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‘One must have a mind of winter to regard the frost and the boughs of the pine-trees crusted with snow; and have been cold a long time to behold the junipers shagged with ice, the spruces rough in the distant glitter of the January sun; and not to think of any misery in the sound of the wind, in the sound of a few leaves, which is the sound of the land full of the same wind that is blowing in the same bare place for the listener, who listens in the snow, and, nothing himself, beholds nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.’ — Wallace Stevens
‘One-man Matthew Barnes project Forest Swords is based in Wirral/Liverpool, UK. Forest Swords’ music reflects the sprawling Wirral landscape of river, coastland and woodland while echoing nearby city Liverpool’s enviable pop history. Foggy grooves rub shoulders with simple, skeletal R’n’B / hip hop influenced beats and snippets of striking, bewitching melody. It has been described as ” psychedelic dub ” and ” slow burning drone-step with soul “.’ — TheSirenSound
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Laurel Halo live at Tandem, Brooklyn
‘Laurel Halo’s music is deliberately vague, and intentionally steeped in descriptive context. When asked about her sound in interviews, the Brooklyn by way of Ann Arbor producer/vocalist responds with a gushing string of reference cues, including, but not limited to: “mecha violence,” “the shapes you see when you close your eyes,” “time leaping” and “David Axelrod.” Her productions are a connect-the-dots of concepts, laid out across the infinite space of your imagination, blending krautrock with early techno and electro styles for tracks of textured synth play that spur deep mental wanderings.’ — Mishka Bloglin
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Hey Colossus Pope Long Haul III live in Bristol
‘With a mission of creating “subterranean rumblings of sludgy rock using three guitars” rarely has a band been more appropriately-named than London’s HEY COLOSSUS. HEY COLOSSUS has concocted an utterly crushing sound based on he inspiration of the MELVINS, BLACK FLAG and BLACK SABBATH, and other influences including bands like CAN, BEEFHEART, ISIS and NEUROSIS into what sounds like a truckload of distortion pedals falling down a cliff onto a mountain of anvils, just to see how much noise it’ll make.’ — Shifty Records
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Haswell & Hecker UPIC Diffusion Session #22
‘Russell Haswell and Florian Hecker have been researching UPIC, Iannis Xenakis graphic input computer music composing system since 2003, and now present this as a live multichannel electroacoustic concert, using surround sound and laser lighting to create an immersive multisensory environment. Russell Haswell (UK) is a multidisciplinary artist who has exhibited conceptual and wall-based visual works, video art, public sculpture. Extreme Computer Music is one specialized area of activity. Compositions by the electronic music composer Florian Hecker (DE) tend towards noise music and are often released on the Mego label.’ — Jacques Tournier
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Prurient featuring Kevin Drumm Tractor Replaces the Horse
‘Dominick Fernow basically makes up Prurient with a theme of anti-technology and anti-electricity — with the exception of his microphones and four-track recorder. Backing Fernow’s stance up is his unconventional use of banging objects together to create music; playing with live wire, pennies, frying pans, toolboxes, scrap metal, and used shotgun shells are an example of some of his instruments. Fernow was also the guitarist of bands Football Rabbit, Vegas Martyrs, Taylor Bow, and Ash Pool (in which he also sings). More recently, Fernow has started marketing to the black metal audience with his label and creative works and is currently the primary live synthesizer player for Cold Cave.’ — self titled mag
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Liturgy live @ Silent Barn, NYC
‘Brooklyn’s Liturgy started as the solo project of singer/guitarist Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, who started writing the music with a drum machine on which he created the “burst beat” — a way of taking the blast beat of much grindcore, death metal and black metal and altering the tempo while maintaining an overall rhythmic logic in time with the rest of the instrumentation. Hunt-Hendrix has ruffled some feathers with his intellectually rigorous understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of the music his band is creating. If Liturgy is black metal, you can hear an expansive and adventurous spirit in the music rather than an expression of the anomaly of an existence focused on existential, even cosmic, pain.’ — Westword
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Charlie Martineau (Esperik Glare) live @ Open Mic
‘Esperik Glare is Charlie Martineau. Charlie has been manipulating sounds since the summer of 2004 as a means to keep his sanity living in the abyss called Wyoming. His recent album releases include ‘My Nights are More Beautiful than Your Days’ and ‘Hypothetically Speaking’ His collaborators include Kenji Siratori and Florian Ayala-Fauna, with whom he creates music under the moniker In Serpents and Seas.’ — collaged
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Jim O’Rourke live 2010.06.04 Super Deluxe Roppongi
‘American post-classical composer Jim O’Rourke has been a key component in the increasing overlap of the American and European experimental music avant-garde, working in everything from jazz and rock to ambient and electro-acoustic, and building many a bridge in between. A Chicago native, his work has found equal luck with experimental jazz and noise fanatics, chill room denizens, and bedroom experimentalists, and has had the resultant effect of cross-pollinating many otherwise isolated compositional communities. Dealing most often with prepared guitar in improvisational group settings, O’Rourke has also released a fair bit of material as a soloist, although more often in the electro-acoustic musique concrète vein.’ — allmusic
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Blue Sabbath Black Cheer Bog house show
