Is There Anyone Out There?

Just curious.

Diplomatic Rules of Thumb

To be referred to by the President, Secretary of State, and Secretary of Defense, as needed:

1. Don't call people names in secret written correspondence, and then give every infantryman access to that correspondence.
2. Don't blow up a hotel full of journalists, then say you didn't do it, then say you did in secret correspondence, and then give every infantryman access to that correspondence.
3. Don't spy on people you've agreed not to spy on, then write about it in secret written correspondence, and then give every infantryman access to that correspondence.
4. Don't be stoopid. 
5. 
   

The Fascinating Adventures of Closet Man

So some have said tht anyone's story could make a good book, if told right, so I decided to try to prove these optimists wrong. I tought of a a counter-example--he story of a guy who lived his life locked a closet, without any experience of the outside world. I figured it would have to be the most boring story ever.

You decide.

These, then, are The Fascinating Adventures of Closet Man.

We begin with a few randomly chosen diary entries, meant to show how truly boring his story would be:

Diary entry, Dec. 4, 1985: Woke up. Still in the closet. Not much going on. Maybe something will happen tomorrow.

Diary entry, Sept. 22, 1993: woke up. Yeah, still in this closet. Maybe tomorrow will be different. No, I suppose it won't really be different. Not really.

But then I realized there would have to be days like this:

Diary entry, Aug. 3, 1995: Woke up. It's HOT today. Well, it is summer, after all--even if I can't see outdoors. For some reason, this reminds me of a day in 1977 when it was really cold in here. I guess it was Winter. Maybe the heat was off. I wonder who lives outside this closet? I dunno. Hmmm I wonder how I know there IS an outside, outside this closet? Hmmmm.... I'll have to think about this some more. I guess I do have plenty of time to think, don't I?

Or this:

Diary entry, March 14, 1987: Woke up. Yeah, still in here. In the closet, I mean. What else would I mean? Just what other f***ing "here" could there possibly be? I mean, I'm locked in a closet, ferchris'sakes. And just why am I writing all this down? Who the f*** do I think is going to f***ing read this cr*p? I'm still not totally sure there even IS anyone else or anything outside this f****ing closet. Sometimes I get sooo mad.

Diary entry, March 15, 1987: Woke up. Still in the closet. I don't know what came over me yesterday. People will think I'm nuts if I keep ranting and raving like I did yesterday. .... People? What f***ing people..? Never mind, I don't want to get started again. Wait, there MUST be SOMEone out there. Who keeps sliding those plates under the door? I guess it could be God. Divine Providence. Yeah. Could be. 

So you see, it might actually make a good book. Wouldn't you read it?

Ummm... Why n....

Never mind.

Mental Death Transmission

Someday You Will Be Dead, and Everyone You Know Will Be Dead, and There Will Be No One Left to Remember You

---

1. Intro
2. Cherry Red (The Groundhogs)
3. War Song (The Fugs)
4. Like an Atom Bomb (The Pilgrim Travelers)
5. Satan Is Busy In Knoxville, Tennessee (Leola Manning)
6. What Did You Forget? (Alan Watts & L. Hollis & the Mackadoos)
7. My Home Town (Tom Lehrer)
8. Intro to "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" (The 180G's)
9. I Want My Baby Back (Downliners Sect)
10. Lavender Coffin (Joe Thomas)
11. Six Feet Down (The Bad Livers)
12. Gary Gilmore's Eyes (Pine Valley Cosmonauts)
13. Why Don't You Kill Yourself (The Only Ones)
14. When I Stand Before the King (Blind Joe Taggart)
15. Death at the Bar (Kitty Wells)
16. I Just Want To Look At You One More Time (Merle Haggard)
17. Side of the Road (Lucinda Williams)
18. No One Will Miss You When You Burn (The Palace Brothers)
19. Careless Love (Daniel Johnston)
20. The Last Day Of Jimi Hendrix's Life (The Mountain Goats)
21. Down to Earth (The Bee Gees)
22. Memories (Daevid Allen & Robert Wyatt)
23. Lost (Van der Graaf Generator)
24. Funeral Home (Daniel Johnston)

---

The title doesn't really fit, maybe. When I came up with the title, it was all depressing songs like #14-20, But that would have been too dreadful, so I decided to lighten it up a bit.

