Billy Reid >> As long as you commit, it will always work

Billy Reid - "White Chicks And Gang Signs"

(self-released, 2006)

You may remember this song when its video was briefly a viral sensation several years ago.  I was so obsessed with it that I told or emailed everyone I could about it.  As with all great works of art, every word of it is still relevant today, or at least can be used by future sociologists / historians to determine the zeitgeist of a certain era.

"What she said"

I don't know if it did anything to curb the overusage of gang hand signage among white females in North America.  If anything, it may have glorified it and caused it to even spread overseas.  I'm not totally against the usage of gang signs, and I've been known to throw up a Wesside (Westside), but only in emergencies.  Check out Reid's website Very Tasteful to see the wide array of stuff he does with comedic panache.  This song was compiled on a digital album called Very Tasteful: Volume One (available on Amazon and iTunes) in 2009.

I did not vote for Obama in '08 because I didn't think he had enough experience.  So I cast a protest vote against the Republicans by voting for Ralph Nader that year, as I had in '00.  I'm glad Obama was able to overcome the overtly racist attacks on him over the last 4 years, starting literally on day 1 of his first term, with Mitch McConnell's infamous "We will block literally everything he tries to do over the next four years" pledge.  The incredibly creepy, devious, and out-of-touch Mitt Romney never really had a chance in this race, and he literally invented Obamacare in Massachussetts, so there's that.  The Republicans' voter suppression tactics backfired.  Using the Benghazi scandal backfired.  The concept of having a Republican president, Republican House, Republican Senate, and ultra-conservative Supreme Court (bye bye, Roe v. Wade) was enough to get lots of people out to the polls who normally wouldn't have.  Republicans are doing very well in the House, but have now lost 5 of the last 6 popular votes in U.S. Presidential elections.  (Remember, Al Gore won the popular vote by half a million votes in 2000.)  This coincides with Rush Limbaugh's rise to power as the undisputed voice of conservative America in the early '90s.  Coincidence?  Rush's salary of $50 million a year does not seem to be providing his employers with much in the way of hard results, and he in fact seems to be simply helping the opposition get elected, time and time again.  Just my observations as a politics junkie and believer / hoper in the future existence of a third party in America.  This will not happen in my lifetime, of course.  I voted for Obama this time, mainly as a fuck-you to the current crop of rabid, secessionary, antebellum Republicans, even though I don't really agree with Obamacare and some other things, such as the fact that he didn't close Guantanamo Prison as he had promised back in '07/08.  Presidential votes don't even matter in my state anyway, since it always votes red; only "swing states" matter, and Obama won 8 of the 9 that were designated as such this year.  The other 41 states were pretty much ignored altogether.

Related: Ted Nugent is right, you guys, we do have a problem with makers and takers:

You can see this is based on 2004-5 data, before California and Florida tanked due to the housing crisis.  But it was also before Katrina, so I bet my state is now #1 in the righthand column of this list.

Twitter racists react to 'that nigger' getting reelected

Some concert recaps:

Fri. Nov. 9: Future Islands + Talk Normal + Kindest Lines at the Spanish Moon in Baton Rouge.

I got a lot of strange looks due to my James Chance & The Contortions shirt that says WHITE CANNIBAL.  NOLA band KL opened unannounced, and impressed the crowd with about half an hour of synthy post-punk.  They opened with their single "Destructive Paths To Live Happily," as they usually seem to do.  Talked with their very loquacious guitarist Jack a lot the rest of the night about shared favorite bands (Chameleons, Comsat Angels) and about the drama (suicide, onstage fights, label bankruptcy) surrounding his previous band, The Public.  He insisted I take a free copy of the "Destructive Paths" 7" and I declined, telling him I already had it.  I offered him a few dollars for it but he refused, so I graciously took it.  Talk Normal were the reason I went to this show and they were badass.  A female duo: one on drums and lead vocals, another on guitar/bass and occasional lead vocals.  They had an abrasive but oddly melodic sound, not unlike Live Skull or Sonic Youth's more acidic songs.  The drummer is very entertaining and the guitarist is very icy and badass in her own way.  Most of the crowd was pushed to the rear corners (and upstairs balcony) of the club by the band's onslaught, but they cheered heartily after every song.  The lack of bodies up front allowed me to get this photo; check out the drummer's neck:

In addition to all these pedals, guitarist Sarah Register also had a large looping pedal unit of some sort off to the left; she used it a lot towards the end.  l freaking love this pic.

