One glaring omission from the previously posted list of Saddest Songs could be “Alifib” by Robert Wyatt. The first song on the second side of his classic “Rock Bottom” feels like a voyeuristic look at a mythical sea creature, struggling for its last breath of air, or in this case love, drowning in a phosphorescent sea, its gills slashed from a fisherman’s hook, lungs contorting for breaths that wont come. Wyatt coos and awes lyrics that combine fever dreams and “domestic bliss” in a series of touching non-sequiturs that leave you confused and shaken at the same time. Such is love and its many apparitions.

For those who like their sadness sans irony, I give you…

10 More of the Saddest Songs in the World...I'm talkin' real sad here, like fold up your tent and go home sad. Any one of these would make a a fine suicide note.

1. Nick Drake “Which Will”
2. Big Star “Holocaust”
3. Steve Von Till “We All Fall”
4. Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris “Love Hurts”
5. Alexander “Skip” Spence “Diana”
6. Peter Jefferies “On an Unknown Beach”
7. John Prine “Sam Stone”
8. Jandek “First You Think Your Fortune’s Lovely”
9. Kan Mikami “Never Before”
10.The Carter Family “No Depression in Heaven”

Guy Maddin’s screwball melodrama, “The Saddest Music in the World,” raises an interesting question when probing the unfathomable depths of the broken heart: How sad is too sad? When does sadness stop being a real emotion and become a joke? And where does one draw the line between the truly sad and the patently ridiculous? Maddin’s Vaseline swabbed head-squeezer posits that question and answers with a succession of absurd oddballs vying for the top prize of saddest music-maker in the world, and even offers some resolution when all the despair is finally acknowledged, the sadness felt, the good guys redeemed and the evil burned alive. Can’t stand those ambiguous endings, ya know? “Saddest Music in the World” takes its exaggeration into the stratosphere, beyond it and finally back again, only to reveal that the most somber blows are always born in the family. ‘Course, many have taken their own introspective glances at the frail fabric of familiar relations, but no one’s done it as gleefully and with such lucid abandon as Maddin does in this film. See it all costs.

In honor of this singular achievement, now available in the sensible DVD format, in no particular order, I give you...

Ten of the Saddest Songs in the World:

1. Coil “Tainted Love” (from “Scatology” Force and Form CD) – The Soft Cell classic reworked by everyone’s favorite ambitiously gay duo as a dire industrial dirge, complete with Marc Almond himself on uber-sad vocal. An uneasy collision of nightmarish ooze and primitive synth doom informs a track that pulses ever so slowly, and eventually implodes via surging electro swells, sampled choral noises and its own seething discontent. It feels almost like a parody of the original, or is it just a very real attempt at capturing the apocalyptic emotions that accompany any bitter breakup?

2. Roxy Music “In Every Dream Home a Heartache” (from “For Your Pleasure” Virgin CD) – This is the Roxy song that will convert you if you’ve never been converted. As fine an example of proto goth-EEK art rock as you will find, with Brian Ferry recounting an upscale, spiritually vapid existence with grim detail in vampyric croon. The end result is thought-provoking to the chilled bone, sort of like “Citizen Kane” gone glam in its depiction of dead souled mannequins consuming perfectly mixed martinis, rendered with the slow-burn of ominous foreboding which erupts as one of the most thrilling musical catharses in rock. Ferry describes his nightmare cum reality with the voice of a sardonic insider who can’t stop laughing as he spills his beans. “It’s only a song…it’s only a song…it’s only a song…” Or is it?

3. Velvet Underground “All Tomorrow’s Parties” (from “Velvet Underground and Nico” Verve CD) – An early classic buoyed on the minimal piano tinkering of John Cale and Nico’s stern delivery. It tells about a girl who today could be a supermodel or one of those Hilton hookers, consumed by her partying lifestyle, and perhaps losing her soul to the night in the process. It’s tragic for sure, not to mention light-years ahead of its time, but damned funny too and just as addictive as the lifestyle it depicts with its wailing wall of distortion and relentless piano strikes, but never does our narrator condemn the protagonist. She even sympathizes, but always with the junkie’s contempt.

4. Brian Eno “Some of Them are Old” (from “Here Come the Warm Jets” EG CD) – I question whether Mr. Eno himself even knows what this one’s about, but as does all of his material from this period, the song lands squarely in the realm where the surreal comes to shed its tears and the rest of us look on in giddy wonder. Eno charges the everyday with a kind of otherworldly communion where the long dead still converse, flatter and annoy the still living. How to describe this song, other than it opens on a near religious note, segues into a hillbilly wake and then explodes like the sun breaking through the clouds with its final chorale—a kind of sadness engulfed in aural epiphany.