Several friends, relatives, and neighbors have died in the past year or so. The most jarring of these was my friend Sarah, who decided she'd had enough of this World last summer. And there was Bill, who died a couple weeks ago of No-health-insurance disease. I'd list the others, but you never met them, either.

Cherry Red is vicious. I thought it was about love and murder, but I couldn’t understand most of the lyrics. After I added it to my list of songs for this disc, I found the lyrics, and it turns out that it's just about love, as murderous as it may sound. It qualifies as a death song anyway, though, because it's partly based on a Big Joe Turner song with the same title which is (sort of) about murder; and also because I used to sit around with my late friend Howard (heart attack: cocaine) listening to the Groundhogs' Thank Christ for the Bomb. Love T.S. McPhee's guitar.

War Song - I could have put more war songs on here, but I didn't. The Fugs have to be on every mix I make, because they're one of those '60s bands people have heard of, but rarely heard. It's impossible to pick one song that typifies their sound.

Like an Atom Bomb - The Pilgrim Travelers were a big group on the gospel circuit in the 40's and 50's. They liked to bust up the churches they played at, and sneak off with the women. Lou Rawls sang with them in the '50s.

Satan Is Busy In Knoxville, Tennessee - I couldn't dig up much on Leola Manning. It was recorded in Knoxville in 1930. The stories in the song were apparently true.

What Did You Forget? - No, he didn't really make a record with the Mackadoos. By the Miracle of the mash-up, now he has. I was going to do the whole disc like this, and I did about ½ hour of it, but then I decided no one would want to sit through it. It ended up sounding like Negativland, but harsher. The Mackadoos song is actually called Bui Bui. This may have been the only thing they ever recorded. It's from a compilation called Eccentric Soul: The Big Mack Label.

My Home Town provides some comic relief.

Intro to "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" is by the a cappella Negativland cover band (!!) the 180G's. There was no thematic justification for including more than this. Well, I could have included Christianity is Stupid. Ah, regret. If you can try to imagine the Pilgrim Travelers covering Negativland, with full gospel harmonies, ...

I Want My Baby Back - Like the Pretty Things and the Groundhogs, the Downliners Sect are one of those late-'60's bands that won't die.

Lavender Coffin is a good follow-on. Lionel Hampton and Buster Poindexter also did versions of this song. Joe Thomas played sax in Jimmie Lunceford’s jazz orchestra in the '40s. In 1950, he started recording R&B records under his own name. In 1951, he retired from music to take over the family funeral business.

Six Feet Down - I saw the Bad Livers at CBGB in the early '90s (opening for Gaye Bykers on Acid, I think? Hey, now that I think about it, GBOA might have fit here). The Bad Livers also did a bluegrass cover of Lust for Life, which could be a good song to put on a life-themed compilation.

Gary Gilmore's Eyes is the old Adverts song, given the country treatment by Jon Langford's boys. The Pine Valley Cosmonauts have actually done three albums of death songs, if you want more.

Why Don't You Kill Yourself is another one that speaks for itself.

When I Stand Before the King - Blind Joe Taggart wasn't actually totally blind. He was supposedly a really scrappy sonofabitch. He also recorded under other pseudonyms (Blind Joe Amos, Blind Jeremiah Taylor, Blind Tim Russell, and Blind Joe Donnel) to avoid having to observe the recording contracts he was always signing. Captain Beefheart should have thought of that. Or maybe he did? Hmmm. Tom Waits did start getting more beefheartish around the time Beefheart retired from music. Hmmmm.

Death at the Bar – because whiskey is devil-juice. Kitty is still alive, by the way.

I Just Want to Look at You One More Time is obviously a song about lost love.

Side of the Road isn't really a death song, but I guess it feels like one to me.

No One Will Miss You When You Burn is kind of depressing.

Careless Love is more depressing.

The Last Day of Jimi Hendrix's Life is even more depressing.

