Oh, man.

Dear blog,

Yes, I am still kickin', and I'm sorry I don't talk to you more often; it's just that leaving for work at quarter to six in the morning and not getting home until around four thirty makes me tired and generally unwilling/unable to do Things. I know this isn't a very good excuse, but please forgive me: I'm doing the best I can.

Love,
Daniel

Khanate - Skin Coat

Alan Dubin has one of the crazier voices (and one of the more reasonably terrifying lyricists) on the market. But it's perfectly suited to the sonic assault that is Khanate. The plodding, ominous, depraved, intense assault that is Khanate.

Though I most enjoy their most recent album (Capture & Release), there are amazing moments on all their albums, of which "Skin Coat," taken from their eponymous debut, is one. Compared to later works, this song moves along at lightning speed, and its fullness is impressive. Listening over Khanate's catalogue, it's obvious how much importance they place on space, how interested they are in the idea. They're probably the best band that I've ever heard at manipulating space, knowing when to fill it, when to leave it empty. They are not afraid of silence (maybe not quite so unafraid as John Cage, but close).

"Skin Coat" is chilling, as much of Khanate's work is. Dubin's repeated "shhh" works to such an effect, certainly. And, again, the space issue is important here, imbuing the work with a claustrophobia-inducing feeling, leaving no stone unturned in the quest to create something truly sinister sounding. The rest of the band is just as intense, in a restrained way——pushing and pulling at their respective instruments, pushing and pulling at space and time within the song's structure. Building, tearing down. They mimic the sinister quality of Dubin's vocals almost perfectly; the section beginning at about 5:10 being the greatest example: a cohesion of vision, violence and malice seething just below the surface.

Intensely, violently beautiful.

Bobby Darin - Dream Lover

So, as I'm sure some people may know, I was raised on a steady musical diet of 720CHTN, from when I lived in Pictou until it finally died a nasty death, its death knell ringing loudly and clearly on July 5th, 2006, permitting the entrance of the weak Ocean 100 and signalling the end of decent (even passable) pop radio on PEI.

Obviously, I heard Bobby Darin many, many times throughout the 20-some years of listening to 720. I remember especially appreciating the convergence of my bathtime with "Splish Splash." And while that song may be one of those Golden Oldies, Bobby Darin's pinnacle for me is "Dream Lover."

His voice!: so smooth; the melodies!, the harmonies! The backing singers are pretty great. It's a perfect little pop nugget. The vaguely contrapuntal movements of Darin and his backers are, basically, magic. And they work so well at pushing the song forward and upward.

Also, it's used in Hot Shots. And who doesn't love Hot Shots?

It's also, in part, the inspiration for a story I'm slowly chipping away at, even affording me a wicked title.

Good News!

Wine is being drunk from a cat bottle, A New Hope will be watched in the near(ish) future (we started with The Phantom Menace on Wednesday and we're plowing right on through) and I'm starting work on Monday morning! 7 to 4, Monday to Friday (so cat wine = celebration, really, for my good news and Gabrielle's success; high fives to her, yup).

Man, when the staffing agency guy called me today and told me that I could start work on Monday, the stress just melted out of me. Good times.

And the commute will give me good amounts of time to read! I'm excited to no longer be just a cash drain!

Agoraphobic Nosebleed - Kill Theme for American Apeshit

Agoraphobic Nosebleed is one of my favourite bands (I'm really excited to get their split with Insect Warfare [another great band] when I have a few extra dollars kicking around).

Frozen Corpse Stuffed with Dope is an exceptional album and this tune is one of the stand-outs for me. LISTEN TO THE BREAKDOWN! The vocal style on this song is one of my favourites they use (and they mix it up quite a lot, from song to song, album to album). The sort of yelps that they use at the start: so good. The drum machine: I love it. They use it well, they don't try to mask that they're using a drum machine like some bands; they revel in it and push it to levels beyond (at least most) humans, pushing into the realm of gloriousness. And the guitars! So precise and cutting. AND THE BREAKDOWN!

Also: look at the album cover!:



SKULL EYE SOCKET LASERS!!!
Enjoy.

Nasum - Red Tape Suckers

This is one of Nasum's songs for the Really Fast compilation (Volume 9). Each band on the compilation is given three and a half minutes, and, doing a bit of research, Anders Jakobson discovered (this is all according to the liner notes he wrote for the Grind Finale set) that Red-Tape Trash Survey had put the greatest number of songs into that three and a half minutes, with five songs. So, they set out to top the record, and ended up with nine songs. "Red Tape Suckers" is sort of a tongue-in-cheek stab at the former record holders. This sense of humour appeals to me.

And so does the riff. And so do the drums. And the vocals.

I'm glad someone went to the "trouble" to make a video for this song.

Oh, Job Hunt...

Today I had an interview. It went reasonably well and, when it was over, the HR woman who made up half the interview panel told me that I could call her (just in case she missed me if/when she called) later in the day, as they would have made a decision some time in the afternoon.

So, at around three thirty I called and she told me that she still needed to check things over, get things approved with the owner and that, if she hadn't called by five thirty, I should try her again.

I did so and she told me that she had received approval to hire me but then, not more than an hour after she received word, one of their other contracts for November and December had been cancelled on them. So, because the people doing that job are already working for the company, it behooved them to transfer those workers to the project I would have been participating in.

So close.

She did, however, tell me that she would try to get in touch with some of the other companies with whom they're involved to see if anyone needed a worker. I appreciated that. And her genuine disappointment at the falling through of my possible employment.

So close.