5. Beach Boys “Surf’s Up” (from “Surf’s Up” Capital CD) – Another ambiguous moment of divine intervention, it works on a similar level as “Some of them are Old,” opening with a sad piano/vocal lament, Brian Wilson intoning cryptic word strings that border on Zen lunacy. Then all that’s left is our mighty hero, paddling in an oceanic expanse where he confronts his Maker and a million, billion stars. The multi-harmony outro is both purifying and sadly nostalgic—a memorial for something lost, but what? God only knows…

6. Flamin’ Groovies “Teenage Confidential” (from “Shake Some Action” Aim CD) – Later Groovies at their finest in a tear-streaked waltz of musical pathos. The protagonist begs and pleads with his lover not to fold to the lure of gossip and reject his devotion as a result. Yes, this may very well be the very first emo song, but more importantly it’s a mind-blowing rush of pure power pop that both reveals the dire reality of teenage love affairs and the absurd hyper-real drama of it all. Are the ‘Groovies really letting it all hang out in an ace slab of vintage pop heartbreak, or are they just a goofing on all those silly 60s breakup anthems…maybe both?

7. Nick Drake “Been Smokin’ Too Long” (from “Time of No Reply” Rykomusic CD) – This early gem from the prince of lonely hearts captures him in a rare moment of what could be considered self inflicted cheekiness. It’s a gorgeous down-tempo blues with Drake riffing on his sensitive stoned hipster persona so perfectly realized on “Five Leaves Left” less than a year later. The narrator blasts his love of smoke and substance and resultant bad karma, ultimately damning himself, “ain’t nothin’ gone right with me/ must be I been smokin’ too long.” Granted, it’s an obsession with this kind of self imposed existential doom that would dog Drake to his end, but here he's giving us a wink and saying, “It’s OK to grin and sing along.”

8. T. Rex “The Slider” (from “The Slider” Polygram CD) – Quintessential Bolan combines his vintage boogy-psych grooviness with obtuse lyrics that, actually, make sense, detailing the bummer life can be and the resultant “slides” that come with, ultimately confirming that nothing nips a bummer in the bud like some good old fashioned chemical rebalancing. Bolan and his band unleash a raw descending blues stomp beat, all manner of voodoo shakers and acid drenched soul harmonies before a beautiful fade of mind-enveloping strings bliss. Sad bliss, though.

9. Vashti Bunyan “17 Pink Sugar Elephants” (from Ptolemaic Terrascope compilation #? CD) – The golden corded chanteuse recounts the sad scene of the titular goodies, frozen in manufactured complacence--so pretty to see, so vacant to know--in a downcast blues gem that decimates the fragile senses in just under two minutes, and climaxes with the depressing realization that one of the little fellows is merely, “a factory made pink sugar elephant given to children for treats after tea.” Sounds trite, don’t it? It’s more than that though. Bunyan’s mastery of vocal inflection, rhythm and imagery here is about as poetically subversive as any folk poppy ditty from the last 50 years.

10. Daniel Johnston “Tuna Ketchup” (From “The Early Recordings Vol. 1” Dualtone 2CD) – A later track from DJ’s first self-release captures the sadness of unrequited love with first person recollections of seeing the object of his affections in a parking lot, at a park in the summer; he even goes so far as to “let her walk all over me and insult me too…because I like her.” Ahh, the trials and tribulations we suffer for love. Of course you can’t help but wonder if Daniel ever had the nerve to even talk to her in the first place, and just what does “Tuna Ketchup” have to do with anything?

Got a big pile of things that've been piling up for weeks or longer to get at least some mention of in here, but in the meantime, The Curtains "Vehicles of Travel" just arrived in the mail, and this is precisely what I need at this point in the year: a warm, weird art pop racket that could be compared to Pere Ubu, Captain Beefheart, even the Clean, but the first track is a dead ringer for a more lo-fi Jim O'Rourke. In other words, I love it.

Also, just got this in my inbox...little over a month after Instal, check out the lineup at this year's Kill Your Timid Notion. AMM, Mirror and Thuja on the same stage on the same night? Fuckin' 'ell.

AMM+ Malcolm Le Grice
Mirror w/ a film by Bill Morrison
Thuja + Keith Evans
Perlonex + Ulrike Flaig
Text of Light [lee ranaldo, alan licht, uli krieger, tim barnes]
Tower Recordings
La Cellule d'Intervention Metamkine
Tabula Smaragdina: Jürgen Reble + Thomas Köner
Sachiko M + Anthony McCall

RIP John Balance.

Too tragic to bear: http://www.brainwashed.com/brain/brainv07i45.html

Sin City, Texas...

