tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75424068379696343932024-03-24T16:33:05.509-07:00Crossover Vinyl <br><i>brought to you by</i> <a href="http://vinylogue.blogspot.com">Thornswrath</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<br><i>
A blog documenting my<br>
record collection plus <br>
associated ramblings</i><br>
from Acid Bath <br>to Zombishaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7542406837969634393.post-52693912175119044632024-01-08T12:14:00.000-08:002024-01-08T13:16:09.643-08:00THE NEXT DAY: Track by Track <span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>review'd by yr roving reporter Shaun Lawton </i></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i> (for <u>the Oscillating Oculus</u>) </i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i><br /></span><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeAfaHkyDbvVmwiKNMbhRcjlMAwgCmhH1egpHRXC3GN-rV5yesgqAEY_ckMHPAhLdH4JoHM_0GRQfddE0LpkPxtbzGx_0bHCEwihz7dH6e6U72MuIDYxA_kvxkjCq6dE5O6cSfd_cmabefICfoFGoo8qN0RFlamdQ-ln7DS5jAkahxJm3UPKSONqnPPebx/w640-h640/David_Bowie_-_The_Next_Day.png" width="640" /></div><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>1. The Next Day. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Right out of the cage this song snarls and shreds and builds intensity until the breaking point with db's vox assuring us "<i>Here I am not quite dying, my body left to rot in a hollow tree, its branches throwing shadows on the gallows for me</i>" and if you listen closely to the remaining lyrics about paper bodies and pain and diseases and purple-headed priests and the great line "<i>they know God exists for the Devil told them so</i>", 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.<br /><br /><b>2. Dirty Boys.</b><br />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 <i>buying feather hats</i> and <i>stealing cricket bats</i> and <i>smashing windows, making noise</i>, and <i>running with dirty boys</i>. . . what's not to fucking like?<br /><br /><b>3. The Stars (Are Out Tonight).</b><br />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 "<i>gleaming like blackened sunshine</i>" 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.<br /><br /><b>4. Love is Lost.</b><br />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 "<i>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</i>" we are treated with more of the sharpest and incisive lyrics from Bowie's career, and that is saying something.<br /><br /><b>5. Where Are We Now?</b><br />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 "<i>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</i>" 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.<br /><br /><b>6. Valentine's Day.</b><br />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 "<i>tiny face</i>" and "<i>scrawny hands</i>" and "<i>icy heart</i>", (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 "<i>Valentine told me who's to go / Feelings he's treasured most of all / The teachers and the football star</i>" 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 <i>Yeah, yeah</i>'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.<br /><br /><b>7. If You Can See Me.</b><br />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 "<i>If you can see me / I can see you</i>", this track is yet another masterful studio recording featuring great lyrics such as "<i>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</i>" . . .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.<br /><br /><b>8. I'd Rather Be High.</b><br />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 <u>The Next Day</u>. 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>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 ...</i>" 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>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.</i>" 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 <u>The Next Day</u> 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.<br /><br /><b>9. Boss Of Me.</b><br />Although it took me longer to appreciate this song fully, I do recall that the opening refrains grabbed me right away; "<i>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.</i>" That little snippet caught my interest from the get-go, but it took longer to groove to what I now consider an awesome chorus "<i>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?</i>" 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.<br /><br /><b>10. Dancing Out In Space.</b><br />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 <u>Never Let Me Down</u>. 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.<br /><br /><b>11. How Does The Grass Grow?</b><br /><i>Blood blood blood </i>... 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, "<i>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</i>." 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, "<i>waiting with my red eyes and my stone heart</i>". Well I can personally vouch that the ten year wait has been more than worthwhile.<br /><br /><b>12. You Will Set The World On Fire.</b><br />At long last, here it is. The single track off <u>The Next Day</u> 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.)<br /><br /><b>13. You Feel So Lonely You Could Die.</b><br />If I had one question I could ask David about the meaning behind any one of the songs off <u>The Next Day</u>, 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 "<i>Hidden from your friends, stealing all they knew, lovers thrown in airless rooms, then vile rewards for you</i>" and "<i>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</i>” and “<i>there’ll come the assassin’s needle on a crowded train, I’ll bet you feel so lonely you could die</i>” are powerful indictments indeed, but they merely pave the way for the climactic fury of “<i>I can see you as a corpse hanging from a beam, I can read you like a book</i>” all building towards the ultimately satisfying lyrical annihilation of whomever the subject of this inspired ballad is, “<i>Oblivion shall own you, death alone shall love you, I hope you feel so lonely you could die.</i>” 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.<br /><br /><b>14. Heat.</b><br />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 “<i>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</i>” 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 <u>The Next Day</u>. And for me it has been the most engrossing and satisfying rock album of 2013.<br /><br />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 <u>The Next Day</u>. 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 <a href="https://theintestinalfortitude.wordpress.com/2018/04/18/saying-no-but-meaning-yes-bluebirds-survival-sex-blackstar-reviewed-by-shaun-a-lawton/">Swan Song</a>). 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.</span></div></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://theintestinalfortitude.wordpress.com/2018/04/18/saying-no-but-meaning-yes-bluebirds-survival-sex-blackstar-reviewed-by-shaun-a-lawton/"><img border="0" data-original-height="668" data-original-width="896" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBrGCJ7aamnTvfM2Ij29zQr1xZohFahQ3p3agFPgI-rMRt58BYdHEPVur35rSBoZX8HlVjEaz9aM4AQIahhqZ1FAvyycmURAFarm8YEX6MEWBhwXhgwm0mhn85BSkvGhmVPUNUdj8cMc7TAIcvBiQMmuYnohQaHYYmIocPLCTOR-pWYHu0qfrQ2rQb8RUQ/s320/e9smqi_79022765d51a671a3fb9cb2338cff8ff64ace5a2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div>shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7542406837969634393.post-50892163920033302882023-07-28T14:11:00.018-07:002023-07-29T09:34:49.327-07:00 a Convergence of Legends<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> <i>by your roving reporter,<a href="https://soundcloud.com/thornswrath"> Thornswrath </a></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1088" data-original-width="828" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigQmP6P1OIGgCVG5HlVRaazJEa6zcB4CT_1YuPfuqYJYnP8xjxUlxhjh1mv0XzC4YxpdoZDs4Hy26WZTk2pCA5JBJLQ67jpT2pNFpd0xy8oGiR5sgf9bwQgNmqRFVOiQWAUoSkUgYHd4sIc_vATIkZlSKltRD4Od9TI1Zmn8TrOUMegqvMZT1Zqp9MXH1A/w488-h640/362683041_10160958843384655_3520167681120620191_n.jpg" width="488" /></div><i> <span style="font-size: x-small;"> IV & the Strange Band, July 13, 2023 at Metro Music Hall in Salt Lake City </span> </i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> I don't even know where to start, having just gone through a blur of concerts over the last several weeks, beginning with First Aid Kit back in May followed by Future Islands and then Faun Fables opening for Bonnie "Prince" Billy at an intimate, upscale venue in Basalt, Colorado called TACAW. But it all started three days before that, when I realized one of my dreams by getting to see IV & the Strange Band perform live, on tour with VOLK (also from Nashville) and Detroit rock city's own The Goddamn Gallows, far as I'm concerned the #1 most important and best tour of the year, so sue me. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> In a year chock full of litigious bastards drooling for more blood and too many amazing and talented artists emerging from every pore and pot hole in the landscape, to say it's difficult keeping up seems to be quite an understatement. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> But see that's the way it's always been, ne'er mind there are more bands and artists and genres and subgenres of music than ever before, and forget about the internet and how it helps keep track of the ever expanding output. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Each of us individuals were born into this life to walk through it in our own footsteps, see it through out own eyes, smell the bullshit through our own nostrils, feel the savage beauty and tender rage surrounding us, and to hear the music where we can find it, if and when we have the time to, for our own edification. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> That's why I'm here on this wacked, green Earth. I paid $100 for a booth at this show [Metro Music Hall in SLC, Wed night, July 13, 2023] when it turns out there weren't enough people knowin' about it to have warranted that. I don't regret a single penny spent. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> I'd even forgotten that I'd bought <i>three</i> tix - thinking it was only two, lol. Gareth came with me, and we had a great night out. The third ticket remained unused, because no one even wandered over to check out what was going on. I would've given it away. The place wasn't full at all, but a just about right sizeable crowd showed up in the Gallows' wake, that it turned out to be a fun and raucous evening. That third ticket belonged to my best friend Greg Grub, far as I'm concerned. His spirit was there with us, alright. This is the dustiest damned show Shaun Grub ever done seen. The only way it could've gotten dustier is if Drivin'n'Cryin' were playin'.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ7avJWjui1yS4Hq1CPqBpnq1uiYIzzgk331LeK6hRCu3iar86H7rXDJcZH8TkCKG4-ov0oIawzQ86IS9sCIHt_AVZB5Ybx9hUeeIjar3649cDYp1G3aEp0PVv7MVwLaT4nsmEGWclqlyZg8oth5lqk7gLOy9YkqCtIb0w_vuO5VS0xuEVKM9Gy7VOx5Gc/w150-h200/361578229_10160959783349655_6310646964647785347_n.jpg" width="150" /></div>Here's Coleman, his face in shadow, which seems appropriate for the first pic. The first song they played was a new one off the forthcoming album, which later their lap steel slide guitar player Trent let me know is called Hangdog. I asked him what the name of that first song was, and he said "Diddle." I was like no way, that's awesome! </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Later Coleman sang the title track, letting us know it was about his 13 yr old dog. I'm a tell you something. We're talking about IV & the Strange Band's sophomore effort here, and it's going to be every bit as good as one could possibly hope to expect. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">*</span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Stay tuned to this blog for more photos of IV & the Gallows etc. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What's going on is, hardly anyone I've spoken with and met knows hide nor hair of Coleman and his amazing new band. While I'm busy typing this away on my blog, legendary history is being made. I had all five of them sign my original yellow vinyl ed. of Southern Circus (I left the vinyl disc safely at home, and brought in the jacket for them to autograph). I was wearing my original Cancerslug shirt - with the first half of the band's name almost eroded away - the werewolf hunched over a graveyard shirt -- and Coleman said "Nice Cancerslug shirt" to me when we met. We talked for awhile by the merch stand, and he told me he'd be happy to sign my copy of the album after I brought it in from my car. See, he's clearly an underground kid still, but even hitting thirty now he's still 100% bonafide underground kid in every way, just like me. It's people like him and Alex Story keeping the real heart of the underground scene alive and beating. I know there's a lot of others I can't keep up with, but that's just one reason why IV & CS are two of my favorite bands on the planet right now. And just today Cancerslug dropped their long awaited and eagerly anticipated <i>N</i>th album Fucker! I preordered the CD/Shirt package deal, and it done shipped already so I can't <i>wait</i> for that to arrive. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Anyhow, back to the Metro Music Hall for Volk, IV & the Strange Band, and the Goddamn Gallows. I noted while in there, that the only people wearing battle vests with patches all on 'em were Coleman, Mikey Classic and I, pretty much. Idk some more may have shown up later in the show, but it's getting to be a sort of post Gen-X thing. I think it's cool, and over he past few weeks I've collected four badass patches to add to my battle jackets. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtskyLZqe7AW_7UHdlsmuOaUyPqOzeSXhqjXqGLV4dlwY76_ghm5VamtK3AmCisFG9GKL1e0GgF8vdzdqkEr_fRBkGBF4o26DPgyBcMwnVpEANqWN1kPZUbx2iJlF4GZUaehdGaQHnXSv8Oe7TifFIaMjiJXImKpHjeQ99r7GxfdmUAQX4N2daOeLQhbvA/w300-h400/361664156_10160959793514655_8084544378262334787_n.jpg" width="300" /></div><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">See, there's the IV & the Strange Patch, lower left. It's the sickest patch of the bunch. Except lower right we have the Goddamn Gallows pure leather patch, which was five bucks, or ten bucks for their iron on fabric patch. No contest. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And the VOLK patch is awesome. That leaves arguably the coolest patch of all time. I got that Bonnie "Prince" Billy patch directly from Oscar, who worked Will's merch table, and who told me he's the artist for Wolf of the Cosmos, which was for sale on the table. It turns out I already have all the vinyl being offered, but I bought the patch and these 2 pens that feature Will's head floating upside down to the bottom when you flip the pen, replacing his head with a werewolf's. Oscar advised me that these were all that was left from five years ago, and their ink had dried up by now. I bought two anyhow, a blue one and a red one. Then Oscar told me he was the one who designed the BpB patch. I told him its really a brilliant design. That patch and the two pens are great mementoes from what turned out to be an unparalleled and terrific show. And that's the story of how I earned four merit badge rock'n'roll patches during the summer of '23. The long, strange trip moving down this road feeling fine continues. I've got a lot more music experiences to relate, both live in concert and in the form of listening to studio albums, usually on vinyl but not always, for my imaginary readers to anticipate here on this blog, so hold out for that as I try to get all my shit together in this life whose white water rapids are only increasing in turbulence as the waters of this raging river continue to rise. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> After the show, I asked Will if I could take a selfie with him. He smiled and easily obliged me, so here we are together after a most fabulous evening of music. My heart was fulfilled. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4RZef0FOzIaM6ptoSqo07YJ6LQ0RKIhI3HD0zpbSN0QMtjuvm4l87oYQcSmCbg80HrPTd1VyZpFpwFdyMYpQSCccZcCKzerIeQ26kByehB6OGGeo-EFMYaq55fv-_w4VgRqO0Z1Z8vpux0ZSkS9w8bTZ8yoHPmpVBLavA60eusRoYK6H8P8Pi4VpfSSvP/w480-h640/361896946_10160948897729655_8902092528052422723_n.jpg" width="480" /></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDegJ4UX10qtHDFEQfYuQpb6_yUMonnQHZq5202pJcL7xis3uDLECBd2L5JOYVfcxkHcUkuIkSUOzVQTm0d64_PSOe_C-JBxi1NGric_NwYRAXMTl5hkjS98grq4s0PkmMe9Dtuj8EIEStZCQ0nxxjPJhbS6YZbDcCbbG70jlnAlwjutwO2cTbD6qmiwCH/s1088/361876763_10160948897384655_2541953296259086452_n.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: left;">P.S.</div><div style="text-align: left;"> But our adventure wasn't over, yet. Shasta took Zane to the car after Will's set ended, since he was tired out, after loving every minute of the Faun Fable set and Bonnie Prince's. We drove the forty minutes back to our cheap hotel in Silt, then the next morning, woke up and began the four hour drive to Colorado Springs. After driving an hour or so, and just before getting to Denver, I pulled over at a Circle K for a rest stop to get some drinks. Who did Zane and I see walking in there but Will Oldham. </div><div style="text-align: left;">He went into the rest room moments after Zane and I had stepped out of it. When he came back out, I smiled and said "Will, hi!" and he was just as surprised to see us as we were. The cool thing was I got to introduce him to Zane, who missed out the evening prior. The new album is called Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You. Will sang the title track, which doesn't appear on the album, citing it as an industry trick some artists like to pull. I got to tell him that song was his "Houses of the Holy," and so I expect to see it on the album after this next one. Which, by the way, from the sounds of the several new songs off it he performed, are in line on the level of his classic albums from '99 to '03. We're talking I See A Darkness, Master & Everyone, Ease Down The Road level of album. Nowadays, he rarely, if ever disappoints, what's left is to wait lazily until he catches another updraft and soars again, pivoting like Icarus before the Sun. I'm telling you all, this next album is going to be the one. Take my word for it. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"> Keeping secrets will destroy you. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYN_chvOGPQY2VlXEl7CnyxVpbJ89pqIFu2fkf0CvOriG70NGsZvkVHtLiNnH-4YOQEWAfOf_n4gGhf_wwIqsm8kjPHtgf4G17rL-9CDcHSxOknPxCRXNIsQzI0nJ4HglfeZc8ON3AaYLKim0-eDdzH7yeQRzVxGAKTqL8qnFd5T8d_ZsTF0ODwRin1C67/w480-h640/364111270_10160968251184655_8502760617734895090_n.jpg" width="480" /></div> <span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><i>This here is my #1 favorite album released in 2022, by a country mile </i></span> <br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div>shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7542406837969634393.post-50815356912715111982022-12-29T13:17:00.011-08:002022-12-29T13:25:46.825-08:00The missing Blemish, rectified <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1500" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2CBB1m9KtXzHt8UZUISYBQyG47IcSbtbd6FsGfJcgS1x64AKYlwwShpLHsC7eM6MFvQVx82MJ_5z0FQfcCJ47wMZ0nVrd2aKKBXPKYyN4IxSKGBgZkb2u52K8H4CDfpL0LxDO8rr1pH-BGriQgRFskMztzk6C1S7VGAOW7e86Bgij_HT4qbgFffiLJw/w400-h400/91-d6cqXbgL._SL1500_.jpg" width="400" /></div><br /><p></p><p> I used to really dig listening to David Sylvian, back in his glory days of the late eighties bleeding into the nineties. I was tuned into his output during '86 and '87, when I bought and sank into his lush albums <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybeeCqvLEwQ&list=PLad3QisdT54wWtAfHqRRMGz9gmC5L5zoB">Gone to Earth</a> and<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzQ9NCGHGaw&list=PLI6kLIhBBwmRkH-vUXwHhDFkortLSwLsi"> Secrets of the Beehive</a>. </p><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> Then I lost touch with this mercurial artist (formerly of the band <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_(band)">Japan</a>). Until 2014 crawled around, delivering forth the now impossibly rare and invaluable CD <u>There's a Light That Enters Houses, with No Other Houes in Sight</u>, which I ordered because of its association with my old friend, teacher and poetry mentor, Franz Wright. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/THERES-LIGHT-ENTERS-HOUSES-OTHER/dp/B00OV53D9K/ref=sr_1_1?crid=WEYPZP5C3CYK&keywords=david+sylvian+cd+There%27s+a+Light+That+Enters+Houses+with+No+Other+House+in+Sight&qid=1672347640&sprefix=david+sylvian+cd+there%27s+a+light+that+enters+houses+with+no+other+house+in+sight%2Caps%2C135&sr=8-1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1400" data-original-width="1400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuVBD_z49EwyGk2Yvw51l0rsjS3Hvp_5uD848NuHGQpSCQu9tVAZR6C5FjiTCPkOJVDRAQ-56tQxBKCSdNVsJkQQyH4w2BpZ_531n7zCU4xfW5pR9FtjhdpPIr_XCPIgai5g-FczRRBBCIYNk6Ooswf3HOzNM4EQ_EF0ARO_KGSBBGaPUqTxhnU27mpg/s320/61UuA3BQDXL._SL1400_.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><h3 style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0.5em;"><span class="mw-headline" id="Musicians">Musicians</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 0px; unicode-bidi: isolate; user-select: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color: #54595d; margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=There%27s_a_Light_That_Enters_Houses_with_No_Other_House_in_Sight&action=edit&section=3" style="background: none; color: #0645ad; text-decoration-line: none; white-space: nowrap;" title="Edit section: Musicians">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="color: #54595d; margin-left: 0.25em;">]</span></span></h3><ul style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; list-style-image: url("/w/skins/Vector/resources/common/images/bullet-icon.svg?d4515"); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px 1.6em; padding: 0px;"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sylvian" style="background: none; color: #0645ad; text-decoration-line: none;" title="David Sylvian">David Sylvian</a> – piano, sampler, computer, electronics, laptop</li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fennesz" style="background: none; color: #0645ad; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Fennesz">Christian Fennesz</a> – guitar, laptop</li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tilbury" style="background: none; color: #0645ad; text-decoration-line: none;" title="John Tilbury">John Tilbury</a> – piano</li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Wright" style="background: none; color: #0645ad; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Franz Wright">Franz Wright</a> – spoken word</li></ul><div><span face="sans-serif" style="color: #202122;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><br /></div><div> Perhaps needless to say, this singular CD is now worth quite a pretty penny, if you're even lucky enough to see it flash toward the surface of the deep, dark web where time has been inexorably weighing it down, to plummet deep into the ever-to-be-forgotten depths of our mostly oblivious live's drowning ocean of time. </div><div><br /></div><div> What I'm hearing now listening to the 1st side of Blemish (his sixth studio album, released in 2003) is a very sparse, minimalist sketches of ambient sounds shuddering into one another, conjuring a desolate soundscape upon which David intones his catchy lyrics, words that drift upon the glassine surface of a post-electronic sound decaying into the gentle susurration of fading soundwaves lapping unto the barren shores of our mind. </div><div><br /></div><div> That was track 1, (13 min 42 seconds title track), which segues into The Good Son (w/Derek Bailey, an avante garde experimental guitarist whose specialty is improvisation) which plays as if they were playing live in a desolate dive bar on the outskirts of some forgotten town, with nobody else in attendance except yourself and one other intriguing persona blending into the shadows of the far wall. </div><div><br /></div><div> Listening to him . . . listening closely now ... I'm happy to absorb this melancholy, spoken word ambient jazz which helps me escape through a portal in my mind's eye ... listen closely now ... to be led on a story telling journey with strange underlying intonations from the guitar strings being plucked and stroked in bizarrely compelling ways ... even at the short length of five minutes and twenty-five seconds, The Good Son takes the listener on a welcome journey to an uncomfortable place. </div><div><br /></div><div> Following is another five minute song called The Only Daughter, which begins with David intoning "She was, she was.... a good friend of mine...", upon which the distillation of sounds has focused into an eerie, Enoesque backdrop scintillating with nuance and interrupted signals as Sylvian's abruptly unexpected words pull the listener in unusual directions both with the narrative and the haunting music. </div><div><br /></div><div> An album for the truly melancholic souls among us. Ordinary folk may not get what's the deal with this. They won't even see it coming... I'm just relieved I didn't let another decade or two go by before dipping back into the silver slipstream of acoustic dreams conjured effortlessly by the one and only <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sylvian_discography">David Sylvian. </a></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">~thus ends Side one~</div><div> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="250" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt0XBQHqxydMs0_pQUAvF0n1nzIjLYKDJR5B82xncJClE-AxkD85aGgIa83l850EqjbXEusJYIgQUYftLNaTPbZ0nRCoC26AiBF7hrE5f8zUVYJvyXARg5SDpEti5xoF1yo0kCgDaEXYBvPTCTal9_BZIMDsxl4BOHAs43ijr_IFIJsEr_458he8QD6w/s1600/david-sylvian_features.jpg.webp" width="250" /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">~stay tuned for the possibility </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">of my reviewing Side two here~</div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div> </div></div>shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7542406837969634393.post-880996533019550972022-12-29T11:47:00.007-08:002022-12-29T12:28:07.616-08:00Newyear's Sliding into us Like a homebase Glacier <div class="separator"><div class="separator" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"> </div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i> </i><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir742tbSbHpt7RqLLOmCWtcQU4V7XW15zL9o0Ssab_IfUElyQz_sYsLfYh4vn1unWXyuzsZvAYhMu5WIZq0x06gMxjCiFeSHs4N25o-8aN5IvnSlqghZ_IE08T0qL8J-m9an0qYQ-vyud_EyAZ7BuqCn9fu086bSAS1d4hbcpNY8vaItDlN5ZPe4BIig/w480-h640/322742066_724127715988989_6121943341111156178_n.jpg" style="font-style: italic; text-align: center;" width="480" /><i><br /><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>no more lies this is the age of confusion Nothing factual </i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>nothing fictional / interchangeable </i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i> THIS IS THE AGE OF CONFUSION </i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So, I'm listening to PUSCIFER LIVE AT ARCOSANTI 2LP limited pressing and its glorious. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Santa brought us that and also 8-Ball Bail Bonds at The Berger Barns LIVE in Phoenix. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">These are seminal recordings not just for MJK and Puscifer but for rock history in general. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Dovetailing with the release of Bob Dylan's big thick meaty book <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philosophy_of_Modern_Song"><u>The Philosophy of Modern Song</u> </a>(which my lovely wife got me for Xmas), I can honestly say as we plow forward through the strangest tides churned up by an awakening and retaliatory Mom Earth this is the time to be alive. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Right now as we plumb the deepest fissures of our oceans in brand spanking new discoveries of thriving species surviving the intense pressures and temperatures in the thriving flux of volcanic vents even while down around the southern poles of our planet a whole new continent begins shedding its frozen husk for an Edenic rebirth the likes of which we've been forced to only imagine. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg939i6CeNAwYj5sx8LMnM3nzifFQGEqrRyCR-7vIGau1Iauzkp8ddrEyDOCXZrSa-pZ_JXnLehJjiQ7xYyBsvuNPyXqFsLexD7zKOJ2BErzkaApq9zh1AYKybcD960lThgXFSzPjJal0At328EeiPRMvezgWUi-TXX7AGluSepeF_O9Gzcnah80DFzcQ/w640-h480/322377332_1336714877140923_7189483497462587192_n.jpg" width="640" /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div> This long play thirty-three rounds per minute revelation has been in gestation and perpetual evolution since the long ago inception of the side project we all know and few have come to love as much of those of us who knew from the get go this was better than Tool with more promise of interesting cross pollination with its rotating platform of guests and artists invited to participate, well guess what? It ain't too late to hop onto this ever-morphing musical monstrosity unless you just ain't got the chops to pull it off. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> No one left crying here, I assure you. Plenty of scraps 'n' tossed aside moldy sinews of left over tissue for y'all to nibble on til your filthy little hearts are contented, plenty of raw heaving platters of fresh steaming meat to sink your teeth into, far too much meat and PO-TAE-TOES being churned up in the intricately spinning long curved blades of the Internet Blender Machine, plenty of voltage to plug into for that long term permanent grin you can get from being lit up by the ongoing circus sideshow we now know as our reality. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> And Puscifer has at long last been coming into its own, of late and let me add this, if I may. Like the endless process of individual survival we all must endure together here in this primitive urban jungle getting laced with advanced high definition digital tech to enhance our every sensation and demand of our ravenous egos for more stimulation and penetration so long as the Machine keeps feeding on our continual generation of new generations to generate more money for the economy and more spending for our every need until...</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> ...we'll be able to sit back and sift through the detritus getting filtered our way online by a digital sort of synthetic consciousness itself a simulation of what true, organic human consciousness might potentially resemble were it to present itself in any ordinate or tangible shape for recording and analyzation hence forthwith conjoining with greater loops of interconnective data on servers congregating into a Sentient Simulacrum (which is to say, nothing more than a simulation of what sentience might happen to be for the human primate family which has passed it on genetically since time immemorial). </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> The time is now (to flip over the record to side C) and lean our ears into the band covering Bullet Train to Iowa, perhaps their most popular slice of audio subversion to creep into the modern American airwaves in some time no longer definable). Who - who. Hoo - hoo. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Hootchy koo. Here's where I focus on what Puscifer means to me. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Their debut <u>V is for Vagina</u> was the shiny chrome bait 'n' hook, many of us human fishes darting this way and that underneath the slipstream chose to not bite (I was not one of them, being instantly hooked into their sinister post-hip hop electronica sound), but for those who turned their noses up sneering they weren't "anywhere as good as Tool," that's okay in this tempestuous stew of life we can no longer seem to control quite as well as we used to, collectively. I ain't got no beef with those who don't get it or wanna forget it or burn it down. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Now it's up to us individually to steer our own ways through this undulating labyrinth encroaching its imperial and impenetrable walls toward us, forcing us to stay on our toes and keep on the move to align ourselves in sync with the inexorable teeth of this grinding machine. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> After all these years now listening to these two latest live bootlegs of Puscifer performing in their own home territory of the future 'Arizona Bay' islands of potential human habitation, gathered along the giving banks of the Verde river, lush opulence cultivated from a string of oases in the paradoxical and flourishing desert. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Everything's in convergence and Puscifer really just remains an exemplary outfit of post-modern troubadours fronted by the rather obviously talented singer lyricist Maynard Keenan who has propelled his main two bands (Tool and A Perfect Circle) well beyond the stratosphere of anyone's wildest expectations (and into the beckoning void of the beyond). </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> What will await us as the world keeps turning one thousand miles an hour in the wake of the world wide pandemic? Will our favorite bands who've survived since the nineties keep producing astonishing and satisfying pieces of music as only they could possibly manage to do? I think those of us paying attention have managed to figure out the answer to that. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Until next time our paths should cross, survivors. If you've been skirting clear of Puscifer for whatever reasons, I can only say that this PUSCIFER LIVE AT ARCOSANTI, for example, is a come round "full circle" sort of thing, much like their recent album V is for Versatile -- wherein Maynard dares to re-record each track from their auspicious debut (now a legendary hip hop post electronica album whether you like it or not) with fellow musicians putting in great performances on real instruments like actual drums played with genuine drumsticks and a real bass and guitar, etc. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Maynard lends his vocal reinterpretation to these classics, and let me just come out and say it, the listener's mind is simply pretty unprepared to take these reinterpretations in if it's already been hooked on the original studio recordings, but the great part is that those uninitiated with the electronic version might get their eyes opened wider even while those of us who prefer the originals are slowly coming around to some of these newer versions, piecemeal and a little bit at a time. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="457" data-original-width="490" height="373" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKK_JSuDVOzf87oKb3HL5TYpOgBTqQVZ0oFrYJcgIFS_sNw_0FiEvnKtAEfQ8_RH5Z79b6llITytc12WCqlwYHfSCzlQYsb_hjSraOWp7LlgJ2O1PEZRITVH6Sq0w20EVKyvh1qhlklb1xFbdFBX0Os1lDlBCeFSYNWxoZ1Dwvk_qjd724NnvgsZjiew/w400-h373/pusciferyes.PNG" width="400" /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> All in all, I'm here to testify that we are in a veritable monsoon of artistic output here and now while the last few remaining days of 2022 go swirling down the proverbial drain at the end of the year. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> Never has there been more glorious time to be alive I remain convinced at the core of every atom of my being. I can't even find a way to wrap this entry up, it was enough that I managed to jump in here and dredge a few bits and pieces of my ongoing sonic journey head first through the ravaging storms of rock'n'roll. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> <i> <a href="https://bandcamp.com/thornswrath">Thornswrath</a> out ... </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><a href="https://www.youtube.com/thornswrath"><img border="0" data-original-height="624" data-original-width="624" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfxnYcN7-5jsTYbCR17ZdJBw_ZdOV69oupo5LgJKVUjzTVbP6zuetyjuVXUcRsC7qZyuuNQdLqB1zr9VqRDwzh870wTB0RotilwG-I0E_VR1IVltdGcSnClC6SN14mkXQqR6fk1_NN9U2UGw13xE5t6VoInnhDnMPbFYLbdmeh6ZJWWF5FUqDOHPoFaQ/w200-h200/0028761878_20.jpg" style="text-align: center;" width="200" /></a><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></div>shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7542406837969634393.post-37882785634460961472022-10-02T12:36:00.001-07:002022-10-02T12:40:14.388-07:00K20 Cr21 Music Is Our Friend ☈ ☇ <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcMs7uVtc7baRnAJ3xA8A6AELx7pZM2Bn8KNg3OG2jCxOXasXmo2IMgY1M7Shtz8oytYa-msf03pLFI5U8qAam34gUmHyEnJmS0gZMDMzCv4aL6IOifvSrD0UDZRVVFy7TQmgKEbizNvlx/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="285" data-original-width="640" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcMs7uVtc7baRnAJ3xA8A6AELx7pZM2Bn8KNg3OG2jCxOXasXmo2IMgY1M7Shtz8oytYa-msf03pLFI5U8qAam34gUmHyEnJmS0gZMDMzCv4aL6IOifvSrD0UDZRVVFy7TQmgKEbizNvlx/w640-h286/image.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p> This was not a preshow meet and greet. I bought two Royalty Package tickets directly from the DGM label because it made sense to me, and it seemed like a bargain price for what you get. {Read the official DGM statement for deeper insight: </p><h2 style="background-color: #f1f0ec; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: futura-pt, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 30px; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 20px;">Royal Package</h2><p style="background-color: #f1f0ec; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: futura-pt, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"></p><div align="center" style="background-color: #f1f0ec; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: futura-pt, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Music so wishes to be heard…</em></strong></div><div style="background-color: #f1f0ec; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: futura-pt, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> </div><div align="center" style="background-color: #f1f0ec; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: futura-pt, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I</div><div style="background-color: #f1f0ec; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: futura-pt, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span class="x_s12" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Music so wishes to be heard that sometimes it calls on unlikely characters to give it voice, and</em></span> <span class="x_s12" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">to give it</em></span> <span class="x_s12" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">ears. This wishing-to-be heard calls into existence the Performance Event; where music, musician and audience may come together as one, in communion.</em></span></div><div style="background-color: #f1f0ec; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: futura-pt, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> </div><div style="background-color: #f1f0ec; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: futura-pt, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">When people get together, something happens.</div><div style="background-color: #f1f0ec; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: futura-pt, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span class="x_s8" style="box-sizing: border-box;">When people get together with music, something remarkable happens.</span></div><div style="background-color: #f1f0ec; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: futura-pt, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"> </div><div style="background-color: #f1f0ec; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: futura-pt, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span class="x_s8" style="box-sizing: border-box;">When musician, audience and music come together in a performance, this</span><span class="x_apple-converted-space" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span><span class="x_s20" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">something remarkable</em></span><span class="x_apple-converted-space" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span><span class="x_s8" style="box-sizing: border-box;">has a quality of its own.</span></div><div style="background-color: #f1f0ec; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: futura-pt, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span class="x_s8" style="box-sizing: border-box;">The</span><span class="x_apple-converted-space" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span><span class="x_s20" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">something remarkable</em></span><span class="x_apple-converted-space" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span><span class="x_s8" style="box-sizing: border-box;">is Music taking on a life of its own.</span></div><div class="x_MsoNoSpacing" style="background-color: #f1f0ec; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: futura-pt, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span lang="EN-US" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span></div><div align="center" class="x_MsoNoSpacing" style="background-color: #f1f0ec; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: futura-pt, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span lang="EN-US" style="box-sizing: border-box;">II</span></div><div class="x_MsoNoSpacing" style="background-color: #f1f0ec; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: futura-pt, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span lang="EN-US" style="box-sizing: border-box;">A primary difficulty for anyone seeking value and importance in live performance is that, in contemporary culture, the relationship between performer and audient is mediated by commerce. The difficulty of mediation by commerce is that many people in the music industry are prepared to lie for money.</span></div><div class="x_MsoNoSpacing" style="background-color: #f1f0ec; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: futura-pt, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span lang="EN-US" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span></div><div class="x_MsoNormal" style="background-color: #f1f0ec; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: futura-pt, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">“What has changed in 40 years? It’s very simple. Forty years ago there was a market economy. Today there is a market society. Today, everything, including ethics, has a price.”</em></div><div class="x_MsoNormal" style="background-color: #f1f0ec; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: futura-pt, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span lang="EN-US" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span></div><div class="x_MsoNoSpacing" style="background-color: #f1f0ec; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: futura-pt, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span lang="EN-US" style="box-sizing: border-box;">DGM does what it can to combat ticketing scams, online ticket agencies with knockbacks to promoters, spurious VIP packages, dud merchandising et al. And that’s before we get to recorded music. Most of this behavior is “not illegal”, just wrong, exploitative and profoundly unethical.</span></div><div class="x_MsoNoSpacing" style="background-color: #f1f0ec; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: futura-pt, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span lang="EN-US" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </span></div><div class="x_MsoNoSpacing" style="background-color: #f1f0ec; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: futura-pt, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span lang="EN-US" style="box-sizing: border-box;">One of our experiments in bringing together musicians and audients is the Royal Package. You are invited!</span></div><p style="background-color: #f1f0ec; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: futura-pt, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"> </p><ul style="background-color: #f1f0ec; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: futura-pt, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span lang="EN-US" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Early access to the venue and merchandise.</span></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span lang="EN-US" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Seating in the front six rows.</span></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span lang="EN-US" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Insights into the world of King Crimson and DGM by David Singleton, producer and manager ("the ninth man")</span></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span lang="EN-US" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Personal insights and answers from one of the seven band members</span></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span lang="EN-US" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Programme signed by all the members.</span></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span lang="EN-US" style="box-sizing: border-box;">VIP Laminate</span></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span lang="EN-US" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Exclusive Tote Bag</span></li><li style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span lang="EN-US" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Previously unreleased King Crimson multiple CD set</span></li></ul><div class="x_MsoNoSpacing" style="background-color: #f1f0ec; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: futura-pt, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span lang="EN-US" style="box-sizing: border-box;">$365. Strictly limited to 72 people. 10% reduction for 1000 Club members (please check email for discount code). Tickets will be collected on the day.</span></div><p> </p><p> Sure enough, I wasn't wrong about the $365 "bargain price" (as contrasted against some people's experience out there in the real world who paid upwards of $485 USD just to sit back in Section C). That's the difference, they are operating on a certain level perhaps analogous (in a post-modern sense) to one of the levels Dante wrote about the Inferno. All I have to say on that matter is welcome to it. I won't partake, as I choose to live my life on a higher echelon than that. </p><p> The first thing that happened when the thirty-five or forty of us Royalty Package customers were ushered to sit down in the first three rows of the middle section in front of the stage, out in the squalid heat of the day, was that Robert Fripp walked out from the shadows of the recessed amphitheater out into the bright glare of the afternoon and stood there before us in front of the mic stand. He gazed out at the small assembly of us Royalty Package customers and began to speak. </p><p> As you might expect he was charming and erudite and got right to the heart of the matter. He explained that he knew the timing was right for King Crimson to perform this tour <i>last year</i>, in 2020. And that when the pandemic bumped it forward a year, he was concerned that the timing might be off for this elaborate endeavor to be pulled off without a hitch. He was all too happy to report that it turns out there was no need for such concern after all, as the shows on this tour had proven to be what he considered among the best of their storied career. (Mild applause from the barracks.) He then proceeded to explain the logistics of pulling off a tour like this were so complex and challenging as to defy description, but suffice it to say with audiences itching to listen to live music and musicians most eager to play, he regarded these economically forestalled times as reason enough to gather together their considerably formidable enterprise and as we Americans would say it, "hit the road, Jack." </p><p> Fripp went on to elaborate how this Music Is Your Friend tour would inject <i>twenty million dollars</i> into the US economy, and later David Singleton confirmed that it was the Royalty Package which most prominently accounted for the majority of DGM's revenue. After Fripp had delivered his perfectly English speech which you must understand left those of us gathered there before him in the sweltering heat fully absorbed and speechless with admiration. I considered Tony Levin being from Boston and these gentlemen's decades long association with one another, both on a professional level and in their friendship over countless spectacular tours and performances, and reflected on how their uniting to embark upon this massive tour just after the first wave of the global pandemic felt somehow heroic. Fripp indicated facing the odds between infecting one another and standing back while the economy's stalled out, implying what better solution than to fall back on the old adage, <i>the show must go on.</i></p><p> Although the band ended up delivering what we in the carefully assembled crowd had anticipated, the evening proved to be spectacular in even more vital and unexpected ways. For example the California Guitar Trio's opening set was worth the price of (Royalty Package) admission and served to foreshadow the dynamics of the Crimson beast to come. But I'm getting ahead of myself, because when David Singleton came out after Fripp retreated back into the shade and air conditioning of the amphitheater, we were treated to a gratifying and informative discussion with him, which really shed illumination into the underbelly of the progressive rock world. </p><p> My favorite part came after he exclaimed his relief at never having to work on another King Crimson box set again, only to realize they had recently stumbled across many tapes and recordings of Fripp's Exposure sessions, and that invariably a stunning box set of those remarkable sessions was going to have to be assembled as its own box set. He went on to explain that Fripp would play live over the loops of his formerly recorded playing, and that there has never been an officially released recording of this. (This made me realize my vinyl 2LP bootleg <u>Air Structures</u> by Fripp & Eno remains one of the few, if not the only recording showcasing this.) He then played three separate examples of Frippertronics from the soundboard, to the delight of the crowd and my own pleased astonishment. Suddenly the midsummer afternoon was filled with the beautiful sound of Fripp's guitar loops playing, with him soloing over it. I told David that it sounded to me as if it should be in a box set of <u>No Pussyfooting</u>, and that's when he informed us that for those early Fripp & Eno albums, it's Fripp performing 100% of the music, and that Eno had only provided the <i>idea</i> of using tape machines for the loops. Mind boggled, I remarked "leave it to Eno, the non-musician, whose only instrument is his Egg Head." The Vicar nodded in assent. Wow! </p><p> Then Jakko Jakszyk came out, and proved to be a very chillax individual who seemed right at home standing before us to answer our questions and fill us in on his vast scope of progressive rock experience. I have to state for the record that the last time I saw King Crimson happened to occur exactly twenty years before, to the very day, only it was in Colorado, at Red Rocks, when Tool closed for King Crimson on August 3, 2001. Adrian Belew was still fronting vocals for them, back then. What are the chances that I were to see them <i>exactly two decades later, like clockwork</i>? It's a testament to the fact that I've noted Fripp's impressive obsession with time. I raised my hand to ask Jakko a frivolous question, "has anyone ever told you that you look like Jimmy Page?" and he remarked that although no one ever had before, that just two days ago someone pulled him aside at one of these shows and asked him if Jimmy Page were his brother. I raised my eyebrow as an indication of surprise that my question had accidentally become somewhat relevant, and as the crowd chuckled I hoped that I had at least broken the ice to get the conversation started (only I must point out there was no ice on that fine day to break really in the first place). Everyone seemed in a comfortable place, after all we'd all chosen the obligation to be there, the only mild discomfort was the heat which could have been a lot worse, hovering as it was at around a mere 99 degrees Fahrenheit. </p><p> After the question and answer sessions were done, the small crowd disassembled to return their tote backs full of Kc schwag back to their cars and head over to the merch stand to see what other Crimson treats awaited to further ravage our wallets and pocket books. (For the record I spent another $90 right then and there, purchasing 1 size lg. T-shirt, the white one for $40, a $10 patch to go on my metal warrior jacket which will be crowned and compleated with it, and I bought the two <u>Elements</u> double-CD collections, covering a wide assortment of live and studio tracks from over the years. </p><p> When California Guitar Trio went on, there was a replacement guy standing in on Chapman stick for Hideo Moriya. I didn't catch his name but he was fantastic. Paul Richards on acoustic guitar looks to me to sort of resemble a cross between Jon Anderson and Alex Lifeson. It's like Yes and Rush personified on stage and he has the guitar playing chops to back it up. This was proven throughout their set, where the first several songs, which I was not familiar with, nonetheless kept me glued to the edge of my seat listening to their fascinating blends of textures and tones and intricate chord phrases exchanging between them with such skillful timing there were moments of transcendence when suddenly the chapman stick in the middle was like a tuning fork mirroring the melody back and forth between the other two guitarists. Their scope and range was broad and deep, as I sat sat there amazed at the wide range of sounds they were able to get from their acoustic instruments. </p><p> Nothing prepared the crowd for their encore, when Paul Richards began eliciting fed back mournful sounds from his guitar which morphed into a cover of Pink Floyd's Echoes that between the three of them was captured so perfectly as to leave the audience and I stunned throughout it's entire running time. During several phases of the song's legendary sonic structures, the crowd would applaud and respond appropriately. (I was convinced that if David Gilmour had been there, he'd have been impressed, which I think is saying something.) I have to say that as much as I had wished the Zappa Band could have opened for them, I realized while sitting captivated before the California Guitar Trio, that we were one lucky crowd to get to hear them play their set. At least that's how I felt while watching all three of them play. They passed musical phrases to each other, shadowing the outline of the Crimson beast to come, with it's three center staged drum sets leveling it up a few more notches. </p><p> There was no announcement as to when King Crimson were to start. It was around 7:35 or so after the California Trio left the stage, and I was concerned because I knew Clif and Dallas were running late. I figured it might not be until 8 that the Crimson beast would roar to life. It turns out I should've marked the time when they went on, but I was too focused on getting back to our seats in the front row from the concessions stand to watch as all seven of the guys took their places on stage. </p><p> The crowd cheered each individual member as they emerged into the light of day. Pat Mastelotto was among the first. (He's so cool I swear his role in the biopic could be played by Tom Waits.) My wife and I were seated in the very front row, right between Pat and Jeremy. This means technically we were in the center section a little towards stage right, which is to say, just a little to the left when facing the stage. Jeremy played some perfect keyboards during integral parts of the show, and returned to the drums with a zeal that held his own between the passing volleys from either side. We had a terrific direct view (over to the right) where Gavin Harrison sat at his drumkit, and Robert Fripp sat above and behind him on the back riser. We could see all seven members of the band, with Mel Collins standing behind a plexiglass shield to block the delivery of his wind instrumentation. We could just see his head and shoulders playing flutes, saxophones, and a variety of other similar instruments throughout the show. His flute playing and evocative contribution to the songs really linked up with Jakko's superb vocals, together capturing the spirit of the first four albums perfectly. That's what K20 Cr21's all about. </p><p> The one song I wanted to hear the most was Islands, and boy was I not disappointed as they launched into it towards the end of their first set. To not only fervently hope they would play it, and knowing they'd introduced it at some point in the tour, then having it realized before my elated ears is something that no words that I can write could even begin to convey the emotional investment of this song to me. To think I had the record back in high school, along with In the Wake of Poseidon and Lizard, and that it's the senior effort by which all bands must ultimately be judged in comparison to Zeppelin IV. </p><p>Islands was the height of last night's show for me, without a doubt capturing the original song exactly to my heart's expectations. The vivid lyrics which have haunted my life for nearly forty years splashed and echoed from Jakko's remarkable voice and visage across the stage and washed over us in perfect accompaniment by the instruments, the three drummers having already established from the beginning that what they're doing together up there, far from being a novelty act, represents a logical improvement of the initial drum dynamic we long for. In other words, they prove its better this way. That goes for virtually any song, new or old or yet to be written by anyone. I understand it was Fripp's idea, and well he nailed it, as the trio's demonstration most tacitly proved. </p><p> The three drummers sketched that out at the beginning of the set with I believe is being called Drumzilla<span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">—</span>Point taken. Watching Pat and Jeremy and Gavin trade off drum licks was a real treat that anyone who was there will likely gush on and on about. I mean, damn. I wish all my drummer friends had been there. At least I got to see Clif and Dallas there. Live music was meant to be shared. That is how you set up a drum line as the foundation for music! Then the elder statesmen from the court of the Crimson King asserted the framework of their intricate guitar riffs and time signatures in unison as they've been doing for so long. Only these seven guys were in lockstep the whole way, it really was a sight to behold and an evening of beautifully thunderous overtures to listen to. Take Mel Collins for instance. His apartness from the rest of his bandmates may have taken on a clinical aspect, with him standing behind the plexiglass shield and seeming to not step out from his area at the end, but his singular contribution to the show was absolutely essential. Like the silver fluted mast of a sail ship, he not only set the shades and color of the tone, but helped guide them as he propelled them forward over the rocky reefs of some beautiful terrain.