synchronicity vs. plagiarism

I recently got hold of an early French Kicks CD, 2002's One Time Bells. And immediately, the electric piano part on its first track "Wrong Side" sounded familiar. (Note: give me credit, with that album title, that I did not just write "rang a bell." Thank you.)

And sure enough, thinking a bit and pulling out the Spinto Band's fine 2005 release Nice and Nicely Done and putting on "Brown Boxes": after the opening bit featuring kazoo (!?), there it is...a very similar electric piano part.

My guess is that this is just a coincidence: it's not as if the part is all avant-garde and supercreative, plus the songs otherwise are quite dissimilar. But the resemblance is definitely closer than the cases of several far better known supposedly similarities, such as Nirvana's "Come as You Are" vs. Killing Joke's "Eighties," Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" vs. Boston's "More Than a Feeling" (Cobain was a talented borrower...but also, like a tailor, he did alterations), or the more recent blowup featuring Spoon's "Cherry Bomb" and How I Became the Bomb's "Killing Machine."

French Kicks "Wrong Side" (One Time Bells, 2002)
The Spinto Band "Brown Boxes" (Nice and Nicely Done, 2005)

baby blog

Some of you know that Rose and I are embarking upon a remodeling of the second floor of our house. I'm documenting that process in a second blog, called "Remake/Remodel" (yes, after the Roxy Music song). Updates will be sparse for a while - right now, our contractor's still getting bids, etc. - but eventually I'll include before/after photos and the like. You know, to make it all interesting-like.

meme fad!

Via Steve at Hot Rox, here's my "spring fling" mix - also the first time I've used Muxtapes. (It took forfreakinever to upload...)

Anyway, here's the deal: List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now, shaping your Spring. Post these instructions in along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they're listening to.

I'm not tagging anyone - but feel free to let me know if you post a mix. I'm also not at all sure that these songs are "shaping my Spring." They're seven songs that I chose nearly at random. Fact is, recently I've been listening to a whole bunch of new stuff, and it really hasn't had a chance to emerge into thingness (or springness) yet.

Without further blithering (click to access streams):

1. The Rolling Stones "Street Fighting Man": This is surely one of the Stones' best records. Everything about it expresses both the coiled tension of nowhere-to-go-nothing-to-do and also the expansive sense of possibility, beautifully poised between frustration and potential, violence and renewal. Start with Keith Richards' brilliant idea to use, rather than an electric guitar, acoustic guitar overdriven in a cheap cassette player. That rhythm riff, pouncing unexpectedly and then laying back, sets the tone for the song - and don't forget Charlie Watts' expertly placed, hollow-sounding drums. Jagger's vocal comes in, drawling a long syllable, then mockingly rocking between only two different notes, out of sync with Richards' two different chords. The phrasing is asymmetrical, five maybe six bars rather than the expected four - then a sudden key change, the lament "what can a poor boy do?" and Brian Jones' tamboura along with a curious chordal suspension and a rumbling piano...then back to the song's main key, with Bill Wyman providing one of his loping, wobbly bass parts as a hook in this section of the song. And for the fade: a one-note solo, howling and whining away (and what is that instrument anyway? this was during the period Jones was sick of guitar and picking up every instrument he could...dunno, is it a sax, an English horn, a hurdy-gurdy?) as the chords change, and the piano unsettles. For a track ostensibly about violence and its release, it's a stunningly carefully and thoughtfully arranged track. But then the Stones were always smarter than they let on.

2. Pere Ubu "Chinese Radiation": Jonderneathica recently posted a passel of Ubu covers, most of which were the usual suspects ("Non-Alignment Pact," "Final Solution," "Heart of Darkness") but which also included this more obscure early Ubu number, covered by Cobra Verde. I'm posting the original for its curious combination of slightly menacing calm, bizarro aggression (the pseudo-live section), and a coda that's like the dazed aftermath of an accident. One of a handful of mid-seventies rock songs curiously taking up the imagery of Chinese Communism (I'm thinking of a few tracks on Eno's Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) as well).

