stance between vocals brazenly projected both "I am here to inflict pain" and "I am here to receive my punishment." The two really surprising things were the almost standard rock & roll backbeat—Akitsa will never outspeed anybody and it hardly matters—and the band's uniform appearance: tightly clipped haircuts plus short-sleeved black shirts with collars. It was enough to give you pause, but that's probably the intent. That or—who doesn't like to look snappy as the end of the world approaches? (Besides most of the audience.)

Other things stood out: Very good sound in the room. Rougly nine-to-one male-to-female ratio, which honestly was less tilted than I thought it would be. Even during the whirlpit that formed during Bone Awl's set, all the young misanthropes treated the club and each other with respect (try getting a roomful of drunken fratboys to behave so well), and it was returned: a couple of kids were semidiscreetly smoking a joint during Ashdautas when security approached and…simply told them to put it out. Also, the three bands looked and sounded completely different, yet all existed within the prescripts of black metal, a super-arcane underground niche that cares a lot about authenticity but which is clearly more open-minded than it might seem from the outside. All three vocalists were world-class. And none of them uttered a single word before, between or after songs.

Cranked

2009-05-08T09:59:00.003-04:00

The long malaise ebbs and flows. Did April even happen? More on that when I feel like it. Though there is this—me on a particularly welcome and unexpected reunion, New York's Chrome Cranks, in a brief, cause-we-can rip through a few dates. Look alive there, Lyonnaise. And dig this for a whiff of the vibe.

Yo La Tengo: still killin' em with the requests

2009-03-17T01:35:00.006-04:00

Friday turned out to be a good night to re-create what your ancestors might have done for yuks 60-70 years ago: Stay in and huddle around the radio! What a rip! Also, madly text and e-mail friends while Yo La Tengo, in an annual rite of prespring, play your requests on WFMU, or ones close to them.

SWIPED FROM WFMU'S BEWARE OF THE BLOG

The band played on. A ripping version of the Clean's "Getting Older," so many Beach Boys and related that they had to put the kaibosh on it, talk of the Saints, classic ’80s pop and, at the end, comic bits to replace songs they didn't want to-- well:

Ira: "M.I.A., 'Paper Planes'? That's a head-scratcher people."
James: "M.I.A. -- izzat a hardcore band?"
Ira: "The Pixies? Draw'n a blank!"

The band played on. They played everything loose and tight and joyful and right, and what came through is that in these particular six hands, there are no old songs or new songs. In Yo La Tengo's world, there are just songs. The good ones are to be revered, played fast and sloppy or slow and sacred; the lesser ones can still have their 1.5 minutes. The chasm between how Yo La Tengo sees music and how the anxious uncurious indie world they were once lumped in with sees music has never been broader. That world of fake-exciting tour-announcements and predictable dress-alike Forkcast picks and iPod campaigns and cornball Stereogum writing boringly about what's boringly already known. Echo-echo-echo-echoooo. Listening to Yo La Tengo on WFMU didn't make you feel like this soul-murdering winter was drawing to a close; it made it feel as if it hadn't happened at all.

Overheard in the park

2009-03-08T17:08:00.007-04:00

I hate those blind "overheard on the train platform" items that populate all the shittier, lazier, more desperate publications around town. Nevertheless…talk too loudly in a public place and your shit may just find its way…[cue music]…to the Internets! [Danh-danh-dannhhh!]

At Tompkins Square Park earlier today. Sipping the best coffee in Manhattan and reading D.T. Max's piece on the late, great David Foster Wallace in The New Yorker, while also doing my No. 1 favorite thing: minding my own. Young woman, not unattractive though dressed in a black and gold "I'm corny, or lazy, or both" tracksuit, sits three benches away, and makes a phone call. Shrill voice, volume set at STUN, with accent, possibly Australian though hard to place:

"Ooh, I miss you already." [pause] "I have separation anxiety already!!!" [pause, then half-sings the next line] "Did you really have to be there at 10 or are you a liii-ar?"

I'm no expert in dating but at this point I could hear him checking for the fastest routes out of town. And who could blame him? (Or her.) Because if that wasn't enough:

"Ooh, I just ate the most yummy pork sandwich from Porcetta, OMG."

She did say "oh-em-gee," by the way. And had some pork on her tracksuit, and her face. It's hard to say this made her any less attractive.

Trust that I didn't want to hear any of it, but she forced it upon me (and a few others, so there's a good chance this isn't even the first blind-blog-item about it). But for a brief few minutes I was made to reappreciate the single life.

Lux Interior R.I.P.

2009-02-05T20:43:00.005-05:00

"The Cramps don't pummel and you won't pogo. They ooze, you'll throb." --from the back of Gravest Hits.

(Photo swiped from Stephanie Chernikowski's site.)

Blagojevich and Madoff hate my dj'ing, but Obama likes it

2009-01-30T00:22:00.003-05:00

That subject line just quadrupled this blog's numbers. Awesome.

But it is true, which is good news for you (and the President I guess), because of the below superdope notifications you may read now:
---------------

Friday Jan 30

Mats Gustafsson with Thurston and Gene Moore 9pm

Whiteout and Samara Lubelski 8pm

DJ Mike Wolf

Club Rehab 25 Ave B (btwn 2nd and 3rd st) NYC

Early show set will start on time.....

