Drop Nineteens >> Yesterday's home cut in half

Drop Nineteens - "Delaware"

(Caroline Records, 1992)

Riding atop one of the sickest basslines in history, not to mention some furious drumming, Drop Nineteens exploded out of the gate with the first cut on their debut album.  I don't know where the band got its name, nor do I have any idea why the song and album were called Delaware.  I'm guessing they jokingly chose to honor an American state in anticipation of every music critic calling them out for their unabashed Brit-rock fixation.  They apparently had three guitarists on this album, which helps explain the dense web of guitar textures.

AllMusic Guide said "Acclaimed upon emergence as the American response to the U.K.'s shoegazing trend, the Drop Nineteens weren't totally following in that particular vein, though it was clear that they were the first of many American bands who had played Spacemen 3 and My Bloody Valentine releases to death. Combining that version of blissout with a dollop of late-'80s indie/college rock, the quintet on its first album created a sometimes excellent, sometimes generic effort of politely queasy guitar overdrive and gentle melancholia. Lead guitarists/vocalists Greg Ackell and Paula Kelley made for a good (if clearly Kevin Shields/Bilinda Butcher-inspired) front team, the latter's singing the more distinct but the former's generally more prominent, if flatter."

Spacemen 3?  Ned Raggett is usually very trustworthy, but that's a huge swing-and-a-miss there.  I would say their sound on this album owes a lot to Bleach, but I guess My Bloody Valentine is an easier reference point for most casual fans to grasp.  As for the line "Yesterday's home cut in half," I always thought it was "whole" or "hole" rather than "home."  I think the concept of a whole or hole cut in half is cooler than a home cut in half.  Some accurate-looking lyrics can be found here.  The album also has a surprisingly great, psychedelicized cover of Madonna's early hit "Angel."  Aside from the title track, the best songs on it are the stunning "Kick The Tragedy" and the passive-aggressive "Reberrymemberer."  I got this CD sometime in the early '00s, and a promo cassingle for their next album National Coma, and National Coma itself, which sucks, and a Paula Kelley solo CD.  A few years ago I downloaded their near-mythical Mayfield demo album, which was never commercially released.  That album eschews their Pixies fetish in favor of pure shoegazeness, and is viewed by some people as one of the best shoegaze LPs ever made.  These are the two most commonly-used promo pics of the band, and guitarist Motohiro Yasue is dressed the same way in both of them:

Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a pic of a member of Run-DMC wearing a Drop Nineteens shirt... yet.

Note: Delaware was reissued by Cherry Red in 2009 (with the Your Aquarium EP tacked on as bonus tracks), but this mp3 is from my 1992 Caroline CD.

I have a 1992 Caroline promo CD called Between A Flower And A Chainsaw, whose liner notes contain this write-up of the D19s: "Halfway between a flower and a chainsaw, Drop Nineteens are poised to shake music's summer doldrums with their debut Delaware. Their impressionistic guitar-ridden pop orientation has been favorably compared to English practitioners like My Bloody Valentine, Chapterhouse and Ride.  Quick brush strokes and calculated harmony, full on sonic melee and lilting vocal melodies set Drop Nineteens apart from the pack."  (The only D19s songs on this CD are "Winona" and "Angel," unfortunately.)

You can see that they got that girl-with-gun photo from the cover of Delaware:

The Droppers were definitely going for the Pavement slacker-rock mediocrity vibe with the mediocre video for the mediocre "Winona," named after the mediocre actress:

Speaking of mediocre actresses, I'd have to cite Kirsten Dunst and Scarlett Johanssen as my least favorite ones of the last decade or so.

I hate when everyone makes "Best of the year" lists, as though they've actually listened to all 50,000 or so albums that came out in that particular year, or arrogant / dumb enough to think that the random ones they have heard are somehow the best, so there's no way I'll do that kind of thing.  I've learned that I have to wait 10-20 years before having a good idea of everything that was going on in any year.  I would say the most memorable music video I saw from this year was "Milkman" by EMA:

Make sure to watch that video and Pocahaunted's "Ashes is White" video back to back.  Spin magazine always overreacts to everything, but even I was shocked to see them rank EMA's album as the #3 best of the year, to say nothing of them putting Fucked Up at #1.  It would be too easy for me to say underground music blows nowadays.  But you can't deny that music is pretty polarized nowadays, with polite, parent-friendly diary-folk (Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, etc.) on one side and obnoxious, over-the-top primordial stuff (Fucked Up, Odd Future, Monotonix, etc.) on the other.  Then there are niche genres (markets, actually) like chillwave and this disastrous new hybrid of metal and shoegaze that is laughably being called blackgaze.  The chances of a song like "Delaware" coming out in 2011 are very slim.  It's kind of amazing to think that great bands / songs like this were so common in the early '90s that they actually got viciously criticized for allegedly sounding too similar to one another.  Music critics shouldn't have taken that scene for granted, and now we all suffer because they did.  Every year there are fewer and fewer bands doing the kind of music I like, but every year I discover old ones that did it, so I can't really complain.  As usual, few noteworthy rock bands bother to come through Louisiana, so I try to go and catch lots of local jazz groups in the Frenchmen Street area when possible.  The Baton Rouge scene is essentially dead, even as a touring stop for national bands.

Best live acts I saw in the second half of 2011: Rex Gregory group, Memoryhouse, Puro Instinct, Tarik Hassan group (strange abstract soundscapes), Geneva Jacuzzi, TV On The Radio (good live, still terrible on record), The Meters, Das Racist, Brothers (local jazz-hardcore group with two dueling sax players), Boris, Asobi Seksu, Matana Roberts (solo), Ri¢hie, Simon Berz + Simon Lott + toktek (trio), Danny Brown.

