Long Fin Killie >> Friday night in a stolen car

Long Fin Killie - "Clinch"

(Too Pure Records, 1996)

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."

2 great videos from The Onion:
New ad urges hipsters to go to Applebee's ironically
New Prius helps environment by killing its owner

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).

Dub Sex >> Before things started spiraling down

Dub Sex - "Then And Now"

(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.

Atheist wins right to wear "religious pasta strainer" in i.d. photo

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).

Bleach >> I'm a shotgun when you want to be a warm sun

Bleach - "Shotgun"

(Musidisc Records, 1991)

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.

5 greatest NBA Finals moments Legoized

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).

The Sea And Cake >> Water breathing warm and heavy

The Sea And Cake - "Choice Blanket"

(Thrill Jockey Records [U.S.] / Rough Trade Records [U.K.], 1993)

Few songs immediately make me feel summer's warmth deep in my bones like this one, so I had to post it to kick off the summer.  I think I've told this story before, but in October 1996, I heard a stunningly strange and joyous song on WTUL while stuck in traffic on Jefferson Hwy. driving to a dermatology appointment.  It turned out to be "Lamont's Lament" by a band called The Sea And Cake.  I couldn't even hazard a guess as to what year it had been made, what city the band was from, what ethnicity its members were, etc., which is usually a good sign of a unique work of art.  It bewitched and bewildered me so much that I immediately sent some money to Thrill Jockey Recs. and demanded that they send me whichever TSAC CD had "Lamont's Lament" on it.  I got the CD, Nassau, a week or so later.  It came with a Thrill Jockey catalog full of stuff I would soon obtain, by groups with intriguing names like Trans Am, Tortoise, and Oval, all of whom have recently been Blowtorch Babied.  Brad Wood recorded this album in early September 1993, fresh off of becoming indie rock's producer célèbre after twiddling knobs on Liz Phair's Exile In Guyville.

Archer Prewitt shows why he is the thinking jazzbo's guitar hero on this song, unfurling effortlessly cool licks as though the bloated and/or macho genres that marred the music scenes of the 1970s, '80s, and '90s never happened.  Sam Prekop's creaky vocals are unmistakable, and his falsetto near the end is the perfect closing touch.  It's worth listening closely to his lyrics, which are cryptically beautiful and naïve in almost a beat poet kind of way.  Even the maracas are perfectly shaken on the off beats.  The baffling cover art deserves mention, since it is a guy's afro made up of around a hundred cotton balls.  There's also a painting of Charles Mingus by TSAC's bassist, Eric Claridge.  I should mention he's one of the best bassists ever, period.  The combination of that one particular shade of sky blue with that one particular shade of corn yellow just works perfectly, and puts me in the perfect mindstate to listen to the music.  See all the artwork (of the U.K. LP, to be exact) here.  As for me giving this the tag "should've been a #1 hit," well, I'm not necessarily referring to the '90s; in the '50s or '60s it could've made serious inroads on AM pop radio, and I bet the band would've been fighting off major label offers left and right.

AllMusic Guide's 4.5-star review succinctly said "The Sea and Cake's buoyant debut is a breath of fresh air, an utterly distinctive and innovative work that expands the scope of frontman Sam Prekop's work in the great Shrimp Boat to incorporate a new fascination with Afro-Caribbean rhythms and textures. Recorded by Brad Wood, the album simply glows -- Prekop's dry vocals and free-associative lyrics skip along a shimmering and lushly pastoral backdrop that nimbly fuses pop, soul, jazz, and even prog rock; tracks like 'Jacking the Ball,' 'Flat Lay the Water,' and 'Showboat Angel' are as seductive as they are elusive."

This summerrific image is used on the back cover of the CD & LP, as well as on the LP itself

My TSAC timeline:

Jan. 1996: Read about them in a long article about this new-fangled scene called "post-rock" in a guitar magazine.

Oct. '96: Hear "Lamont's Lament," immediately buy their sophomore album Nassau. (See above.)

Mar. '97: Hear a few songs from their brand-new album The Fawn in my car and am blown away.

Spring '97: Buy The Fawn on LP at Tower Records in New Orleans.

June '97: Buy The Sea And Cake CD for my dad. (See above.)
Mar. '98: Got a free The Fawn promo poster from mailorder; promptly put it up on my wall for almost a decade.

Mid-'98: Buy Two Gentlemen remix 12" from Thrill Jockey mailorder.