Saturday Jan 31

Magik Markers

Sightings

Eskimo King

DJ's Chris Freeman and Mike Wolf

Glasslands 289 Kent Ave (btwn S 1 and S 2 st) BKLYN

Doors 10pm

Ten from the bottom

2009-01-26T01:01:00.005-05:00

Forgot to tell you -- my Pazz + Jop list is up, for those who dare to care about the air up dere. Uh, down here. Just like every year, the overall list is pretty predictable, as these things inevitably are. And just like every year, exactly one of my top ten made the big list. For the first time in a while it wasn't Kanye West though. Like my pal the Dilettante there are a handful of records that only got votes from me -- which, while I generally maintain a "What is wrong with everyone?" mindset (more fun that way), probably only means it's an awfully big world. Or I'm a complete mental defective. (We didn't vote for anything in common, but a couple of hers could've appeared on mine.)

Two records that were going to place highly with me were essentially disqualified when I was later hired by the label that had the great good taste to put them out: Palms and Lia Ices. If you want to know what I think of them both, this was written before I even met the shadowy figure (read: doesn't get enough sunlight) behind the label.

Thinking now about the ten or so other albums that could have made my list, and another ten that got regular play, I have to say it was a pretty good year for music.

Can't believe I haven't even told you about last Friday night yet -- saw one band I already liked bring it to the subsequent plane and picked up a totally new band to dig. Maybe tell you about it all tomorrow…let's just say I'm actively working against this lunatic notion that everything has to go really fast these days. Slow and steady finishes the race, or something.

Cut the shit

2009-01-21T00:56:00.004-05:00

I grew up about a half a mile outside Philadelphia, where the United States of America was born a short 232-plus years ago. This fact doesn't make me taller or my opinions any more important than those of someone born in Tempe or Wichita or Dallas. (Well, maybe Dallas.) What my childhood there did do, among other things, was provide me with endless elementary-school field trips to a wide range of historically significant sites: The Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Betsy Ross's house, et cetera and on and on. I went to these places under school supervision so many times that the occasional jaunt west into Amish country seemed like a breath of fresh air (though what we really smelled was manure). My ad-nauseum indoctrination into colonial American history seemed to have left little mark on me and my proudly inherited liberal politics until this decade, when everything that anyone believed this country was about got shat upon and spat upon by Bush and his craven allies. Even at its birth this country was not as clean as I was taught—many of our founding fathers owned slaves, the end—but the set of Western freedoms we loosely sum up as "democracy," in tandem with the superpower status held here throughout my lifetime to this point, felt more and more vital to me as they were squelched and distended ever further by the worst administration we've ever had. (And even at that, how many countries can say their worst-ever leader voluntarily surrendered power after eight years? Even when we suck, we kind of rule.)

Where'm I going with this? I apologize for rambling, I haven't written in this space for a while and today was jarringly emotional. Like many caucasians, when the TV cameras at the inauguration paused on the face of a middle-aged or older African-American crying, or saluting, I let myself believe I could possibly grasp 1% of 1% of that struggle.

I think I'm a fucking patriot, is what I'm saying. Check with me on this in four years (or less), but I also think Barack Obama is the best person we've elected president in my lifetime (I was almost two when Dick Nixon won in ’68.) But Obama isn't the problem; we are. As Mark Slouka's "Notebook" essay in the February issue of Harper's (worth the cover price) all-too-convincingly asserts, we have become a people so in love with our own ignorance that we perhaps shouldn't be trusted with this freedom anymore—at least not the freedom to vote. "Anti-intellectualism in America is a very old hat," Slouka writes, citing terrifying (if stray) anecdotes before reminding us that nearly half of those who voted in the last presidential election did so willingly for Sarah Palin (hide the kids) and that other guy. Also, 71% of Americans believe in angels. Linger on that one a bit.

And what about the rabid Obama supporters? "The fact that so many have convinced themselves that one man, thus far almost entirely untested, will slay the culture of corruption with one hand while pulling us out of the greatest mess we've known in a century with the other suggests that a certain kind of 'clap your hands if you believe' naiveté crosses the aisle at will." Then Slouka reminds us that in this pitched, so-important-that-everyone-in-the-world-was-watching election, 83 million Americans "didn't move, didn't vote." Some of them have just plain given up on politics, he admits, and who could blame them? (Well, ultimately, I could, and so could he.) The rest—and it's no small number—are dumber than a box of dirt, and they'd probably beat me to death to stay that way.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for espionage a little more than 50 years ago; what do you think the chances are that we'll see Bush & Co.—whose crimes stretch over the entirety of this decade and cost thousands of American lives (tens or hundreds of thousands of brown-skinned ones)—even brought to trial? The smartest among us wince and know that just to suggest it would be seen as anti-American. It's enough to make a guy wanna pull the wings off an angel (then dry them, crush them and maybe snort them).