Cassandra Wilson - Red River Valley

I first heard this song on CBC RadioTwo, back when I was working at Vesey's. I was working in the small former sometimes greenhouse attached to the back of the equipment building. The corrugated plastic siding of which was yellowed and cracking. The next season, the equipment department transformed it into the washbay for golf carts and mowers. And used it as a breakroom, though it was not all that comfortable on overly bright and hot days. So, to get back to my story: I was sitting in the little greenhouse, transplanting little sprouts from fiber paks:



in which they grew in groups of at least six to individual pots for each sprout. Sitting on a stool, leaning on an almost rotting wooden shelf, listening to CBC RadioTwo on a radio that had difficulties maintaining clear reception. I think I was listening to Studio Sparks, hosted by Eric Friesen (one of my favourite radio hosts; he always sounded so personable, someone I could sit down and chat with about all sorts of musics). This song came on; that first arpeggiated chord and the resounding, dirty twang that followed, the sparse, almost empty expanse of the song, hooked me. I slowed down with the transplanting; I held my breath; I turned up the radio and listened to the static and volume pitch and yaw until finally settling comfortably into something barely louder than what I'd started with.

Then Wilson's voice entered. These are the only two instruments throughout the song: the lone, mournful slide guitar and the full, expressive voice.

I snatched up a plastic planting stake, grabbed my Sharpie and wrote "Cassandra Wilson - Red River Valley" across it and admonished myself to find this song. I searched online when I got home, learned the name of the album, went to the since expired music store in the Charlottetown Mall and, to my surprise, found the album and learned that Marc Ribot is featured on it (though not this song)!

And, though the rest of the album pales in comparison to Wilson's rendition of this classic, it's a pretty strong release.

The way the guitar and voice play across each other——dance, even——is exceptional. They are entwined, enmeshed, they strive together to create a beautifully melancholy version of this song, pulling it up from the mire of countrified melody into some sort of almost ethereal, spiritual, rarefied experience.

DOWNLOAD!

A side note: until I can find a better way (for example: somewhere [free, obviously] to host audio which I could then stream in my blog, I'm going to use rapidshare for downloading. Of course, this will only be for the songs I can't find videos for on YouTube or as an audio stream elsewhere. I'm open to suggestions on this, so if you know of anything, please let me know.)

Tori Amos - Raining Blood

When I first heard (this was before it was released) about Strange Little Girls, I was pretty excited. Number one, I love Tori Amos and, number two, I really like covers. A lot. And I was really excited about her plans for the songs. How she intended to (and succeeded at) a new vision, a reinterpretation, not only of the sounds and structures of the songs, but also the intentions, the meanings of (at least some of) the songs.

And "Raining Blood" comes out a big winner for me, in some respects. Mostly because of how chillingly she transforms a pretty much classic thrash tune. Sure, the Slayer tune is good, but it lacks in everything except rifftasticness and speed. She imbues the song with emotion, with atmosphere, with scope and depth.

Amos' version is haunting. Spine-tingling. And expansive. The drone which carries throughout the piece draws everything toward it and provides a shifting foundation, like storm clouds rolling through. And Amos' vocals float over the top, a harbinger of doom, an ill wind blowing through.

It's too bad Slayer's not this dark and ominous sounding...

Laurie Anderson - O Superman

I first heard this song in the Women, Gender and Music course I took at Dal when I was going to King's.

The class was, if I remember correctly, in the Dalhousie Arts Centre——the same building that is home to the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium. The room our class was in had a pretty decent sound system, a projector and a large screen at the front of the room. We watched the video (included below——I highly recommend watching it in its entirety) and i sat stunned, silent, awed. From that first note straight through to the end. And every time I've listened to it since then, it's still really resonated with me. It's a powerful, moving piece of music. And a wonderful experiment, too.

Anderson was quite a pioneer with the whole electronic music thing, invented some cool things, including "a tape-bow violin that uses recorded magnetic tape on the bow instead of horsehair and a magnetic tape head in the bridge." (stolen from the Wikipedia article about her) She uses that on, among other things, the United States Live 5LP set that I'm slowly working my way through. She was all about using pitch-bending effects to alter her voice, to present the entire spectrum of range for the human voice through just one person. Things like that. She had Things to say, too. And would not, from what little I know, hold back. Sort of an inspirational person, really.

This song is totally one of my favourites. And I don't mean one of my favourite Laurie Anderson songs (although that is also true), but just one of my Favourite Songs. For real.

Kanye West - Love Lockdown

This is the first attempt at something I'm going to do my damnedest to keep up with: I'm going to review(/write something about) one song a day (I'm sure I'll do a great job at keeping up with this——just wait: my longest streak will be two days; let's lay bets.). Sometimes (like today), it'll be a song I don't know by an artist I don't know. Sometimes, it'll be a song I've loved for a long time by a favourite artist. And I'll try to include a YouTube link to each one, whatever it may be (whether that means linking to a fan-created video or an official one, it all works out the same).

So, Kanye West's "Love Lockdown." Obviously, I've heard of Kanye West. Mostly from Taylor's gushing. And one day I read an article about West's upcoming album 808s & Heartbreak. I thought it was a pretty wicked title, so I searched around on YouTube for Kanye West, and found "Love Lockdown."

The three-note bass/drum intro, which continues throughout the song, is understatedly wicked; it focuses things, it keeps things on track.

I really like the vocal line in the verses; sure, vocoder may be a bit overused, but I think West's embracement works. It, like the bass/drum loop, is never really overstated.

The only thing that is, really: the choruses. They're sort of involved in an excess, with a driving tribal drum feel. Tribally rococo? Sure. Though this contrast is, certainly, intentional. And, what is more, it works.

Also, I heard that, due to pressure from fans, West is rerecording the song. I don't think it's necessary, but, since I'm not one of his real fans (as this is the first song of his I've heard), I suppose I shouldn't have much of a say in the matter.

It's a pretty swell song, to be sure.

Jolie Holland makes a GREAT SHOW!; or: How to Win Gabrielle's Respect (or, at least, one way to do it)

The title, part one:

Though I prefer the older albums, which carried an atmosphere of an earlier era, the new album still holds my interest, as Jolie Holland is one of my favourite singers. She has a voice that is uncannily well suited to bluesy, countryish folky music; a sort of slow, drawling lilt (which is, as Gabrielle pointed out at the show, lower pitched than her bass player fellow's [more on him later]) that fairly drips with a sincere emotion and a clear——a lucid——tone.