3. 18th Dye "Backdoor": Dana ex- of The Mystical Beast sent me this one. These Germans' Tribute to a Bus CD made a minor fuss about ten or fifteen years ago; I confess I hadn't given them any thought for many years. But this is a pretty good track, with a sort of Daydream-era Sonic Youth scent to it, and amusing/creepy lyrics about dogs and moms.

4. Robyn Hitchcock "Creatures of Light": Released only, so far as I know, as a flexi-disc with the Ptolemaic Terrascope zine, this is Hitchcock in full-on psych-folk mode. The lyrics are, uncharacteristically, slightly muddled in their enunciation (or maybe it's just the low-quality recording), but I like this song quite a bit. Actually I'm planning on making a cover version of it: I've got the arrangement pretty well worked out but just have not had the time to actually realize it.

5. Kristin Hersh "Juno" (from her recent Daytrotter session): It's interesting to hear Hersh cover her very early Throwing Muses material, here in a solo rendition. Her voice is hoarser than ever but still incredibly expressive.

6. Tokyo Police Club "Juno": No, not the Hersh song...I confess these songs are here really because I was amused to discover that there were two utterly unrelated songs called "Juno" on a recent burn of recently downloaded tracks...and neither had anything to do with the movie of the same name. It must be something in the air...

7. No Age "It's Oh So Quiet": From Stereogum's tribute to Björk's Post. I like the way No Age almost completely reinvents the song (which was a cover on Post - so I guess this is a cover of a cover. That'll happen), particularly the "loud" parts, which here turn instead nearly resigned somehow.

And that's it for now. I'm sure if I'd done this fifteen minutes later it'd be a completely different set of songs. Let me know if you happen to post your own list of tracks.

last chance: turn away now without reading this...

This is rather creepy, but no one else seems to have noticed: Bush, Cheney, McCain, and a whole host of other right-wingers, including media folks like Limbaugh, Coulter, and Hannity, have started sporting distinctive rings with a particular polished, bleached cast. Rumor has it that vilifying "liberals" wasn't enough for this crowd, and that they've actually started ritually sacrificing them to their god (not Jesus, silly: the market).

And those rings? Made from the bones of liberals.

I'm telling you, it's true: it's a vast white-ring conspiracy.

Bon Scott, heavenly dishwasher?

I blame Paula: ever since I saw her photo labeled "Dirty Dishes," to which I appended the comment "were they done dirt cheap?" the damned AC/DC song runs through my head every time Rose or I does dishes.

I guess there are worse earworms...

let's pretend we're Lincoln

I just saw one of the new five-dollar bills for the first time, and...

What, did Prince design it?

It's all purply tinged, with a big purplish "5" in the lower right corner of the back side.

the font that caused the Vietnam War

I finally got around to watching the Helvetica film the other night. I liked it: an interesting pocket history of a particular pendulum swing in cultural meaning (when what was once fresh, clean, and modern becomes sterile, cliched, and corporate, at least in one narrative), and the film had a well-chosen soundtrack including a selection of musicians (including the Album Leaf, Caribou, Sam Prekop, Battles, and Four Tet).

But where was Couch Flambeau? That's right: Milwaukee's own Couch Flambeau recorded a song called "Helvetica" way back in the late '80s, originally released on Atomic Records' Badger-a-Go-Go compilation in 1989. (A different recording was on the Couch's own career compilation I Did a Power Slide in the Taco Stand a few years back.)

So how many other songs are there about fonts? Arguably Camper Van Beethoven's New Roman Times album title takes off from the font name, and of course the band Times New Viking's name is probably some sort of homage to the same font...but song titles? P22 Fonts out of Buffalo also runs a record label, and it's released a few "tribute albums" to some of its fonts (I suppose "commissioned" might be a better verb there), but that all seems a bit in-house: Couch Flambeau's got nothing to do with Linotype (the current owners of Helvetica) so far as I know. So: does anyone know of any other songs about fonts?