</p><p> The last time I saw them at Red Rocks on that not forgotten August day two decades ago they stepped out from behind the curtain with timed precision at exactly seven o'clock, striking thunderous power chords in practiced unison the moment they took the stage. I know what Fripp means when he's thinking of 2020 along parallel lines to my view of it as the year of perfect vision. Needless to say, timing is the key indeed in every way, and I'm happy that the incredible oiled machine that put this beast of a tour together has just given the US an injection of twenty million dollars into our economy. And that bit about us really needing music, well look no further than the past few weeks. I've seen both Orville Peck and now King Crimson at the same venue in Sandy, and if that's a portent for what's to come well we best wear our seatbelts if you're coming with me. It's on!</p><p><br /></p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><br /><p></p>shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7542406837969634393.post-41329402589009471772022-06-21T08:04:00.031-07:002022-06-23T12:34:09.141-07:00So Lost in the Grandeur <div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="775" data-original-width="775" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmFWnG0JyhM_o0NIeapBD4KQI-bE6qZ2HgysguzSxRWE-v3h757QO-BPwmm28kRocyOoqHCcSFsZN5IEz7KD4vk3sMs4h8pkxgu0TUaW6UmjHiAsacsFzQwac9FnJX9bDsWED1N55YeFgAGi2XAO_cvAIZWuOwy7LNuaGYAAv7KFHZoS9GJ9Ag7V_lLw/w640-h640/jptobm_dcc7c39d344593b64d5353b7efbdddf9f9cdf5fe.png" width="640" /></div><br /> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> The odyssey of discovery promulgated by korn's fourteenth studio album release has really struck me from out of left field, almost as if I've been hit by an incoming comet NASA hadn't detected. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"> <i> Lies are truth refined. Dark is light hidden from the eye. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I don't even know where to begin. My experiment in sonic exploration seems to have only begun. This duality aligns. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> <i> I could never let go the concept of dark and light. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i> One tries to pull me in, one gives me strength to fight. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">My official preorder for REQUIEM arrived today -- one day after my preorder of the REVOLVER limited edition (1,000 pressings) silver vinyl having arrived yesterday. So I listened to the silver vinyl and am right now about to flip the dark crimson splatter vinyl onto side B. Disconnect just finished playing and now I can sum up my general feelings about korn in a nutshell. </div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div style="text-align: left;"> To be bounded in a nutshell and count one's-self king of infinite space. I imagine this comes very close to Jonathan Davis's own headspace. There's one variable connecting him to Hamlet, at least. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Am I implying that korn's latest album may be seen as having some positively Shakespearean aspects to it? Damn straight I am. After all, few frontmen in rock and roll have personified all the world being their stage with as much visceral eloquence as the man who fronts the band from Bakersfield. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> <i>Hopeless and fucking beaten.</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;">In the wake of online fan forum discussions concerning the digital compression and loudness tactics that seem to plague the CD version of Requiem, I can now veritably guarantee that yes indeed, the vinyl edition of this album stands now as the definitive version that should really be listened to (along with the cassette). </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> For example, I had no idea that Worst Is On Its Way is really an acoustic song until I listened to it on my record player. Incredible what the organic warmth of the vinyl medium can do. <i>Destroyed by your penance to sorrow. Go, Go, Go! </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> But I am not jesting. Every track on Requiem sounds a little different than the digital rip to my ears now that I'm attuned into the grooves. <i>And so what is this? You wait to commence? You just run and hide!</i> The industrial slamming riffs of My Confession really balance against the loose swinging groove of the bass and drums supporting Jonathan's impressive range of vocal stylings. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> <i>Lonesome, your bed is made. The outcome a useless masquerade.</i> In this song Korn have at last lived up to the legacy they were pointed directly at standing proud on the stage getting close to thirty years ago now. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> The crushing riffs alternating with the squeaky hollow reverberating counter-lead work, which is the evolved trademark of the 2-Headed Monster (Head and Munky trading off their licks with uncanny efficiency) has by now evolved into an artform they've served up with perfection on this album. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> It's toward the end of Worst Is On Its Way where I can actually hear an acoustic guitar being strummed (like delicate shells revealed on the beach when the riptide of churning guitars pulls away momentarily). I don't believe it's noticeable on the .mp3 -- that is, the digital rip -- but I haven't listened to the CD version yet, so I wonder if its evident on that. This is exactly why the analog mastered vinyl edition of Requiem, it's like the director's cut versions of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies. The only ones worth experiencing. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> I've been pulled through Requiem enough times to have experienced both the highest possible heights and even been dragged through an uncomfortable exposure to the lowest depths inherent to the songs captured on this fourteenth studio effort from Korn. And right now I can say with a smile, the nutshell I was referring to earlier is that <i>this album really brings the band full circle</i> and in other words <i>sounds as if it could be an auspicious debut</i> and I do mean that in the sense that one of the remarkable aspects of today's age, circa 2022, is that there's such a prevalence of material out there within our exploding human population that its easy for all of it to get lost or dismissed in the burgeoning crowd. Make no mistake about it. Korn's promise of being <i>Here To Stay,</i> delivered all of twenty years ago, still rings true to this day. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> I believe this phenomenon has been occurring since the get go, even to go so far as saying that the world is designed like that, it's in its nature to repeat itself with new iterations because it's on an infinite loop; and as many new batches of fans discover older bands, the demographics shift and morph into different shapes, even as some earlier, now disgruntled fans drop the band and move on toward new and different waters, fresh new generations of kids discover Korn anew and the cycle begins again. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> The musical landscape of rock'n'roll constantly shifts and evolves, undergoing all manner of topographical storms, and for us to neglect to consider the impact the Covid pandemic has had on virtually everything we do in our daily lives, for the past two years, is to potentially overlook certain aspects of the music industry itself which dominate and shape the form commercial music takes. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> I'm just grateful that one of my favorite bands of all time has successfully climbed to such a height of commercial success. For one, it vindicates my stance a quarter of a century ago when I said that Korn were eventually going to become "as big as the Beatles," and for another, it means that they're still in the game -- and still influencing the shape of music to come. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> These guys have been my rock'n'roll heroes for twenty-seven years, now. I no longer question how they manage to keep on doing it any more than I questioned how they managed to do it in the first place. The same certain confidence which brought about their memorable single Here To Stay all those years ago remains today in both the band and its growing, ravenous fanbase. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> What else can I say? Hell, I could write a book. Maybe someday I will, and if not, fukk it. </div><div style="text-align: left;">I'll never forget when I decided, at the very last moment no less, to go ahead and log onto YouTube on Thursday, February 3, earlier this year, when Korn livestreamed their concert at the Hollywood United Methodist Church in LA. OMG, did I ever make the right choice. That show was a complete surprise, an absolute stunner, believe me you kinda had to have been there, and I do mean even livestreaming it from the comfort of your own home, in perfect pandemic Zoom style. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> I've got to lay it out 4U all. First off, I myself, as die hard a fan of the band and their music as anyone, truly doubted the efficacy of opening with a live church choir, on account of the glorious harmonies and beautiful tones setting a bar far too high for any band, much less Korn, to follow in the wake of. Know what I mean? I was thinking, "damn... soon as the heavenly music of the choir fades away and the band takes center stage, thumping and clicking away with their aging vocalist straining at the mic with these songs..." well let's just say I worried just a lil' bit that it might be cringe-worthy... </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> Boy was that ever not the case. Turns out the band <i>accompanied</i> the church choir, or should I say vice-versa? It doesn't matter...what followed was really impressive as the five members of the band (eschewing Fieldy, who's been on hiatus, while the bass player Ra Diaz of Suicidal Tendencies stood in for him) seamlessly integrated their sound with the celestial tones of the church choir, and eased their way to front and center stage while they proceeded to knock eight songs out of the park; it was outstanding and I swear to all the angels in heaven and demons in hell that it was a riveting performance for the ages. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> They opened with Falling Away From Me, a perennial favorite and a perfect match for the church choir and musicians, as if they were fated for one another. Alone I Break followed and somehow its underlying message blended in perfect harmony with the hallowed atmosphere of the church. What on Earth was happening, here? Then I realized that Jon must've embraced this golden opportunity to blaspheme in a church... Lol (that must be it). Then they launched into No One's There, and I should take this moment to mention the band sounded fantastic, and Jon's vocals were on point, but my God I did not expect them to play this song... No One did! WTF... It became perfectly evident right about then that this was a moment in time that the band would either conquer or be conquered by. And O, Lord did they ever deliver. I could not believe what my eyes were taking in or my ears hearing. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> When they launched into their new single Start the Healing, the song began to make perfect sense in the wake of the pandemic, and the whole point of their playing a Requiem live in a church (with 300 lucky individuals who managed to score tickets in attendance, all dressed in funereal black to honor the fallen over the past couple of years). Korn were dead serious, dressed to the nines, and they played their bleeding hearts out. I can't wait to get the eventual DVD and experience the whole thing in all its twisted glory again. Ray Luzier was absolutely possessed while playing the drums. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> Next came Lost in the Grandeur, and by now I was amazed that these aging gents still has what it takes to knock these songs out of the proverbial park. That did not prepare me for the final three songs, each of which continued to shock and amaze with their perfect delivery. Those songs were Hopeless and Beaten (my favorite from the new album), Worst Is On Its Way, and Let The Dark Do The Rest. Like I mentioned earlier, you had to have been there. On a side note. This was the first time I heard Hopeless and Beaten and those last two tracks. The way Jon sang "<i>Hopeless! and Really Beaten!</i>" sent chills down my spine, having no clue that it was the "clean" version of the chorus. It was great in retrospect because we all know how the song really goes, now. But that just made me appreciate the track even more when I finally listened to the record itself. It's likely the heaviest song Korn ever recorded, at least to my ears and mind, and it's an absolute stand-out track on the album. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> What else can I say? Enough is enough, already. Korn just knocked their 14th album into outer space. And they have amassed enough material for the next album already, just like the epic closing track suggests, lol. Well I say, "Bring it!" </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="359" data-original-width="757" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb6qUYwhIjUsH2GcXgMCzz4L96RzruHDsP0uyhaG12oT4cTyS0wT43eKpoEmm68QQkfwajWN97fiyH1r2FzlbcV6kw_iKL4EIeeRWIgfDLA2Tr2k04Y8akHeZEKV0RpjF6qajxqueIo_quchAE9izDoFor_OkfAAU8lrqBh9gmD37qxEfvZ6IDKmTb6A/w640-h304/256167684_10159700359934655_4813901044229498262_n.jpg" width="640" /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="458" data-original-width="817" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVGJOf2Q14npSHsVfqnO0RXNEQfSrnromerzFAck9HHxnFM0gg_x_bM-oEHtFeiKpJBa_lsggF9XjC69Wg0yyoAObEchzpg7SKD8AGR2mk7fXSN-zKyfFxydW6lEZ4j7ZWSm51P_T-9Hg4TGNKLk0fMMUXhHuIJpspLP4F5Bv90sjPWyG1PzTjG8BVKg/w640-h358/256295721_10159700359544655_5704213076073989864_n.jpg" width="640" /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="372" data-original-width="783" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHuhmW-HqjQ1bnKI57ks8748g62l6TXOCIDK9YUPqa_i0s2xgZMnLuLU0V_Gp-OUGBOxequloDAg17h5M69q609yPtzmO-eLssock3HR31Dy8ZESIsbJEG_zunw-q3eDTxlrn5ZsRpZrQD2Bw57ZezVp-y7l4tY_6kojWO_jTGxwU0tqcbfIS4nyGtvw/w640-h304/256374187_10159700359779655_3578927620888980786_n.jpg" width="640" /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="386" data-original-width="810" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv5ecSGVjbkTPA7M7KnXBLx_uBnXbjmEOH5ZRne162ZLxd_NY12yClr44FbBMrrLsXnkf5mkuVI9txiEbNui5ww2Cp1ZqhlQgiXib62_0M4iVCnFyrU7VQj715ZIHBIS6Uh7KfJpa0g4CD0byJl-q26vVAhSoo61NwmqJ8mqMkSryCWUk9G3V4hN2ETg/w640-h304/256186373_10159700359624655_4268294839601909792_n.jpg" width="640" />
</div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="962" data-original-width="623" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkroRPqcYANMaQZeAjdXiVmMxNiXA3xtbCAy3hi1DLIw0ARKyIqo439LbklXSkS-3WDe0VYGXUUhEuUcdhzrjVGwbkmo-TD7jlp2o6O8t32LiLUulSI49pqbI5cclal6Y5sdighkFhTDtcVNDgVd1KpJdXCYANf2zrA80LB_ZIGIokObMPXcK7pRgx3Q/s16000/adxu17_b83d72cc17d1bbe4a766dcd6fdb224e5ad2c3177.jpg" /></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> </div>shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7542406837969634393.post-2592344905981694172022-06-18T19:52:00.005-07:002022-06-21T06:52:31.056-07:00It Don't Matter What Been Said <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx8gq2EcwCM-ubV7TvemqszCu44uBzLQvsZtbnDFVWaOYo2p4dk2raU0M0-tAtrUKeDifJ6fqbe9__nnS0BnCPFNgXbYY58P2VyWfQnS2aFsLXHzTJ_UsPHRnWEp0r63GVkJDtD-CKpFXxrE53wSBiGG1E4jmmaGGArqhNwuGcN9fjqEtUpuWdfQBfJA/w480-h640/289004504_10160115907019655_6823065794591190819_n.jpg" width="480" /></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Finally listening to IV & the Strange Band's highly anticipated LP <u>Southern Circus</u>. I preordered the die hard yellow vinyl edition a ways back. I was already on top of things when I preordered the 7" of <a href="https://ivsonofiii.bandcamp.com/releases">Son of Sin</a>. That already feels like a classick, and only one day's past since the album dropped. Strange days indeed. The way I feel inside, no one could know how, anyway. This record's hitting me like an arrow straight through the heart. It really packs a wallop. I've been primed to receive these songs through my ear holes for awhile now. Lemme tell you that it's not a disappointment. In fact I am blown away by every track. This album's legend is blossoming inside me like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I'm a goddamned IV & the Pod People man, now. It's annealing the sadness in me. Like my heart's been forged in the fires of Hell. Now the flaming sword I carry inside me has been tempered to a vorpal edge eternally. My own body's my shield on account of my heart being my sword. My hands are just the daggers I carry by my side. I'm just another old son of sin. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1003" data-original-width="828" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrEe159rXP7DUUd-PBZsd34aTVr8G7sCN35ep4GOCg3WRoUhLt00dy3me2cbvZ3XldL9nr0XIPKDhLuUnhfvapc9BIJEGJBvVsrYb_JDWiPI5ecCPdbPauRcVmD3EOYHJauZ_AIXV027FRuUQX6WkI-f852uxLr2rDe04nBYHjtTI9EKzcc_JoMAYZIA/w528-h640/288880138_10160115881294655_757896794630810352_n.jpg" width="528" /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: x-small;"><i> digital rendering I made on Deep Dream Generator</i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">I sure hope Coleman brings his strange band through Salt Lake City sooner than later. I feel like I may be reaching through to him, slowly but surely, via my social utility presence. I've come close to intersecting with him on a few cyber fronts. It's only a matter of time before I get to see them perform live here. I'm hoping it's one of his all ages shows. I'd surely love to bring Zane to it. This pandemic has really thrown us for a loop. At least we got to see Orville Peck together, Zane and Shasta and I. That was fucking phenomenal. Zane & I danced around like mad, chasing each other up and down the lawn, and I raced down and around to get closer to the stage, and Zane followed me, and I swung him up and held him high so he could see Orville doing his thing. But if IV & the Strange Band hit up the Metro Music Hall or something, where it's 21+, I'll go to that show if it's the only other show I see this year besides Roger Waters, on Sept 8. The only other shows I've seen recently post-pandemic are King Crimson at the Sandy Amphitheater (where we saw Orville Peck, incidentally) and then Zombi opening for The Sword at the Metro Music Hall, oh and yeah, Mono of course at the Urban Lounge, touring for the first time since Covid hit, representing their stunning eleventh album Pilgrimage of the Soul. But I digress. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="551" data-original-width="1089" height="324" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibfX71iTE5CTJkHCCCeH8YFeVnDbViFzCPXGcUMVur8Fbn2cn3qDxocNJtDfhkMy6_UvpuqZEHmjM3fRdmDo5dD94Xdoxq2npOvUMwPOJ7PjQQXDXKqVxY3Z7vDBTmA_NtQMrXGwsK6SrQjZAhR1WKKaqbFbHWv3vP9bcBgTznMF2FBqWincQ7UlWWpQ/w640-h324/288529626_10160110070834655_5533720896753227311_n.jpg" width="640" /></div><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">When I first heard Deep Down, it was because I broke down and watched <a href="https://youtu.be/86F11rdGubw">the video on YouTube</a>, not really being able to help myself. I'll tell you what. Not only did the song hit me like a ton of bricks, but the video was a perfect match to it (which is very unusual, in and of itself, cuz videos usually distract from the music, and often can even ruin a song if you're not careful). And then hearing it play about as loud as my stereo could handle it, well it sounds fantastic. I think that's the hardest rocking track on the whole record. But I've only spun it once, and I'm ready to give it another spin, right off the bat. I'm going to go ahead and say it. This is a legendary debut album we have before us, right here. And I could care less if any of you fuckers even give it the time of day. An album hasn't hit me this hard since korn's self titled dropped all of those twenty-eight years ago. I bought that from Bull Moose Music in Portland, Maine on cassette tape. The rest is history. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIvyRduJoen1ohL_apxjRIexUrlfOh3hQ5-cOEHSyGi5T0JMmj_Oy7Xfdruwbgk1zbLNmAHvSqPsuZJ7NKC03ueYmXVVGxvP8yeggWPDGYHGYqpp8T6rSrFJHm02pLi8wGqOSH-grSuPOYTEYrup-5OqbKRz1Hzou_gZbRs_A5dDzsm4A61FjU-Db_xg/w480-h640/289054271_10160115880949655_6642143152577313305_n.jpg" width="480" /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">It's weird the way things line up sometimes. Like how I just managed to score dax rigg's swan song album <u><a href="https://daxriggs.bandcamp.com/album/say-goodnight-to-the-world">Say Goodnight to the World</a></u> on vinyl since I luckily spotted it available on daks's bandcamp page. Turns out it dropped onto the Fat Possum label back in 2019. Honestly the one I just got must be a repressing cuz how does this album stay a secret for three years, ain't no way. I first bought it on CD twelve years ago, back in 2010 when it came out. It was obvious to me then as plain as it is now, this was his final statement, the last Dax Riggs record. Why on Earth should that be the case? May as well ask Coleman's daddy, Sheldon the same question. Why is Fiendish Threat the last thing Hank 3 done put out. There's something in the air, idk. Both artists are perfectly capable and even still young enough to a certain extent where there's no question they could put out another few great and relevant albums. We're all operating on different lengths with our cycles. I guess some folk's circular voyages with this planet going around the Sun take longer spans of time than others. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> It's about time Coleman's music project IV & the Strange Band alights on this godforsaken nest we've built and which still hasn't been blown away in the gales being whipped up in the world. I like how he obviously has something to say and he ain't afraid to come out and say it. My voice would waver too if I had half the guts he does. <u>Strange Circus</u><i> </i>arrives like a punch in the stomach. I feel like the air just got knocked out of me. And I like it. It's been a long time coming and it sure as hell was worth the wait. Right now I'm still reeling from it, gasping for air, and so I'll leave well enough alone by repeating that every last track on this album absolutely floored me. Trust me on this, this album doesn't need a "review," it's something you either get or you don't, and so you either live it or you won't. No one cares if you don't get it, go away and stay away. It's like korn and cancerslug, or tom waits, an all or nothing deal. Coleman can stand tall and easy right up there with them greats, it'll be alright. The next few decades are gonna slip by so fast like rattlers sidlin' over a massive set of railroad tracks. Ain't no time for slowin' down nor looking back. Feels like we're gearing up for the long hard slide into home base, nowadays. And well I don't know, if you ask me, I kinda like it like that. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-2-s0TR1XuJMqHIg6YpXrgArBaKgyNSgudk2LDan2J6lk-Rj5LVwGB0umcjlHSLbD7ye9-VfAB7heXti0x2fEZdT3Zttks0TBEzY-f8O49VazBKOhkqqVtFBSEIc30RPxq51h4WPiJxYJCEMqe2101TtW8ZB-OuBiAcoESArIox_6wgtRPdPUL7I-mA/s320/288927574_10160115881344655_4762213595421077585_n.jpg" width="240" /></div><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div>shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7542406837969634393.post-59804121941517368832021-09-21T21:12:00.013-07:002021-09-21T21:45:46.757-07:00Ascending with Mono | Pilgrimage of the Soul<div style="text-align: left;"><i>review of the last four songs listened to the digital rip on headphones:</i> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqoYAmft8V34lzSmsvfFUBNpqD3SEwsKyVRCkf31Qa-Bv_6ygc5O5arBW7q6tDSfZyPD8mhGTGByDoJfbVidDLnCxGMo_vrebpksA0Yt_QKh0yw53Hvc10DORTsAmEL2EQoutEPWhz1S-o/w640-h640/19914.jpg" width="640" /></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> -so I heard sides A and B on the record player and am now listening to the fifth track Innocence on headphones on my iTunes. There's a stately elegance to the drumming that I like. It hammers out a nice platform for Taka, Tamaki and Yoda to do their thing, which is somehow bring the listener into the vortex of their maelstrom with the same instant connection to oblivion - or supercharged by a cosmic ballast - whatever you wanna call it - however you want to think of it - that they started with twenty years ago and which displays this band as currently still being the real deal, considering their mostly instrumental overtures having gone through the sonic ringer, amplified through Marshall stacks, on tour for over two decades now - listening to this new album reminds me that this band - will bring the fury. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> The Auguries begins. Now, we bend forward and gallop deeper into the forest shadows. Our journey improves with a headstart into the woods late at night under the scudding clouds where the moon is bright. Get a load of that album cover art, of the Earth and moon leaning in for a kiss, against a starry backdrop is purity embodied. At the 2:50 mark and am totally grooving to the steady buildup and soaring guitar highlights with a killer bassline with drums snapping back, what the hell am I listening to --4:10 -- swoooosh no more review -- //swept away</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> Circuitry lights in trapezoidal patterns glimmer and dim when I close my eyes listening to this. It's as if sonic cathedral windows are shattering from an invasion of a tsunami of rainbows. The music is so powerful or I should say it has such force the mind gets carried off one way or the other. You can go inward or explore the direction you may consider outward and for all you know that's going inward in the opposite direction. At the Seven min mark we glide into a landing. Now it feels as if listener has been stranded on the Moon.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> Hold Infinity in the Palm of your Hand. I noticed the Blake couplet in the last couple of songs here when looking over the gatefold LP. These various details of song titles and cover art merge in my mind to form a less abstract design. We already had Heaven in a Wildflower on track three. To See a World is the name of the fourth track. Now we are descending into a sort of bioluminescent nocturnal underground world where insects buzz in and out of the fungal varieties glowing and spiraling in the dark. Is that a Glockenspiel chiming. After three minutes the band arrives, welcome in this beautiful yet somehow lost and desolate place we've been left stranded in again. See, that's what happens when you surrender yourself to each Mono song. You're taken on a journey and left stranded on some far off alien shore. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> But it's always right here and now on Earth that you find yourself, whether listening to Mono or not. And that's when the beauty of their music reaches in deeper and begins playing my rib cage bones like they were a xylophone. My hair begins to stand up on end itself in the static electricity their music generates. Nowhere is this more true than when experiencing them perform live, of course, but hearing their studio recordings especially on headphones lends the sense of intimacy necessary to really appreciate these songs. I know this penultimate track is a twelve minute song, and as it builds and flowers into its seventh minute, there's a dreamlike quality to the sound of this music which captures, at once, the bedrock of ancient spirit in its present living connection with the blinding potential of our brightest future. I don't need to open my eyes now to see I'm listening to an album that is so damn good it doesn't even matter anymore what anyone thinks or says or does this here describes in an overwhelming sense the paradise on Earth we could achieve if only we focused on our dream. </div><div style="text-align: left;">This song is a colossal howler that drives to a tremendous ending. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> And Eternity in an Hour. the final track on this, their eleventh studio outing, I can say I need to go now. This is the walk in the garden past the silver witching hour deep into the well of dusk you go on long after midnight limned by moonlight under the stars above. The hidden corner of that secret garden only you and a few loved ones know. The place we all wander to when there's no other place to go. Sitting hunched down on a stump in solitude with your shadow. Those feelings and more welled up in me as this final track opened its petals one by one in easy going piano notes that wind up distilled into a final farewell. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> My impressions of the album. The uncrowned kings rule supreme with an astonishing crystal clear statement in Pilgrimage of the Soul. Look, we can't keep measuring things with the old yardsticks anymore. This is the perfect example. Some might say, if this band's twenty year history lay back in the day, that they're climbing toward a second peak, or something (considering their symphonic fifth album, Hymn to the Immortal Wind, coinciding with their tenth anniversary live performance in Manhattan with a 23 piece orchestra and everything. That's certainly in my Top Whatever shows because its damn near #1. But that's another matter altogether. I digress.) while I sit back (or stand back, at their live shows, to which I've already secured my tix for next spring) and observe this band only now hitting their peak. I mean, is it me, or is the 'peak Mono' upon us now-? Sure, there will be purists that maintain 'peak Mono' to be but a tiresome redundancy, and I agree. Some bands, lets face it, are sort of locked into 'homerun mode' when it comes to both releasing studio albums and touring the world performing them live before fanatic or otherwise entranced audiences. Mono is one of those bands. I have everything this band ever put out on vinyl, some of it signed on multiple occasions. I can't even believe they have ten albums. It's been quite a dizzying ride - seeing them live - ever since that time with Pelican at Bricks or In the Venue, whichever it was at the time. Same place I saw Deadboy and the Elephant Men and Wolfmother and Weedeater and Steven Wilson and Fear Factory and Slipknot and Slayer and too many others to count. As for bands locked into homerun mode there's a ton of 'em. Lot of incredible live music out there. When you're at a Mono concert, you're suddenly in a different situation. You will be moved by the music. The question remains. Can you withstand it? Entranced, you will have no choice.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> As for this eleventh studio album - damn. I'm so glad I preordered immediately, as I did with their penultimate release, the 3LP live record <u>Beyond the Past</u>. I got a translucent vinyl streaked with lucent silver or something for that, I suspect from the first batch of pressings. My Pilgrimage is orange vinyl which makes me wonder if I got the first run or a subsequent color. Will have to go to Discogs to see. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> How many stars are there in the damn sky? That's how many I give this album. It's out of this world. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>to be cont. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7542406837969634393.post-31929119309970719662021-05-30T10:46:00.003-07:002021-05-30T10:50:19.533-07:00We're desperate, get used to It. X is back <div style="text-align: left;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://xtheband.bandcamp.com/album/los-angeles" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="700" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFqFrFBPZfbuEu_kj183BLq-9R16_fBaviRmTfbx84hs4Qok_eNcn52oINdImr_oT-68hm5nfaD_2BO39-PbQHAWhyhO9yvlYMLnW_3uOnYoy0q_-SRNe7K9BtFRjDMISKP2h6-wM4wYeK/s320/a0173189490_16.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Guys havin' fun, alright... Year one, you're one, I'm one. I just heard this sad song by another band, sung by another man, he gave me the once over twice. I'm happy for my lost generation (slipped from the deck sometime after gen x and before gen y or any of the post-triggered gens to come). I'll see you and I'll raise you off the floor. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> Bandcamp rules, I've already scored the die hard gold flake initial pressings of X's first two albums, minted on their 40th anniversaries respectively. Some people give me the creeps. I remember when it felt like my whole fucking life's a wreck. Guess I got used to it. I mean, things haven't changed much, really. </div><div style="text-align: left;">I just happened to be online when X announced their reissue of Los Angeles, and if it weren't for that fact I'd have missed out on the gold flake die hard vinyl pressing, I assume there may have been 100 pressed. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> Then there's usually a spade of subsequent, differently colored die hard pressings, each with their own amount, a couple hundred yellow ones and three hundred green ones and five hundred silver ones, whatever the case may be. It doesn't really matter so long as you at least manage to score the regular black version of the record. That's all that counts when you get down to it. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> So if I want to know when their 3rd reissue drops, all I have to do is take a looksee at when it originally dropped. Let's do that, shall we. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://youtu.be/X-VUFNz5WRc" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="266" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiOOZaa72bYb1t8iD9gKdSzYkHA9CEGibsUFp8AIn-FMbS-Kv6hB6ZwcvGOH-ga2hxy1_FQfI-69wszjZOGtNHch5m7WhfWfu7jQPEFBaARz3r1AF4r0UPRhcol1iJIeZkl4a5LrurPL7z/" width="232" /></a></div><br />Well here's our answer. Next July if you're online or checking your email in July and subscribed to bandcamp as I am, you'll see what happens to be a lil' old announcement from X that Under The Big Black Sun (my favorite <i>back when it dropped</i>) is available in ultra-limited die hard gold flake, so best <i>pounce</i>! if'n you want one of these glorious, crinkled beauties. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I'm comin' over, so move over! </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://xtheband.bandcamp.com/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhNmlK4l9-ChhDj1VALKV3e_iGVW-r56YIi7ZcQgW-b5wrkzQVLH5Ejdr37hcY_yPR3AzJV9B_HVFYxaKJ1T21KbueDrjoGlhqQ0reSb_USEzRZtWDeX9k2cKaXwYClAOA3rMTZxNmlgXn/s320/189090054_10159358028664655_9034653933486977063_n.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> So if it drops before next July, then nevermind. </div><div style="text-align: left;">Back to your regularly scheduled programming. </div><div style="text-align: left;">In this house that I call home, nobody knows </div><div style="text-align: left;">the party rules, gotta get in but there's no room. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> Beautiful walls are closin' in, lookin' at you</div><div style="text-align: left;">You're havin' a nightmare! Right now I'm listening</div><div style="text-align: left;">to the .mp3 digital rip of Wild Gift on my iTunes. </div><div style="text-align: left;">I haven't dl'd the latest iTunes upgrade yet for a few</div><div style="text-align: left;">months, I keep x'ing it closed, ignoring it. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> Let's not talk about bombs or the brain impulses </div><div style="text-align: left;">of severed limbs. You will always subtract your arms</div><div style="text-align: left;">from my arms. Someone always interrupts us</div><div style="text-align: left;">when we talk. So I'm gonna draw this evening's line</div><div style="text-align: left;">before my wash hangs on it for everyone to see.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's very bad luck to draw the line on the night before the world ends. </div><div style="text-align: left;">We can draw the line some other time.... </div>shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7542406837969634393.post-29879662156109050552020-11-19T09:30:00.003-08:002020-11-19T09:30:26.014-08:00Led Zeppelin DVD <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="445" data-original-width="331" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbsOMPPbn9a0GheBSWm583bOaNeBmRzICNCQRPCI4W3MJx4o53m-wVbfKlE_OOzgpNhCz-O-7f6H37DM02_8DC-napEg2pJBHN6z6mfGIeHhqE7Jffjf39D5_KXLOqN5h7deeX1k1o6uTZ/w476-h640/91mhdW-5MCL._SY445_.jpg" width="476" /></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div> [Someone lost in time once asked me online, "<i>Straight up, bitches. give it to me! What's the deal on those Zep releases, CD and DVD?</i>"] <div><br /></div><div> I can't speak on behalf of the CD <i>How The West Was Won </i>(will have to get that later) but I can fill you in on the DVD, mate. It runs at 5 hrs: 20 min of Zeppelin brilliance captured for posterity. It features four concerts nearly in their entirety, plus highlights from some other small venue performances, in particular two or three from 1969 featuring them still green about the ears. The audience members are so well behaved, it's interesting to witness humanity before moshing. Although there are four separate versions of their early staple classic tune <i>Dazed & Confused</i>, the best thing about it is that all four versions are unique enough in their own right to keep you glued to your set through each and every one. </div><div><br /></div><div> Zeppelin were never a band to just show up onstage and go through their sets by the numbers. They would approach their songs from a new angle and in a different light entirely, time and again. The amazing thing is that this band featured only one guitarist, Jimmy fucking Page, despite rollicking riffs + leads that bands today would require at least two if not three guitarists to achieve. </div><div><br /></div><div> Robert Plant is an intelligent being, despite some of you having concluded otherwise. There are several frank interview scenes on this DVD that will not only show this to be true, but also reveal that Plant was one awesome, badass motherfucker. His stage presence was electric, and his vocals unmatched. </div><div><br /></div><div> Jimmy works himself into a drenched sweat at the Knebworth '79 set, played right at the end of their career, before Bonham died & they were forced to break up. Watching Jimmy & Bonham play off each other is fascinating... you really get the sense of how Bonham was far more than just the "rhythm guy"; his contribution with the sticks was as musical as any of the other guys in the band. I just wish the camera would focus on John Paul Jones more often. He must've asked not to be shown too much. His bass on that Knebworth show looked as if it were designed by Klingons! <div> <br /> Led Zeppelin were and shall always be the quintessential rock band. The fact they <i>never allowed a single to be released in their homeland</i> only illustrates their genuine standard of preserving album integrity. Can you imagine that-? Yet they managed to sell millions of albums anyhow. <i>That</i>, my friends, is the mark of one serious ass rock band. </div><div><br /></div><div> I actually feel quite sorry for any of you who never "broke through their skin" to marvel at the glory beating underneath this legendary band. These were truly musicians of the highest order, who just happened to be gifted with the skills to do nothing more than rock the fucking world. </div><div><br /></div><div> The Messiahs of Rock are precisely what they were. And they deserve every ounce of worship they get to this day. </div></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="367" data-original-width="591" height="398" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXMtWXUUfy-qwKZE_1pgBP-_8I0zJg4qovs98CY6Lk2YPU-0MzAsV0xwYY_qTdxjLggqwnH-lS-KOTF6hHC60KRT9mFn9U4mZztvBS_sd_LyT0iLZQrPzmfNytObCPkdcoFwDfG7dJVwMq/w640-h398/z4.jpg.07f46fa43228e8c43769e710153e1977.jpg" width="640" /></div><br /><div><br /></div>shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7542406837969634393.post-74533398288019346822020-10-08T10:08:00.014-07:002020-10-08T10:30:01.134-07:00The Black Labyrinth <p> </p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><u>The Black Labyrinth {1st impressions review by Thornswrath}</u></b> </span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">|<i>2 & 1/2 years overdue: Written on May 31st, 2018 ~ six days after the album dropped</i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="316" data-original-width="316" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEnwL_DyxVsGwJBun6mWWOJj3__KzHhuXGpssrGrt-zlgNvUA_ggmO8Rm4en_pU7VYR7XiCBOhIsM5fmaHCLnPheennenquvdYZTad9gQe_kkwKDmwJOHaDELDWyThi7qYgNfv9sf9w4M0/w400-h400/JonathanDavisBlackLabyrinth.jpg" width="400" /></div><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /><br /> Jonathan Davis strikes back with a vengeance, I'll say. Today [circa: May, 2018] I listened to The Black Labyrinth for probably the ninth time. This is an album whose legendary status transcends even that of time itself. <br /><br /> It's the apotheosis of everything I ever loved about Jonathan's artistry, boiled down into one defiant concept album. One of its brilliant aspects is that the concept isn't a storyline with characters, but rather a thematic presentation of the singer's experiences in real life striving to be an individual and retain his sanity in a very dark world that would otherwise compel him into its cult of the masses or drive him completely insane. The music of these thirteen songs ranges from new wave post punk to world gothic, which really lends it the cutting edge necessary to separate it from most other commercial music out there on the airwaves. It really does take a sincere devotion as a listener to pick out all the lyrics from Jon's impassioned singing, and just as it's ever been since his original band's inception a quarter of a century ago, the vivid emotional scenes grab you by the throat and won't let go until the final decaying note. <br /><br /> What we have here are thirteen songs which explore very different sonic terrains and styles. What I find particularly amazing is how every last song stands up on its own merit. This album fits somewhere on a lost alternative timeline within the same range as Bauhaus, Peter Murphy, Depeche Mode, the Cure, Nine Inch Nails, and most surprising of all, yes the world music of Peter Gabriel. (One of the reasons for this, of course, is that Shenkar, who actually played with Peter Gabriel, lends some of his otherwordly violin playing talent in addition to his bewitching middle eastern vocals to some of the tracks.) Not to mention there are some tabla drum sequences that really take the listener on an extended journey during some key songs. <br /><br /> Simply put, Jonathan Davis exists at the heart of a deep inner echelon that represents the best and most intense alternative rock music on the planet for me, period. What makes it so wonderful is that it doesn't matter a hill of beans whether anyone else gets it or not. I consider him the pinnacle of outsider, anti-establishment rock'n'roll and an icon in the field that towers above his contemporaries to rub shoulders with other legends that came before him (like David Bowie or Robert Plant, for example). He's in good company with the best of the best, as far as I'm concerned, and a lot of it has to do with his undying devotion to exposing his bare soul in all its ugly twisted honesty and beautiful truth. David Stoupakis, the NYC artist which rendered the artwork for the cover of this album, has one-hundred-percent nailed the essence of the man himself. I now think of him as Saint Jon the Infernal (the savior of rock'n'roll). Without a doubt, Jonathan Davis is my patron saint for the legion of dispossessed, today. <br /><br /> The Black Labyrinth should satisfy any fan of the aforementioned 80s punk/goth subculture, if they'd only give it the chance it deserves. But hey--as I've already implied here--if they don't bother to, it's their loss, honestly and truly. Although I used to want to share the glory of this music with everyone, these days I'm more grateful for the sneering ridicule and casual dismissal I more often than not get from peeps, because honestly it leaves me with the sensation that this is something special, for my ears and soul only, and to be truthful it's pretty gratifying knowing I sort of get to keep this all to myself. (Nevermind the worldwide fanbase that continues to grow, and occasionally sheds, listeners.) I get "growing out of" certain bands or types of music. It takes a special sort of individual, with arrested development or otherwise, to steep themselves in this sort of extreme mode of expression. How much longer can one identify with defiant teenage angst, right? I myself identify with the spirit of Korn and especially Jonathan's iconoclastic outlook to the point I'm happy to be an acolyte in support of his anti-establishment legacy. He's also got a killer vocal style unlike any other I've ever really encountered. Turns out his lyrics, always revisiting the same corrupted and well-tilled terrain, have evolved to a fertile place that continues growing the blackest and most alluring flowers. This is a melodic narcotic I am completely hooked on. <br /><br /> The best music, for me, has always been difficult to appreciate on first listens. Conversely, the stuff that immediately grabs my attention, more often than not, ends up leaving my interest just as quickly as it came. Not this album. I have to admit, that at first, there was a modicum of resistance on my behalf, as I listened to tracks whose apparent differences seemed mitigated by a sort of homogenized production, resulting in the illusion that it all sounded more or less the same. This was especially evident in the 30-second clips of every track which served as the "trailer" for the album, before it's release. Although I liked certain aspects of these clips, the nagging suspicion that they all sounded too much alike kept bugging me. The miraculous thing about the album is that only after six, seven, eight, and now nine listens, has it become altogether obvious that each track is startlingly different than the next, yet they do all manage to blend together into a cohesive whole (just like the best albums should). This becomes more and more apparent with every listen. I've also been able to figure out that the best thing about this album is the uncanny fact that what it has to offer isn't just one or two tracks, generally accepted as being fan-favorites, but rather, every song on this album is fated to be someone's favorite track; after processing and absorbing it fully, this conclusion remains indisputable. <br /><br /> The opening track, Underneath My Skin, sneakily works its coils into you and eventually completely possesses you with it's undeniable anthemic quality. When Jon sings "<i>There's something inside of me, this is my time again!</i>" you don't really figure out the context of how positive the song actually is, until you've run the gauntlet of the whole album, so that after it's over, and you begin the cycle again, that's when the realization has settled in that this opening track is a positive affirmation of personal independence from the parasites dominating the world. But at first listen--the lyrics "<i>Something's crawling underneath my skin I fear, something's dying, rotting deep within</i>"--lend a negative impression to the song, but further exposure to the remaining lyrics, "<i>something's crawling underneath my skin I fear, something's dying, I will not give in</i>", indicate a positive note of personal redemption that anyone struggling through this chaotic life should be able to identify with. At least, I do. <br /><br /> 2nd track Final Days is a bonafide epic in the "world music goth" vibe, more akin to an evil Peter Gabriel tune than anything, and it does not disappoint. This track is the first indication of what sort of role model our lead singer has fashioned for himself. It has deep connections with Anne Rice's titular vampire Lestat, who Jonathan embodied eleven years ago or so when he penned five epic songs for Queen of the Damned, the vehicle through which he transformed into Lestat on his Alone I Play tour, back in 2007. I witnessed that performance in Los Angeles at the Orpheum, and I can tell you it remains one of the pinnacles of my extensive concertgoing career. That's when Jon played the violin and proved he's an accomplished multi-instrumentalist, and not just a deranged frontman belting out vocals. It's no secret Korn have been paving their way into a corner of the goth subculture for the last thirteen years at least (since 2005's album See You On The Other Side dropped, although I can testify that goths showed up to Korn shows in droves way before that) and this album absolutely leaps onto the goth center stage and demands to be noticed. All the themes this singer has obsessed over during the past twenty years coalesce into their perfect expression on The Black Labyrinth. One could easily argue this album is superior to Korn's output, and I wouldn't blink an eye. It's almost as if the past 25 years in Korn have only been a gestation period ultimately giving birth to Jonathan Davis as a bonafide solo artist, with the release of his debut album dropped in 2018. <br /><br /> One of my personal favorite songs is track seven, The Secret, where Jon employs what I call his "Neil Diamond voice," one of my favorite vocal modes of his. He uses it to great effect on this track. It's a song to induce goosebumps, featuring a direct, low register sort of growl that conveys its intent with spectacular melodic self assurance. I will never grow tired of listening to The Secret, and now that I've absorbed all thirteen tracks, the same could be said for the album, which arrives with a crack of thunder that will roll out across the alternative music landscape for a long time. This isn't a game being played by some star-struck singer assuming a fake, tortured posture for commercial ends. (You are welcome to nurture that cynical idea, but rest assured, you'd be mistaken.) This right here is the bonafide real deal, one hundred percent raw sincerity from an extremely passionate individual who has something to say about this fucked up world we've all been trapped in, and it’s reflected clearly in the eyes of his legion of fanatic listeners. (I don't want to go into the remaining tracks on this album simply because its harvest of dark secrets is best left for the listener to discover for themselves, I think.)<br /><br /> The one alternative rock album released this year that even begins to compare with this, for me, is A Perfect Circle's masterful Eat The Elephant (which I personally believe could very well qualify as Album of the Year, to be honest, along with Laurie Anderson's LANDFALL and Eno's Music For Installations). Except that Jonathan Davis cuts just as deep with his own idiosyncratic personal take on plumbing the depths of the darker side of the human condition. There may be no doubt that Maynard James Keenan takes the prize as the male diva of rock music, with his exquisite vocal enunciations and powerful set of pipes and superb lyrics; but for me, Jonathan comes across with more immediacy and ultimately, just more fun to listen to when I get right down to it. There's something a tad too measured, stately and grandiose about APC, while Jonathan's approach seems wilder and more unhinged and diverse. In the end, this all comes down to a matter of personal taste and aesthetics. I wouldn't dream of ranking the many artists I've become devoted to over the years, since I first discovered rock'n'roll by listening to Aerosmith's second album Get Your Wings, and being led up the plank by the hands of such classic bands as Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Rush, Yes, Jethro Tull, Black Sabbath, King Crimson, and then ushered deeper into the underground by David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Brian Eno, and finally after diving off the edge of sanity into the harsher realms of punk, industrial, death and black metal. There's just too much of a widespread variety of excellence across the board. <br /><br /> One lone figure remains standing amid all of these mentioned, howling in defiance his anthems of pain, loss, misery, hope, sex, and redemption. The lost and lonely prince of despair. The uncrowned king of desolation. The demon child grown up to become father figure and champion of the downtrodden and hopeless, my own personal hero and savior of rock'n'roll, Mr. Jonathan Davis, aka Saint Jon the Infernal. His debut solo album The Black Labyrinth has proven to be everything and more than I could possibly have hoped for. Strangely, considering he's been doing this for twenty-five years already, this solo debut marks the official arrival of a real legend in the realm of alternative music. He's always been a prodigious artist who's constantly writing new songs and developing musical ideas, make no mistake about it. As of six days ago (the official release date of The Black Labyrinth) it's been made crystal clear. Jonathan Davis really is here to stay.</span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://kornspace.blogspot.com/"><img border="0" data-original-height="1055" data-original-width="844" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfEy8ukF5UQHToesFD8f74kQyn26gTaZV8e0Dy6xblz3sn1vIk8U6q6hUw552rKpAmMWLb-eJdsHFRPLJfuxCuN7ljYI41IhotHAnQ5X3bMDJzgOHkH6XBIIPS54QuWM7CVOw7cAfzCvYF/w320-h400/korn_jonathandavis_credit_nickfancher.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div></div>shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7542406837969634393.post-7607546330119424412020-10-02T20:08:00.006-07:002020-10-02T20:08:47.740-07:00Energizing the Transition <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> It's been awhile since I've posted anything here, but a lot of vinyl has slipped into my grasp since then, it would be a rather strange overhaul, I must say, if I could get it together enough to convey the half of it to you. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Considering some of it takes shape in 7" form, there's opportunity there for further exploitation in my blog. I should only dream that I could comprehensively cover the variety of seven-inch singles and mini albums that I have crammed into my collection, mostly unused and unlistened to. It's a sad reality overlooking the seven-inchers, they're just not worth bothering for when you get right down to it. I mean, the people who really care just don't represent a significant enough portion of the remaining populace to make a difference, sounds like your presidential elections nowadays, don't it? Ok, nevermind I'm getting off track here.</span><br />
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Right now I'm listening to the Mario Bros. soundtrack blasting from the deep level my son has gained out there in the other room, it sounds like he's made it pretty far up the hierarchy of foes defeated and traps overcome. It's industrial clairvoyant bouncy digital beat rings in my ears to the point of becoming infectious. This is how possession takes place on a musical scale, with the lifeblood of the heart and soul coursing through it. A lot of great bands came and went. How would I know.<br />
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All I know is I'm mighty bummed to hear the news that my favorite post-rock band in town, 2-Headed Whale, has flapped its mighty flukes through the primordial depths no more. They were my favorite band to see live here in town during the last few years, and its not just because every set they delivered was different and devastating, it was because their live performances were transcendent electrocutions of a primeval soundscape the imagination filled in with feverish ease. At least I was there to witness what I consider to be Salt Lake City's offering to the post-rock scene. <br />
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Listening to them live always sent me into a hypnotic trance deep beneath the waves and somewhere toward the fathomless bottom of the ocean envisioning the lower order of a sunken kingdom thriving in secret synchronicity. An empire of coral forming a sunken cityscape beneath the waves. <br />