I didn't even get around to how the most important things, like um, the election of a president, are seen in terms of sports now. Just listen to the anchors, look at the us vs. them mentality that defines us. And did you hear the "na na na na, hey hey hey, good-bye" cheers when Bush emerged this morning? If I can't see him imprisoned then i guess seeing him ridiculed is…no, no way is it good enough. Clearly I need to start going to rock shows in earnest again, and do little else. Stand by. Or sit, or whatever.

Sit on it, Ponzi.

2008-12-31T13:59:00.004-05:00

Good riddance to bad annum!

For anyone mucking about the East Village tonight, i'll be dj'ing at my local, the Boxcar, all night. No cover, no inflated drink prices; better music, fewer huckleberries. A good way to bury the nonsense heretofore known as "2008."

Am i dj'ing anywhere else in the near future? Glad you asked:

This Saturday, January 3, i'll be filling the silences in a complementary manner at:

RED DESERT NIGHTS:

Jack Rose 10:00
Jozef Van Wissem 8:00
DJ: Mike Wolf
admission $10:00

Rehab
25 Avenue B
clubmidway.com
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Tuesday the 6 i'm playing records at Daddy's, Brooklyn's best hang, starting around, i don't know, 9pm or so? That should be a fun one. http://www.freewilliamsburg.com/bars/archives/2005/03/daddys.html
---------------------

I'll also be the "house DJ" at my friend Noah Tarnow's seriously fun trivia night, The Big Quiz Thing, on Monday January 5 and again on the 19. Read up on your presidents, is all i'm saying. $250 in cash prizes, damn!

Crash Mansion
199 Bowery at Spring
7:30pm, $7 cover
www.bigquizthing.com

Total fucking fandom

2008-12-09T20:01:00.009-05:00

Well, you know, onward we all go, however we do. What helped lead me out of the deep blues (if not quite into the sky-blues) was a recent trip to the Academy on E 12th, where I've been unloading piles of old vinyl (for both space and money) lately. As the dude behind the counter started going through my stuff, something (like, instinct) tugged my eyes lazily toward the New Arrivals rack. My first thought was honestly to tell one of the staffers, "Hey, you guys shouldn't just leave New Order bootlegs laying around in that bin." Like something was really wrong with this picture.

Though not this one

It got worsebetter when I noticed that both were priced at $15 (only a bit more than you'd pay for a brand-new LP anyway), and the set lists spoke of an early-mid-’80s provenance—in other words, the period of life on Earth during which New Order was flawlessly perfect. One was called Blue Mondays and its spine cared not for mystery: "Tokyo May 2, 1985." My first call on all matters New Order is top photographer Tim Soter, who upon hearing the track-listing surmised that I had found a vinyl copy predating the official release of the well-traveled boot Pumped Full of Drugs. The other record is called (hmm) blueMONDAY, and I like its tracklist better: "Blue Monday," "Leave Me Alone," "When I'm With You," "5. 8. 6.," "Temptation," "Everything's Gone Green," "We All Stand." Someone went to the trouble of making an inner label that looked like it could be a Factory promo.

I don't think it is; Factory would never even have given away something pressed this weakly. I wondered about the date and place of this show while enjoying the flatly pristine sound, especially on "Leave Me Alone" (a personal favorite, to the point where I've made its title my motto) and when an ecstatic "Temptation" spills right into "Everything's Gone Green." But it was a cover, a(n) hysterically indulgent version of Sparks' "When I'm With You," that provided a clue. (Footnote: During the masturbatory ending, Hooky briefly tears into the bassline of "Ceremony"; people there must have wigged out). A quick peek at New Order Online, something I don't look at often (preferring the music itself), revealed that the band played that cover exactly once, in Milan on June 22, 1982. Except the set list they print is not the same as what's on this record (though there is a fair bit of crossover). And so...it's probably from somewhere or other sometime in 1982. Cool.

Comet, 1996–2008

2008-11-24T16:59:00.002-05:00

A great dog. A good, long life.

Comet check

2008-11-19T16:30:00.004-05:00

As autumn falls into winter (for us Northern Hemispheriacs, at least), let us all pause to peek into the life of this blahg's namesake, smiling and eating well in her extra-golden years.

Oh hi!

Some activity going on around here, and such

Who do you think has been holding the Earth in place all these years? You're welcome.

Comet is so very here right now!

Mike "deejays" on Tuesday in the East Village

2008-11-18T03:15:00.003-05:00

It's in quotes because it'll be CDs, but hey. Stop in if you're around the naybourhood…

Tues Nov 18
The Boxcar
168 Ave B btw 10/11 Sts
http://www.boxcarlounge.com/

Happy hour two-for-one till 10pm; the Boxcar has a sharply curated
selection of beers and boozes, I do most of my public drinking there. I'll
get started around 8 (though happy hour begins at 6, in case you want to
get good and tight)...

Return to Los Llamarada + Hank IV Mountain

2008-11-15T14:48:00.011-05:00

We can assume it's at least partly down to a better p.a., but Los Llamarada and Hank "Eye-Vee" IV were both noticeably sharper, meaner and just plain louder at Cake Shop last night. (Local promoter Tom "Dot Dash" Hyland's band, Imaginary Icons, whipped together a handful of punk and garage styles in between the out-of-townees.) Hank IV's brick-to-the-head wallop came through much more, um, impactfully, as did Bob McDonald's wild-eyed "You're coming home with me right now young man" routine. The setting and sound benefitted Los Llamarada even more: Fucked as their reflection of rock music is, these four are no mere amateurish hyperactives—they are on point and tight as jeans (not their own, they all seemed quite comfortable). When vocaler Sagan and syntherist Estrella traded places toward the end of their set, things got even more intense, like the Velvets falling through a hole in the flag (can't say whose though). Also: better photographic evidence.

