Jesse Jarnow

“rory rides me raw” – the vaselines

“Rory Rides Me Raw” – The Vaselines (download) (buy)
from Son of a Gun EP (1987)

(file expires August 12th)

It’s rare that indie rock is straight dirty. Romantic, sure. Coy, frequently. Sexy, almost never. And, no two ways about it, the Vaselines’ “Rory Rides Me Raw” ain’t about horses, despite the lyrics about galloping through the morning dew. Oddly, I think it’s the just-off double-tracked guitars that add to this impression as much as the lyrics, as if the singer knowing that “I’m gonna do it soon” is making it a bit hard to focus.

the death of fun

Spent some time traveling over the past few days. Through the TSA lines (and especially after they confiscated a nifty swag water bottle I’d gotten), elitist airline terminals (at Delta at JFK, once site of Pan Am’s utopian glass Worldport, coach customers wait in makeshift screening areas, and funnel through a series of endless hallways before only to be spat out at the backdoor of the first class entrance), and down Utah highways, past gas stations (where prices make road-trips for fun or friendship both morally and economically unfeasible), I thought pretty much non-stop of Hunter S. Thompson’s vision of 9/11.

It was the death of fun, unreeling right in front of us, unraveling, withering, collapsing, draining away in the darkness like a handful of stolen mercury. Yep, the silver stuff goes suddenly, leaving only a glaze of poison on the skin. (Kingdom of Fear, 160.)

What a bummer.

how jerry got hip (again) on radio woodstock

I taped an appearance with host Brett Pasternak for tonight’s episode of Woodstock Jams, speaking about “How Jerry Got Hip (Again).”

10 pm-midnight EST
on Radio Woodstock, 100.1 WDST
also streaming live at WDST.com.

After that, the show will be archived for a week on their site. (Click ‘Woodstock Jams.’)

how jerry got hip (again) mp3 mix

“Turn On Your Lovelight” – Akron/Family (download)
recorded 11/07, UK
My feature, “How Jerry Got Hip (Again),” appears in the current issue of Relix.
Download an accompanying mp3 mix here.

Dead-influenced tunes:
“Ed Is A Portal” – Akron/Family (from Love is Simple)
“Blessing Force” – Akron/Family (from Meek Warrior)
“Lazy Suicide” – Megafaun (from Bury the Square)
“Centermost” – Greg Davis (from Somnia)
“Peacebone” – Animal Collective (from Peacebone)
“Jugband 2000” – Jackie O Motherfucker (from Wow/The Magick Fire Music)
“For Every Field There’s A Mole” – Bonnie “Prince” Billy (from Lie Down in the Light)
“The Party’s Crashing Me” – Of Montreal (from The Sunlandic Twins)
“Preteen Weaponry, part 1” – Oneida (from Preteen Weaponry)
“The Diamond Sea” – Sonic Youth (from Washing Machine)

Dead covers:
“Stella Blue” (live) – Ween
“Brokedown Palace” – Bonnie “Prince” Billy (from Pebbles and Ripples)
“Cream Puff War” – Oneida (from Heads Ain’t Ready 7-inch)
“Turn On Your Lovelight” (live) – Akron/Family (11/2007 UK)
“We Bid You Goodnight” (live) – Animal Collective
“Shakedown Street” (live) – Kevin Barnes (15 March 2008 South by Southwest)
“Ripple” (live) – Yo La Tengo (19 October 2007 Landmark Theater)
“Attics of My Life” – Megafaun (29 April 2008 Union Pool)
“Franklin’s Tower” – Meat Puppets (from Meat Puppets I bonus)

Dead references:
“I Saw A Hippie Girl on 8th Ave” – Jeffrey Lewis (from It’s The Ones Who’ve Cracked That the Light Shines Through)
“Drug Test” – Yo La Tengo (from President Yo La Tengo EP)
“So Long Jerry” – Ween (from 12 Golden Country Greats sessions)

Greg Davis mix:
One hour DJ-style mix. See PDF.

tales from the golden road

Like a slacker, I totally spaced on mentioning that I was going to be a guest on Gary Lambert and David Gans’ Tales from the Golden Road show on Sirius radio on Sunday afternoon, along with my pal Barry Smolin and journalist Denise Sullivan.

So, uh, sorry.

If you happen to read this before 9 am EST on Monday, and want to hear more musings related to my Relix story, “How Jerry Got Hip (Again),” and some random call-ins that didn’t have much to do with it, that’s when the show will re-run.

have read/will read dept.

o Flavor tripping parties! Miracle fruit, huh?
o An NYC taco blog.
o Michael Agger on How We Read Online.
o Michael Donahue on the ghostly South China Mall, the biggest mall on the planet.
o Nicholas Carr on whether Google is making us stupid.
o The James Brown Collection from Christie’s. Clicks on anything (like, say, the handwritten letters) for close-ups.

some recent articles.

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. Y’know: life/summer, etc..

