Sebadoh (Lou Barlow) >> Turning personal vendetta and small-minded revenge tactics into eventual cult status

Sebadoh - "Showtape '91"

(unreleased, 1991 / Domino Records, 2006)

On their 1991 tour, burgeoning indie rock stalwarts Sebadoh were known for playing a tape of obnoxious / baffling spoken word stuff in between songs while they were tuning.  (By the same token, Sonic Youth were known for playing Madonna songs and samples of European church bells in between songs in the '80s, since they had to tune and retune dozens of modified guitars.)  It was all spoken by singer / guitarist Lou Barlow, fresh off of being kicked out of Dinosaur Jr.  Tapes of this were passed on in the underground tape-trading community, and it was finally released in 2006 by Domino on the deluxe reissue of III.  I bought that album in '97, but was not too impressed and soon sold it.  I had heard about the showtape, so I didn't think it could live up to my expectations, but definitely did, and then some.  Lou spoof lots of things that later became indie tropes (e.g. "drone-rock," emo, fanzine dweebs, Swans worship), and uses a strange enunciation most of the time to convey either sarcasm or mental instability.  He constantly hammers away at the "three guys" premise, casting the band's members as everymen, heroes of the hoi polloi.  Towards the end, it starts to get unhinged and quite uncomfortable to listen to, as Lou ruthlessly skewers his band's own motives for making music.  It took me until just today to realize that "The lonely band that mutters" is a spoof of the Clash's laughably false slogan "The only band that matters."  Hahahahahaha.... x 1000.  The first line is an example of Lou intentionally messing up the syntax to make it sound more like a sound collage made from various sources.

Some samples, in the order they appear:

"Guitars, in front of Marshall stacks as full wall of them explode with a simultaneous on switch, begin wailing various percussion at any tempo.  I, bloody with Uzi blast, reach to play guitar, fumbling violently as it screeches through the Marshalls.  Grab guitar and plays what he wants.  I struggle to my feet, hoisting the guitar over my head.  Ladies and gentlemen: The pieces of meat!  Dual denial... Duel of denial... Dueling denial."
"Your postmodern folkcore saviors: Sebadoh!"
"Three guys who appreciate and simulate [assimilate?] the power of modern drone-rock: Sebadoh!"
"Sebadoh... Featuring that guy who played bass in Soul Asylum: Lou Barlow!"
"Another evening of oppressive noodling, courtesy of Sebadoh!"
"Three guys in search of the eternal party: Sebadoh."
"Open-chord tuning saviors of alternative rock and roll: Sebadoh!"
"And now, shattering the barrier between artist and audience... Three guys with smiles you can trust: Sebadoh."
"Three more reasons to doubt your boyfriend... Sebadoh: Jason, Eric and Lou."
"Guitar, bass, percussion... The fire, the wind, the heartbeat. A live experience surely among the top ten this year: Sebadoh."
"Three guys who think it's much more important if the music is heartfelt rather than if the music sounds like shit or not: Sebadoh!"
"The east is where the vampires live. The west is where the searchers go. Searching for a reason just like you: Ladies and gentlemen, the sensitive power of Sebadoh."
"In the tradition of Daniel Johnston under a cloud of hiss: Sebadoh!"
"Searching for a reason, just like you. Ladies and gentlemen, the sensitive power of Sebadoh."
"It's not bullshit, it's Sebadoh."
"Distinctive songwriters, any Beatle wannabe, three guys you need to know. Super show, Sebadoh!"
"Unencumbered by structure... masters of melodic, atonal free-association. Three free spirits... Jason, Eric and Lou: Sebadoh!"
"A crystal shining forever moment, courtesy of Sebadoh!"
"Sweet, destructive, turning musical corners at breakneck speed."
"Battling monumental indifference, sadly overlooked as creatively inferior bands are basically treated like geniuses and receive enormous recording budgets. Buns up to corporate wastemongers: Sebadoh!"
"Three dumpy guys with no fashion sense."
"Shaking hands or sharing feasts, three friendly minstrels who aren't very friendly... Reinventing folk music: Sebadoh!"
"Boys and girls, as free as the fingers flow, a heartful drone you should know: Sebadoh."
"Sebadoh: The lonely band that mutters."
"Perhaps smoking pot or drinking beer before setting foot onstage, it's Sebadoh."
"Figuratively pissing in your mouth, humiliating and subduing your spirit, exposing every nook and cranny of the human psyche... Way to go, Sebadoh!"
"Searching for the lowest common denominator, resorting to tired tales of naughty-boy boredom, asking annoying questions and providing bogus answers. Self-serving closet fascists making money from marijuana masturbation."
"Incompetence masquerading as inspiration, inspiration mistaken for true talent, a spectre of egocentric behavior sputtering wildly out of control.  Ladies and gentlemen, indie rock's newest unrecognized genius of songwriting sucker-punch, in a minivan for a six-week tour: Sebadoh!"
"Taking every opportunity to subtly manipulate your expectations for a moment's amusement.  Becoming suddenly bored at your immature attempt to engage our approval with your typical butt-licking fanboy fervor: Sebadoh!"
"Driving dozens of college-age lemmings off the cliff of limited imagination. Smashing their soft skulls on the jagged boulders of our bitter sarcasm... Three assholes: Sebadoh!"
"Laughing at your shortcomings, tactlessly wielding destructive honesty to protect themselves from true feeling, eagerly butt-fucking your grandpa."
"Turning personal vendetta and small-minded revenge tactics into eventual cult status... The only man in the world who truly appreciated the genius of the Swans: Lou Barlow!"
"Rescuing wounded animals and diligently nursing them back to health and returning them to their woodland homes: Sebadoh!"
"Putting down everything, judging all as lame.  But for all their hype as something new, they play the same old game.  Another letdown, another reason to do it yourself: Sebadoh!"