Bought this from them at the merch table afterwards: Sugarland CD, Secret Cog CD-R EP, "Lone General" 7". (Note: My 7" is pressed defectively and is essentially unplayable, even though it looks totally fine.  So be forewarned if buying it.)  If I had known it was a CD-R instead of a CD, I would've bought Secret Cog on 12" for the same price ($7).

Future Islands are a strange synth-rock band on, surprisingly, Thrill Jockey Records.  Those of us who grew up on Thrill Jockey's esoteric post-rock in the '90s will find the label barely recognizable nowadays, but anyway, the band's frontman is one of the most charismatic you will ever see.  The only way I can describe him is a cross between Jack Black, Morrissey, Peter Steele (of Type O Negative), and Har Mar Superstar.  He does some really cool, Ronnie James Dio-esque stage antics, and announced to the crowd that he had just eaten two cheeseburgers.  They played some new, unnamed songs.  At the merch table afterwards, Talk Normal's email signup list had only 2 names on it (one of them mine of course), while Future Islands' list had about 20.  I recommended Hovercraft and Lozen to Talk Normal, and they wrote it in their smartphone to check out later.  I actually typed in three specific Hovercraft songs for them; even though Hovercraft were much more spacey and atmospheric, their guitarist did some noise wrangling that Talk Normal sometimes does.  It turns out TN's guitarist is a sound engineer with a very impressive list of projects, such as most of Broken Water's releases.  (She told me they actually played with Broken Water.)

I got home and found out I actually did NOT own the "Destructive Paths" 7", so I was glad Jack made me take it.  A good ending to a very interesting night...

Sat. Nov. 10: Finally saw The Right Stuff and was pretty impressed.  I have to say Chuck Yeager is the world's ultimate badass.

Sun. Nov. 11: He Can Jog at McKeown's Books And Difficult Music.

He Can Jog is a guy from Milwaukee who makes glitchy, ambient electronic music via circuit-bending and real-time use of some sort of software that he apparently writes himself.  His bandmate used a melodica and some sort of keyboard.  The crowd was about 15 people, but they seemed to be really digging it.  Reminded me a lot of Oval.  HCG played here in 2008 as a trio but I didn't go.  Bought a Kennech Koch book called Thank You and Other Poems (1963) and a compendium of works by "punk poet" Steven Jesse Bernstein called More Noise, Please! (1996).  Talked with one of the store's owners about Terry Riley's A Rainbow In Curved Air (after I overheard him comparing He Can Jog's music to that album), Steve Reich, and other stuff.  It was a free show, as all of these "An Evening Of Difficult Music" events are.  I dropped $3 in the musician's tip jar but stupidly didn't take a HCJ postcard which contains a download code for one of their recent albums.  Oh well.

Stopped by the Mushroom on my way home and talked to McCall (had incorrectly thought her name was Nicole) for a while.  She said she checked out the Polvo album I had told her about and liked it, but it was not really her thing.  She told me she has not been to many concerts lately, but did get to see Frank Ocean.  Filled out a survey she was doing for a business class.  Didn't buy anything; saw a great Faith No More shirt that I may return to get on Saturday, when I go to the fall Record Raid at Tulane.

Mon. Nov. 12: The Twilight Sad + Errors at the Spanish Moon in B.R.

