Kreidler >> That's okay, I keep the pictures

Kreidler - "She Woke Up And The World Had Changed"

(Mute Records / Kiff SM Records, 1998)

Kreidler (pronounced "CRIED-lur," not "CREED-lur") was a post-rock group based in Düsseldorf, Germany, which seamlessly combined "real" instruments with electronics to create retro-futuristic music that can appeal to both club kids and serious avant-garde music geeks.  For some unknown reason, the album is called Appearance And The Park.  The strange, glitchy beat/riff of this track always amazes me, with its sort of tropical feel, maybe because it reminds me of steel drumming.  Seriously, why are cutting-edge rappers not sampling beats like this?  Every song on the album is instrumental, except for two versions of "Coldness," which was apparently their jokey attempt at writing a pop hit:

I first heard Kreidler while we were drawing in an art class at Loyola called Foundations 2, in March '99.  (I was a biology major and art minor.)  That probably sounds really pretentious or made-up -- American art student hears obscure German electronic band on college radio while in class -- but it's true.  (The class consisted of me, a gay dude, and 13 females.  The gay dude literally overdosed on GHB that semester during class one day, and had to be taken to the hospital, but that's another story.)  That was the month that this album came out in the U.S., after having been released the previous year in Germany.  We were allowed to play the radio sometimes, and I usually made sure it was tuned to WTUL, the station of the college right next door, Tulane.  The song was the rubbery and strange "Au Pair," whose video I discovered about a decade later:

Kreidler's drummer, Thomas Klein, is one of the best to ever pick up a pair of sticks, period, and is obviously massively influenced by his fellow countryman Jaki Liebezeit of CAN.

It's always hard to come up with a title when I post an instrumental song.  This one comes from the strange bit of writing on the back cover:

Uh, okay.  Richard Brautigan would be proud...  I think the coffee & tea bit might be a reference to CAN's "Bring Me Coffee Or Tea" on their seminal LP Tago Mago.

Yesterday, during some rain I finally joined the local library, which is only a few blocks from me, but not exactly a bastion of modern literature, this being a town of 6,000 people.  It's one of those little country libraries whose parking lot is usually empty except on days when there are a few school buses due to a school scheduling a field trip to it, which always gave me the impression that it was some sort of children's library.
"Hi, I'd like to join."
The chubby, flaxen-haired, somewhat cute, twentysomething girl at the front counter under the fluorescent lights looks at me with a blank, bored expression.  I remember that she was sitting in that very spot the only other time I had come here, 3 or 4 years earlier.
"You mean get a library card?"
"Yeah. [Pause] ...What else would I mean?"
I felt kind of bad about that last part, but I mean, come on.  Do I want to join your swinger's club, or your African safari group, or your fondue workshop?  No, probably not, I mainly just want a library card.

I picked out three books, then drove down 20 miles to Thibodaux, got a little white-spined Mammillaria cactus and some dwarf cattail bulbs at Lowe's, and then shot hoops after the rain had ended there, which had brought the temperature down from about 95 degrees to about 80.  This gangly blond kid of about 13 rode his bike up and started shooting on another goal.  I never watch other people play while I'm playing, because I like to be the center of attention when it comes to basketball, my all-consuming passion; but I couldn't help noticing that he shot the way that most people do before developing enough arm strength to shoot the right way, meaning above one's head rather than off of the shoulder.  So when one of his bricks careened over to my court I said "Can I give you a suggestion?  You should start shooting the ball over your head, because when you shoot it from your shoulder, the ball blocks your vision as it passes in front of your eyes."  He didn't say anything, and went back and kept shooting the same way as before, and bricking as much as before.  I was like: "The fuck?"  So I just went back to draining three after three, hoping that my actions would speak more clearly than my words.  I understand the whole "Don't talk to strangers" thing, and I didn't talk to strangers when I was a kid, but this kind of annoyed me, thought he fact that I was shirtless probably played into his lack of desire to talk to me.  I then went to O'Reilly's auto parts and got some wiper blades, and then went to the Rouses grocery store, and weirdly enough, while I was walking in, he was walking out with his parents.  Probably thought I was stalking him or something...  I wanted to ask his parents, "Didn't you see Scott Loeffelholz play?"  See, the thing is, I used to shoot from the shoulder.  In 8th grade, I practiced with the high school team every day (after my middle school team's practice got out), and started on the JV team.  So on game days, I played the 8th grade game and then the JV game.  After one 8th grade or JV game that season, in which I went 14 of 15 from the line in an overtime win, my best game of that season, I was feeling pretty good about myself.  Joel Loeffelholz, father of the high school team's star player, Scott Loeffelholz (one of my idols), pulled me aside and... you guessed it... solemnly told me that I should start shooting from over my head.  He told me the same damn thing I told this kid 20 years later, the only difference being that I actually realized the importance of his suggestion and actually started shooting from over my head, which changed my life.  Joel was/is a lawyer, and helped get me out of a minor traffic ticket a few years later, so I owe him doubly.  His son Michael, one of my classmates (we moshed together at the aforementioned Tool / Flaming Lips / Failure concert in '94), now apparently works for Atlantic Records.  The weird thing is that Scott is 6'5" and Michael is like 5'7", supposedly due to his bad asthma.  I think he's the one who got me into Quicksand in spring of '93, but that might've been Ryan Massey or Blake Massey.  I know Michael first told us to check out the band Morphine, in early '93.

Sent to me by my sister the other day:

Remember Razr phones?  The rest of it reads "Raveonettes, Church, and...Kele haha)"

Weird novel I checked out from the library

Well, I'm off to the Record Raid at Siberia & the Hi-Ho Lounge now.

Update, 8/14/11: Printed at the bottom of my library receipt:
What did the sheet of paper say to the pencil ?
You've got a good point !

Planets with similar climates: Euphone - "Newscast" (2000), Trans Am - "American Kooter" (1996), Kraftwerk - "Nummern" ("Numbers") (1981), Oval - "Shop In Store" (1994), Stu Phillips - "Knight Rider Theme" (1982), Schema - "We Think We're Sane" (2000), Harald Grosskopf - "So Weit, So Gut" (1980), FCS North - "Things Will Change" (2003).