I can see Hank IV at Cake Shop! Raise your hands and take some pictures!

Sweaty and crazed: The IV's have it

Los Llamarada: Sagan gets air

Estrella rips it up

Los Llamarada + Hank IV + Daniel DiMaggio/Home Blitz + Blues Control: Nov 12 2008; The Charleston

2008-11-13T20:56:00.031-05:00

The likably ramshackle Charleston, where they almost insist you accept free pizza with your drink order, is located smack in the middle of the could-stand-a-bit-more-ramshackle Bedford strip in Wmsbrg. Which isn't why I arrived with conflicted feelings. I'd planned to miss the first band, Queens/locals Blues Control, because let's face it—four bands in one night? What am I, half my age? Conflicted feelings blossomed into profane ambivalence when my arrival, an hour after Blues Control was supposed to start, turned out in fact to be 40 minutes before they played. That old storyline…but. One hand: How am I going to last all night? The other: I get to see Blues Control, who have a bad habit of going first at these shows (due to the fact that guitarist Russ Waterhouse has a good habit of putting on most of these shows), and thus get missed more often than they should. I'll be fixing that, cause the duo has colonized some unmapped, heavily tweaked corner of the outerverse, chooglin' from aimless (the good kind) murk to alien blues exotica, Waterhouse digging deep while Lea Cho emits chiming keyboard sprays, lighting new planetary systems we hadn't spotted before. The music sounds far more reasonable than I've described it.

Next was Daniel DiMaggio, who usually appears (live and on record) under the name Home Blitz. He flew solo on borrowed electric. Totally killer. DiMaggio shot out a tight, nervy set that may have owed to the Chris Knox school formally (he even false-started a couple of songs) but sounded more like the Damned—or for that matter, Gaunt, which makes sense because in most parallel worlds, DiMaggio'd be from Columbus—stripped of the rhythm section. I found the Home Blitz CD at Other Music, maybe you will too.

Daniel DiMaggio; shoulda used flash, held hand still. Shoulda, coulda, woulda; didna.

By this point the night was just happening. (As if I had anything to get up for in the morning anyway.) Between bands downstairs, Brian Turner and Dave Martin DJ'ed while the trendyscenti clotted the tables to the front, away from the rock. Brian recommended to me a new comp, Downer Rock Genocide, which just happens to be my favorite kind of genocide. (It's also not really new, but such distinctions mean hardly anything. Everything now just kind of is, now.)

WFMU's Brian Turner, on the 0s and 1s. Also pictured: King Kong's good record, right.

Then came Hank IV (no relation) from SF (and a Crime comparison here, spiritually speaking at least, is no insult to anybody). They proceeded to destroy with their raucous yet focused trash-rock, brutal and funny. Being short meant I couldn't see frontman Bob McDonald's renowned stage moves (also not helping: no stage).

Hank IV is back there, swear.

Things McDonald said between songs: "This next song's about dirty ponchos, it's called 'Dirty Poncho.' [to bandmate] What? Oh. Okay then, this next song is about quitting, it's called 'I'm Quitting.' " And: "People ask about our name. Yeah—we wanted to cut the Williams family off at the knees. If Hank 3's son wants to make music, well the name's already taken." Hank IV's new Refuge in Genre is out on Siltbreeze (no surprise there); buy vinyl, win free download. The record's catalog number is SB117 but the Silt discography only goes up to SB102, so you know this is some future shit.

Straight outta Monterrey, Mexico, Los Llamarada have been offering beautiful music to difficult people for a few years now. Somehow missed them at FMU's SXSW show this past spring (I was there, but also not there), and have had to endure a massed-choir of praise for them since. All of which appears to be deserved: what brilliantly damaged and passionate rock music! Real howling desperation and disregard (sample song titles: "I've Got Your Face," "A Chance to Become Transparent"). Musically and otherwise, Los L are hard to pin down: guitarist Johnny Noise wore sweatpants; synthist-singerist Estrella countered with skirt and argyle sweater.

Los Llamarada: don't know what to wear, also don't care.

The llama-riders (no I don't speak Spanish, why?) also have a witheringly fucked new slab, Take the Sky, on S-S (a trademark of kwality, just like Siltbreeze), which ups every ante featured on their previous, The Exploding Now. The good news for NY'ers is that Los L and Hank IV play again this Friday at Cake Shop. I'm going back for seconds.

Radio radio

2008-11-07T01:07:00.004-05:00

I'll be on WNYC's Soundcheck program tomorrow (er, today that is), 2pm Eastern on Friday, talking about—well…pop music and non-pop music, I guess! Easy to listen through the link above.

What troubled economy?

2008-11-05T17:37:00.002-05:00

God bless America.

