BOB DYLAN & HIS BAND BLEW US ALL AWAY AT DEER VALLEY MOUNTAIN SKI RESORT PARK CITY UTAH SUNDAY AUGUST 31 2008 ONCE UPON AN ENCHANTED EVENING I'LL NEVER FORGET

 by your blood rover Shaun Lawton 

   reporting for the Oscillating Oculus 

photo by Mathieu David

@ Deer Valley Mountain Ski Resort, Park City UTAH Sunday, August 31, 2008.

Here's the setlist on that electrifying, stormy evening: 



Rainy Day Women #12 & 35

When I Paint My Masterpiece

Stuck Inside A Mobile w/the Memphis Blues Again

It's NoT DaRk yeT

DON'T THINK TWICE, IT'S ALRIGHT

a MILLION miles

DESOLATION ROW

The Levee's Gunna Break

she belongs to me

Honest With Me

Simple Twist of FATE

HIGHWAY 61 Revisited

QUEEN JANE Approximately

THUNDER ON THE MOUNTAIN

LIKE A ROLLING STONE


   Bob Dylan rocked our darned socks off. Damn that was a blazing blistering set to help a crowd withstand torrential rains, but no amount of bad weather could put a damper on Bob Dylan or his band's set this evening. They just seared their way through song after song — 15 in all, I think — yes, most likely a foreshortened set due to the inclement weather, but it just made songs like 'The Levee's Gunna Break' all the better.

   The fact it all started with 'Rainy Day Women #12 & 35' was just perfect. My sweetheart and I were well-prepared this time for an outdoor lawn show. We bought these low-slung back-pack chairs and these 2 overlarge wicked windproof, rainbow-colored umbrellas so when the downpours came (and boy did they ever come) we were sittin' pretty high and dry. We had a bottle of very nice Sonoma county wine we'd been saving since last year's vacation, which we poured into these medieval metal goblets. We enjoyed sesame water crackers with goat cheese as well as some Greek and Chinese food. No sooner than Bob was singing 'Everybody Must Get Stoned' at the show's start in the rain did I begin to dance; this was not the slow rollicking beat with brass instruments version your Dad remembers, but more of a wicked fiery Hellbilly ride.

   Bob loves nothing more than changing up the arrangement of his songs, and it was quite evident in the next song 'Stuck Inside A Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again', a much quicker and upbeat version which got me on my feet and dancing in no time flat. Bob's band really got into the swing of things. Before my mind could catch up with what was actually happening to us all, 'It's Not Dark Yet' began, and it was so pitch-perfect. It was a brisk and tense delivery of a heartfelt anthem and was really quite moving. Then the rain finally stopped, some clouds parted, and we spied a section of blue sky up there above the mountains. You gotta understand Deer Valley is a ski resort catering to the rich and, yes, famous. It is clear and beautiful up at that elevation. We were lucky the sun broke through because it would remain relatively sunny and dry for over the next hour and nine songs or so. Everyone began pouring their libations of wine and bringing out their fancy picnic meals and whatnot. Shasta and I broke out the gourmet dark chocolate w/bits of ginger in it and quaffed more red wine while Bob Dylan and his band began jamming out an intro to the next song, which struck a familiar chord yet was being played too fast to be immediately recognized. I started dancing my ass off to this song, and before I knew it, realized I was twisting to 'Don't Think Twice, It's Alright'!

   It was then and there during this 5th song that a feeling of Awesomeness struck like a bolt of lightning from above, this was one of Bob's ON nights! Every song he played was uncut, and if anything, an extended version from the original. His band was ON it, jamming this unbelievable fusion of down home country ragtime, rock'n'roll, periodically injected with elements of swing, jazz, and Mississippi delta blues. Gone was the old folk element Dylan cut his teeth on; these here versions were fully electrified and transformed beyond their classic guises into something far more electric & dynamic.

   His Bobness pretty much stood in one spot sporting this nice Stetson hat and these black pants with a silver stripe down the sides of the legs, he was all got up good'n'proper like the Man in Black oughta be. I couldn't quite tell if he ever played a guitar or not — most of the night I was letting go gyrating and having a grand ol' time — but his voice shone through the dizzying arrangement of musical stylings in a crisp nasal tone that, although a bit raspier than it used to be, nonetheless managed to carry the songs through to their respective ends. The energy Bob and his band instilled in the crowd was palpable and electric, everyone was going nuts.

   I proudly wore my original KoRn T-shirt, selected specifically for this show, and sported a Jester's Cap w/bells on — picture me dancing a crazy Peanut's Dance sped up to about 78rpms in this outfit, and you pretty much get the picture of Shaun @ Bob Dylan, 2008. Believe me when I tell you that throughout most of these rockin' tunes, the level of intensity in the musicianship was such that it afforded plenty of opportunities to break out in wild, spontaneous air-guitar soloes, and there was one point (during the song 'Honest With Me') where I gasped out loud in stunned disbelief on account of how much heavy momentum the jamming had acquired. Let me put it this way: there were a few moments wherein my imagination inserted speed metal leads to the music - it was that sick. \m/

   Needless to say, I kept exchanging astonished looks with the folks standing next to us. I had read somewhere that lately, Dylan's shows focus so much on his more recent material that some audience members get disappointed. Well at our show in Deer Valley that Sunday evening, nothing could be further from the truth. After just having heard 'Rainy Day Women', 'Stuck Inside a Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again', 'Don't Think Twice, It's Alright,' and 'Desolation Row', I was personally so blown away with the hits that I didn't care one whit any longer what Bob had in store for us; it was just that well-delivered, and each song provided ample opportunity for the various musicians to shine respectively with their instruments.