Early '99: Borrow The Biz and Sam Prekop's debut solo CD from hip friend Andrew Mister.

Ca. '99: Buy Shrimp Boat's CD Cavale, since Prekop fronted this band before TSAC.  (Claridge and Wood also did time in the Boat; a very incestuous scene there in Chicago.)

Late '00: Somewhat disappointed by new album Oui after sampling it on the listening station at Borders; lose faith in band for a few years.

Mid-'03: Download Glass EP from eMusic; "An Echo In" restores my faith in the band's prowess.

9/23/03: After waiting 7 years for TSAC to come to NOLA, I sell my stereo to a pawn shop for $35 to buy a ticket to go see them play at TwiRoPa.  An incredibly boring band called The Kingsbury Manx opened.  TSAC were loud and used lots of distortion, which disappointed me, since I wanted a quiet, crisp, nuanced show.
Ca. '06: Buy a beautiful neon green Nassau promo poster on eBay.
Early 2009: "Jacking The Ball" is used in a commercial for the ultra-evil criminal enterprise* known as Citibank.  (In this live clip of the band's first-ever gig, Sam says the phrase means "Bring out your firearms and ammo."  I had only been wondering for 15 years!)
Early 2010: "Parasol" is used in the R. Patz "I'm-not-just-a-brooding-vampire" drama Remember Me.

I would say that, along with "Lamont's Lament," "Jacking The Ball" and "Parasol" were The Sea And Cake's two best-known songs, even before they got the aforementioned exposure recently.  The band's recordings since then have been pretty spotty, essentially treading water, though few bands are skilled enough to tread water like TSAC can, and fewer still are even allowed in the same pool.  Overall, Nassau remains my favorite album of theirs, with The Fawn and The Sea And Cake tying for second.  Buy all three.

Tue. June 19: Saw two garter snakes mating below my parents' neighbor's doorstep.  Later was called upon to help extricate a baby raccoon from her enclosed swimming pool room / greenhouse.  Stayed up all night talking to Drea online.

Wed. June 20: Finished up with two weeks of house-sitting for my parents while my mom was in Japan & other parts of Asia.  Realized I might be slightly allergic to dogs, since I always seem to get sinus problems when I stay there too long.  I've also banned my favorite food, blueberries, from my diet since I think I might have a sensitivity to them.

Yes, that's a Prince CD

Thurs. June 21: I got into one of the most HILARIOUS and rewarding incidents of my life.  I'm driving down Hwy. 20 to Thibodaux when some psycho person starts tailgating on me, while combing his/her hair, and weaving side to side on the road, nearly going off it a few times.  It's a narrow 55 MPH road with nowhere to pull over.  So I maintain my speed and take a film clip in my rearview mirrors using a little digital camera that I often bring with me, making sure to periodically show my speed, as well the time & date, on the dashboard display.  Down in Thibodaux, after being tailgated for over 10 miles, a cop pulls me over.  I'm trying not to laugh as she walks up to my car on this 90º day, since I know all my shit is up-to-date and on point and I will put my 20 years of driving up against anyone's.  She tells me that someone called the police and said I was photographing them while driving.  I say "Yes, and I have video of that person tailgating me right here."  HAHAHAHAHAHA.  LOL.  She watches the clip and decides I'm right, since she can see/hear that I even tried to wave the person around me at one point.  (FWIW, she was short, blonde, cute, and slightly chubby, with a gigantic, staggeringly vicious pink scar in a semicircle under her chin / on her throat.  I seriously was amazed that anyone could even survive such a wound.  A bite from the lower jaw of an alligator?)  She even gives me a business card with the Lafourche Parish police dept.'s phone #s on it so I can report tailgaters in the future.  So this was fun and all, but a few minutes later, I start to think what would've happened if I hadn't taken that video, if it was just my word against the tailgater's.  Would I have been ticketed?  And since two cop cars were dispatched to intercept me, and the cop declined my offer to burn a copy of the video for them to use against the tailgater, that meant the tailgater probably got away scot-free.  Not so funny.  But this did remind me of the power of video in clearing up a dispute, and coincidentally it came a few days after the death of Rodney King.
Continued on to Hebert's Nursery and labeled a bunch of their cacti for them.  At Rouses, being a huge Guinness fan, I took a chance on an amazing beer by Guinness called Foreign Extra Stout.  It's almost comically full of flavors like coffee, chocolate, honey, toffee, etc.  By far the best beer I've ever had.  The cHeat won the NBA title.