Wolcott's high (yet even-keeled) hopes

2008-11-04T17:25:00.003-05:00

No one can be so successfully of two different possible fully contextualized minds on Election Day than James Wolcott.

Election-day shocker: Palin drops McCain from ticket

2008-11-04T16:08:00.006-05:00

Really, would that even be the most ridiculous thing we've heard in this three-decade-long election?

I just watched Joe the Unlicensed Plumber get grilled by an empty suit on CNN who could otherwise only talk about how great Twitter is; feels like I had 30 or so IQ points sucked out of me (like by, say, a plunger). After being backed into a corner (presumably built by one Wally the Woodworker) on his retarded understanding of taxes, Joe the Unlicensed, back-tax-owing, you'll-have-to-talk-to-my-publicist-I'm-just-a-regular-guy Plumber trumped CNN, the rest of the media and thinking people everywhere by basically sticking out his tongue and saying, "Because, that's why. Nyahhh!"

CNN suit: [paraphrased] "Joe, the taxes pay for roads, bridges, police and firefighters, infrastructure, all those things, and if you lower the taxes on people making more than $250,000, and raise them on the people who make less, there won't be enough money to pay for all of that. How do you explain your stance?"

Joe: [less paraphrased] "Look…it's—look up principles. That's why. Go and look up principles and I—you won't understand it, but look it up. That's it."

Well, if Sarah Palin's ready to be VP, I guess Joe's ready to be Secretary of the Treasury, or something.

This just in: Phils win the World Series

2008-11-01T21:35:00.056-04:00

So, your correspondents* went to the World Series last weekend…and then again last week.

After a good long soaking complemented by machete winds, Saturday's game 3 got ready to start; killer seats down the first-base line, which is nice, cause your correspondents were to be there till well into Sunday.

Les broheims: the fixer and the doctor (in training).

Severin gets most-traveled-correspondent award; seen here dealing with the pre-game rain, and such. Note: actual bloody field that World Series soon to be played on, background.

Your correspondents had some time to kill Sunday, so we went to the Eagles-Falcons game, with (again) great seats, surrounded by the Philadelphia area's most attractive and well-read sports fans. Guess what about pro football? It's even more boring in person than it is on TV. Despite the threatening-looking formation above, yr. corresps. can tell you this next play was probably another run up the middle for a gain of about 2. They pretty much all are. Go Eagles.

Transportation from the thrillride Eagles game to the Bank is tricky, but Jeff seems to have it sorted.

For game 4, later to be known as "the one without the rain," yr. corresps. had pretty good seats. In addition to the pretty good seats themselves, we had a heated room, a TV, free drinks and food (pictured: salad, foreground left); we could hear everything the fans yelled at Bud Selig.

J.C. Romero getting it done in game 4.

Jeff in his Mike Schmidt jersey, in front of a painting of Mike Schmidt, which hangs in a concourse with carpeting, heat (really, it was damn cold), and memorabilia from the Phils' countless past World Series appearances.

Yr. corresps. went back for game 5 part II. As if there were another option.

That white speck toward the left is (cue horns) Brad Lidge coming in to finish off the World Series. A massively dramatic moment, in miniature.

Brad Lidge subsequently finishing off the World Series. I know the postseason isn't factored in, but explain again to yr. corresps. why he isn't going to win Cy Young?

Your correspondents have no idea why this one's blurry.

Apparently Fox's cameras are better than yr. corresps'. But does their suite have a TV like this? It does? Oh.

Joy in Mudville.

Victorino on the big board, which says it all: Phillies Coca-Cola CHAMPS Toyota etc.

Hey, this guy's sign is right!

Victory lap.

Next to 30th Street Station.

*: Here's to DFW.

2008-10-30T14:40:00.000-04:00

Field of streams

2008-10-29T15:57:00.017-04:00

The many great shots from my snazzy new Canon PowerSnot ZPL-X9000-blue 28! blue 28!-hut-hut-hut! camera will have to wait for my computer to get a post-millennial software upgrade, but for the few people in the Western hemisphere whom I haven't told, I went to all three World Series games in Philadelphia, via the broheim's score of a lifetime. Well, two and a half games, for the moment; anyone even remotely interested in baseball knows about the mind-bogglingly horseshit decision by commisioner Bud Selig to play through the worst conditions anyone can remember seeing or even hearing about at a baseball game. No doubt Bud was in thrall to his TV overlords, who surely would've preferred Red Sox–Dodgers (understood) but given Phillies-Rays are likely at least praying for more than five games, and for a few to be completed on the day they begin. So when Bud allowed game 5 to slosh on even as Jimmy Rollins, possibly the top defensive shortstop in baseball, couldn't field first a pop-up and then a grounder, and the Rays splashed in the tying runs, the crowd turned on him. It was ugly, as anything involving Bud Selig's face would necessarily be.