I would have liked to have heard a couple of my favourites ("I Wanna Die" [more on that later] and "Stubborn Beast"), though I did get to hear my other two favourites, so I won't complain too much; these being: "Adieu False Heart" and "Old Fashion Morphine." Though the latter does work better when it involves horns as it does on the album. Still an awesome song, though, and played with just the right sort of sway and slide.

Everything was played superbly (though I think the other guitarist could've been turned down a wee bit during most sections).

The "more on that later" for the bass player: he told a whale joke that, though incredibly, geekily funny, I can't repeat here. Not because it's naughty ('cause when would that ever stop me, am I right?), but because it's a joke that needs to be told out loud.

The "more on that later" for "I Wanna Die": see, I would've loved to have heard it live, but, really now, I didn't feel right about yelling "I wanna die" at the show. Maybe someone would have misinterpreted things. Also, I wanted to ask, after the show, if it was in any way referencing "House of the Rising Sun" in a continuation of the American revisioning of old broadside ballads. Since I didn't actually get the chance (big crowds around her), I'll assume the answer is yes. It just makes sense that she'd be involved in the continuous evolution of ballads, in the malleability of the form or in a commentary on it.

It was a great show, no doubt, and I'm glad I got to see it.


The title, part two:

You can:

— be of a more diminutive stature than anticipated when appearing on stage.
— drink (white) wine from the bottle on stage and follow that up later on with what was (probably) rum 'n' Coke.
— wear a ginormous ring on one of the fingers of your fretting hand and still manage things with no visible difficulty.
— be pretty much awesome (this last one, I think, might be a requirement [i.e., there's no wiggle room on this one]).

Wicked times.

!

Dear Blog,

Do you want to know something awesome?

Being an unskilled person looking for a job in a city full of skilled people looking for jobs. That's what's awesome.

Love,
Daniel

I Haven't Had Much to Say (Which Is Why I Haven't Been Saying Anything)

I am still jobless. That's some of the less exciting news I have.

More exciting things:

— Next week, we are going to see Jolie Holland!(for which concert there will undoubtedly be a review posted here. Several days late, of course.)

— Tonight I finished the longest piece of writing I've ever completed. A short story which clocks in at 21 pages (6134 words), called "The Weather God." I'm at least reasonably pleased with how it turned out. Obviously it needs some (read: a lot of) work, but the ideas are there. Most of them, anyway. A first reading by someone who isn't me will let me know if I was clear enough, though still subtle enough, with the hinted things. Or, perhaps, too out in the open. The reading will help. And this story is something I intend to include in a collection I'm developing in MY BRAINS called Hello, City. I have two other stories finished in rough drafts, both of which are only about a quarter of the length of this one, called "The Guitar Man" and "The Man Wearing the Black Suit and Carrying the Gray One." I like both of them, too, which is a nice surprise. Also, I have plans to insert, between each of the stories, little things I'm calling "vignettes of place," which are very short——no longer than a page——and have no characters, no plot; none of that stuff. Just descriptions of places. I have a few of these started: "The Payphone," "The Pigeon" and "The Bathroom He Used" (this last one may not be included. It was just something I whipped up, though it probably doesn't belong with the rest of the collection.). And several other ideas, including the backyard at this place and a parking lot.

Hi, my name's Mr. Pretension. How are you?

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds; or: Holy Shit. These Guys, They Are Loud! (I'm so glad I remembered my earplugs)

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. I got to see them play. Last Wednesday (like with the Shellac show/post combo, I preferred to let things dull into the fogginess of my memory before posting about them. This way I can make stuff up with fewer pangs of conscience). I was introduced to these guys in 2000 or thereabouts by the Brothers L.——probably moreso the younger than the elder. I've been diggin' 'em since around that time.

So, the show. At The Kool Haus. Which is massive and open and solidly floored. Which we learned after waiting in line for at least half an hour, slowly progressing toward the entrance. That's what we get for getting there only ten minutes before doors opened, I guess. So, we ended up with a line of sight not all that great——especially for Gabrielle, which I felt bad about the entire show. Especially when the six foot something fellow moved, about halfway through the show, directly in front of her. So close that when she blinked, her eyelashes got stuck in the weave of his sweater. The extrication process was long and painful. I could see most performers from about the waist up.

The openers, Black Mountain, were unimpressive I found. I thought every song, at its commencement, was a cover. And not of anything spectacular. Imagine Black Sabbath stripped of all their darkness and bluesiness and converted into even more stereotypical arena rock. There you go. The woman who sang in the band, with her sea-sickeningly wide vibrato, reminded me of Grace Slick. So, I guess that's a good thing.

To Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds!
Their setlist (from what I could remember when we got home——I'm not sure on the order for parts of it, but I'm almost positive I've got every song they played listed):

The Night of the Lotus Eaters
Dig, Lazarus, Dig
Tupelo
The Weeping Song
Red Right Hand
Hold on to Yourself
Love Letter
Midnight Man
The Ship Song
The Mercy Seat
Deanna
We Call Upon the Author
Moonland
Hard On for Love
Papa Won’t Leave You, Henry

Encore. Of course.:

Get Ready for Love
The Lyre of Orpheus
Stagger Lee

I was a bit disappointed that it was mostly their rockers that were played, though not surprised. And they rocked them well. Watching Jim Sclavunos and Thomas Wydler go at their kits was an entertaining sight; the contrast in their styles was... readily apparent. J.S. was a wildman behind the kit. All flailing limbs and contorted body. T.W. was the epitome of calm. Perfect posture; light, spare movements——though no less hard hitting. I think I have the names right. Just to be on the safe side, though, reread this section and swap the names.

Nick Cave was pretty much the quintessential Rock Star. The traditional "I love you, too"s; the incessant "fuck"s. That sort of thing. A wicked showman.

