Last night I went, with college friend pete, to see The Juan Maclean.
[the kids face at 0:36 is the best thing ever]
I was anxious because I'd heard one of their songs on Key 103, or some shit, whilst I was getting my hair cut a couple days ago.
And when I got there it was full of trendy indy types who think hey yeah I can get down but HELL ARE THEY WRONG.
I got down, and I did it full measure.
Yes, I was pleased by the foot, all around, of respect/fear that my dancing garnered. It was an adequate level of tribute from the lesser dancers of the crowd (i.e. the crowd) and sated my desire to destroy them and their families through dance.
The band were good with their final song going through this insane build up and becoming this psychedelic thing and before I knew it the whole thing was over. And now I can't remember how the tune went. All I can think of is Get Innocuous by LCD Soundsystem and it wasn't like that at all.
Also now, it appears I have swine flu and am about to die. But I can't tell if the sniffles I had yesterday are just enhanced by this weird hangover I have which means everytime I turn my head it's like I've been spinning round for fifteen minutes. In fact even sitting still gives the same sensation. And the shitting. Jesus Christ.
Thursday, 30 April 2009
Sunday, 19 April 2009
De-stressing and winding up wealthy and confused
According to ama zon dot com the most valuable album I own - gotta be the most Sterlingsome medium for any kind of culture/art in fact, my books are worth f.a. - is Keiji Haino's mid-90s solo record, "I Said, This Is The Son Of Nihilism", which you can order second hand for a cracking £65.63 (or £62.95 new, or £34 from discogs dot com, or, y'know, free, which is the reason of a free-market w/its eye off the ball). And a CD to boot! I'm not one to speak (or do anything) prematurely, but I'm pretty sure this has been a good investment. Think it could form the core of my NEST EGG. Pops was always looking out for you, kids.
What a downer it must have been to live in the very-much-before now, the pre-industrial era, anytime before I could assess my assets and listen to a monolithic hour-long storm of electric blues at the same time. Any album that starts with so much mass makes me wonder what was happening before the album started, the preparation we're not privy too, like how thinking about the big bang leads you on to wonder about the previous step in the causal chain. To this know-nothing outsider, the most obvious instance of Ma is the silence before the beginning. Haino sez "IN THE BEGINNING WAS VIBRATION", which is sure true here, but as soon as it starts I'm thinking of the tension that's been created in the pre-beginning that allows him to milk out the vibration from the guitar.
A reflective individual & not one to lose sight of the source (he hates samplers!), Haino has refined the playing of his big rock idols so that he plays with the tension of the electric charge as much as that of the strings. And this isn't some anal technical exercise, like a good athlete or lover, he starts by blowing out all this tension of electric fields, stretches it all out to air, but really its rock qua blues, Hendrix style, rather than rock qua rock, cutting to the source again. Of course Haino's Japanese, which means he's collapsing direct/indirect, dressing up to express himself honestly, a true rock gesture.
This album is an extravagent gesture all round; clenched fist jitters, monochrome drones panning out to wide-scope watery chords, playing in the echo of his amplifier - and a real CHAMELEONIC thing too, refusing to settle and instead changing shape through marches and riffs and chord changes with this poor woman singing in Japanese over the top. And MAN! Since I first decided to write about this I must have got sucked into listening to it six times or so, and still it's elusive; every time you get used to one of his moves he gets restless and shifts, always getting tense again.
Contemplation of this part of my portfolio reveals it to be strong, maybe 21.876666667 times as good as the copy of Once Upon A Time In America that LANDO bought. I just need the value of the rest of my collection to increase now so that a financial animal like me has a reason to listen to it.
What a downer it must have been to live in the very-much-before now, the pre-industrial era, anytime before I could assess my assets and listen to a monolithic hour-long storm of electric blues at the same time. Any album that starts with so much mass makes me wonder what was happening before the album started, the preparation we're not privy too, like how thinking about the big bang leads you on to wonder about the previous step in the causal chain. To this know-nothing outsider, the most obvious instance of Ma is the silence before the beginning. Haino sez "IN THE BEGINNING WAS VIBRATION", which is sure true here, but as soon as it starts I'm thinking of the tension that's been created in the pre-beginning that allows him to milk out the vibration from the guitar.
A reflective individual & not one to lose sight of the source (he hates samplers!), Haino has refined the playing of his big rock idols so that he plays with the tension of the electric charge as much as that of the strings. And this isn't some anal technical exercise, like a good athlete or lover, he starts by blowing out all this tension of electric fields, stretches it all out to air, but really its rock qua blues, Hendrix style, rather than rock qua rock, cutting to the source again. Of course Haino's Japanese, which means he's collapsing direct/indirect, dressing up to express himself honestly, a true rock gesture.
