California Month continued, tremor #26:
The Aqua Velvets - "Nomad"
(Milan Records, 1996 / Riptide Records, 2006)
Not much to say here... Just a dope, chilled-out surf instrumental. This kind of thing is actually quite hard to make, since most surf shredders play way too many notes and hence fail to nail that blissful, electrolyte-depleted sundown feeling that you have after a good day at the beach.
I don't really know anything about this band and haven't made any effort to fix that. I bought this CD in summer of '09 at a Baton Rouge thrift store on a whim for one or two bucks; the main coup of that day was buying Suzanne Vega's fantastic self-titled debut CD for about five bucks. This Aqua Velvets CD, Nomad, came out in 1996 on Milan Records and was reissued ten years later on Riptide Records, which is the band's own label. (Riptide released their debut album in '92.) The mp3 I'm giving is from the original '96 CD; I'm not sure if the '06 version was remastered or not.
Their next album is pretty good and has one of the best covers ever:
Today this Spanish bullfighter got gored in the head and had one side of his face ripped apart from the inside. I watched a clip of it in slow motion and felt quite nauseous afterwards. Of course I'm happy whenever a bull gores a matador, but this took it to another level, so I'm not going to link to it. Other stuff I did today: Listened to some Toro Y Moi on iTunes to decide if I want to see them on Monday or not. The answer is probably "or not," despite the greatness of their song "Still Sound." Watched #1 LSU crush Florida. Watched this movie Catfish, which turned out to be a documentary, not a psychological thriller / mockumentary as I had anticipated. Ate a banana. Checked on Kreayshawn's tumblr, a guilty pleasure for the last month or two. Listened to some of Insides' album Euphoria in the car. Played basketball for two hours at my favorite court, the one at Lutcher Playground. I was the only non-black person there out of about 100 people, as it was some sort of family reunion / block party, with a DJ playing smooth jams under the pavillion. (I think he was just playing a mix CD and announcing each song in between over a PA system, but I didn't mind because the music was good.) Most of the basketball players were teenagers, and none were in my league skill-wise, so it got a little tedious, especially since some of them would randomly start texting or walk away to get barbecue or whatever. Probably 15 different guys cycled in and out of the game overall. A cop car pulled up and told them to turn the music down at one point, which was not surprising, since the police station is about 50 feet away. When the sun set, I decided I was too sweaty and tired to stop at Winn-Dixie to get groceries. Listened to some of Savage Republic's self-titled CD in the car on the way back. Did laundry. Wrote this. Still in shock over the Phillies being shut out last night at home in an elimination game. Ryan Howard injuring his ankle on the game's final play was fitting, but I still wore my Howard jersey today. He batted about .100 in the series.
Today I also skimmed through the "Index of First Lines" appendix at the back of The Contemporary American Poets: American Poetry Since 1940. (Signet Classics edition, 2000.) Tell me you don't want to read every one of these after reading their first line:
One that is not shown in the pic since it's at the bottom of the left page is "I walk the purple carpet into your eye." This is from Diane Wakoski's Inside Out. Fun Fact: The line "inside the blood factory" was used as the title of a 1968 compendium of her poetry, well, actually closer to prose, that I bought last year.
Notice in the following list that I'm not just throwing out tracks by well-known '60s surf bands, e.g. Ventures, Shadows, etc., like most people would do. So it's a good example of how I like to dig a little deeper into the soul / essence of a song when finding its kindred spirits, and that usually means going outside of its accepted genre. None of them are surf bands, and none are even from the West Coast, but the tracks all have haunting, bluesy guitar melodies that have been stuck in my head for many years.
I think my favorite "similar planet" recommendation so far has been Concrete Blonde's "Dance Along The Edge" in the post about The Sound's "Burning Part Of Me."
Today I also skimmed through the "Index of First Lines" appendix at the back of The Contemporary American Poets: American Poetry Since 1940. (Signet Classics edition, 2000.) Tell me you don't want to read every one of these after reading their first line:
One that is not shown in the pic since it's at the bottom of the left page is "I walk the purple carpet into your eye." This is from Diane Wakoski's Inside Out. Fun Fact: The line "inside the blood factory" was used as the title of a 1968 compendium of her poetry, well, actually closer to prose, that I bought last year.
Notice in the following list that I'm not just throwing out tracks by well-known '60s surf bands, e.g. Ventures, Shadows, etc., like most people would do. So it's a good example of how I like to dig a little deeper into the soul / essence of a song when finding its kindred spirits, and that usually means going outside of its accepted genre. None of them are surf bands, and none are even from the West Coast, but the tracks all have haunting, bluesy guitar melodies that have been stuck in my head for many years.
I think my favorite "similar planet" recommendation so far has been Concrete Blonde's "Dance Along The Edge" in the post about The Sound's "Burning Part Of Me."
Planets with similar climates: Yo La Tengo - "Return To Hot Chicken" (1997), Eric Clapton - "New Recruit" (1992), Polvo - "Snake Fist Fighter" (1990), Scenic - "Ionia" (1996), Tortoise - "I Set My Face To The Hillside" (1997), Felt - "Fortune" (1984).
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