Couch Flambeau "Helvetica" (Badger-a-Go-Go compilation, 1989)

things that are good enough

I suppose that under the cancer-like rules of capitalism, things that stay the same and don't constantly grow and change are doomed to obliteration...but you know, sometimes things work perfectly fine and don't need changing. Not a major issue here yet, but...I've noticed that Flickr apparently is getting itchy about being associated with photos. Kinda odd, given its name, but...two examples: I have RSS feeds for the photostreams of several of my "contacts." At one point, the default label for these was "X's photos"...which has the advantage, if things align automatically in alphabetical order, of letting you know whose pictures you're about to look at even if the right margin of the reader window (I'm using Sage, a Firefox extension, and that's how it's laid out) cuts off the end of the phrase. Then Flickr changed it to "Photos from X," which has the disadvantage of cutting off the key part of the info: whose photos the link leads to. And now, Flickr's gotten even more vague: the ones I've updated or added most recently say merely "Uploads from X." "Uploads"? Am I interested in "uploads"? No: I want to see what photos people have taken lately. That's why I'm going to Flickr, dummies. Another indicator that Flickr's preparing to broaden its scope: its map feature used to say something like "Y photos taken here" for any given area of the map visible in the screen. Now it says "Y things here." "Things"? I'm not looking for "things," I'm curious where your photos were taken. Yeesh.

the magic of a blackened night

A while back, the former proprietor of the lamentably no-longer-updating Mystical Beast, Dana, sent me one of his periodic e-mails pointing me toward something he'd been listening to lately. In this case it wasn't a new song, but a rather old one, "Sands of Time" from Fleetwood Mac's 1971 album Future Games. (Incidentally, is there another band with such an odd history? No singers, main songwriters, or even guitarists in common, the sole connecting thread in the band's long history is its namesake rhythm section, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie.) This album is from Danny Kirwan's tenure with the band, and "Sands of Time" is probably his best song on the album.

One reason Dana e-mailed me with this track is that we're both fans of Scott Miller's work in Game Theory and the Loud Family, and Dana noted that something about this Fleetwood Mac song reminded him of the Loud Family's apparent valedictory, the closing track from the last album of new material the band would release for six years, Attractive Nuisance's "Motion of Ariel." And I have to agree: not only are there surface similarities in the instrumental textures of the two songs, particularly the electric piano underneath "Ariel"'s verses, but they share a similar rhythmic approach, syncopating three-beat phrases atop a four-beat measure while occasionally shifting into six-beat measures to accommodate those three-beat phrases. (Typically, Miller's far more irregular in this, whereas the Fleetwood Mac song settles into a regular alternation of 6-beat phrases and two bars of 4 beats each.) And surprisingly, there are lyrical similarities as well: each song is a farewell of sorts, though what's being bid goodbye is unclear. The narrator of "Sands of Time" says, "we will go right down to the sea / Bathing in light, we will be free to wander" - while Miller's narrator, alluding to Prospero setting free Ariel in The Tempest, says "I will sing to the motion it's going to take / to set you free, Ariel."

After releasing the promising if uneven What If It Works? CD with his sometimes ill-matched complement Anton Barbeau in 2006, Miller's made a few noises lately about beginning a new recording. I certainly hope that happens, even if he thinks he doesn't know "what songs keep time": why should music with the spirit of air be bound to the earthly sands of time?

Fleetwood Mac "Sands of Time" (Future Games, 1971)
The Loud Family "Motion of Ariel" (Attractive Nuisance, 2000)

Today is Record Store Day

So go and support your local indie record store. I went to Atomic, and in addition to the ninety bucks of stuff I bought, I got a bag full o' goodies, including nine or ten label sampler CDs, a sampler DVD, a 45 rpm single, two magazines, a 10%-off certificate, a raffle ticket, and a collection of stickers and buttons...plus two pair of 3D glasses to watch Björk's new 3D video and a bottle opener promoting some band or other (with a code for a free download). At least some of this stuff doesn't suck.

Atomic's got bands playing all day as well (somewhat ironically, making actual shopping more difficult...but hey: can you see a live performance by downloading an mp3? No, you cannot: Star Trek-style transporters do not exist), so go on down and demonstrate that you continue to exist in physical reality and three-dimensional space. (Unless, of course, you don't...too bad for you.)

torch it

As I've mentioned in this space several times, I hate the Olympics. It's nothing but an orgy of nationalism, spiced with hypocrisy about "international brotherhood" and the glory of athleticism, all geared primarily toward raking in huge shovelsful of money. And even if you want to merely admire the athleticism on display, ask yourself (particularly concerning the sports whose excellence requires constant and expensive training from a very young age), as Kurt Vonnegut did about an Olympic swimmer character's father, "what kind of man turns his own daughter into an outboard motor?"