Some of today's pompous indie-hero windbags (Arcade Fire, Conor Oberst, and Radiohead / Thom Yorke come to mind quickly) could learn a lot from Lou and the boys on this track.

Here's a pic I found a few weeks ago of a pair of flyers created by the NOLADIY guys.  They apparently date back to at least 2006, maybe earlier. The one on the left is a spoof of the "punk police" (people who decide whether or not a band is worthy of remaining relevant), I guess.  (I think I remember reading that it was put up in protest of a gig at One Eyed Jacks by the Dead Kennedys after they had reformed without Jello Biafra, but I could be totally wrong.)  Pretty simple and effective... but the one on the right really stopped me in my tracks:

Reverse psychology can be a great weapon...

Best / least pompous bio I've probably ever seen, found today on IMDB's message boards for the movie School Daze: LadyGlamSlam - "I was born, I grew, I learned, there was pain, I got fat, then there was some sex scenes, roll credits."

Planets with similar climates: None

Allen Ginsberg >> Moon now attainable

Allen Ginsberg - "Poem Rocket (Be A Star-Screwer)"

(live reading, 1959)

Here's one artist who needs zero introduction.  In the intro, Ginsberg says he wrote this poem in Amsterdam at the time of the Sputnik launch, meaning October 1957.  Based on where it was written, it's not gauche to wonder if he was chemically-enhanced at the time of its writing.  This reading was recorded at the Poetry Center at San Francisco State University on Feb. 27, 1959, and it apparently never got any sort of official release.  This one goes out to Drea.

After a fairly tedious midsection that demonstrates all the reasons why I usually avoid "Beat Poets," the ending suddenly adds a lot to the recipe, but also helps to decrypt the whole thing: "I send you my rocket of amazing chemical, more than my hair, my sperm, or the cells of my body, a speeding thought that flies upward with my desire as instantaneous as the universe and faster than light, and leave all other questions unfinished for the moment to turn back to sleep in my dark bed on earth."  I guess he's saying that one can transform into a hybrid poem/rocket that flies up into outer space and impregnates stars, using the concept of a rocket as a phallic metaphor.  And since he says "you," he's referring to the reader as a star that is presumably soon to be knocked up.  If not totally romantic, it's at least quite an avant-garde scenario, hence the reason why A.G. became so famous and why he needs zero introduction.

A permalink to the mp3 at UbuWeb (where I downloaded this mp3 years ago) is here, and all the Ginsberg stuff they have is listed here.  So knock yourself out.  It's good to see the amazing UbuWeb back online after its recent disappearance.  All I can ask of anyone who reads this post is to tell at least one person about UbuWeb, and make sure that person passes the word along.  I used to spend untold hours on there, watching old experimental short films and reading strange prose.

This manuscript was typed by A.G. in Paris in 1958; it was sold in a 2006 auction. Here's page 1:

I recently saw the above page, or one very similar to it, replete with the ASCII rocket drawing, in a huge Ginsberg compendium at Barnes & Noble.  I will go back and check on it to see if I should take a pic of it.