Listened to a New Fast Automatic Daffodils CD on the drive over.  Stopped at Barnes & Noble, since they have an "arthouse" film sale every November; got Badlands for $6.  It was an incredibly cold*, grim night, and the crowd was very small.  (*About 45º, unheard-of here at this time of year.)  I guess the weather was apropos, considering that these two bands are from not-so-tropical Scotland.  Errors do a synth-enhanced post-rock / krautrock thing.  Some of their songs have vocals (in sort of an androgynous dream-pop style), but the main thing for this band is really dense rhythms.  The drummer is freaking amazing, like Jaki from CAN reincarnated.  They could sell out and do some dumb party-friendly shit like Yeasayer or Passion Pit, or go more highbrow like Tortoise and please the indie geeks, but they seem to be stuck in an uncomfortable place in between.  Their second-to-last song was a cover of Tristeza's "Halo Heads," or so I thought, but turned out not to be.  The chiming guitar part is 100% identical.  I almost asked them about this afterwards, but thought better of it.  Afterwards, I got a Guinness on draught upstairs and then went downstairs.  This redhead bumped into me, literally, and told me "You guys were great!"  "No, I'm not int he band."  "Oh, you have a ski hat on, so I thought you were the singer."  (Mine = green, his = white and tan, with ear flaps. And I look nothing like him.)  Then she leaned her rather prominent bosom onto me and asked me where I was from, then said she was from Mississippi.  I was kind of weirded out by how direct her come-ons were, since I never get this kind of thing directed at me, and I even wondered if she was trying to pick me to win a bet.  Wondered if she had stalked me here from this site, RYM, or last.fm.  My mind is wired in such a way that I was more offended by her intellectual dishonesty than I was happy to have a drunk, giddy woman leaning on me.  Perhaps this is why I never get laid.  (More on this story below.)

I went back upstairs because Errors were so loud that my hearing was probably permanently damaged.  And I just had to stand up close, as I generally do to make bands feel appreciated when there is low turnout.  Dumb.  Right before The Twilight Sad took the stage, I heard "Jeopardy" by The Sound, one of my all-time favorite bands, on the club's p.a. system, which really got me fired up.  TTS did their depressive, angsty Chameleons / Whipping Boy / Interpol gloom-rock for about an hour, with no encore.  The crowd was small but extremely appreciative.  The singer was quite charismatic, not unlike Future Islands' singer; they both did these punching movements in the air, stared up dramatically at the ceiling, roamed like caged animals across the tiny stage, etc.  I liked the last song a lot, called "Rabbit" on the setlist.  This word is not in any of their songs, so I dunno what it was.  Maybe a cover of a song by their friends / countrymen / onetime tourmates Frightened Rabbit?  Talked to guy about A Place To Bury Strangers after noticing his APTBS hoodie.

Now as for the girl whom I had sort of shot down, I felt bad about it, and came downstairs for TTS' final two songs.  (The band's singer had given her a shout out for driving 3 hours.)  We smiled at each other and then I noticed she had buddied up with another guy, so I was happy for her, and kind of relieved.  While driving home, it suddenly dawned on me that she had been trying to find a Baton Rouge dude or dudette (the crowd was 90% male) at whose house she could crash for the night rather than buying a hotel/motel room.  I started cracking up after realizing this.  She saw one of her favorite bands and got her free place to stay, and her boyfriend-for-the-night was none the wiser, so I had to tip my ski hat to her ingenuity.  After buying a TTS album on double vinyl and thanking their guitarist for selecting that song by The Sound, I got a blueberry yogurt at a gas station and embarked on the hour-long drive home.

I have photos and show flyers from all of these, but I'm just gonna post the one Talk Normal pic, since I think people probably get annoyed by posts that have too many images / videos.  The October / November concert flurry is over, and there are basically no good shows coming up.  Time to get caught up on yardwork, reading, situps, and movie watching.  