And pity the city that's privileged to host the Olympics - or rather, pity its residents, who'll find their poorer component shoved into the nearest dumpster in order to erect pointless stadia, rent jacked up to the sky, and police only too eager to put the hurt on in the name of public relations. And of course this year we have the spectacle of China - who should probably just deal with its human rights problems by compelling its political prisoners to breathe its air: I mean, when they all keel over, that's not abuse, is it?

Anyway, further ammunition, courtesy of David Byrne's blog: turns out the whole concept of the torch relay is yet another contribution of those pioneers of large-scale performance art: the Nazis.

phrase of the week

If there's a better phrase in its blunt imaginary gravity and earthedness than "pig iron," I'd like to hear it.

Pig iron.

Pig iron!

slouching toward Kansas

Curious how things meld and, occasionally, spark. Following upon eMusic’s acquisition of ABKCO Records’ Rolling Stones catalog, I’ve been listening to a lot of that band’s music (from 1963 through 1971 or so, specifically), and I’ve found myself analyzing the appeal of Mick Jagger. At the same time, I’ve been thinking about this frustrating electoral cycle, in which the Democratic Party seems poised to again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by, once again, running to the middle with a policy of throat-clearing, half-hearted gestures, and apologies for excesses of those of its adherents who dare to, you know, be passionate about any damned thing. Hillary Clinton is pulling a Lieberman and almost seems to have decided that if she can’t be the Democratic nominee for President, well, maybe she can be the Republican nominee for Vice President: how else to explain her echoing the typical, annoying attacks on the “liberal” Obama as cultural elitist and (shhh!) secret Muslim, angry black man, and closet anti-Semite? And then I read Zoilus’s entry on the latest Obama kerfuffle, which refers to Tom Frank and his What’s the Matter With Kansas?, along the way referring to Ellen Willis’s three-quarters brilliant rebuttal to Frank’s thesis. (It’s only three-quarters brilliant because I think she misunderstands Frank as applying a simple “false consciousness” analysis, when I read Frank not as arguing that cultural issues “aren’t real,” but that Democrats specifically and the larger (actual?) left generally have failed to articulate the connection between their cultural views and a liberatory economic analysis. Certainly the latter is lacking, and Willis is sadly correct that the Dems lack all conviction regarding the former.)

And then I make myself crazy by crunching all that together.

How does that work? Well, let’s look at Willis’s essay. Certainly Willis is correct in asserting that the left (which should not be equated with “the Democrats” ... except, of course, as she fails to mention, for the fact that the electoral system gives us no real alternative) should be arguing, passionately, powerfully, and often, for the liberatory potential of its cultural perspective, and not just for the usual subalterns found beneath the yoke of the race/gender/sexuality troika. She’s also correct in implying that Americans are not so conservative as that: certainly in their actual behaviors (as evidenced by their consumption of all those “obscene” cultural products hated by the right wing’s kulturkampf troops) but also in their daily lives. I can attest to this: while few of my students, most of whom are from working-class or middle-class background, identify themselves as leftists, radicals, or even Democrats, and while few of them would claim they’re actively in favor of radical gay, feminist, or anti-racism groups, they are generally repelled by overt racism, homophobia, and (to a degree) sexism…and more to the point, they certainly have no problem with the notion that every one of them, black, white, Latino/a, gay, straight, male, female, should have the right to pursue an education and career path. And while they’re certainly not immune to the cultural stereotypes attached to these groups, they have an unselfconscious gut negative reaction to egregious bigotry. Let one student make a racist remark, even a relatively subtle one, and the discomfort of the rest is clear; the same is true of homophobic comments, etc. And in my classes that have had out gay or lesbian students, I’ve never heard a single student make an overt comment, or even a dirty look, at those students…whatever their private feelings, they recognize either that such negativity is wrong or, at least, is unacceptable. And even if that’s all it is – as in, they don’t want to get on my bad side – at least they’re willing to live with that.