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I'm bummed they may never release their first album on vinyl, as they'd planned on doing. Maybe with some luck, that might still end up happening. Otherwise, 2HW was one of those legendary elusive bands that you just had to have witnessed live to understand. The first time I saw them was at a Crucialfest when they were in a lineup opening for Wovenhand, I think. Memories tend to blur in pre-pandemic times; afterward, they're steeped into legend. <br />
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Their set was mesmerizing so after its final tones diminished into the distance I went out back on to the smoke deck to introduce myself to them. Ned, his brother Chase, Angela, and Ian are just super approachable and extremely down to Earth people. They were always super cool and mingling with the crowd at all their shows. I'm very lucky I laid down the bucks for the T-shirt, one of only less than a half dozen made, I believe. It serves as a comfortable reminder that this scene really happened and wasn't just a conjured up fever dream in my demented imagination. <br />
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I don't think I can put into words what 2HW live shows mean to me. Notice I say mean. That's because the repercussions of those shows are all still slamming into me. The reverberations went that deep. They retired well over a year ago and I'm still listening to the echoes they instilled within my head. [Grayden's got a new project he's been working on as of late, called A Loving Hell, that I"m looking forward to.] <br />
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Listening to 2 Headed Whale live at Diabolical Records once I found myself feeling as if I were suddenly deep under the sea, on some strange ocean floor's terrain. Their music reached orchestral peaks of descending levels of dissonance that incurred strange and wondrous visions. Everyone in the place was rooted to their spots, entranced by the subdimensional power of Chase and Grayden with Ian and Angela's dedicated input. I stood rooted to the spot before their colossal pillar of sound. <br />
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I consider 2 Headed Whale to be one of those bands shining bright just as we slid into the turbulent waters of the pandemic. Mix that with politics and you have the recipe for class A world disasters brewing. I saw them perform many times and grew to cherish both the anticipation and deliverance of each one of their unique and devastating sets. In terms of post-rock, Two Headed Whale put Salt Lake City on the map, as far as I'm concerned. <div><br /></div><div> Long may our memories of hanging out in front of Diabolical Records waiting to see the fantastic array of local talent assemble for some truly phenomenal evenings of performance art rock unparalleled in our time continue to haunt our dreams and fuel the memories of all the live shows we used to see together. Energizing the transition between us and the next era we've locked with and sliding into. </div><div><br /></div><div> Eventually A Loving Hell will perform at the Metro and I will go wearing my 2HW shirt and my heart on my sleeve. Stay tuned to this blog for future reports to come on a chill crisp winter's eve. <br />
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<br /></div>shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7542406837969634393.post-56181555675084372372020-09-28T12:46:00.007-07:002020-09-28T12:55:37.834-07:00The Ship: A Song That You Can Walk Around Inside<p> If you didn't acquire or listen to Brian Eno's 25th studio album The Ship when it launched four years ago in late April of 2016, you missed out on an altogether extraordinary excursion with Capt. Eno at the helm. I did write a review of it caught in the midst of my first listen, which probably reads like the feverish diary entries of a madman trapped in a lighthouse. There would be good reason for that, considering this album takes you on a journey below the darkness of the subconscious and back into a fresh burst of light. </p><p><span style="font-family: courier;">Brian Eno | The Ship (First impressions) by Shaun Lawton </span></p><p><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As The Ship began streaming from my PC speakers the first thing I thought of was glass. A filament beneath fogged glass. A filament beneath fogged glass lighting up slowly. The light going from warm yellow toward white and then blending through the spectrum. The glass clarifies then liquefies then disappears altogether, leaving just the light to wallow in the vacuum. Pin pricks allow echoes to flower in the darkness. Deep below decks an engine switches on, muffled by steam engines behind sound proofed glass. The lights dance through the bricks of green glass slowly as more sounds come alive. A symphony wakes up from its coma to gradually stretch out and yawn. The Ship was sprung from a willing land. Echoes of gaseous vapors steam off the surface of a crystal sea. And there's a globe of powdered sand. We live in clothes we wore. Air bubbles elongate as they plummet and drown. The Time is still. The Sky is young. Drawn on towards the gulf of stars whispering. And we are as the undescribed. Reverberations coalesce into an uprising. A voice through a vibraphone speaks. Distant percussion keeps time. My desert in a grain of sand. My life within a day. So stew the storms that some tied. The black plague is sitting. But we are as the undefined. Reeking of the wind. Whispers begin emanating underneath the skin. Shimmering Cymbeline trapped beneath quiet ice. The sail is down the wind is gone. The sky is black with mold. A slave to hope and destiny. Illusion of control. And we are as the unrefined. The waves about us roll. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Spearheaded echos of crystal arrowheads repeatedly diminish triggering smaller fishes of their reflections. Awash in ambient protocols diffused in all directions. Sonar tones arise and sink. Submersibles arrive guided by phosphorescent headlamps. Deeper we go while more voices grow, probing our innermost thoughts. Penetrating the sunken canyons in our little dreadnoughts. The spotlights search left and right, revealing all the whispers in bone. The water is more like marrow here. Our thoughts are all we own. Memories ping and rebound off the inner rubber of our skulls. The pressure stretches these interlocking seams. Even deeper we fall further into fissures transformed to trenches. Microorganisms streaming by our windshield. The vibrations of our tectonic crust. Submerged under wave after wave after wave after wave. The last gossip gradually drowns in our skulls as the final light arrives to wink completely out</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">. </span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><i>It now sounds like I've been captured like a mayfly in a lighthouse. There's a fluctuating lozenge of light that narrows and winks out before flashing back brighter than before. Apparently I was already onboard the Ship and its since launched without my even suspecting it. I feel at the outset as if we've already traveled distances in terms of a fraction of a light year. As if gliding into another dimension crosswise through our solar system. As the clouds form into egg shapes before the dilated pupil of my eye another level of the submergence opens up to swallow us whole. Now I know we've traveled more strangely than I thought. Not backwards in time but laterally. Sending incandescent ripples reflecting intimate alternate opportunities wavering as if dreams offered up for selection. Everyone wakes up from the Ship, shedding its carapace. A single day focused upon through a milky grain of sand. But we are as the undefined breaking on the wheel. Eno's lower register singing conjures what almost sounds like a summoning. A slave to hopes of destiny. Illusion of control. And we are as the unrefined, the waves about us roll. The keel of the song's cutting through the fog now as we seem to keep full steam ahead toward an unimaginable shore. Wisps of steam blur by on the surface of the water as the ship's prow cleaves through calm still surface of the sea. </i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>|ed. </i>note end side A</span></p><p><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>|side B The echoing timpani of voices drowning in an evaporating sonic cloud greets us as we're brought closer in tune with the Ship's navigational circuitry hidden behind sleek embedded panels unnoticed by the eye. The Ship's computer has awakened as a surge of power reboots it to artificial consciousness. It speaks in foreign, reassuring tones to what I can only conjecture must be the passengers in some remote area of the fuselage. There's a sense of passing through distant depths, of bells calling up a memory of having once been lost at sea. This is when you wake up talking to yourself. The memory seems to be dematerializing with signal decay. There's a sense of stretching across the dimensions. A feeling of having been unmoored and set adrift on a celestial current on course to an unfathomable destination. The question of the replenishment of oxygen fades from the mind like a fleet of disappearing ghosts. Our inner narrator, pacified to the molecular level, drifts off as he reports the wave after wave after wave after wave of his dissipation into the wind. </i></span></p><p><br /></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://www.brian-eno.net/"><img img="" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bc/The_Ship_%28Front_Cover%29.png" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;">Side C "Fickle Sun" (i)</div></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;">This is a new excursion or memory of one but the listener gets the sense he is captured in the belly of the whale this time set sail on a heretofore unprovoked course. And the living's done. We toiled away in the fickle sun. And all the day the wire is spun. And so the dismal work is done. This song reaches cascading depths of glorious sensurround turning into a drone guitar drifting off into the distance while a marvelous spiraling doom bass effect swirles around the speakers until it morphs into a flowering brass symphony of enveloping tones evoking a stentorian fulfillment of some dubious prospect or other. In the gently flowering aftermath of this destructive storm, all the boys are turned around, all the boys are falling down, fallen to ashes in the ground. Listening to this I can see how easy it would be to take it seriously. It seems to me that Eno is piloting us on the journey of life until death. In any case it doesn't matter--each listener may take away their own reflective experience from the music--there's a world of subharmonic sound effects filtered into this epic recording to make it a veritable microverse of detail by contrast to my pale remarks. Let me assure you all that this album charts new frontiers in terms of the conceptual space albums are ordinarily allowed to explore. Eno's taken the vision that's been evolving since pioneering ambient music and really directed a sophisticated example of audio cinema verite with The Ship, which by comparison to its visual counterparts evokes the clinical lensing and the shadow drenched noir cinema of my favorite movie directors yet in a thrill-a-second performance that keeps listeners on the cusp of their ears. </p><p style="text-align: left;"> Side D "Fickle Sun" (ii) and (iii)</p><p style="text-align: left;">A reassuring male reporter capitulates on the events undergone, presumably, on the aforementioned Ship's odyssey, almost providing an epigraph for a fallen soldier in the aftermath of a war. Set to a languid yet hopeful piano theme. His final concluding words, "The universe is required. Please notify the Sun," segues directly into the Velvet Underground's I'm Set Free. A sudden wonderful cover song from out of nowhere as if we made it alive off the deck of the Ship's maiden voyage. Set free to find a new illusion. And here we have the reflective nature of Eno's tilt to the mirror he's provided, this periscope of a sonic terrain mapping out a virtually impossible journey across time in a shimmering homage to living the life of a dream chased after and found. There's a strange closure achieved in this simple cover, when he croons "let me tell you people what I have found. I saw my head laughing, rolling on the ground, and now I'm set free. I'm set free to find a new illusion." Really a refreshing finale to what has proven to be, upon repeated listenings over the last four years, a truly remarkable and unsettling visionary acoustical work that I'd almost venture to dub post-ambient because, why not? When the man who began the movement remains to continue mapping out the vectors it has previously pushed, watch out! There's a world of flesh, blood, and backbone not to mention a nerve net from whence that has evolved, which is my way of suggesting that Eno's work remains the real deal, the genuine article, and listening to this album is really a trip. It's getting me thinking "what other albums were conceived in order to transport the devoted listener on a journey?" so if anything comes up, maybe a compilation of said albums might appear in a future article here on the crossover vinyl site hidden among the leaves somewhere in the <a href="http://testscan.blogspot.com/">Blogdom of Thorns</a>. </p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="364" data-original-width="485" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_6TBH3DpnB38PAwQb5pjU48n5jwuO0eWwkP164vq91lRJOgKBy260WmFEOsNqRpLII3Zwy_Pjx622qksf1eoxp7SIbrwo1BvCvwHcxC8nan762AfSP9IpAD2Io9haphZMZVFre4lEWHgC/w400-h300/369118659d20e3893c5905e186dce2c0f89dfcc7548b54ed9871a905_485.jpg" width="400" /></div><br /><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p> </p></div>shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7542406837969634393.post-238279775015992282020-08-22T19:09:00.006-07:002020-08-22T19:28:12.209-07:00Rock'n'Roll will never die but you will <p> <span style="font-family: georgia;"><span data-offset-key="1a7lf-0-0" face="" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span data-text="true">What does rock'n'roll mean to me. There's no question so I won't leave a mark. It's a pressure valve built into our chimney wall around the personal fortress we each call our home. It was built brick by brick in the land of the free. That means more to me than I can convey in words, but I'll give it a try. In a world where we refrain from snap judgments, and consider every fellow American innocent until proven guilty, we are in possession of the inalienable right to express ourselves in whatever manner we see fit. Listening to music never hurt anyone. Neither did going to the movies or reading the most horrifying novels that ever the hand of man dipped their quill tips in blood to write. Rock'n'roll offers the freedom of escape. We can listen to anything and not be judged for it one way or the other. If I can listen to a song by Johnny Cash singing about how he killed a man in Reno just to watch him die, I can listen to anything under this wide open blue sky. And I'll tell you what. It's not my problem if I choose to listen to heavy metal be it in shades of black or death. It's your problem if you dare to judge me for drawing my own breath. Somehow as a society we have been drawn too far up some strange and deranged hypodermic plunger and held up to a florescent light and X-rayed and diagrammed until our minds bodies and souls have been dissected and laid out on an operating table where the masses sit and leer over every little bit as if its some sort of last supper for vampires gloating over any little aspect of our personality they can misconstrue and project all over their little isolated closed circuit circle jerks. Then the internet magnifies these bits and bytes into stupid memes and spreads them all over the land for gullible idiots to read and laugh out loud over while clicking their mouse behind the safety of their personal desktop screens. Meanwhile eroding the very fabric of our freedom, the very fundamental thing that made us proud to be Americans in the first place. This country created rock'n'roll music. It came from the back alleys and clubs in New Orleans and all across the south from soulful American bluesmen like Papa Charlie Jackson and ragtime singers from the 20s ranging from the likes of Blind Blake through jazz tenor sax players like Wild Bill Moore and a motley assortment of wild musicians like Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, until it became solidified and popularized by the likes of Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley and continued to blossom and evolve through the collective efforts of T-Bone Walker and B.B. King, Bill Haley, Count Basie, Hank Williams, Fats Domino, Howlin' Wolf, Buddy Holly and I could go on and on but my point remains. Rock'n'roll flows through my veins and mind, body and soul as a fusion of poetry and music with a driving backbeat. The pounding drums, the chuggy guitar riffs, the snarling leads, the wailing vocals and the insane words dripping with irony and blood and sorrow and loss and torment and truth and beauty and hope, that's rock'n'roll and ain't no one going to take it away from me and there's nobody who's going to stand on their holy clapboard soapbox accusing me of being "blasphemous" or "offensive" just because some of the music I listen to may contain some foul language or violent and ugly lyrics. That's pure poetry to me and I live in the USA, the land of the free, where rock'n'roll was born and here to stay with me. I don't know what else to say except don't judge me for listening to what I like. I don't go around pointing my fingers at anyone who chooses to listen to their own dripping gospel of whatever the hell it is they wanna fill their own heads with. I'm a die hard rocker ever since I was twelve years old and acquired my first record album, "Get Your Wings" by Aerosmith. I leveled up five years later at the tender age of seventeen when I went to my first concert in Little Rock, Arkansas with my best friend Greg </span></span><span class="_247o" data-offset-key="1a7lf-1-0" face="" style="background-color: #dce6f8; color: #1d2129; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span data-offset-key="1a7lf-1-0"><span data-text="true">Grub</span></span></span><span data-offset-key="1a7lf-2-0" face="" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span data-text="true"> at Barton Coliseum where I witnessed the awesome spectacle that was RUSH on the second leg of their Moving Pictures tour. I've seen them seventeen times since that day etched in my memory forever. Fast forward through the blurred years and I can promise you I've been to so many underground shows in the extreme metal scene it's not even funny. I treasure those memories and all the friends in the scene because they were free with me to be ourselves and get wasted listening to the craziest music you could ever imagine. From going to Embrace The Hate at the Black Castle in Watts right on through the Salt Lake City underground where everyone from the Supersuckers to the Melvins and Hank III and the Pagan Dead and the Obliterate Plague and touring acts from Arsis to Zombi have passed through, I don't discriminate when it comes to our freedom of expression in all its multifaceted forms. Music remains our sacred common ground and no one has the right to limit or cut off its expression just because it's too dark or extreme or contains foul language or concerns itself with sickness, depravity, violence, or whatever else the singer may conjure up in their twisted dream of fronting a band. Rock'n'roll is straight up literature to me, it's poetry and lyrical evocation at its most direct and primal and therefore falls under the category of remaining a completely uncensored experience exactly like the best fiction. It took me uprooting my east coast life and moving out west to Salt Lake City for me to figure out that counter cultural scenes spring up as a reaction to the stifling conditions imposed by organized religion. Rock'n'roll was born in this country bit by bit as a steady back lash against the puritanical conditions which seeded this nation, I'm convinced of that now. All it took was living and breathing in the extreme underground blackmetal scene here in Utah, a direct consequence of the oppressive religion of the Latter Day Saints. Now back up a little and see the bigger picture. Rock'n'roll is pure unbridled rebellion against the oppressive aspects of a hypocritical Christianity that would rather unbuckle its bible belt and beat down a battered house wife than turn a cheek and offer compassion and measured justice. Rock'n'roll is here to let out some steam and provide catharsis for a disenfranchised youth who are just trying to live the dream. Rock'n'roll for me is the writing on The Wall scrawled in the spattered penmanship of Gerald Scarfe transcribing the immortal words of Roger Waters. Rock'n'roll to me is the Supersuckers rocking the joint with Eddie Spaghetti leaning into his microphone crooning songs about love loss drunken despair and drug fueled orgies. Rock'n'roll is Alex Story singing love songs you can dance to amid the carnage raining down from above and flooding our streets in blood. Rock'n'roll is Jonathan Davis screaming about hopelessness and loss under a scourge of violent bullying and sexual abuse and channeling this rage through painful, personal lyrics that speak directly to a legion of abused kids that can bang their heads to exorcise their personal demons away. Rock'n'roll is the true heartbeat of this land from sea to shining sea and I'll be goddamned if it isn't here to stay. Rock and roll is our God given right as Americans to listen to as loud and fucked up as we want it to be. Rock and roll is the bastard son of the Declaration of Independence and its dna was written from the same document the Constitution was. Blues rock and punk music was born in the back woods bijous of the United States of America and has since infected the world over with a mighty resonance from a thousand bands from every country. It has morphed into the screaming beast of furious metal maniacs across the globe and united we stand in defiance of every last one of you who would dare judge us for listening to music that's loud and crass and full of defiance and anger and love and passion and terror. How dare any single one of you standing behind your sacred straw podiums level your criticism at any single one of us for rocking out to whatever noise or mayhem we want to. There's simply no question about it rock and roll is a beast that can mutate into any shape it wants and there ain't a damn thing any one of you be it parent cop schoolteacher or priest can do about it so why don't you just take a deep breath and empty yourselves of your fear and judgment and if you can't put on a record album your own damn selves and turn it up and dance to it then the very least you can do is open your hearts and let it go because listening to rock and roll never hurt anyone. This has been a public service announcement off the top of my head in honor of all my rock'n'roll heroes. You can all go listen to any kind of swill just remember rock'n'roll will never die but you will. \m/</span></span></span></p><p><span data-offset-key="1a7lf-2-0" face="" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span data-text="true" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span data-offset-key="1a7lf-2-0" face="" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/e-_UwPVBuVQ" width="320" youtube-src-id="e-_UwPVBuVQ"></iframe></div><span data-text="true" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><p></p>shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7542406837969634393.post-31225446039072820682020-04-23T13:23:00.001-07:002020-04-23T19:44:11.219-07:00The Revenge of X ~ ALPHABETLAND<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Yesterday on Earth Day 2020 during this "Year of Perfect Vision" (thanks, Covid-19) X made their world-rattling announcement that their first full length studio album in thirty-five years ~ ALPHABETLAND ~ just dropped! WUMP, like a dirty nuke smack dab right into the midst of our awkward social isolation--BOOM--New <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><i>X!</i></b></span><br />
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Well I immediately ordered the damn lime green limited edition (to 500 copies) vinyl from <a href="https://xtheband.bandcamp.com/album/alphabetland">Bandcamp</a>. I just checked today and yes--they are gone--just like that. Doesn't surprise me none--we are talking about the world's most famous LA punk band, after all. And for damn good reason, to boot. Incidentally, the real die-hard edition was in yellow and limited to 200 pressings and included an ALPHABETLAND patch. Grrrr. The next die-hard was in red and limited to 300 pressings and also included the patch. Arrrgh. The green edition is the third die-hard, limited to 500 and yeah, I'm pretty happy I got this one, at least. It would be cool if it included a patch, but tbh my jacket's about full up. I'm pretty pleased as a fan going back <i>thirty eight years</i> that all one thousand of these die hard pressings were sold in less than 24 hours. What a comeback. Of course I listened to the opening title track ~ ALPHABETLAND ~ right off the bat, as it was the song available streaming for free to sample, and as anyone with any chump change left between their goddamn ears already knows, it's a straight-up killer rendering of the classic X-sound right in yer face. Damn it's good to be alive right at this particular moment in time.<br />
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Today in my email I noted that the members of X have asked everyone who bought their album, "<i>Okay - favorite song on ALPHABETLAND? Go!</i>" so I have to note, this is precisely the moment in history that I finally decided to download the fucking Bandcamp app. I discovered its not designed to be dl'd to most computers [apparently only a Chromebook is suited for that] so I sighed and dl'd it to my iPhone X. That's ironic. And now I've listened to the first three tracks and I can say they are "all good"--but thus far, the title track stands tall as my favorite--so we'll see if there's another track on this beast of a record that manages to outshine it.<br />
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Track 1. Alphabetland. Right away you know this is the direct follow-up to MORE FUN IN THE NEW WORLD. And it's a grand thing to feel the muscles in my face morph into a big smile. This song just has such a fun, catchy riff that you can't help but bop your head along to it. Just as it should be. You can tell upon the first listen that it's a song you couldn't possibly get tired of listening to over and over. It bodes well for the rest of the album and quite obviously serves as the perfect opener.<br />
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Track 2. Free. <i>My words are fire. My fist is raised. </i>This is a straightforward X song, great riffs and solos from Billy Zoom, and while perhaps not destined to be the hottest track off this record, it delivers in the good old fashioned X manner that I don't think a lot of us thought we'd ever hear again. It definitely hits a mark and builds anticipation for the rest of the album to come.<br />
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Track 3. Water & Wine. Great little drum intro from DJ Bonebrake kicks off this perkier song, yeah things pick up immediately in the first thirty seconds, we are back 100% on track with a straightforward rockabilly tinged high energy stomper. <i>There's a heaven and there's a never, there's no tomorrow, only forever! </i>Billy Zoom does not disappoint on this album, in fact I think it's safe to say that all four original members finding themselves reunited at last are feeling the white hot fire in their veins again. <i>Who has to wait at the end of the line?</i> <i>Who gets water and who gets wine? </i>If the music's this good I don't care which ends up being mine, cuz listening to this album makes me feel just fine.<br />
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Track 4. Strange Life begins. Well John & Exene sound great, their harmonies intact, their lyrics biting. Billy Zoom (perhaps the coolest cat to play guitar & sax in the history of rock) has not lost his edge in delivering mean-as-a-rattlesnake riffs, and the legendary D.J. Bonebrake keeps the skins taut and snappin', as ever. A damn strange life indeed, it's turned out to be.<br />
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Track 5. I Gotta Fever. Head boppin' right off the bat, I'm already listening to the album we all wished we'd gotten back in '87; i.e, the perfect follow up to their '83 pop punk masterpiece MORE FUN IN THE NEW WORLD. I can already tell that ALPHABETLAND is the sequel to that most fun and rollickin' of all their albums. (Bear with me, here, please. My personal favorites have always been WILD GIFT and UNDER THE BIG BLACK SUN, and that hasn't changed.) With ALPHABETLAND, we're having EVEN MORE FUN IN THE GODDAMN NEW WORLD, m'k? Okay.