*Citibank received $45 billion in federal bailout money in late 2008, with which they immediately, brazenly, bought a $50 million corporate jet and then teetered on the edge of insolvency for a while as people like me gleefully waited for them to fail.  According to Bloomberg in 2011, "Citigroup paid back $20 billion of its bailout funds and the Treasury converted the remaining $25 billion into a 27 percent stake in the bank, which it began selling last year. It sold the last of its investment in December, realizing an overall gain for taxpayers of about $12 billion."  It is clear that that groovy Sea And Cake song singlehandedly revived the bank's fortunes and hence really paid off for the taxpayers in the end.  America.

Mark Bittman: What's wrong with what we eat - A fascinating, disturbing, and oft-humorous video

Beirutopia: Could Lebanon's capital become a garden city?

Man sees his stolen bike on Craigslist, steals it back - "A spoke for a spoke, so to speak."

Planets with similar climates: The Promise Ring - "A Picture Postcard" (1996), Luna - "California (All The Way)" (1994), The Sundays - "Summertime" (1997), The Cardigans - "Carnival" (1994), The Police - "Bring On The Night" & "The Bed's Too Big Without You" (1979), The Church - "Already Yesterday" (1986), The Smiths - "This Charming Man" (1983).

Kill Laura >> If you could be somewhere, where would it be?

Kill Laura - "Unheeled"

(Klee Records, 1994)

I downloaded this EP, Unloverlike, last year after seeing it on an mp3 blog that I used to follow, despite my vehemently hatred of Kill [Female Name] band names.  The EP itself, released only on 12" vinyl, is long out of print.   It took me forever to decide whether to post this song or the passionate "False Dawn".  Singer Jane Weaver obviously has one of the most astoundingly awesome and versatile voices on the planet.  The best showcase for her voice on this EP is the delicate and almost hallucinogenic dream-pop ballad "Cinnamon Brow," in which she does some stunningly nuanced vocal gymnastics that only someone with operatic training should be able to pull off.  And the EP's title is a lyric in that song.  So just check out the whole EP, which is truly one of the lost classics of the '90s.  If it had been released on Creation, 4AD, or Too Pure, it would have the large cult following that it deserves.  The most simplistic overall way I could describe the EP's sound would be Lush and/or Bleach (U.K.) meets Sonic Youth and/or Poem Rocket, with a PJ Harvey lyrical style.

Info about the band is hard to come by; they were from Liverpool and released three EPs.  It's hard enough to know anything about these kinds of bands while they're still active, and almost impossible two decades later.  You can see a copyrighted promo photos of Kill Laura here, plus a live pic here.  On the live pic page, the photographer refers to Jane as "One of the tallest, most talented and nicest musicians I have ever met."

Promo pic by Tony Smith, "Taken in the Winnington Rec Snooker Room"

When I first heard this song, I immediately thought of PJ Harvey's classic "Rid Of Me", due to the abrupt soft-to-loud dynamic shift.  I think the word "unheeled" in this song means both untamed (as in, teaching a dog to heel), and its homonym, unhealed (as in, the singer's wounds).  And it could also mean poor, as in the opposite of "well-heeled."  So she could be saying that at that bad point in her life, she was reckless, injured, and poor, which led her to getting into some situation that she regrets.  "If you could be somewhere, where would it be?" is a chilling thought, in terms of it being something that an abused person probably spends a lot of time thinking about.  But the way she sings it is so gorgeous that it should be aired continually in Travelocity or Orbitz commercials around the globe, bringing vast royalties to the members of KL.  Just snip out that sentence and play it atop some slo-mo clips of parents walking behind their kids on a beach and you have instant advertising gold.  Or better yet, picture William Shatner fucking hang-gliding off of the edge of an erupting volcano to this song and watch the money roll right in.
Speaking of wounds, here's the cover art:

I buss'id my lip open playing basketball while wearing one of my Paul Pierce jerseys, on June 6th at the Annunciation Street court.  Also broke my glasses, jammed my thumb, and slit my palm up, but that's streetball, America's best pure invention aside from jazz.  Unfortunately, the Celtics lost to the cHeat in game 6 that night, and they lost in game 7 a few nights later, probably ending the Big Three's tenure in Boston, though Rajon Rondo has now eclipsed all three of them, so they can get to rebuilding.  This pic of my buss'id lip that I took the next day didn't show the injury too well, since the light reflection covered up the yellow pus, and since only my neck was in focus:

Wearing my terrific Macha shirt; will finally get around to posting a song by them soon

So, if I could be somewhere, where would it be?  A few off the top of my head:

The Faroe Islands in the summer
Anywhere in New Zealand
Nong Nooch Botanical Garden in Thailand (1100 different species of palms)
The famed palm groves of Elche, Spain
The famed coffee-growing mountains in Jamaica
Anywhere in Belize
Dakar, Senegal
Cozumel, Mexico (again)
The Canary Islands
Kew Gardens in London

Jane Weaver on ITV's This Is Music show in 2002; from her MySpace

75 awesome "Looking into the past" pictures

Driving like a jerk may cost you an extra $100 per month in gas

Planets with similar climates: PJ Harvey - "Rid Of Me" (1992), Juned - "Leeches" & "Pretty New Song" (1994), Bleach - "Hit On Me" (1992), Band Of Susans - "Mood Swing" (1993)

Doldrums >> They don't care what time it is now

Doldrums - "Weird Orbits"

(VHF Records, 1995)

It's reverb time, motherfuckers.  If you are so unpatriotic that you don't know what reverb is, you will learn after a few seconds of this song have elapsed.  Though it's mainly used on guitars and keyboards, reverb is also used pretty frequently on vocals; e.g. the singer from My Morning Jacket.  This song from their album Secret Life Of Machines, whose title is of course based on a curious Stevie Wonder album which was a soundtrack to a film about plant life.

Doldrums are what seafarers call areas around the equator with little to no prevailing winds, where a sailed vessel can easily get stuck.  Wind is actually "born" here.  No, seriously: I've seen footage in a world climate documentary (I think it was that one called Planet Earth) of someone standing on a beach near the equator who simply held up a leaf and let go of it, so that it fell towards the sand.  It hung suspended for a few moments, and eventually floated up and away into the æther.  The word is also used to describe sadness, but I don't know which term came first.  Doldrums is a band that grew out of the Virginia experimental band Rake..  Whereas Rake. (it's always spelled "Rake." with a period after it) were prankster-ish, iconoclastic, and kitchen-sink, Doldrums were more atmospheric and mysterious, at least on this album.  The cool thing is that they didn't use synths and other electronic gizmos, which most ambient musicians rely on.  They just plug in their guitars and basses and crank up the ol' reverb and delay to create vast washes of sound, like blue whales sighing or a desert of opals melting.  They did a good job of putting the ghost in the machine with this song.  The airy, crisp, jazzy drumming is the ideal counterfoil to the spacious brushstrokes of guitar.  It's really difficult to describe what genre this song is, as it blends ambient, space rock, post-rock, and dream pop.  Man, this song makes me so proud to have been born in Virginia, birthplace of 14 of our nation's 44 Presidents.  It should seriously be the state's anthem.  "Weird Orbits" segues seamlessly into the album's second track, the 15 minute instrumental opus "Colossal Scissors".  (Great potential band name alert...)  I would say Lustmord's creeptacular ambient classic Heresy is the only album I can think of that uses reverb as prominently / boldly as Secret Life Of Machines.  Slowdive and Low used it to great effect on their early stuff, Windy & Carl made a career out of it, and The Orb used it in some of their "ambient house" soundscapes.  So yeah, go buy a reverb pedal and play a guitar through it and you'll hear entire new worlds unfurling before your eyes.  My amp, a Fender Prosonic, has allegedly the largest spring reverb tank of any amp ever made, hence I don't need a reverb pedal.

Doldrums' next album, Acupuncture, had song structures based more on krautrock / prog; that was the first Doldrums album I bought, on promo CD in '98.  They apparently broke up after their 1999 album Desk Trickery on Kranky.

I found out there's a band named Secret Life Of Machines, but I dunno if they're named after this album.

This CD's artwork features some beautiful photos of our avian friends:

Speaking of orbits and space rock(s), here's one of my favorite thinkers, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson:

Neil deGrasse Tyson is officially the sexiest astrophysicist alive

Why do smart kids grow up to be heavier drinkers? - "Smart people booze so we can tolerate everyone else.'"