So I don’t think the country is really full of bigots. Obviously, there are bigots…but most of them at least behave in a live-and-let-live fashion.

Okay ... but if the consumption of porn and sexy romance novels and the like is evidence that the right’s puritanism is at best a cover for some dicey hypocrisy, isn’t the consumption of the products of Larry the Cable Guy and similar neo-redneckisms evidence that, really, America is good ol’ boy nation?

Maybe. But I think there’s another way to look at it. Please allow me to introduce Mick Jagger, a man of wealth and taste. One of the most interesting things about Jagger’s self-presentation during the mid- to late sixties is the way he embodied any number of contradictory positions. Macho yet effeminate, preening yet insouciant, and most of all, salt-of-the-earth but aristocratic, Jagger simultaneously evoked a street-fighting working class image (which he was not) while conveying a certain regality, an aristocratic disdain, as if he were a prince dispatched amongst the rabble in disguise (which he also was not: from a solidly middle-class family is our Michael Phillip Jagger. Incidentally, it would appear Robyn Hitchcock named Jagger’s father: according to Wikipedia, Jagger senior’s name was “Basil Fanshawe Jagger”). This, I think, is Jagger’s “satanic” appeal, and what millions of not necessarily privileged fans saw, darkly, reflected in his lascivious gaze: the freedom to do, and be, and judge, outside the roles and rules of social propriety. (And his apparent willingness and desire to set that rabble free – take a look at how many Jagger lyrics of the era allude to the underclass rising up against royalty - is what frightened the upholders of that era’s order.) And unlike some of his latter-day disciples in satyrdom, Jagger wasn’t merely a dick with legs: there was clearly a potent intelligence underlying Jagger’s seduction, evident even in the language he used to describe his desires and conquests. (Take, for example, the lyrics of “Stray Cat Blues,” possibly one of the most lascivious songs ever recorded: while Jagger is utterly un-coy about his intentions toward the object of his desire – who’s only fifteen, which you know nowadays would probably get him arrested just for singing about – he also works the “stray cat” metaphor in several subtle ways, my favorite of which is the opening line, about the “click-clack” of his Lolita’s heels in the hall: anyone with a cat knows Jagger’s evoking here the sound of their claws on a solid floor.)

And so we come back to the core of Willis’s argument against Frank: she says that the right has gained standing among the salt of the earth of Kansas not because they’ve duped Kansans into believing they’d legislate their pet issues (while working against the economic interests of such voters) but because the left has been timid and even apologetic about its own positions. Worse – even if only in stereotypical renderings of the left – they’ve become puritanical in enforcing them. The whole “PC” bullshit of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s rests upon the notion that the left is made up of a mob of censorious, overcautious do-gooders ever-vigilant against the possibility that (as the old phrase has it) someone, somewhere might be having a good time. Granted: the qualification was that the left dispatched its correctness curmudgeons only if the person enjoying himself was a white male ... but still, this impression went a long way toward the popularity of your Larry the Cable Guy and the like, along with all the talk-radio and stand-up comedy professional assholes who, if nothing else, seemed to feel the freedom to speak their minds (even if any intelligent observer might be forgiven for assuming that their “minds” in this case somehow got crosswired with their excretory systems, given how full of shit they typically are).

But the problem, and the difference, is that while Jagger and his ilk could, at the time, and at least theoretically, be read as embodying a liberatory impulse, one which with some modification and perspective shifts could even encompass apparent misogynist broadsides like the Stones’ “Stupid Girl” and “Under My Thumb” (and hey: the shallow materialism and snobbery of “Stupid Girl”’s titular character is repugnant), the current populist assholism seems content to overlook the difference between then and now and, even though seeming to speak freely, ultimately embodies a far more significant quantity of fear and resentment than anything liberatory. (Let’s not forget that sexual repression, not only of women but of men, along with classism, racism, and homophobia, was overt and blatant among many in the ‘60s, particularly in Jagger’s England.) There’s a real refusal to accept that anyone might genuinely be different from them; that (for example) someone might merely prefer a latté to black coffee (or even orange juice - note to Obama: argue that oranges are a domestic product while coffee’s an import) rather than be affecting a preference in order to curry favor among a cultural elite – which ultimately seems to be the belief underlying that strain of cultural conservatism.