This was my worst year of driving in my 19 years of driving; highlights include two tickets, two instances of driving away from a gas station with the nozzle still in my gas tank, a flat tire, and a huge scar on my front left panel from a neighbor's mailbox door.

I rarely talk about politics on this site, but for the last decade or so I've watched several hours of political talk shows a day, mainly on MSNBC and CNN, and the Sunday morning ones, plus I try to listen to political talk radio, and I'm also addicted to politics-based websites.  It's definitely an obsession, and keeps me from doing more productive stuff like working on art, exercising, taking care of my plants, going to bed on time, etc.  As with music, I feel that the more I learn about politics, the more I realize I don't know... and that leads to me spending more and more time researching it.  A vicious cycle, all so that I can decide on a few meaningless votes every year or two.  So I resolve to spend less time thinking about politics in 2012.  But here's an example of an interesting article that I found peripherally this week: Is the world really safer without the Soviet Union?

I also have to spend less time on cacti / succulents, though it's hard when you keep finding cool species, like this amazing beauty I found last night:

Micranthocereus estevesii; photo © David S. Franges, 2006

Congrats to my sister and Damion for getting engaged today in Amsterdam.

I played basketball on the following courts this year: Lutcher Playground, Paulina Park, Ama Park, the ones at the Thibodaux civic center (outdoors in indoors), Gray Park, two in Laplace, the covered court in St. Rose by the airport, the one at SUNO, my driveway, the covered court at the foot of Broadway in New Orleans.  I believe I could start at shooting guard for any team in the NBA.

Planets with similar climates: Bleach - "First" (1991), Pixies - "Break My Body" (1988), Morella's Forest - "Hang Out" (1995), Poem Rocket - "Box: Tallow, Felt And Ice" (1997).

D.J. Magic Mike & M.C. Madness >> You wonder if it's real

D.J. Magic Mike & M.C. Madness - "Dynamic Duo"

(RM Records / Cheetah Records, 1991)

I was first adrenalized by this song in 1991 upon seeing its video on the Jukebox channel, which was later renamed The Box.  I bought the album, Ain't No Doubt About It, on cassette on November 1st, 1991 as sort of an afterthought on the same night that I bought Ice Cube's new album Death Certificate, also on cassette; it had hit stores three days earlier.  I was with my fellow gangsta rap expert Warren, recuperating on a Friday night after a football game; he was a sophomore running back and I was a freshman wide receiver / special teamer.  (Fun Fact: We were such huge Cube fans that we both bought Death Certificate on cassette that night.  We also both got Public Enemy's new album when it came out a month earlier.)  We both agreed that the Ice Cube album was a dud*, and I ended up vastly preferring Ain't No Doubt About It.

This song displays everything that was exciting about rap / hip hop in those days, which were later over-romanticized by young archivists as the "Golden Era" of the genre.  For example, DJ's had to actually do lots of dramatic scratching back then, not just boring-ass "beat matching," and the boasting was not derogatory.  I'll never forgive sulking, charisma-free goons like Nas, Jay-Z and Eminem for killing off this exciting style of hip hop, which is probably oversimplifying things, but I watched the decline happen on a week by week basis and I know why it happened.  By spring of '92, I had bought Nirvana's Nevermind and Metallica's first five albums, and moved away from hip hop.  But have always kept tabs on it and I'll always have fond memories of how it made me feel invincible.  This era of music really does hold up well.  About a month ago, I was at a gas station and two black guys in their teens or 20s were playing some annoying Li'l Wayne-esque song really loudly while filling up.  So I popped in The Low End Theory and blasted its opening track, "Excursions".  They actually turned their music off to listen to mine, which is the ultimate compliment that could be paid in any song showdown.  It is likely that those dudes have never even heard of A Tribe Called Quest, just as a rocker kid today who likes Alterna-Band X has likely never heard of Sonic Youth.

*I just almost fell out of my chair laughing upon finding out MTV ranked it the #8 greatest hip hop album ever.

M.C. Madness had a slightly congested, Q-Tip-esque vocal style which still sounds unique today, as do the powerful, kinetic beats and screechy guitar samples.  The "Short pause..." line is presumably sampled from a Batman movie or TV episode.  The line "Pass the brass knuckles, let me break his jaw" is sampled from LL Cool J's "Murdergram."  (I was obsessed with that LL album at the time, and it was actually the first CD I ever bought.)  I presume the recurring "Ha!" is a james Brown sample.  "Don't ring my bell once I turn off my porch light" is one of the most specific orders I've ever heard.  Most of the album's songs are much slower and more bass-oriented than this one, fitting in with the whole Miami Bass scene of that time; "Do You Like Bass?" was, and still is, a hit among subwoofer enthusiasts.  "Dynamic Duo" has excellent potential as a bromance anthem in today's meme era.  I can picture some god-awful Judd Apatow flick with a slow motion scene featuring two rotund schlubs strolling down a beach, winking at comely ladies.

Extremely dynamic artwork of the cassingle

"Dynamic Duo" promo 12" on green vinyl; also came out on red vinyl with different remixes, and on regular black vinyl.

The group's logo on the red 12"; note that it's in place of the Batman logo in the sky on the cassingle cover, and on the cassette itself.

It never occurred to me that Cheetah Records and/or RM Records were legitimate indie labels.  I guess I had assumed they had some major label connections like lots of other hip hop boutique labels of the time, but my recent research has proved me wrong on that, hence I can post it here.  Also, it turns out that I bought this album right after it came out, possibly the same week, but I'm not totally sure.

Planets with similar climates - The D.O.C. - "Whirlwind Pyramid" (1989), Ice-T - "Power" (1988), Public Enemy - "Brothers Gonna Work It Out" (1990), LL Cool J - "Mama Said Knock You Out" (1990).