Except for "Get Ready for Love," which suffered from tuning and timing issues (and the lack of the gospel choir), the set was damn near impeccable. Oh, yeah: add to the peccadilloes: the lack of my favourite verse (among others) in "The Lyre of Orpheus" (I think they just wanted to get out of there at that point. Because of this lack, I'm going to post the lyrics, and put everything he/they skipped in bold [and my favourite verse in italicised boldness]):

Orpheus sat gloomy in his garden shed
Wondering what to do
With a lump of wood, a piece of wire
And a little pot of glue
O Mamma O Mamma

He sawed at the wood with half a heart
And glued it top to bottom
He strung a wire in between
He was feeling something rotten
O Mamma O Mamma

Orpheus looked at his instrument
And he gave the wire a pluck
He heard a sound so beautiful
He gasped and said O my God
O Mamma O Mamma

He rushed inside to tell his wife
He went racing down the halls
Eurydice was still asleep in bed
Like a sack of cannonballs
O Mamma O Mamma

Look what I've made, cried Orpheus
And he plucked a gentle note
Eurydice's eyes popped from their sockets
And her tongue burst through her throat
O Mamma O Mamma

O God, what have I done, he said
As her blood pooled in the sheets
But in his heart he felt a bliss
With which nothing could compete
O Mamma O Mamma

Orpheus went leaping through the fields
Strumming as hard as he did please
Birdies detonated in the sky
Bunnies dashed their brains out on the trees
O Mamma O Mamma

Orpheus strummed till his fingers bled
He hit a G minor 7
He woke up God from a deep, deep sleep
God was a major player in heaven
O Mamma O Mamma

God picked up a giant hammer
And He threw it with an thunderous yell
It smashed down hard on Orpheus' head
And knocked him down a well
O Mamma O Mamma

The well went down very deep
Very deep went down the well
The well went down so very deep
Well, the well went down to hell
O Mamma O Mamma

Poor Orpheus woke up with a start
All amongst the rotting dead
His lyre tucked safe under his arm
His brains all down his head
O Mamma O Mamma

Eurydice appeared brindled in blood
And she said to Orpheus
If you play that fucking thing down here
I'll stick it up your orifice!
O Mamma O Mamma

This lyre lark is for the birds, said Orpheus
It's enough to send you bats
Let's stay down here, Eurydice, dear
And we'll have a bunch of screaming brats
O Mamma O Mamma

Orpheus picked up his lyre for the last time
He was on a real low down bummer
And stared deep into the abyss and said
This one is for Mamma
O Mamma O Mamma

Another low point to the show (though not, entirely, the fault of the band): the dude beside us getting uncomfortably excited at the line "I'm gonna give the gates a shove" during "Hard On for Love." The dude was beside himself with something; I'm not too sure I want to know what, though.

The high point of the show, though was "The Mercy Seat." They emphasised the intensity of the song, building and building to the clever climax. I love the lyrics to this song, the progression through the story. It's very well laid out.

Other highlights: Gabrielle's creepy as all get out eyes before the show started. There were black lights everywhere. So: CREEPY. And wicked.

Other high points (song-related):
— singing along with everything at, or near, the top of my lungs.
— Warren Ellis
— Mick Harvey
— "We Call Upon the Author"
— "Deanna"
— "Red Right Hand"
— and, of course, the obvious set closer: "Stagger Lee"

Upon rereading this post, I've realised that I say pretty much nothing. It's apparently really difficult for me to write about a band that's as high up on my list of favourites as these guys are (I mean, seriously, check out my last.fm profile!)

I went to the show expecting to be entertained, and expecting the band to blow my mind. I was definitely entertained, but I'm not sure if the band entirely blew my mind. Maybe my expectations were too high? Though it was an amazing set, don't get me wrong. Everything was played with an excess of energy and everything sounded good, full, large and they all looked like they were having a good time. Maybe it was the overwhelming size of the audience that cut down on the show's goodness for me. Since I wasn't comfortable, the quality of the show diminished? It's probable.

But, yeah, nice work, boys.

RACCOON!

Not long ago——maybe a week and a half——I was lying on the bed reading (David Maine's Fallen) when I heard rustling in the backyard. Rustling followed by silence; silence followed by crashing. I looked out the window and saw a raccoon which had attempted, I think, to climb down one of the support columns of the trellis, but instead sort of fell down it. Once on the ground it looked around and just plodded along, content, at ease. So I went to get my camera, of course. And snap some FUN!

Little fella!:


Here it's climbing down to the lower level of the yard.:


Time to go back up!:


...and back down...:


Checkin' shit out!:


Back up (over the bar this time)!:


OH SHIT!:


Ensuring the sturdiness of the solar-powered lights.:


And, finally, going to hang out with the kids on their lunch break at the elementary school next door (little fella didn't even flinch when the bell rang, thus positing a sense of courage [et cetera] more steadfast than my own.:


Good times.

It's curtains, folks!

This afternoon, Gabrielle and I paid a visit to the second hand shops on St. Clair West (well, more accurately, the second hand shops within a limited stretch of St. Clair West [there could be countless others tucked away in other corners of the street. There could be scads of them. SCADS!). So, first: Salvation Army Thrift Shop. We were, specifically, looking for a small table for the front porch and curtains for the living room (and possibly some other things). No luck there; although, there was an almost winner in regards to a jacket, which, unfortunately, was too big for Gabrielle. It would probably have looked more appropriate draped across a larger person's frame. Lurch's, for example. What I mean to say is: it was a nice jacket.

After this shop we headed to the Goodwill Store. And success in the form of MAGIC appeared before our very eyes. Hanging amidst the bed linens and tablecloths and valences and material riddled with holes was something almost too marvellous to imagine. A long thin strip of fabric that screamed decadence, aging luxury and possibly a few curse words.

We took the fabric home (as well as Stephen King's Skeleton Crew), but not before stopping off at the Saturday afternoon Green Barn Farmers' Market (on the corner of Wychwood and St. Clair), where we picked up an incredibly tasty baguette. And then we were homeward bound.

We ate a lunch of baguette (that's how we know it's incredibly tasty——we don't just take the seller's word for everything. Caveat emptor and whathaveyou.) and cheese and then got down to business, cranked some good tunes (Ringers, Ampere, This Is My Fist and This Bike Is a Pipe Bomb. In that order. Conveniently, we finished working just before one of my records was to come up in the rotation).