‘Seattle’s incredibly prolific doom metal outfit Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, consisting primarily of members Stan Reed and wm.Rage, have released a slew of 7-inches, splits, CD-Rs, and cassettes, collaborating and conspiring with peers in their community to generate one of the more viciously enviable catalogues of sound-vomit, death, and hatred to ever be thrown against the monolithic brick wall of noise. Their sound is metal inverted. Like other bands within the doom milieu, BSBC do not make songs, but rather create soundscapes, borderline narrative-based explosions and showcases in control and sound and moment.’ — Tiny Mix Tapes
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Matmos live at Auto Italia
‘For the past four years Matmos have been re-enacting experiments into telepathy that were done in the 1960s. They were basic sensory deprivation set-ups in which the experimental subjects were unable to hear or see. The subjects were asked to recognise different shapes being transmitted to them from a table of graphic sigils. In Matmos’s experiments, they tried to transmit the concept of their new album into the minds of their experimental subjects. For this performance, each collaborator recites different transcriptions of the psychic experiments that are played through their headphones. The performance took place at London’s Auto Italia space 19 May, 2011, organised in collaboration with Upset The Rhythm.’ — The Wire
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Seb Patane Year Of The Corn (2011)
‘Entering an installation by London-based artist Seb Patane (born in Italy in 1970) is agreeing to play an intricate game of references, symbols and signs, which will touch different buttons depending on the viewers’ private contexts. Found images and objects, intervened drawings, sound and performance… Industrial music, Jodorowsky’s work on the Tarot cards, Christiane F and war iconography… Patane works through a wide range of media and references like a hidden alchemist, linking issues that appeared to be unconnected and that, subsequently, cannot be understood the one without the other. He is preoccupied with the physicality of materials, but it is not a concern with textures but, rather, with presence and absence.’ — SelfSelector
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p.s. Hey. Remember that your bedtime tonight is the deadline for sending in your contributions to the blog’s celebration of and memorial for Antonio. Thanks a lot to those who’ve already sent in your entries, and thanks a lot in advance to those who will. The resulting post will be a two-parter, and it will appear here on this coming Friday and Saturday. ** Schoolboyerrors, Hey, D! Fuck, in my typically scrambled email-related attentiveness, I didn’t see/open your email until Sunday night when, I think, you were already gone. Sucks for me. But I’m glad you were able to make it, and I hope Paris treated you royally. Any highlights? Man, that BM conference does sound incredibly cool. Damn, I really regret my alternative location of that time, which will be a book tour in the US. Everyone, if you’re going to be in or near Dublin in mid-late November, PEST – Black Metal Theory Symposium, in which our own Schoolboyerrors will be one of the stars, should be completely fascinating. That link will take you to all the info you need. Man oh man. ** Tomkendall, Hey, T. I did get the workshop-related email safely, yes, thank you a ton. Once I get the Antonio post(s) set up, which will be a main activity for the next couple of days, I’ll figure out the soonest we can do a workshop here, and I’ll give you a heads up on the date. Yeah, great, exciting, man! ** David, ‘Rose Alley’ really is great. Very highly recommended. ** Memoirs of a Heroinhead, You nailed Joe’s famous cadence and tone to a ‘T’, man. I was a calf in clover. I guess I’ve said this a million times, but I thought RHCP were okay until Kiedis decided he was a singer whereupon they began to battle with, oh, Muse, for example, for the title of my least favorite band in the world. I agree Jane’s Addiction were much better. ** JoeM, Phew, there you are, safe and talkative. I was just about to call whatever the UK equivalent of 911 is. Man down with a bad case of the dreaded RHCP fan-itis. I just read a quote by Nick Cave about RHCP not two days ago that seems relevant: “I’m forever near a stereo saying, ‘What the fuck is this GARBAGE?’ And the answer is always the Red Hot Chili Peppers.” That guy who was running the now defunct Alyson has started a new gay press, but I don’t know much about it yet or even its name. I’ll let you know when I do in case you want to try the place. Yeah, the fact that no UK publishers want ‘The Marbled Swarm’ is painful and strange to me, but I’ve been totally on the outs with UK publishers for ten years now, so it’s just more of the usual, I guess. An HTMLGIANT equivalent for the UK would make a huge difference. If there is one already, I would love to find it. If not, starting a site like that seems like a no brainer. I’ll see if I can figure out exactly when Antonio first arrived here. I know his first appearance was as a lurker making a contribution to a Self-Portrait Day, and then he dove right into the comments arena. Memory tells me his peak involvement here was through most of 2006 and then the first third or so of 2007. Then he left for quite a while and returned for a few months maybe a year and a half ago? ** Sypha, Hey. Oh, thanks. My only problem is that there’s such an incredible onrush of really good newer writers in the US right now that it’s hard to keep up, especially living over here. That’s why I end up reading a handful of books simultaneously, which I’ve never had to do before. Oh, your label has gone active again. Great! I’ll go go get that new Sypha Nadon album pronto. Everyone, excellent news from multi-talented d.l. Sypha aka James Champagne aka Sypha Nadon: ‘After a long period of inactivity I’m trying to get my netlabel active again. Today I released a new Sypha Nadon album, “4NIC8,” a proper follow-up to 2009’s “Our Lady of the Flowers of the Red Night.” It’s kind of a porno album. It can be downloaded here. I used mostly samples from straight porn because women tend to be more, um, vocal when they’re orgasming, but there are two songs on there using samples from gay porn (“Piano Piece for Cocksucking” and “Room Service,” which “stars” Brent Corrigan).’ ** Jdb aka, I’m pretty sure, Chris Cochrane, Hi, man. Sounds awfully nice out there. I forget: are you in the Pines or Cherry Grove or elsewhere if there is an elsewhere? I could feel the mellow in your language. The good kind of mellow. Soak it in, man. ** Alan, Hey. ‘Rose Alley’ is really, really good. Agents in the UK? No, I don’t. Everyone, (1) Does anyone reading this know of any literary agents in the UK? If so, speak up, as it would help d.l. Alan. Thanks. (2) Chris Dankland, if you’re reading this: Re: your question about contemporary poets who use rhyme, Alan recommends Frederick Seidel, James Merrill, and Philip Larkin.. Thanks a lot, Alan! ** David Ehrenstein, Yes, RIP: Jerry Lieber. And also Nick Ashford. Bad day for fine songwriting yesterday. Interview with Doris Day? That’s a rare thing, is it not? I’ll go read it. Everyone, should you need a break from the avant-garde-o-rama up top today, David Ehrenstein alerts us to a brand new interview with the one and only Doris Day. You can find it here. ** Chris Goode, Hey, Chris! My pleasure, sir! Such an inspiring book! I’m really glad to hear stuff is going like wild fire in Edinburgh. May you leave the place scorched. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. ** Thomas Moronic, Safe flight or, if you’re already over there, I hope US customs let you breeze through, and I can’t wait to hear what you’re seeing and doing. ** David, Your tumblr has changed? I’m out of the loop. Hunh. I’ll go see what the newness involves post-p.s. ** Kyler, Hey. Oh, gosh, don’t let my blog wreck your sleep patterns. I’ll feel so guilty. (Just hearing the word jetlag gives me jetlag). Oh, ha ha, the psychic character. Please forgive any cartooniness. She’s there basically to represent something for the narrator. I was really addicted to that John Edwards show on the SciFi channel at the time. Do you know who I’m talking about? Whatever happened to him anyway? Take care, man. ** Steevee, Hey. You can read the Lynne Tillman book in its entirety for free online on the Red Lemonade site. Hold on. Here. ‘Talismano’ is pretty amazing, yeah. ** Katalyze, Hi, Kat! In my total ignorance, I didn’t know of Jack Layton until I read that he had died, but I was really impressed by what I read about him yesterday. Great that you’re painting again! That’s exciting news! Can you pass along the address of your tumblr site so I can hang out there and pass the link along to everybody? Kiddiepunk has done a typically gorgeous job with ‘French Hole’, yeah. I’m excited to see it finished too. ** Chris (British), Hey. Good for you for tweaking the laid back. Laying back has its virtues — I am a dyed in the wool Los Angeleno after all — but only to a point. I guess my must-share thoughts get taken care of by the blog. Yeah, I think the blog serves whatever thoughts-to-fingertips-style bursts I have. Yeah, that explains it, I guess, now that I think about it. ** 5strings, Hi, buddy. I haven’t even read Artforum since they got that new editor. Yikes. I’d better go get a copy. There’s this tiny controversy going on in the UK because Doc Martens did these ads that showed photoshopped dead ‘punk rock’ stars in heaven wearing Doc Martens including Joey Ramone and Kurt Cobain who always wore Converse sneakers and Doc Martens’ defense has been that they have proof that those two bought Doc Martens at a store but it turns out they bought the Doc Martens as gifts for friends of theirs. There’s some cafe here in Paris in Montmartre that serves Australian coffee, and I’m going to go drink some, and I’ll let you know. Ha ha ha, yeah, you could have told me that image you linked to was a photo of the Marais at 2 am on a Saturday night, and I would have believed you. Mine? Mine: Blake Butler’s ‘Nothing’, Michel Butor’s ‘Mobile’, Jeff Jackson’s ‘Title TK’, the last 20 pages of Kate Zambreno ‘Green Girl’. ** Bill, Hey. Cool, let’s mumble. Don’t know that David Nickle book. Thanks for the link; I’ll go check the work out. Why a Berg concerto for the more Italian moments in ‘Wolfburg … ‘? Good question. Maybe David E. will read this and explain that. I’m glad you’re leaning towards doing the show. What do I know, but I think I would do the same thing. Great about the successful animating. Demo link, please, when the time is right? ** Creative Massacre, Wouldn’t it? He has probably has interview requests from every which way at the moment. Yeah, freedom must be so trippy. I was reading something about how totally tripped out he was when someone showed him an iPhone. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Hey! Welcome back! Let’s see … No, uh, I waited too long on the ‘Enter the Void’ DVD and someone else bought the only copy. I’m an idiot. My back still hurts, but that’s my fault for having been sitting in this chair mostly for the last couple of days. The interview was nice. She was really cool. I might hang out with her sometime. That would be nice. Okay, that wedding sounds really crazed and very, I don’t know, Southern or Texan for some reason, I don’t know why. Maybe the horse flies? I guess it could have happened in all sorts of places. Never mind. It is so weird to be here in France and see all this non-stop stuff online about the Kardashian wedding. It absolutely does not translate. I’ve never even seen her move her lips or move her fingers or anything, so I don’t know what’s going on, but the giant interest in her is a humongous mystery to me. I think my favorite part of the wedding — excluding the wonderfulness of your report and its wacky, intriguing characters — was those rolls. ‘Braxton Hicks’, nice. I have a friend with the name Hicks. Sander Hicks. I wonder if they’re related. I love that ‘ … he’s one of the best men.’ Anyway, that wedding was very, very colorful. Man! It’s nice you got to decompress sweetly with Eyebrows afterwards. Anyway, great report. My days haven’t been so interesting. I’ll just tell you the things I can remember. Scott Treleaven finally arrived here. I haven’t seen him because he was very jet lagged, but I’m seeing him today. Gisele and Stephen suddenly got this idea that they might want to move out of Paris and live in a castle in Grenoble because it’s for sale and cheap, and they went down there for a few days to investigate, and she asked me if that was a crazy idea, and I said, yeah, kind of, but, you know, if that’s what you want, etc. I guess I’ll find out if she’s moving to Grenoble when she gets back here on Thursday. Kiddiepunk showed me the design for the ‘French Hole’ chapbook, and it looks beautiful, and I guess that’ll be printed soon, which is cool. My sister called to tell me about all of her usual stuff. I started putting together the Antonio posts based on the things I’ve received so far, and that’s been taking up some time and has been pretty melancholy. This LA poet I used to know and who was a really singular, cool guy named Scott Wannberg died, and that’s been depressing me. I think I ate what I always eat. Yury had a bad cold for a few days, but he’s feeling better today. Uh, I don’t remember much else, so I’ll leave it there. I’m determined to go out and actually do something today, and, if I do, I’ll tell you about it tomorrow, and, if I don’t, I’ll tell you about what I didn’t do. How was Tuesday? ** Misanthrope, Hey, G. Oh, okay, that’s cool, just get it to me as soon as you can. Yeah, I was just talking about the Kardashian wedding/ media frenzy thing. I can not believe people give the tiniest shit about that, but obviously they do. Jesus. That peeing story suggests that you are part French. ** Right. I think I’ve curated a good gig for you today, and I have this feeling a lot of you are going to think it’s ‘weird’ or something and just skip right to the p.s., but I hope you don’t. But if you do, hey, that’s showbiz, and no big. One last request from me for things for our Antonio celebration, please. Thanks. Otherwise, yep, I’ll see you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
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Hey D-
Well hmmm. commenting to early to have check out yr gigs. just saying hello. sent you an antonio tribute. good nite tonite with a visiting friend from miami. a guy who was already a staple of the old scholl portland scene when i moved here in '95. that scene is now a bunch of documentaries. new school portland is all transplants, and i'm a transplant but after 16 years i can belly ache about the scene. fact is there's no jobs here but people keep coming. because we, my generation, rule the scene and strive to make it rad. that said the diversity is totally lacking but the livability is totally on point. weird culture. it bends over backward to please "my" demographic. i can get anything i want, live cheap, and it's easy if you can deal with rain. downside is not many opportunities to co-mingle with folks who have different backgrounds. latest article in local rag about brooklyn becoming portland, ridiculous. brooklyn is huge and multidimentional and historic. i dunno, wow tangent, so visitor from old portland, grilling, crazy bar scene going away party for friend going to portugal who is giving us his car tmrw! haven't had a car in 2 years + and just him giving it to us has sucked money out of me but looking forward to using it wisely and taking roadtrips to nature etc. and esp. grocery shopping and seeing friends who live an hour bus ride away but like 15 min. by car. long winded tonight. much love my friend as always.
-L
Dennis, my wife was telling me that the Kardashian wedding MADE MONEY, due to Kim's business-savvy mom, Chris. Most everything was donated, including the $16,000.00 wedding cake, just for the publicity.As for the marriage, itself, I don't give it six months !
BTW, I e-mailed you the bottle-digging story. Bewarned, it's longer than Fidel Castro's Jose Marti Day speech.
Hey Colossus, yeah! Heavy weight champions. Cool gig number 12!
I don`t have internet yet at home and it will surely take a week till it will work.
So I did just fly over everything here and elsewhere.
Very sad news about Antonio who I did knew just through this blog. Very sad.
I am having an intense time. My partner and my best friend helped me a lot (without knowing how much they helped me!) to go through that depression thing. Now I feel like fighting and not any longer helpless which is a start. Or more than that!
Love to all here!
U.
wow, this morning I really couldn't sleep, but that's cause I'm going to Massachusetts today and I'm excited. First, John, here's a link to the agents at Curtis Brown UK: http://www.curtisbrown.co.uk/books/agents/
Felicity Blunt was super-nice to me about reading my novel, but she was an assistant then, so I don't know about now. I'm sure she's still super-nice though. I'd try her in a pinch if I were looking. And Dennis, Don Weise is the name of the guy from Alyson. His new press is Magnus and looks impressive. He had my novel from my agent, but finally told her he doesn't want fiction. (I think what he meant was WEIRD fiction!) Yes, I did know that Edwards guy, had his book, but never liked him. Saw his show once. There's a line in my novel about how psychics look fake on TV and that line was inspired by him. I'm very private about my work and would never do that kind of stuff in public. I would talk about it though and I have. Well, don't think I'll get back to sleep, so I might as well do my exercises (mystical, that is). It's the day and hour of Mars over here. Great day everyone.
PS: Dennis, you know Don of course, duh. Very nice guy. And Alan, I meant you for the agent, not John. I must have been thinking about John Edwards, the psychic.
Dennis – altho I guess it was received, my somewhat disjointed Antonio contribution was dispatched last Sunday ok? umm yr parisian admirers – the HHUnplugged fans roused thenselves?? sorry, I hear e mail entreaties make u bonkers nice evening 2ya
JoeM – hiya, saw a boyvocal group from yrside THe Wanted who were actually easy on eyes etc… when Pop Idol was er newish I was commenting etc at FO
The Last of The International Playboys
Dennis, well, so far I have read some new fiction this year, though the only one I really liked a lot of that batch was Lonely Christopher's book. Right now my main reading obsession is stuff like Virginia Woolf and Samuel R. Delany's 1960's-period sci-fi stuff. I know next year I want to read a few longer books: for example, I finally want to read "The Lord of the Rings."
