“Yo Yo Bye Bye” – Why? (download) (buy)
The Motel Party: no. 1, no. 2, no. 3, no. 4, no. 5, no. 6, no. 7, no. 8, no. 9, no. 10, no. 11, no. 12
She was by the motel pool–the indoor one–in wide sunglasses and a bikini the color of the chlorine water. She listened to a yellow walkman with headphones and, other than her tapping foot, might’ve been asleep. It was nice out. Perhaps not bikini weather, but certainly pleasant enough for a walk on the beach. I thought about inviting her to the party that Peabody was apparently organizing in my room. He’d told me to get seven bags of ice, tomato juice, lemons, Tabasco, and candles. He’d do the rest. I’d told Dani about the party, too, though not the girl. Not that I knew Dani too well, trans-Pacific conversations or no, but still. Besides, inviting poolside sirens to parties thrown by chronically unemployed 60somethings in New England hotels wasn’t something I did lightly, or–really–at all. Peabody was in the main texts about Eugene Harrison, but never as more than a footnote from the last, lost years. A looming figure in the unfinished sheaf of poems from ’68–he’d had a few published himself–nobody had yet interviewed him, and discovering that he was still alive was something of a surprise. “Better read than dead/God of mythic dance worlds,” is how Harrison himself put it. “You get the fucking ice yet?” Peabody squawked from the phone, which had been mysteriously replaced with a rotary model.
“Mama, You Been On My Mind” – Lee Ranaldo (download)
The Motel Party: no. 1, no. 2, no. 3, no. 4, no. 5, no. 6, no. 7, no. 8, no. 9, no. 10, no. 11, no. 12
“My old man knew his old man,” Peabody said, nodding up the stairs, towards his sleeping father, who we’d helped from the toilet and back to bed. “Didn’t grow up together. Only showed up, shit, sometime after his dad. Didn’t know he was a writer at first. I know he had a reputation in the city for knowing everybody, but he pretty much kept to himself out here. Old man fit right in, though.” Peabody’s cheeks had hardened into a permanent softness, like they’d bloated outwards at a young age and solidified before worry lines could arrive. He sipped a Bud. It was past dinnertime. Every time I asked him a question, he stared suspiciously at my digital recorder on the table between us. He forgot it as soon as he started to talk, but didn’t offer anything I didn’t already know: Gene had stopped writing after his arrival, and became an enraged, alcoholic Goldwater supporter, like the ailing father he’d come to take care for. He tried to explain the explosion of emotion when Gene, the self-exiled writer, came into the bar, what the night would turn into. Peabody saw my disappointment, and suddenly looked very old. “Tell you what,” he said, smiling. “I’ll get something together for you.” He stood up. “For you,” he repeated.
“Big Ideas (Don’t Get Any)” (James Houston printer remix) – Radiohead (download)
The Motel Party: no. 1, no. 2, no. 3, no. 4, no. 5, no. 6, no. 7, no. 8, no. 9, no. 10, no. 11, no. 12
Peabody’s living room was filled with books, but no Peabody. “Door’s open,” he told me on the phone. “Shoulda come in before.” Detective novels and sci-fi paperbacks were next to the disintegrating gray couch, but also Balzac, Proust, Blake. The walls were paneled with a dark, fake wood that had muted to a sickly tan. Moldy but undusty LPs leaned against a turntable set on a low olive bookshelf. A bouquet of red helium balloons–two or three popped, another half-dozen intact–floated in one corner. Upstairs, there was water running. “Hello?” I shouted tentatively. To my left, a counter gave way to a kitchen, three of the four cabinets open. I could see another three balloons straining to escape from inside one. I stepped towards the stairs at the back of the room. Boards creaked. “Hello?” I shouted again, and listened. There was a shout on the second floor. I walked upstairs. “Yes?” I replied. “Come in here and help me,” a voice returned. On the right, an open bathroom door revealed two men, old and older, the former attempting to the lift the latter from the toilet. The older man grinned stupidly, his wrinkled features recoiling to the guileless guilt of a small child.
(“The Motel Party” will continue tomorrow…)
Episode 46: A Lukewarm Hope
Listen here.
1. “Give Booze A Chance” – Bonzo Dog Band (Tadpoles outtake)
2. “Elvis is Everywhere” – Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper (from Bo-Day-Shus!!!)