Found this making the rounds the other day:

Here's a not-so-subtle juxtaposition of ads I saw on an ultra-conservative website named Vision To America at the beginning of this month, meaning right around the time of the election:

People have probably been put on the Secret Service's watch list for much less than this, so here's hoping that Vision To America's advertising director lands a spot on the Service's speed dial.  And while they're at it, perhaps they could investigate whomever came up with that extremely clunky site name.

Thu. Nov. 22: Had short Thanksgiving dinner at Ashley's parents' house; lent her some shoegaze CDs (Lush, MBV, Slowdive, Verve; also The XX).  Then another short dinner at Jay & Kathleen's.  Jay had been hit by a car while riding his bike a few days earlier; he he was flipped over her Mercedes and she fled.  He didn't even need surgery, mainly due tot he fact that he's built like Ray Lewis.

Sat. Nov. 24: Went to the monthly art market at Palmer Park & bought some photos. For irony value, I went into the new American Apparel on Magazine.  Yeah, it sucked, and was packed with shoppers.  $22 for a plain one-color t-shirt.  I think I heard a song by Blouse on their radio, and definitely one by Future Islands.
"Pull me to the edge."

Mon. Nov. 25 - Went to the Southland Mall in Houma out of boredom and went into a trashy store called Spencer's.  If you have never been to this store, please brace yourself and suspend all semblance of morals or class that you might normally possess.  But I'll admit I did find a cool AK-47 necklace for a special someone.  So yeah, this post featured all kinds of weaponry (rocket, pistol, automatic weapon), plus the destruction of Earth.

eBay tells Glenn Beck he may not auction off an Obama statue floating in urine - "Someone actually offered $11,300 for the statue, maturely named 'Obama in Pee Pee'"

Planets with similar climates: John Ashbery - "A Blessing In Disguise" (1966), Long Fin Killie - "A Thousand Wounded Astronauts" (1996), American Music Club - "Will You Find Me?" (1992), Poem Rocket - "Milky White Entropy" (1994).

Lee Ranaldo >> You are in my headlight, in my present tense

Lee Ranaldo - "Deva, Spain (Fragments)"

(Stomach Ache Records, ca. 1988; later released by Musical Tragedies, 1992, & Atavistic Records, 1995)

In honor of Lee's birthday, here's a short piece that I've put on many a mix CD over the years.  Apparently a lot of record label owners have liked it too, because it originally came out on a Mexican compilation 7" in 1988 (Bullets Wrapped In Sugar), on a U.S. compilation cassette in the early '90s(?) (Spill Your Guts, Friend), on a German split CD EP with a band called Something To Burn in 1992, and on Lee's career retrospective CD East Jesus in 1995.  It was more recently used by Lee himself as a component of his self-remix album Outside My Window The City Is Never Silent: A Bestiary in 2002.

The fact that Stomach Ache Records was based on Mexico says something about how far Sonic Youth's notoriety had spread by the late '80s.  I don't know if he also made a longer version, but hopefully one will see the light of day.  I like the line "You are in my headlight," which seems to specify the headlight of a motorcycle or train, rather than the headlightS of a car.  But it can also mean the light or energy inside one's head / mind.  Deep.  I mentioned three months ago that I had just gotten an LP pressing of Lee's baffling debut album From → Here Infinity, but I have to report that I still haven't played it.  I guess I'm afraid that the brief (a few seconds long) lock grooves on it won't live up to the enhanced / extended loops on the CD and cassette issues, both of which I've owned for about 10 & 15 years, respectively.

Note: This song has been variously titled "Deva, Spain Fragments," "Deva, Spain (Fragments)" and "Deva, Spain: Fragments," depending on the release it's on, but I have to assume they are all the same song.

I have a few more pics and videos from Prospect.2 to unload, so bear with me.  A painting (er, actually, it's credited as "insect screening") by Kathleen Loe, on an upstairs wall of a new facility called the New Orleans Healing Center on St. Claude Avenue:

Peter Pan's Shadow (84 x 132"; $3200)

She had lots of other helicopter-themed works on display, a few of which you can see here.  There's also a little grocery store co-op, gym, herb store, book store, and other cool stuff in this nondescript building.  For those not from New Orleans, Rampart Street is the north border of the French Quarter; it extends to the east through the Ninth Ward / Faubourg Marigny neighborhood under the name St. Claude Avenue, with lots of upstart DIY art galleries, bike shops, vegan cafés, and the like.  Not all of the residents of this gentrifying neighborhood are happy about these developments, as you can tell by this flyer I saw on an abandoned building a block away on the same day:

To the right of it was a poster paying tribute to the two African-American victims of the notorious Danziger Bridge shootings.