Currently eating or drinking: Rouses eggplant parmesan; Noosa yoghurt (blueberry); Samichlaus malt liquor (strange sweet beer whose motto is "World's most extraordinary beverage"); Udi's granola (Hawaiian); Pirate's Alley New Orleans rum cake; a bottle of Cointreau (thanks mom).

Nice Strong Arm >> There's no room in this room for us to expand

Nice Strong Arm - "Cloud Machine"

(Homestead Records, 1989)

I obviously like the drifty dreamy music as much as the next person, if not 100 times more, but sometimes you just have to throw on a viscerally rocking Rock Song.  I downloaded this EP, Cloud Machine, several years ago, but just bought it on 12" the other day.  It was one of those things I never thought I'd find, so I was a bit stunned to see it in the flesh, and it's #1991 in a numbered edition of 2000.  (My copy is on black vinyl, but it was also pressed on purple.  Black vinyl always sounds better than other colors, so I'm actually glad I don't have a purple one.)  It was the first time I ever just picked up a vinyl release and just tossed it on the store's counter and bought it without even checking on the condition of the vinyl.  If you're into borderline metal stuff like Helmet or Quicksand, check out the two very intense live songs on the B-side, recorded at CBGB by Prong's singer / guitarist Tommy Victor.  (I saw Prong slay in an opening slot for Pantera & Sepultura in 1994.  It seems to me that their single "Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck" might've been inspired by "Cloud Machine."  The choruses have a similar feel, at least.  And check out the machinery in the guy's head at the 1:56 mark...)  Aside from England, New York City was simply the epicenter of great music in the '80s.  The guitar on "Cloud Machine" is so expressive and imaginative, exploding the notion of what a "noise rock" or "indie rock" band could be, going into abstract psychedelic realms, especially near the end.  The vocal melody is addictive enough that I can forgive the singer's gruff voice.  The spoken-word backing vocals near the middle are an interesting, mellow touch.  Somehow I think Jimi Hendrix would smile if he ever heard this song (or the previous song I posted, by Bright Channel).

© Charles Schulz, 1970

Occupying something, probably in New York City

I first got into this band in 2005 by seeing their video for "Framingham" on an Atavistic Records DVD called Twelve O'Clock High:

Another NSA song I'll be posting someday is "Everyday An Ambulance."  I don't know if NSA could have "become big," but I think they would've surely gotten a major-label deal had they stayed around a few more years until the Nirvana thing happened.  They certainly had better melodic sense than lots of mediocre indie bands that got deals at that time.

Congrats to Drew Brees for setting the single-season passing yardage record last night, though Tom Brady will probably eclipse it next week if Brees sits out game 16... I doubt Sean Payton would let such a snafu happen, though.

Planets with similar climates: The Chameleons - "Return Of The Roughnecks" (1985), Poem Rocket - "Small White Animal" (1995), Swervedriver - "For Seeking Heat" (1993), Dinosaur Jr. - "Raisans" (1987), Live Skull - "Fort Belvedere" (1985), Broken Water - "Coming True" (2009).

Bright Channel >> Were you scared when a chill touched your spine?

Bright Channel - "Airborne"

(Flight Approved Records, 2005)

Jeff's voice soars into a new realm of epic beauty in this song, easily one of the best songs ever made.  And I'd say it's one of the most atmospheric and Volplane-esque songs that Bright Channel has made.  His vocals are more confident and are mixed more up-front than ever before.  The delicate guitar arpeggios during the instrumental breaks are spine-tingling.  For someone like me, this is the kind of song that is truly life-affirming, because not only does it fill up my spine, heart and spleen with vigorous excitement particles, it's the kind of hidden gem that makes slogging through trillions of mediocre CDs, LPs, mp3s, etc. worthwhile.

In film noir fashion, he describes some unseen menace in vague terms, just as he sang about something chasing him in his sleep in "Night Eyes."  In the previously-mentioned interview, after I asked how he writes lyrics, Jeff said "My lyrics are usually simple and a bit abstract.  I build them from memories, dreams, déjà vu's, and subconscious / altered states... or whatever helps translate the mood of the music.  I never get too heavy or serious with the words.  I like to leave it fairly transparent and open, allowing more focus on the sounds."

I will be posting another amazing song from this album called "Out Of Focus," and I recommend checking out the great instrumental closing track "Interception."

Live at Little Radio Warehouse, Los Angeles., 4/21/06, opening for Brian Jonestown Massacre. Photo by Timothy Norris.

Creepy Azn sex supplement box found on the ground by the CAC last week

On Friday I saw a local band called The Honorable South do a free CD-release show at Euclid Records.  The singer told us she had cooked the macaroni & cheese (w/ bourbon), and there was also roast beef and sweet potatoes.  I got a few kickass Psychedelic Furs 7"s, including a picture disc of "The Ghost In You".

Planets with similar climates: The Church - "Chaos" (1992), Colfax Abbey - "Once In A While" (1996), Venus Beads - "Heaven And Back" (1990), Bailter Space - "Shine" (1992), My Bloody Valentine - "Only Shallow" (1990).

Bright Channel >> Shiny new castles made of mirrors

Bright Channel - "Final Stretch"

(Flight Approved Records, 2004)

Here it is, the first song on Bright Channel's first album, recorded in May 2004 in Chicago by Steve Albini.  It's one of the most unforgettable and badass opening songs I've personally ever heard, with a guitar sound that could melt glass from 100 light years away.  The funky bass parts mesh with the choppy drumming to make for an irresistible hip-hop-style beat.