Just above Austin, there's a place called Sun City. I've never been there, but hope to get there one day, or at least get a picture of myself beaming cross-eyed and jovial like an American monument in front of that big green exit sign. Of course the Sun City Girls, the band, originated in Sun City, Arizona over 20 years ago, and currently reside in that gray mecca of coffee and tears, Seattle, WA. These Sun City Girls (who are actually three GUYS--two brothers named Bishop and an older one name of Charles Gocher, shares a birthday with, what's his name? Manson--Charles Manson, and that day just happens to coincide with the same day of a rock show in Austin, TX, November 12th. I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried!). Lot had happened since the Girls' last Texas visit. A certain shrub had taken to flight. Two big towers were destroyed. A lot of people everywhere died. Some of it was broadcast. And the Girls had taken on such varied endeavors as clearing out their massive archives with the Carnival Folklore Resurrection series (now at something like 13 releases); the masters of noise and psych over at Eclipse Records had taken it upon themselves to reissue the first 20 (or so) Sun City Girls albums in thick black double vinyl editions. And then comes word of this mysterious Sublime Frequencies entity, a label devoted to compilations of world music that the Bishop brothers had obtained through field recordings and other questionable means over the last 20 years. A label that has already taken off im some circles with chronicles of street and radio music from Bali, Syria, Libya, India and much more delivered as alien radio transmissions and brain scrambled aural collages. I strongly suggest further investigation if ya wanna know the what-fer in terms of world dance parties and spiritual possessions. I guess this all suggests that the Girls' presence in the underground is vast and constantly evolving to the point that it's a self consuming ouroborus of aural enlightenment the likes of which the world has never really known before. Just how does one describe the full frontal assault that is the Sun City Girls, anyway? Carefully, and possibly while not in a cogent state of mind. The Sun City Girls are a trio that derives its sound from bombed out, stumbling garage rock; the free jazz rumble and clatter of Sun Ra; the twisted jazz punk of Captain Beefheart, along with tons of ethnic music embellishments from Europe, the Middle and Far East, but as with any great mysterious cult group (Residents, early Eno, Velvet Underground, Negativland and the Bonzo Dog Band among them), a healthy sense of irreverence dominates the proceedings. The Frogs, who SCG's shared a split single with, are another touchstone. It should also be noted the brothers Bishop were in a band that featured Mo Tucker in the early 80s called Paris 1942. In other words they're firmly ensconced in the American underground substrate, and have never really come up for air. No buzz bin videos in their past. No fluke hits. Respectable, but the resultant brain damage due to this continuous lack of oxygen has left its debilitating mark. Given the relative subversiveness of their live shows and album covers (such as a photo of the trio in full terror regalia holding instruments as their trusted weapons), that's probably a good thing. To fully appreciate what the Sun City Girls have to offer requires stepping back a bit from the lunacy of it all and viewing their procession of strange sounds (and images) through a panethnic filter where Monty Python's brand of sardonicism has the firmest grasp of our world understanding. In other words, don't take shit so seriously and you'll be fine.

With all this and more in mind, my friend and I hit Emos early that cold Friday night with high hopes, but the place was empty. A worried guitarist in the noise/psych unit Rubbles is fearful of a weak turnout. My friend and I decide to head over to a place called Lovejoys and drink coffee and baileys and other alcohollically tinged concoctions to keep our itchy throats warm. He notices the fluctuating timbers of the constant drone of the crowd noise, a kind of mass verbal improv that everyone's noticed at one point or another, and suggests I record it next time I'm in town. Smart guy. We then spend 15 mins discussing the best place to put the mic, settling on a high book shelf not too far from the front door. We hit Emos just in time to catch the beginning of Rubbles, sadly and surprisingly missed Weird Weeds. Rubbles are pretty incendiary though, with members of Tex psych punk luminaries the Butthole Surfers, Ash Castles and the proprietor of Emperor Jones Records among its ranks. They make a throbbing clamor that's a pure aural bombardment for a good 40 mins or so. Mid 80s Sonic Youth, Primordial Undermind, even the Swans come to mind. Painful to behold at extreme volumes, yet Rubbles are capable of instantly transforming the entire club into a canted framed, strobed out, acid zombie freakout. The disorienting light show compliments the messiness of it all. They play their set behind a white sheet as various images are projected onto it.

During the Rubbles set I say hola to Alan Bishop, who suggests we're in for a good show. And we are. The SCG's have covered an absurd amount of ground in their 23 years. Their albums range from trashed out cover records to extended acid streaked journeys through Dante's Inferno (centered around the the husky demonic croon of Gocher), Malaysian sound collages, art-farty punk, free jazz, ethnic surf rock and more. Things start with Rick Bishop molesting his guitar at obtuse angles, fingers climbing up and down the neck like a double jointed spider as various skewed notes trail from amps in spherical ribbons of fully malformed jazz. Then enter Alan and Charles on bass and drums, their timing down to the millisecond as the trio jumps, whoops and jerks with a cohesion reserved for single body masses. It's not really possible to list album titles, but a lot of stuff from the Carnival Folklore series (some of which was reworked/rereleased versions of older material) was in there. Throughout Alan Bishop would assume any number of characters and cast all sorts of demonic incantations in the form of "angry Arabic street vendor" or a "possessed Balinese witchdoctor" that proved feverish, spontaneous and perfectly choreographed. In between the more typical ethno punk clatter, the trio would fall back in on themselves in warped lounge jazz cuts, during which Gocher would come out from behind his kit and don his twisted lounge singer persona. Later on, during a particularly evil sounding collision of downtuned Sabbathian sludge and Arabic chanting, Bishop reveals that he's wearing a tee with everyone's favorite world terrorist threat on the cover, but my favorite part might just be later in the show, when all three began cursing and yelling, each in his own nonlinear babble-verse where at various points familiar SCG characters and demons would materialize, but I was mostly lost in the layered effect the three mad men held together... Hilarious and fucked up, they all may as well have been shouting "Yes, we are weird" in multiple languages, some of which were probably invented on the spot. If anything really surprised me it was the fierceness of their attack. There was pretty much no let up during their almost two hour set, but I was never less than enthralled at any time. My Sun City cherry hath officially been decimated. I do not mean to suggest that the SCG's lampoon other ethnic cultures, more that they have a deep fascination with and empathy for these so called primitive religions and use this in their performance as a kind of theater of the absurd and a serious spiritual comment on the world today, which they might liken to the Kali Yuga of Hindu lore in spiritual terms.

