Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Prop 8 passing is one thing. But the fact that essentially the same bans passed in Arizona and Florida AND that Arkansas now prohibits unmarried sexual partners (which is an underhanded and sleazy way of saying gay and lesbian couples) from ADOPTING CHILDREN is too much. Last night for the first time EVER in my life I felt a little bit proud to be from where I'm from. But to have so many people currently espousing the significance of tolerance and change and equality and vomiting up all this rhetoric about what a huge leap we've just made as a country and a people, to have so many of the same people walk into a voting booth and fundamentally legislate hate really puts a sour taste in my mouth. I'm trying to stay positive and be hopeful and I do recognize the far reaching positive effects this presidential election has the potential to have. But it's a little bit harder now to buy into it. Because I know, even if no one else does, that nobody is free until everybody is free.






Windsurf-Coastlines




nature scenes are the new deer heads in album artwork, apparently.
Better Beatles- Mercy Beat
they really are better.
















Plastic People of the Universe- Hovezi Porazka (beef slaughter)
It's too bad more people didn't turn out for the Plastic People's set at Black Swamp... There's usually not much of a chance to hear gloomy dissonant skronk/druggy sludge rock in downtown BG on Sunday mornings. But it was a pretty mind melting weekend nonetheless, between meeting Vratislav and Jiri smoking cigarettes on the curb outside Easy Street, them singing about all the drugs they've done, and Vratislav getting so drunk behind the main stage Saturday night that he fell on some children. I don't think we'll see the likes of them in town again. This is one of their albums from the 80s which is a romantic tale of slaughtering and eating a cow in one day. You can read the incredible History of the Plastics here, and I'll leave you with the words to Kanarek.

Kanarek (Little Canary)

The canary died
or maybe he croaked
someone snuffed him
or scooped him up

The canary knew
some beautiful songs
old songs, older still
than old gothic

Hey, dead canary
sing those songs again
so my buddies at least
will know the words

-Petr Lampl

Tuesday, November 04, 2008









Kate Bush-Hounds of Love






This is definitely one of my favorite albums of all time and I've realized more and more how much it's informed my own music. Along with the title track, 'Cloudbusting' and 'Jig of Life' (no cracks about Irish heritage, please) are the sort of things I think of when the subject of religious experience comes up in conversation. Last night a friend ventured that she's sort of like the female David Bowie. In certain ways this statement is totally right on. It's somewhere between the queer theatrical pomp involved and the completely unbridled or uninhibited creative underpinning of their respective catalogs.

Hounds of Love has, for me, an intense feminine presence as well. Not just as a result of its emotional breadth. I'm reminded of listening to Marshall and Mark J wistfully opining in great detail of their love of women. Both of them continually would return to the same ethereal, mysterious ubiety that permeates Kate Bush's music. I'll stop short of any condescending claims that this is due to her being a 'powerful' woman. But it is possibly the most immediate and fundamental element of Hounds of Love.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!!


"never never say goodbye
to that part of your life.

no no no nono
'let me live'
she said
'come on let me live'
-from Jig of Life



With that out of the way, I'm gonna go get drunk and watch Obama take the white house. WOO!!

Monday, November 03, 2008