It has been said that within a few years, "Final Stretch" will likely replace Europe's "The Final Countdown" as the go-to song during the closing minutes of every sporting event.  The lyrics are ominous and obtuse, making this come as a perfect theme song for a dystopian sci-fi flick.  The ending of Sunshine comes to mind as a great candidate:

I got this coupon insert in the mail last week and was immediately struck by what I saw:

Today a freak storm with hurricane-force winds ripped through the state and swept my greenhouse away right in front of my eyes.  I watched it tumble across the neighborhood, then went out to find it an hour later.  It had blown about 200 yards away, across Hwy. 20.  Imagine how readily an umbrella will blow away in the wind, since it's essentially a parachute, then imagine a 6x8x7' umbrella.  I dismantled it in this lady's yard.  She poked her head out and I explained who I was and what I was doing, to which she simply said "Okay."  So my greenhouse lasted all of about two weeks.  Maybe this is the wakeup call I need to help me quit my habit of growing desert plants...  I found some of them about 40 feet away from where they had been, and my 200 lb. birdbath was knocked over.  I won't sit here and complain too much, since I remember a few years ago when Matador Records owner Gerard Cosloy's house burned down; on his sports blog, he merely said something like "Well, my house burned down," and left it at that.  And I was positive I heard a tornado coming (that distinctive train-whistle sound that they always tell you to listen for), so I'm pleased as heck overall at how little damage I got.  Amazingly, my staghorn fern that I've had for 13 years was totally uninjured, as were my best specimen aloes and cacti.  I just wish I had gotten a pic of the greenhouse.  Unfortunately, it's totaled and I'm going to sell the steel scaffolding poles as scrap metal.  I guess it just hurts karmically because I went out of my way to raise even more plants than I normally raise, so you'd think Mother Nature would try not to inflict this kind of thing on someone like me.  One of my neighbor's purple martin houses got blown down, but I didn't have the heart to look inside it for dead birds.

Planets with similar climates: Bailter Space - "Control" (1993), Lucid Nation - "Fun" (1999), Plexi - "Ganesh" (1994), Bleach - "Headless" (1991), Big Black - "Kerosene" (1986), Deftones - "Be Quiet And Drive (Far Away)" (1997), The Sound - "Fire" (1981), Moonshake - "Spaceship Earth" (1992).

Bright Channel >> Someone's chasing me in my sleep

Bright Channel - "Night Eyes" (demo)

(unreleased, 2003)

So, back to what I was saying in the previous two posts... In February 2002, Jeff and Shannon of Volplane reassembled with a new drummer, Brian Banks, and a new name, Bright Channel.
In my 2003 interview I asked "How is Bright Channel going to differ from Volplane?"
Jeff just said "Slightly less wine..."
Shannon said "Not as loud for one (or as many amps to carry).  I'd say the Bright Channel sound is more streamlined and articulated than Volplane, with a little more power behind it.  To use a Bailter Space analogy, Bright Channel's more Solar.3 or Photon, where Volplane was more Robot World."  (In my previous question, I had asked if Robot World was a big influence on them.)
I secretly died a little inside, and thought about how every single shoegazey band that I loved soon abandoned that sound for a more "normal" rock sound.  Examples: Catherine Wheel, Verve, Lush, Bailter Space, Ride, etc.  And worst of all was Slowdive morphing into frickin' Mojave 3, jeesh.  So I honestly wasn't expecting Bright Channel's music to impress me, much less amaze me, but that's just what it did.  I have to say I disagree with Shannon's "less amps" statement, because B.C.'s music is way louder / heavier than Volplane's.

Anyway, back to the interview.  Jeff later said "Our music was designed to be as hypnotic and suggestively psychedelic as possible.  However, it was done at high volumes.  Volplane caused a great deal of hearing damage to ourselves and to fans.  I don't think we were able to capture the type of air movement or "wall-of-sound" effect we wanted on our early recordings.  Bright Channel, on the other hand, is slightly trimmed down and more focused.  Instead of multiple digital delays and amplifiers, we are using more organic effects such as fuzz and reverb."

This is a demo of a song that appeared on their self-titled 2004 debut album.  I prefer this version because it's a bit slower (hence 10 seconds longer), and the album version seems a tad too rushed to me.  This was sent to me by Smelly in 2003, or 2004 at the latest, after I asked her to track some Bright Channel songs down for me.  She is so cool that her RYM username is a fucking Swervedriver lyric.  The other demo she sent me was a crushingly heavy / amazing demo of "Ice Field."  Steve Albini produced the debut album, but I don't know if he produced (sorry, "engineered") the demos; I'm guessing not.  I could spend hours talking about why I dislike his production (sorry, "engineering") style, but I won't.  "Night Eyes" is a very subtle song, with the vocals starting off low and reptilian, and later going to a higher register and becoming more beautiful.  The guitar parts follow a similar path, like a loyal puppy dog tagging along with its owner.  The song has a weird overall marching-band swagger to it, driven by a mutant funk bassline and billowing clouds of guitar.  The drums suddenly go ballistic in the final minute.  It's only my 3rd-favorite song on the album, but it's definitely sui generis.  Rock music for people who are bored with rock music.

I know this is an early (2002 or 2003) Bright Channel pic, because I used it in my interview in '03.
Note the images of trees projected onto them.  L-R: Jeff Suthers, Brian Banks, Shannon Stein

This is a pic from the roof of the Ogden Museum of Art, taken by by sister when we visited it last week.  (See previous post.)  That's a kinetic Lin Emery aluminum sculpture on the left, the Crescent City Connection bridge in the middle, then some unknown black sculpture, then the water tower atop the Cotton Mill apartments, where she briefly lived.  This is direct from her camera to my email, not cropped or color-adjusted in any way.  Even the clouds are just perfect.

Most of Emery's stuff is in the same vein, and she has a similar, but larger and much more famous, statue right in front of the New Orleans Museum Of Art:

I was surprised that one of my favorite (one-man) bands, National Skyline, released a new album last week.  It's good, though poppy enough to maybe generate cries of "sellout" from longtime fans.  Garbs is still a master of catchy melodies, and a little bit of extra chillwave is fine by me.