A John Peel video interview from two years ago that can be viewed with real player. The Datsuns were supposed to moderate, but showed up realy late or not at all. An informative visit with the man and the myth, including a reference to disembowling George Dubya Bush, "the most dangerous man on the planet."

Nektar
"Journey to the Center of the Eye"
(Dream Nebula/Eclectic)

This issue of “Journey to the Center of the Eye” is possibly a shameless attempt at squeezing a few more dollars out of the Krautrock revival circuit. It features a kooky SACD 5.2 Surround Remix layer, meaning that you can throw this on any SACD ready DVD player (probably not as hard as it sounds) and listen in surround sound. Of course I don’t have surround sound, but my square friend down the road sure does, and the price is more than fair. It’s comparable to when the Flaming Lips’ “Zaireeka” came out, and you always had to plan a big Zaireeka freakout hours in advance, complete with 4 different stereos to get the full quadraphonic effect going. Nektar isn’t even German in the first place, but it’s a common misconception. These English had been jamming about in the same scene that originally bore the Beatles, and after them the Monks and you know the rest. All the psychedelic cross cultural pollination (including meeting and playing with the one and only Vangelis) nourished the combo’s psych bombast in a complimentary way as their music became increasingly more demented.

There is a “Prelude” as their often is with any righteous prog classic. It segues into the fantastic “Astronaut’s Nightmare,” a barrage of archaic organ and building percussion that blasts off as feral psych jamming in the Amon Duul II/ early King Crimson vein. Taff Freeman’s organ throughout is phenomenal in battle with Roye Allbrighton’s metallic/acid guitar squalls. There’s even a “21 Century Schizoid Man” styled fuzz box on the vocal. This gives way to the ethereal melotron-laced instrumental “Countenance,” erupting with charging guitar trills at the finale. Next up are a couple more instrumentals which deftly combine familiar psych traits and pure head ringing in a production that’s about as lysergically charged as anything I’ve heard from 1971.

Throughout this album there is cohesion, from the loose theme of a larger concept to its classical suite-like structure. It all flows together to tell some larger cosmic adventure exploring the looming question of nuclear war and more—not such a far cry from what you Black Sabbath and Necronomicon’s were singing about ‘round then. But there is often a pop appeal too, summed up nicely in the bonus inclusion here of the first Nektar single, “1-2-3-4” b/w “Do You Believe in Magic?” (not the Lovin’ Spoonful song). The former is a funky slice of prog pop with “do-do-do” harmonies, and the latter easily achieves singalong, toe-tapper status, which they would explore more incessantly on later albums, such as the underrated “Down to Earth.” No real surprise then that this debut comes highly recommended to those who can’t get enough of first wave krautrock and acid tainted Brit invasion lunacy. It’s basically what one might expect from a British band formed in Germany in 1969, and that’s anything but predictability. I’ll have to get back re that whole Dolby Surround thing.

Rock of Ages

Homestead and Wolfe
"Our Times: The Gold Star Tapes 1973-75"
(Anopheles Records)
Mom once suggested I should try meeting a girl at church. Not surprisingly, I responded with something like, “No way, I’m cool! I need to meet girls at record stores or on college campuses.” But I also knew that she was onto something. There is a certain caliber of individual found among the hallowed halls of religion: gals with their heads on straight and their hearts in the right place. Yet choosing the right one can be so damn hard. It’s not as easy as picking a new world leader. You might pull the mother of God. You might snag a frigid schoolmarm with designs of bringing the final judgment down on your ass. Something like “Our Times” swings the pendulum back towards the sanctity of (good ol’) homespun American church values with its breath of warm air and soulful, cascading melodies.

Homestead & Wolfe is comprised of members of a church congregation, and their sole album, recorded from '73-75 and privately released in '75, is not your typical Holy Roller choral affair. It’s the music of a rock band, and, yes, a pop band. There are hints of folk and country in there too, as well as other influences. Formed by Ernie Bringas (onetime member of early '60s singing duo The Rip Chords, then youth minister of the Good Samaritan United Methodist Church in Cupertino, California, located at the intersection of Homestead and Wolfe), this ensemble is that rarest of blessings—a hobby band that’s also an exercise in melodic song craft of the highest order. The nine songs that comprise the original release of this hidden treasure are remarkably accomplished, literate slices of wry social observation and haunting musical eloquence cast as homespun folk pop.