Thanks for the MZR shout-out. I have a few other projects in the work for that, such as a Boy Destroyer "best of" and the long-overdue 5th volume in the Cat Band Anthology series, both of which I hope to have out sometime this year. It would be nice to do another compilation album one day also, as I thought the first one was very successful. My only problem with it was that it was lacking a contribution from Antonio: I invited him to be on it, and he told me he would send me something, but he never did. I don't hold it against him, I just assumed he was too busy or something.
Hi Dennis, fantastic gig today. Forest Swords, Laurel Halo, Florian Hecker – good good good!
Loved Chris Goode's reading yesterday, it fizzed! That guy Meddeb looks interesting too – seems like he mines the same territory as Goytisolo, to some extent?
How are ya?
I'm OK. Life is a bit hellish, what with the whole sick pal thing, but manageable. Easy reading to drift away with – the Patti Smith book, " Imperial Bedrooms", Safran Foer's " Eating Animals". My concentration's shot, but they're all fine.
Anyway, just thought I'd pop in and say hi. Love from here.
Very great selection today, DC. Thanks! Hey Colossus and Liturgy have been on my radar for a while. The former I like. The latter I'm not so sure about: HHH's philosophical treatises are particularly hard to digest – not because, like some of his critics, I want to dissociate metal from philosophical speculation but simply because I've yet to be convinced that BM assumes the transcendent function he ascribes to it. Annnnyway…
Hey no problem about Paris. There'll be another time. Highlights? Enjoyed Claude Cahoun's photography at the Jeu de Paume (though we agreed that the exhibit itself wasn't very conceptually coherent or interesting). But really it was just walking, talking, drinking, smoking. Yknow, a holiday. Oh: tried to get to Le Passage Oblige but it was closed for conges. 🙁
Oh, btw Jedward bruised and bloodied. You're welcome!
D xx
boy howdy great post. Lots of personal favorites here. And thanks for Hey Colussus, hadn't heard of them before. The blown-out sound of the video is perfect–I can only hope it sounds like that on record.
I'm proud to say I saw Prurient do a show a few years back in which Phillip Best got up on stage, opened up his shirt, and pinched his nipples for the next ten minutes.
I haven't made my mind up about Liturgy yet. Maybe I need to give it more of a chance. Even though it's very different in sound, the "logic" of the rhythms reminds me a bit of Orthrelm, but smoothed out and less showy.
Great stuff. Thanks again. Going to dig deeper from here…
@ David Peak: Philip Best is a treat to see live anytime. Was lucky enough to see Whitehouse twice here in Norway, gig in Oslo in particular was ASTOUNDING.
Gorgeous day, Dennis. I absolutely LOVE being exposed to new bands, and these were all really intriguing/interesting.
The Nick Cave comment cracked me up, reminded me of a post I saw recently somewhere summing up the current state of RHCP lyrics as such:
"I love L. A. like the Ramma-lamma-doochay.
From the ocean to the Ooly-dooly-moochay.
The women show me love like the Boon-to-the-Oonchay.
Straight lovin all my Schooly-ooly-oochay."
SO TRUE.
Latest FaBlog: Looks Like It‘s Gonna Be Obama In A Walk
It turns out that the NY public library has TALISMANO.
I've spent the past hour rewriting my article on Iranian cinema. I think my editor's suggestions have been really helpful, although I wish I could refer to more obscure films. I have to keep in mind that THE ATLANTIC isn't aimed at cinephiles and few people reading it have heard of Abbas Kiarostami. I'm happy with the piece at present and will finish the second draft tomorrow. It should go up on their site Friday.
Misa, you're supposed to turn into your father when you get older, not your grandmother…
David K – The Wanted I know of, like I know of Beiber etc – they have huge hits which I listen to on the top 40 then completely forget. I think Blue was the last Brit boy-band that had a few memorable records. They're all so bland. At least Jedward are certifiably insane and thus good fun wherever they turn up. Absolutely no sense of shame. They know what they are and are happy with it. And they're millionaires. And act like it, which is refreshing considering the number of pop stars/actors etc who get zillions for doing nothing much and still manage to moan about it. Oh another interview, the same old questions.(Why does Harrison Ford keep making films. He obviously hates everything about it). Get a job in a Call Centre then – see how you like that!
Dennis, don't encourage Memoirs…
Ten years without a UK publisher? I was going to say it may be the New Morality in the UK. There's a lot of fear around I think about how 'far' you can go. Certainly on TV. But books used to be free to be what they wanted.
Maybe it's to do with why there are no gay publishers any more and why not only small bookshops but huge chains like Borders are closing down – economics/the Internet. Nobody seems to be able to afford 'prestige'/risky books like they used to.
But I'm so out of touch. Even working in a library, because we get mostly the big stuff. Unless I order stuff in, which they're not letting me do so much – because my orders were mostly American! And the libraries have no money either. Quite rightly we're cutting back on libraries to finance the bankers' bonuses, which are more than justified by all their good works in recent years.