   So when 'You Belong To Me' played it was just another amazing classic song in a setlist chockfull of them, as far as I was concerned. I don't know which recent album the song 'Honest With Me' is from, but I will say it was the most rocking song of the night, just a scorcher through and through. And then Dylan dropped the bomb I had no idea was to come, and that was 'Simple Twist Of Fate'. I don't know about you all, but personally whereas I think 'Tangled Up In Blue' to be Dylan's greatest song, my mind has never been able to accommodate for both of these songs at the same time; When Simple Twist Of Fate plays, I forget all about Tangled Up In Blue, and vice-versa. Its the weirdest thing. Even the memory of Tangled Up In Blue was utterly annihilated while 'Simple Twist Of Fate' played, and all I could think was This has got to be the greatest song Dylan ever wrote...and I shouted as much when it was over: 'BEST SONG EVER,' I yelled out loud with devil horns thrown.

   Then the well-oiled machine that is Bob Dylan's band launched into 'Highway 61 Revisited', and it was around this time that I realized we were witnessing an evening of pure transcendence. You Dylan fans reading this by now can most likely perfectly-well understand how fully amazed I was by this point in the show. Every song had a really cool and unique arrangement; but more importantly, the band were so in sync with one another, they just jammed all the tunes with masterful finesse.

   The clouds had been gathering for awhile and the sun had been gradually obfuscated by the mountain line looming behind us when 'Queen Jane, Approximately' began to play. Shasta and I sensed the rain begin to fall again, so I started bustin' up our picnic and packing it all in. We grabbed our brightly colored umbrellas and popped them open just in time to catch the fatter rain drops beginning to drop. That's when Bob began on one tune I particularly enjoy from Modern Times — 'Thunder On The Mountain' — I don't know how he kept lobbing out these perfectly appropriate songs, but yeah the thunder that pealed down from the storm-laden night sky during this song could not have been more properly timed. And a hard rain began to fall, indeed.

   Of course I think everyone there was half-expecting Bob to actually sing this song ('A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall'). I personally was holding out with fingers crossed for 'Buckets Of Rain', one of my perennial favorites. But the final song of the evening that was delivered with almost apocalyptic fury was 'Like A Rolling Stone'. Do I even need to mention we weren't let down in the least? We're all howling "Without a HOME like a complete UNKNOWN... like a ROLLING STOOOONE..." up into the rain at night on a mountainside with hundreds of other people while Bob Dylan led us along was certainly a memory I will carry with me for awhile, yet. Just as soon as that song was done, Dylan tipped his hat and briskly exited stage left along with the rest of his band and all the spotlights went on. Nobody in the audience hesitated, we just grabbed our shit and began our mass exodus in the pouring rain, every single one of us all smiles and chattering excitedly and making our way for the gates, nevermind we were all drenched to the bone. The thunderstorm never once let up from that point on, it was like a soundtrack for the end credits. The time was about 9:45 pm, which meant Bob Dylan had played for two solid hours in the sun and the rain. I can't imagine being more shocked and satisfied than I felt at the end of this stellar show which Mr. Tambourine Man & his devoted band delivered to us all that last day of summer in Deer Valley, Utah, 2008.  In many key ways it stands out among the many mind-blowing concerts I've attended as the most enjoyable and gratifying I've had the good fortune to experience.  

   

~ Poet Laureate of the Soul ~

horror skunx RISE

by your friendly Station 3  DJ Shaun Grub   

      Squeezed in between  Hank III and Human Drama  there's the unforgettable sensational rising star of horror skunx with all fifteen of his pop song hits forming the basis for one of my favorite albums from the past couple years   "BENDYLAND"  as I like to think of it,  but whatever Winston Julian decides to end up naming the album itself^, all fifteen of these songs are classics in the making, and we'd better make no mistake about that.   

      [Look,  I went out and purchased all fifteen trax  for .99c each and ripped 'em to my 16gig nano long ago already, and if there's a sixteenth tune that drops of a sudden, it will be on my phone before sundown. Except my nano's in a state of shock right now, with the white screen of death and the two beeps.  This could be the end of an era.]*  It's true my nano never recovered. I advanced to using my iPhone / Apple Music.   

... O, did I say fifteen trax?  *fast-forward a few years to 2024* Try more like thirty-two now (by my count) which doesn't include the instrumental film score I'm not a Monster (PJ Pug-A-Pillar Soundtrack), which clocks in at 2:27 of surprisingly emotive neoclassical sound, but does include the smash hit Revive My Soul (Side B) collab w/Rockit Music, from the Revive My Soul (Bendy and the Dark Revival) EP, feat. 2 different versions, one sung by just Rockit I think, and the one I really like, the duet w/Winston Julian aka my #1 favorite recording artist today.  He's been Cupid-launched into my heart ever since Zane & I discovered him back during the pandemic, when his early short Sirenhead reels were hitting YT, we were instantly hooked,  my boy & I are most die hard horror skunx fans on the planet. 