The truth is this is not amateurish at all. This is not the Langley Church Project. Bringas had connections and realized that his “band” was more than just a weekend gig, so he took them to Gold Star Recording studios in Hollywood, the same place where the Beach Boys and tons of others, including a younger Bringas, had recorded many a sweet soulful melody. He took full advantage of the opportunity and used seasoned session players, though they were always performing songs that the band had written along with their own harmonies, based on the vivid arrangements of Joanne Avery. The mastery displayed here is largely thanks to the depth of Avery’s voice and vision, but this is also the work of a unified, capable musical ensemble, informed by experienced leadership and a sense of exploration that is practically dead in mainstream pop music today. I wasn’t so sure of all of the above till I listened to the first half of this album a good seven times all the way through without interruption.

“Slow Down” is a timeless bit of AM pop perfection where every instrument is given full room to breathe and interact. Janice Gundy’s resonant lead vocal is simply a joy to behold over a melody that’s familiar and neatly arranged, yet always maintains a warmth indicative of productions of the era. The guitar, bass, percussion, organ and harmonies of this track could not be more perfectly induced, while Jay Dee Maness’s constant, ethereal presence on pedal steel perfectly straddles the tightrope between maudlin excess and haunted tonal poetry. “Love Comes Through My Door” features another rush of heart-wrenching pedal steel and heaven sent harmonies to powerful effect. These songs are timeless, and the performances are pretty much flawless. Same goes for the bouncy “King of the Mountain,” a more obviously religiously themed piece, but never do these folks leave the realm of artistic expression behind to push forward some agenda. It seems the overriding themes of Homestead & Wolfe are love, tolerance, inclusion, devotion, and even a healthy sense of cynicism—the obvious result of trying to live the good life in America circa 1974. The gut-wrenching “If I Never Show” is a fine illustration. Over a bed of dripping pedal steel, finger picked acoustic guitars and no percussion, Avery sings, “the drums now are silent / the prophets are few / the streets all are empty / where marchers came through” as the opening to a painful letter to a lover lost to combat. Sandy Denny could not have done it any better. “See the Children Die” on the other hand is recounting of Wounded Knee told with tense emotion and unflinching honesty, performed with real eloquence. The piece builds with a lone tom and shaker, the pulse of Native tribalism. Over this, guitar and electric piano mimic a surreal cavalry call. Janice Gundy’s slightly deeper alto perfectly conveys the grim details with a depth that has me once more reaching for Sandy Denny and Karen Carpenter for comparisons.

Nestled alongside all these more obvious traits is a general datedness that could feed a tendency to mock or dismiss such a seemingly square ensemble. For reasons outlined above, that would be a detriment, but without question there are a few moments that could and maybe even should arouse a chuckle or two. Take the springy chorus harmonies on “Your Freedom’s in Question.” I know what you’re thinking, it’s a song about the ongoing struggle for the soul of man, and it is! But it’s also a fierce indictment against Nixon and the Watergate era wrapped up as equal parts roots country pop and flailing post Who psych pop. It’s an amazing piece of work by any stretch of the imagination. And “Beat of the Drum” is a blatant bit of mid/late 60s garage psych archeology that has to be heard to be believed. Closer “Mary Jane,” about the lure of pot and other illegal substances, rightly combines a sense of stoned bliss with cautionary lyrics about the grim junkie lifestyle.

All of this comes courtesy of Anopheles Records out of San Francisco, a label that till now was mainly known for fucked up garage psych and an excellent live album by Australian art punks, Venom P. Stinger. Homestead & Wolfe seem to stick out like a sore thumb in such a roster, but in truth they are a band who played for themselves, for the love of a good song, and they didn’t really care what anyone else thought but maybe their friends and family. So, if you like the names mentioned above, and Gram Parsons, or the Byrds, or Nagisa Ni Te, give “Our Times” a spin or three.--from a forthcoming update of Foxy Digitalis.

I'm pretty bummed currently. I'm not really a very politically motivated sort of guy. Can't stand know-it-all lunkheads on either side of the aisle, but lately, it's been impossible not to have some opinions, hopes and fears about this country and the world. Kerry was not really my knight in shining armor, but in the end he struck me as a good enough guy, a real enough person, right down to his somewhat screwball approach on the campaign trail. What lacked in flare or so-called scruples was made up for with passion, integrity and intensity. And his wacko wife would've made the coolest first lady in decades. He was finally emerging from his self-spun cocoon of mega rich career politicking as someone who could actually be a world leader, but it was too late. Maybe he never did have a real chance. Maybe the idea of real choice in America today is mostly an illusion. One starts to think, when someone like Eminem floats a fast ball like "Mosh" right over the plate and P-Diddy's coercing da mutha fuckin yooth vote on MTV, maybe a little compassion can prevail on a world scale. Maybe some reverberations can be felt right here in our communities, and our own fucked up inner cities.