Down to Earth sounds like proto-art-rock to me. I guess it's the mellotron. “Down to earth, my merry men. There's some help needed here and you're there. You can see if you stand on your chair. That there's millions and millions and millions and millions of people like you.” Yeah, the lyrics could have been written by (gasp) Jon Anderson. I'm sorry. I can't resist the Bee Gees.

Memories is a Robert Wyatt/Hugh Hopper song that was recorded a couple times by the Soft Machine in the '60s. This version is from Daevid Allen's 1971 solo album Banana Moon. The band here is Gong, with Gary “Dream Weaver” Wright on piano, and Robert Wyatt on vocals. Dom will recognize the song from Damon & Naomi's More Sad Hits. This song isn't really about death either, but close enough.

Lost might be I Just Want to Look at You One More Time, part 2. The Van der Graaf Generator is one of my favorite bands. They make big noise, for a band with no guitarist. Peter Hammill has written a million deathly depressing songs, and here's one for you.

Funeral Home - because Daniel is right.

---

Exciting contest! Win big prizes! Come up with a narrative yourself! A man gets mad at his girlfriend and decides to join the army, and gets sent to Viet Nam. In Nam, he has a religious awakening, and decides to go to Knoxville and try to save souls. Then he realizes Christianity is stupid, and returns to his hometown, where he gets into an accident in which his girlfriend is killed. He is grief-stricken, he tears out his own eyes, and they give him new ones. He becomes suicidal and starts to hallucinate, and has a series of visions of sad scenes and situations. He begins to come out of it, but while separating seeds out of his weed on a gatefold Van der Graaf album, he decides there’s no hope after all.

Interesting NYC-area shows, Summer, 2007

I'll come back and format this later so it's more readable...