                                                              just push PLAY and listen to this earliest

of horror skunx hits, the absolute classic Run Away:

 Before reading any further, stop and think out loud to yourself so you can hear your own voice in your head saying it, what did you think of the song?  If you're not sure, listen to it again. Now you may continue reading my soliloquy to the one and only horror skunx.   (to be cont.)  Cont. 

^the album itself:  To make a finer point of it, you see, this is where it becomes necessary for me to point out, in this footnote, that what we're dealing with here, as an emergent post-media phenomenon, is just one of many YouTube rising stars, doing their own thing, and in the case of Mr. Winston Julian, from the Netherlands, self-made singer, songwriter, VFX artist and filmmaker, what I would humbly describe as a rising superstar whose significance to current young generations of followers comparatively speaking in contrast to the Boomers' and their spawnling gen-X of cohorts in arms, I think of Winston as a sort of ultramodern equivalent to Charlie Chaplin.  

   Cont.  I think the 2nd horror skunx song to strike a chord in me, was the responding tune My Savior, which concerns the mythical skeletal being Long Horse, in fact a hero who pits himself fearlessly against any one of the legion of antagonists popping up out of the shadows who would intrude into our animate world from their paper conceptualized cartoon plane of existence, such as Cartoon Cat and Cartoon Dog and Cartoon Mouse, and a lot of other ancillary villains cribbed from the creative commons platform occupied by SCP and an endless amount of literary precursors, enough to fill the coffers of any multiverse scenario schemed up by the Moorcocks & Kings of the world. 

to be cont. 

LAST Perform Depleted Host live in SLC June 7, 2024 at the International Artist Lounge

by roving reporter (for the Oscillating Oculus) Thornswrath 

click to watch

and listen to
LAST 

live in

SLC 

     Man, my friends Ian and Chase in Salt Lake's own electronic death duo's LAST are sending out permanent waves from the heart of their soul, and I'm feeling it.   I'm so damn lucky I went to this show.  I used to see them perform live all the time while they were in 2-Headed Whale, back around when the pandemic broke, when they were a four piece, with Grayden on the saw and Angela on electric violin.  

   

       There was absolutely nothing like a 2-Headed Whale show.  Like that time I saw them at Crucial Fest I think it was, opening for Wovenhand.  What a damn magical night that was. 

And the time they opened for THOU at Diabolical.  With barely enough space to hold 26 people, that makes for a legendary scene.  THOU covered Would by Alice in Chains, if I recall rightly.   And now LAST has gone on a few tours, and have gathered a nationwide rep as the hard core bad asses they are.  I can't stress enough how much love I have for these guys. They have played with absolutely everybody in the scene. From our very own Portal To The Goddman Blood Dimension, Thou again just last Friday (I missed it), Crippling Alcoholism in Boston, Izthmi out of Seattle, Guhts outta Brooklyn, Void Eater from Atlanta, Ghostlight, Drifter, Tenant, Stander, Exosphere, Glass Artery, Mold Farmer, Lechers, Debilitating Lower Back Pain, Jain Broom (which I filmed a post-Odyssey trip-sequence I'm saving to release on my YT channel for that special rainy day) and I'm pretty sure they played with Primitive Man. I guess my point is LAST aren't going places THEY BEEN PLACES.  LAST is all set to conquer the world.  These two guys bring it to the post core scene or whatever you wanna call it. LAST remain standing on four legs in plain defiance. You do not fuck with LAST. They are the nicest guys you're ever likely to meet in any dive bar or club across the nation.   

    Watch this video again if you have to, and keep an eye out on them. cuz LAST are killin' it, and they're only getting started.  If you're on bandcamp, you may have already discovered them there, their auspicious debut ALL TUNNEL, NO LIGHT dropped in January of 2021. Then, nearly three years later, in October of 2023, they released their sophomore effort SIFTING THROUGH ASH FOR THE BELONGINGS OF OUR LOVED ONES, which shifts their colossal sound into the next phase of their shattering odyssey.  I can't even begin to imagine what they have in store for us on their third monumental release. 

    It's really not worth me trying to even describe to you the power and emotional impact of LAST.  If you take a minute to google the history of their tours, well good luck pulling anything up as of yet because they are nestled firmly and comfortably deep in the underground where they ought to be. You will soon enough discover that we have unearthed a legend yet in the making of the post hard core death noise doom scene, right here in our fair city by the great salt lake of shedding toxins.  Ian and Chase are the coolest guys to come out of this cracked city in a god damn dog's age. Do yourselves a favor and buy both of their albums immediately, or an alternate future self of yours will be lamenting in shame and sorrow over your missed opportunity.   