Hello Dennis,
I always look forward to your gigs and trusting to your taste. Today I'm mortified by the notion of Just! How much! Shit! I have to do! if I'm ever! Going! To finish! My degree!, so starting tomorrow I'm going to work with a new idea of how to attack my doubts and worries. This involves careful timing of exposure to the Web during regular hours of business. Tomorrow I'm going to dedicate my during-work downtime to this terrific post and really listen the crap out of it. Of these folks I know Jim and Matmos, and I'm dimly aware of Russell Haswell but only in terms of finding him vaguely attractive. It's going to be so cool. Thank you.
I hope that you are doing okay, and that putting together those days isn't taking a really heavy toll on you. It's raining here tonight, proper Nic Roeg in Venice sort of rain, for the first time in a couple of months. I'd like to share some amusement with you, if I possibly can. Today I sneaked this sentence into the draft of my thesis and today I started waiting to see if anyone will notice and make me take it out:
'In the example of a numeric parameter (e.g., volume), the Value Table would hold a list of strings ('0', '1', '2', … '11')'
Take care. x. J.
Dennis, Thanks. I'll have something to you by Thursday night (my night, your early morning) at the latest.
I totally don't understand the Kardashian thing either. Or the Lohan thing. Or the…and on and on and on. The famous for being famous thing just irritates and confuses me.
Haha, yay, I'm half French! Or English. I remember Rigby being pissed that London had passed a law banning public urination. I was like, huh?
I think I told you this, but the first time I went to London, I got my bags at Heathrow and went to the trains…only to see a young guy pissing as he was walking down the length of track. As I got on the train, I looked back and he was in custody and asking what he did wrong.
And actually, I think most of my pee made it outside. I checked a little later and it was dry on the floor. I couldn't have done anything anyway because the rug out in the kitchen is one of those really dense corded rugs. You have to let it dry on its own, even when you spill a drink.
So I got through my first earthquake today. A 5.9 magnitude quake centered around Mineral, Virginia, which is about 90 miles from here. It woke me up and knocked my niece out of bed. I woke up yelling, "What are you doing?" as I thought someone was in my room shaking my bed. It almost knocked my fat ass out of my bed too. Cell phone service is still sketchy, but nothing in our house got knocked over or damaged.
Now we wait for potential aftershocks, as well as tropical storm Irene this weekend.
Joe, Just call me "Nini" from now on. 😛
Best Gig Day on here EVER by my reckoning. Jim, Matmos, Prurient, Hecker, Liturgy … well yeah I'll stop because I am just listing the bands that are here, but it's because I approve so greatly. Such a great mix today, Dennis. Thanks! Tailor made for my tastes.
So I'm writing this message from Manhattan, having arrived in New York this afternoon. I'm a little spaced out from travelling and stuff but it feels good here. There was an earthquake straight after I got off the plan though, haha, good start! But yeah, I'm looking forward to exploring, starting tomorrow after I've had a bit of a snooze and reset myself from travel mode. I managed to get tickets for Deerhunter tonight! They play Webster Hall in a couple of hours! It'll be a great start to the trip. Be interesting to see what my brother makes of 'em, as he's decided to come along to the gig too. Hmmm.
Thomas xx
This gig is a good one. I particularly enjoyed the Haswell & Hecker, but then I've always been a sucker for lasers.
On the subject of noise, I got paid today so bought a Whitehouse T-shirt on eBay. It's obviously a bootleg but it still looks cool. There's also a Sotos 'Pure' T-shirt on there, with an image that would probably get you arrested for wearing it, but they don't have my size sadly.
Ben 'Jack Your Body' Robinson will be DJing this Friday, at my friends' Zazou club night. Really looking forward to it. I'll be sorting through my records in the coming days, delicately preparing for a super hard rocking set.
Misa: weeing uncontrollably, shaking bed. If your head starts revolving I know a good exorcist…
My father left a message on my answering machine, saying that he was worried about my safety re: the earthquake, but I didn't get it till several hours later. I actually didn't feel it and learned about it on Twitter. Did it affect any other East Coast d.l.s?
Yeah, so we had a fucking earthquake. 6.0 might not seem like much to Angelenos, but it was inn-tense. Sort of like the Northridge quake, the only other serious one I've experienced, in that it lasted much longer than it seemed like it ought to–long enough for people to start running around and asking what the fuck was happening. Since I was in downtown DC, near the White House, having the buildings rumbling and shaking was freaking people out. I actually stood up and said, "That's an earthquake," and a couple of people from California said so, too, and calmed people down. No cell service for 3 hours or so, but otherwise, it was just kind of a fun interruption in the day.
It's been a bit of a grim week, between Antonio and Colby's dog, so I haven't been thinking about it but a little while I got to see "The Trip" and am still thinking about it. A really beautifully made, funny, small film (edited down from a TV series, which seems to happen these days). And "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" was extraordinary; I imagine you got to see that.
And I like "Rise of the Planet of the Apes." A lot. In spite of/because of James Franco's limp performance.
Joe, I wasn't weeing uncontrollably. I just didn't see the screen door and peed into it. It was pitch black outside.
Funny you mention an exorcist. My niece thought a ghost was shaking the house (after having seen Paranormal Activity a bit ago) and said so. Then she and my nephew argued for about an hour regarding whether or not one ghost could shake a whole house. It was kind of cute.
I really like today – Hey Colossus and Liturgy in particular but I really enjoyed listening to the Matmos video too.
