Another song from the Beads' stunning Transfixed EP, which was included in its entirety as bonus tracks on CD pressings of their album Black Aspirin. The mastering volume is quite low, so turn the volume and bass up.
Cover of my cassette bought on a whim in '07
As if you needed more proof that any band from any rainy country can, when needed, stop navelgazing and decide to rock way harder than those douches from Slayer, Converge, etc., this song provides it. I think this may actually be the most intense song I've ever heard. The speed is blinding, the precision is machinelike, the passion is unbridled. I love how the singer uses both "Did you fall or were you pushed?" and "Were you pushed or did you fall?" in the lyrics, in order to fit into two rhyming schemes. And probably also to show how some people tend towards having a victim's mentality ("I was pushed") while others have more of a self-blaming mentality ("I fell on my own"). I've been listening to Unwound's self-titled debut album a lot recently, and this is one of the few songs I can think of that can give the most savage ones on that album a run for their money. Another anthemic song on Transfixed is "Wolf On A Chain", but "Reckless Hope" (from Black Aspirin) could've been a genuine hit song:
Marla Fury tangling with The Baroness, from the allegedly influential comic Miss Fury
The best basketball that I've ever owned, a black Baden Explosion, died of a puncture wound last week, so I set out to find another one online, as no stores seem to sell them anymore.
I found this mind-blowing 5-star review on Amazon by user Brockeim:
Perfect for Shooting Free Throws in a Park with a Lovely Woman (June 21, 2010)
The Baden "Explosion" basketball didn't sit long after purchasing it. We bought it to use, and to labor we have put it. We brought it to a park just a ten minute walk away in early July.
Nancy and I shot for hours. I took ten shots; she took ten shots, neither of us gaining an advantage as we repeated this game throughout the late morning.
The Baden "Explosion" basketball bounced well as we tossed it between us. Perfectly balanced, it never went askew... always into her welcome hands as I made a pass.
Black, but almost navy blue, with orange lines, the ball rolled straight and true. With each revolution, the lines flickered like an old movie film. We stood mesmerized as we watched it settle in soft grass, ready to be shot again.
Whether the board deflected it, or points were scored, the game didn't matter. The shared smile, knowing we are shooting together, meant more than the tally.
A rain shower brushed by, but the composite leather basketball was unaffected. A few bounces, and a shot piercing the net was enough to shake off the dampness.
We have returned to that park a few times since, and will many times more. May your basketball bring you into the company with someone as beautiful as Nancy.
Though it has been used in commercials for everything from cars to athletic equipment to movies, the much-mocked/reviled genre known as dubstep officially jumped the shark today. The opening full-cast dnce number on So You Think You Can Dance today was performed to a dubstep remix of Marilyn Manson's much-reviled "The Beautiful People." And it was even worse than it sounds in theory. The genre's main practitioner, a chap named Skrillex, earns around $100,000 (or $250,000, depending on the source) per 1-hour "performance."
Sun. July 15: Dropped off a mix CD and a best-of Bleach mix CD-R for Sam. She wasn't there, and I found out this guy Mike (whom I had gotten into Sonic Youth years ago) had recently quit, possibly because the store was robbed at gunpoint a few weeks ago. Also gave them a live S.Y. bootleg CD-R (Cleveland, '85) and an amazing Faith No More one (Phoenix Fest in England, '93).
Chicken nuggets: Made from pink goo - "...the goop is then disinfected, re-flavored and bleached back to the whitish color we all associate with cooked chicken breast. According to McDonald’s, a four-piece serving of McNuggets contains 190 calories, 100 of which come from trans fat."
Planets with similar climates: Unwound - "Antifreeze" & "Rising Blood" (1992), Dub Sex - "Then And Now" (~1987), ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - "Prince With A Thousand Enemies" (1997) and "Blood Rites" & "Homage" (2001), Metallica - "Fight Fire With Fire" (1984), Band Of Susans - "Twist Of Fate" (1990), Hüsker Dü - "Deadly Skies" (1983), Polvo - "Crumbling Down" (1996), Nirvana - "Territorial Pissings" (1991).
