If I’m going to actually spend money on an album and lug it around my unstable life with me, it’s going to be a record. It’s a rule I have. Manual transmissions are for those of us that prefer a sense of presence and agency in our day-to-day and I feel similarly about vinyl. A record is also a much more physically and historically weighty thing to hold in your hand. I don’t fuck around with CDs.
That said, I’m nobody’s mother; I’m not above breaking rules. I might have to go rogue for this one, only on CD.
Since assuming the very rock and roll position of record store employee, these are the two records I have brought home…
Hear me out. I hate covers as much as you do, and even though the consensus is apparently: nobody likes or wants Billy covering himself, I am into it.
The number-one reason covers are crappy is that in the end what you’re usually left with is the exact same song, sung by a lesser voice and played by a lesser band to a much lesser effect. Getting a good cover means contributing something worthwhile to a song that’s already good enough to want to cover, which is, judging by what I’ve heard, hard. Well then doesn’t it follow that if you cover your own song, the band is the same, the singer’s the same, the talent and charisma are the same, if not improved, and the only thing left to change is the content? By this point the battle’s already half won.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m as purist as they come, but I just can’t argue with this crazy guy. Maybe it’s because his unpredictability makes it impossible to develop any concrete expectations, but I haven’t seen him misstep yet.
I haven’t tried the coffee though.
In keeping with the accidental theme developing around here as of late, I give you
Dorothy Ashby - Soul Vibrations
Apparently this blog is getting old. All we want to do these days is listen to jazz (I mean, Chet Baker for Pete’s sake) and chill. It doesn’t feel so bad though; it mostly just feels like less work. Think the tired spell led to not being able to contribute too much, which led to not feeling obligated to contribute so much, which led to a general and overall sense of equilibrium. Dig?
“You become a doorman of your own life — turning away anything that might compromise the delicate climate of self-assurance.”
kid crutches
I had to quit smoking. That, more than even my age, makes me feel like a grown-up. I can no longer petulant smoke. What does one who doesn’t smoke do when a social situation becomes irritating or unsatisfactory? I’ll tell you. One goes home.
It turns out I can’t rely on substances to keep me right anymore. It turns out I have to put myself right underlyingly by actually putting myself right. I mean, in a really-close-to-literal way, I picked myself up and put myself down somewhere else, or at least facing a different direction.
Even my face turned a corner. I look different. I look more like my mother. That’s not bad, fortunately. Fortunately, too, I don’t feel like I’ve really lost anything. My disillusionment goes back a long way so it’s not like I took a shot to the balls of wide-eyed optimism or something. I just feel calmed down — kind of like somebody big and strong put their hands on my shoulders and pushed me down and said, “this is where you are” and I didn’t fight it.
Heyo, God-fearin’!
Have you seen the license plate bracket that reads, “If God is your co-pilot, switch seats”? I was a little taken aback when I saw one on somebody’s Tercel the other day and I haven’t been able to wrap my mind around it yet. As religious, I’d like to ask, is this the kind of public antagonism you guys can get behind? It seems to me you’d just be glad that some regular somebody with the regular “co-pilot” business was into God enough to proclaim it from the back of their car all over town.
Why, in a whole coast of Godless heathens, would one religious want to berate another religious of the same religion? Do they really think that person is doing it wrong? Is there some kind of high-stakes contest among religious to be the MOST religious? Why not a license plate bracket that says “Heyo God-fearin’, good job, we’re on the right track”? That seems nicer, and more — what’s the word y’all like to use? Tolerant?
This thing hits me in all of my nerd spots. 70s? Check. Choreography? Check. Linguistics? Check!
It’s an Italian’s impression of English. As far as I can tell he gets it all right, too. With only maybe a couple of exceptions, he doesn’t violate any phonetic rules of American English…
Your Brain Is Your Body
I have this imaginary thread that’s tying me to this other person who’s not here, which I can feel pulling on me. This thread, being imaginary, is not a real thing. It’s a fabrication of my brain. It doesn’t exist. I remind myself of this so that I won’t feel the pain of the pull of the thing that isn’t real. But…… don’t I want to believe it’s real?? If it isn’t, what’s being in love? When your thread is tied to someone who’s right next to you, on top of you, behind you, what have you, that’s the thing, right? Isn’t that what we live for? I don’t want to believe that that’s imaginary. I know it is, but wouldn’t I rather believe the illusion?
How do you have real love that’s real and no real heartbreak that’s imaginary?
Still, every time I listen to this album I like it more than the last. How do you have such heavy nostalgia without seeming redundant or corny? I just don’t know…
Destroyer - Chinatown
Ian MacKaye & Ian Svenonius→
Back when they were still funny and smart, Vice made a show called Soft Focus. Ian Svenonius is a total commie but I love the hell out of him just the same. Ian MacKaye is pretty right on about most things; it’s exciting that he might be kind of right about the “music going back into the hands of musicians” thing… Anyway, interviews with other American dudes here, and some horrendous teeth over here. Watch Penny Rimbaud, skip Chan Marshall, bitch is awful.