Tile your home with recycled money

A few weeks ago I finally went to Tickfaw State Park on a 95º day.  Nabbed two seedlings: a Callicarpa americana (American Beautyberry) and a Saururus cernuus (Lizard's Tail).  Played basketball at an indoor court for a few hours.  Had a semi-slumber party with my sister and her friend Ashley last week. Missed a concert by The Weeknd (House Of Blues, June 12th) because it sold out online literally as I had just reached for my wallet to whip out the credit card.  Flaming Lips / Grimes (June 28th) tickets also sold out right before my wallet-reaching, but I think we have a source for free tix to that one.  My sister is now addicted to Grimes, so missing that show is not an option.  Speaking of Grimes, the Doldrums in this post is not the Doldrums that appears on her latest album.  The one on her album is a techno dude from Canada.

Also recently: Saw some movies, including Boy A, The Dinner Game, American Heart, a Rodriguo y Gabriela tour documentary, Vitus, Skin, and The Brooke Ellison Story.

Planets with similar climates: Slowdive - "Albatross" (1991) & "Losing Today" (1990), Windy & Carl - "Undercurrent" (1998), Bark Psychosis - "All Different Things" (1989), Bowery Electric - "Coming Down" (1996).

Ultracherry Violet >> Somebody put me together

Ultracherry Violet - "Post Wing-And-Prayer"

(Bedazzled Records, 1994)

Just a kewl instrumental shoegaze / post-rock voyage, with one of the sickest basslines ever (starting right after the 4-minute mark).  The bass also has that nice round, "fat," undistorted sound that I prefer.  Other examples of bands with this bass sound include Bark Psychosis, Hovercraft, Unwound, Bleach, and Poem Rocket, which coincidentally happen to be some of my all-time favorites; as in: bands to whom I'd donate a kidney with no questions asked if they ever needed one.

I bought this CD, I Fall To Pieces, used in the $2 or $4 clearance rack at the Mushroom in the early '00s, partly due to it being on Bedazzled.  The packaging is very artsy, with translucent, vellum-esque paper and a definite Factory / 4AD aesthetic, which is not surprising, since Bedazzled always wanted to be the U.S. 4AD or Factory.

While doing some research for this post, not expecting to find much, I found out about a 5-song demo tape UlVi released in 1992, which someone is currently selling on eBay.  Cool find.  But I was more amazed to find out about the long, strange tale of their drummer, Danny Ingram.  Read all about it here.  Summary: He met the Clash at a '79 concert in Ontario and was urged by Joe Strummer to form his own band; was in some D.C. harDCore bands in the '80s, most notably Youth Brigade; co-founded gothy post-punkers Strange Boutique (and Bedazzled Records); briefly joined Swervedriver on drums after their drummer fled at the Canadian Border on their '91 tour; appears in their "Never Lose That Feeling" video (as I've mentioned before, it's my #2 favorite song ever, and my #1 favorite shoegaze song ever); co-founded Ultracherry Violet; played in some other bands.
I'm printing everything he says about UltraVio here for posterity, just in case that A Pessimist Is Never Disappointed blog ever goes kaput without warning, like so many music blogs do:
"I started playing in Ultracherry Violet with my friends Dan Marx and Dugan Broadhurst shortly after the demise of Emma Peel. I loved this band. It was very much an extension of the sort of shoegaze thing that I'd been doing in Swervedriver and it was very much in my musical wheelhouse. I really thought that we had some great, original songs. But I quickly became really frustrated that the band was gaining no traction. It was either late '93 or early '94 and we were playing a show at The Black Cat. I think there were maybe 30 or so people in attendance. My frustration reached critical mass and I pulled a Keith Moon on stage. Throwing my drums at Nick P., the sound man, and threatening bodily harm to anyone who came near me. I'd had it with drumming. I made up my mind that night that I was done with it. And to make sure I would have no second thoughts, I did my best to demolish my poor, beautiful Gretsch drum kit. I was convinced that was it. I was in a new relationship, my life was starting to turn around in different ways, and I wanted to make a break with the past. That lasted about a year. I didn't touch my drums from that night until about 11 months later. Steve Willet called -– he had taken over Bedazzled records (the label that Monica and I started to release Strange Boutique music). He decided he wanted to release a CD of Ultracherry Violet. I'd mellowed out quite a bit in the intervening time, thanks to my new partner and future wife, Sally. Dan, Dugan, and I talked it over and decided to do it. We lugged our gear up to a dilapidated warehouse in a run-down part of Baltimore to record our CD. It had been so long since I'd played that my hands quickly blistered and started bleeding. I polished off nearly 3/4ths a bottle of Jack Daniels to try and steady my nerves and dull the pain of holding the sticks. We recorded all the songs in one day, but by the time we got to the last two -- "Mexico Song" in particular -- I could barely grip the sticks. My blisters kept bleeding and they kept slipping out of my hands. Still, we did all the songs in one take. There are 3 or 4 songs on that CD of which I'm really, really proud. The production is all over the place, but you can really tell that Dugan wrote some great songs... and Dan was really imaginative on the bass."