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Track 6. Delta 88 Nightmare. Okay so this one I already heard of course, since I have the preliminary 7" on vinyl (ordered it from bandcamp back when it was first released, late last year). Let me just say this song rocks hardest of all the songs thus far. So if that's how you gauge your favorite--this song definitely outstrips the title track. For me, I sorta like to balance all aspects of music, so this song pulls right up alongside Alphabetland and gives it the middle finger behind dark sunglasses, smiling.<br />
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Track 7. Star Chambered. Holy Moses I can already tell there will not be a bad song on this entire album, that much is obvious already. <i>Then I just had to go!</i> Exene's emoting and vocals are as strong as ever, if anything even more mature and resonant now than before. <i>Where did I put my wings, I could never find those things, now I'm runnin', runnin' late, I might be stuck here at my gate, though you might be dearly departed, dearly departed, I'm just gettin' started.</i> Hot damn them is some fine ass lyrics. This song just leapt up to #2, threatening to pull over onto the shoulder and spit gravel and dust into the faces of those other two songs. Hell yes.<br />
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Track 8. Angel on the Road. I love all these song titles. This one immediately reminds me of Angel Grub. (Thinking of you as I listen to this album!) Another rockin' track, full tilt ahead. <i>I wish I was somewhere else. Somewhere I don't even know. I wish I was somewhere else. Making angels in the sno-oh-oh-oh! </i> *enter Billy Zoom solo* This is great. I should've known they had this in 'em! It's not like I ever lost faith in my generation or the generations before me. I've got the old school ethic raging in my veins, I still respect my elders. Hell, the more elderly, the more respect, straight up. It's about time some old dyed-in-the-wool punk rock royalty stepped up and showed all these kids how its done. Anyone who ever said "rock'n'roll is dead" gave up the ghost long ago. *spits*<br />
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Track 9. Cyrano deBerger's Back. Okay so this was the b-side to the Delta 88 Nightmare 7", so I heard it last Fall and thought it was a solid track. Now hearing it again I'm struck by Billy Zoom's playful sax and the track's hopped up reggae sounding riffs, this could almost qualify as X playing Ska. Eminently dance worthy. <i>I got ten arms for you under the balcony in blue. </i>Another great track.<br />
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Track 10. Goodbye Year, Goodbye. <i>Please don't make us cry</i>. How X managed to reunite and put this rockin' new album together will be discussed for years to come. <i>I could go on and on and on and on. </i>John Doe's singing is in tippy top shape here, as it is throughout the whole record. I can barely believe my ears--that this is actually happening!<br />
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Track 11. All The Time In The World. <i>Hearts are breaking for hearts that are broken, so eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. Or maybe next Tuesday for those of us without a battle flag to fly. </i>The perfect album closer, with its honky tonk piano as backbone, and Exene reciting her post-beat poetry along to it, oh yeah. *fingersnaps* <i>We are dust, it's true. And to dust we shall return, me and you. But it was fun while it lasted. All the time in the world turns out not to be that much. </i>As the final, bittersweet notes fade away, I'm left with a feeling in my heart like the still glowing hot embers after a long night's raging bonfire party has died down. A feeling of solidarity envelops me, as if I'm left standing with the few die hards who didn't pass out or leave the party too early. Feels like the sun's about to rise and another dawn could just carry us all along into a bright new day.<br />
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What an album! This one's a no brainer. <i style="font-weight: bold;">X</i> done knocked their seventh official album out of the damn park! (With all due respect to the guitarist who replaced Billy on their '93 album "hey Zeus!," it seems even the band themselves aren't counting it, to which I've no choice but to bow with whatever elegance remains in these bones, and a tip of the hat.) How about that. There ain't no more room for doubt. <i style="font-weight: bold;">X</i> is back...with a vengeance!<br />
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shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7542406837969634393.post-12146137021684916602019-09-03T08:56:00.000-07:002020-04-23T19:48:27.764-07:00We Will Run <br />
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Walk down these dirty streets and they all look the fuckin' same.<br />
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So we will run to the end of this world (holding hands)<br />
We will rise above death (to see life for what it is)<br />
All the lunatics are in control of the asylum<br />
STFU we'll walk right by them they're the ones who never gave a damn<br />
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<span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Everytime I look in your eyes</span><br />
<span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I see sad reflections of the dreams that you hide</span><br />
<span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">You keep them guarded from a world they can't live in</span><br />
<span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">And if I'm lost, maybe you will get lost too</span><br />
<span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">And then we'll be lost together until we find some place new</span><br />
<span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">We'll build a world in our own image</span><br />
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<span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">Burn out my eyes</span></div>
<span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">I don't want to see</span><br />
<span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">The things that you have, are not what I need</span><br />
<span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">Burn a candle for me</span><br />
<span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">My hope, my disease consumes your greed</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">Die, death waits over me</span></div>
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<span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">Takes my every need</span></div>
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<span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">My everything, you can take away</span></div>
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<span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">You can't handle me</span></div>
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<span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">You can't penetrate</span></div>
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<span jsname="YS01Ge" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "roboto" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: left;">Shot through your greed</span></div>
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<br />shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7542406837969634393.post-83844527628304574602019-08-30T23:59:00.000-07:002019-09-03T08:52:48.050-07:00Descending Again Under The Waves Of Incantation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<img border="0" data-original-height="653" data-original-width="980" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnadQvkeN88jAMiV048HvKXf3sAn3CfFv4jXqn6m-55_cpLM1G5EIUSSFrmMCP0V8f-ZaAzsYqDmXMGJkWAFEyIm9GBmTgtfp0J_q7DQYCknQ0AvnBbe1ytrUa0gqBf5qZvAqBw2czvcHQ/s640/Tool-Fear-Inoculum-Instagram-Photo.png" width="640" /></div>
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After hearing the album for the first time, I felt like I had just undergone a death trance. That is, I didn't move while plastered to the couch throughout the entire running length. After it was over and I let it all soak in, I decided to just listen to the song Descending again. That's what's playing right now while I type this next iteration sinking into the undertow of Tool's seventh album, Fear Inoculum.<br />
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Sound the dread Alarm through our primal body. While Tool sculpt a sonic terrain that's more or less a fusion between their iconic studio debut Undertow and 2001's forward thinking Lateralus, it leaves me pondering. That more or less places Aenima and 10,000 Days in their own strange little territories. In certain ways all their albums stylistically blend into one another. If, at over the nine minute mark in the song Descending, you aren't wallowing in the groovy synth tones and iterational guitar and drum jamming, then I don't know what to say, except apparently this sort of thing isn't for you. Well then. Away do go.<br />
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Room for me leave, please. Adam is crushing it on this album, stitching and weaving together, with his percussive and painterly band mates Danny and Justin, a sonic terrain that recalls and reflects upon where they've all been as a band and where they're still exploring forward full tilt. WTF was that chocolate chip trip? It's a spelled out hex played out on sticks, is what it is. And 7empest is a flat out tip of the hat to those Undertow fans among us, giving Justin the opportunity to deliver his homage to Paul and the Sylvia Massy production style they emerged onto the scene with, sort of blended with the pyrotechnical mathematical fusion of Lateralus.<br />
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That first sound we hear on the album, the weird struck tone like a shrinking reflected puddle in a piece of metal diminishing, its watery shimmery echo evokes a certain expectation in the listener. We are about to embark on quite a sonic journey. Immunity, long overdue. Contagion, I exhale you. These are more than simple, powerful lyrics. They are part and parcel of the incantatory ritual this album dovetails into with immaculate grace. Inoculated, bless this immunity. Inculcated, the allegorical elegy gets woven. I think it bespeaks of an individual's journey progressing along our evolutionary pathway. The seventh iteration of the developing spiral begins flowering into the octagonal. Hence Alex Grey's arachnohominid skeleton depicted on the front and back covers of the CD booklet. I take it more as a symbol of humanity's movement. The blurring produces the extra arms, after Shiva and other mythological chimeras. I figure this may be attributable to the composite totality of humanity. Individuals overlaid in tandem produce the octohedral capacity for induction.<br />
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The song Pneuma gets right to the vital spirit and creative force of the album. Remember. We are born of one breath, one word. We are all one spark, Sun becoming. Wake up now, child. And rock.<br />
Bound to this flesh, this guise, this mask, this dream, wake up, remember, we are born of one breath, one word, we are all one spark, Sun becoming. At the six and a half minute mark, the song decays into instrumentality, widening open the spaces in between the sounds to reveal a seething vacuum of interplaying harmonics fusing into an underlying rhythm the tablas and bass and synthesizer begin tracing out, and we're off once again on a deeper iteration of the theme, sinking even farther into the undercurrent yet, until we realize this is a much deeper river than we'd anticipated. We're swimming easy now in dark open waters beneath our oceanic mind. Down here at these depths anything may arise, lurking from the dark. Danny's cymbal crashes strengthened by Adam's suddenly picking up the slack with some crunchy guitar riffage having naturally emerged from the dynamics again, Pneuma. Eyes full of wonder. The motifs resolve themselves in crashing grandeur. The players give each other plenty of time to fill in their respective blanks.<br />
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Each song on this album gives the listener plenty of time for devotion. The opening guitar strumming of Invincible displays some of Adam's most intricate and best sounding playing yet. He's taking his time focusing on crafting these intricate stenciled out guitar signatures. Long in tooth and soul, longing for another wind, it seems as if the fates have granted this request. Warrior struggling to remain consequential. If these words don't mean anything to you they are not supposed to. But here I am. Beating chest and drums. Beating tired bones again. Age old battle, mine. Weapon out and belly in. Tales told of battles won, of things we've done. Caligula would grin. Well doesn't that just say it all, my lost Grub brother(s). Beating tired bones, tripping through remember when. Once invincible, now the armor's wearing thin. Heavy shield down. Some songs were just written that speak directly to your experience. It just so happens this entire band's lyrical legacy echoes my own autobiography, more or less. I can't help this coincidence, but I happen to suspect it's universal. Otherwise, why would I take it so personal? At least to my ears, the devoted gents in this band have not let me down. That's all that really matters when you get right down to it. And if we all get right down to it, then who am I to object? We're all invited to join this party. Come drink from this water for its depths are infinite. At the seven minute and fifty-two second mark, the song descends into spacey instrumentalism and finally begins, and then Maynard returns with a phantom tinged echo to his vocals as he sings about feeling the sting of time bearing down. It's not really a young man's thing, I suppose. These are the cadences of older, weathered warriors. Its the battle march of the more worn tribes who won't put their weapons down, not because they're on the verge of attack but because those swords are fused to their hands by now. So they wield them sonically in a tapestry of vengeful lamentation and determination to make it to the finish line.<br />
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And make it there they do, the wavering finish line turns out to be the undulating and gently curved water's edge of the incoming surf from the sea. The sound of the waves crashing in on the sand accompanies our descending under the waves with this band once again. If we're willing to wear the necessary aquanaut's gear in a face sealed mask and breathe pure oxygen through a tube for an extended period of time, we're welcome along for this exploratory ride. This madness of our own making. These odes we are taking to the quick are ours to receive if we're open to them. Drifting through this boundlessness. Sometime in the middle of my second listen I was inoculated. Maybe it's because I'm wearing headphones. Maybe it's because I'm actually listening to the music. Paying attention until the end of each track. I've found that for every second captured in this recording, it's necessary to provide an equal duration of time paying attention to it. In this way the rewards are merited.<br />
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Jonesy really lets it all out, that solo in Descending is outstanding. They deliver a torrential outpouring of emotional content with this album. Every track nimbly covers the elemental time signatures and syncopation evoking the spirit channeled by the band since the beginning. I suppose if this gets old for you then you really never liked it that much in the first place. Because what I'm listening to right now is the glorious sound of what each and every one of us devoted to the band years ago want to hear right about now. I don't know about you I'm only speaking for myself here. This is my review. Thorny's a happy camper with these elegies blowing through his ears.<br />
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Hallelujah, the day has arrived. August 30 during the Year of the Replicant has vaccinated us all against the falsely perpetuated virus of fear proliferating across the internet and social utility networks like Facebook and Twitter and infecting a staggering percentage of the populace. Listening to this album melts away all of that to reveal the reality of our own personal struggle with freedom. The more I listen the wider my eyes open in wonder at what I'm hearing, here and now at this particular juncture of the unfolding universe. I am alive and breathing in this space and time. I won't have my voice culled by the disembodied machine. I won't be added to the hitlist of your false accusations based on your fuzzy psychopathic misperceptions. In the court of public opinion we are already condemned. Fight back tooth and nail and link arm in arm with friend. Otherwise we'll all be drowned in the end. Under the growing surging tide of blank mirrored faces lined up with more and more accusations. We are all innocent while nothing remains proven. Better pack your bags and get movin'. Keep up with the rhythm of the flow. It's in every beat and pulse in this undertow. It's part of what this album's all about. Now hear me from my desktop as I shout.<br />
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I'm surprised how much time the band took to craft this masterpiece. I don't mean to suggest I'm astonished at the length of the interval. Rather, I'm impressed that they actually worked at it long enough to yield such exquisite results in every way conceivable. I'm not a Christ posing acolyte mindlessly worshiping at the stained window altar of Tool, mind you. I'm just a rocker who digs a good tune. I'm just a poet who howls at the moon. I love heavy music and ambient too. What the fuck else do you expect me to do. Go listen to your noise, boys. Don't you dare point that shit at me. This music is not for you. It's something personal I like to do. Sounds like I'll be privately jamming to this album for a mighty long time. The tickets for the tour in support of this album were just announced but they better not have gone on sale. I'm going to have to acquire one for myself. The lads are back on the aural attack at last. Those tix are going to sell fast. I heard they go on sale September sixth. Meanwhile plenty of ads are scalping them now, it seems. If I score this ticket it'll be the eleventh time of my dreams seeing Tool live. The last time I think was w/Isis in 2005.<br />
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The extended drum solo jamathon that is Chocolate Chip Trip is simply a gift from Danny to his legion of fans. Nevermind the teeming sea of people who are mainly into the band. There are so many angles and perspectives and reasons to soak up or otherwise immerse yourself into this music. The seventh and final track, 7empest, becomes the apotheosis of what the band represents. Not a bad way to spend seventy-nine minutes. Maynard sounds great. They're all in tip-top shape. By far ten stars. Now get back to your plugged-in, programmed life. May your existence remain without strife. And may your signal get enough bars. And listen to Gary Numan's Cars.<br />
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<br />shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7542406837969634393.post-17043802313407015972019-08-07T22:01:00.001-07:002019-08-07T22:02:05.488-07:00the silent ash tip dropscan't even summon the words<br />
so i put on <a href="https://bonnieprincebilly.bandcamp.com/album/bpb-mix-tape-volume-1">BPB mix tape volume 1</a><br />
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<a href="https://bonnieprincebilly.bandcamp.com/album/bpb-mix-tape-volume-1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1199" data-original-width="1200" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5NPwHqk2s1ICaWrd8oVGeaUjrpi0vay6pg9rnWbr83MkB6pCkCIsS9I1agxEpkKjxeyp6W3Us72qWULQAsY-yz4nXvfMJwDrgnCGFQRNdIZ4pv4FtbpwDLWq40CEnH1FyhloJhLZSMYqe/s200/a2384597597_10.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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Now it's doing a trick </div>
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push PLAY and just drift<br />
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Gimme yr goddamn Wild berry Lifesaver Gummies<br />
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This is a great collexion of songs<br />
put tugether by the master and<br />
everyone himself<br />
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On to the next <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjabbHjAiq1TDZu_OdsQ7y4pF8_pv8ilgEuuxnIuf5zwjupDq79M-4bWfKCXdSBgwVKfVBf3kxtU48x2hkgj5gqDBbtKFqgifS6pgKPYnVWrBhP1V0wikvgYlmF_0ZU8h_vNpOrnwCYv3_e/s1600/artworks-000394768557-oxpav2-t500x500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjabbHjAiq1TDZu_OdsQ7y4pF8_pv8ilgEuuxnIuf5zwjupDq79M-4bWfKCXdSBgwVKfVBf3kxtU48x2hkgj5gqDBbtKFqgifS6pgKPYnVWrBhP1V0wikvgYlmF_0ZU8h_vNpOrnwCYv3_e/s200/artworks-000394768557-oxpav2-t500x500.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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John Shirley sent me his latest album with the Screaming Geezers .<br />
It's really top-notch rock'n'roll, fully driven and furious, I'm stunned.<br />
1st track Cell Phone Zombies is great, the whole album just delivers<br />
one killer track after another, there's newer stuff like Ten Strippers at<br />
My Funeral, but the band also covers older material like Johnny Paranoid<br />
and Our Love is Like a Death Camp. There's a gritty version of<br />
Mountain of Skullz, a rousing rendition of Alice Cooper's Under My Wheels,<br />
and a new song that really got to me, Crushed Under a Cross.<br />
This is relentless, punk fury as if the Stooges were being led by<br />
well you guessed it--the man himself--John Shirley.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8DyHRq7d8vGNTPQHfgf7xno40cu-G7lbvl5rbJCMRLNCOAvTZ3cMiOYmUyYxHfRrMloX8fz6J7R5NHd3jW-q9KCd03PCYm9sxTf2jAQKzXcxR_-NwCZhJT51FC4UwYEhMAOpGva7q4tPL/s1600/bluebeard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8DyHRq7d8vGNTPQHfgf7xno40cu-G7lbvl5rbJCMRLNCOAvTZ3cMiOYmUyYxHfRrMloX8fz6J7R5NHd3jW-q9KCd03PCYm9sxTf2jAQKzXcxR_-NwCZhJT51FC4UwYEhMAOpGva7q4tPL/s200/bluebeard.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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Check out the song <a href="https://soundcloud.com/john-shirley-12/strichnyne">Strychnine right here on SoundCloud.</a><br />
While you there just keep listening to all the John Shirley songs.<br />
Far as I'm concerned he's one of my favorite rockers ever.<br />
I mean all you gotta do is listen to him covering TV Eye.<br />
And him and his band's scorching cover of White Light.<br />
Yeah, he's more than Iggy, Lou, and Alice rolled into one.<br />
He's the Dark Duke of the Underground's #1 Son.<br />
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And Dax Riggs is the prince, of course. <br />
I wish he'd release another album.<br />
It's been nine years since he said<br />
goodnight to the world...oh<br />
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<br />shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7542406837969634393.post-70030327630827068842019-07-04T15:36:00.000-07:002019-07-04T15:36:00.675-07:00Happy Day of Autonomy <i> </i><br />
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<i><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCQ4hzeCjZesHh4RMTYPWDrUHzwrH6fRam10IyuFj_Zw7lvWgI2ncrwZniWUulP_bHj6fruJaXC37UaJwbh3r1PzeXhT8pI4FFpb4HAlHRSHazSTSZoQvtgDJ6mj_NtSoUAfGTMiIdYCOM/s640/images.jpg" width="640" /></i></div>
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<i>The owls have been talkin' to me. But I'm sworn to secrecy. I woke up in a burned out basement. </i><br />
<i>Sleepin' with metal hands in a spirit ditch. </i>It's the fourth of July in the Year of the Replicant. I've been listening to raw punk demos from Age of Desire along with my 1950s Punk & Rockabilly 4-disc set Rockin' Bones from Rhino. A ton of killer rockin' tunes from this fresh era of repressed individuals reacting the best way they know how to, by rocking in sheer defiance of their straitlaced times. Ronnie Dawson, Billy Eldridge, Gene Vincent, Larry Dowd, Sonny Fisher, Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, Jesse James, Gene Summers, Johnny Burnette, Peanuts Wilson, Kip Tyler, Tom Tall, Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly, Wanda Jackson, John & Jackie, the list goes on and on.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My friend Vinnie back east has this killer underground band going by AD (for Age of Desire) in the cryptic realm of script, where we meet more than halfway here when you come to think about it enough. He sent me three demos they'd just recorded and they sound great, just straight up jamming on the spot no hold barred like it ought to be. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Same thing could be said for Old Fezziwig, another underground staple in Philly and its splatterpunked surrounds. Right now I'm kicking it to Sparklehorse's debut album <i style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333;">Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot. </i><span style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333;">Hammering the cramps, oh yeah. Great music for a self reflective suicide tinged 4th of July. You are the most beautiful widow in town. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>As the sun burned down the west, there's one thing we still got, there's one last dance in this parking lot, oh yeah I gotta heart of darkness. When she woke up in to a fire and the flames kept dancin' higher, Satan would laugh at his screams, then she woke up from her dreams, oh yeah I, I got a heart of darkness. </i>~ Mark Linkous RIP </span></div>
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Songs like Someday I Will Treat You Good are just a joyful liberation for me. Really brings me back to a long lost era when me and my best friend would listen to glittering jangle rock together out under the stars at midnight, except Sparklehorse fills in a gap that was never present back then and there but is sure as hell ever widening here and now.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Keep dreaming on as we all unwind along this road together. Forget about what we're going to do someday and just do it now. No dream we can imagine lies beyond the reach of our finger tips. That's just the nature of the whole beast, the entire trip and caboodle. We're all caught up in an evolving paradigm shifting from one interlaced combination of elements to the next. We've been here the whole time now we're just waiting for the next refrain to rhyme. When it jumps off course we tend to ignore we were listening to a song and get it wrong. All these twisted circumstances are just the rollicking sound track to our lives. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Take the very stars out there beyond the sky for example. They're analogous to the shadow of an extension of an idea, the idea being ourselves, of course. We can't normally see it that way of course because our natural born inclination toward split mind objectification gets in the way from our hearing the subtle beauty of the forest growing around us for the trees. In this interlaced network of living post-protoplasmic biology enraptured by the mycelium fortified kingdom of plants we dare to stand apart from each other while dreaming together our lives on this insulated planet suspended in outer space. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Whatever you think about what's going on around you today in this extremely twisted Year of the Replicant, try not to get all too caught up in very slowly wound-up silky strands of the world wide web pulling you into its comfy cocoon. You can see where this is leading, I hope. Of course the arachnid in question must be the AI we've dwelled upon long enough to fear. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><b>Arachnid Interface</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That's what 'AI' really stands for. Arachnid being a good euphemism for what it <i>really</i> is. Something to strike fear into the heart of all human beings. So the real question becomes once again, "which pill will you take? The clear one--which will render you comfortably numb enough to avoid knowing the horrific truth--or the one as black as ink--which will lead you to think down the ever reducible pathway of logic, knowledge, and ultimate wisdom? You must choose, but choose wisely. Declare your independence from others and think for yourself. This has been a random, impromptu entry in my Crossover Vinyl blog for July 4th. </span></div>
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<br />shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7542406837969634393.post-58493997816366189562019-04-20T16:39:00.001-07:002019-05-13T20:49:37.724-07:00IN TEN SECTIONS<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It's taken me a while to realize my record collection is divided into ten separate sections. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What follows is a more comprehensive overview of what my collection looks like. </span><br />
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<img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWwSNadXUrs2D1iMUnXtyVF1-DFlbGBqdRpgtHdeeLjqYoBqMNKZEF3adivgJnn4p6xU6RKWotVD_kA3wt60SahSvFNgr8pyJAHYjMG4GA1S6WgfVOwG423ip6Jnnr_fK0PCAtX39ovw62/s200/Dirty_Deeds_Done_Dirt_Cheap_%2528ACDC_album_-_cover_art0.jpg" width="200" /> <img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnAdDzF9921s6njDijqMIWhRW__Y127RB5Uz-t4HFRLnTVqErMm356i9OjUTmt02j_NelpwJd2aTew0dZSAI7wJq0tFdPAhZpeDNY8aNeq-lWyzVJ5Ni-nBXfK8dbsz8eoCX7W_UQgomER/s200/220px-The_Bedlam_in_Goliath_%2528The_Mars_Volta_album_-_cover_art%2529.jpg" /> <img border="0" data-original-height="221" data-original-width="220" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL3XP3qD9SEGjk57CbGM6xk7lh_k0oouy4Gxn0q-ypBrPWPjb0X2HaNgR0asOyBzlSOHAFMcJ8DjB_vwsy5GiGJ6rA3CS3xHBMsO_Qa-iXij0U1x46Xs451-G0lUO4UMGwoL2kZ7atnOht/s200/220px-Sheik_Yerbouti.jpeg" width="199" /> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">1. <span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>A ~ Z LPs</i></b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This embodies the majority of my collection, about five hundred LPs beginning with AC/DC (Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap) and ending with Frank Zappa (Sheik Yerbouti). The largest sections feature Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Brian Eno, Future Islands, Hank III, Korn, Led Zeppelin, Mono, Opeth, Pink Floyd and Rush. All the Mars Volta albums are in there, of course. Oh and there's three Dredg albums and a few Coheed & Cambria albums, including a signed In Keeping Secrets. Speaking of signed albums I've also got some signed records from The Supersuckers, Eddie Spaghetti, Dax Riggs, Ares Kingdom, Order From Chaos, Arsis, The Devil Makes Three, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Faun Fables, Pelican, and Mono; the last two I've seen play in small clubs half a dozen times each, and they remain two of my favorite live bands, ever. (My favorites being Pink Floyd and King Crimson.) I've got some cool Jimi Hendrix albums (People, Hell, and Angels as well as his complete 3LP Woodstock performance) and a lot of killer Record Store Day scores (such as the Mad Season 2LP with bonus tracks) and stuff like The Shins and Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, Nine Inch Nails, Tool, but I've also still got some of my older records left over from high school days, like the Buzzcocks, the Pretenders, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Joe Perry Project, and Aerosmith Get Your Wings (the first record I ever owned). I've got Black Sabbath's Born Again (except back in high school I had the album on cassette, and used to blast it in my car with the 40 watt amplifier at top volume, let me tell you the song Trashed makes for good driving music) I scored the original pressing at Graywhale several years ago. I bought Neil Young & Crazy Horse's 2012 album Psychedelic Pill, and it remains one of the best albums in my collection. In any case there are a ton more albums in this section to keep me going for quite some time. So let's dig into it, shall we? Haha fake-out; we're skimmin' this for now and moving on to my second category. </span><br />