The link to my tumblr is here
I'm interested in the Fibonacci sequence at the moment. It has come up in a few things (news story about a kid designing this way more effective system of harnessing solar energy, and in the tv show 'Fringe' which I've been watching lots). Anyway, I think that may have something to do with the next painting I try. Also I didn't know it has roots in Sanskrit, which I learnt at university and have just started relearning. The Sanskrit connection really got me and now I'm determined to get back to where I was with it so I can start reading.
Do you like St Vincent, Dennis? I'm looking forward to the new album.
I hope that the earth does not swallow me up.
Kyler, Thanks for that.
Alan: Thanks for the poetry recommendations, I'll check them out! I really love Philip Larkin, I need to dive back into him again. Thanks!
Sypha: I downloaded your album and it's really cool! Me and a couple friends had a five minute dance party earlier this evening listening to the Orgasm song, they liked it too.
Dennis: Ambient music! I really liked the Forest Swords song and the Haswell & Hecker laser show, and the Matmos thing was really cool, they're always interesting. I wonder what that red touch screen that Charlie Martineau was playing with was? Laurel Halo is great, I'm into her. I discovered her through a remix of a Grimes song she did—sometimes I'll play that track late at night. Grimes also makes really beautiful ambient, nighttime music—her EP Gedi Primes is gorgeous, it's probably one of my favorite albums I've heard in the last year. I'm so deeply in love with Grimes, I want my stories to be like her songs, to give that same mood.
In college I had exactly one noise album—I can't remember the band but they were from Japan and SUPER LOUD—and every now and again I would put it on my headphones when I was studying somewhere that was really noisy, (like in a dorm room hallway or something) and it really helped me concentrate. You'd think it would have only added to all the peripheral distraction, but after a little bit I guess my brain just tuned it out, and it made this strange little bubble of silence which is really the opposite of silence. Anyway, listening to some of these tracks made me think of that.
Talismano sounds really interesting too, thanks for the tip!
Bye Dennis…
Chris Dankland, thanks! I think you and your friends could be the first people who have ever danced to one of my songs. Which pleases me as even though a lot of my music is noisy trash I do like dance music a lot and have kind of been moving in that direction over the years.
Dennis – Really? Interesting. I haven't heard much about him since he got released. The last bit I heard was he went directly to the DMV after his presser. I can imagine a lot of stuff is going to trip him out.
My friend introduced me to something tonight that kind of trips me out. Have you heard of this cartoon character named Salad Fingers? It's a cartoon on Youtube. It's disturbingly brilliant! Here's a few links Friends and Cage. You might dig it.
My boyfriend was a curator in his previous life
ArtForum makes for good fucking
Hey, sneaky, were'nt you editor of ArtForum?
I saw a Spin for like a second the other day and was like really? Spin?
I think Robert Palmer was on the cover
LOL I saw the Docs ad – The Sid Vicious ad is pretty fucking funny
"If I can just get this kid drunk."
I remember Courtney reading the suicide note
::the sounds of works and cigarettes::
I think I just liked the uh grammy like-Edwardian look
Never liked The Clash
Joey Ramone was an instant hit
They're saving the Chucks for Farm Aid
How small can a punk boy's ribs be?
Montmartre, the place of strange meats
I'll bet it's served on the backs of Algerian boys hands
I'm thinking light-roast?
Let me know
LOL did I tell you I got in a release party in ripped-tattersals and a navy blazer jacket
Paris is so weird
I think I'll do some writing tonight
Need to figure out how chapters work
PS. I was going to contribute to Antonio Day but all I could think of was a Magnum condom rapper?
I can't process his death. Have a wonderous Wednesday
Dennis – ah this RHCP if C is dropped what remains is great band sadly extant?? postRHP viva RHP no humor in broken sleep mmmza
odd wv flitsv
ok earthquake I want to be as impartial as etc. — 6.0 is worth writing home about, regardless of where hom,e is, Y'all. My mother regards apocalyptic news in an I-toold-you-so way usually, greetedthis as expected. After my triumphal return from grocery obtaining it happened/ a ruckus in my wooded yard afterwards beetles other small beasties scurrying in an odd way. when its light out and I do my cemetery walk I will check out rabbit behavior if its still queer hnpf its the throbblefooted spectre but that i'm used to.
Misanthrope, I feel for you.
I really like Forest Swords and Pruient.
Hey Dennis,
Oh, I hope your back feels better soon.
Eyebrows and I actually had a discussion on why the Kardashians were famous a week ago, or whenever it was. I thought it was because of a sex tape and he said it was because of their father being O.J.'s attorney, or something.
How was seeing Scott?
I'm not sure I'd be able to resist an affordable castle either. That'd be nice/cool/everything.
I'm sorry about Scott. And the Antonio Day(s), but I'm pretty sure it'll be amazing, so that's something, I think.
I'm glad Yury's feeling better.
My day:
Sleep.
Wake up.
I didn't shower for some reason today, and I'm still not really sure why, as usually after my ab exercises (ow) I do, but yeah. I'm not sure.
Cleaned, which wasn't very exciting. I also need to restock the air fresheners and or buy new ones, which is irritating.
Watched True Blood. It was okay, I guess, except for a subplot that had the potential to be interesting , which went south last episode, totally fucking itself over with an unbelievably bad ending. But the good news it's over. There was also a scene with Anna Paquin and bad music that kind of had me worried about her health. Her torso was so thin it looked twisted, but hopefully she's fine and it was a bad camera angle or something.
