Randy Newman Old Man

 

Tobin Sprout To My Beloved Martha

 

Destroyer An Actor’s Revenge

 

Sebadoh Brand New Love

 

Pinback Talby

 

The Velvet Underground White Light/White Heat

 

Nina Simone Pirate Jenny

 

Wire From the Nursery

 

The Quick Teacher’s Pet

 

Pink Floyd Lucifer Sam

 

Pavement Grounded

 

Butthole Surfers Sweat Loaf

 

Cheap Trick Auf Wiedersehen

 

Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band Big Eyed Beans From Venus

 

Guided by Voices Johnny Appleseed

 

Laura Nyro Gibsom Street

 

Alexander O’Neal Criticize

 

Drive Like Jehu Here Come The Rome Plows

 

Sonic Youth Schizophrenia

 

Ramones I Don’t Wanna Go Down To The Basement

 

Donovan Epistle to Dippy

 

Superchunk Untied

 

Eno The True Wheel

 

Airport 5 Stifled Man Casino

 

The Shangri-Las Past, Present And Future

 

Gram Parsons $1000 Wedding

 

Loudon Wainwright III Kick in the Head

 

Andy Pratt Inside Me Wants Out

 

Kurt Weill/Bertolt Brecht Song of the Insufficiency of Human Endeavor

Play it here

 

David Ackles Midnight Carousel

 

Buffy Sainte-Marie My Country Tis of Thy People You’re Dying

 

The Rolling Stones We Love You

 

Spacemen 3 OD Catastrophe

 

The Jesus And Mary Chain Some Candy Talking

 

The Melvins Joan of Arc

 

The Dickies Fan Mail

 

Xiu Xiu Blacks

 

Family Voyage

 

New Pornographers Use It

 

Sparks Mickey Mouse

 

The Cramps Garbage Man

 

Neil Young Tired Eyes

 

Cat Power Nude as the News

 

Swervedriver Rave Down

 

Björk Hyperballad

 

Spirit Aren’t You Glad

 

The Left Banke She May Call You Up Tonight

 

ABBA Knowing Me, Knowing You

 

Magazine The Light Pours Out of Me

 

The Flaming Lips The Spiderbite Song

 

Jefferson Airplane Two Heads

 

Bow Wow Wow Chihuahua

 

Husker Du Divide And Conquer

 

Vår Pictures of Today/Victorial

 

Wall Of Voodoo Factory

 

Lou Reed Sad Song

 

Fleetwood Mac The Green Manalishi

 

The Fall Smile

 

Sebadoh As the World Dies, the Eyes of God Grow Bigger

 

Roy Wood & Electric Light Orchestra Look at Me Now

 

Incredible String Band Very Cellular Song

 

Dwight Twilley Looking for the Magic

 

The Flamin’ Groovies Slow Death

 

The Groundhogs Cherry Red

 

Echo And The Bunnymen Over The Wall

 

The Kinks Susannah’s Still Alive

 

Van Dyke Parks The All Golden

 

Fugazi Rend It

 

Drunken Boat Pool

 

Alice Cooper Halo of Flies

 

S.O.S. Band Just Be Good to Me

 

Chic My Feet Keep Dancing

 

Tricky Diss Never (Dig Up We history)

 

Nick Drake Black Eyed Dog

 

Tim Buckley Pleasant Street

 

My Bloody Valentine Cigarette in Your Bed

 

Ride Vapour Trail

 

Mad River The War Goes On

 

John Cale Engine

 

Leonard Cohen Dress Rehearsal Rag

 

Colin Newman Life On Deck

 

Scott Walker + Sunn O))) Brando

 

Blink-182 Stay Together For The Kids

 

Gang of Four I Found That Essence Rare

 

Robert Pollard Far-out Crops

 