We cut the fabric into three strips and hand sewed into the top a space for the curtain rod that was here when we moved in. And, gosh, they look good!

CLOSED!:




OPEN!:

Shellac attack! or: how to survive auditory surgery

Tuesday night: The Horseshoe Tavern.
Pre-show: rum 'n' cokes at home (commencing, perhaps, somewhat earlier than most would assume a good starting time).
Excitement: high.
Also: I waited for at least 40 hours to post this, just to ensure that things would be a bit dimmer than they should be when one is writing a review of something.

To be honest, I am quite new to Shellac. Only in the past couple years have I heard them, though I had read reviews of albums, shows, long before I knew of Steve Albini as anything other than a producer.
Anticipation was running fairly high as we journeyed to the bar; there may have been an excited whoop from someone in the party, but I cannot be certain of this. Certainly, though, there was enthusiasm.
The opening performer, Chris Brokaw, played some interesting pieces——his chordal choices were interesting, and it was fun to compare the (other) music nerds in the audience to the other folks; the (other) music nerds (and maybe I was doing this, too. But there are no witnesses, and I am, to be fair, an [possibly THE] Unreliable Narrator) bobbing their heads, to the 6/8 tunes, counting in two, whereas those less inclined toward music theory were straining their necks once——actually, twice per triplet, since this head-bobbing phenomenon involves an up and down. And that equals twelve strains to each neck per measure! A little excessive, to be sure. But, let us return to Mr. Brokaw, leaving his audience where we belong. Some poorly-chosen (to my taste) effects marred some of the pieces; for example: flanger. I've never really been able to get behind that for anything but its novelty value (yeah: that's coming from the guy who made a lot of the loud stuff happen in HJT. [please refer again to that whole Unreliable Narrator conceit, please]). However, I enjoyed his voice——it reminded me, at its finer moments, of Elliot Smith on "Needle in the Hay." As a whole, though, it was a passably enjoyable set.
And, like many of the people there, I'm sure, I was mostly looking for Shellac; the opening performance was essentially irrelevant. A time killer. But a better time killer than many others out there. So, of course, once the time was killed, more time had to be killed in waiting for Shellac to set up.
From the moment they started into the first song, Shellac put on a great show. An intense show.
Imagine being tied to a tree and witnessing a herd of seismosaurs charging toward you, chased by an allosaurus or three. And maybe——just maybe (best case scenario)——the seismosaurs rumble on past you, step on your toe, knock the tree over, send up a few clouds of dust. You still have to deal with the one (or three) allosauruses (allosauri?!). And they'll probably devour you whole (much easier than continuing to chase the big guys. I mean, you have a broken toe, probably——you won't be able to run all that well——and, of course, you're still tied to a tree [please note: allosaurs are lazy]).
Now, in case you're wondering about the relevance of the above: I will explain it! (see what I'm doing here? It's a trick referred to as: A TERRIBLE THING TO DO. Never lay out the gameplan like that, guys. A faux pas if ever there was one. Just go: BAM! and hit the reader with the thing the gameplan is made of; don't badger them with the plans.)
Shellac was like that. Inevitable. Devastating. Rending everything in its path. And (like a charging allosaurus [or three] invariably is) awesome.
The show was great. It's as simple as that.
The high point for me came when they played "Squirrel Song." It was the first Shellac song I'd heard, way back in the times of mist. And I'm quite sure it's my favourite (which seems to be the case with some other people, too [not that "Squirrel Song" is their favourite or their first, but that the first Shellac song they hear is their favourite]). Everything was played bang on.
And it was nice to see a bass player who gave a shit about what the drummer was doing. Bob Weston, whenever he moved away from the drums for any reason, could be seen inching back toward them, his eyes glued to the snare and hi-hats. Which leads me to my next point (please refer to the paragraph starting "Now, in case..."): Shellac is tighter than... something which is sealed up as tight as a drum. If you stuck your finger in a vise, and tightened it as tightly as it can be tightened: Shellac would be tighter (and possibly hurt less).
It was the best show I'd seen since the last best show I'd seen (and that doesn't even bring the allosaurs or the seismosaurs into consideration). Also note: the last best show I saw was The Evens at the Haviland Club in Charlottetown. I mean: COME ON! Ian MacKaye in Charlottetown! (and it still wins)

(unfortunately, I missed the last two songs: I was overcome by heat, hunger, thirst, sheer volume, fatigue and the big crowd and had to sit on a bench in the blackly painted basement, gulping in air that wasn't overwhelmed by too many people sucking it in)

(and the way to survive this sort of auditory surgery: wear ear plugs. LOVE YOUR EARS! PLEASE! They're the only ones you'll ever have! Unless you buy some new ones from some enterprising young person somewhere.)

David Foster Wallace

Eli Horowitz told me to name one of my wiimotes after him. It was before I had read Infinite Jest. After reading it, I decided to do just that. It's an amazing triumph over words.

Taylor just sent me this link from metafilter. Which also led me here. I'm sort of shaking right now.

Also, to commemorate writers' night here at The Morass, I'm posting some stuff at my "literature" blog. First posts.

I'm telling you stories. Trust me.