3. “Frow Show Theme” – MVB
4. “Big Ideas (Don’t Get Any)” (James Watson dot matrix remix) – Radiohead (via YouTube)
5. “Fallslake” – Nobukazu Takemura (from 10th)
6. “Sad, Sad, Sad” – Arms (from Kids Aflame)
7. “Just One Girl” – The Knickerbockers (from Chapel in the Fields 7-inch)
8. “Mama You’ve Been On My Mind” – Lee Ranaldo (from Outlaw Blues: A Tribute To Bob Dylan compilation)
9. “Stephanie Says” – Lee Ranaldo (from Fifteen Minutes: A Tribute to the Velvet Underground)
10. “Viola Lee Blues” – The Grateful Dead (recorded 3 September 1967, Rio Nido, CA)
11. “I’ll Be on the Water” – Akron/Family (from Akron/Family)
12. “Nothing’s Going To Happen” – Tall Dwarfs (from That’s The Short & Long Of It)
“This Wheel’s On Fire” – The Band (download) (buy)
The Motel Party: no. 1, no. 2, no. 3, no. 4, no. 5, no. 6, no. 7, no. 8, no. 9, no. 10, no. 11, no. 12
The motel was on the water, but had two pools anyway — one on the edge of the parking lot, one inside, just off the lobby — both devoid of swimmers. Dani filled my room with her room while I waited for Peabody to wake. Hers was in Tokyo, landlocked amid others, mid-block. I lay back on the starched bedspread and imagined as she described it. It was like a spaceship, she said, the capsule-bed she was in. “It’s like I’m at the controls. It’s totally cool. There’s just enough room to sit and eat my Bobby-burger.” On the blank walls, the Atlantic lapping at the Massachusetts coast, I imagined her ship parting the grey, a fire trail behind, heading towards unnamed spheres. I told her about my sunburn. I could still feel the warmth there shivering and trying to escape. “I guess it’s technically sun poisoning,” I said. But she was gone, disconnected, alone in Japan. I wondered if I should knock on Peabody’s door again. I slept more, the comfort of a deep lethargy like a warm drizzle blurring the view from my glasses. The motel phone rang, red light blinking. “Whaddya want?” the voice on the other end asked me abruptly.
“I’ll Be on the Water” – Akron/Family (download) (buy)
The Motel Party: no. 1, no. 2, no. 3, no. 4, no. 5, no. 6, no. 7, no. 8, no. 9, no. 10, no. 11, no. 12
The first time I rang Peabody’s doorbell, just late for my 10 am appointment, I nearly electrocuted myself. An ungrounded wire on the buzzer jolted me, the millisecond of rich current like a thick, long spark, unlike any other type of pain, my body recalling previous shockings in a continuum of electricity: the first, as a five year old, under a poster of the Earth; in high school, drunk on scotch and reaching for a phone charger I’d been too lazy to plug in all the way. I stood under the thin linoleum overhang on Peabody’s stoop, gathering myself against the sudden rain. It pattered in sheets, and I was unable to discern if any life stirred inside. The late summer storm burned off quickly, the wind from the Atlantic blowing warm air over the neighborhood. The second time, two hours later, I knocked firmly. Still no response. I bought a turkey sandwich and went to the beach, made absent notes about the town, and dozed — curled up — on the sand. At the motel, I felt the burn on the back of my knees and slept again, until Dani pulled from me by satellite.
Sorry for the late notice, but if anybody’s around, I’ll be reading some fiction here on Sunday eve:
Rhymes with Birds at the Petri Space
A night of poems and prose by acclaimed local writers (plus free food and cheap boos)
June 8 at 7:30pm
114 Forrest St. buzzer 15
Take the L to Morgan. Take the Bogart exit, turn right out of subway onto Bogart. Walk on Bogart to Flushing.
Forrest st. is the diagonal street across Flushing and Flushing Farms. (directions) (More info.)
“Tangled Up In Blue” – Bob Dylan (download)
“Silvio” – Bob Dylan (download)
recorded 30 June 1988, Jones Beach, Wantagh, NY
“Tangled Up In Blue” – Bob Dylan (download)
“Silvio” – Bob Dylan (download)
recorded 19 May 1998, San Jose Arena, San Jose, CA
(files expire June 12th)
Bob Dylan’s so-called Never-Ending Tour launched 20 years ago this week, on June 7th, in Concord, California. Though Dylan claims in Chronicles that he’d been inspired to hit the road by figuring out a new way of singing, the tapes don’t bear this out entirely. For the most part, Dylan’s singing was still the insanely caricatured tweeting that made Real Live and Dylan and the Dead such bummers. It would take a few years for him to relax into the new mode of phrasing. Compare the above versions of “Tangled Up In Blue,” recorded in June 1988 and May 1998, respectively. The older version is just bloody awful, all kinds of rubbery, nasal melodrama. The ’98 rendition is typical of the period, totally confident.
