Charles Bradley "The World (Is Going Up In Flames)" Live!

what a song! it does my heart good to see real soul music coming back. great album. buy it.

The Sonics - Strychnine

'i like the taste, of straight strychnine'.

fucking bad-asses.

Krautrock - Faust

the future of rock is in the past.
i like my rock like i like my hot dogs: with a little kraut!

all modern music is retro. there is nothing new happening. there are still bands playing watered down blues riffs, verse-chorus-verse, metronomic boring bull shit. i am an old man. some kid should be making a noise that i can't wrap my head around. i want to hear music without a reference point. music from another planet. the germans got there. sun ra got there. glenn branca got there. but that was 30-40 years ago! what the fuck is happening now! who's breaking ground? and i don't mean some english twat making a synth squeal and belch on top of some stuttering drum machine. we should be beyond rhythm, beyond harmony, beyond tempo. sound should transcend space and time! you should hear it in an instant! it should never evoke a memory, but a feeling. a feeling of a place you are headed to, not a place where you've been.
a feeling of perpetual motion, an uneasy stasis. a hovering, anticipatory feeling. a feeling of hurtling, headlong towards a beautiful pink light that will reveal all of existence in flash, and leave you alone, yet connected, at peace, but yearning for more.
follow the sound, kids.

led zeppelin earls court tangerine

this may be the best i've ever heard zep live. i really love how page is out of tune during the intro.

Pernice Brothers - Monkey Suit

I like the "Brothers" bands. I'm in a "Brothers" band -- The Sleeping Brothers.

I was almost certain I bought the Pernice Brothers' album "Overcome by Happiness" in Wilmington when I was living down in Calabash, NC. But I see it was released in '98 (I'd moved back to NY in Fall of '97). I swear I can remember buying it at CD Alley... Guess not. No reason to belabor the point. Must've got it at Music Arcade on Old Country Road (pretty sure it was after Titus Oaks' had closed). The guy who worked the counter at Music Arcade was a huge Guided by Voices fan, if that's the store I'm thinking of. Our friend Tom made a disparaging remark to him about Bob Mould, I recall.

Anyway, sometime, somewhere in '98, I picked up Overcome by Happiness, either because I'd read something about them or there was a sticker on the CD saying how it was the guys from Scud Mountain Boys.

Maybe I was back visiting Carolina in '98 when I bought it... God, it's such a great album. I still listen to it fairly regularly. Joe Pernice, now an author as well, is phenomenally talented, but his music still comes off like the guy next door who records in his basement and plays a few local gigs on Thursday nights.

I chose "Monkey Suit" because it's about work; my job, I'm certain.

Listen:
Someone's rattling on my monkey cage all day
While I peck away the ant hill numbers
Peck away my best years

And:
Don't want to live inside it
Don't want to waste it dreaming
Don't let me disappear
Inside this monkey suit that I'm wearing

Thank Christ! for this kind of music, for these words. Music is everything religion strives to but cannot be (I guess that's why there's so much music at mass).

Blog on TV on the Radio

It's never too late to get into any kind of music. Though I wish I'd appreciated TV on the Radio before learning of the death of Gerard Smith. "Two shocks", as my brother said. First, that he died, as we knew him back on Long Island (both from St. Pius and Foodtown), and second, that he was in TV on the Radio. It's strange what slips past even these two music snobs.

Anyway, enjoying their music now. You should too...

Jon Spencer Theremin demonstration

attention everybody: i would like a theremin for my birthday.

The Fall Garden

the mighty fall. greatest band ever.