In the end the same production values that make something like MTV such a cultural force to be reckoned with came back to bite its favorite political party on the ass. This year, it was all about the Republicans. Their machine was bigger, their support broader, their drama more dramatic, their hearts apparently deeper(?). Since when is the party of your father and other oil tycoons the party of the heart? It's what the US media says, with images of Dubya standing strong, shoulders wide, nostrils flared like John Wayne in "Stagecoach" as he spurns on his bold warriors. And there's talk of "the glow" that apparently comes with meeting the man. I never did, so I can't confirm or deny. Thing I'm getting at is this: Apparently everyone's favorite dumbass (which is actually a carefully orchestrated persona that has made Dubya a highly accessible and electable man to yr typical bumfucked JimBobs of the world--ie those who elected the man) has a real knack for making people feel a kind of awed reverence when he meets them. He is literally John Wayne with a direct link to God. And people blindly trust it. They trust a man who continually invokes the name of God, missing the point that he's exploiting a deity to justify his own agenda, just as certain suicide bombers are doing halfway around the world. It's OK for him to do it though. He's invoking the name of our God. I'll never fully comprehend the duplicity of asking God to bless a people as you order one group to go slaughter another. Why bring His name into it at all? God bless those who live a life without ever having to take another. God help those who don't. Never more than now have I been so ashamed of my country's obsession with image, facade, violence and greed.

Yet, as any right leaning financial conservative will tell you, America--leader of the "free world"--must come first at a time of such peril. People must die, hopefully just not on our soil. I'm surrounded by republicans of every stripe where I live, and I actually welcome it. The bombardment of skewed opinion and good old fashioned hate keeps me on my toes. 'Course there are democrats like that too, fools bent so far to the left they come back spinning around on the right.

What became really important following March of 2003, and why something as obviously biased and quasi-fictional as "Fahrenheit 9/11" is an essential blip on the national consciousness, is we need to be critical of our leaders. We have to scrutinize their every action and denounce scumbags like Bill O'reilly and those of his ilk every chance we get. We need to realize that every piece of information received is contextual and biased, for obvious and human reasons. Al Jazeera does not support the violent overthrow of our society, but it does pray we leave their homeland, and it even goes so far as to air opinions by those who wish to see America destroyed. It's free press, the American constitution in action. Love it or hate it, deal with it. In the coming years these scattered, "radical" opinions will only multiply and converge as our military might in the region becomes stronger. "Wiping them all out" will not solve the problem. History has taught us the best way to overthrow a nation is not with force, but with the media and subtle mind control in the guise of the looming specter of FEAR on the horizon. It worked in America, I'm sure it could work in Iraq.

Charlie Tweddle self-recorded (in ‘71) and privately released (in ’74) “Fantastic Greatest Hits” (Companion Records) in an edition of 500. It’s a stoned mix of ramshackle country psych pop and more dusted sound collage strangeness. Take the first track: a simple bit of plaintive folk-pop, like Dylan jamming with the Fugs. It’s a brilliant little number because on the surface it’s just a quaint relic of the 60s, but buried a bit deeper in the mix are gorgeous acid coaxed electric squiggles and trills, and rambling bass, that all morph into the sounds of animal farm life in the morning. Yes, I am suggesting that this sounds like something that might be found on the Jewelled Antler label today. Other tracks are closer to run-down mescaline-soaked versions of Folkways gems with just enough tape and studio trickery to make them quite absorbing. A loan howl mutates into a jarring blast of distortion. Warped fiddle or tape noise inform almost every song, which are mostly nothing more than acoustic and/or electric guitars and a foot stomp, clap or lone cymbal crash. The last half of the album is a collage of drones, insect and night sounds meshed together, all just in time for a hippie Halloween.

And...

…“These Villages” (Soft Abuse) is Steven R. Smith’s third album under the Hala Strana name. I’ve come to the conclusion that what Smith does here is comparable to what Alan Lomax used to do with home and field recording. It has a similar warped, out of time quality. Traditional and untraditional instruments coexist in a frail harmony with occasional ambient sounds. But instead of capturing traditionalists in their homes and on the street, Smith conjures all the strange musical spirits of old Eastern Europe himself, combining a wide array of plucked and bowed string instruments, percussion and more with digital and analog recording techniques into something unique, and quite beautiful. His production is the perfect sound-bed for these grinding scrapes, haunting drones and more to become entangled and occasionally flower into incandescent sound dreams ranging from the most minimal piano strike to damaged chamber folk swells. So much is covered in a record that suggests the world psych devotions of Popol Vuh, Tony Conrad, early Velvet Underground, Jewelled Antler Collective and more.