I first read about Long Fin Killie in a spotlight article in Alternative Press in 1996 (the article used this exact photo), and later learned that I missed them at Lollapalooza '96. (It was at the field outside of UNO's Lakefront Arena, not at Tad Gormley Stadium as this poster incorrectly says. That poster also omits Rage Against The Machine, who played right before Soundgarden.) My friend Clark was not keen on going, so he went with me under the condition that we would only see Soundgarden, and then leave. We did leave, right before Metallica came on. I was such an indie rebel, brah. But too dumb to wander around and check out the side stage / second stage bands during the long amount of time we stood around waiting for Soundgarden (who kicked ass, by the way) to go on. Long Fin Killie were an unorthodox group, to say the least, so you must read about them in AllMusic Guide's excellent bio. The key phrase is "staggering levels of musicianly talent." I personally recommend their second album, Valentino, with its haunting ambient-pop title track, plus more intense standouts "Cupid" and "Cop". Mark E. Smith of The Fall did some grating guest vocals on "The Heads Of Dead Surfers" on their debut album, Houdini. All three of their albums were named after people who garnered the public's fascination before dying young, and all their artwork was intricate wood etchings. As for fame and dying young, the Killies got in a near-fatal wreck on tour, in N. Europe I believe, but never became even slightly well-known. I bet the head of Lollapalooza's accounting division resigned when he found out these passive-aggressive art terrorists were being bused around the U.S. on his dime with nary a Beavis & Butt-head or Buzz Bin appearance to their name.
The fact that this song didn't make it onto Valentino is pretty infuriating to me. The band's artsy, dense music is grounded by bouncy-yet-predatory basslines, and Luke Sutherland's vocals are usually mesmerizing, going from a whisper to a booming falsetto in half an instant. To call LFK's drummer one of the best and most innovative ever would be pointing out the obvious. The swaying, tropical-noir feel provided by the bassline has always intrigued me, and has made me return to this song again and again since I first downloaded this EP (Hands And Lips) on eMusic in '03. The "Dope, sex, protest, rock n' roll" chant at the end of the song has to be one of the most subtly hilarious / postmodern things in the history of music. When it comes down to it, most musicians' lyrical conceits can be summed up as either: a.) boasting about all the rad/illicit things they do, b.) whining about all the injustices in the world, or c.) reminding us how hard / capably / frequently they rock. Sutherland simply reduces all these things to a simple jingoistic slogan, repeated as nonchalantly as though it were a child's schoolyard song, thus squashing the previous several decades of popular music into a little ball of putty in his hand. This is a perfect example of why LFK were so far outside the mainstream, and equally far outside the alterna-stream. Not surprisingly, their fanbase today is small but very devoted.
From a broader standpoint, while recently thinking back about the fact that my opinion of this song is always in flux, I've realized that one of the coolest things about this song is that it seems to fit and adapt to my mood, or my mood can bend it (the song) in different ways. You can pay attention only to the pretty vocals and the snappy beat in the verses and it sounds like a breezy jangle-pop song. Or you can focus on the savage drums in the instrumental breaks and let the bass overwhelm you and it's a post-punk song. Someone with so-called classical training may follow the violin as the main instrument and hence view the song as a chamber-pop piece. To use more intangible terms, it can be either a blurry / pastel / 2-D kind of song, or an edgy / primary color / 3-D one. Sometimes this song just goes in one ear and out the other in a pleasant way, and sometimes I focus intently on it, obsessing over all the dozens of little details.
Fun Packaging Fact: The CD apparently came with a green plastic tray, as seen in this pic of a still-sealed copy:
I've amassed lots of different colored CD trays over the years, from gold (Primus' Brown Album), silver (Sonichrome's Breathe The Daylight), seafoam green (some CD by Pure), glittery gray (Eve's Plum's Envy), neon green (Alice In Chains' Alice In Chains), purple (Alice In Chains' Alice In Chains) (alt. color scheme), white, red, neon pink (Bagman's Wrap), yellow, orange (REM's Monster, bane of all clearance bins nationwide), taupe, etc. But I had never seen a green one until this one.