One of Willis’s masterstrokes is to turn the tables on Frank’s analysis: it’s the Democrats, she argues, who deploy bait-and-switch tactics with voters. While the Republicans may indeed draw folks in with “vote to stop abortion; receive a rollback in capital gains taxes,” the Democrats equally do so: as Willis writes, the Dems’ tenure too often can be analyzed as “vote to protect Roe v. Wade; receive NAFTA.” But it’s not even that simple (“they’re all a bunch of hypocrites”): the Republicans have been unapologetic about both their opposition to abortion and their enthusiasm for lower taxes, while the Democrats have been marble-mouthed about both their support for abortion rights and their support for NAFTA. And (as Willis points out), the “switch” for Republicans isn’t really a switch: while abortion may still technically be legal, various laws, regulations, rulings, and above all rhetoric have made abortions all but impossible to actually obtain for many, if not most, poor women in this country.

Maybe what the left needs, then, is a rock star: someone confident enough in his or her beliefs, and proud enough in his or her own skin, to assert rather than merely defend, to be fierce in standing up for those beliefs rather than constantly appeasing the mythical middle (“mythical” in its scale and relevance, at least). Because, I’d argue, one reason those folks are in the middle is that they’re largely apolitical ... but they do recognize timidity and hypocrisy when they see it. And even if it’s been rather disastrous that these folks (or enough of them) looked at George W. Bush, and looked at Al Gore or John Kerry, and saw in one a guy who, flawed as he is, at least stood up for his beliefs (inanely, idiotically, smugly, and defensively, ‘tis true) and on the other, a stuffed suit with all the charisma and conviction of a day-old bowl of soggy cornflakes, and as much backbone, well, they’re not going to look at the politics, or the intelligence. They’re going to vote for freedom. And cautiously living in fear of carefully parsed poll analysis is not freedom.

diamond whitewash

Milwaukee has its racial and ethnic tensions, to be sure...but it's also, as this article points out, one of the few cities whose major-league baseball teams sports more than a couple African-American players (not to mention not one but two players sometimes nicknamed "The Hebrew Hammer": Gabe Kapler and Ryan Braun). The article addresses some of the factors behind the declining numbers of African-Americans choosing to play baseball, but I'd argue the expense and space are among the keys. Schools that can barely afford to provide books for their students are unlikely to be able to keep up a baseball field, much less the equipment required for the game.

inevitably...

It's finally come to pass: David Thomas, guru of long-standing Cleveland-based "avant-garage" rock band Pere Ubu, is playing the namesake of his band in an adaptation of Alfred Jarry's landmark absurdist play Ubu Roi. Brilliant photo at the link.

Elvis Is Everywhere

Earlier this week, Elvis Costello made a surprise appearance at the Nick Lowe/Robyn Hitchcock show in New York City - of course, recordings are circulating. Here are some excerpts from one: the first is Nick and Elvis doing the song Elvis wrote for Nick, "Indoor Fireworks." The second one is a version of a song best known by that other Elvis fella, "Mystery Train," with Robyn taking the lead vocal and Elvis on harmonies. Oh, and some incredibly enthusiastic fan very near the recorder - we shall designate him "The Train Whistle" and imagine that it was all planned like that.

Another all-star Elvis Costello extravaganza happened about two years ago in Atlantic City. Costello and the Imposters hosted a show also featuring Death Cab for Cutie, Fiona Apple, and Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day. A tribute to American Idiot: I picked that one up a couple of years back, liked it well enough, but also thought the production and arranging were at times maybe a bit too safe, and consequently I haven't listened to it that much. And I'm not a radio-listening guy...yet hearing the three songs from that album featured at this show - here's "Wake Me Up When September Ends" - I recognized them instantly. Armstrong and company know how to write a catchy song, which is harder than you'd think.

Costello covered Apple's "I Know" in his full-blown balladeer mode, while Apple dueted with Costello on his "Shabby Doll." She also sang lead on a heart-wringing version of Costello's "I Want You," a performance which, unfortunately, got cut in half in my source.

