Tagging Satellites >> Things that were stolen from me were never meant to be mine

Tagging Satellites - "Sun Damage"

(Mag Wheel Records / Recovery Records, 2000)

I bought this CD on eBay last June for next to nothing, after being impressed by the 90-sec. sound samples on iTunes.  I then listened to it over and over on a nighttime drive to Baton Rouge (to see a band called This Will Destroy You) the same day it arrived in my mailbox.  Singer Zera Marvel uses her "goth voice" on this song, though she generally uses a higher, prettier timbre on the other songs.  So this song is not really representative of their overall sound.  The Sonic Youth-y guitar squalls and cavernous "pendulum-style" bassline are like crack to my ears.  "I don't care if you don't wanna go, you're coming to the sun with me" is a pretty interesting / sexy threat.

This song was written entirely by Z.M.  Influential Seattle music mag The Stranger said "Like that dark-haired poet you had a crush on in high school, there's something mysterious and slightly dangerous about Tagging Satellites. The band's second album, Abstract Confessions, is almost a flashback to the moody, art school-influenced underground of pre-breakthrough Jane's Addiction L.A. – wonderfully detached, on-the-verge-of-a-breakdown female vocals paired with music that finds the middle ground between ethereal and the razor's edge."  Uh, what?  Jane's Addiction?  Huge reviewing fail there, unless he/she meant Psi Com.

Results of a poll done by The Stranger's online blog in April 2009

The Abstract Confessions CD comes with a bonus music video for the bleak, Codeine-esque "Time On My Halo," but unfortunately it's in RealPlayer format, so I can't upload it to YouTube to share it here.  So here's a clip of Marvel and her husband / bandmate / producer Graig Markel snorkeling:

Pic stolen from an eBay seller; this might be the exact CD I ended up buying.

Remember what I said a few posts ago about how most of my favorite bands end up ditching their shoegaze / noise / post-punk beginnings in favor of more low-key, parent-friendly music?  Well, Marvel put out an Americana-y solo album in 2009, completely forgoing any sort of experimentation or dark undertones.  Oh well.  You can hear the natural twang in her voice even in "Sun Damage," and she lived in South Carolina right before moving to Seattle to co-found Tagging Satellites in 1997, so she does have Southern credentials, and hence I'm not saying her current sound is a put-on, but still.

Last Wednesday at Delgado I saw a truly awesome experimental video projection as part of the Prospect.2 art biennial called Below Sea Level by Paweł Wojtasik.  Make sure to watch it in 720p:

I took that video when I went back to see it again on Friday.  Sorry for the constant panning, but that was the only way I could show everything that was going on on the approx. 350º circular screen.  The dude spent three years making it, so you can spend 15 minutes watching this excerpt of it.  It was deeply moving for me to see my nook in the world portrayed in such a hallucinatory, abstract way, and I'm sure this guy has a bright future ahead of him.  The ambient score is by someone named Stephen Vitiello.

On Friday I watched the 2-hour Chuck series finale, even though I'd never watched the show very much.  I laughed out loud at the scene where the bomb is set to go off as soon as the orchestra stops playing, and as soon as the last notes are dying out and you're bracing yourself for impact, this weird guy Jeffster busts onto the stage doing a keytar rendition of aHa's "Take On Me".   I have to say I wish I had watched this show more.  Today I sprayed some weeds and then played basketball for almost 4 hours at Lutcher Playground w/ Bruce, Chris, Meatball, and about 6 other dudes.  Today everyone called me "Larry" not as a Larry Bird reference, but rather because I was wearing a Larry Johnson Hornets jersey.  Then I watched Alcatraz, but I'm sure Fox will pull the plug on it as soon as the ratings dip by even one viewer, as Fox is notorious for doing.  So I suggest watching this show now if you have any desire to.

Well, this post pretty much had it all in terms of high-octane entertainment value.

Planets with similar climates: Bleach - "Can" (1992), Sonic Youth - "Ghost Bitch" (1984), Esben And The Witch - "Marching Song" (2010), Slint - "Good Morning, Captain" (1991), Warpaint - "Beetles" (2008).