Sutherland gained underground fame (incl. comparisons to Morrissey) for his cryptic lyrics, and he was no pretender, later becoming a minor literary sensation upon the publication of his books Jelly Roll, Sweetmeat, and Venus As A Boy. The latter was later adapted for the stage, and its title rings a bell to me only as the title of one of Björk's best songs, but I'm sure it has some deeper meaning. A multi-instrumentalist virtuoso (violin, guitar, mandolin, bouzouki, saxophone, hammer dulcimer, thumb piano) in LFK, he also played some violin on Mogwai's downer LP Come On Die Young. Definitely a genius of some sort. Read an informative little article on him here – "So I started reading everything I could lay my hands on: fiction, history, mythology. You name it, I devoured it in an attempt to create a wider context for myself. And all the rigid constructs of race, nationality, sexuality just fell apart."
Press photo from mid or late '90s; Luke Sutherland is second from right
Since LFK broke up in the late '90s, Sutherland has helmed Bows and Music A.M., which are more trip-hop / downtempo / "glitch-pop" type projects. Fun German Fact: Music A.M. included bassist Stefan Schnieder of To Rococo Rot and Kreidler.
My cousin Shane is studying killifishes and cocahoe minnows in grad school at Mississippi State University right now, so this song goes out to him by default. The tropical killifishes kept by aquarists are often mind-blowingly gorgeous, so one can understand why Long Fin Killie chose its name. Here are some drawings I made ca. age 13, when I had recently gotten my first saltwater aquarium:
Blue Ring Angelfish (Pomacanthus annularis)
Some species of Rainbow Wrasse (Thalassoma spp.). No idea which one b/c their colors morph dramatically from juveniles to adults
I've long disowned these as somewhat pathetic, since they're just factual representations of these two species of fishes, and the white backgrounds always made them look incomplete. But I guess a tweenager can't be expected to do much more than simply try to be a Xerox machine, and there is a certain beauty in giving someone or some critter an accurate, detailed portrait. I now find the white background kind of cool, since lots of films / music videos have used it to create a disorienting feel. My grandmother Marcie made sure that I signed & dated them, though I didn't understand why at the time. I went on to have at least one saltwater aquarium, & sometimes up to three, between 1989-2010, excluding the year right after Katrina.
Sorry for the long, graphics-intensive post, but the study and care of fishes was my main obsession for about half my life, and I planned to become an ichthyologist or marine biologist. Even notched a 102 test average in ichthyology @ Loyola Univ. New Orleans, which trumped my ~96 test avg. in herpetology (reptile / amphibian biology). I took both of those courses in '98, and the field trips for each were extremely fun, especially the trip to the Ozarks in Arkansas for ichthyology and the trip to the swamps around the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi for herpetology. I still jaunt over to the latter site every few years to look around, but mainly for botanical lifeforms now. Since I never even finished my last year of college, all the studying was for naught, but I think any sort of intensive learning of data makes one's brain better at gathering & manipulating info. So in a weird way, my studying of scaly beasts made me better at remembering songs by obscure bands, and vice versa. As I told Shane 2 weeks ago, "All I did in college was study and go to concerts."
It's a steal! How Columbia House made money giving away music - "On top of that, the clubs generally weren’t buying their records from labels and then selling them. Instead, the clubs would acquire the master tapes of records and press their own copies on the cheap. Moreover, remember those 'bonus' or 'free' records you got for signing up for the clubs? The clubs generally didn’t pay any royalties at all on those, which further slashed their costs."
Planets with similar climates: Simple Minds - "Sons And Fascination" (1981), The Dears - "We Can Have It" (2002), Lowercase - "Willing To Follow You Down" (1998), Bark Psychosis - "A Street Scene" (1993), Plexi - "Change" (1996), Cocteau Twins - "My Love Paramour" (1983).