All of which is to explain why “Silvio” — a fairly minor Dylan tune, lyrics by the Grateful Dead’s Robert Hunter, from 1988’s Down in the Groove — was such a Never-Ending staple. On the ’88 version, the grating upper register yawls that mar the rest of the show are entirely absent. The take from a decade later is slower and clearly improved, but the difference in strategies is almost negligible. Minor as it was, “Silvio” was maybe the template for the gentleman-on-the-skids persona Dylan developed during the Never Ending Tour, and picked up officially on 1997’s Time Out of Mind — all of which informs the excitement bubbling beneath Dylan’s voice as he stops rushing the phrases in the second verse, a new pleasure for him in a decade of dead ends.
Though songs from these albums — all older stuff I’ve been digging — have and will likely continue to turn up in Frow Shows and various blog posts, the albums don’t easily lend themselves to mp3ification. Mostly, they’re just brilliant vibes.
And the Hits Just Keep on Comin’ – Michael Nesmith (1972)
The former Monkee, singing and playing acoustic guitar, is accompanied only by pedal steel legend Red Smith. The humor is wry, a backcountry depot in the land of Head and Elephant Parts.
Rev. Louis Overstreet with his sons and the congregation of St. Like’s Powerhouse Church of God in Christ (rec. 1962, rel. 1995)
Great gospel from Arhoolie, found in the FMU archives. There’s a lot here: some beautiful blues (“Two Little Fishes”), ecstatic chants (“Yeah Lord! Jesus Is Able”), and amazing vocals by Overstreet. The warm recording quality puts it totally over the top.
Wow/The Magick Fire Music – Jackie O Motherfucker (2000-2001)
Like a perfectly melodic middle ground between SYR-era Sonic Youth and ’72-’73 Dead jams. I suspect this is the beginning of a long and beautiful friendship. So much more to be had. Hooray for prolific collectives. (Word, Sancho.)
Quarteto Em Cy – Quarteto Em Cy (1972)
Apparently a pre-tropicalia vocal group, this self-titled disc from ’72 is damn well sublime, just endlessly pleasurable: girl group/Beatles harmonies and strange, lush arrangements. Not coming out of the rotation any time soon.
Valborgmassoafton – Yukio Yung (1991)
Wikipedia sez that dude is a crazy prolific mofo, and — from the sound of this disc alone — I believe it. It’s like Devo meets the Mothers. Delicious use of synths, adventurous at every turn, and never predictable: jazz solos with doubled kazoos, fuzzy baroque interludes, Residents-like dance breaks, alien chants… and somehow it all holds together. Maybe it’s the cassette hiss. (Thx, Mutant Sounds, check it there.)
“Creep” – Prince (download)
recorded live at Coachella, 26 April 2008
(file expires June 8th)
And, so an act of civil disobedience against His Purple Dudeness: Prince Rogers Nelson covering Radiohead’s “Creep” at Coachella. At first, I was bummed to find out that the alleged soundboard circulating was a fairly audiencey audience recording, but — besides Prince’s performance itself, which Clappy so bitchingly deconstructed — what unfolds is that it’s not Prince’s song, it’s not even Radiohead’s. It belongs entirely to the crowd.
A few people seemingly recognize it at first, and there is a smattering of definite cheers. Somebody mentions James Brown. Somebody else repeatedly chants “whoo” or maybe “booooo.” Hard to say. There’s another wave of cheers at 1:10, but the music still sounds like a vaguely generic Prince arpeggio (though it’s also obviously “Creep”) and it doesn’t compare to what happens at 1:45, when Prince actually starts singing.
Then, a wave of noise rolls over the crowd. “Awesome!” somebody says almost immediately. People go, predictably, apeshit, and a dozen conversations spark up in mic range. Presumably, there’s some fierce texting going down, too. After the first big peak, the band passes through the opening changes again. Except now the crowd knows what it is, and begins clapping along — and with extraordinary dullness, as if they bought the hype and are already being ironic about it — which continues through the next verse before fading. The dull clapping continues, a little quieter, as Prince busts out his falsetto. Somebody even laughs.
But then Prince shreds fucking balls again, in an old-fashioned, gas-guzzling wank, and it’s awesome, despite a weird sinking feeling in a crowd that’s not sure if it’s ready to be as wistful as they feel, nostalgic for a time when Radiohead was simply another post-grunge guitar band with a genuine summer hit, but already preparing to yearn for the present moment, surely to immortalized in Flickr sets, text messages, viral videos, and blog postings. If His High Exalted Mothersquonking El Purple Duderino (if you’re not into the whole brevity thing) doesn’t have them all purged first.