Indeed, the bass grooves and radioactive guitar tones on this album could be called seminal in the history of U.S. shoegaze... if anyone had actually bought the CD, that is.  I believe Bedazzled Records went out of business a few years after the album came out, and the Violets never made any music videos to my knowledge.  Note that Ingram doesn't even mention the demo tape in the interview.  The one song I've heard from it, "Wayve", is pretty gothy and primordial.

UnFun Fact: According to UlCherVio's guitarist, tracks 3 and 6 are the same song ("Losing My Friends") because of an error by someone or an error at the CD pressing plant.  So apparently, the only place to hear "Remember" is here, where said guitarist left his comment.

Pic taken from the website mentioned above; photographer, venue & date unknown

I always feel the need to explain my post titles for instrumental tracks.  This one is a line from Faith No More's classic "Falling To Pieces", which I thought of when rolling around the album title I Fall To Pieces inside my head for a few million nanoseconds.  (That video is very important to me, since it's one of a handful of songs/vids that got me into rock / "alternative" rock music in '91/'92, when I was strictly a rap head.)

Thurs.: Saw The Hunger Games in Houma, despite having only read about a third of the book.  Felt the campy overtones of most of the adult male characters detracted from the film's impact.  Played for a while at a basketball court I found, in 90º heat, in my Reggie Miller jersey which I recently dug out, yet dudes still called me "Larry Bird."  I think one called me "Reggie Bird," which I found quite creative.  The Pacers blew out the favored Heat that night.

Breasts lead to arrest of Anonymous hacker

Planets with similar climates: Southpacific - "Blue Lotus" & "Automata" (1999), Bright Channel - "Interception" (2005), Swervedriver - "Never Learn" (1992), Poem Rocket - "Contrail de l'avion" (1994), Unwound - "Abstraktions" (1993), Colfax Abbey - "Shanesong" (1995), Tamaryn - "The Waves" (2010).

Lynnfield Pioneers >> Look directly into the sun

Lynnfield Pioneers - "Add It Up"

(Matador Records, 1997)

Since that guy in the Beastie Boys died, I decided the only thing to do is to post the most Beastie Boys-esque song I can think of.  Unfortunately for the Beasties, these 140 seconds eclipse pretty much anything they ever did... Awkward.  I really hope their moms are not reading this...

Note: It should go without saying that the tagline on this site's header ("Providing roughly the same amount of hits as Sadaharu Oh since 2011") is an appropriation of a line in the Beastie Boys' "Hey Ladies."

I got this album, Emerge, on LP in Dec. 1998, after reading about the band in Alternative Press and/or Magnet (both of which I subscribed to) in the previous year.  They were essentially always described as some variation of "Pavement meets the Beastie Boys," or "Archers Of Loaf meets the Beastie Boys," etc. The hilarious cover art, a soft-focus shot of a group of flowers, is a classic.  It'd be ideal for an album by Starland Vocal Band or some hirsute new age flautist from a Balkan nation.  As for the curious band name, it's simply the name of their high school football team; for what it's worth, mine was the Country Day Cajuns and our mascot was a crawfish.  I was a starter at wide receiver and cornerback, and wanted to play WR in the NFL.  AllMusic Guide gives this LP an accurate 3-star review and accurately says "Emerge seeks out the common ground between the Beastie Boys and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, slicing and dicing meaty hip-hop beats, crazed garage-rock riffs and vintage keyboard squawking; what could have amounted to little more than primordial pomo sludge is actually quite impressive when it catches fire (see "Go for a Ride," "Add It Up" and "Get Off Your Feet"), although the band's willful lack of focus is a weakness as often as it's a strength."

The drumming is incredible... Like, it should be in the hall of fame of drumming.  Listen to how the drummer leads the way in speeding up and slowing down the tempo within each bar.  Polvo would be proud at the sheer math-rockness of it.  The distorted organ (Hammond B3, I'm guessing) sound is just too cool.  The song has an overall badass quality that is infectious.  I planned to recommend this song to Apple for use in an iPod commercial about 10 years ago, but for some reason I never did.  The "Do the math / Multiply, divide, subtract" line would be perfect to play next to a graphic showing how many songs could fit into a certain size (GB) iPod.