This album is an extravagent gesture all round; clenched fist jitters, monochrome drones panning out to wide-scope watery chords, playing in the echo of his amplifier - and a real CHAMELEONIC thing too, refusing to settle and instead changing shape through marches and riffs and chord changes with this poor woman singing in Japanese over the top. And MAN! Since I first decided to write about this I must have got sucked into listening to it six times or so, and still it's elusive; every time you get used to one of his moves he gets restless and shifts, always getting tense again.
Contemplation of this part of my portfolio reveals it to be strong, maybe 21.876666667 times as good as the copy of Once Upon A Time In America that LANDO bought. I just need the value of the rest of my collection to increase now so that a financial animal like me has a reason to listen to it.
Tuesday, 7 April 2009
Friday, 3 April 2009
game to be played AT GIGS
Ok so i have invented a game.
I apologise in advance; this has basically nothing to do with music, but then again what does these days really hm?
I invented it on the way to the Dirty Projects gig I went to last night where, incidentally, I fell in love with literally every member of the band.
I went to the gig with Chris, Alun, Andy and Nick (listed here in alphabetical order, but with Chris at the front) and for whatever reason I was expecting to bump into someone at the gig I knew independantly of those bozos (sp?)
I started thinking about how awkward this would make me feel, because sometimes I mean I get a little shy you know how it is and I was trying to think of a way around it when I came up with this game.
So basically the game is you go to a gig or a party with a group of people you know, in this instance Alun, Andy, Chris and Nick (hello all of you HELLO). And then say you meet someone at said gathering that you know, or maybe you get talking to a stranger, you each have to convince the new acquaintance that the other members of your friend group are actually strangers to you and have kidnapped you, at gunpoint, and brought you to the gig/party.
But you have to do it without any obvious signals, you can't come right out and say "help please THEY'VE KIDNAPPED ME THEY SHOT MY FRIEND CALL THE POLICE" because then your "kidnappers" will be forced to violent extremes and you genuinely fear for the safety of the nearby innocent bystanders.
So we all sort of agreed to play this game but I was thrown a fucking curveball to the max when three of my teachers turned up. Then later I met someone I loosely know, Toni, and her boyfriend Anton, but by then The Dirty Projectors were about to go on and I'd forgotten about the game.
I did try to convince this guy Dave (hi Dave! - he definitely doesn't read this blog, the flake) that the others had kidnapped me. Alun tried too: "they smashed my phone on a rock...ha ha ha". A caveat: my opening script was I don't really know these guys at all, you know what I mean? so if you're getting off anytime just let me know so I can come with you and it was accompanied by alot of frantic winking and the cry for help was not accurately communicated and in fact it appeared to be a much more homoerotic/insane signal which didn't go down well, really.
I apologise in advance; this has basically nothing to do with music, but then again what does these days really hm?
I invented it on the way to the Dirty Projects gig I went to last night where, incidentally, I fell in love with literally every member of the band.
I went to the gig with Chris, Alun, Andy and Nick (listed here in alphabetical order, but with Chris at the front) and for whatever reason I was expecting to bump into someone at the gig I knew independantly of those bozos (sp?)
I started thinking about how awkward this would make me feel, because sometimes I mean I get a little shy you know how it is and I was trying to think of a way around it when I came up with this game.
So basically the game is you go to a gig or a party with a group of people you know, in this instance Alun, Andy, Chris and Nick (hello all of you HELLO). And then say you meet someone at said gathering that you know, or maybe you get talking to a stranger, you each have to convince the new acquaintance that the other members of your friend group are actually strangers to you and have kidnapped you, at gunpoint, and brought you to the gig/party.
But you have to do it without any obvious signals, you can't come right out and say "help please THEY'VE KIDNAPPED ME THEY SHOT MY FRIEND CALL THE POLICE" because then your "kidnappers" will be forced to violent extremes and you genuinely fear for the safety of the nearby innocent bystanders.
So we all sort of agreed to play this game but I was thrown a fucking curveball to the max when three of my teachers turned up. Then later I met someone I loosely know, Toni, and her boyfriend Anton, but by then The Dirty Projectors were about to go on and I'd forgotten about the game.
I did try to convince this guy Dave (hi Dave! - he definitely doesn't read this blog, the flake) that the others had kidnapped me. Alun tried too: "they smashed my phone on a rock...ha ha ha". A caveat: my opening script was I don't really know these guys at all, you know what I mean? so if you're getting off anytime just let me know so I can come with you and it was accompanied by alot of frantic winking and the cry for help was not accurately communicated and in fact it appeared to be a much more homoerotic/insane signal which didn't go down well, really.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
