My Bloody Valentine >> Don't ask me 'cause I cannot see

My Bloody Valentine - "You Made Me Realise"

(Creation Records, 1988)

Not much needs to be said about this song, one of the most legendary and influential ones in the history of indie / underground music.  Sometimes I forget that the mission of this site was to promote shoegaze music.  I figured it was about time to post a tune by one of my top-5 favorite bands, and St. Patty's Day is appropriate since MBV were from Dublin.  Everyone should know by now that the band always stretched out the pure-noise middle section to ~20 mins. in concert at ear-crushing volume, which causes many a fine patron to evacuate the venue.

According to online sources, this EP was released on 8/8/88, which happens to be the day that my family moved from Olney, MD to New Orleans, and were greeted by a tropical storm.  It was also the week that the Rush Limbaugh Show went nationwide, and I think I once read that Slowdive formed on this day.  The cover art is pretty iconic, and many individuals will probably miss the fact that the girl is holding a knife to her throat amidst the flower stalks, which fits in with the line "You might as well commit suicide."  The video helpfully flashes the phrase "Teenage Suicide" at this moment:

I bought a black t-shirt on eBay with this EP's cover on it in 2005.  The guy accidentally sent me a medium, so I asked him to send me a L or XL, which he did, and even let me keep the M, which I gave to my sister.  I can't find it now, otherwise I'd post a pic.

After wondering for over a decade what the lyrics were, I Googled them.  Finally seeing them made me realize that Bare Minimum may have appropriated the line "insane eyes" for their hit song "Night We Streak, Divine Failure".

I made sure to consume the trinity of Guinness Draught, Murphy's Stout, and Killian's Irish Red today.  I did not have cabbage because I'm not Irish.  Here's video by Irish pop lady Róisín Murphy (whom I once read took 16 years of dance lessons, as you will see), one that in fact should've been a huge hit on this side of the pond:

C is for Cool Runnings, naturally: Illustrated Film Alphabets + Guess them all or die: The alphabet of sci-fi movies

Amber Rose displays her new "Irish" tat!!! - The hottest person I've seen in years continues to defile her body with lame ink, but she somehow gets even more attractive with each one

Best song of 2012 so far: "Wrong Opinion" by Chairlift

Currently watching: Eastbound & Down episode "Chapter 17", probably the funniest episode of any show I've ever seen.  The part where Kenny crashes Shane Dog's funeral and plays Candlebox's "Far Behind" and Pearl Jam's "Alive" on a boombox (before being chased out and having his boombox destroyed) will live in infamy:

Also, I just about fell out of my chair when I heard Liquid Liquid's "Scraper" in a recent episode ("Chapter 15" or Chapter 16").


Plants I've recently potted up, which is horticultural slang for "moved into a larger pot":
Dwarf Key Lime
Pond Cypress
Drooping She-Oak
Bigflower Coreopsis
Old Lady Cactus
Another term meaning the same thing is "bumped."  I don't use it because I find it to be lame.


Planets with similar climates: Band Of Susans - "Silver Lining" (1990), A Place To Bury Strangers - "I Lived My Life To Stand In The Shadow Of Your Heart" (2006), Swervedriver - "Son Of Mustang Ford" (1990), Magic Dirt - "Touch That Space" (1993), Poem Rocket - "Appeak To The Imagination" (2000), Ride - "Here And Now" (1990), Catherine Wheel - "God Inside My Head My Head" (1995), Sonic Youth - "The Wonder" (1988), Feverdream [Australia] - "Never Letting Go" (1995).

The Black Watch >> I won't skip over anything

California Month, tremor #5:

The Black Watch - "Terrific"

(Doctor Dream Records, 1991)

I got into this song via a 1992 Doctor Dream Records (yeah, I had never heard of that label either) compilation CD called Doctor Dream Records Super Sampler.  I bought it in a pawn shoppe in Laplace for 50 cents in late 2007.  I'd already owned the band's '94 album Amphetamines for around a decade, but had only listened to it once or twice.  It has the awesome single "Come Inside," but not much else on it has grabbed me.  You can find it in almost any used CD bin, since Zero Hour apparently pressed up an enormous quantity of them, thinking the band would hit it big.  So they erred on that, but at least they had faith in the band, unlike Doctor Dog.  (Read more about this below.)
"Terrific," from their sophomore album Flowering, didn't do much for me at first, until I grew to anticipate the huge shift from jangly lite pop to urgently passionate intensity, specifically at the 2:30 mark, and then an even more dramatic shift at 3:10.