Oh - and apparently following up on his amusing guest-host stint on Letterman's show a couple of years back, Costello will also be hosting a TV show with Elton John (via Zoilus). I think Mojo Nixon was singing about the wrong Elvis. (As opposed to the wrong Eno.)

Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello "Indoor Fireworks" (live 4/9/08)
Robyn Hitchcock, Elvis Costello, and Nick Lowe "Mystery Train" (live 4/9/08)
Billie Joe Armstrong with Elvis Costello and the Imposters "Wake Me Up When September Ends" (live 5/19/06)
Elvis Costello and the Imposters "I Know" (Fiona Apple cover, live 5/19/06)
Elvis Costello and the Imposters with Fiona Apple "Shabby Doll" (live 5/19/06)

joy, make-believe, and cheesily-derived titles

Some fun songs have come my way recently. First, a band called The Joy Formidable (warning: link goes to Mice Pace). Little info on these folks, except that they're British and enjoy both corroded textures and ambient space. "Austere" begins that way, with a single, high-pitched female vocal, but builds gradually through an interestingly twisty rhythmic pattern to a fuller sound with distorted bass. "While the Flies" places its guitar notes like puzzle pieces, overlaid with more of that bass and dueling vocal parts. I'm curious to hear more from this band.

Make Believe is yet another project involving Tim Kinsella (Joan of Arc, Cap'n Jazz, Owls) - according to the band's publicist, it's the 58th recording he's been on. Busy man. And indeed, "For Lauri Bird" plays a busy, buzzingly rapid riff against a spare backdrop, sounding rather like Zoot Horn Rollo practicing Philip Glass. "Just Green Enough" begins with a thorny guitar passage, eventually incorporating octave-doubled vocals and an electric piano, subtly building and then abruptly ending. I'm a bit more intrigued than actually interested - both tracks have the air of experiments or idea workshops and seem just slightly underdressed, but sometimes that openendedness can be a virtue.

The Joy Formidable "Austere" (self-release 2008)
The Joy Formidable "While the Flies" (self-release 2008)
Make Believe "For Lauri Bird" (Going to the Bone Church, 2008)
Make Believe "Just Green Enough" (Going to the Bone Church, 2008)

things you couldn't possibly make up

Via Superpaulafragilisticarinoalidocious's fab Intellectual House o' Pancakes blogthing: there is a series of Amish romance novels written by a professional ventriloquist.

Things we now know: electricity=bad, ventriloquism=hunky-dory. So if you read about a series of creepy killings in which the suspect is an electrical ventriloquist's dummy, know that the Amish are exonerated.

rock & Maki roll

I've written about Maki before; in my inbox the other day is a link to a couple of somewhat-lost Maki tunes, courtesy of (the also somewhat-lost: no updates for more than a year, until now) Vfib Recordings (which is also run by at least one ex-Milk Magazine writer).

Here they are. The first one's called "B Street" (which used to be "B Street Wander" in its appearance on a 1999 compilation called Pop Till You Drop, and which isn't called "1972" even though that would make more sense...), and the second one's called "I Miss You Now" (which I think has always been called that). Dan Franke, formerly of the Mighty Deerlick, a couple years back sent me a 2-CDR cache of Milwaukee and ex-Milwaukee bands that included a whole bunch of Maki stuff, much of which listed no title... Someday I should go through all the various versions and figure out which are different and which are simple duplicates. Ah well.

Maki "B Street"
Maki "I Miss You Now"

because recognizing obscure in-jokes makes me feel superior to you, that's why

Those of us fortunate enough to live in areas served by print editions of The Onion may remember a period maybe five to ten years ago when, in inner pages with space to fill too small for an article, they'd use a fake story-continuation that consisted of nothing but the words "Passersby were amazed by the unusually large amounts of blood" - repeated to fill the space. (I think nowadays they fill those spaces with in-house ads...like my favorite: "Page Numbers. Only in The Onion.")

Well, in this week's edition, they finally printed (or wrote) the story from which those words come. I'm curious as to whether this is a rerun of a very old Onion story, or a new one, with the "passersby" phrase a shoutout to that old little in-joke.