Today I played hoops for about 3 hours in Thibodaux, which completely derailed an intended trip down to Houma.  Better luck next time... I lent my Del The Funky Homosapien CD to this guy so he could play it on his car stereo while we played, but it skipped on a few songs so he had to take it out.  There were around 25-30 people playing.

An amazing thing I found out about on the History Channel on Saturday: The Year Without A Summer.  Last night I watched the season finales of Dexter and Homeland, and tonight was the season finale of Terra Nova.  The ultra-intense Homeland is the best show no one knows about.

R.I.P. Christopher Hitchens, The Chris Paul era in New Orleans, and Kim Jong-Il

Planets with similar climates: DUSTdevils - "Neck Surfing" (1990), True Widow - "Skull Eyes" (2011), Bailter Space - "Hard Wired" (1989), Failure - "Heliotropic" (1996), U2 - "Bullet The Blue Sky" (1987), Idaho - "Crawling Out" (1994), Live Skull - "Cloud One" (1985).

Pteranodon >> Sunburst and snowblind

Pteranodon - "Adrift"

(Flight Approved Records, 2001)

Here's one of the best ambient / drone tracks I've ever heard, and it's even more impressive considering that it was created by "rock" people who were simply on hiatus from rocking out.  It really reflects the coldness and bleak majesty of the Colorado mountains, where I skiied a few times ('93 and '95) and where my uncle Mike and aunt Christy live.  You can even sort of get the sensation of snowblindness, which is when all the light hitting your eyes from the sky and the surface of the snow fries your retinas.

Not to brag, but for a blog that doesn't even focus on ambient music, I think this one has posted some incredible ambient tracks this year, and it feels really good to spotlight an essentially unknown artist like Pteranodon, since I doubt anyone ever has before in the history of internets.  In terms of quality vs. quantity, I doubt many actual ambient blogs have posted better stuff than Blowtorch Baby has.  This field of music has so many mediocre tracks / artists, and so few true gems.  Maybe I should've done a separate ambient blog, but I like combining it in with all the other song-based stuff on here.  "Adrift" is the most densely layered, and therefore the "warmest" or most "womblike," one on the album.  Most of the others are quite minimalistic and downright eerie.  I guess I got into this group in 2003, when I got into Volplane and Bright Channel, since Pteranodon is made up of the core duo of those two bands.  Not long after that, I bought Pteranodon's actual self-titled CD, probably on eBay. It comes in a cool silver gatefold paper case with some flowers on the cover.  At first I thought they were opium poppies, which would be fitting, considering the album's narcotizing effect on the lucky listener; but I think they might just be some kind of thistle or thistle relative.  Other good cuts from this album are "Periodic Rise And Fall" and "Distances."  (The latter might have been named in honor of the Flying Saucer Attack LP of the same name.)  "Adrift" just hits me with more emotional impact than any of the other ones.  As their bio says, "pteranodon is the brainchild of jeff suthers and shannon stein, former members of volplane and bright channel and current members of moonspeed.  in the fall of 2000, after the departure of volplane's drummer, jeff and shannon set out to pursue an ambient musical venture that combined their love of minimalist musical styles with their equal appreciation for maximum volumes. with only one organ and one guitar, pteranodon was designed to be a lush (but gigantic) listening experience, both live and on disc.  their self-titled debut album was released in 2001, with a follow-up appearing in spring 2005."

Inside view of the minimalist gatefold packaging

Click on the "sound" link over here to listen to each album in its entirety.  You can even play one song from each album simultaneously to make your own exciting Pteranoremixes.

Today my sister and I went to the Prospect.2 art festival.  I had gone to Prospect.1 three years ago, which was at least twice as big as this one, but this one was still pretty good.  We went to the Contemporary Arts Center, the Ogden Museum, and the Old U.S. Mint, plus some little new art studio down in the Holy Cross neighborhood.  Duane Pitre (a.k.a. Pilotram), former guitarist of ILYA, had an interesting self-generating ambient sound installation at the CAC.  The Mint was screening William Eggleston's famous and extremely overrated film Stranded In Canton.  We walked up on the levee and petted someone's three-legged dog, saw white pelicans, and saw a guy mooning a friend a few hundred yards away across the canal.  I also took her to American Aquatic Gardens, Harold's Nursery, and Euclid Records.  I bought an awesome picture disc 7" of Simple Minds' "Someone Somewhere In Summertime" at Euclid for only $3 and gave them two David Bowie 8-tracks as thanks for pricing it so low.  In the car we listened to Cleopatra Grip by The Heart Throbs, which I just bought this morning, and then to Pteranodon.  Check out the video for "I Wonder Why" by The Heart Throbs, a song which I would describe as Best Coast meets My Bloody Valentine.
Here's an excerpt from a cool 2-minute video I saw today at either the Ogden or the CAC; I think it was made by someone named Jeff or John, with the last initial G.:

Planets with similar climates: Rapoon - "Hollow Flight" (1997), Plexi - "Bunny" (1996).

Volplane >> It burns through me

Volplane - "Lost In Blue" (a.k.a. "I Want This Dream")

(Flight Approved Records, 1997)

I found out about Volplane when someone in AOL's Indie Rock chatroom told me about them in early 2003 and said I might like them.  I checked them out, loved the few songs I heard (including this one), and then almost immediately interviewed them for my online zine.  I was informed that they had changed their drummer and adopted the new name Bright Channel, so it technically was a Bright Channel interview.  The word volplane is a verb meaning "To glide toward the earth in an airplane with the engine cut off."