"Add It Up" is a huge leap forward from their early self-released novelty single "Yos To Go," which begat what was apparently their only music video:

Pic taken by my sister, at my behest, in December on the edge of the French Qtr. while we were going to various Prospect.2 art exhibits around town:

She also took this one of me with some sort of robot vending machine outside the Contemporary Arts Center:

Pretty uneventful week... Went in for Mother's Day barbecue with the fam, and drove around with my dad frantically looking for flowers at 7PM on a Sunday night.  Luckily Rouse's saved the day.  Planted a Juniperus chinensis 'Blue Point' (Blue Point juniper), a Chamaerops humilis (Mediterranean Fan Palm) (normal green version), and a Leucophyllum frutescens 'Compactum' (Compact Texas Sage).  Had to buy a new $300 tire due to a tiny nail in the sidewall.  Found out holes in this location cannot be patched, so the whole tire has to be replaced.  Was sort of creeped out by how enthusiastically the mechanic told me "If someone gets mad at you, all they have to do is stick nails in your sidewalls!"  Vaguely considering seeing a band called As Cities Burn on Friday.

Appreciation of BOOTED NEWS WOMEN Blog - I just found this, the worst site in the history of America, narrowly edging out Facebook.  It brews up anywhere from 1 to 30 boot-tastic posts per day.  Reading the user comments is by far the best part.

CSI Miami: Endless Caruso one-liners - Because this show just got cancelled

Your rage comic sucks

Planets with similar climates: Bailter Space - "Pass It Up" (1997), Six Finger Satellite - "Parlour Games" (1995), James Chance & The Contortions - "Contort Yourself" (1979), Bleach - "Shotgun" (1991), The Delta 72 - "...Ever Since You Told Me" (1997).

Dome w/ Angela Conway >> The whispers grow into a solid shout

Dome w/ Angela Conway - "Cruel When Complete"

(Dome Records, 1980 / The Grey Area / Mute / Elektra Records, 1991 / The Grey Area / Mute, 1992)

I'm not much of a Wire fan at all, but this minimalistic side project of theirs was pretty intriguing, based on the few songs I've heard by it.  For a song that's barely even there, it makes a pretty big impression.  Too bad Wire couldn't capture this chilly, cinematic vibe in more of their own stuff.

I got this song 2 years ago on an interesting Mute Records compilation from 1991 called Tyranny Of The Beat.  The CD booklet aptly describes this song as "elegant blocks of sweet noise free-floating through space."  I have to wonder if this album was a big influence on A.R. Kane, Hugo Largo, Bark Psychosis, and other quiet, abstract groups that came along later in the decade.

Side A of Dome's 1980 self-titled debut LP. Note: The stripey block design is a grayscale version of the album cover itself.

Angela Conway also recorded under the alias A.C. Marias, and released an album under that name on Mute in 1989 titled One Of Our Girls (Has Gone Missing).  She is now "a successful music video director."

In 1991, Mute released a VHS home video concurrently with the Tyranny Of The Beat CD.  It featured this Dome video, which could be described as the most hilariously botched soundcheck in recorded history, or as brilliant deconstructionist pop art:

Yikes... Hopefully Conway didn't "direct" that one...

Sunday, May 6: Made a last-minute decision to go to Jazz Fest, with Em & Damion.  Had my dad watch the video for "Best Of You" right before he dropped us off.  Delivered some cigars from him to Jeff in his patrol car outside the front gate of the fest right before going in.  Saw the Foo Fighters' whole 2-hour set, which started off great, then sucked for a while, then ruled at the end with "Best Of You" & "Everlong."  Moshing like crazy to the latter in the mud at End Fest '97 was one of the top highlights of my concertgoing life, so this time couldn't really hold a candle to that, but it was still good.  I spent about an hour staring at this girl in the crowd who looked exactly like this sex blogger named Pocket, trying to determine if it was her.  Speaking of candles, the Foos presented their guitarist with a birthday cake near the end, which marks the second time I've seen that happen in the last two weeks.  Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings then stole the show in the Blues Tent.  Also saw a bit of Maze, the Preservation Hall 50th anniv. celebration (with vox on a song called "Freight Train" by Ani Difranco), and the Neville Brothers (with a guest appearance by Trombone Shorty).