    Both of these albums are so amazing that I owe it to myself to write reviews up for each of them.  By the time I get around to doing that, we'll likely get absolutely crushed by their third. It's coming like that darkened asteroid NASA doesn't even know about lurking just around the cosmological corner and coming at us like an extinction event the likes of us have never heard. Get prepared now and familiarize yourselves with their first two albums. You've been warned. 

        

In the Key of Dream Lore

 an exploration of the sonic under terrains lurking beneath the surface of our every day world

   by your roving reporter from the Oscillating Oculus returning from the deepest depths,

     Thornswrath 

                                                    The Nameless Mist (Magnum Innominandum )  digital art by LK

     As the echoing ululations evoked from my writing incur all the melodic overtones necessary to provide a haunting sonic backdrop, I've layered in lyrical melodicism with the sibilant whispers of the cutting edge sands issuing from serpent's scales hovering in an eerie blend suspended among the deep down bass undertones of a chanted serenade, I am driven to keep thinking about the first couple of tracks which emerged in time to help develop what would come to be half of the two track album Dream Lore of the Star Winds.  

     Such are the evocative sounds to be heard within the twenty-two minute demo dubbed The Nameless Mist, from Luciferal's Key, a recently introduced glitch poetics artist who cropped up last October on SBR's cosmic horror dark ambient compilation Esoterrexus, an album featuring over twenty musicians and clocking in at over three hours in length. There is a mother lode of soundscape artists featured on this looming asteroid slab of a compilation, all of them exploring deep, brooding sonic terrains etched from the loneliest corners of our soul's most desolate spaces. 

     Track sixteen is Luciferal Key's seventeen minute long offering,  Nyctelios in Atheron, a funereal dirge of droning backdrop that evokes monks chanting from deep within the cavernous underground, amid the lurking presence of a serpent with shimmering scales hissing in a series of hypnotic rattling sounds seemingly designed to keep the listener spellbound.  

     Today I decided to take action and get the second track out.  I knew what I had to do, and followed through with the specifications, and composed another piece of ambient music, which ended up clocking in at 22 min long, because the sublyrical source text was three hundred and fifty two words long, consisting of thirteen hundred and twenty characters. These string together much like cursive writing and when read aloud, succeeds with interpolating the ceaseless articulation of its delivery. 

     This new track seems like a continuation and deepening of Nyctelios in Atheron, so The Nameless Mist might be a good way to end the four track album, sharing the function of bookends with the Esoterrexus track.  But that has yet to be determined, as I'm still in the midst of this album's construkction. 

     The other two tracks I'd imagined might end up on this album instead could most likely end up serving in a different sonic vein, unless I introduce a certain verbal editing construction to the other two which imparts their own distinctive flavors in structuring and sound. Apparently if I were to compose verbal written lines in which all words beginning with 's' or even containing the "s" (serpentine hissing) sound were removed for example, then the resultant recording would naturally reflect that, meaning the removal of the familiar, dragon like hissing sound explored in the first and final tracks, seemingly resultant from the incessant amount of sibilance that prevails in general English as a matter of course.  A careful consultation of certain consonants and phonemes could be edited out to produce a more distinctive recording.   For that matter, translation into a foreign hieroglyphic language might yield its own parameters of interesting sonic interpretive measures.  

    Nyctelios in Atheron has its origins from the raw demo track Dominion, put out on Thornswrath's Soundcloud channel. This track has been classified as a 'glitch poetics' drone track, pretty much.  It has its own logo that I designed with the help of various ai algorithms to produce something alien & surrealistic. [The Nameless Mist will have been added to my Soundcloud page, in time.]

     This would make for a nice gatefold cover layout for a double LP in the dark glitch ambient scene.

Luciferal's Key got its start a few years ago when I produced a three track, six minute EP called Murmurings, whose song titles reflect the names of craters located on the dark side of the moon. 

    All three of these tracks are raw one-take recordings made with my iPhone of me playing the Yamaha keyboard spontaneously, summoning a forlorn mood.  One take improv recordings with no tampering; as lo fi as it gets. 

    The desolation of the moment gets captured nicely on these short raw demos. They have lain down the groundwork for future Luciferal's Key projects.  With Dream Lore of the Star Winds currently in development, it looks like the direction it's going in has set sail on a steady course into the heart of mystery. There's a certain elegance in the articulation of the themes Luciferal's Key deals with that remains hidden just below the surface of our everyday comprehension. That's the beguiling aspect. 

   I want the ambient music inherent to LK's recordings to contain about them an immediacy of the moment enough to capture and hold the listener's attention, even if they have it on headphones while daydreaming from the window seat of their morning commuter bus to work.  I've recorded various other sorts of sound experiments, interested in twisting instrumentational snippets into differing lengths of sonic loops, which I aspire to play together to generate a nonrepeating, interactive ambient backdrop all its own. 

      The key to what made the Esoterrexus track, Nyctelios in Atheron a success for me, well it's the fact I sent the raw demo to my friend Omensworn, resulting in a collaboration. He first mastered it by giving it depth of sound and left / right dimensional stereo, and faded in and out of the piece, but he also embellished a very minimal backdrop of sounds, with a subtle melodic interpolation, to complement and accentuate the demo itself. The results are a seamless and full bodied atmospheric soundtrack which enhances all the subtleties of my compositional sequence, replete with its nonrepeating and rhythmic qualities inherent to the lyrical soul and flow of the conjuring script.  If it wasn't for Omensworn's input and collaboration, there wouldn't be an album, nor a platform for Luciferal's Key. A sense of sincere gratitude and a hearty "thank you" goes out to him, for helping to make this dream of mine come true.  Here's to the project finding its resolution over the following weeks to come. Cheers!