This song hypnotized my brain from the first few seconds, and still blows me away with its darkly creeping, trancelike menace.  For only a 3-minute song, it sure is a harrowing journey.  Singer / guitarist Jeff Suthers' androgynous, soothing vocals, crying out like an ant trapped in amber, are the perfect foil for the forlorn, hypothermia-inducing music.  The production values are pretty incredible for a self-recorded song, with a womblike warmth borne out of tons of reverb.  I like how the phrase "I want this dream to be" has no ending, so one is left to decide what exactly he is trying to say.  "Wash Away," "Two Worlds" and "Tear In Two" are my other favorite Volplane tunes, with "Wash Away" being particularly mind-blowing, easily one of the best pure shoegaze songs ever made.  According to their website, "From 1997-1999, Volplane forged ahead and spent the larger part of two years in their home studio recording what should have been two records that were never officially released: Volplane and Merlot.  In 2006, Flight Approved Records released a limited edition CD-R retrospective with some of the band’s favorite tracks from [those two albums]."  The retrospective is simply titled 1997-1999, is quite stunning, and can be bought on iTunes.  "Lost In Blue" (I seem to remember it was titled "I Want This Dream" when I downloaded it in 2003) and "Wash Away" were on Volplane.  The (proposed?) cover art for Volplane is identical to the cover of 1997-1999, but solarized (a reverse negative image), and with no writing at the bottom:

As a an obsessive fan of shoegaze / dream pop guitar styles, I can say without hesitation that Jeff Suthers is a master of this art, coaxing out some of the most spacey, psychedelic and eerie tones ever, all in the relative obscurity of Denver, Colorado.

Excellent photo with San Francisco as a backdrop; presumably taken at Kirby Cove in Marin County, ca. 1984. Compare to the top photo here.

Planets with similar climates: Bethany Curve - "Long Beach" (2001), Colfax Abbey - "Once In A While" (1996), Sonic Youth - "Shadow Of A Doubt" (1986), Juned - "Titanic" (1995), The Comsat Angels - "I Come From The Sun" (1992), Catherine Wheel - "Tongue Twisted" (1993).


Eating or drinking over the last week: Rouses eggplant parmesan; Synergy Mystic Mango kombucha tea; Alo Coco Exposed coconut water; Winn-Dixie cornbread; Rouses garlic rosemary red onion focaccia; Samuel Adams Black Lager; Flavors Of Greece roasted eggplant spread; Clowson Cotswold gloucester cheese w/ onions & chives.  And of course the Guinness Draught vs. Murphy's Stout comparison I mentioned last time.

Editors >> If fortune favors the brave

Editors - "Lights"

(Fader Label / Kitchenware Records, 2005)

This is quite an explosive, riveting song for a band to open its debut album with.  Even the chorus' line "I got a million things to say" seems to cleverly relate to the band's name, as well as to the album's cover art.

The guitar sound is just mind-bogglingly great, writhing with feedback and treble, like the guitarist soldered his axe into a powerline out on the street and started playing during a lightning storm.  Editors came around in the immediate wake of Interpol, with pretty much the same image and set of influences, so a lot of people, including myself, shrugged them off without really giving them a chance.  Even their name put them in the crop of studious bands (e.g. Engineers, Prosaics) who refused to use a "The" in front of their names, in opposition to all the "The [Noun]s" bands which were so hyped in the early '00s as the supposed saviors of garage rock.  (The Strokes, The White Stripes, The Hives, The Vines.)  I first heard them via the song "Munich", which was iTunes' free download of the day sometime in 2006.  For some reason I didn't care for it then (and in fact didn't even download it for free), but I dig it now.  Along with "Two Kinds" by Film School, Editors' "An End Has A Start" was probably my favorite song of 2007:

That video is truly terrible.  On Editors' most recent album they went totally synth-pop, with pretty cingeworthy results, but at least they're trying to evolve and stuff.

On Monday I hit my fav. thrift store (Red, White & Blue in Marrero) and finally got a Defend New Orleans t-shirt, and one commemorating the Space Shuttle's 1981-2011 lifespan, and two others.

I turned on WTUL in my car and heard one of my all-time top 10 anthems, "Golden Soldiers" by The Sound, starting up.  So I freaked out and called the station to thank the DJ.  I also asked if the station had any Comsat Angels in the stacks, and she said no, but that she had brought some of her own Comsats stuff in, specifically their debut album Waiting For A Miracle.  So I requested "On The Beach," and told her the origin of its name (a post-nuclear-war novel by Nevil Shute).  Generally, requests take about 10-30 minutes or more to process, if they get played at all, but literally a minute or so later, I hear its distinctive lurching bassline kicking in amidst vinyl pops and hisses.  Man, that made my day.  Check her playlist for that day here.  I played some 2-on-2 for a few hours at Ama Park in an occasional drizzle.  In the car I played rock music by Bright Channel.

I dislike most beers, but I've recently caught on to the fact that the ones called stouts are amazing.  Yesterday I did a side-by-side taste comparison between my two favorite beers, which happen to be two of the world's most revered stouts: Guinness Draught and Murphy's Stout.  It's like choosing a Rolls or a Bentley, and they were almost completely identical in every way, but Murphy's is a bit more flavorful overall, while Guinness is more mellow.  Both have almost no hops, and lots of malt, making them very smooth and dark, not unlike chocolate milk.  Both are low in alcohol, and both come with nitrogen widgets in the cans for a smooth, keg-quality pour.

Today I woke up and checked my Careless Operation ticket from October (see 10/12 post) and realized with shock that my court date and/or ticket payment date was two days ago.  Oops.  It's a weird feeling to know there might be a warrant out for one's arrest.  The late fee ("contempt of court" fee) was $125, bringing a fairly minor ticket up to a whopping $279.  So I went and got a money order and sent it off to the courthouse in Hahnville, lowering my checking account balance to $37.  So in summary, the only person who was driving the speed limit on that bridge two months ago shelled out $279 today, due to several boneheaded errors.  This is the first ticket I've paid in almost 20 years of driving.

