Tuesday, August 11, 2009

[Not Quite New Music] Lanegan, Toadies and Wylde

I have such a voice crush on Mark Lanegan. That's just an FYI.

I can't embed this vid, but listen HERE.

In what sort of amazingly sweet world could I listen to the Toadies, be directed to the Screaming Trees "Sweet Oblivion" and from there Zakk Wylde's "Sweet Jesus" ??

There are people out in the world like me. It's kind of awe inspiring and makes me giddy.

Thwarted by copyright. Fuck. Well, here's the Toadies.

I stumble in the hallway
Outside her bedroom door.
I hear her call out to me.
I hear the fear in her voice.
She pulls the covers tighter.
I press against the door.

I will be with her tonight.

Monday, August 10, 2009

[New Music] Greg Laswell & Aqualung

In between the joyous news of Blitzen Trapper touring NYC in October - I am so there - and the triumphant return of the Great Lake Swimmers in September - I found two new solo acts that have won over my jaded ear.

Firstly, Aqualung. A British man and his piano venture (not to be confused with Jethro Tull's ode to pervs of the same name) - that for a moment during Strange and Beautiful was almost a solo version of the Postal Service or Air and channeling Radiohead on When I finally get my own place. From Strange and Beautiful:

I'll put a spell on you,
You'll fall asleep and I'll put a spell on you.
And when I wake you,
I'll be the first thing you see,
And you'll realize that you love me.

Some of the songs got a little too television background musicky for my tastes - but worth a listen. In all, my biggest amusement of the evening was a "friend" note from "Annie", querying Aqualung with whether he liked her - by checking Yes or No. This completely reminded me of something I read over at Daytrotter recently, liner notes from a live version of Shilpa Ray and her Happy Hookers' Erotolepsy / Hookers Of Myspace. Whether or not it was true, I could well imagine "Annie" agonizing over posting to Aqualung's site with such an audacious declaration at 11:03 on a Monday morning. Anyway,



Secondly, I stumbled upon Greg Laswell. Insomnia Radio's Daily dose for August 10. I really, really, really like The One I Love. In fact, Three flights from alta nido (2009) is in serious consideration for the purchase pile. One of the things about becoming a gold prospector out West is the potential for extra lucre to appear... allowing me to spend it on music without having to have long discourses with myself about spending money on non-essential items. Especially with third parties involving themselves in my savings.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

[Not Quite New Music] Keelaghan, Irvine, Brady

Because I hate cleaning with a passion I didn't know I was capable of until I moved out of my folk's pad - I cheated a little and spent a goodly portion of the day finding old folk vids on Youtube.

Yes, Mom, I did get my apt cleaned. It's always a treat chasing my cat around the place with the vacuum cleaner, of course...

It started with James Keelaghan, who while admittedly not technically old, has a surname that I deserve a ribbon for spelling right ;) Keelaghan is the author of one of the best Japanese-interment camp-based songs ever penned, the heartwrenching Kiri's Piano:



I remembered that I had once owned his A Recent Future (1995), prior to the Great CD Robbery of 2003 (orchestrated by a wily Canadian I was dating at the time) while listening to WUMB this morning and catching Cold Missouri Waters - another amazing, amazing song about the Mann Gulch fire (1949). Found RICHARD SHINDELL (swoon!) covering the song here:



This led - eventually - into the best find of the day. Vintage Andy Irvine vids circa 1977-79, featuring his collaboration with Paul Brady. Irvine and Brady (briefly) were members of the periodically defunct Planxty --> responsible for one of the greatest albums (in my opinion) of all time: 1980's The Woman I loved so well. The album that introduced me to Child's ballads #114 and #81. Johnny of Brady's Lea is the only song that is probably in my head 85% of every moment of every day:

For one small drop of your heart's blood they would ride to the gates of Hell...

As for Little Musgrave, well, love is never easy. And disregarding the sound of your lover's husband's ARMY arriving on the scene is not in one's best interest. But you live, you learn. And sometimes you get run through with a sword.

As for the Irvine/Brady sweetness, I leave off my random thoughts with the following:



The hair! The glasses! The bells! Fiona Ritchie's interview with Irvine at Perthshire (2005) can be found, archived, here.

Friday, August 7, 2009

[WFOTM] Bosom

ed. note: this installment, dedicated to my diminishing tracks of land, comes courtesy of Mark Morton's The Lover's Tongue (2003), a book that has supplied many a fine euphemism in my stories. And which, if I remember correctly, was purchased for the princely sum of $1 from a Xtian book store. Without further ado...

Bosom.