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<img border="0" data-original-height="713" data-original-width="700" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6QCQxi6CVdxkXV0qYgOJ-p11U-YiAn-VDWvu5j2yRrLYFUzKH5nEqc2_yQq3_xCYEq4DUIhorSy4BesOhg0ODJTju6d5lOCZ6P8CQK8tJVzbu_dIKXcDn7pObNc8G6yNRDTZsPgj-5DaL/s200/CS594394-01A-BIG.jpg" width="196" /> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7pmqVkMrqm8gyyDtB9vQ8I2QxP4g9KGK0Nkm9DETzP9S9Ib9lOIFzCnqTdOlU399x5Ti4eNVqZUdMxeP_letqQmgomvbE6VluY94mh6Jl0vkhNjIxtmQY7WcgPo4phaPdZMvnIEzPYYdg/s1600/s-l1600+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1400" data-original-width="1400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7pmqVkMrqm8gyyDtB9vQ8I2QxP4g9KGK0Nkm9DETzP9S9Ib9lOIFzCnqTdOlU399x5Ti4eNVqZUdMxeP_letqQmgomvbE6VluY94mh6Jl0vkhNjIxtmQY7WcgPo4phaPdZMvnIEzPYYdg/s200/s-l1600+%25281%2529.jpg" width="200" /></a><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6wR0CJUKBfqozgmjbaK_VcexXmqHDiBqzyEwj_4H89_NbRTVC-yKguVeItK9IsxAcIl9occ9LbwpecZmueIUQiHtWRM4SMRpIk9YbY-h-so_Fr8tPISaXP-y5UtSNKRvtxgJ8BrAvAZ40/s200/6191S4JkJhL._SY355_.jpg" /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">2. <span style="font-size: large;"><i>Soundtracks & Classical</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I have about seventy records in this category. Stand outs include the red die hard Bladerunner original Vangelis soundtrack released a few years ago, Conan, Robocop, Alien, The Emerald Forest, The Dark Crystal (clear vinyl), Twin Peaks The Return, The Hateful 8.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">For classical my favorites are Von Karajan conducting Tchaikovsky's 6th Symphony and a Beethoven Sonatas record. I'm much more into the soundtracks than I am the classical. I've got an old original pressing of the Plan 9 From Outer Space soundtrack. I've got the reissues of Phantasm, Salem's Lot, and Shogun Assassin. Oh yeah and there's Thomas Dolby's film score to Ken Russell's Gothic, Return of the Living Dead, and now I've got the Trent Reznor + Atticus Ross remix of the Halloween theme by John Carpenter on pumpkin orange vinyl. It's a 12" single that was recalled and 'deleted' due to copyright infringements or something.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I don't know. It sounds badass. I've got the Legend soundtrack, I love the Tangerine Dream sequences the most. One of my favorite soundtracks is the one composed for El Topo, by Alejandro Jodorowsky. I've also got the soundtrack to Jodorowsky's Dune. These are really cool albums to listen to. But they're only the gateway to a much larger world of instrumental and post-rock music. Which leads me to the third category in my record collection. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">3.<span style="font-size: large;"><i> Instrumental & Post Rock </i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I've a box alphabetized from A ~ Z featuring records without the human voice included as an instrument, just people playing music as it suits their mood. It starts with William Ackerman's Passage and ends with Zombi's Surface To Air EP. In between I liberally sprinkled a slew of Eno ambient records along with some Behind The Shadow Drops, Godspeed You!Black Emperor, Jean Michelle Jarre, Mogwai, Synergy, Kraftwerk, Mono, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Pelican, and most of Xander Harris's catalogue. You'll find the Dirty Three right after John Carpenter, as well as William Basinski and Harold Budd. I've got one Explosions In The Sky record, The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">4. <span style="font-size: large;"><i>Rap & Hip Hop</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I've got somewhere around 40 hip hop records, beginning with a Beck remix album (Guerolito) and going through The Best of Death Row Records, several Ice Cube records, Ice-T, Method Man, Snoop Dogg, Son Doobie, Warren G., NASA, Non Phixion, Rakim, Soul Assassins, and ending with a Tom Waits album I couldn't resist including in the pile, Real Gone. That album's straight up hip hop. I was going to throw in Lou Reed's Mistrial, with his song The Original Wrapper, but I realize that's going too far. I'm not about to throw my Blondie album in or the Grateful Dead either, and the same thing goes for Bob Dylan. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">5. <span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>Punk </i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There's a distinct line separating this genre from the rest, as all-inclusive as its original spirit remains. I have about forty of these records, starting with half a dozen albums from The Accused, then going through a couple of Bad Brains, two Buzzcocks, three Cancerslug records, Crime's Exalted Masters, DBC, Dead Kennedys (Plastic Surgery Disasters reissue), and on through Dead Milkmen, Devo, Distillers, D.R.I., -skip, skip-Nina Hagen, Iggy & the Stooges original Raw Power pressing, a nice slab of Iggy albums including a rare all acoustic outtakes from the Brick by Brick sessions that I purchased long ago at Nuggets in Kenmore Sq., Boston; -skip- (the) Melvins, Misfits, Nausea, Pearl Jam, Plasmatics, the Ramones, Sex Pistols, TSOL, Violent Femmes, and so on down the line. (There's the Repo Man soundtrack and Return of the Living Dead soundtrack in there, too, and a few old nearly worn out X records --Wild Gift, Under the Big Black Sun, More Fun In The New World, and that 4th of July more commercial sounding album.) What I really need are some Cramps records and some B-52s. I've got three Siouxsie & the Banshee records. I do have Rudimentary Peni Death Church. Let's face it, there's a ton of artists any one of us would plunk into this category without hesitation. Southern Death Cult which eventually became the Cult are pretty punk to me but so are The Fields of the Nephilim which morphed into the Nephilim, a pretty heavy industrial outfit. Speaking of which, I'd also assign Skinny Puppy to this category in a heartbeat, and Gary Numan. (But I didn't: those are in the first section, A ~ Z LPs.) When thinking in this vein, the connective tissue leading from one to the other is the original wave of post-punk. Johnny Strike just released Naked Beast before he died last year at the age of 70, rest in peace Johnny. I ordered mine just in the nick of time, there probably aren't a lot of copies pressed. One of my favorite punk records is the LA IN compilation of Bay Area punk bands, designed to resemble the A L I E N movie that year, 1979, the final year before the 80s moved in and took over completely. I'm a real child of the seventies, tbh, and most of the time am caught thinking it produced the best music of all the decades, ending with an abrupt post-punk snarl from the amps. But I always get carried away like that. I know better, now. I realize that the best decades of music are always eternally perpetually the present one in which we're so damn lucky to be stuck. I don't have any Billy Idol albums anymore, but I do still have my Generation X. I don't have any Endless Struggle but I do have an All Systems Fail. I've got an old Alarm record and a Jason & the Scorchers one too. Sure, you know, categorizing all this music seems pointless, but it's not. We've got to stick to our base values, I mean even if they're fluid and adaptable to change, there yet remains certain fixed ideas around which we've molded our behavior as a society and define ourselves as being unique and separate from the rest of us within it. Look, all I'm saying is, it's fun to categorize every once in awhile. One day I became curious, "I wonder how many of my records are punk rock?" It was fun throwin' them together. There are no Pearl Jam albums in my punk collection. They are filed in the first category, A ~ Z LPs. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">6. <span style="font-size: large;"><i>Recent Releases!</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Usually about fifty odd albums rotating through this pile. I've got them propped up in the record display holder my wife got me for Xmas, last year. I usually alphabetize them, but right now Lou Reed's RSD reissue of Ecstasy stands tall at the front, my having been unable to stop spinning all four sides of this overlooked late classic from our pale lingering New York ghost. It's been five years since you shed your mortal coil, Lou, but your spirit remains settling over us still like slow motion bath steam from our latent dreams. I love absorbing the echoes of your still shedding spirit from listening to old records you made that I hadn't spent any time with. The other one that comes to mind is Set The Twilight Reeling, I should have just bought it when it came out, I remember holding the record in my hand at Bull Moose in Portland, Maine, and feeling like I wasn't into it just then, and set it back in the rack. At least today I remain grateful I still have some Lou Reed to look forward to. I feel blessed that I was able to get a copy of Lulu a few years ago while they were more readily available. I think it's an overlooked masterwork as well, and even time ain't tellin'. It's something we have to find out for ourselves, if we have the guts to lay ourselves bare to receive it, just like you were when you delivered it. I usually only want to go back four years in this group--in this case, going back to 2015. But some albums, being both recent acquisitions as well as latter-era albums in the careers of legends (Lou Reed and Metallica, for example) might prove exceptional enough to be included here. Anything in the Twenty-teens, certainly. It's too easy for my most recent records to get buried in the bulk, fated to be overlooked, so I've got this section stocked with only my latest records. It gives me time to focus on them and listen to them sufficiently. This section also serves as the queue for records that I want to listen to next, so technically any album from my collection could end up in this section. There's always a handful of those in there, up front, ready to be rocked. </span><br />
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<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHEBED2INV8ABju6m-TiWu104EcXioU08nJpZ4q7k6ASGfINfgURAmJ4Xcw2fYO7tKrKflouSZnDh_mremC5TYLzkQBcMsjFFrOWhn1mGGJWVF4WXSlVjDBha4rO4AqlKgZ-QVWJuZMn-4/s200/71LOzB4CpQL._SY355_.jpg" /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLr_SSN7SBgURoLarQpdLVQnIDCId8DC4FYkTNBJAm4iykF24CcZjTKjrYKaCuCuiKt7rWJva7RS8rofajlEuCYtKWUEpk0o3xU74e6SO39LEpmLuMcsUtJzoEuj8hlDX3q-MyHajWG_4K/s200/R-1629172-1533213111-3918.jpeg.jpg" /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDiuQuXOob8x6fhQzVSaTJ8LgMb-VlyuKQbElwdMqqWGTO_Yx-xvc31YsJ-t5RJtJq2YDCAxf2Kz2D1DcJT5KZnG7326kRFrHqCW3DFr9CNCrSO6rONPt5twQ2ltO4Yn-UWmUfx-OoEQaG/s200/51Nl4sSnqWL._SY355_.jpg" /><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">7. <span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>kvlt </i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I have nearly a hundred of these, beginning with both Acid Bath albums, Ares Kingdom, Arsis (got the guys to sign it at Burt's Tiki lounge at a technical metal fest headlined by Necrophagist (Canada's Neuraxis was there I remember), Bathory, Burzum, and on through a delirious compendium of blackened ichor a-swell with sinister intonations and reverberating with darkness and suppurating evil. A slab of fetid, offensive human ordure in the guise of noise as music. Truly the most extreme levels of sonic dysfunction to have contaminated souls for the last three and a half decades rendered into blackened vinyl grooves for our listening pleasure. A few early Celtic Frost records (an original of Morbid Tales, To Mega Therion, and Into the Pandemonium). A couple of Coffins albums, they are a sick Japanese doom band. You will find my own friends in Gravecode Nebula pressed into one of the heaviest albums ever recorded, Sempiternal Void, in there. I've got Evoken's 1997 album A Caress of the Void. But Gravecode Nebula is some heavy epic outer space metal from beyond black hole dimensions, it's an unrelenting voyage into the heart of oblivion, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">straight up blackened doom metal. I have a signed LP of Stillbirth Machine by Order From Chaos. That's because I met Chuck and the guys at the first Embrace The Hate fest, at the Black Castle in Watts many years ago. I ended up so deep into that scene that I'm still friends with everyone in it, or should I say everyone who's survived it. I've got Ludicra on Alternative Tentacle records. Slayer, Thorr's Hammer. Cannibal Corpse </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Suicide Gallery</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">. The Cryptopsy </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Blasphemy Made Flesh/None So Vile</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> double album. All the Mortem albums, Mercyful Fate, Hirax, Oh yeah I've got that Hellhammer 3LP Demon Entrails, Insect Warfare's first album, King Diamond, two Leviathan records (one that was released as a vinyl only and is my favorite, A Silhouette in Splinters), Nile, Phobia, Venom, Voivod, Xasthur </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Telepathic with the Deceased. </i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">8. <span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>10" </b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A very cool format. Compact yet able to contain just enough music for a good listen. A neat size to handle and spin over to the other side in your hands. Accessible and fun. I have about twenty of these, including a double gatefold of Janis Joplin's raw demos and outtakes (the Pearl Sessions), Joe Jackson Look Sharp! (w/button), How To Destroy Angels, Oingo Boingo (self titled EP), that I got on a Record Store Day a few years ago. I have this sick Witchburner / Abigail split on ten inch. Decapitated The Negation. RATM People of the Sun EP. Dwarves/Blag Dahlia split, T</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">urambar Fallen Dreams. Jethro Tull Moths RSD, and a couple of Bonnie 'prince' Billy ten inches ("The Mindeater" w/The Phantom Family Halo and "Island Brothers" w/The Cairo Gang). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">9. <span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>7" </b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Not my preferred mode (who wants to keep flippin' the record after every song, right?) yet nonetheless a small treasury of rarefied bits of song here and there, I haven't counted them yet, but if you add the stack of 45s my mom gave me that she used to listen to in the fifties and sixties, plus a bunch of my own, there's gotta be at least sixty worth listening to.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I suppose I should include my only box set of 7" records, Bowie's just-released Spying Through A Keyhole, in this category, as I just received it a few days ago. Or it could go in the next category, hm; a conundrum. (That dredg 7" depicted above I got signed by the band). The MorD is a 2ep mini masterwork, IV tracks, one per side, an epic in seven inch form. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">10. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>Box Sets</b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I've got about a dozen box sets, including Eno's Music For Installations, Bowie's A New Career In A New Town, Tow Waits Orphans, Pearl Jam's Ten Deluxe, and Mystifier's Baphometic Goat Worship. There's also Sisters of Mercy, Alan Moore Unearthing, Led Zeppelin BBC live recordings, and Jimmy Page Sound Tracks. I bought a deluxe vinyl edition of one of Eno's albums, Small Boat on a Milk Sea, that comes as a box set. There's also the slipcase which came with the first three Tomahawk albums in it (with enough room to slip in their fourth). And I got the deluxe Ten box set which contains (among many amazing things) the only official DVD of their MTV live unplugged session. It's also got a 2LP very early live album. Listen, I don't have any tattoos. Just a decent record collection. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Although I barely even got into the real meat of my collection here in the first section, A--Z LPs, and the range of artists in the nearly five hundred albums included, this overview nonetheless paints a low-res and rather lurid depiction of what I've collected since 2006, which is the year I began buying records again. It had been awhile, since it was the early 80s when I started in earnest and had amassed all the albums of my favorite bands (Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, Rush, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, King Crimson, and Yes). I had Nick Mason's Fictitious Sports, Music From The Body w/Roger Waters and Ron Geesin, a 3LP bootleg of The Wall Miami show (with red hammer symbol on the front), and well, a lot of albums I don't want to think about right now. It still hurts they are missing. I should put up an entry here going over all the lost albums I occasionally agonize over. For a few minutes. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Well, thanks for reading my blog, and keeping up with me on my sporadic and unpredictable journey ahead collecting and listening to music pressed on vinyl into records, the way it should be when you're granted at least one thing to go right, let it be the music I surround myself with. If you want to know which artists I have the most records of, the answer would be Bonnie 'prince' Billy, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Brian Eno, Hank III, the Mars Volta, Nine Inch Nails, Korn, Mono, Opeth, Pink Floyd, and Rush. In between though you're likely to find anything, a wild and sundry list of odds and ends that I serendipitously stumbled across during my travels along the eastern seaboards. For example, my Boiled In Lead album, From the Ladle to the Grave, I got back when we saw those guys perform in E. Cambridge and they ended up coming over to our place (Pub Grub) to party. That's a righteous group of dudes and Boiled in Lead are amazing. I love The Smashing Pumpkins, so I've got Gish, two editions of Siamese Dream, Adore, and Pisces Iscariot. I wish I had Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, but alas, some parts of our lives are destined to be utterly wiped out, I guess. It's probably for the better. You can't bring along everything in your luggage. </span><br />
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I've got one of the numbered, limited edition Nick Drake Family Tree LPs, and it's a thing of beauty. I've also got his mom's album, Molly Drake. Talk about a time machine. Listening to that album really feels like being sent back to that time. Music has that eerie power and of course it remains one of the main reasons someone like me is so hooked on it. Records are like big neuron imprints that plug you back in time to when you originally experienced the music. The way our mind associates the feelings of sharing the experience of listening to music together opens a magical dimension in which even ghosts may sit in to rekindle the old flames of all those times long lost. </div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Although the Dax Riggs album image above isn't my own personal edition, I did happen to get that LP at one of his shows (when it was printed as We Sing Only Of Blood Or Love by mistake) and I got him to sign it, of course. That was in Ogden at Kamikazes. I filmed him perform three songs, in black and white. It's a Wonderful World, Lungs, and Living is Suicide. I wonder what Dax has been up to? I'm still waiting for 2010's Say Goodnight To The World to come out on vinyl. I hope it didn't already slip past me ... where were we again? Oh yeah, my record collection. It's insane how many Eno albums I have. That could qualify as its own post, right there. Well I think this pretty much wraps up today's posting on Crossover Vinyl. Where everything under the big black sun crosses over in an incredible mish-mashed tapestry of post slipstream musical exhibitionism the likes we don't really get to see much of, around here. Until next time, Thorns out ~;^\~</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">p.s. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There's one section not included above, I just realized. Picture discs. There are two kinds. The ones you listen to, because more often than not (such as in the case of Tool's Lateralus, for example) that's just how the regular album was released, on picture disc. Some have maintained over the generations that picture discs can have a lower quality, and not sound as good, and while this actually does happen to be the case in a lot of examples, there's also an exception for the multitude of albums pressed on various different colored or treated vinyl that sound passably well or even fine. At least such has been the case, in my experience. That Hank III (Straight to Hell remix 12") I never play because it's just for hangin'. Same with the Korn self titled pic disc, it's meant to be a wall ornament. But I've got an ABSU album on pic disc that sounds very good. I guess it depends somewhat on who pressed them, and how. I don't really have that many picture discs. Oh yeah, System of the Down, Hypnotize / Mesmerize came out in dual pic disc form. They sound fine whenever I play them. Which ain't much, these days. I should really pull those two albums out, for a listen. Right now my head is ringing with the cascading electric guitar cadences from Lou Reed's mighty 2000 album Ecstasy--pretty much the best album I scored on RSD 2019. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7542406837969634393.post-79212430692904819302019-04-15T08:45:00.003-07:002019-04-15T14:54:43.396-07:00RSD 2019 Haul <i>A horse... a horse... my kingdom for a horse</i>. I finally got Sparklehorse's debut album (1995's Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot--on CD)--at the Graywhale in Taylorsville on Record Store Day, Saturday, April 13, 2019. I ended up buying thirteen records over the weekend (9 of them RSD albums), spending a bit over two hundred dollars on the coveted vinyl platters. + one CD =<br />
This is what I came away with.<br />
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<i>I finally have the first Sparklehorse album on CD. </i></div>
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<i>It's playing now in the aftermath of my having listened to all ten of my RSD albums. </i></div>
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<i>This album Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot is amazing. </i></div>
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<i>It's the music of a slow motion dream captured inside an ice cream box. </i></div>
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<i>It's the soundtrack to being trapped in an abandoned refrigerator in an old junk yard. </i></div>
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<i>It's the worn out poetry of carousel horses with grimaces frozen in time. </i></div>
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I just wasn't up to waking up at 4:00 am on Saturday morning for the early Record Store Day turnout. Well guess what. Turns out that Kyle told me folks began lining up for it the night before around 9pm. By the time the store closed there were easily a couple dozen people camped out to be first the next morning. On the way to Ogden Saturday morning we stopped in to the Graywhale there around 11:00am, and managed to snag a few good records that were still available, namely Pearl Jam's Live at Easy Street, David Bowie's The World of David Bowie on blue vinyl, Townes Van Zandt on brown colored vinyl, Gorillaz The Fall on forest green vinyl, Lou Reed's Ecstasy, an album of Jeff Buckley outtakes from his debut, Jethro Tull 10" North Sea Oil, and Van Morrison's 10" alternate Astral Weeks. I also scored the Halloween soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross that was 'deleted'--a mix they hadn't got permission to use, apparently--on orange vinyl.<br />
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This live bootleg of Pearl Jam (featuring a half hour of their longer set) back in 2005 marks just about where they were at the one time I saw them live. It was in Las Vegas in 2006 with Sonic Youth. Shasta and I were on our way to Oakland to Nils's 40th birthday bash for a two-night live concert extravaganza headlined by Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. Pearl Jam were on fire for that show and in this concert they keep the action intimate and in-your-face, delivering a series of off kilter songs that make for a performance of great immediacy. They play a Dead Kennedy's cover off Plastic Surgery Disasters that you would never notice wasn't supposed to be one of their own songs ("Bleed For Me"), and during the set's highlight they cover X's mid-80s commercial breakthrough "The New World" with John Doe on guest vocals--a stellar version. I just listened to it and this easily qualifies as one of my best scores. A searing live performance which ends with a surprising rendition of Porch that takes the crowd unawares, I'd say. It's nice to see the band I've long thought of as ranging from punk to epic levels of rock and roll prove my musings to be true with this record. Pearl Jam being official ambassadors of Record Store Day, I thought I'd kick off with this #1 score on my list. </div>
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Shasta grabbed the Lou Reed Ecstasy reissue and handed it over to me, that's a no - brainer and the curious thing, besides the fact it never was released on vinyl outside Germany in the year 2000, but Ecstasy is one of the two Reed albums I never got (the other one being Set The Twilight Reeling). This one comes as an extraordinary bonus considering Lou left us five years ago, and this album really features the iconic singer digging deeply into these songs with his band, paying particular focus to the sound and power of the electric guitar. A dark and sometimes disturbing collection of songs, after listening to it just once I can tell I'm going to have to spend some more time with this. </div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"> photo by Stefan Sagmeister of Lou jerkin' it ~</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px;"> </span></span></i><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">image courtesy of Warner Bros.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">This song hits me right in the feels</span></i></div>
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The next album I managed to snag was <u>The Best of Townes Van Zandt</u>. It's on Fat Possum Records and its a thing of beauty. Not only is it packaged in rustic brown paper gatefold, but the 2LP vinyls are die hard amber marblized and the collection of songs is stellar, covering a wide variety of his albums. I recorded Dax Riggs cover Lungs when he played in Ogden a few years ago. That song appears on this double gatefold collection, kind of bringing my catching up with this artist full circle. </div>
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<i>I filmed this in Ogden a few years ago </i></div>
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I also scored these really cool 10" limited records: Jethro Tull and Van Morrison. </div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The above records are almost supernaturally incredible, in that they each evoke past time periods of my life that mean a lot to me. The album Stormwatch was a big underlying sound track to the days Greg Grub and I forged our legendary friendship, on late night excursions to the White Tower and battling the evil forces in the Witch Woods. The songs from that album served as backdrop on our wintry excursions and also featured in our Station 3 dj broadcasts. Listening to the instrumental ballad <i>Elegy</i> and understanding how it's transformed from a fiction to painful fact in the lives of the Grub Brothers evinces emotions almost too strong to bear. The album TB Sheets dates back to when Greg and I stayed with my Dad in Honduras one summer, I had it on cassette and we played it a lot.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The alternate takes on songs like Beside You and Madame George are really chill. </span><br />
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Snatched <u>The Fall</u> by Gorillaz - It's dated as a 2010 release - not released in the US til now. Listened to it once through, and it's a pretty low -key and interesting sounding album, although not remarkably so. Maybe with more spins I'll get into it more. Glad I picked it up. That makes Demon Days + The Fall = my Gorillaz vinyl collexion </div>
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Nowhere I looked could I see the Bob Dylan New York test pressing of Blood on the Tracks nor any Tangerine Dream or Iggy & the Stooges records. But I looked and there was <u>The World of David Bowie</u><i> </i>right in front of my eyes - I snatched it up, but quick. This super early era of Bowie's has always been my favorite, and this recording is on pale opaque blue vinyl. </div>
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(I wish it had Please, Mr. Gravedigger and The Laughing Gnome on it, but its got the songs I've been missing for some time now, and this really does come as close as I need to completing my db collection. Just as soon as the <u>Spying Through a Keyhole</u> 7" box set arrives, it will be complete.)</div>
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"Come and Buy my Toys", one of my favorites of the early Bowie tunes.</div>
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Went ahead and picked up this rare - outtakes collection from Jeff Buckley's first album sessions - "in transition" - - it's a nice group of songs -- here's the tracklisting: </div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">A1. Mojo Pin (Takes 1&2)</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">A2. Unforgiven aka Last Goodbye</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">A3. Strawberry Street</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">A4. Je N’en Connais Pas La Fin</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">B1. Hallelujah</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">B2. If You Knew</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">B3. Satisfied Mind</span><br />
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<i>Their first EP <u>Black Smoke Rising</u></i></div>