Like R.E.M.'s "The One I Love," it comes off as a love song, but is actually quite a bitter breakup song.  Or maybe it was written in two parts to illustrate how the mind works when it realizes it can't have the object over which it obsesses, and resorts to looking for every bad thing about that object in order to convince itself that it doesn't really want that object.  Violinist and occasional backup singer J'Anna Jacoby delivers some really inspired playing, and the evolution of the John Andrew Fredrick's singing over the course of the song is impressive too.  According to the interesting bio page on the band's website, he has a Ph.D. in English from U.C. Santa Barbara, and later received an award for Lecturer Of The Year while briefly teaching there, before they laid him off.  (Which makes me wonder if the lyrics of "Terrific" were aimed at UCSB rather than at an ex.)  And he has written two books, The King Of Good Intentions and The Knucklehead Chronicles.

I forgot where I found this; presumably on someone's Tumblr page

The song really has that "California feel," with effortless chordal propulsion and easygoing melodies, making it ideal as a car song.  I read something about how TBW really believed in this song, and quite rightly wanted Doctor Dream to push it heavily to radio and release it as a physical 7" single or CD single.  When the label refused, the band got really ticked off, and I think that's why they left the label, signing to Zero Hour Records.  Of the album, one of my idols, Jack Rabid of The Big Takeover & AllMusic Guide, said:
"Right from the brilliant opening song, "Terrific," the listener is clearly in good if familiar hands -- a brisk, clipped power pop / U.K. new wave rocker that eschews feedback in favor of a clean punch, all topped by the lovely violin work by Jacoby, showing why she's been in demand as a side person on a number of other recordings, and a sweet-and-sour lyric sung by both Frederick and Jacoby."

Option (the best music mag of the '90s, in my opinion) said:
"Often the group sounds English, sometimes recalling The Cure's poppier moments... Flowering works best when Frederick's winsome voice is dragged fiercely along by Jacoby's endearing fiddling and the twin strum of acoustic guitars."

(Note: "Terrific" can also be found on the band's 2000 album Lime Green Girl, which for some reason has seven of their early songs tacked onto the end of it.)

That's my grandparents, Paul (Pop Pop) and Marcie (Mom Mom), with their kids: my uncle Tom in blue shorts, my dad Steve in green shorts, and my aunt Kathleen.  My uncle Mike, the oldest of their four kids, took the pic, according to my dad.  The back of it states "This Is A Kodacolor Enlargement, November 1959."  Yes, I had to take a photo of this photo, since I don't own a scanner... sorry.  This was likely taken in Hawai'i, since Pop Pop was stationed on O'ahu, presumably at Pearl Harbor, at around this time.  I think my dad said that the family lived in 15 different places by the time he (my dad) was 13, including Germany, Savannah, Albany, and of course Hawai'i.  Pop Pop is my idol, by the way, and my middle name is Paul.  He and Mom Mom were married for about 50 years until his death in 1994.

That's a photo I took in the French Quarter of some women (I believe only two or three), using a long shutter speed, from my car, probably on Royal Street facing west or Bourbon Street facing east.  The file is dated 11/25/04, but I'm not sure if that's the exact date it was taken.  I rarely go down there, since the Quarter is mainly a tourist destination that locals avoid, so it might've been on the night I went down there to see Cat Power, which was on 9/20/04.  I can make out the word "Bistro" on the yellow sign, and the Stop sign means it was at an intersection, if that helps anyone to ascertain exactly where this is.  Despite the poor resolution / quality, this has always been one of my favorite photos that I've taken, maybe because of how the multi-tiered building right behind the women sort of looks like it's a kaleidoscopic extension of them, and it melds with the refraction from the big white light at the top.  Overall, it just has a good sense of motion and mystery.  The Quarter is one of the best places to do nighttime "drive-by" photography, since all the neon lights really blur well when using a long shutter speed, and there are always drunk m.f.'s doing stupid or entertaining stuff, because they feel they are obliged to do so the second they set foot in this city.

Planets with similar climates: The Smiths - "This Charming Man" (1983), Felt - "Penelope Tree" (1983), The Lotus Eaters - "The First Picture Of You" (1983), R.E.M. - "The One I Love" (1986), The Go-Betweens - "Streets Of Your Town" (1988), Film School - "Nothing's Mine" (2010), Sand Rubies - "Goodbye" (1993), Matthew Sweet - "We're The Same" (1994).