Articles/profiles:
James Brown? James Brown!, on the James Brown auction at Christie’s (Village Voice blog)
Emergent: Todd Rohal, interview with Guatemalan Handshake director (Paste)
Repeater, James Blackshaw profile (PaperThinWalls.com)

Books:
Dirty Words: A Literary Encyclopedia of Sex edited by Ellen Sussman (San Francisco Chronicle)
Sonic Youth books: Goodbye 20th Century by David Browne, Psychic Confusion by Stevie Chick, and The Empty Page edited by Peter Wild (London Times)

Songs:
Black Rice” – Women (PaperThinWalls.com)
Veins to the Sky” – Alexander Tucker (PaperThinWalls.com)

Albums:
Indie-Weirdo Round-Up, featuring: African Scream Contest, Animal Collective mixomixes, Colin Meloy, Yeti v. 5, John Zorn (JamBands.com)
Indie-Weirdo Round-Up, featuring: James Blackshaw, Eric Chenaux, Andy Votel Presents Brazilika, Do You Smell What Barack is Cooking? (JamBands.com)

LIve:
Alan and Richard Bishop at the Knitting Factory, 22 June 2008 (Village Voice blog)

Movies:
The Guatemalan Handshake (Paste)
Persepolis (Paste)

Columns, etc.:
BRAIN TUBA: Morgan the Lion, no. 3
BRAIN TUBA: Morgan the Lion, no. 4

Print:
o August Relix (Jerry Garcia cover): cover feature “How Jerry Got Hip Again” (feat. Akron/Family, Megafaun, Greg Davis, Animal Collective, Sonic Youth, Will Oldham, Black Flag, Earth), album reviews of Beck, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Mike Gordon, Inara George with Van Dyke Parks, The Music Tapes, Brian Wilson, Patti Smith and Kevin Shields, Karen Dalton.
o Paste #45: profiles of CSS and Roel Wouters, album review of Brazil Classics at 20.

lewis shiner’s glimpses

“Smile, part 1 (Tim Smolen mix)” – The Beach Boys (download)

Lewis Shiner’s Glimpses — which I discovered via a review in the back pages of (I think) Guitar for the Practicing Musician — was how I first heard of the Beach Boys’ Smile, which I wouldn’t hear for another eight years after the book’s publication. Written at the tale-end of the ‘zine/cassette era, Glimpses‘ sci-fi reconstructions of lost albums comes from an age when lost albums were more rumors than downloadable fact. Shiner’s narrator, an audio repairman named Ray Shackleford, hangs out with Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison, but it’s his time with Brian Wilson that resonated with me most. Here, Ray arrives at Brian’s Laurel Way home in early December 1966.

The decor was schizophrenic: plaid drapes and pole lamps and heavy Spanish furniture, mixed with Lava Lites and orange-and-blue wallpaper and campy religious icons. It was all I could do not to rub the curtains between my thumb and forefinger, or pocket an ashtray for a souvenir.

Downstairs there were glass doors that led to the pool. A slide curved down to it from the roof of the house. In the steam from the pool, I smelled chlorine, perfume, cut grass. Of the four people who splashed around in the shallow end my attention went to Brian right away. First off because he was so big, six four and really starting to put on weight. There in his baggy trunks, as he straddled a child’s inflatable horse and almost sank it, he seemed larger than life.

running at the sunshine

Running at the Sunshine is a 2002-2003 collaboration between composer Matthew Van Brink, choreographer Judith Chaffee, and myself. It’s based on the Sunshine Motel, the last remaining flophouse on the Bowery. I’d often walk by en route from the Bowery Ballroom to San Loco and imagine life within. (Recently a cube of white light was built on the formerly vacant lot next door.)
Matt posted a video of Sunshine‘s debut performance at the Huntington Theater at Boston University on February 20, 2003:

Running at the Sunshine from matt van brink on Vimeo.

(Audio recordings available here.)

BARACK OBAMA HAS GIVEN A FREE OFFER TO ENRICH YOUR LIFE (ordovician archives, no. 5)

Dr. Tuttledge expresses his thanks to MVB for this glorious example of outrageous political racketeering. And though we here at the Ordovician archives cannot endorse 419 scams or their perpetrators, we greatly appreciate Senator Obama’s willingness to engage in contemporary mediums. His understanding of the form is absolutely elegant.

From: mailfromobamacompany Gazeta.pl

Date: Jun 25, 2008 10:19 PM

Subject: BARACK OBAMA HAS GIVEN A FREE OFFER TO ENRICH YOUR LIFE
To:

OBAMA BANK
AND GROUP COMPANY
#30,STREET,OWEERI

Dear lucky winner

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investments over the world, The director manager of obama bank, when to Google.com , yahoo inc, hotmail.com , aol.com , ask.com and otheremailaddress searching websites to collect some valid email address of people which they will transfer some amount of dollars to their account,.they only collected ten people
email address in the whole world,and they are given this sum of amount to each of this people as a promotion to celebrate the successfulness in the their business ,and also it is also so sponsored by some other group of companies,
promotion will only last for two months

GENERAL MANAGER
barack obama

If you are lucky to be one of the ten chosen people,just complete the form below

FORMS OF VARIFICATION
NAME…………………
AGE……………….
LOCATION ADDRESS………..
STATE…….
COUNTRY………………..
OCCUPATION………………..
NAME OF YOUR BANK…………………….
BANK ADDRESS………………..
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After Completing The Form,Send It To Our Company Payment Department Email
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Congratulation Once More