     Stay tuned for more subharmonic frequencies 

   from the darkest nether regions of the under realms  

    

It's Only The End Of The World Again (Liner Notes For A Mix CD)

 by  Shaun Grub

    Starting a mix out with Agents Of Oblivion is a smart move especially if that song is Endsmouth.  It's only the end of the world again.   I love Dax's old wild youthful passion, apparent throughout all the vocals he did for Acid Bath ('94--'97) and he lent some of that energy to his Stardust wannabe outfit in Agents Of Oblivion.  

   Movin' Out, from Aerosmith's debut album which I'm thinking was 1974, is the baddest sounding song on the whole album, it retains it's scorching intensity to this day, an effective hard rocking blues song which introduced me to rock and roll music; we forever remain grateful to our first rock'n'roll heroes, and I still tip my hat to Joey, Tom, Brad, Joe, and Steven for bringing me straight into the dirty bad ass side of rock and roll.   Nobody knows where.  Nobody shows where. Nobody knows where you can find me.  

   Now Scissorfight is one helluva rock band out of New Hampshire, I used to live up there, where they take their freedom seriously.  This band consists of mountain men who will rock out a local bar so hard there'll be furniture flyin'.  Appalachian Chain, driving me insane. These guys are a lot of fun, sorta like an East Coast Pigmy Love Circus. (Who I wanted to include in this mix, but it turns out I didn't have their album on the harddrive, and I'm not sure where the CD is offhand.)  

   The song Mortician's Flame is a prime example of what Acid Bath do best, rock the hell out with sinister bass lines and dark, cryptic riffage not to mention soulfully belted out lyrics.  That is just one hell of a sickening scream which kicks off this song, man these guys were just the best.  They hailed from Louisiana, and to my ears their particular style of hard rock music is an amalgam of various elements taken from extreme metal and hard rock blues, all mixed up in a sort of acid swamp milieu, so I've dubbed their genre acid swamp.  A sort of toxic southern gothic.  Acid Bath only released two official studio albums, they are masterpieces of extreme musical expression still worshipped today and if anything keeping the cult of followers growing, largely due to the underground popularity of their lead singer Dax Riggs, who I was going to feature a song from on this mix but I got carried away, I'm sorry, about the song, in there that you didn't like.  

   I tried as hard as I could just to put together a mix that rocked hard, and I stuck that Bad Religion song Better Off Dead in there.  I'm sorry, about the world, how could I know it could get so bad.  Hey now they're a great punk band, I still carry a soft part in my heart for them, they've been around quite awhile now anyhow.  

   Alice In Chains were such a great crunchy band back in the nineties with Layne Staley fronting them as he would a ship across a storm that I had to include a song of theirs from what most people consider their best album DIRT, the song Dam That River is just a straightforward hard rocking song that delivers the goods in every way.   

    The next song is a mysterious selection from a recently formed super group comprised of members from Bad Religion, Faith No More, Repeater, and Korn: a band named Fear And The Nervous System, the song The Combine is an epic example of what these guys came up with guided by guitarist Munky and the strangely haunting vocals from the singer for the band Repeater, Steve Krolikowsky.  There's a savage elegance to the songs from that album, I really hope those four guys get together again and record another one.  If they never do, that's alright because what they've left behind is one of most interesting and hard rocking albums released in recent years.  

   If 6 Was 9 of course is a stone cold classic, I sorta of inserted it out of nowhere but I'm glad I did, the lyrics are great and that's a timeless classic when you get right down to it.  Let it be. 

   For some reason I chose to shift gears directly into King Crimson, with their smoothly beginning from silence track Dangerous Curves off their magnificent 2003 album The Power To Believe, it's a song that gradually builds in intensity until it's really raving along the freeway at a rapid pace, so I segued into one of my favorite hard rocking songs from the nineties, Korn's Justin, the song which lead singer Jonathan wrote the lyrics for and the band dedicated to Justin, a kid from the Make A Wish Foundation whose wish was to meet the band.  The song Justin is one of my favorite hard rocking songs ever by any band and I figured it would make for a nice curve ball after King Crimson.  

   Then I figured I'd put a song from Peter Murphy's latest album, considering how good it is and how much we all enjoyed seeing him perform live the old Bauhaus hits with his new younger band.  I put The Prince & The Old Lady Shade for it's cool smooth rocking riff but it also turns out to be somewhat lyrically appropriate after Justin, with images of the kid and the bright light.  

   Man Overboard follows because that is a perfect song.  And it's one by Puscifer, the side-project of Tool's singer Maynard James Keenan, the brilliant poet winemaker with a voice of a diva.  Nevermind what anyone else says or thinks, I have enjoyed both LPs and every other little thing that Puscifer have released, it's a great little merry go round musical project that I'm always keeping one eye out for, as Maynard himself has already said that Puscifer is a "rotating doorway" of band members who happen to pass through his sphere and end up on the recordings.  This particular track was the first single from their second album, Condition Of My Parole, an "instant classic" if ever there was one recorded in the history of the post-rock movement.