In honor of Spain, here are some Ricky Rubio highlights, since Pau Gasol is having an off year.  This was his first-ever NBA start, just a few weeks ago.  He effortlessly picked apart my Hornets as I tried to explain to my dad why Rubio is such a big deal:

I saw Gasol a year ago this week from front-row seats at a Hornets-Lakers game.  Our chairs were literally on the court.  Gasol humiliated us for something like 30 points in the first half alone.  At one point I wondered loudly "Why isn't Chris Paul in?," after which coach Monty Williams looked to his right at me from about 10 feet away, then hollered at CP3 to get in the game.  The Lakers won by only a few points, despite outshooting us 24 to 4 in free throw attempts, if I remember correctly.  And people wonder why the same teams get back to the playoffs every year... Gotta love that referee bias towards big-market teams.  I've read entire long, footnoted articles about how NBA refs have more control over the outcome of games than do the refs of any other major sport, and this game was a crystal-clear example of it for me.

Yellow Magic Orchestra - "Tighten Up" + awkward interview on Soul Train, 1980

4 ways to enjoy nature according to insane old magazines
Sample cover:

Planets with similar climates: Sonic Youth - "Satan Is Boring" (1984), Poem Rocket - "Saint Sebastian's Halo" (1995), Windy & Carl - "Kate" (1997).

Michael Andrews w/ Miranda July >> It's life and it's happening

California Month continued, tremor #31:

Michael Andrews w/ Miranda July - "When I Call A Name"

(Everloving Records, 2005)

This is from the soundtrack to the movie Me And You And Everyone We Know, which Miranda July wrote, directed, and co-starred in.  The movie and its soundtrack have both already become cult classics, and Roger Ebert cited the film as the 5th best of the decade, and there's even a band named after it.  Michael Andrews is apparently from San Diego and is now in L.A., so this song made the cut for California Month, even though Miranda, a Portlander, steals the show in the song's first half.

I started hearing about Miranda in the indie music mags in '97-98, when she put out two baffling, Laurie Anderson-esque solo albums on Kill Rock Stars.  She did the voices of all the characters in her strange song pastiches.  So I was not surprised to hear her doing both the female and the male voice in "When I Call A Name," but it still cracks me up.  I also have her book of peculiarly observant short stories called No One Belongs Here More Than You.  (Yes, she likes wordy, sarcastically-motivational titles.)  Basically, she's the shit.  I know hardly anything about Michael Andrews, other than he was in a band called The Origin and now makes these lite synth-porno soundtracks.

Miranda July performing her one-person play The Swan Tool in 2001; photo by Harrell Fletcher.

I went to the Fall Garden Show at City Park yesterday and got a dwarf blueberry bush (Vaccinium darrowii), another New Zealand Tea Tree (Leptospermum scoparium), and three little cacti.  One plant that I almost got had probably the coolest name ever: Rattlesnake Master.  Then I went and shot some hoops at SUNO on the newly-redone courts.  Then I went over to McKeown's Books And Difficult Music for a very weird duo concert by an Austrian guy named Simon Berz (of the band ige*timer) and local drummer Simon Lott.  They were joined by a sound manipulator guy from Holland named Toktek in the last piece.   I brought over some beers to donate to the ice chest, since I had guzzled some free ones at previous shows here.  I also picked up a few books, of course.  Afterwards, a guy came up to me and asked if he could take a picture of my t-shirt.  "You've heard of Poem Rocket?," I asked him.  "Yeah, my old band's first-ever show was opening for them in Ohio."  I was amazed.  He took the pic and said the show was during a blizzard and not a single person came, but they played anyway.  His name is Steve, but I forgot his band's name.  Found a cool little coin medallion on the ground with a ship design on one side, while walking back to my car; may wear it as a necklace.  Saw a weird argument happening outside of Tipitina's which included a guy hurling a motorcycle helmet diagonally across the intersection while yelling at a woman in one of two cars that had apparently had a fender bender.  Just another Saturday night in New Orleans...

This was uploaded by a member of Das Racist, believe it or not:

Planets with similar climates: Laurie Anderson w/ Peter Gabriel - "Excellent Birds" (1984), Xiu Xiu - "Clowne Towne" (2003).