Fri 06/01/07 Animal Collective Seaport Music Festival
Sat 06/02/07 Alejandro Escovedo River To River Festival
Sun 06/03/07 Fairport Convention Joe's Pub
Sun 06/03/07 Yo La Tengo Winter Garden @World Financial Ctr
Mon 06/04/07 The Click Five Knitting Factory
Wed 06/06/07 Great Lake Swimmers Joe's Pub
Wed 06/06/07 Dinosaur Jr. Fillmore New York At Irving Plaza
Thu 06/07/07 Califone Blender Theatre At Gramercy
Thu 06/07/07 Dinosaur Jr. Fillmore New York At Irving Plaza
Thu 06/07/07 Loney, Dear Webster Hall
Thu 06/07/07 The Sea & Cake Webster Hall
Sat 06/09/07 The Long Blondes Bowery Ballroom
Sun 06/10/07 Melt Banana Knitting Factory
Mon 06/11/07 Feist Town Hall
Mon 06/11/07 Grizzly Bear Town Hall
Tue 06/12/07 Feist Town Hall
Tue 06/12/07 Grizzly Bear Town Hall
Thu 06/14/07 Lee "Scratch" Perry B.B. King's Blues Club
Fri 06/15/07 Cook, Dixon & Young Apollo Theater
Fri 06/15/07 Fred Ho & The Afro-Asian Music Ensemble Apollo Theater
Fri 06/15/07 Chuck Berry North Fork Theatre At Westbury
Fri 06/15/07 Johnny Rivers North Fork Theatre At Westbury
Sat 06/16/07 Josh Ritter Beacon Theatre
Sat 06/16/07 Madeleine Peyroux Beacon Theatre
Sat 06/16/07 Television Central Park SummerStage
Sat 06/16/07 The Apples In stereo Central Park SummerStage
Mon 06/18/07 Buffy Sainte-Marie HighLine Ballroom
Thu 06/21/07 Richard Thompson Prospect Park
Thu 06/21/07 Amy Correia Mo Pitkin's House Of Satisfaction
Fri 06/22/07 Garrison Starr Living Room
Sat 06/23/07 Panda Bear Bowery Ballroom
Mon 06/25/07 Adrian Belew B.B. King's Blues Club
Wed 06/27/07 The Strawbs B.B. King's Blues Club
Wed 06/27/07 Steve Forbert Joe's Pub
Wed 06/27/07 John Pizzarelli River To River Festival
Sat 06/30/07 Bela Fleck & The Flecktones Carnegie Hall
Sat 06/30/07 The Fiery Furnaces Maxwell's
Sat 06/30/07 Del McCoury Band Carnegie Hall
Wed 07/04/07 The New Pornographers Battery Park
Wed 07/11/07 Deerhunter Bowery Ballroom
Wed 07/11/07 The Psychedelic Furs North Fork Theatre At Westbury
Wed 07/11/07 Spoon River To River Festival
Thu 07/12/07 Blind Boys Of Alabama Hudson River Rocks
7/15 Besnard Lakes $10 adv./$12 Maxwells
07-13 Besnard Lakes New York, NY - Mercury Lounge
07-14 Besnard Lakes New York, NY - City Sol
Mon 07/16/07 Grizzly Bear Central Park SummerStage
Mon 07/16/07 The Decemberists Central Park SummerStage
Tue 07/17/07 Os Mutantes Lincoln Center Festival
Wed 07/18/07 They Might Be Giants Bowery Ballroom
Wed 07/18/07 Toumani Diabate River To River Festival
Fri 07/20/07 Eric Bachmann Central Park SummerStage
Fri 07/20/07 Neko Case Central Park SummerStage
Sat 07/21/07 Hot Tuna North Fork Theatre At Westbury
7/22 The Detroit Cobras Maxwells Celebrate Brooklyn @ Prospect Park
Sun 07/22/07 Dan Zanes
Mon 07/23/07 Maria McKee Joe's Pub
Tue 07/24/07 Maria McKee Joe's Pub
Wed 07/25/07 They Might Be Giants Bowery Ballroom
July 26 The New Cars Stamford, CT
Fri 07/27/07 Iris DeMent B.B. King's Blues Club
Fri 07/27/07 Lez Zeppelin Blender Theatre At Gramercy
Fri 07/27/07 Fred Ho & The Afro-Asian Music Ensemble Whitney Museum
Sat 07/28/07 Kelly Willis Bowery Ballroom
Wed 08/01/07 Agnostic Front Maxwell's
Wed 08/01/07 They Might Be Giants Bowery Ballroom
Wed 08/01/07 Tegan and Sara Hiro Ballroom @ Maritime Hotel
Thu 08/02/07 The New Cars North Fork Theatre At Westbury
Fri 08/03/07 Fountains Of Wayne Beacon Theatre
Fri 08/03/07 Squeeze Beacon Theatre
Fri 08/03/07 Gutbucket Joe's Pub
Fri 08/03/07 Richard Shindell Rubin Museum Of Art
Mon 08/06/07 Zappa Plays Zappa North Fork Theatre At Westbury
Tue 08/07/07 Fountains Of Wayne North Fork Theatre At Westbury
Tue 08/07/07 Squeeze North Fork Theatre At Westbury
Wed 08/08/07 Crowded House Beacon Theatre
Wed 08/08/07 Pete Yorn Beacon Theatre
Wed 08/08/07 They Might Be Giants Bowery Ballroom
Thu 08/09/07 Crowded House Beacon Theatre
Thu 08/09/07 Pete Yorn Beacon Theatre
Fri 08/10/07 The Blasters B.B. King's Blues Club
Tue 08/14/07 Fiona Apple Rumsey Playfield in Central Park
Tue 08/14/07 Nickel Creek Rumsey Playfield in Central Park
Fri 08/17/07 Lucy Kaplansky Rubin Museum Of Art
Sun 08/19/07 Rufus Wainwright Central Park SummerStage
Sun 08/19/07 The Magic Numbers Central Park SummerStage
Tue 08/21/07 Jose Gonzalez Spiegeltent
Fri 08/24/07 Camera Obscura Seaport Music Festival
Sun 08/26/07 Lee "Scratch" Perry Reggae Carifest
Tue 08/28/07 The Yardbirds B.B. King's Blues Club
Fri 08/31/07 Battles Seaport Music Festival

Review: Apples in Stereo - New Magnetic Wonder

Perfect wall-of-power-pop music. Definitely not sugar-free. If you play this too much, you'll get cavities. This album is real mental floss! There's no need to say anything more. Go get it and listen to it. Get all your friends to listen to it.