   Speaking of post-rock, how much of that have you listened to?  It's the movement largely credited with having been best exemplified by the nine-piece Canadian band Godspeed You! Black Emperor, whose recordings you should immediately track down and listen to.  I've got a couple of their albums on vinyl and they are magnificent.  But see even though they deserve the crown as emperors of that scene, they don't really represent what the stripped down basics of post-rock really means, which is music produced by your standard rock instruments such as bass, guitar, and drums--yet most crucially to exist without vocals.  Many post-rock bands sort of emulate an ebb and flow pattern of quietly building music which crescendos into levels of Marshally-stacked loudness which then gradually descend back into tranquility, but this sort of music also features practitioners who interpolate elements of electronics, such as England's 65daysofstatic, one of my favorites.   {Anyhow here's the mix tape I made for you, Birdy.  I hope you can listen to it from way out there on the Other Side.  I miss you every day.} ~Grub 

THE NEXT DAY: Track by Track

review'd by yr roving reporter Shaun Lawton 

  (for the Oscillating Oculus) 

1. The Next Day. 

Right out of the cage this song snarls and shreds and builds intensity until the breaking point with db's vox assuring us "Here I am not quite dying, my body left to rot in a hollow tree, its branches throwing shadows on the gallows for me" and if you listen closely to the remaining lyrics about paper bodies and pain and diseases and purple-headed priests and the great line "they know God exists for the Devil told them so", it all adds up to one killer fucking track knocked out of the proverbial ballpark for me. Repeat listenings improve this and every last track on the album, I know because I can't stop listening to it.

2. Dirty Boys.
Then we segue into a unique sounding song for Bowie. This is a low down sleazy dirty saxophone dirge with remarkable guitar tones and angular rhythms. With lyrics about buying feather hats and stealing cricket bats and smashing windows, making noise, and running with dirty boys. . . what's not to fucking like?

3. The Stars (Are Out Tonight).
Another rocker knocked out of the park. 3 in a row? Hell we've barely scratched the surface of the new classic shit, and after listening to this one many times (it's a grower) I've determined this is the 1st 'classic' potential radio single with enough melodic catchiness and professional groovedom to please everybody. When he croons about Brigitte, Jack, Kate and Brad behind their sunglasses "gleaming like blackened sunshine" we are led to understand a brilliant poetic metaphor contrasting the celestial kingdom with Hollywood's and the public's overt glorification of celebrityhood ... a topic that no one knows better from personal experience than David Bowie.

4. Love is Lost.
A moody song that I've heard from more than one 20-something year old is their absolute favorite. Personally I can think of better tracks off this record but it pleases me to know that our younger generations adore this tune. I like it a lot myself because it's haunting and has a strange arrangement. Realize now that Bowie's lyrics throughout this album are nothing less than stellar. Beginning with these refrains "It's the darkest hour, you're twenty-two, the voice of youth, the hour of dread, the darkest hour and your voice is new, love is lost, lost is love, your country's new, your friends are new, your house and even your eyes are new, your maid is new and your accent too, but your fear is as old as the world" we are treated with more of the sharpest and incisive lyrics from Bowie's career, and that is saying something.

5. Where Are We Now?
I'll never forget hearing this song for the first time on db's b-day earlier this year, and sitting before my work computer utterly mesmerized by the equally brilliant video. I had to put up with the typical kneejerk bored reactionism from a host of dullards that this tune was "boring" or "melancholy" etc. and YEAH it's melancholy as all getout and I'll tell you right now it equals and sometimes surpasses my favorite tracks off the entire album. It is that good. The way it builds slowly to the epiphany of "As long as there's Sun, As long as there's Sun / As long as there's Rain, As long as there's Rain / As long as there's Fire, As long as there's Fire / As long as there's Me / As long as there's You" brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it. Truly a phenomenal lead-in track which cleverly manages to defiantly refute the seething masses' apathy, I consider that move of first releasing this "downer" of a tune (which evolves into quite the opposite in fact ... much like the paradox of existence) as truly brilliant. A "check-mate" if you will right from the start. Where Are We Now? truly shines as one of David Bowie's greatest songs ever written, in my opinion.