Tape >> Would it help if I screamed?

California Month, tremor #4:

Tape - "Fill In The Blank"

(Trank City, 2002)

Tape featured Norm Block of Plexi on drums and was fronted by onetime "paisley rapper" Justin Warfield.  (Check out his interesting Prince Paul-produced 1993 rap album My Field Trip To Planet 9, which is somewhat of a cult classic.)  He later fronted the more commercially successful neo-post-punkers She Wants Revenge, but Tape was definitely his musical peak, though Tape only released six songs and two song snippets.  Tape formed in L.A. in 2001 and were apparently done by late '02 or early '03, unless I'm mistaken.

Man, this could've been a legitimately huge hit song, which is something I say a lot, but I mean it every time.  The whole EP, Amplified / Push Escape, can still be downloaded here, which is where I downloaded it several years ago.  I highly recommend downloading the explosive psychedelic rap-rock cut "True Crime" and the atmospheric "Dream Club."  (In fact, I planned to make this entry about one of those two songs, but ended up choosing "Fill" because it's so dang catchy.)  Definitely a hidden gem of a disc.  "Fill In The Blank" also appeared on Tape's 3-song EP Signal Level Will Now Increase, released June 2002.  Well, just squint your eyes and read the article from Kerrang! below, which calls them "currently the hottest band in L.A. bar none":

L-R: Kirk Hellie (guitar), Thomas Froggatt (bass), Justin Warfield (vocals, guitar), Norm Block (drums, backing vox)

It's pretty weird that a big U.K. metal magazine was covering Tape, yet U.S. music mags apparently had no idea they even existed.  What's that, you say?  Another U.K. metal mag covered them?  Yeah right...

Article in Metal Hammer, Sept. 2002

As you can tell by now, Norm is pretty tall; 6'5", in fact.  Anyway, thanks, U.K. metal mags.  Carry on.

Tape's website used to be www.tapenation.com, but that URL is now owned by an adhesive tape company, so the band's site is currently archived here.  It's tricky to figure out what to click on, but there are lots of surprises waiting, such as a set of dozens of live photos:

Live at the Knitting Factory's Hollywood branch, 11/22/02

I don't usually like to give a bunch of pics of any band, but when the band is as unknown as this one, and has as vague of a name as this one, I tend to make an exception.

Well, not a great day today.  I got bitten by a few dozen fire ants on my bare feet / legs / hands.  Then the garage door came off its track for a second time, and almost scalped me for a second time, so I made some calls to Sears to get the ball rolling on getting that fucker replaced.  And I'm pretty sure I have a cavity, which would my first since that one I had in the '80s.  And it's been raining nonstop for two days due to the tropical storm.  Life goes on.  As this song says, "Life has a cruel sense of humor / Shit is not as bad as it seems."

Here's a collage I made on Nov. 18, 2000, using only comic strips from that same day's newspaper (the New Orleans Times-Picayune).  I've never shown it to anyone:

(As with all images on this site, click it to see it full size.)  I never named it, but I guess "Only Momentarily" would be a good name.  I remember that it was a rainy, gray day, just like today but way colder, and I had just read through this fairly pretentious metal zine called Lamentations Of The Flame Princess (LOL) that I had picked up for free that day.  For some reason it was interesting reading, even though I had completely sworn off metal several years earlier.  It was my first time ever hearing of Opeth, whom I saw a few years later and then promptly forgot all about.

Planets with similar climates - Bailter Space - "Pass It Up" (1997), Plexi - "Dimension" (1996), Pluto - "When She Was Happy" (1996), Social Distortion - "Let It Be Me" (1990), The Sound - "Heyday" (1980), The Pharcyde - "Passin' Me By" (1992).

The Cleaners From Venus >> Some of my dreams weren't really worth saving

⍟ The Cleaners From Venus - "Follow The Plough" ⍟

« (Man At The Off License [or RCA Records], 1986; Tangerine Records, 1993) «

The Cleaners From Venus were an '80s English jange-pop group, essentially the mastermind of a guy named Martin Newell, who is revered amongst circles of people who revere this type of music.  I'm not sure if this song is from their 1986 cassette-only album Living With Victoria Grey, or from their 1987 (recorded in '86) LP Going To England.  Maybe those versions are the same?  All I know is it's taken from their best-of compilation called Golden Cleaners, put out by Tangerine Records in 1993.  Man, it's just so beautiful and intense.  "I followed you like a seagull follows the plough" refers to the way seagulls flock behind plows [ploughs], shrimp boats, etc., looking for scraps of food that have been stirred up by the commotion.  One of the most bizarrely romantic things I've ever heard anyone say about someone else...  He just keeps hanging around a person due to force of habit, even though he knows it probably isn't going to lead him anywhere in the long run.  The line "Live in a world of violence and danger, finding myself a comparative stranger" is open to many interpretations, especially since he seems to be singing from the standpoint of himself as a child in that part of the song. "You are before me, you are behind me / It was predestined that you would find me" is another line that sends a chill up my spine for some reason.