Not only is he a member of the jowls-of-the-month club, he's also the commissioner

From our nearby perch we had a clear view of it all: For most of the game, the two sections in front of the commish's box chanted, "Let Pete in!" (On this I have to say I agree with Bud; Rose bet on baseball while he managed a baseball team. But also: who really gives a shit?) As the rain kept on soaking the field and players, and the temperature dropped, and the winds howled—and well known to Bud, Channel 6 Action News and Jeffrey Doppler was that it would not let up for 24-36 hours (despite Bud's claim otherwise)—the Rays doinked their way out of an early 2-0 deficit, through no real fault of Cole Hamels. By this point, the crowd had turned to, and on, Selig, screaming at him to halt the game. Bud gazed back, expressionless, turning half of Section 231 to stone in the process. Someone in our immediate vicinity paired his yelling with a finger-across-throat sign, which was probably meant as "stop the game already!" but which may have been interpreted as, "We'd kill you if we could." An unfortunate misunderstanding under heated (though freezing) conditions.

The game will be picked up tonight in the bottom of the 6th; if Bud didn't have his head up his ass—sudden thought: looking at that head, might it really be his ass?—it'd be top of the 5th (or earlier) and the Phils would be up 2-0 or 2-1. (Special notice to Rays' starter Scott Kazmir, who looked rattled after giving up a pair in the 1st—pre-soaking—and then proved his mettle by settling down till things had to be stopped. After all, it was just as cold for his team; ours just got stuck with playing the field when said field became totally unplayable.)

But I'm a Philadelphia sports fan, so I knew that however it was gonna go, it probably wouldn't be pretty. With the best seat I've had for anything since camping out for U2 in ’83 (got front row), I have no choice: I am happily returning to arschkalte (but by then, most likely dry) Philly for the rest of game 5. To say it's worth the effort is the understatement of my life to date. If the Phils win it all tonight, I promise all of America a free Taco Bell taco, during a three-hour window TBA. You're welcome.

A few things I learned while in the heated portion of Citizens Bank Park:
—Henry Aaron oozes dignity in person, even from behind, even if it might not have been him
—the Inquirer's John "Gonzo" Gonzalez looks like that nephew you really like and dresses like a regular schlub on gamedays
—George Will eats his ballpark hot dogs like most everyone else: mit kraut, with his hands and like a hungry mofo
—free pizza is still always good

Chris Brokaw, Union Hall, Brooklyn, 10/22/08

2008-10-23T14:34:00.019-04:00

What's worth leaving a comfy sofa in a warm apartment with a flickering TV showing the good guys with an early two-run lead in game 1 of the World Series (see below) on a chilly night to go deep into Brooklyn for? This guy.

PHOTOGRAPH: Michael Murphy/Whittling Fog

About 25 blessedly quiet people witnessed a too-rare solo acoustic gig by Chris Brokaw, an absolute favorite. Brokaw mixed songs and instrumentals from (mostly) Incredible Love, Red Cities (coupla free songs at that link) and his evocative new acoustic album, Canaris.

Like most great artists, Brokaw's skill lies in communicating bracingly real emotions, even when (sometimes especially if) going without his fine/sand vocals. And what he's transmitting is quintessentially American: Unfurling Canaris's most astonishing piece, the 12-minute-plus "Drink the Poetry of (the) Celtic Disciple," Brokaw, strumming and picking, broke into fleet chords that conjured thoughts of a new lover reaching for your hand and pulling you gleefully into a sublime pastoral, racing through field and wood, pausing, opening into clearings, running not for your life but just for life, all of it existing more in some collective memory than in our actual lives (mine, at least). My scholarship on Charles Ives is a bit thin so I'm speaking out of turn, but—that. The composer's same power to make you dream of American space, real and mythic and blurred together.

By the way, the aforementioned "Drink the Poetry…"? It's a cover—of a French black-metal band from the ’90s called Vlad Tepes, who were (duh) part of a collective known as the Black Legions. So in addition to all the above, it appears that advanced alchemy is also in Brokaw's quiver.

Steady as they go

2008-10-23T14:29:00.003-04:00

Cole, calm, contained. Plenty of work left. Note the dirt on Pat Burrell's leg—who knew they used real dirt at the Trop?

John McCain: Is he really the terrorists' choice?

2008-10-22T15:55:00.005-04:00

Here in the real America—New York City, which was attacked on September 11, 2001, at which time Sarah Palin's husband was a member of a political party that advocated seceding from the United States—we're constantly reminded to be on the lookout for possible terrorist activity. One tell-tale sign to watch for is people behaving erratically.

McCain: This is how I go when I go like this

Now, one photo of McCain attempting to…well, who the fuck knows what he's doing there. Plant a Koran in Obama's suitpocket? But now we have real confirmation that patriotic jihadists want a McCain presidency.

CMJ the real easy way: Violens + not much else

2008-10-22T11:54:00.006-04:00

For the first time in about 20 years, there's gloriously little reason for me to engage CMJ week in my usual aggressive three-shows-per-night way. So last night found our gang lazily trawling the dregs of the Lower East Side club scene—which is essentially every place outside of Cake Shop. The Delancey is a sorry dungeon of a club (live music in the basement, indolent text-twizzlers and DJ on the ground floor, young urban narcissists on the roof), which hosted the annual New Zealand party. We're all NZ partisans, though the pickins were rather slim this year: Openers the Naked and Famous were neither but managed to add a spark to au courant indie sounds, which is more than can be said for the rest of the bands, who did little more than ape the done-to-death UK/Amerindie style of 2005–present. ["Angular" guitars, anyone? Twelve angular guitars, just ten cents, whatta bargain…] Sub Pop signees the Ruby Suns showed flashes of charm (and no angular guitars), but whenever the duo brought a potentially good idea into a song it was abandoned just as quickly, an audio version of MTV-style jump-cut editing. Rhys "Murray Hewitt" Darby MC'ed and, unsurprisingly, stole the show without trying. On ya.