6. Valentine's Day.
What can I say? Well there is no doubt David Bowie's got something to say. I will never tire of listening to this song for the remainder of my life ... perhaps it has something to do with the fact it's release coincides with the arrival of my newborn first son, with his "tiny face" and "scrawny hands" and "icy heart", (not to mention we almost named him Valentine, actually) ... or maybe it's merely the fact this is the best radio pop song David Bowie has recorded since . . . . I just don't know when. Easily since 1980's Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) famous and everlasting track "Ashes To Ashes". I'm going to go ahead and dig into this song here for posterity, defending Bowie's lyrical intent and meaning behind it. With the subtle yet striking opening lines "Valentine told me who's to go / Feelings he's treasured most of all / The teachers and the football star" he sets up what in my rich experience of listening to rock music for the past 35 years is one of the most devastating critiques of American culture I've had the pleasure listening to. This song is my #1 choice for the next single and definitely my favorite in terms of sheer pop catchiness and melody. From the opening drum taps to the introductory guitar riff and on through to the glorious end, the song Valentine's Day may be the most profoundly stated song in the history of modern rock'n'roll to me. It is a very brave statement in defense of generations of kids bullied by our increasingly out of touch society's penchant towards encouraging the cultivation of rape culture and overt machismo. Never in my life have I been so moved by the intent behind the meaning of a song. Not only is it the catchiest pop song on the album, but that fact (along with the Yeah, yeah's of the backing chorus championing our titular hero) perfectly contrasts the dark underpinnings of the theme. Add this song to the growing list of shooter-songs (Boomtown Rats "I Don't Like Mondays," Pearl Jam's "Jeremy" and Korn's "Thoughtless" immediately leap to mind) and you have the unparalleled leader of the pack in my opinion. As far as I'm concerned, David Bowie has remarkably achieved the final word on this theme with his hit single Valentine's Day.

7. If You Can See Me.
And now we come to another well-played segue into a brooding, dark song filled with postmodern tension. Returning to his "Big Brother" roots with the eerie refrain "If you can see me / I can see you", this track is yet another masterful studio recording featuring great lyrics such as "I will take your lands and all that lays beneath, the dust of cold flowers, prison of dark ashes, I will slaughter your kind who descend from belief, I am the spirit of greed, a lord of theft, I'll burn all your books and the problems they make" . . .really a frightening tune (if you can manage to get your head inside it) even as it gets it's head inside you. By this point of the album, we are honestly scoring 7 out of 7 on the tracks list, and what makes it even better is the diversity of styles and sounds making each song unique, yet flowing into each other in a manner that only one who's mastered the art of conceptual rock albums could achieve.

8. I'd Rather Be High.
By this point in the album, the critical cynic in me is just dying to throw you readers out there a condemnation or two, just to appease your bitter little hearts. Unfortunately for the legion of mindless haters out there (yet joyously fortunate for the rest of us) I cannot offer a single droplet of disdain about this, the eighth track off The Next Day. I'd Rather Be High is as glorious an anti-war statement as I have ever heard, simply jam-packed with beautiful elements. We are looking at yet another catchy single easily as great as any other from this album, in fact whenever I listen to it I become so enraptured that I am immediately swept up in it to the point I believe with all my heart it is the best song, period. From the gorgeously endless wavy rhythm of the guitars to the incredible biting and beautiful lyrics, how could anyone with ears and a brain deny the power and majesty here? "I'd rather be high (I'd rather be high), I'd rather be flyyyyyying (I'd rather be flying), I'd rather be dead (or out of my head) than training these guns on those men in the sand, I'd rather be high ..." quite possibly amounts to the sentiment I sympathize the most with from the entire album. And just when you think this tune has shot it's load, you ain't heard nothing yet until you hear the sixty-six year old David Bowie croon with as much tricky passion as he's mustered in generations "I'm seventeen and my looks can prove it, I'm so afraid that I will lose it, I'd rather smoke and phone my ex be pleading for some teenage sex, yeah." See what he did there? Yet another example of his mastery of fiction into song. By shades and degrees Bowie reveals himself as a genuine author of fictional scenarios and invented protagonists via the medium of music. If this song is not a triumph, then I don't know what is. Tied with Valentine's Day as the perfect single for this day and age. To think the Thin White Duke yet speaks for today's teen generation during his ripening years is proof in the pudding for me that he is not fading gradually away; far from it. The decade he spent laying low has proven to be the wisest move the 70s superstar could possibly have made. By this point in the album, if you are not entirely convinced that David Bowie is at the peak of his powers as a genuine artist, then all I can think of to say is ... you're not paying attention. The underscoring theme of The Next Day is the ironic contrast between the lingering perception that his glory days (as Ziggy Stardust, etc.) are in the past, with the lingering implication that nothing could be further from the truth.

9. Boss Of Me.
Although it took me longer to appreciate this song fully, I do recall that the opening refrains grabbed me right away; "Tell me when you're sad, I wanna make it cool again, I know you're feeling bad, tell me when you're cool again." That little snippet caught my interest from the get-go, but it took longer to groove to what I now consider an awesome chorus "Who'd have ever thought of it, who'd have ever dreamed, that a small town girl like you would be the boss of me?" Bowie's sardonic lyrics never fail to amaze me, and of course it's the manner in which he sings them that lends them their particular twisted meaning. It may have taken a dozen listens to finally click, and now I can't get enough of this song. At this point the album is still clocking in at 100% . . . and I am amazed.