Since I forgot to post any photos of myself from California, I'll do a few this month.  All of our home videos were lost in Katrina, so there is literally no video of me as a kid, which is distressing on so many levels...  This one is from some kind of statue garden area by that big rotunda in Golden Gate Park:

And this is from the same day & same place, looking much less annoyed to be near each other:

I pretty much didn't have any eyebrows until I was about 14.  We were both dressed in highly fashionable Osh Kosh B'Gosh, as our mom usually made us wear at this time.  Wherever in the world you live, you have to make a pilgrimage to Golden Gate Park, because it's possibly the best thing in America.

Planets with similar climates: Big Black - "Kerosene" (1986), Unwound - "Entirely Different Matters" (1993), The Emerald Down - "Perilized" (2001), Dub Sex - "Then And Now" (1989).

Twin Sister >> Can't see the other side of your dream

After doing approx. infinity posts last month, and with the otter-rich coast of California fresh in our minds, I'm giving myself a planned semi-sabbatical this month.  So here's the first of a few well-placed monster smash hits to close out the year.

Twin Sister - "The Other Side Of Your Face"

(Infinite Best Recordings, 2010)

This band formed in Long Island and soon moved to hipster mecca Brooklyn.  My first thought when I heard them was "Cat Power for chillwavers."  I think this song is up there with Film School's "TIme To Listen as one of the best songs of 2010.  SInger Andrea Estella coos her way through some obliquely undulating guitarscapes, while a metronomic drumbeat pounds away surgically.  It's long, but it could go on for another hour and I would still be transfixed, so hopefully some intrepid remixer will take me up on that.

When Rhino puts out a chillwave box set in 20 years, this song ought to be on it.  Twin Sister played this song when I saw them open for Memoryhouse at One Eyed Jacks in Aug. 2010.  I filmed them doing an amazing performance of this song, but my sister can't find the clip on her camera, nor can she find the clip of Memoryhouse doing "Lately."  For now, check out the music video for another song they played that night, the shoulda-been-hit "All Around And Away We Go":

AE is a brunette in that video, though she was blonde at the concert, a few months before this video was released.  (I read her say in some interview that she's Hispanic.)  Not sure who the blonde in the video is, but she bears a lot of resemblance to AE.  I never knew AE had such dance moves inside her, since she pretty much just stood still during the concert.  My point is that a band has to be pretty versatile to make a catchy pop song like "All Around" and a meandering song like "Other Side," and both were released on the same EP, which my sister bought at the gig.  Memoryhouse were better overall, but "Other Side" was probably the highlight of the evening for me.   A local synth-goth band called Kindest Lines played first; they recently opened a leg of Xiu Xiu's tour.

I like how Infinite Best Recordings is a pun on the inscrutable book Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace.  So inscrutable, in fact, that I have it but haven't even started reading it.  They returned this June opening for Beirut, but you couldn't pay me enough to go see that damn band.  In 2011, Twin Sister have become such Pitchfork favorites that I have to assume that money has exchanged hands between the two parties.  I can all but prove that that has happened in recent years with Pitchfork and the following acts, all of whom get a breaking news bulletin on P4k if they so much as lose a sock: Neutral Milk Hotel, Spoon, Wilco, M.I.A., Wavves, Drake, White Stripes, Arcade Fire, Flaming Lips, Kanye West, Bon Iver, and of course Radiohead / Thom Yorke.  Note that three of those are on Merge Records, a (one-great) label that advertises heavily on Pitchfork.

I went to Blue Cypress Books on Oak St. today for the first time, after seeing a photo of it a week or two ago in the newspaper.  I asked if they had anything by John Biguenet, and the girl mentioned that he is her English teacher at Loyola, so I mentioned that his daughter Nicole was in my grade in high school.  I was pretty impressed by their selection.  I then shot some hoops at this covered basketball court on River Rd. at the foot of Broadway, instead of riding my bike in Audubon Park.  Tonight is Saints vs. Lions, and I almost scored a ticket from my dad's friend Jay.

Planets with similar climates: Curve - "Cherry" (1991), My Bloody Valentine - "Soon" (1990), Sonic Youth - "The Diamond Sea" (1995), Long Fin Killie - "Valentino" (1996), Cocteau Twins - "Road, River And Rail" (1990).


Bought at Blue Cypress Books today: Daniel Scott - Pay This Amount; Wallace Stegner - Collected Stories; Charles Baxter - Through The Safety Net; Alain Robbe-Grillet - Topology Of A Phantom City; Ellen Lesser - The Shoplifter's Apprentice; a "Reading is sexy" bumper sticker. (All the books are short story collections except for Topology.)

Black Flag >> Try to stop us

I can't believe it's still California Month, tremor #65:

Black Flag - "Rise Above"

(SST Records, 1981)

This one is pretty self-explanatory.