That pair of sentences appears no fewer than four times in The Passion by Jeanette Winterson. A book which happens to be able to call itself my favourite. I've read it no fewer than eight times. It resonates with me. I feel it in my gut, head and heart (in order of intensity, lowest to highest). It's also one of the very few books in which I see, in my mind's eye, when I drape flesh over the characters, one of the main characters as me (another one being Clive Barker's Imajica, which might be a story for another day). Henri, in case you were wondering.
The motif of storytelling is one which Jeanette Winterson tackles more than once in her œuvre and is also something which I've been working into Jürgen; or trying to, at least (though from what I hope is at least a slightly different angle). The very idea of storytelling, the importance of it fascinates me. Its encapsulation of elements of culture, of history, of the interpretation of these(this last being, at times, the most important element from my perspective). I guess that's what being a (quasi)storyteller does, huh?
Another common motif of Winterson's is time. She is a master of manipulation in this regard; time is almost always twistable, bendable, corruptible in her works. It is not what you expect; it exists beyond any set of laws.
But, yes, back to The Passion. It is the story of Henri. He worked for Napoleon. In his kitchens in the field. (I'm not very good at talking about books——even worse than I am at talking about music, it seems. I'm not really sure why, but I can never seem to find the words. Especially with a narrative as breath-taking as this one. Maybe it's because I know I will never write anything half as powerful, half as evocative, half as invested with meaning.)
It is the story of Villanelle. She is a Venetian who has lost her heart. It is the story of Henri and Villanelle, twined together, spiralling into a tight mesh of their two voices.
Winterson's prose is incredible; simple, compact, emotive; and, at times, as near as any writer could come to perfect. It never stumbles; every word rings out on the proper note.
Without Jeanette Winterson, I don't think I would ever have decided to really try my hand as a writer (and, if she were to know this and to ever read anything I write [I'm allowed to dream, all right?], I hope she would not find the idea too repulsive, too insulting). No other writer has made me——through the same sentences (found in her essays in Art Objects)——so desire to write always and to never write another word, so inspired me and made me so contemn my own words.




(An update on my writing: Jürgen has, since I last posted about it, swelled by about five thousand words. The last section I finished, however, made me need a break——I was sort of overwhelmed by it, which is a good thing; I hope it'll have the same effect on others who may (eventually) come to read it.
Also, I've been organising some of my poetry in the hopes of completing a manuscript in time for submission season [January to March or April for most publishers I've checked out]. Not that it's likely at all to find a publisher. But it certainly won't if it just sits in my computer, gathering digi-dust and world wide cobwebs [yeah, I know: I groaned, too].
And, of course, I'm always working on shorter things, too. And, when each piece——if I think it good enough——is completed, I will submit them singly to publishers of short fiction anthologies and the like.)




But back to Winterson, for a moment, if I may.
Jeanette Winterson is my favourite writer. She writes things which resonate deeply in me, which inspire me, which swallow me whole.
Please read her. Please lose yourself in her words. Please jump, with abandon, into her worlds. You'll thank yourself, I'm sure.
Let me close with words from Jeanette Winterson, words from Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery (an extract of which can be found here.):

In the West, we avoid painful encounters with art by trivialising it, or by familiarising it. Our present obsession with the past has the double advantage of making new work seem raw and rough compared to the cosy patina of tradition, whilst refusing tradition its vital connection to what is happening now. By making islands of separation out of the unbreakable chain of human creativity, we are able to set up false comparisons, false expectations, all the while lamenting that the music, poetry, painting, prose, performance art of Now, fails to live up to the art of Then, which is why, we say, it does not affect us. In fact, we are no more moved by a past we are busy inventing, than by a present we are busy denying. If you love a Cézanne, you can love a Hockney, can love a Boyd, can love a Rao. If you love a Cézanne rather than lip-service it.

S'more Spore?

All right, so I don't actually have Spore (nor have I played it), but I've been, off and on, since around 2(ish), watching Gabrielle play it. Peeking over her shoulder, straining from the completely stretched-out length of my headphones' cord, leaning back in my computer chair. And now I want to play it. It looks like a good time. Also: an incredibly difficult time, from the sounds of things.
But, I have had the trial version of the Creature Creator for about a month or so. It doesn't have all the parts and whatnot, but it's still pretty wicked. Being able to build messed up looking little fellas from the ground up is a pretty swell time. So, I added a widget to this blog. Yeah, I know, I know. I just like showing off my little guys.
Maybe some day I'll actually play the game, too. Who knows these things?

(Also: check out my SQUIPONY!!! [oh, combatwoundedveteran])

ALSO! (unrelatedly):

Solange Knowles (who I only know because of the outstandingly entertaining words of the women at Go Fug Yourself [mostly Jessica, according to the "signature"]; I don't care about celebrity fashion at all --- whether atrocious or wonderful; but the voices --- the authorial voices --- of both Jessica and Heather are among the best of the blog writers whom I've read. I'll read what they have to say about things I care nothing about, and enjoy it.) was someone I just assumed was famous because she was related to someone famous. I was proven wrong by YOUTUBE. I'm not sure if you've heard of that (it's a pretty underground site --- you know: SECRET), but that's where I went after viewing purple feathers.
WHO IS THIS?!
So, I checked out Solange at YouTube. And learned that she, like her (probably?) more famous sister Beyoncé, is a singer (who, from what I've heard of both [which, to be fair, is not much] is much better). I listened to a song called "I Decided":

And I was, to be unabashedly (I've been reading a lot of E.A. Poe recently, so I'm diggin' adverbs like that. What are you gonna do?) honest, quite impressed; it's such a throwback. Do you remember Aretha? Diana? et cetera? And, at the same time, trying to push things forward. It's great. Also: the fact that the song doesn't really move anywhere (in that the main progression is repeated throughout the song's entirety) really excites me (I dig when things are repeated ad nauseam). When does pop music be so bold as to be so stagnant?! Dynamics and harmonic discrepancies are, really, the only variation. And it works. I dig the lack of variation. I dig the incessancy.
And the beat* is pretty swell, too.





*Who doesn't dig claps?