To finish up what I was talking about in the previous post, I thought of another major category of concert conundrum: Who to see and who to skip at big festivals.  Do you stick around for the entire set by a performer that you like, or wander around and catch a few songs by something outside of your normal comfort zone?  A year or two ago at Jazz Fest, I made sure to hoof it over to catch the very end of Shawn Colvin's set, since I had recently gotten into her early single "Diamond In The Rough".  And sure enough, she played it as her last song, to an almost nonexistent crowd.  That was pretty cool.  Also caught the end of Fats Domino's performance at Jazz Fest '97, since I figured (correctly, it turned out) that it might be my only chance to ever see him.  All this thinking about concerts has been stimulated by my joining of last.fm, since I've been adding lots of listings for shows I've gone to over the years.  The excitement of reliving the ones I've been to slightly outweighs the disappointment of missing certain other shows.  Last.fm is very addictive if you're a serious music fan, so you might want to think twice before joining, since 4 or 5 hours can disappear in about half a nanosecond.  The upside is that you are contributing to a database of music that may aid some other rabid music fan in the future whom you will never meet.  

Planets with similar climates: I have no idea; probably some Das Racist, MC Paul Barman, Lonely Island, etc.

Memoryhouse >> I'm not breathing without machines

Memoryhouse - "Lately (Deuxième)" (a.k.a. just "Lately")

(Beko DSL, 2009 [digital single] [France] / Arcade Sound Ltd., 2009 [digital-only EP] [Canada] / Inflated Records, 2010 [ltd. 7"], Sub Pop Records, 2011 [re-recorded CD-EP])

Memoryhouse barged into the crowded field of female-fronted dream-pop bands like a 4WD Ford F-550 dualie with Truck Nutz plowing into a herd of quail or endangered salamanders on an organic commune.  By using a low speaking voice instead of a shout at a loud party, it's often easier for one's voice to be heard, and Memoryhouse got noticed by doing essentially the same thing.  They're an example of the occasional good band that is propelled to star status by the indie music blogs and review sites, whilst getting basically zero notice from actual music magazines.  Chalk one up for new media over old media.  I really think this is one of the most important bands out there today, but unfortunately they often get dismissed as the poor man's Beach House, which is laughable.  Yes, both bands are on Sub Pop, both are boy-girl duos making depressive, dreamy music, and both have names ending in "House," but Beach House have a different, more "masculine," non-spacey, almost campy, "Euro-friendly" sound, in my opinion.  I think of their quiet stuff as just segues in between their singer's throaty bellowing, whereas for Memoryhouse the quiet stuff is the framework of everything.  I think everyone can agree that Beach House has no ties to the "chillwave" trend, whereas Memoryhouse does.  This is one of those songs that really re-established my love of music in the often dreary modern musical climate.

Original 2009/10 version:

2011 re-recording:

Mash 'em up!
Note: I will be taking down the Sub Pop version after a certain amount of time.

Yes, this song has been released by four different labels so far, though the first two are digital-only "labels," so I don't know if they count.  The Sub Pop re-recording has more prominent (DEVASTATING) piano, an ultra-powerful vocal performance, and, to top it all off, the addition of some amazingly nuanced violin.  It also has less of that thumping chillwave beat that's in the '09 version. Confusingly, the original version is subtitled "Deuxième," which is French for "Second."  So there must've been an earlier (still unreleased) version, which means the Sub Pop re-recording is actually a third version.  Got that?  Overall, it might be the best re-recording I've ever heard, and it almost singlehandedly rescues Sub Pop from the abyss of irrelevance.  (Easiest way to tell which one you have: The original version is 3:23 long and the Sub Pop one is 4:05.)

I don't know if this song is comparing having a broken heart to being on life support in a hospital, but one has to assume that it is.  When Denise distantly pleads "Shut me off," it has to be one of the most devastating lines ever uttered in any song.  Denise pretty much has a built-in Autotune in her throat, which makes her singing very unique, kind of like that of Mazzy Star's Hope Sandoval.  They each like to split individual syllables into different discrete parts.  Rob Dickinson of Catherine Wheel is my favorite at this technique, used to particularly stunning effect on their debut album Ferment (which is my #2 favorite album ever).  This way of singing gives the vocals a cool stop-motion effect, like you're listening to an old movie reel with a hitch in it.  Evan Abeele's guitar playing is cinematic and pastel-like, and I think both he and Denise play synths on the song.  The music video does not feature Denise or Evan:

With only one digital EP and one 7" to their name, the 'House hit the pavement hard in 2010 on an ambitious headlining tour of indie clubs:

