To Rococo Rot >> Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?

To Rococo Rot - "Prado"

(Mute Records / City Slang Records, 1999)

The palindromically-named To Rococo Rot shared bassist Stefan Schneider with the band from the previous post, Kreidler.  In addition to being based in a differrent German city, Berlin (through which my sister may be wandering at this very moment), TRR were much more electronic, and rarely funky or rock-ish like Kreidler, instead mining a more clinical, laboratory-friendly vein.

This track, from their album The Amateur View, transports me away to some sort of beautiful, near-empty house or art gallery, or any kind of empty, sanitary building with white walls and lots of glass, located in a cold place.  The album cover might have something to do with that, as might the fact that the track is literally named after a famous art museum.

Cassette version, released only in Poland

If you listen closely, it sounds like there's some harp buried low in the mix, or maybe just a simulation of a harp on a synth.  For such a minimalistic song, there's really a lot going on in it, and it rewards repeated close listenings.  The real bass guitar lends a smoky jazz café feel, and some of the drumming sounds real too, though the backing track is clearly digital drums.  Check out these photos of the band (+ guest I-Sound, a.k.a. Craig Willingham, who played on "A Little Asphalt Here And There") from the CD booklet:

Yep, lots of white space... so very Euro.  Even the bars are all called "Bar" over there.

I got into this album in '99, around the time I got into Kreidler, simply because I liked Kreidler and hence had to check out their sister band.  This album is definitely not as great overall as Kreidler's The Amateur View, but has some nice little gems on it, such as "I Am In The World With You" and "This Sandy Piece."  The album is apparently considered a classic amongst those who are experts in the genre, so go figure.  The single "Telema" starts off pretty weak, but becomes decent:

(Warning: Cute cats at the 2-minute mark.)

On Monday, I dropped off some pups from my amazing agave which I've had for about 5 years.  Pups are the little baby plants that some plants, and most desert plants, put off at their bases, as a way of asexual reproduction; they can be removed and stuck into their own pot, and presto, you have a new free plant.  I gave one to Hebert's Nursery in Thibodaux and another to Starke's in Houma.  I also brought the mama plant, as I always do when giving pups from this particular plant, which I believe is either an Agave parryi or an Agave potatorum, or a subspecies of either of those, or a hybrid between the two.  I took a photo of the parent plant that morning:

This plant is really solidly built, even for an agave.  It practically feels like it's made out of concrete, especially the center spear/rosette.  You can see the outlines of the teeth on adjacent leaves, from when they were pressed firmly together for months before opening.  As with all agaves, it will die after flowering, but that should be more than a decade away.  This thing is my baby, so I can't even bear to think about that.  Here are two articles about agaves by an expert in the subject:
Introduction to agaves
Selected large agave species

After visiting the nurseries, I got this 7 oz. little thing of booze called Alcatraz Sour Apple (by some company called Johnny Bootlegger) at a Shell station.  Then I got two little cacti at Lowe's.  They had this nice portable walk-in 8'x6' greenhouse set up, for $200, and I decided to get one in the fall for my exponentially-expanding collection of desert plants, rather than lugging them all inside or into the carport.  Then I haggled down the price on a big Serenoa repens (Saw Palmetto) at the Home Depot across the street (yes, Houma is growing rapidly) which I plan on returning to buy next week, then found a basketball court in Gray that was too covered in rain puddles to play on.  But I was psyched to find it, and will be playing there a lot.  Then I drove back up to Thibodaux and played some hoops on a very puddly court.  This guy ran up to me and asked if I wanted to play him, so I said yeah and he squeezed my hand so hard during the handshake that I thought he might've broken it.  He said he hadn't played basketball in a few years, but had boundless confidence.  We played 21, and I beat him 21-0, then he thanked me and went back to sit with his two female companions under a gazebo, so I shot around some more, then he comes running back and I thought he was going to stab me or something, but he told me that I had to let him redeem himself, so we played again and I won 21-4.  Then I shot around some more and went home, stopping along the way at Chackbay Nursery to right this big juniper that always tips over in the wind.  This nursery has been pretty much abandoned for a year or two, but they left a lot of big trees & plants there.  This being the "country," there's no front gate or anything, yet no one ever steals anything from the place.  Can you imagine any store doing that in New Orleans?  I made a note to bring some bricks down next time to put in the juniper's pot to prevent tippage.  On this trip I listened to The Cure's Wish twice, specifically to a spare copy of it that I got at the Record Raid on Saturday for 50 cents.  I heard a few people talking about Amy Winehouse's bucket-kickage the previous night, but no one exactly seemed surprised.  Some other good or potentially good stuff I got:
Christian Scott - Rewind That CD ($3)
Chet Baker - Career 1952-1988 2xCD compilation in a mini box ($3)
Pharoah Sanders - Love Will Find A Way LP ($4)
Sade - "Never As Good As The First Time" 7" (free)
Psychedelic Furs - All Of This And Nothing compilation CD ($1) (already had it on CD & cassette)
Mats Gustafsson & David Stackenäs - Blues CD ($0.50)
Dayna Kurtz - The Beautiful Yesterday Sessions EP CD ($0.50)
U2 - 18 Singles compilation CD ($3)
Terence Trent D'Arby - Symphony Or Damn CD ($1)
Crowded House - Crowded House CD ($1)
Lous Armstrong - Louis' Love Songs CD ($0.50)
M83 - Before The Dawn Heals Us CD ($3)

I passed on a copy of Faith No More's first album on vinyl for $15, and I kind of regret it.  I was vaguely planing on going to see Jolie Holland at Tipitina's that night (Saturday), but I decided her voice still annoys me like it did the last time I skipped her, ca. 2007, so I passed and drove back home, stopping first to buy a baby Dracaena draco at a Home Depot, even though I swore I would never get one.  Then I stopped at the WalMart in Boutte, which was the first time I'd gone to a WM since deciding to boycott them in '05.  The reason is that I wanted a new pair of the black Brahma boots I'd gotten there, and apparently no other store carries Brahmas.  The desire for a specific product can sometimes win out over idealism.  I was impressed by their gardening section.  I listened to the Christian Scott CD twice in my car that night; look for its first track to be posted on here sometime soon.

Planets with similar climates: Not sure yet; maybe some Autechre, Bark Psychosis or Seefeel