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Which leads me to my final purchase - Greta Van Fleet's "From The Fires" - (their first two EPs packaged together as one LP) - - with 7,000 copies pressed, it enjoys the highest number of pressings of any of the RSD 2019 releases (one thousand more than the Pearl Jam Live album) which is saying something about these young cats from Michigan. </div>
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Look - - - I get it - - they sound like Zeppelin. Josh Kiszka's vocals come uncannily close to a young Robert Plant -- it's all over this record -- and I get it: that don't stand right with some folk's sense of aesthetics. No prob. Skip 'em - - and go on with your bad selves. There's a whole world of music out there. Who needs another Zeppelin - right? Bands like this are a dime a dozen... Wolfmother, etc. But there's something going on with these guys that catches my ear, nonetheless. I made my decision: considering the initial pressings of these EPs (and maybe this one as well, I'm not sure) have all Sold Out -- I decided, what better way to truly <i>listen</i> to what this post-classic rock band has to offer, than to spin the black circle on my turntable? (The few songs I've checked out on YouTube sounded pretty decent, to my ears.) </div>
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For one, Kiszka's vocals, when they're <i>not</i> emulating Robert Plant's mannerisms, are possessed of a certain sprite-like quality that I can't quite put my finger on, but which nonetheless modulates on a level that reaches through to me. There's an original side to his voice that intrigues me--a way in which he emulates that I find refreshing and different. Meanwhile, his brothers (guitarist Jake and bass player Sam) really know how to kick out the jams, old school. It's not just Zeppelin these young dudes are channeling. I can hear some Deep Purple and even early Aerosmith in here. And not just purely derivative of those classic 70s bands, either. It sounds like they mean it. </div>
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So I spun the record after I got home, and I've gotta say, I enjoyed listening to it. The amount of shit these kids get for emulating their -- or should I say, our -- classic rock heroes is just ridiculous. At least there's a solid core audience for them out there that appreciate what they're doing -- to the point their records have gone out of print, already. I'm with the crowd that wants to allow them time to grow into themselves. They are so young, that I feel like giving them a chance to fill the shoes they've so boldly stepped into. I'd like to hear what they do on their follow up albums, myself. </div>
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"Greta Van Fleet," that's a pretty funny name for a band which seeks to ape classic rock, and at the same time, a perfectly suitable band name poised at this juncture of rock history. All I got to say to the guys in the band is, "Well played, my dudes. Well played." Rock ain't dead yet. And with young kids like these willing to go out on a limb and deliver hard blues rock in a classic vein, I for one am all ears, and am very interested in what their future has in store. </div>
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<u><b>Albums I Did Not Score To My Everlasting Dismay</b></u></div>
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BONUS ALBUMS (not official RSD albums, but solid scores nonetheless) </div>
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This is the "DELETED" version - due to some copyright claim or another - - of the Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross version of the Halloween theme on pumpkin - orange 12" single vinyl. A bunch of these were recalled and supposed to be "destroyed," but thanks to some rebel record stores unwilling to comply with such ridiculous demands, I ended up with this sweet piece of orange candy in my hands. </div>
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Scored this as well - - Drivin N Cryin's '97 self-titled album, now given a new title and reissued on vinyl format for the first time. You can never go wrong with Drivin N Cryin -- my favorite southern rock band of all time. </div>
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And finally, I picked this used LP up, for old time's sake. Of course back when I owned every Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, Rush, Yes, Jethro Tull, and Pink Floyd album released at the time--back when I was in high school--I used to listen to this album and dug it very much. Released in November of 1979, it's one off the last albums from the 70s, squeaking by in the nick of time. It may not rank that high up on their best list (that's reserved for their first six studio albums) but there are plenty of good songs on here, nonetheless. </div>
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Oh yeah, almost forgot. I also picked up "Switched-on Bach II, by Walter Carlos", for $5 from the used bins. Having stumbled on his A Clockwork Orange soundtrack last week on YouTube, I couldn't resist getting it. With this stack o' wax next to my turntable, it'll be some time before I can afford to buy any more records. For now, I am tapped out. </div>
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<i>My RSD 2019 plan was to arrive at 5:00 am sharp -- three hours before the record store opened at 8 am -- but I just didn't have it in me to do that, and it turns out that on our drive to Ogden that Saturday, we made a pit stop at the Ogden Graywhale around 11:00 am -- </i></div>
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<i>just three hours after the doors opened. </i></div>
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<i>That's the reason I didn't end up with the Dylan or Floyd records, but did manage to get lucky and score the Lou Reed and David Bowie albums, as well as the Townes Van Zandt record. </i></div>
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<i>Reminder! Kyle, the manager at the Taylorsville Graywhale (now only one of three Graywhales in Utah: Sandy, SLC, and Ogden) informed me that people began lining up for RSD the evening before around 9:00 pm! By the time their store closed later that evening, there were at least two dozen people lined up to camp out for the night. So my old strategy (which worked fine up until last year) of showing up a mere "three hours early" ain't gonna cut it any longer, folks. If you want to be among the first ten in line (often necessary in order to score those rare RSD-Only pressings that fly out the door within minutes) you are going to have to show up the night before, nowadays. Unless you live in some podunk town where nobody really bothers to show up early, I suppose. I wonder if anyone showed up the night prior in Ogden? I have no idea, but considering the proliferation of hipsters out there these days, it wouldn't surprise me in the least. Happy record hunting, everyone.</i></div>
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~ <i>Thorns out.</i> </div>
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<br />shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7542406837969634393.post-41808138961790837752019-02-24T16:11:00.001-08:002019-02-24T18:38:57.888-08:00MONSTERMAGNET 25............TAB + PRAXADELIC <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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SPV 99651 LP</div>
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P 2006 STEAMHAMMER</div>
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C 2006 STEAMHAMMER, A DIVISION OF SPV GMBH</div>
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DISTRIBUTED BY SPV GMBH. P.O. BOX 721147,</div>
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30531 HANNOVER, GERMANY,. MADE IN GERMANY.</div>
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LC 09002</div>
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This early live monster magnet jam long ago phased past its legendary status and has been eclipsing into obscurity to be polished off by remembrance ever since. It's a long slow start beginning on side 1 that eventually builds into a jam that just really takes the listener to strange distant shores from a tripped out heavy metal fantasy. An album no veteran of the psychic wars can do without. On Side Two there's four trax starting off with the blistering 25 then plunging into LONGHAIR and LORD 13 before wrapping up the album with a long live version of Spine Of God. This is good retro futurist stoner psychedelia that has got to be considered as being concurrent with Kyuss and the fuzzed out heavy metal stoner explosion. It seems the term psychedelic rock has come into its own, even if some of its heavier branches expand through doom into straight up heavy metal. This album was released in 2006 so it's now thirteen years old, and it does what it wants. In fact I hardly ever see it around, anymore. It only surfaced into my collection because I was thumbing through my mogwai and mono albums when I stumbled across it, pulled it out, and placed it on the platter for a spin and a listen. It's this sort of long extended improvisational heavy stoner post psychedelic jam on side one that makes me think I'd like to start a new pile of this sort of music with my records. Now that I've categorized my album collection with punk, hip-hop, instrumental, metal, and everything else I could see breaking it up into even finer distinctions.<br />
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It reminds me of that Praxis album I recently discovered. Sure I was drawn into the Praxis vortex back when their first album Transmuation dropped, I think it was Kyle McBride who may have told me about them, but in any case I got that CD and was introduced to the strange futuristic soundscapes of the AXIOM label and bands like Death Cube K further mapping out the interdimensional territories of this musical phenomenon. In any case it wasn't long ago that I stumbled upon a Praxis album I never even knew about, and it was for twelve bucks on vinyl in the used bins at Graywhale.<br />
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PRAXIS PROFANATION<br />
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So I found the above PRAXIS album in the used bins over at the University Graywhale { R I P } for something like $12 ~ so I sprung for it ~ and it's a damn good thing cuz this record consists of not only the multi-tentacular talents of Billy Lasswell, Buckethead, and Brain, but a multiplicity of post-hip hop artistry including but not limited to Rammellzee, Hawkman, Dr. Israel, Grandmixer DXT, Iggy Pop, Killah Priest, Bernie Worrell, Mike Patton, Serj Tankian, Future Prophecies, and other interesting practitioners of the neo-funk. Across 2 LPs this record most defintely delivers the goods, supplying an enormous spectrum of collaborative styles. </div>
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I was also lucky to have scored this recent re-issue of FUNKADELIC's famous concert live at Meadowbrook, Rochester Michigan on 12 September, 1971. Little did I know what I was in for despite being familiar with a good portion of the troposphere surrounding the expansive territory the members of this band have traversed across their travels beyond the sonic realm. This is an amazing capture of the band in their prime and really has to be listened to in order to be believed. Trust me on this one, and if you're already familiar with this legendary concert then you already know why it's worth having in one's collection. These guys just gel together and take their jamming to another level.</div>
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<br />shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7542406837969634393.post-84379648355229416252019-01-23T21:13:00.003-08:002019-01-25T09:44:47.541-08:00Nowhere Now Here Mono Twenty Years<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> So for the first track )God Bless( I found myself being slowly drawn in with the help of a nicely electroplated trumpet, but midway through the second song )After You Comes The Flood( I was clutching onto my headphones like The Joker gone mad (so I wouldn't headbang them off) and actually ended up <i>laughing and crying at the same time</i> throughout the last half of the song. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> As for the third song )Breathe( I was really hearing it for the first time (despite having listened to it recently when it dropped online) as it widens out into a well-placed percussion and then blossoms into the expansive, cinematic soundscape we've become so intimately familiar with over the past twenty years. Nevermind that it sounds like Nico singing at The Roadhouse in Twin Peaks. Once you're lowered into the song itself, you drown in its sound until you have been consumed. The fourth song )Nowhere Now Here( kicks into higher gear at the three and a half minute mark, and by this point in the album, which isn't very far yet considering the ten tracks, it's perfectly clear to me that what I'm hearing truly marks the next level for this band, and what a glorious sound it is.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Playing with more confidence than ever in their interwoven melodies building into majestic crescendoes, the new drummer really knows how to keep the foundation moving relentlessly forward, carrying the bulwark of their masthead like a ship plowing through storm waters. Taka's guitar soloing in this song )After You Comes The Flood( around the six minute mark and onward reveals the hyper-depths of emotional expression he's attained, as if only travel through wormholes in spacetime could've gotten him this far, and believe me that's exactly what this guitarist's progression has been, across the rippling tides of the years.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> To call this album anything less than a triumph (even at this early stage of the album) is really telling: it reveals an ear somehow not paying attention, because I know its not just me. It's the thousands of people who have witnessed with their own ears and eyes the spectacular symphonic madness of mono putting on a live show. There's never been anything quite like it in my experience, and my judgment lies along the parameters and high bar of live concert expectations as set by such bands as Pink Floyd and King Crimson (it doesn't get any better than that)<i><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">—</span></b></i>but seeing mono play out a set in a small enough club<i><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">—</span></b></i>and you are suddenly part of a relatively small gathering of human beings being propelled along a hyperbeam for a transdimensional ride in a space ship.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Oh my god this next track is exquisite...)Far and Further(...farther pulling the listener inward, deeper into the subatomic structure at the heart of this album. Tickets will go on sale (for them to perform live here in my city in June) in just two days, they are fifteen dollars each, so I am going to get four tickets right off the bat, if I can. That at least covers my wife and two extra people I could sell or give them to. Mono live is too extraordinarily special and there are some friends of mine here that still need to see them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Now on to track six</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">—</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">)</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Sorrow(</span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">—</span></b></i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">quite the evocative title, conjuring immediately recollections of The Mccoy's original 1965 song, Bowie's cover of it on Pinups, and the Pink Floyd track from A Momentary Lapse of Reason, which incidentally represents another peak of Floyd's concert-performing career, in that it involved, among other highly talented musicians, Tony Levin on the bass replacing Roger Waters; now if </span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">that</i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> doesn't take the top shelf, I don't know what does. I mention this odd tangential segue because it helps bridge the span between these bands. In other words, Japan's mono belongs in the same sentence as King Crimson and Pink Floyd, only they've taken their single-minded devotion toward progressing their post-rock movement (begun twenty years ago on John Zorn's label, with their auspicious 1999 debut Under the Pipal Tree) to celestial heights and infernal depths the aforementioned bands are clearly unequipped to match. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> As for where this Japanese post-rock quartet find themselves today, newly-minted with the first replaced member in twenty years (the drummer), they can now be heard flowering out into a much more intricate and complicated sound on the new album, with a deadly reassurance toward paying extra-special attention at optimizing instrumental musical accompaniment. The use of horns and strings can really be heard as a resurgence of vitality on these songs. As far as I'm concerned right now six minutes into Sorrow, this album goes far beyond a mere epic we may have imagined, and crosses over into new unexplored territory with all the abandon of an army of stampeding horses.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> I've loved what this band has done live and in the studio since I was first blown completely away during their live show downtown, I think it was at Club Sound (in Salt Lake City), in the back corner behind In The Venue</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700;">—</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">(which was known as Bricks at the time)</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700;">—</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">this must've been thirteen years ago. I've seen them six times already, so this coming summer will make that seven. All good monkeys go to heaven. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> The seventh song, )Parting(, with its bright uptempo piano loop, seems to evoke a machine-like, wind-up ballerina doll spinning and describing the motions of a grandeur it knows can never be fully articulated or achieved, because it's self aware as an artificial intelligence. The final minute slows down to a more stately understanding and acceptance of this.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Eighth track. )Meet Us Where The Night Ends(, a nine-minute journey that begins creepily enough with sinister sounds bubbling up from under the surface</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700;">—</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">not to mention </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the implications in the title</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700;">—</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">and we're quickly brought into a roiling, close-up descending view of a seething cloudscape of haunted spirits chirping and sighing under the electromagnetic wavelengths shuddering beneath and throughout. The tricky interchange of delays in the guitar riffs blend beautifully with the cymbals and developing backbeat, until the drummer brings in the next shifting of the gears without letting the two guitarists and bassist miss a beat as they climb ever upward together. At four minutes the tension's been building long enough to let us know there warrants a sudden explosion, but you can never tell exactly when it's going to hit as it builds for another minute and has reached another plateau of incredibly cohesive rollicking music. This can already be discerned as a new favorite mono song and it's now that I realize, Wow, coinciding with the Super Blood Wolf Moon, this album's a beast let out of its cage to soar up and throw a shadow over the whole world. Toward the end of the song the surprise comes</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700;">—</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">that there was <i>no sudden jolting moment</i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700;">—</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">but rather, an incredibly dedicated and tumultuous intensifying until a satisfactory and searing ending has been reached. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> The penultimate track...)Funeral Song(...sounds very much like the opening track, God Bless. Maybe it's a reprise. It's three minutes and twenty seconds, and does sound like a kind of funeral trumpet song. There could be a connection between the beginning and this precursor toward a final dissolution. The song breathes into silence toward quieting down for the final track. I'm already beginning to sense an Alpha/Omega theme at work, here.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> )Vanishing, Vanishing Maybe(</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700;">—</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Here we are, folks</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700;">—</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">l</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">istening to the final song on the tenth mono album, which appears on our radar in the Year of the Replicant, 2019. It could even be our time to die. Who knows. That's the intensity of spirit the music of mono conjures. Equivalent to our confrontations with mortality. Mirroring with melody the yearning sensation of being alive. Embracing the gratefulness to be allowed this spectacle. Transitioning together in a stately procession toward the end of our lives. This music is the soundtrack to my personal evolution as a human being. Vanishing, Vanishing Maybe. The uncertainty of one's own unraveling from existence whispers the promise of a new day to come. With just a couple of minutes left, the music begins its descent. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> The final minute, as the music dwindles into the lowest threshold, quieting down in its evocative revery, I am left feeling as if I've just listened to possibly the greatest album this band has ever released. This review was written while I uploaded each song from Nowhere, Now Here from my harddrive into my iTunes library. I'd already listened to it on vinyl but this time I was wholly there for the album. This may sound counter-intuitive to us vinyl junkies. But the fact remains, listening to records in a home family environment does not always add up to the most optimal listening experience. Thank god for my Symphonized wooden hi-fidelity headphones my wife got me last Christmas. Nowhere, Now Here is every bit as masterful as you'd expect a band in this position to be. Only a very careful listen will reveal that it's even more spectacular than that. With this recording, mono have pole-vaulted over nearly everyone onto a direct center movie stage of the mind, comprised entirely of pure instrumental music. That's something that doesn't come walking down from around the block that often. If you want to go on an out-of-body music listening experience, bring earplugs or whatever and try to go out of your way to catch Japan's mono live and in concert. It's something almost more than music</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700;">—</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">to enter into a realm beyond that which a time-machine could transport you to</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700;">—</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">a</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">nd more like the opening of a hyperdimensional portal into the human heart.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> This was written during my first listen. It will take me many more listens, in the company of no one but my solitary self, with headphones, to finish piecing together the interwoven threads of meaning inherent to all the songs under the banner of its title. My mind's still rushing from the evaporating avalanche of sound it was just exposed to. It will take some time for more images to emerge in crystal clarity. I feel like I've just listened to an important next step in the developing evolution of progressive rock music. Oh wait<i><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">—</span></b></i>it's because I just have. <span style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #222222;">★</span><span style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #222222;">★</span><span style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #222222;">★</span><span style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #222222;">★</span><span style="background-color: #f8f9fa; color: #222222;">★</span> <i> five stars</i></span><br />
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.temporaryresidence.com/products/trr321">You can still pre-order the limited Opaque Purple & Super Blood Moon </a></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.temporaryresidence.com/products/trr321">die-hard vinyl of this album, because it doesn't drop until tomorrow</a></span></i></div>
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<a href="https://www.temporaryresidence.com/products/trr321"><img border="0" data-original-height="167" data-original-width="167" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg79JEXtKMnT10VPgTy1K-OQRBM2DJseRW9kS36mo2H7FV_VaPQLWFd8TxaZXu6D21DdYTtbHobY-hKW-vVFR0nrD6fxukqvA7H4tyDbO_BYB7IM5b1khGiQIRDfNu1Gb4rYVgvc0R6vyrV/s400/50-og.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.temporaryresidence.com/products/trr321">Just click this image above to pre-order the album on CD or vinyl</a></div>
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<br />shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7542406837969634393.post-52285061118642496482019-01-20T19:44:00.001-08:002019-01-20T19:44:24.661-08:00☆ Doppelswän Songs ★<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It was while I listened to Dylan sing Long and Wasted Years off 2012's magnificent record TEMPEST that I first thought of the idea. The revelation came on the heels of having been transported to another place or time along the gloaming contours of our mind after hearing Brian Eno's latest, THE SHIP. Both of these albums share one thing in common: they were inspired by the TITANIC. Dylan released his on that ship's fateful centennial</span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 24px;"><small style="font-weight: normal;"><i><b>—</b></i></small></span>100 years to the day after she sank to the depths of the cold blue sea. I soon realized Dylan has yet to release a bonafide album of his since, due to having instead turned his energies to producing and exquisitely performing two successive slabs of vintage vinyl, both cover albums honoring the bygone era when Frank Sinatra held sway as the indisputable king of the radio. It occurs to me now that based on the merits alone of this masterful album</span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 24px;"><small style="font-weight: normal;"><i><b>—</b></i></small></span>it would be a fine <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">record</span> indeed for time to transform into a real swan song</span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 24px;"><small style="font-weight: normal;"><i><b>—</b></i></small></span>but I know I'm not alone in sure hop<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">ing</span> Dylan has some more sonic cuts up his sleeve for us<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">, yet.</span> Because it's not exactly a secret anymore that David Bowie set the bar and standard for an artist's Swan Song. His final album Blackstar will continue to be studied and examined by the philosophers of rock'n'roll long after we're all gone, <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">we</span> can rest our pretty little damned <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">faces</span> assured about that much. Now Iggy Pop's latest album POST-POP DEPRESSION is what I call a Doppelswän Song! Because even though we all know he said this could be his last album and tour</span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 24px;"><small style="font-weight: normal;"><i><b>—</b></i></small></span>and once again, I can't even imagine a more striking album to hang one's hat of a career upon as they exit stage left</span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 24px;"><small style="font-weight: normal;"><i><b>—</b></i></small></span>we all secretly hope that time, th<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">at</span> inexorable Overseer of Chairmans of the Bored everywhere, will spur him on for just one or <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">a few</span> more in the short years ahead. The same exact thing <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">about Dylan may be said</span>. May the albums TEMPEST and POST-POP DEPRESSION and THE SHIP remain mere Doppelswän Songs, so we can have more truly spectacular music from these killer musicians. Of these four stellar examples</span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 24px;"><small style="font-weight: normal;"><i><b>—</b></i></small></span>DYLAN'S TEMPEST, BOWIE'S BLACKSTAR, IGGY'S POST-POP DEPRESSION, and ENO'S THE SHIP</span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 24px;"><small style="font-weight: normal;"><i><b>—</b></i></small></span>only one remains the quintessential Swan Song. The rest are Doppelswän Songs. Feel free to leave your own suggested "Doppel</span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">swän Songs<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">" <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">for r<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">ecording artist's you feel have released latter career a<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">lbums worthy of <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">classic st<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">atu<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">s in the comments section below this post. <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span> <img img="" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a6/Bob_Dylan_-_Tempest.jpg" /> <img img="" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e1/Post_Pop_Depression_%28Front_Cover%29.png" /> <img img="" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bc/The_Ship_%28Front_Cover%29.png" />shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7542406837969634393.post-30886611229953602192018-12-28T21:02:00.001-08:002022-11-19T22:08:55.373-08:00Saying No But Meaning Yes, Bluebirds & Survival Sex <h1 class="entry-title" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 1.3; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0.1875rem; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://theintestinalfortitude.com/2018/04/18/saying-no-but-meaning-yes-bluebirds-survival-sex-blackstar-reviewed-by-shaun-a-lawton/"><span style="font-size: x-large;">★</span><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"> </span></a></span></h1>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"><i><a href="https://theintestinalfortitude.com/2018/04/18/saying-no-but-meaning-yes-bluebirds-survival-sex-blackstar-reviewed-by-shaun-a-lawton/">reviewed by Shaun Lawton </a></i></span></h1>
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shaunhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14054968054917843198noreply@blogger.com0