(Skysaw Records, ca. 1987/1988 / Cut Deep Records, 1989)
I got an excerpt of this song in the mid-'00s somewhere online, and quickly became pretty obsessed with it, then bought the actual 12" EP (self-titled) in 2008 on eBay. This band was a favorite of John Peel, recording a whopping four Peel sessions despite never releasing a full-length album. In fact, this song was performed on his show as early as January of '87, so it was surely written in '86 or earlier. If I remember correctly, one band member did some time in The Fall, which would explain Peel's affinity for Dub Sex, since he had an inexplicable allegiance to Mark E. Smith's abominable band.
This song later appeared on a compilation of the band's material called Splintered Faith, which I have on vinyl rip and CD rip; the LP version has 15 songs, and the CD version has 18. I'm intentionally uploading the crackly vinyl rip so that folks will be inspired to seek out and purchase the actual LP or CD. Both are long out of print, so you'll have to buy secondhand, hence the band won't actually see any profit from your endeavor, but at least you can say you have something by a band called Dub Sex, whose sound is not remotely dubby and is definitely the polar opposite of sexy. The singer's voice is one of the most unpleasant things I've ever come across, but I can't imagine anyone else singing "Then And Now" other than maybe Henry Rollins. I also couldn't imagine the EP without its arrestingly unforgettable cover pic, credited to a photographer named P. Hoare:
I have no idea if Unwound were ever fans of Dub Sex, but their early, manic stuff sure seems to be in a very similar boat. Early Swervedriver had some musical and geographical similarity to D.S.; coincidentally D.S. had a song called "Swerve," replete with a bare-bones, but professionally-shot, music video:
They had a slightly cooler video for "Time Of Life" in 1989, which shows bassist Cathy Brooks more clearly. She had some pretty sweet basslines in many of their songs, such as "Voice Of Reason," "Man On The Inside," "Every Secret (That I Ever Made)," "The Underneath", and "Caved In." So you could say she was the only one who contributed anything remotely resembling dub music to their sound. Some interesting YouTube comments from "The Underneath": "I saw Dub Sex supporting the Stone Roses in 1989 at the International just after the Roses had released their debut album...two great bands" and "what happened to these guys? they are at least as good as Fugazi." Your only chance to see the band members in living colour is probably this performance of "I Am Not Afraid" on Tony Wilson's TV show The Other Side Of Midnight. (Wilson ran the club The Haçienda and co-founded Factory Records.)
Last week, after I loaded about half a ton of these white landscaping bricks into my car in 95º heat; note the chest sweat:
Best live bands I saw in the first half of 2012:
!!!, School Of Seven Bells, Whom Do You Work For?, A Silver Mt. Zion, Kindest Lines, The Neville Brothers (Jazz Fest), The Flaming Lips, Grimes (w/ Born Gold as her backing band), Tatsuya Nakatani + Helen Gillet + Rob Cambre, Tineke Postma (two shows in one night), Foo Fighters (Jazz Fest).
Good but nothing to write home about:
Alcest, EXITMUSIC, Shabazz Palaces, Magnetic Ear (French Quarter Fest), Dayna Kurtz, Sasha Masakowski (French Quarter Fest).
Ones I should've seen:
White Hills, The Weeknd (show sold out literally as I was about to buy tix online), Chairlift, Twin Sister, Har Mar Superstar (missed him twice so far this year; have still never seen him), No Joy, The darkness, Thurston Moore, Nautical Almanac, etc.