Violens, the Annex, 10/21/08 (PHOTOGRAPH: Tim Soter)

An easy walk from there to a moderately less odious orifice, the Annex, for a band we knew we like, Violens, who are already good and only going to get better. The perpetual (for now) obstacle for this NYC-via-Miami quartet is that its pristine pop songs can't possibly sound as good onstage—at least not if you're relegated to pull-the-plug rooms like the Annex (though Friday at Bowery Ballroom should be the thing/place/ticket). Sure enough, while not a disaster it was difficult sifting the brilliance of "Violent Sensation Descends" out of the indifferent mix, though I've heard this band mixed less competently, and the epic scale of new song "Until It's Unlit" came through. Bonus points for the way they launched into their set—seemingly distracted line-check becomes gathering storm reveals song.

Tonight's non-dilemma: Game 1 of the World Series or the unsurpassed guitarist Chris Brokaw, whose solo gigs are about as common as October baseball for the Phils.… The answer, of course, is both. Especially since it looks like I'll be at games 3, 4 and 5 in Philadelphia.

What?

2008-10-16T00:36:00.002-04:00

The happiest man not at the Dead C/Sightings show last night

2008-10-14T16:49:00.001-04:00

Shane Victorino's Game 2 line:

2008-10-10T21:05:00.009-04:00

Two-for-five, four RBI's, a sparkling catch at the centerfield wall and one big booger picked on national television. Doesn't baseball just always work this way? You make a great play in the field and follow it the next inning with a great play on offense. So what if Victorino's offensive play came in the dugout instead of at the plate?

Victorino: throws right, bats both, picks with his right-index I believe

The MVP of the Phils' postseason so far was caught on-camera red-fingered an inning after making a leaping catch at the wall in centerfield off Casey Blake's bat. Photos of the catch are all over the Internet; still looking for a screen-cap of Vic's pick.

It is just baseball though. Adding to the sad story of manager Charlie Manuel's 87-year-old mother passing away earlier in the day, Victorino was informed after the game of the death of his grandmother. The team gets a day off to collect themselves and recover from an emotional few days.

Secret Service vs. Flyers fans

2008-10-10T10:49:00.009-04:00

The Flyers found a can't-miss way to make sure their home opener against the Rangers this Saturday night won't be lost amid the Phils' drive to the World Series. From Sam Carchidi's Flyers blog:

Vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin will drop the puck at Saturday night's opener against the Rangers at the Wachovia Center.

In an e-mail sent to the Flyers and news organizations, a former season ticket holder said he was "appalled" that the club was using Saturday's NHL opener as "a billboard for political advertisement" by having Palin drop the first puck.

The fan wrote that those attending the game "should be able to check their political and ideological beliefs at the door and come together as one to support the Flyers. It is one of the last refuges we have for unbridled enjoyment. To invite an atmosphere of polarization and dissent amongst Flyers fans is appalling to me."

Bound to be the most controversial invitee to a Flyers game since the Soviet Red Army team in 1976 (and she'll probably be treated about as nicely). Sarah "lipstick on a puck" Palin may think she's Joe Sixpack's choice, but even though team (and Comcast) chairman Ed Snider is a huge GOP donor, Philadelphia's a pretty staunch Democratic town, and even the apolitical sports fans come equipped with what-the-fuck-is-this? detectors. I mean, fans like these put down sixpacks between periods.

A recent unwelcome guest at a Flyers game

That's one

2008-10-10T01:12:00.004-04:00

And this was two.

Palin: unqualified for VP…

2008-10-09T18:36:00.004-04:00

…but plenty qualified to be just another right-wing bully. Hmm, considering the past eight years, maybe she is qualified to be VP.

Obama: most liberal in the Senate

2008-10-09T18:20:00.003-04:00

But he's got nothing on that rampaging socialist still loitering around the White House.

Obama: cool, contained, communicative; McCain: Palinesque

2008-10-07T21:50:00.004-04:00

If reason still roams the land, then this will be known as the night Obama took command. How many different ways can McCain interject an already disjointed flow of verbiage with a "…but my friends…"?