Greg Ginn's breakneck 9-second guitar solo is one of the funniest and coolest things I've ever heard.  Who says punk bands can't do guitar solos?  I got into Black Flag backwards, having been a huge Rollins Band fan in the early to mid '90s.  Being too young to have experienced any of Black Flag's infamous shows in the '80s I've had to piece together an opinion about them from varied sources.  I would say overall I think they're quite overrated, but they definitely changed underground music dramatically.  I bought Damaged on cassette thru SST mailorder in summer of 1996, and got it on CD ten or so years later.  This is really the only Black Flag album that I can enthusiastically sit through, since I'm not a punk fan at all.  And I definitely get bored by the tedious metallic knuckle-dragging of their later LPs.  I specified "summer of 1996" above because a few months before that, I bought, read, and then tore up, page by page, a Henry Rollins book, because I was so fed up with the dude's self-righteous attitude.  In '93, I got a free white ROLLINS BAND sticker from The Mushroom and cut up the letters so that it made the phrase "NO SINBAD" (as in, the painfully unfunny comedian).  For some reason, I had this on the window in my room for many years.  The band posters I had on my wall / ceiling at this time included Faith No More (The Real Thing), Pantera (Vulgar Display Of Power), Public Enemy (Fear Of A Black Planet), Red Hot Chili Peppers (Mother's Milk), the Judgment Night soundtrack, etc.  And a life-size poster of David Robinson on my door, no joke.  So anyway, no matter what one's opinion of Henry Garfield (Rollins) is, "Rise Above" is just a phenomenal song that will always make the ol' neurons fire.  Even the possibly-comatose Mitch McConnell would go on an adrenaline-fueled rampage after hearing it.  I guess this song goes out to the Occupy Wall Street people, though they're hurting their own cause by this point with all their shenanigans.  I think this song is a good way to finish up the whole California Month thing, though it's not very representative of my overall musical likings.

Irony was always one of Black Flag's biggest weapons:

Here are some songs I ran out of time or energy to post during these epic California Months:

Concrete Blonde - "Scene Of A Perfect Crime" & "Dance Along The Edge"
American Music Club - "Last Harbor"

Fu Manchu - "Wurkin'"

The Black Watch - "Come Inside"

BPeople - "Time"

Bad Religion - "Suffer"

Idaho - "Sliding Past," "Save," & "Forever"

Deion Sanders - "Must Be The Money"

Tearist - some song or other

Richard Cheese - "Bullet The Blue Sky" (U2 cover)

Whirl (now called Whirr) - "Leave"

Pennywise - "The Secret"

Social Distortion - "Let It Be Me" & "Mommy's Little Monster"
Rollins Band - "Do It" (Pink Fairies cover)
The Kids Of Widney High - "Every Girl's My Girlfriend"
Red House Painters - "Drop" & "Down Through"
Fantômas - some song or other
Mellow Man Ace - "Hip Hop Creature"
They Eat Their Own - "Like A Drug"

...and may more

Planets with similar climates: Unwound - "New Energy" (1995), Suicidal Tendencies - "You Can't Bring Me Down" (1990), Fugazi - "Merchandise" (1989), Pennywise - "The Secret" (1991).

Amoeba >> Might look like we're drowning

I can't believe it's still California Month, tremor #64:

Amoeba - "Ignoring Gravity"

(Lektronic Soundscapes, 1997 / Release Entertainment, 1999; recorded in 1994 or '95)

Here is a beautifully creepy ditty by the Robert Rich-led duo Amoeba, from their sophomore album Watchful.  It's obviously ultra-indebted to Brian Eno in more ways than one.

How is this not one of the most-discussed/adored songs of the last few decades?  The guitar is just impeccably recorded, like the sun is playing it up in the sky in a dream or something.  The overall production values are just spectacular, as you'd expect from an audio perfectionist like R. Rich.  I got this CD in the early '00s, but seem to have misplaced it.  I'm almost positive I didn't sell it or anything, but I'm also not sure if I have the original version on Lektronic Soundscapes or the reissue on Release.  For now I can't regale you with much more info on the band / album, but this song should pique you enough to go do some research and want to dwell in their biodome of sound.  Their second and final album, Pivot, is worth hearing, but I have not heard their debut EP, Eye Catching.

I'm rushing through these posts tonight, trying to get in under the 11 PM ET deadline for the end of November, so the quality is not as amazing as you've come to expect.  Sorry?  Nah.  I'm mad that I ran out of time to post a bunch of pics of myself as a kid in San Fran, though.

Planets with similar climates: Bark Psychosis - "The Loom" (1993), Brian Eno - "By This River" (1977), Sting - "Fragile" (1987), Peter Gabriel - "We Do What We're Told (Milgram's 37)" (1985).

New Math >> I've been waiting in the cold moonlight

I can't believe it's still California Month, tremor #63:

New Math - "Invocation"

(415 Records [U.S.] / CBS Records [Europe], 1982)

I don't know much about this band, other than the fact that they changed their name to Jet Black Berries.  (I bought a cassette by JBB ca. 2006, but hated it.)  I bought this New Math EP, They Walk Among You, three years ago just based on the cool band name, cover photo, and album title.  The band members look pretty suave on the back cover.  (This mp3 doesn't want to play properly, so I might take it down at some point.  It's the only mp3 I've ever posted that has done this.  Sorry.)

Just a cool song, not much more to say.  I have to say it's uncanny how identical the present-day band The Horrors sound to this song, down to the singer's dramatic snarl and vocal phrasing.  (Well, prior to their laid-back new album Skying, anyway.)

I played some 21 on this court at the end of Annunciation St. today.  The guy I was playing was pretty good, and we each scored about 40 points total before his lunch break ended and he had to leave.  Later I met the darned sweetest girl ever, working at this plant nursery on the Westbank that I never go to.  She had that short indie-girl haircut that was prevalent in the '90s, and seemed quite caffeinated, but in a good way.  I asked if she was from Georgia, based on her accent, and she said no, she was from Shreveport.  I related to her that I had recently asked my dad if said city (approx. the 100th biggest in the U.S.) had any art museums, aquariums, etc., and he said "Shreveport has nothing of cultural significance."  She seemed to agree with my dad on this.  I bought a crassula and a phlox.

I've been meaning to post these for a long time, so I might as well now... I seem to remember that there's a labyrinthine history behind the popularization of the "Fuck you I'm an anteater" meme, so you can look it up if you want to, but why would you want to do that when life is so short?  The other one is just a spoof of it.

Planets with similar climates: The Horrors - "New Ice Age" (2008), The Sound - "Winning" (1981).