Right now, hear?

3 Thumbs Up

Waltermeter: "Oooh! Oooh! Oooh! Perfect! Love it! I'm buying two copies, in case I wear the first one out."

It's only March, 2007, and....

..I'm already sick of the 2008 Presidential election. We all know some idiot is going to win, anyway,

Review: Group 1850, Paradise Now

OK, this one really is late '60s European psychedelia--Dutch, to be specific, vintage 1969.

This was recommended to me by my friend, Cozy Home Rob. He said it's really good, and I believed him, and he was right.

Who do they sound like? They sound like their time. They also sound new, though. They actually sound a bit like what I was expecting The First Band From Outer Space to sound like (before I heard their album, and found out they were a 21st Century band). Or maybe another way to say that is, if The First Band From Outer Space really were from the '60s, they'd sound pretty much like Group 1850.

The current bands that I think of when I listen to this are the Japanese band Ghost, and the (Norwegian?) band Dungen. I'm sure i could think of other bands to compare them to, since they don't do anything terribly unique. But they don't obviously steal from anyone in particular, either. They're just really good psychedelic-progressive-space-rock.

Thumbs up. I'll definitely want to listen to this again and again.

Waltermeter: "I think I prefer The Last Band from Outerspace, if you put a gun to my head."

Review: First Band From Outer Space, Impressionable sounds of the subsonic

I downloaded this from a Swedish bittorrent site. I thought it would be weird forgotten obscure '60s Swedish psychedelic rock. It wasn't. Well, it wasn't all of those things.

It's not so weird (it's not anything like The Godz). It's too new to have been forgotten yet (and, by the way--if obscure music was so obscure, doesn't that mean no one should ever have found out about it before forgetting about it? but never mind). It is Swedish, yes. It's psychedelia, by some definitions.

I suppose the who-do-they-sound-like on this record is something like "Gong meets Hawkwind, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Acid Mothers Temple, Pink Floyd (early Gilmour era), and Jethro Tull in Stockholm". But don't hold any of that against them. They're really good. Jethro Tull? Flute! Black Sabbath? Guitars! Riffs! Deep Purple? Organ! Gong? Spacy synths floating over glissando guitar and jazzy riffy jams. Hawkwind? Ditto, more-or-less. Pink Floyd? Spacy synths with Gilmourish guitars and marimba. Acid Mothers Temple? Oh, I dunno. All the above, I guess. Oh, and there's a techno-y side occasionally, as well. And American Indian chants. So, basically, here's a band that somehow slides effortlessly between Black Sabbath and The Orb, by way of Gong. It works, too. Well, musically, it works.

But then there are the words.

OK, granted, English isn't their first language. But, is that any excuse for...

Is it possible to be acknowledged for who your are,
If everyone wears the same clothes, and drives the same car?
Some have the urge to wreck the world, and they're nuts.

To be seen as the underdog

If you're being told off by a person with more power,
the risk of falling down into a hole is getting higher.
Unless your plan of defence is someone mightier than[incomprehensible]

You are seen as the underdog.

Elimination is a skill that's hard to find
And you can ask for ill to draw the line

If you make the choice to be the victim you have to stop.
Set your mind on something difficult and don't give up.
It increases your self-confidence; you'll be on top.

You're not seen as the underdog

OK, well, yeah, rock lyrics don't really usually look good in print. But the rule of thumb (as I remember it) is that lyrics are supposed to look worse in print than they sound on the record. In this case, though, they look better in print.

They also sing in Swedish here. Are the words better in Swedish? I dunno. I don't understand Swedish, so they're great--nothing to cringe at, then. So these guys will probably never read this, but just in case: Hey guys, you guys sound GREAT when you sing your songs in Swedish. You know, like all those African guys sing in their native language, and it sounds so exotic? Yeah, do that!

But don't hold it against them. This is a fine album. I'll pull out for a listen again (perhaps many times again) in the future. I recommend it.

Waltermeter? "Interesting sound, but not enough real songs for me, I guess."