Serge Lama Je suis malade

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. Traditionally, when my birthday comes around, I use the blog as a place to self-indulge. Sometimes I’ve foisted big posts about my heroes like Bresson or Robert Pollard on you, and sometimes I’ve done what I’m doing today — go through my favorite all-time songs list, update it, check to see which ones have video presence, and make a post. Not sure what I expect you do do with it, but there are some awfully great songs up there, and I suppose they’re a way to for you look into my psyche and soul or something, if you’re curious. Anyway, somehow enjoy? ** David Ehrenstein, Buches should be so lucky, ha ha. ** David, Hi. I like fireworks, but I always find they’re always huge disappointments relative to their glorious packaging. Well, from what I’ve seen, Madonna’s son’s paintings are sub-high school art class incompetent crap, and charging $20,000+ a pop for them is kind of asking for abuse maybe? But, hey, rescue him. I’m sure it would him and his ‘art’ a world of good. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Yeah, after reading the description of ‘Deadly Dentists’, I decided to leave it safely in my imagination. Could be the premise of a cool cheap horror/slasher film though. Your love worked, I think, since an appropriate restaurant has been found, and tonight I’m gorging! Love replacing Harry Styles ‘internal organs with macaroni & cheese, G. ** Bill, I love fireworks too, but they’re like porn films. They could and should be more … something. Ooh, nice, about that firework from your childhood. That sounds like an exception to my above mentioned gripe. Yeah, excited avoid the Buttholes doc. That could be wild. Happy day, sir. ** l@rst, Hi. No, I never quit smoking. No doubt I should have and should still, but I have no plans to. All I’ve got left is cigs and coffee. Ouch. I had a root canal recently and it was no fun whatsoever, but then it was over, and now, apart from a new little valley in my mouth to entertain my tongue, it’s like it never happened. Enjoy the twilight sleep if you can. Me too: re: the Buttholes doc. Happiest day! ** _Black_Acrylic, I completely agree. I love your new PT episode. It was wild. I think I’m going to give it another birthday spin in fact. But without headphones! Glad you’re a fellow jab survivor supreme. Wow, about your uncledom. Nice, buddy. ** T, Hi, T. I think the last you were you were in Gare de Lyon? So you were here. Physically. IRL. Oh, shit, hugs about the overworkload. I hope your colleagues’ health is back to a noses-to-the-grindstone point. I’m very happy that you saw and liked ‘TIHYWD’ so much! Thank you! Yeah, I’m proud of that piece, and, boy, it was a lot of hard work getting it to work right originally, as you can probably tell. If you have any friends in London, it’s being performed there on March 18 & 19 at Sadler Wells. I wrote the lyrics to the song, but not the music. I’m not sure who wrote that. The voice singing the song belongs to Tojiko Noriko. She has a lot of albums out and she’s great. Anyway, yeah, I’m so thrilled you liked it. I’ll greedily take that wished-for week, of course. Thank you. To go obvious too, I hope your week is like your top 7 all-time favorite songs. ** Steve Erickson, Hi. There are plenty of Ethiopian restaurants here, it was just finding one that was fairly guaranteed to be good. And, more importantly, open on Mondays because almost none of them are. I think we have a winner, but I’ll I’ll find out tonight. Is the Ethiopian restaurant you mention the one on Ave B just north of the park? I’ve been there a few times and loved it. What we’re waiting to hear is if some funding will come through or not, and I don’t know exactly when we’ll hear. Hopefully any minute, or at least any day. ** geymm, Thank you, pal, and awwww. Fuck postal rules, and thank you kindly for the thought. Have a great day on my emotional dime. xo. ** Brian, Hey, Brian. Nice descript. of the firework packages. When I know the ‘Crowd’ @ BAM dates, I’ll let you know. Fujiko Nakaya is so great. One of Zac’s and my ongoing protects is a documentary about her. We shot a lot of footage some years ago, and we need to go back to it, probably after ‘Room Temperature.’ Oh, ‘TIHYWD’ is ‘This Is How You Will Disappear’. What Cadinot did you watch? The earlier films are by far the best, I think. My weekend? Hm. I had my Zoom bookclub with my US writer pals, and that was great. It was very rainy here, which kind of hampered stuff. Not too much happened, actually, I don’t think. Huh. Well, here’s to a week that sacrifices itself on the altar of your joy. ** Right. You know what’s what today. Enjoy my birthday in whatever form you do, and I’ll see you tomorrow.