Speaking of the lyric "I used to live in this town before things started spiraling down," check out this YouTube video and/or this one. Disclaimer: I'm a full-spectrum atheist, meaning I don't believe in any god(s) and am against all religions. I have the least problem with "Far East" religions, since they're mainly centered on introspection and personal discovery. I think any reasoned survey of the facts will show that Mormonism, Islam, and Scientology are cults, not just religions. I like lots of aspects Arabic / N. African culture, and in fact I have over baby 100 date palms outside my window, have owned a Mali uromastyx lizard for 15 years, just noticed a CD called Moroccan Spirit on my desk, get chicken shawarma at a Metairie restaurant called Byblos on the regular, have The Kite Runner on DVD on my rack about 6 feet to my right, bought a copy of the Qur'an last year at a thrift store on a whim, etc. And this is all despite having some Jewish blood on my mom's side. I know that might come off as a "Some of my best friends are [black / Jewish / etc.]" type of rationale. My point is just that I have no problem with Arabic people or culture, I just don't care for Islam, e.g. the fact that kids in the region are forced to join it from a very early age, that drawing Muhammed is punishable by death, that Jews are a mortal enemy, and other inhumane aspects. From a broader perspective, I've long said that white people are the illegal immigrants in this country and that Native Americans and Mexicans have much more right to this land than we white people do. I just don't know if this country can survive another wave of militant immigration, since the white influx of 1492 tore it apart pretty quickly.
Planets with similar climates: Venus Beads - "One Way Mirror" (1990), Unwound - "Lucky Acid" (1993), Prosaics - "Teeth" (2004), Hüsker Dü - "Lifeline" (1983), Live Skull - "Fort Belvedere" (1986), Quicksand - "Lie And Wait" (1992), Helmet - "Murder" (1990).
Since a teenage user on a music rating site that I use recently made a rant against Faith No More's supposed "rap-metal" stylings, repeatedly expressed misogynist beliefs, and said that I partake in "feminist bullshit," I figured I'd post a song with a female singer rapping over a shoegaze background, if only to see if his head would explode at encountering all these things he hates rolled into one pie. I mean, one can insult me all one wants, but when Faith No More is brought into it, a line has been crossed and things shift to a different level. This person apparently has no idea that FNM's original lead singer was black, and hence the Rock Police would thereby have granted him leeway to do some rap-style singing. (Chuck recently put out a solo album cheekily titled Will Rap Over Hard Rock For Food.) His favorite bands are Neutral Milk Hotel and Bright Eyes... No, really. So one song immediately popped into my mind, since I already posted the other one ("Burn", also by Bleach). The feral intensity of the guitars in this song will never cease to impress me. The tremoloed guitar at the beginning adds a bit of surfy twang, but that is quickly massacred by a tsunami of drums and what I call "Godzilla roar" guitars. I always looked at this as sort of a novelty track until about 5 years ago, when I realized how addictive and well-contructed it was.
This song apparently caused a minor stir in the U.K. indie scene when it was released as a single (on CD, 7", and 12") in 1991. It was then wisely included on Bleach's sole album, Killing Time, in '92. That's one of my top ten fav. LPs ever, but I'm sure I've mentioned that before. If you don't know which version of "Shotgun" you're listening to, the single (indie) version is 3:51 long and the album (major-label) version is 3:42. The versions sound identical, except that the album version has four drum taps at the beginning. And on the single version, Salli ends the second stanza with "Spin me around," whereas on the album version she uses "Fucking around."
Salli's sharp-edged vocals in this song can be discussed forever, both pro and con. Being someone who listened exclusively to rap / hip hop in that particular year (1991), I can say that she knew exactly what she was doing, and did it with zero hesitation or "Ha ha, check this out" sarcasm. (If you want the latter, check out Sonic Youth's "Master-Dik.") Her vocal starting at 1:55 is very badass, playing off the beat in a nimble way that noted clumsy rapper Kanye West should take notes from. What I mean by that is that she slows down for a line, then speeds up and uses the bass drum hits to provide emphasis/punch underneath certain words near the end of phrases. You can even hear her waiting a split second to say the second syllable of the word "homespun" right on the kick drum (bass drum). It takes skilled breath control to be able to do this stuff; for someone who was known for her somewhat reedy / fey voice, she stepped up and really delivered the goods here. I've spent years trying to figure out what she says at this 1:55 section; I know it contains "You do and say what you think I'm not supposed to" and "I don't say what I'm allowed to."