At one point during the eclipse Wednesday night the moon actually resembled a glowing pumpkin, slowly reaching a darker shade of blood red. I watched it from the parking lot of a rundown apartment building on the edge of downtown. Despite the seemingly mundane surroundings, it was dark enough, and there was just enough space between leaves of the surrounding wall of trees to see it fine. At one point I actually thought I could see a sliver of a beam of the sun skirting the top edge of the moon, but it was probably just the blur of slight cloud cover. I was enjoying the near silence, but it would've been nice to have Simon Finn's "Silent City Creep" (Durtro) running through my brain right about then. I know a thing or two about the silent city creeps among us. This CD EP may have only been sold at the recent concerts, but it was easy enough to hunt down otherwise, and totally worth it too since it easily rivals his work on "Pass the Distance." Think it was recorded in '04 and has a slightly more controlled atmosphere across five songs of surprisingly potent song-writing. The more damaged inclinations of Distance are less visible in favor of early Cohenesque somberness and poignant, vivid word strings. The Ivytree's "Winged Leaves" takes a more ethereal glance at the earth and moon spirits. Glenn Donaldson's follows up to his album under the Birdtree moniker comes as 12 more environmentally induced folk pop blissouts. It's artfully packaged by Catsup Plate, eloquently littered with minimal ethnic drones and fractured folk lullabys, featuring Glenn's fragile, pop vocal to stunning effect. Tanakh's "Dieu Deuil" (Alien8) on the other hand is a decidedly more full band affair. Jesse Poe's first album after his relocation to Italy (there's a newer one that just came out) is stronger than the debut. Brings together a broad diversity of musical cultures into haunting, direct folk-pop/chamber music that always exhibits a darker, hazier undercurrent. Makes me think of Dirty Three, Mr. Cohen and Fred Neil. Sterling psych production all around. Kemialliset Ystävät's "Alkuhärkä" (Fonal) is the best LP I've heard from the Finnish free folksters yet. It's kind of hard to describe what they do accurately--there are precursors in the clattery drone blues jazz of No-Neck Blues Band, the stoned trance grooves of prime Krautrock--yet this is a genuinely unique, hypnotic, original merging of the living and the long dead into vivid aural spirits. The songs are short, making it all the more impressive the impact KY can have in just under 90 seconds.

First Greg Shaw, founder of Bomp zine and Records, dies of heart failure. He was one of the first and loudest proponents of the underground in the US, and still was to his dying day. And now John Peel, the greatest DJ in radio history, dies of a heart attack in Peru. Peel was a force of positivity and beauty in a soulless industry. He championed the coolest punk bands, recorded astonishing Peel Sessions albums for some of my favorites (Can, The Fall, Wire, This Heat, Napalm Death to name a few), and he refused to bow to corporate suggestion. The diversity of his programming was unparalleled. He loved EVERYTHING in the music world, that is if it was worth loving. No bad genres, just bad music. He didn't play the game like the dickless wonders in control of American commercial radio. He was real. He will be missed. More info here.

My Smile dream has come true. I just watched Brian Wilson and an ensemble of 18 play a wide variety of BB hits and Smile in its entirety. Seeing that old pillsbury dough boy on stage was sort of like watching Davy Crockett wrestle a bear *wink*. A mystical experience? You bet ya.

I swear this is my last Beach Boys remark for at least a day.

np: Maher Shalal Hash Baz "What's Your Business Here, Elijah?"

Wouldn't it be nice if we were retarded?

I've largely put away my psychedelic experiments for the sake of cognition these days, but this is pretty cool. Insanity seems quite appealing sometimes. Or at least retardation. Maybe because we eventually realize that so much of what we're taught in school is kind of a joke. Justice is criminal. Criminals are folk heroes. Your average fool actually has a direct link to God, and the King is quite simply a dick. It's not like I wanna live in some lax, hippie dippy dream. That'd just be another lie, but I don't want life to be a Jerry Bruckheimer movie, either. Who needs sanity in this world, today? NOT I! So many mentally ill dot our sidewalks and collect at our library steps, and they're so much more real than what's seen on TV and read about in textbooks: These people who slowly seep from public buildings and subway terminals, like the opening shot in "Spider" where the title character deliberates for a small eternity just to take one step off a train.

Brian Wilson has deliberated much longer when it comes to the myth of "Smile." The failed Beach Boys album was shelved near completion do to Wilson's mental collapse, or paranoid psych-out. Both theories have validity. Stress, drug complications, doubt among his closest supporters -- all convinced Bri that he was barking up the wrong tree with his wacky concept album about the splendor of America (now that's kind'a poetic). What should've been a worthy follow-up to one of the greatest albums in history became the greatest album never made, a self-imposed curse up there with Mike Love's promotion to head Beach Boy. Aside from myriad bootlegs of half finished instrumental "feels" and a few songs emerging on other albums over the next five years, most noticeably the title track to "Surf's Up" and of course "Good Vibrations" and "Heroes and Villains," Wilson deemed it all "inappropriate" and usually scowled when the subject was broached in interviews. Just what did he mean by "inappropriate" anyway? The Syd Barrett of today, who goes by a different name, has no interest in his past or the Pink Floyd legacy. He stopped shining long ago. The specter of hindsight looms large in these cases, and its shadow can reach for years. Wilson's had to deal with his own well publicized demons in the 37 years since "Smile" wasn't finished. The measure of his failure, like the myth of the record, ballooned up larger than it ever should have, but then let's admit it: If revolutions ever happened in pop music, they happened in 1967, and "Smiley Smile" was all too obviously a patchwork attempt as salvaging something greater. As a metaphor for the promise and failure of the so-called American Dream, you couldn't find a finer example.