G.I. Joe: The Movie

This movie astounds me. It is incredible. In a sense, it is unbelievable. Some of the visuals, when viewed through the perspective of adulthood, are, to be entirely honest, quite horrifying. (And, to continue this thread of honesty, when viewed drunkenly, they are equally horrifying; perhaps even moreso.)
We watched this movie tonight. A celebration of sorts, I suppose; Taylor arrived in Toronto today, and drinks and G.I. Joe were, apparently, the only means available to us to properly recognise such a momentous occasion.
Watching the movie, I was inundated with MEMORY. Every character who flashed on the screen was met with a yell from me: "That's AVALANCHE!," "That's a CRIMSON GUARD!," "That's NEMESIS ENFORCER!" (et cetera).
The brain is a wonderful thing, huh? I mean, I hadn't thought of those characters in years. They had long since passed out of mind. (I even remember the last G.I. Joe I bought and, while buying him [Freefall], acknowledging that he would be the last G.I. Joe that I would ever buy for myself. This was, even while I was standing at the cash at Toys 'n' Wheels, quite an experience. I mean, knowing that you were in the death throes of your youth; knowing that you were experiencing your final hurrah as a child. It was quite an ordeal, really. I played with that guy as though the hounds of Hell were snarling at my heels; or something, to be sure, quite worse: the end of my childhood. Knowing its end was coming inspired such endeavours to maintain, to solidify, to make permanent, its presence. Though that's a story for another day, I'd say: this one's about G.I. Joe: The Movie.)
Suffice to say: that movie was an integral part of my childhood, and it has, quite apparently, remained entrenched in my memory --- to be excavated when Hasbro deems appropriate. Which is to say: when drinking a bottle of red wine and watching a children's movie (prefaced with instructions on how to correct VHS tracking issues).

We are opera-ing at peak efficiency.

Today, walking east on College Street (in front of the Leslie Dan Pharmacy Building [U of T, yo]), we happened to see a man coming toward us riding a bicycle (in the proper bike lane, of course). When I first saw him, I thought he was yawning; his mouth was opened; a cavernous maw. As he came closer, I heard a faint sound and, to be honest, I thought the yawn a trifle long. Then, when he was almost upon us, I realised what was happening: he was singing. A constant note. One incredibly long "oh," with a touch of vibrato in all the right places. It was magical.

Also, I really want one of these.

Drinking and RPGs

Is that really any way to spend a Friday (or Saturday, as the case may have been last weekend) night, you may ask. And, perhaps, it's a valid question; valid enough to warrant the asking, one would suppose. However, if you were to actually ask that most probing, that most in-depth, of questions, the correct answer, apparently, would be yes. A quite resounding one, in fact.

A nice, relaxing, mellowing bunch of wine; yelling, cursing at a screen filled with somewhat blurred characters; hackin' 'n' slashin' with ruddy-cheeked glee. It's pretty much good times. Give it a go and report back to me.

+3 to Drinking Skill.

Writing

I haven't been doing much of today's title lately. In the past couple months pretty much all that I've done involved starting another story ('cause I don't have enough partly-finished things on the go, obviously). Maybe one and a half lines of bad poetry. And of course lots of things that make me go: "Oh hey, that's a wicked idea for a story! Write it down!"

ASIDE: ["Dream Lover," the aforementioned story (from the first paragraph, remember?!), is actually turning out at least slightly better than anticipated (which isn't necessarily saying much). And, essentially, it's completed. The ideas are, that is (and of course they're written up in that nice little WordPerfect file). It's been a long time since I've actually finished something. Even something very short (which this one won't be. Not really, anyway). It'll be nice. Not the story, but that finishing something deal.

Next on the list (once all my bigger things are finished): a play about Richard Wagner. Seriously. I mean, I spent all that time reading My Life, so why not put it to good use, right? That's a lie: I bought the book and read it with the express purpose of writing about Wagner. Which might be better than just reading about him for enjoyment. And that is why I wrote thirty-five pages of notes about this book in my little coil-bound notebook.] END ASIDE

I have a lot of notes for everything. An envelope that is burstingly full of little pieces of paper - receipts, pages torn out of vehicle driver's manuals (only the back pages - the "notes" pages; nothing important), little scraps torn off sheets of stuff that's already considered scrap paper, Post-It notes... you get the idea - sits on a lower shelf of my computer desk. Using my powerful gift of foresight, I've actually typed out (most of) the stuff written on these things in a WordPerfect file. But little ideas that make up about three lines of text do not a story make.

Lots of those little ideas written in little letters on little scraps do, however, when combined, tend to make up a story. Or, at least, that's what they try to do. Which brings me to my exciting news!

I worked on Jürgen today! For the first time in well over a month. Well, that's not entirely true, I suppose. But it is the first time I've added at least a thousand words to it in over a month. And the really good news? I passed fifteen thousand words tonight! It seems like a nice, simple, minor milestone. Well, for most writers, it, no doubt, is a minor milestone. For me it's large. Giant. I work at the same pace as that at which fossils turn into fuels. Jürgen, though, is probably pretty close to completion. Not in any written state. But in my head. Pretty much everything's there. It just needs to be excavated. And all the big bits need little bits to connect them. It's mostly exciting. For me, anyway. Frighteningly, I think that it wants to be massive. Probably(/hopefully) not Joseph and His Brothers massive (bless your heart, Mr. Mann) or even Infinite Jest massive ('cause I don't have any chewing tobacco), but massive enough. I'd like to finish it some day. If only so I can say that I've finished something that big.

Activate the corpses!

combatwoundedveteran, anyone?



These guys are my favourite band. When I'm listening to them. I think when their sounds overwhelm my auditory receptors (whatever: I don't care if you just call them ears [and auditory canals, semi-circular canals, cochleae, auditory nerves, eardrums {tympanic membranes}, mallei, incus and stapes]; I do what I want), they also beat the living snot out of my memory centres which relate to music. Think about it: some crazy squipony* running amok on all that soft brain tissue. HOOFS, guys! HOOFS!
So, the brain's gettin' all gooshed up by the aforementioned hoofs, and tentacles are probably fairly busily rending and tearing things asunder. And, quite obviously, after this devastation, I totally can't even remember that other music exists. The squipony's assaults are terrible and utter. Or maybe it's just that their music is astonishingly good.
I wish cwv still existed.

I will leave you with the lyrics for "Folded Space: Mapping Unexploded Ordinance" (a song whose lyrics are presented in good ol' Mac-Voice):

There were giant squid for 27 days in August & September. My bathwater multiplied into oceans when I blinked. It was always dark, and the moon followed the same pattern as reality. I built fear into unknown shapes, several, they worked in unison; coiling around my limbs, ribbon filaments that moved as invertebrates. Tendon and muscle, without joints.

Always night, I step in a puddle it is an ocean, the rain starts and floods everything. The sinks fill, sea level is mine every night. 27 days of it.