In August of that very annum, my sister & I saw them at One Eyed Jacks in New Orleans, with opening acts Twin Sister and a new local band called Kindest Lines.  Partly due to a thunderstorm and extreme heat, the turnout was quite low, maybe 40 or so people, but it was great to see the 'Mem rock a club with a large stage and a top-notch sound system.  They had a third member in tow on electric bass.  Denise seemed bored and distant, looking at the ceiling a lot, and she never once said anything to the crowd.
I bought the "Lately" 7" on limited colored vinyl at this show from members of Twin Sister who were manning the merch table; it's obviously one of the finest singles I've ever bought.  The b-side is a nicely trippy, deconstructed, chillwavey remix by Teengirl Fantasy.  I pretty much went to that show just to see them perform this song, and it was worth trekking into the heart of the French Quarter on this ridiculously hot / stormy / humid night.  I had my sister film "Lately," but she can't find the clip anywhere.  Sorry.  She also lost her clip of Twin Sister doing a tremendous rendition of "The Other Side Of Your Face."

iPhone pic by my sister, near the start of their set.

My 7" bought at the 2010 show; too bad it's not on black vinyl for better sound quality.  Yes, I like the "Dutch Angle" photo technique.
Notice the nearly-identical color scheme / photo treatment / clothing on the cover of their 2012 album.

Some of this song's vocals (pitch-shifted higher) were sampled in the downtempo / dream-rap (er, "cloud rap," as Generation Z calls it) song "Breaking" by a one-off supergroup called Seeing Suge.

Facebook users band together to exile Pitbull to Alaskan WalMart - “I’ve known Pitbull for a few years now, and he’s up for a party – whether it’s around the corner, or you have to get there by three planes and a boat in between, as I understand it takes to get to Kodiak.”

Planets with similar climates: Slowdive - "Losing Today" (1991), Julee Cruise - "Falling" (1989), Low - "I Remember" (original 7" version) (1998), Velour 100 - "Stare Into Light" (1996), Chairlift - "Cool As A Fire" (2011), Ella Fitzgerald - "Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most" (1961), Yo La Tengo - "Damage" (1997), Red House Painters - "Drop" (1995), Portishead - "Roads" (1994).

Southpacific >> New cold dream

Southpacific - "Analogue 9"

(Turnbuckle Records, 1999)

I got this CD in a pretty strange way.  I had written to upstart indie rock label Turnbuckle Records in spring of '97 after learning that one of my favorite bands, Bailter Space, had signed to them after being dropped by Matador Recs.  They sent me a free copy of B-Space's new 7" and also a free B-Space shirt, because they were late in shipping their new album, Capsul, to me.  Cool label.  One day in early 2000, their online mailing list had a quiz made up of three softball questions about Bailter Space.  The first person to respond correctly would receive a copy of the new album Constance by Southpacific.  Well, I won it (I knew two of the answers, but sheepishly had to look up the other one online), and they sent me the CD and a bunch of promo postcards for it, and I was pretty much blown away by it, and it became the soundtrack to that summer for me.  I like the irony of a Canadian band naming itself after a balmy tropical locale.

Both of SoPac's albums got glowing reviews in the Canadian music press, and from a lot of U.S. scribes as well.  AllMusic Guide curiously said "Southpacific's songs are cacophonous photographs taken from the window from a falling 747."  Amazon staffer Matthew Cooke (yes, Amazon is one of the few online music sellers to have its own music writers who pen reviews, and not simply license reviews from AllMusic) said "All instrumental except for one song (and even then, the vocals are barely there at all), Southpacific's debut record is a slow-motion feedback loop, with shoegazer guitars swirling around whispery, half-suggested harmonies. Hypnotizing and noisily repetitive, the sound bears a resemblance to My Bloody Valentine's Loveless-era, fuzzbox-overload approach, but there's a quieter energy at the heart of these songs. While flirting with the fringes of glum, lonely-guy rock, the band's music still has its head too high in the clouds to be morose or 'sadcore' in the vein of Codeine or emotionally naked like Red House Painters. Short pearls of bright melodic snippets ('Alamo') mix with sleepy and repetitive dirges ('E10 @ 182'), all wrapped up in a sense of vastness, like the ocean of the band's namesake."  CMJ (1/31/00) described the album as "an evocative blur of shadowy streaks that coast over steady, deliberate percussion....outstandingly played, smart...and downright spectral in grandeur."