So in the end, here we are in late 2004. Brian has premiered "Smile" live on stage in London and followed it up with a brand new, painstakingly assembled, version of his lost opus, drawn entirely from archival tapes of the original mixes. This was obviously the only way to go, because the arrangements and harmonies are intense, acid sent or heaven sent, and it shows that even back in 66, Brian was still going deeper than most ever will, and even rubbing elbows with his heroes in the process. It's a massive accomplishment by any stretch of the imagination, and even a bit of a crowd-pleaser. Wilson doesn't have the golden boy croon of a 24 year old any more, but he sounds more than up to this task, and his voice is strong. His emotions, palpable. His arrangements artful, and occasionally unique to this release, but always honoring the ambition and heart of the original.

In the end, "Smile" is all that. It's a reason to smile, even tear up a little. It's an inspired swirl of psychedelic symphonic bliss that works better than any other version that you will ever find. The "Surf's Up" here may not measure up to the original, but it honors it. And the production, mounted at the Beach Boys' old recording haunt, on the same kind of recording console they used in the 60s, screams for headphones and extreme volumes, and it is better than the original. It's quite simply a trip. If anyone can keep his composure during the opening choral arrangement of "Our Prayer/ Gee," he is a stronger man than I.

Snatched from the livejournal folk club, Nick Drake and his sister:

All My Trials

David Tibet confirms it was Jandek at Instal, 5 PM Sunday. I could go into detail about the beauty of this event, the life-affirming power of this reality, but I will refrain. He could not have chosen a better stage for his live debut, some 26 years after "Ready for The House" first hit the shelves. The man steps into the light.

Jandek does Instal?

This just in from the Deserted Village guru, reprinted without permission:

"I turned up early to catch Kan Mikami when Richard Youngs came on and played bass and the drummer from scatter played uh, drums. Then this thin guy dressed in black with a hat ambles onstage. He played a surprisingly expensive looking fender semi acoustic with no soundhole. once he started playing I thought "who is this prick ripping off Jandek?" There was no mistaking the vocals and guitar playing, but I couldn't take it in that it was really him. I was sitting beside some reviewer guy from the Wire who confirmed it. He also said that he only agreed to do it if it wasn't announced. The band really rocked, they had a loose groove going most of the time. Jandek sang "lets get wild" on one song and they crowd at the front were digging it. I'm quite sure 90% of people hadn't a clue. The Janster smiled after two songs so i cheered louder hoping he'd get a taste of adulation. Then i was afraid he'd freak out. I can honestly say he was enjoying himself and was totally at home on stage. He also sang about doing his washing in a deadpan way. And about a five year old girl who broke his heart. There was no in between song banter--surprise, surprise. It was simply a great gig even if it took a couple of songs to get into it. I'm sorry I can't describe it more, but I'm honestly still in shock and my brain is addled by beer and all the other amazing music I heard today. I know some of you won't beleive this until the Wire or something comes out, but i just had to tell people. Good night,
Gavin"

I forgot to mention my dear friend Gregory (say it phonetically in an Texan drawl) accompanied me to the Blonde Redhead, much to the protestation of his lovely wife, and he drank too much and drove rather dangerously and very nearly (read as he actually did) clipped the the side mirror of a car in Deep Ellum. I shouted "HEY" just before it (almost) happened. I'm positive he will deny if when confronted, but those gray scratches on white paint speak for themselves. Fear not, responsible reader. I drove him home after that.

Taking the Anthill...

TONIGHT on TCM, Stanley Kubrick's greatest film ("Paths of Glory" for the non filmically inclined) is being shown with none other than John McCain (Former war hero, Kerry chum, Bush supporter, etc) introducing. This movie is one of the most powerful, moving, sad and ultimately infuriating war flicks of all time. And it is timeless, people. 1958 my ass! It's happening right now. 10:00 Eastern.

Blonde Redhead properly frosted my flakes a cpl nights ago with their heavenly blend of floating arty French pop yeh yeh and dissonant Sonic Youth blarg blarg. Really dig their latest album on 4AD. It's interesting (or way too predictable) that my idea of a good band is more one who chooses to emulate snobby Frenchmen instead of snobby New Yorkers. But holy expletive deity (!), they had a great sound from start to finish all the same. Can't believe it's the first time I've ever seen these lovelies on stage. The drummer appears to be graying! Instant kinship. And just when I thought they were riding the trembly glass house of sound thing into the ether and fixin' to float away, they'd push the gear shifter up and show us what rhythmic noise bludgeon is all about. The last track in particular was absolutely killer, coming off like a cross between Ted Nugent's "Stranglehold" and Daydream Nation. I fuckin' love NUGENT, BOYO! 4 MORE YEARS! jk. How 'bout that debate last night, eh?