I had these enemies and at the beginning the moon was small, I had no light, treading seas that exploded moments prior. I introduced myself to panic, I said hello. At this came motion beneath me, and the touch of smooth flesh, wrapping around elements of my body, and they touched my genitals, tightening around abdomen. Underwater, gagging and blind. REPEAT.

The time I spent in the agreed upon continuity found me getting dirty, as I had been avoiding liquids, and more irrational. I stopped brushing my teeth, no liquid soap. No bar soap with liquid catalyst. No one came near me, my odor was weaponry. Work had no more use for me and soon I slept outside sprawling in beds of dirt, hugging it to me. When the rains came, I was forced to use pills to battle sleep. But I could not win, and again I was killed.

And I struggled on trying not to die, to be drowned, strangled, and chewed, concurrently. My only comfort the patches of dry earth I found to sleep in, feeling strong. They killed me anyway, the moon opening now, them becoming visible, only to disappear. They had ways of creating their own shadows. I saw only the stray pieces that flashed outside the black cloud they projected. No weakness, and in their element, I was continually murdered.

I did not know how many times I could die, the deaths were growing tedious. Maddening. I tried to kill myself, at first water, as far down as I could go and did not go back up. My skull was just beginning to go numb, and it was on me soon eating most of my leg. Suicide was failure and I was truly fucked.

I woke up, walked to street and waited for a car. Fifty miles an hour, one was coming. I took a step, was off my feet for a few seconds, then face first, onto the road, with my legs coming down over my head, bent backwards, in half. I wanted it done, but it wasn't. There was no pain, nothing broken, get up, walk back inside. I took a knife out of the drawer and into my stomach. Nothing. My gun tried to put a bullet into my face and failed. I appeared doomed only to die with my nightmares, and now I knew. I needed as much light and emaciated earth as I could find my element and strength. The desert and the open skies followed the lunar cycle to the desert near the canyons and rock formations. My savior smiled back, parched and beautiful. The sun was falling. I gathered rocks and laid them out into humans. I took position among them. No water for miles. I closed my eyes.

The moon was bright overhead when I heard it coming, the first drops of rain beginning. It had come in on storm clouds that were fast closing in on the moon and casting great shadows towards me. The downpour started, attempting to flood me out. I stood and the long dead land resisted, shifting enormous tectonic plates, the water running between them. I turned to the stones. They formed and rose with me as it fell to the ground gasping and flailing parts. We stood over it, a feeble spray of ink marking paths in the defiant soil. A pile of pale flesh shivering and caking with dirt. I took a rock to one of it's eyes. The others long appendages from it and threw them to the sky. The fear was gone, I beat my fists on it. The rain stopped. The others backed away, howling and ripping everything from inside it's shell, I was covered in fluid and bits of organs. Again I turned to the stone men and we lifted the giant husk. We carried it to the rock formations and dropped it. The stone men dissolved back into the landscape. I climbed onto the shell and smiled. I waited for the sun.

*for the uninitiated:

Imagine! or: Soda-pop suffering in 10 simple steps.

Imagine going to a gigantic store like, for instance, IKEA.
Imagine ordering a Pepsi, filling the cup at the machine and getting some slightly browned water.
Imagine dumping that in the fountain pop machine’s drain.
Imagine filling the cup with something that more closely resembles Pepsi (and drinking the drink).
Imagine getting lunch at the restaurant, which resembles a university residence meal-hall, inside the gigantic store.
Imagine filling a glass with Mountain Dew.
Imagine taking a sip, and drinking nothing but syrup.
Imagine dumping that in the fountain pop machine’s drain, hoping that there will be enough space in that little tub for a glassful of pop-syrup (with little ice cylinders).
Imagine filling the glass with 7UP.
Imagine taking a sip of this and tasting heavily-chlorinated fizzy-ish water.

If you successfully complete these simple steps, you will have imagined my day.

Words, mostly.

I realised it was probably about time I started a blog; writing is one of the things I most enjoy, whether it involves nonsense I've invented (which will be featured, eventually, in some form or another, at The Ecstatic Destruction of the Mythic) or nonsense I just decide I want to spout about other people's creations (music and books, mostly) or even nonsense about things I've done and seen. Meandering musings of little worth, too. Oh, how I love those: they make me feel significant, someone who could be important, as though I have Things to Say. And I really like - given the opportunity - to be read. Especially if the reader can find anything worth reading in anything I've written - even a single sentence. So, basically, most things that I write that aren't fiction or poetry will be written here (updated when the moon is in the Seventh House and Jupiter aligns with Mars and all that fun stuff: stringing words together takes me a while). And the idea of making my words so readily available to whomever might possibly stumble across them is, while an exhilarating one, quite probably the most frightening thing my words will ever face (go easy on them, folks: they're shy, they're timorous, they're easily startled. But hopefully they'll prove resilient, made of stern enough stuff to survive. Maybe you can toughen them up).

Words are an exciting, integral part of my identity (that's a story for another day, though, I think) and so sharing them becomes an important aspect of what I am, too. Words transform, each one a drop in the ocean, capable of grinding down the stones, wearing down the battlements (I just placed the business end of a set of nail clippers against my mouth as I typed that, then grimaced in horror at myself and tossed the clippers, making a shuddering sound as I did so. Asides are an important part of the flow of things: a river, shooting off from that ocean of words? An insidious attack, meant to surround the target, unaware of its impending ensnarement, meant to weaken the foundation, the walls built up against the ocean. Water does a good job of winning). And that's enough of that. For now. Words of wisdom? Words of yawndom? Words of bloated, pompous self-reference? Words too small for their shoes? Words of no consequence? They are themselves; they flip, spin, twist and become whatever their reader sees.

So, this is going to be my home for yelling/speaking calmly/whispering about whatever I want to yell/speak calmly/whisper. A general hue and cry, as it were.

Am I going to say anything new? No.
Am I going to write anything worth reading? It's doubtful.
Am I going to have a good time doing this? Yes.

Enjoy.
Please.