Weeds, which was probably the best episode of the season, so that was good, especially after True Blood. They tied things together pretty nicely and Nancy was wonderful, of course. Oh, and Michelle Trachtenberg is the special guest star, which is nice. I like her character so far.
Took a nap (my day kind of sucked), woke up. My phone was ringing so I answered it and my friend told me about her dream, and I told her about mine:
"I was in an office building (roll over, so a little muffled) and it was furnished like a house, or really nice houses, I guess, not just any hou, anyway, everybody was very, very excited because you didn't need air to breathe in the building anymore, so there wasn't any air-"
"How could you smoke? You love your cigarettes."
"I know, I asked that, but they brushed it off. And then they were like (roll back over, stare at the ceiling, sigh), let's all go for a run, so we did, and they were sacrificing us to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in order to live in their air free office buildings."
"That's weird. You have fucked up dreams. I think I had one where I had a brain tumor last night."
"This was five minutes ago. Actually, it was a week ago. I just remembered it. But I remember, because Death cut me with a scythe, and then my arm hurt for a while after. So I think I slept on it wrong."
"Alright, that's great, liar, and I'm outside your house, so, hurry up."
So I did, sort of, got ready, went out, yawning, "my hair's gross," "it looks fine," Starbucks for a little while, talk talk, she said it was too hot so we left so she could get ice cream. We went to Braum's, and by then the sun had gone down and it was 96, so we went outside. There was a family behind us, and the mother slapped her kid pretty hard, so we both got very interested in other things pretty quickly. I leaned on my arms and stared at the brick floor for a little while. There was a compressed cup with the bottom folded over and one of the lights surrounding the outside area, I guess, was broken, and the other one was dirty, so it was weak yellow shining on the cup next to where the bushes met, and it made me sad, for some reason. Turned, saw that the family had left and made out a mountain out of napkins and wrappers and cups, turned back to the yellow, door open, my friend said "Don't think about it. She slapped the shit out of her kid," hear an employee say: "Was it the oldest one? Cause I hate that one. Fuck! There's a giant thing of chocolate under here!", me: "That's probably why they put so many napkins on top."
Came back, my friend wanted to go on my walk with me, so, okay. She was excited to see an armadillo and a frog, but halfway through she started panting and holding her side. I think she was exaggerating, but we went back anyway. As we were heading back, I saw the silent guy kind of far away, walking, and I looked at him and waved a little but I don't think he saw me.
And yeah. That's pretty much it, I think. How was your day, Dennis?
Misa I know. I was just exaggerating for comic effect. I really should stop doing that.
I love the idea of the ghost argument. Like there are definitive ghost powers to be debated about.
hey dennis,
firstly i just wanna make sure that you got the e-mail i sent with my contribution to the day for antonio in it? i forgot to italicize the body of antonio's poem, so yeah, like i did when i put it here on thursday, italicize the fucker like it's 1999. do it for cilla, she doesn't have anything else.
i feel like apple is recruiting me as well. i was in the apple store with my friend on monday and i felt less hostility to it than i used to. i'm still unsure about the controlled ecosystem, but i guess it has positives. and yeah, i basically feel more okay about their stuff. i'm even thinking about selling my copy of harry potter and the deathly hallows and using the money to pay for celta and an apple computer. but if i'm able to sell it i guess i would save the money for when i move out.
on saturday i met with both of the friends that i talked about the day before. when i was with one of my friends i came up with this cute idea for a short story because we were talking about secret societies, freemasonry and stuff. this guy wants to find an authentic experience, but in the story contemporary life is blank and because of the state the authentic experiences have to be hidden. and the guy becomes a member of this secret society to find love. and near the end he is in a room in the temple of the secret society with this girl and she's sobbing because she believes she is gonna be ritually raped and then cut open or whatever by the guy because he is a member of the secret society, and he is like, can we just talk and hug, i wanna just talk and hug. my friend wants to write it, i want him to as well.
this day is totally major. the wallace stevens quotation is impossibly beautiful. the matmos performance is the kind of thing that makes me really sad when a person says nobody is making awesome music anymore.
check you later,
darren
xoxo
(British)
Nice to see Forest Swords up there. There's always been a fair bit of the eclectic about Mersey music – aside from the mainstream stuff, and in fact inside the mainstream stuff, like The Farm and The Las and Space and the rest, there's always been a really awesome subculture hanging around. I miss my home.
I found Twitter really useful for some random thoughts today, largely because I'm a bit of a narcissist, but mostly because I did actually think that all roads should designed like children's play mats. They had the fire station, the police station, the ambulance station and the gas station all next to each other.
Kubrik invented the iPad.
Tonight I'm mostly drawing rabbits.
Oh wow, several things here that have been on my list to investigate for a while… love Prurient, Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, hey Colossus… and Liturgy, I've been feelikg so hyped up to hear this, and I do like it, but I think I need to listen to more: weirdly Prurient sounds more like the Liturgy of my imagination
Enjoyed the round up of recent books yesterday too: I went along to a reading / book launch organised by Chris for Better Than Language a few weeks ago and heard some really fantastic work, including a truly mindblowing/ altering performance by Johnny Liron
Hi Dennis
great day of music! that JO'R is great! theres another longer clip of the same show which is also amazing. BSBC i havent listened to in ages. gonna check out laurel halo dont know her but want to.
just finished a new zine for the next show. ended up being fancy printed due to a printers mistake so its fancy looking. gonna start on another one but bigger 32pger i thinks.
hope alls good.
damn school boy beat me to the beaten jedward.