Me, dj'ing the Gate + White Out with Samara and MV gig

2008-10-06T18:41:00.005-04:00

I'll be filling time and space with records this Wednesday night for Red Desert Nights at Rehab, which is presenting the first Gate show here in who-knows-how-long. Mssrs Morley and Yeats are in town early for the upcoming Dead C show at Bowery Ballroom, which, like tonight's hosts/openers, White Out (joined by Samara Lubelski and MV Carbon on strings), is a duhn't miss for the out-minded. Details:

RED DESERT NIGHTS presents

Wednesday October 8th 2008
at rehab
25 Avenue B
212.253.2595
http://www.clubmidway.com
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Rare New York City appearance of New Zealand's great sound molesters:
GATE
featuring Michael Morley and Robbie Yeats of the Dead C
10:00 pm

PLUS

WHITE OUT with Strings
NYC's own din-makers get strung out with Samara Lubelski on violin
and MV Carbon on cello.
8:30 pm

Doors open at 8:00

$7.00

Thank god the bailout's working

2008-10-06T16:54:00.008-04:00

Walk it off you pussies

Apparently there's a nasty case of the "bank jitters" going around, and it's really infectious. What it sounds like the stock market needs, as opposed to several hundred billion taxpayer dollars, is just a good old-fashioned beating. Not the theoretical-economical kind of beating pegged to losing trillions of dollars in imagined money—more like just some fat lips and bloody noses. Every afternoon-news program seems to have a correspondant blaming the Dow's yoyoing on "panicky investors" and traders' "concerns." CNN (no, I don't know why I was watching it) explained that the Dow's 10,000 level, under which it's drunkenly stumbled, represents a major psychological barrier for the market.

Really? They're panicked and fragile and need therapy, and so the lead weight that is the U.S. economy—growing more leaden each day—can drag down the entire First World? (Call it class equality the hard way.)

In fact, as David Leonhardt writes online for the Times, the Dow is sort of a red-ink herring—things are probably worse than all that.

You can bet that most media accounts of the market’s performance will focus on the Dow…since it’s the best-known measure of the market. But it’s also a mistake. The Dow… [is] based on only 30 stocks. Almost no one owns a mutual fund tied to the Dow. The performance of the S.&P. 500, on the other hand, roughly describes the performance of mutual funds owned by millions of people.

(Be sure to click through to Daniel Gross's 2003 piece for Slate, the basis for Leonhardt's post.)

The only good news I can think of at the moment (non-sports-related) is the refreshingly clear sense of desperation being exhibited by McPalin as they can no longer talk about anything besides Obama's alleged Manchurianity. They can feel it slipping away. But even that has a grim veneer to it: as my friend Craig Willingham pointed out the other night, the fact that the old white men are finally ready to hand the country off to a black guy—now that they've finished wrecking it. Hey, good luck with all that mess you're inheriting, Black Guy.

Rarer than radium

2008-10-05T19:57:00.003-04:00

For the fourth time in my life, this not-cursed-just-plain-bad team of mine has advanced out of the first round of the playoffs. Details soon on the viewing itself, which took place at 11th Street Bar, NYC's home for fans of Liverpool FC, who pulled off a hell of a win themselves against Man City beforehand. (Let's just say it's lucky for me the Phils also wear red.)

Update: Phillies win, Palin holding on for dear life

2008-10-02T21:57:00.012-04:00

As everyone knows and says, the word surreal is rampantly overused. So I'll describe the sight of Shane Victorino going yard on CC Sabathia with a maximum allowable number of Phillies on base as akin to a dream invading reality, a perpendicular collision of the familiar and fantastic. On TV.

And yet, watching the VP debate now, I see so much losing going on that it's a struggle to remember that a very important baseball game was just won. (Look, there's an election every four years. Phillies playoff wins? Somewhat extremely less often than that.) Joe Biden is crayony, predictable and incapable of a real knockout blow no matter the opponent. Sarah Palin seems like she's using some words for the first time ever tonight. And she's staring right at me when she talks. And she's a maverick! It's all too fucking creepy. Still—you can tell Ms. Low Bar is maintaining just enough hull-integrity that the conservative blowhardati and other Kool-Aid salesmen will try and declare a draw. I'll cop to having wanted to see something spectacularly disastrous in this debate, but even if it doesn't happen, anyone watching can see, hear and almost smell the sheer-cliff void behind Palin's rote (but admittedly, technically impressive) memorization of talking points for every major issue. It's obvious she's not qualified for national office, but she might not be qualified to be governor of Alaska, either. At least that's not everyone's problem.

Twi-night doubleheader

2008-10-02T16:56:00.003-04:00

Comment likened to that quote about living during interesting times. Tonight provides (me) two formidable televised contests: The Phillies versus the Milwaukee Sabathias followed by Palin v. Biden (which, in case she's reading, is not a Supreme Court decision). I'm sworn to withhold any ostentatious Phils boosterism till we win a postseason series (but Mets fans, lemme tellya, your agony sustains me). As for the debate—unlike the unblinking Palin, I'm just plain scared and ashamed. Though in this high-speed era, it's not surprising to see farce rear-ending tragedy.

A thousand apologies…

2008-10-02T13:19:00.004-04:00

…to everyone who's heard me say I'd never start a blog. When I was gainfully employed by a media outlet, there seemed no reason to write even more than I already was. But now— …

Anyway, I've got a review of the new Dead C in the Village Voice, and a two-fer review of the striking new Rare Book Room releases by Palms and Lia Ices in the latest Time Out NY. The Dead C is coming to the States soon, for the first time in years; Palms and Lia Ices had a great night at Santos a couple of weeks ago (the first live show ever for Palms). I could go on about the bizarre behavior of the crowd that night—and likely will soon—but a sparkling fall day is calling me and Comet outside.

Our namesake(s)

2008-09-30T12:59:00.004-04:00

She'll get to it soon. They 've already been there.