The guitars chime along (using a picking technique called harmonics, used to spectacular effect in the second half of "How Soon Is Now?" by The Smiths) in an urgent manner as Newell's vocals swell with passion in the choruses, while a truly sick bassline provides the undertow.  The way he sings the "And I can't remember how..." line in a descending manner is just too cool for words.  I'll admit to not knowing much about this band, but I kind of don't want to investigate much further, since I can't imagine they have a better song than this one.  It's not surprising that a major label, RCA, snatched the Cleaners up immediately after hearing this song, but I think most of the band's music was too quirky to reach a larger audience.  Their lyrics also contain lots of references to obscure facets of British culture, most of which wind up going right over the heads of non-Brits like myself.  The Cleaners are apparently best known for their cult hit "Ilya Kuryakin Looked At Me".  It will never cease to amaze me how most bands are beloved for a song that is nowhere near their overall best song, but that's a whole 'nother topic.

L-R: Martin Newell & Giles Smith, ca. 1986

This will probably interest absolutely no one, but I like to always tell how I got into a song, so I was in a Goodwill thrift store in Houma, LA in summer '07 when I saw an LP by Gerry & The Pacemakers, which had a song called "Girl On A Swing."  I made a mental note to check out whether one of my favorite songs, "Girl On A Swing" by Lions & Ghosts (a song which presages the band Morphine's entire aesthetic), was a cover of that one.  So when I got home I typed in that song name on iTunes and lo and behold, found a song called "Girl On A Swing" by the preposterously-named Cleaners From Venus, on one of their (other) greatest-hits albums.  I clicked on the 30-second sample clip of "Follow The Plough," was immediately stunned, listened to it over and over, and eventually got an internet buddy to track down the mp3 and send it to me.  So there you have it.  All three "Girl On A Swing"s are different, for what it's worth...

Well, a few hours ago the Mavericks just won their first NBA title over the choke-a-riffic Heat, as I predicted in my post on May 8th, in what was definitely the most interesting NBA Finals I've seen.  Big ups to those old dudes, especially to Dirk for somehow managing to avoid the dreaded Sports Illustrated Cover Jinx.  Jason Terry is probably my favorite player in the NBA now.  The Mavs' run had lots of parallels to the Saints' Super Bowl season, and I've adopted them as my secondary basketball team, since the Hornets will never win one.  (Until tonight, only six teams had won the last 27 NBA titles.)  The grind of playing seven-game series means that fluke teams never make it through to the Finals, as often happens in one-and-done formats like the NFL, tennis, or March Madness.  And the current craze for assembling an expensive "Big Three" means that small-market teams simply have no way of being competitive, and must live off of other teams' scraps.

Planets with similar climates: The Smiths - "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" (1986), The Go-Betweens - "The House That Jack Kerouac Built" (1988), The Church - "Shadow Cabinet" (1984) & "Tantalized" (1986), The Sound - "Golden Soldiers" (1984), Tears For Fears - "Broken" (1985), Kitchens Of Distinction - "What Happens Now?" (1992).


Still chuckling at: The couple in front of me in the line to get into a show by This Will Destroy You on Friday night in Baton Rouge.  They were casually improvising some nonsensical stuff in a British accent, which I thought might be some lines from Monty Python.  A few hours later I ran into them at the merch table, so I asked them what they were talking about, and they told me they were imagining what Morrissey would say if he were making an order at a fast-food restaurant.  Also, upstairs next to the pool table, some guy next to me quoted one of my favorite Ahnuld lines: "Get to the choppa!"

Surprisingly, it was the first time I'd ever heard anyone quote this legendary line in the field.  (Though it was cancelled out by his clichéd request to opening band The Nighty Nite to "Play some Skynyrd," for which I almost threw him over the railing.)  So overall, it was a pretty entertaining night, though I hate driving home for an hour every time I go to shows there, especially since they always seem to end at around 2 AM.