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, B. Happy you were happy to see it again. Thanks for the alert about her name change. Is there any interesting reason for the change? Ah, Play Therapy to the rescue! Everyone, Yesterday’s guest-host with the most _Black_Acrylic isn’t done with us yet happily. His life-giving and addictive podcast Play Therapy is –and here I begin to quote him — ‘online here via Tak Tent Radio! Ben ‘Jack Your Body’ Robinson rings in 2022 with Italo, Peruvian tape experiments and even some Ballardian Ambient sounds too.’ Seriously high recommendation to click that ‘here’. ‘Peruvian tape experiments’, whoa! Have a fine weekend, sir. ** Dominik, Hi!!! I think Pfizer and Moderna are equivalent, yeah. I hope you sail through your third shot a la me. The show was wonderful to see last night. It’s such a strange, ambitious piece. It’s from 2010, which isn’t that long ago, but it’s sad how people don’t make trippy, huge spectacle-style theater like that anymore. It felt very fresh, and I felt proud, so it was a good night. I had to google to see if “Deadly Dentists” was a real thing, and it is! Crazy. Crazy that such a show got greenlit. I’ll go get some popcorn somewhere. Thanks! Monday’s my birthday, and some friends and I are doing dinner to mark the occasion, and I really want to eat Ethiopian food for some reason, and I don’t know of a good Ethiopian restaurant in Paris, so all I ask of today’s love is that he write an entirely believable TripAdvisor rave review of an Ethiopian restaurant in Paris to help me out, G. ** David, Hi. I had to walk through a shopping center/mall last night to get to the theater I was heading for, and how strange and depressing those places are now. It needed you dancing, for sure. Glad your test was predictably neg. Now you’re free and have a whole weekend to decimate. And you did? ** David Ehrenstein, Ah, Jarry, gotcha, now it makes sense. Yes, RIP Sidney Poitier. What a giant and impressive actor/figure he was when I was young. And Bogdanovich. I’ve been meaning to rewatch ‘Saint Jack’ recently for some reason. I quite liked it at the time. ** David Fishkind, Hi, David. Lucky you vis-a-vis the snow. Even though I don’t have the shoes for it. I’m honored that ‘Period’ had an effect on your work. Thank you for the links. I’ll dig in thoroughly. Oh, I knew Logue, or, rather knew of it. I never actually had a copy. Impressive people in it. I’ll get myself an issue or two. Oh, you’ll send me one? Thank you! Yes, I’ll email you my mailing address today. Understood about the head- and heartache of getting a book published. There are so many really good smaller presses these days; surely one or more would realise a boon when they read your mss. The first time is tough but then it gets easier for the presses and for you or else you understand the ropes of the process and resign yourself to them or something maybe? My coffee isn’t doing me its usual favor this morning for some reason either. How annoying. Have a lovely weekend if possible! ** Misanthrope, I do indeed know Ben is ace. Chilling sounds like just the ticket. Yeah, I think it’s totally possible that I got Covid or Omicron or whatever and never knew it. Yury had it, so that would make sense. What a world. ** Jack Skelley, Jackster! Yes, god, the Butthole Surfers live in that era were kind of unbeatable. I saw a show by them on the ‘Locust Abortion Technician’ tour that is a top five best gigs ever. Dude, I will see you in mere hours from now, and probably minutes from the time you see this. ** l@rst, Hi, bud. Despite my no rereading thing, I would love to reread ‘IJ’ one of these days. Weekends don’t tend to be that special for me: blog day off, remember to buy cigs and food on Saturday since things actually close here on Sundays, … uh. Like that there. You have anything giant planned? ** Brian, Hey, Brian. Indeed he does. Right, 411. 911 is ‘911 is a Joke’. Duh. Trippy stagecraft is no small thing. Chandelier-based or whatever. The Gisele/me piece I saw again last night has this 25 or minute huge, roiling fog sculpture in the middle of it that was designed by the great Japanese fog sculptor Fujiko Nakaya that is really mind blowing. It’s just a technical trick, but its effect is really something. So, yeah. Gisele’s and my piece ‘Crowd’ is coming to NYC (at BAM) but not for a while yet. Good old Hitchcock. Your brother is cool. I’ll check around for that manga. My friends and I were just talking about how great ‘Paris Spleen’ is last night. My Friday was mostly seeing ‘TIHYWD’ and the trek to get out to the theater. And a little work and this and that. No big, but solid. I hope your weekend blows your mind even if it’s only on a technical level. ** Okay. There are few things I love more in the world than fireworks packaging. Why, I don’t know, other than what seems to me to be their obvious wonderfulness. And I haven’t indulged this love on the blog in several years, so it seemed high time. I strongly advise you to search yourself to find your inner, lurking fireworks packaging geek because otherwise you won’t have a great time around here this weekend. So, please do your best in that regard, and I will see you on Monday.