Though guitar is definitely what most people think of when this band comes to mind, the absurdly great basslines are what grab me.  The production levels are incredibly high, despite being self-produced (by SoPac drummer / sampler / guitarist Graeme Fleming).

From Toothpaste For Dinner

The band broke up not long after this album came out; the online label Orchard later picked it up and has continued to make it available online in mp3 form.  The album has attained a deservedly-big cult following among shoegaze / post-rock fans.  I have personally gotten at least a dozen people into this band / album, so I like to think that despite cheating a little bit to win this CD, I have "paid it forward" many times over.

The title of this post is a pun on the title of the album New Gold Dream by Simple Minds.  I saw this phrase in an old issue of NME or Melody Maker as the title of an article about Curve (or possibly some other band, but come on, it perfectly describes Curve), and I just knew I had to recycle it someday, and that day has now come.

About ten years ago I read about a slender tome called Warm Voices Rearranged, comprised of record reviews that are anagrams of the letters contained in the artist name + album name.  I have still not tracked down the book, despite having it on my eBay automatic alerts for all those years, which I guess means that a very small amount of copies have been sold, or that it's so good that no one wants to part with it.  Here are my favorite new ones (ones not included in the book) from their new blog:


Butthole Surfers - Independent Worm Saloon
SW bores emit another dud LP. No neurons left!

Yes - Tales From Topographic Oceans

These cosmic oafs play ornate prog.

Public Enemy - It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back

Black men complain noisily about the USA. No folk ditties!

GG Allin And The Murder Junkies - Brutality And Bloodshed For All
I'll rally at drug den, shoot junk and die right before album lands.

Nurse With Wound - Chance Meeting On A Dissecting Table Of A Sewing Machine And An Umbrella
A chic English noise band's inane debut, named for Lautréamont. [Wincing] Ew, what a glum scene!

Carcass - Necroticism: Descanting The Insalubrious
An imbecilic grindcore act scans its thesaurus, son!

The Rolling Stones - England's Newest Hit Makers

The white-skin men sell translated Negro songs.

John Lennon And Yoko Ono - Unfinished Music No. 2: Life With The Lions
"Any hit on it, Johnnie?"
"No."
"Music?"
"No."
"Skill?"
"No."
"Oho, flesh? Nude 2nd wife?!"
"No."

Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures
Ian's joyless vow: "I die, punks. No urn!"

Incredible String Band - Wee Tam And The Big Huge
Acidheads bring enlightenment. Dig, but beware!

Radiohead - The King Of Limbs
Kid A methods fail. Boring, eh?
(Submitted by the otherwise despicable Mark Prindle)

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven

Sulky hipsters play one-note instrumental feedback dirges, noon-five. Okay?

And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - Source Tags And Codes
Sonic Youth soundalikes wowed retarded fanboys. All dug act!
(Alternative anagram: Atonal Austinites' rock drones fully awed dowdy douchebags.)

The Doors - Waiting For The Sun

Oh, four stoned twits are nigh!

Their Fiona Apple one is sure to become legendary.  Hopefully they'll come up with a good one for my submission: P.M. Dawn - Of The Heart, Of The Soul And Of The Cross: The Utopian Experience.

Planets with similar climates: Tristeza - "Building Peaks" (2000), Tortoise - "Glass Museum" (1996), Swervedriver - "Never Learn" (1992), Slowdive - "Morningrise" (1990), Poem Rocket - "Contrail de l'avion" (1994), Simple Minds - "Shake Off The Ghosts" / "A Brass Band In African Chimes" (1984).

Best abysmal video found this week:

"The running of the Porta Potties at Preakness 2008"