Went to the Mushroom that night on a hunch that Sam might be there, and she was.  I had only seen her once in the prev. 6 months, and was worried that she no longer worked there.  I brought some satsumas that I swiped from my parents' kitchen.  She immediately strode up grilled me on why I was not at the free Roky Erickson / Thurston Moore show the previous night at One Eyed Jacks, and excitedly told me all about it.  She got one of Thurston's lyrics sheets from the stage.  I saw The Orb's first album (the abridged 1-CD version, unfortunately) in the used CD racks and recommended it, so she put it on, and all of its weird samples sounded amazing on their incredible surround-sound stereo system, with speakers in all the various nooks and crannies of the store.  Got Hüsker Dü's Zen Arcade (double LP), a stunning Joy Division poster, and Pet Shop Boys' "It's A Sin" (7").  I rec'd Drive Like Jehu's Yank Crime to her, so hopefully she dug it.  I think she and I must've been brother and sister in a past life.

They also had an amazing "Love Will Tear Us Apart" poster, which I was going to buy until I found the "Atmosphere' one.

Yesterday, May 8: My neighbor helped me take out this ugly 8x10 foot concrete slab in the backyard with just a 10-lb. sledgehammer, with a trick he taught me a trick in which you slightly raise part of the slab with a pry bar and then jam a rock under the slab.  This forms an air layer underneath the slab, so it makes spiderweb cracks very readily when struck.  So in a few minutes I singlehandedly turned that bitch into rubble with a few dozen hits, after procrastinating over it for a multitude of years.  Sure wish I had video of that.  A few hours prior to that yesterday, I took this snapshot in my car door's window before heading to a dollar store:

Today: He, my neighbor, gave(!) me a ~300-400 gallon pond liner that he had laying around.  He had been using it as a satellite pond next to one of his other ones for about a year before removing it for some reason.  I think May 2012 has probably been the best month of my life so far in terms of people doing considerate things for me and having illuminating conversations with me.  I should mention this neighbor is often referred to as "the bird man" due to his extensive collection of birds in aviaries in his backyard.  He's as big of a plant nut as I am, if not bigger, so we always talk about plants and landscaping philosophies, e.g. tree trimming, shade creation, propagation.  Some of his big Live Oaks, which he planted 30 years ago, can be seen in the pic above.  I'm not sure if I could ever move back to New Orleans after being spoiled by living out in the country since Katrina.  But if I did, I would need a big fucking yard.  The ones out here are about 5-20 times bigger than ones of houses of equivalent value in NOLA, which can be either a blessing or a curse, depending on one's enthusiasm for yard work and tree upkeep.

Jermaine Paul just won season 2 of a show called The Voice, which I don't watch.  I had seen him singing backup vocals (& occasional lead vox during the numerous time when she was offstage changing outfits) at an Alicia Keys concert on St. Patrick's Day '04.  You could practically hear the panties dropping around the New Orleans Arena every time the dude took the mic.  (The crowd was probably 80%+ female.) My only qualm is that I'm not sure why a seasoned pro was allowed to be on an amateur singing competition.  Check him out stealing the show in AK's song "Diary".

Millions Against Monsanto: The food fight of our lives - "Finally, public opinion around the biotech industry's contamination of our food supply and destruction of our environment has reached the tipping point. We're fighting back."

Love him or hate him, Bryce is here - "And let’s face it, his name is Bryce. BRYCE. That could only be more irritating if his parents had gone with EdHardyNickelbackCrocs." ... "Harper is self-aware enough to know he’s antagonizing you. He’s baseball’s version of the guy who sits at a stoplight blasting 'Sexy & I Know It' at unholy decibel levels, staring directly at you through the window of your involuntarily rattling Subaru."

Meet the former right-wing blogger who realized conservatives are crazy

Related:

Planets with similar climates: A.R. Kane - "The Madonna Is With Child" (1988), The Comsat Angels - "Restless" (1981), Mazzy Star - "Mary Of Silence" (1993), Low - "Shame" (1995), Slowdive - "Albatross" (1991), Sonic Youth - "Satan Is Boring" (~1984), Plexi - "Ordinary Things" (1996), Insides - "Yes" (1993), Chairlift - "Cool As A Fire" (2011), Bark Psychosis - "All Different Things" (1989).