10. Dancing Out In Space.
Now we come to a real curve ball. (I'll admit to not liking this song too much the first few times I listened to it.) And I'll even admit that the first dozen or so times I listened to the album, there were a few tracks which reminded me of outtakes from his notoriously panned '87 (and cry) album Never Let Me Down. And to be honest ... this tenth track let me down, somewhat. But check this out. After hearing the song a few times, the bassline became so infectious, I could not deny it's inherent danceability, after repeat listenings, I became impressed by the thought that late-night clubs across metropolitan cities on Earth would be playing this new Bowie song to packed houses of dancing partygoers, and my indifference to it has now morphed into more of an appreciation. For one, there's no denying it's the snappiest song off the record for cryin' out loud! (I'm just not into snappy songs as much these days, since I stopped going to clubs years ago.) But I'll say this much, listening to Dancing Out In Space brings the old urge back and makes me dream of the good old days when we went clubbing and all the world was our oyster. If this song doesn't snap you out of your trance, I guess you're better off dead.

11. How Does The Grass Grow?
Blood blood blood ... that's how. Now we return to the more serious and brooding side of the album, after having been given some super nice breaks during the last three songs. Featuring one of the most chilling lines in recent memory, "Would you still love me if the clocks could go backwards? The girls would fill with blood and the grass would be green again. Remember the dead, they were so great (some of them). Ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ... Nya ya ya ya ya ya ya. Where do the boys lie? Mud, mud mud." Here we are eleven cuts deep into Bowie's twenty-fourth studio album, and we are gifted with yet another stunning song. By this point all I can do is shake my head with wonder. If I could talk to David I'd say that I missed him on the scene more than he'd ever know, "waiting with my red eyes and my stone heart". Well I can personally vouch that the ten year wait has been more than worthwhile.

12. You Will Set The World On Fire.
At long last, here it is. The single track off The Next Day that I honestly don't care for too much. Sure, it's got an easy throwaway catchiness to it, but that's exactly why it quickly wears itself thin, for me. (This song comes as closest to sounding like an alternate take from Never Let Me Down. It is perhaps the song which best exemplifies what the cynical side of us most likely expected from Bowie at this late stage of his career.)

13. You Feel So Lonely You Could Die.
If I had one question I could ask David about the meaning behind any one of the songs off The Next Day, it would undoubtedly be "Can you tell us if the the song You Feel So Lonely You Could Die is based on a real person, and if so, who it it, please?" Here is the most grandiose ballad off the album, and it's a bittersweet symphony indeed. With powerful accusations such as "Hidden from your friends, stealing all they knew, lovers thrown in airless rooms, then vile rewards for you" and "But I’m gonna tell, yes I’ve gotta tell, gotta tell the things you’ve said when you’re talking in the dark and I’m gonna tell the things you’ve done when you’re walking through the park” and “there’ll come the assassin’s needle on a crowded train, I’ll bet you feel so lonely you could die” are powerful indictments indeed, but they merely pave the way for the climactic fury of “I can see you as a corpse hanging from a beam, I can read you like a book” all building towards the ultimately satisfying lyrical annihilation of whomever the subject of this inspired ballad is, “Oblivion shall own you, death alone shall love you, I hope you feel so lonely you could die.” Just … wow. This penultimate track surges back 110% and I can’t help if Bowie intentionally put the one throwaway track directly before it, perhaps for added psychological effect. If not, it sure ends up working that way for me.

14. Heat.
The album closes with this slow burner which also took me several listens to fully appreciate. In the end, that’s what I love about this album. Bowie has offered us a challenging listen with a sprinkling of poppy, easy-listening tunes scattered here and there, creating a dynamic and fully realized rock album, the likes of which I haven’t heard from him (much less from a lot of bands today) in many years. When he concludes the album with lines such as “My father ran the prison / I can only love you by hating him more / that’s not the truth, it’s too big a word / He believed that love is theft / love and whores / the theft of love / And I tell myself I don’t know who I am / My father ran the prison / my father ran the prison / But I am a seer / I am a liar / I am a seer / I am a liar” etc., us old school fans are reminded and the new ones are tipped-in that once again he is playing the role of author, here. He has created a brilliant fiction in writing The Next Day. And for me it has been the most engrossing and satisfying rock album of 2013.

In conclusion, 93% of this album (that's 13 out of 14 tracks kids) is the proof in the pudding, so to speak, that Bowie remains in tip-top form at the age of sixty-six, in the year 2013. How cool is that? To think that the proverbial Next Day (today) is in many ways even better than the glorified Olden Days of yore is as welcome a surprise as we could honestly expect. It took me listening to this album for at least a month before it all gelled together for me. You may hate it, love it, leave it or remain indifferent ... I don't care. As a long time appreciator of Bowie the mercurial songwriter, crooner, and uncrowned king of the alternative scene, I could not possibly be more pleased than I am with The Next Day. As solid an album as I could have dreamed. So let there be Another Day ... and the next ... and the next. I am confident he can continue to deliver good music for another several years to come. Yet I also expect he will retire with grace before he indeed may begin to fade away... And on that note, I also expect it's entirely possible this may be the last album. (I only say that because he could not possibly make a grander exit nor have produced a better Swan Song). Still ... Bowie is obviously genetically programmed for boundless energy and creativity. So if he asked me ... I say don't stop now, David! Hell, I'm getting older myself, so I won't even mind if he starts gradually fading away from this pinnacle in his extraordinary career. Generations of people have felt this way since I was in my teens, so I'm going to say it now … we love you, David.