The single's cover art features a silver-painted foot with a blue string tied around it. The string could either be for an i.d. tag in a morgue, or a way for a person to commit suicide by tugging on it whilst its other end is on the trigger of a gun. Parasol Records was clearancing this 7" for 50 cents for several years, and I always swore I'd get around to ordering a bunch, but recently was miffed to discover they no longer have it. The b-side is the extremely poppy and passionate "Bone," which should have also been released as a single. I would recommend buying the CD or 12" version instead of the 7", since in addition to "Bone," those formats add the stunning 10-minute "First & Last." An absolutely essential and groundbreaking EP, which I give 5 stars without any reservations.
A few days ago I discovered that Bleach made a video for "Decadence" in 1990. This made my week. The last third or so of the video has lots of psychedelically-tinted sea creatures:
This means that they had at least three videos, the others being the exuberant "Dipping" (1991) and the stylishly vertiginous "Surround" (1992). Does anyone know if there was a video for "Shotgun"? I also just found an ferociously spirited and bloodthirsty Peel session from July '91, which is neither for those who are faint of heart nor for those with flimsy computer speakers. Fun Fact: This was the same approximate month that I bought Above The Law's Livin' Like Hustlers, an album that brilliantly combined rap with jazz & rock instrumentation. I wouldn't even find out about Bleach until about a decade later. Also in '91, Public Enemy and Anthrax were touring together after having done that (awful) "Bring The Noise" collabo with each other.
Here is a pic from the May 4, 1991 issue of Melody Maker, with Curve on the cover. As far as I know, this image (photographer credit: Patrick Gilbert) has never been posted online before:
In 1993, a live version of "Shotgun" appeared on Bleach's Trip & Slide & Live promo CD EP, which I've been trying to get my hands on for years. That EP's artwork also starred the dead silver foot, this time on a bed of red grapes. In 2006, the song was included on an impressive and much-needed compilation called Like A Daydream: A Shoegazing Guide:
Tracks 3, 4, 5, 6, 12, 13 & 15 are among the best songs ever recorded, and most of the others are quite nice
It's been a record-setting week of heat across the U.S., with Denver over 100º for 5 straight days and the area near Colorado Springs ablaze. It's said to be Colorado's worst disaster ever. Tropical Storm Debby thankfully went to Florida instead of here last week. No rain here for about 2 weeks now, with temps in mid to upper 90s.
Sat. 6/23: Went to two Louisiana Nursery locations in Baton Rouge, both for the first time. Was very impressed with their plants.
Wed. 6/27: Got a picturesque & hardy species of prickly pear cactus called Opuntia santa-rita at Home Depot to replace a flimsier Opuntia that I already have.
Thur. 6/28: Saw the Flaming Lips set the Guinness world record at HOB. Grimes dropped off the bill with no notification or explanation. She was replaced by the somewhat (intentionally or unintentionally?) hilarious MNDR, sort of a combination of Madonna, Har Mar Superstar, and Grimes. She was decked out in slutty black and white mid-'80s Madge garb, letting her love handles jiggle provocatively, and ordered a guy and girl from the crowd to come up on stage to dance during one song. MNDR played only about 15 minutes. Then Wayne Coyne was paraded up Decatur Street to the front of the HOB, with local boys the Stooges Brass Band leading the way. The Lips kicked off with their two biggest hits, "Do You Realize??" and "She Don't Use Jelly." I was kind of jaded towards their stage prop tricks, having not seen the Lips since 1994, but I have to admit it was pretty transcendent. I raised my can of Guinness Draught at the moment the Guinness record breakage was announced. They played for about 70 minutes, despite averaging only 15 minutes at the previous seven stops. Thanks for the free tix, Butch! And thank you Ashley for making it through your terrible day (moving problems + flat tire) and coming out with us. It was too hot and humid to walk around the Quarter, so afterwards we got some grub at Lucy's (Lucy's Retired Surfer Bar & Restaurant) afterwards, and my sister taught me what a well drink is. I had my eyes glued to the NBA Draft. In addition to the somewhat overrated Anthony Davis, we got human highlight reel Austin Rivers, as I'd been hoping. I've also heard a rumor that Chris Paul wants to come back to the Hornets...