Denotes the breast of a human, male or female, not the breasts of a woman; a man for example, can hold a child to his bosom. This is good for Thomas Jefferson, who otherwise might have been arrested for saying,

The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.

For centuries the phrase Abraham's bosom has denoted the heavenly place into which the souls of the righteous are gathered [ed. perhaps bringing further elucidation to the lyrical musing of Cornershop's everyone needs a bosom for a pillow].

It has been used since the early twentieth century to denote a woman's breasts. James Bond, for example, gets "a quick glimpse of fine bosoms" in 1965's The Man with the Golden Gun. This use of bosoms is undoubtedly the source of the slang term bazooms, which emerged in the 1920s.

Morton goes on to quote the Good Book: 'bazumbas begat bazongas, which begat gazongas, which begat kazongas, which began kajoobies, which begat jaboos' [ed. Possibly Revelations? Perhaps a rereading is in order...]

The Surreal Life [now including maximum suckage]

This week has been a mixed bag.

In between the strange (almost losing an eye to Queen Elizabeth's Bensonhurst clone), horrifying (waking up to find a $0 checking account balance on Wednesday), and just plain hilarious (I might have to start stuffing my bras) - I'm not sure if I'm going to be happier to see a week end than this one.

To start: I am genuinely cursed and I'm not 100% sure my Ex hasn't sent very, very bad mojo ahead due to our impending, FINALLY final divorce proceedings. Because I still don't think he realizes that making travel plans to meet another woman in Vegas the week of our first wedding anniversary and my birthday was a bad thing. I'm not entirely sure how the word 'friends' could roll off the tongue - any tongue - in that situation. Thankfully, Cake moved that way much smoother than I ever could and I just took it as the four letter fuck off it was meant to be.

Secondly --> So I woke up Wednesday in the flower of health. I spent a wonderful day in the city on Tuesday with the Banana Convention and most especially Monte, a really good friend of mine from way back. We ate in Chinatown in a place where roasted whole chickens hung in the window - $40 for 8 people and it was delicious - and it was really, really good to be around people with my sense of humor and knew what Vernors was.

And at the show that night - which they rocked of course, they were the best performers there - caught the refrains of a band whose opening salvo went, I wish I had a penis so I could jack off and write your name in jizz on the wall. Edward Norton. That was only the beginning of absolute crazy - culminating in the worst band performance I have ever heard in my life: featuring a writhing middle-aged woman in gingham shorts and red go-go boots toting chahkras and entirely too much commentary on her songwriting abilities. It was like a nightmare featuring a third-hand Wilson Phillips (remember the really bad period in the 90s??) married to the only band I have hated from the first note: Collective Soul. Yeah. Since there were only two people standing up at that point, I took pity on them and went up with Monte to flesh out the crowd. I don't think I'll ever truly recover from that trauma.

I actually felt bad for her backing band - they actually seemed to be a nice group of guys. So I won't mention the band's name.

Anyway - at 1pm on Wednesday, I realized that TD Bank had arbitrarily decided that I had the grand total of -$7.00 in my checking account. Yes, that's a minus. This was news to me as I was quite sure there were lots of zeroes missing. As it turned out, someone decided to help themselves to my funds, using an address not affiliated with my account and TD let it through. Wednesday was full of lots of helpful news, such as: We can't do anything about this until the 13th and it will take up to 60 days to refund the funds. And the stellar performance by the bank employee who offered this jewel, You don't have to close your savings account (I actually did, since they were going to charge me an overdrawn fee for something I didn't spend in the first place and I had a rent check floating through the fiduciary system), you can just take a $4 fee everyday you have less than the minimum balance.

I can only say my years of training at the library desk stopped me from saying, "Lady - you are looking at my account info as we speak. Do you see an extra $4 every day in my -$7.00 account balance?"

Huzzah! So... despite having planned a trip out West since the winter for late August, that is officially off the table now. I am really pissed about missing Ra Ra Riot more than anything. In fact, if I ever find out who decided to spend my money, I have special gigham shorted tortures planned for them.

And running to TD Bank four times on Wednesday afternoon - I was almost blinded by a Queen Elizabeth II clone in Bensonhurst. She decided to wave to her adoring fans (i.e. the turn lane traffic) and tested the nailproof precision of my glasses. And, in true Brooklyn fashion, was angry at me.

Sustaining me through all of this madness have been Frank, the Allman Brothers and my wonderful Mam-O-Gram. Love them all. And dreams of moving to the desert --> like Nevada or Utah, where I can forsake humanity and become a gold prospector. I wanted to be a Dental Floss Tycoon - but the U of Montana dashed that with a nice letter last month.