Fri. 6/29: My sister has been mad @ Grimes for canceling, so I texted her a self-deprecating Grimes tweet ("I'm not trying 2 be cute, I have a fucking speech impediment.") Went to dad's surprise 60th birthday party at Pelican Club. Tom, Ann, Kathleen, Shane, Ali, Roxanne, Preston, Sprague & wife, Jay & wife, and Jack & wife all came. It was also Vanessa's bday so she was included too. Emily cleverly wrote "You're sixty and you know it!" on dad's card, and dad actually crooned a bit of said LMFAO song. Do not ask me how he knew about it...
Sat. 6/30: Went to Dat Dog's new location for the first time. We had to sit outside in delightful 95º heat. I got the Guinness (beer) Dog again, but found it overbearingly greasy, so I probably would not get it again. Got aunt Ann a little Stevia plant at Freret Street Nursery directly across the street. We did not make it to the NOMA sculpture garden as I had hoped. Shane ripped lots of my CDs (e.g. Ween [R.I.P.], The Church, Acetone, Gil Scott-Heron, Faith No More, Miles Davis) to his Mac on my recommendation, after quickly selecting Herbie Hancock's Headhunters on his own. Roxanne decided that she and Shane should get a Uromastyx after she held mine and fed her by hand. Went to get snowballs at Sal's with dad, Preston & Roxanne. Used Sears gift card (received as collateral during garage door repair last summer) towards a little Sony HDR-CX190 Handycam, mainly to record bands in concert. Overall, one of the most eventful & strange 48-hour spans I've had in many years.
Here is a painting I finished on Super Bowl Sunday 2012, whose silver and blue reminds me of the Shotgun cover art. Yes, the palms are supposed to be leaning towards an implied ocean on their right, since the sand is always shifting / sinking a bit on the ocean side as compared to the dry land side. And I guess it goes without saying that these are supposed to be coconut palms. It's the first palm painting I've done on a circular or oval canvas (bought at Hobby Lobby, I think), and I will definitely be using them again:
That's the painting's info card; I try to remember to make one for every artwork I do, just in case I become famous in a few decades. I posed it on the pot of my 'Blue Elf' aloe for no reason. Some interesting tidbits are often buried in these cards, such as the fact that those are not black stripes. The dates also remind me that that silver-coated oval canvas sat on my coffee table for almost a year while I thought about what to do with it. Note that I only sign the backs of my paintings, never ever ever the fronts, since I grew up admiring album cover art, which essentially never have anyone's name scrawled on them.
Deciding whether I will go see a mediocre band with potential tonight called Widowspeak at Circle Bar, if only because I haven't been there in almost two years. I don't know if they have A/C post-renovation; they never did before. Widowspeak sound just like Mazzy Star's first two albums, down to the most minute detail, for better or for worse. The problem is that they remind me of a more lightweight version of the band EXITMUSIC, and don't yet have Mazzy Star's knack for penning at least a couple memorable tunes per album.
10-year-long video game creates 'hellish nightmare' world - "He doesn't play every day but returns to what he called a 'hellish nightmare of suffering and devastation' when he has some free time. Now in the year 3991, his world is down to three super-nations, each competing for dwindling resources, and a planet left scarred by multiple nuclear wars. His Celts are locked in a 1,700-year war with the Vikings and the Americans. All other nations have been destroyed or absorbed. Because of the continual fighting, he was forced to abandon his democracy and adopt a communist state, because his Senate kept overruling him when he wanted to declare war. Also, his cities are filled with starving people (90% of his world's population died from nuclear annihilation or famine from global warming) because, he says, he has to keep building war machines to sustain his combat efforts."
Planets with similar climates: A.C. Temple - "Chinese Burn" (1988), Lush - "Blackout" (1994), Poem Rocket - "Small White Animal" (1995), Bailter Space - "Pass It Up" (1997), Swervedriver - "Son Of Mustang Ford" (1990), Faith No More - "From Out Of Nowhere" (1989), Feverdream - "Vortex" (1995), You Am I - "Embarrassed" (1993).
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
