“Backwater” – Meat Puppets (download here)
from Too High To Die (1994)
released by London (buy)
(file expires April 23rd)
It’s amazing how genres disappear with time. A few weeks ago, I caught a bit of the Kids In the Hall movie, Brain Candy, at a friend’s house, which I hadn’t seen since college. I couldn’t tell if Death Lurks, the faux-band fronted by Bruce McCullough’s Grivo, was supposed to be parodying grunge or metal. Likewise, a bunch of months ago, I put the Meat Puppets’ Too High To Die on my iPod. Nearly every time a track came up on shuffle, I thought “what vintage jamband is this?”
“Backwater” — their only charting single, not coincidentally, #47 on the Hot 100 — is still the best. It’s filled with sweet double-tracked vocals and rubbery/crunchy guitars that might launch into a Jersey Shore cover band version of “St. Stephen” at any moment. Plus, the album is called Too High To Die. Of course, the Meat Puppets were always hippies, and Meat Puppets II is at least as psych-country as it is punk. But they worked on the proto-indie circuit, and got a huge boost when Kurt Cobain featured them on MTV Unplugged, so they got lumped in with the alt-rockers, and people heard them differently. Whatever you wanna call it, “Backwater” still makes me happy.
o Got called out by Wooden Wand over a review of his song, “The Pushers.” (My response is below his.)
o Accidentally got my eyelids stuck behind my eyeball, then made up a punk song about it with my buildingmates. I play bass and shout “1, 2, 3, 4.” (Via my lovely neighbor’s 365songbird project.)
“Nega (Photograph Blues)” – Gilberto Gil (download here)
from Gilberto Gil (1971)
reissued by Water (buy)
(file expires April 20th)
For all the complexities offered to American listeners by tropicalia — musical, conceptual, cultural, and political — the pleasure of Gilberto Gil’s “Nega (Photograph Blues)” is its near-bubblegum bliss. It is simple, catchy, and doesn’t leave much to talk about. It’s just a song. Recorded during his early ’70s London exile, Gil’s second self-titled album was his first in English. Really, “Nega” is a silly love song, but Gil’s likeability is boundless, his voice open and joyous. Reissued by Water this spring, with a handful of live cuts, the album radiates good vibrations.
It was the winter of being a rube and, on the subway home, the smelless girl slept on my shoulder, my nose buried in her hair. Across from us, a drunk student fighting sleep was an automaton, her head lolling to the side before a mechanical reset in her arm jerked it back upwards. In the girl’s hair, I could not even detect the cigarettes from the party we’d been at it. Their staleness, I knew, clung to my clothing. I smelled nothing. I saw her most weekends just before and after the holidays. We got along well, though the comfort she provided was minimal. The night before, I’d been made a mark again. We’d gone out for the night, the smelless girl and I, though she hadn’t come home with me. I’d kissed her goodnight at her door, and made for the train. On the platform, I stepped on a man’s watch, or so he claimed.
I’ve known James Dunseth, the rad geographer, for almost 10 years. As he has at various times over that period, he recently sent me a package of new music. This time, it included a fantastic mix of songs by his favorite bands local to Portland, Oregon, where he lives. Instead of just pilfering them for various Frow Shows, I figured I’d just turn the reigns over to him for an episode…
1. “Peein’ In An Empty” – Tom Heinl (from With Or Without Me)
2. “Frow Show Theme” – MVB
3. “Space Hole” – March Fourth Marching Band (from March Fourth Marching Band)
4. “Hands In Pockets” – Laura Gibson (from If You Come To Greet Me)
5. “Color Coded” – Heroes & Villians (from Heroes & Villians EP)
6. “Plagiarhythm” – Copy (from Mobius Beard)
7. “The Sleepless” – The Shaky Hands (from The Shaky Hands)
8. “Bottom of the Lake” – The Builders and the Butchers (from The Builders and the Butchers)
9. “The Pirate’s Gospel” – Alela Diane (from The Pirate’s Gospel)
10. “Very Much Alone Pt. 4: O, Fuck, I’m Fucked. Fuck.” – Drakkar Sauna (from Rover)
11. “Lux and Royal Shopper” – Blitzen Trapper (from Field Rexx)
12. “The Nights on the Absillian Sea” – Aidan Coughlan (from Mystery’s Mist)
13. “Aftershocks Anfter Afterthoughts” – Small Sails (from Hunter Gatherer)
14. “Hitman Blues” – Pentecost Hotel (unreleased)
15. “This Abdomen Has Flown” – Bark, Hide and Horn (from Bark, Hide and Horn EP)
16. “Storyteller is the Story” – Modernstate (from Highwater Moonboot)
17. “Seven” – Point Juncture, WA (from Mama Auto Boss)
18. “Seems To Calm The Baby” – Nick Jaina (from The 7 Stations)
& here are the notes James sentme with the original mix:
01_ Tom Heinl – Peein’ In An Empty
The king of ‘stereoke’… he plays his live shows karaoke style with his own living room furniture and stereo on stage. Plus he reads hilarious excerpts from his childhood journals.
02_ March Fourth Marching Band – Space Hole
Portland’s very own 35 piece renegade marching band.
03_ Laura Gibson – Hands In Pockets
Nice wintery music… I like her breathy vocals.
04_ Heroes And Villains – Color Coded
My friend Ali (originally from Long Island) plays piano and accordion.
06_ The Shaky Hands – The Sleepless
Potentially the next big name to come out of Portland. Their live shows are really high energy. Their debut album comes out April 10th.
07_ The Builders And The Butchers – Bottom Of The Lake
My favorite band in Portland. Their CD just came out on Friday. Blues/Gospel revival rock. Their live shows are amazing!
08_ Alela Diane – The Pirate’s Gospel
Another nice folky type lady.
09_ Drakkar Sauna – Very Much Alone Pt. 4: O, Fuck, I’m Fucked. Fuck.
The only non-Portland band on this mix. They’re from Kansas but their records are put out by Marriage Records here in Portland. Delightfully weird.
10_ Blitzen Trapper – Lux & Royal Shopper
Fun indie pop rock.
11_ Aidan Coughlan – The Nights On The Absillian Sea
Lo-Fi E6 type stuff. Very mysterious.
12_ Small Sails – Aftershocks And Afterthoughts
Electro pop.
13_ Pentecost Hotel – Hitman Blues
This track comes from an album that probably won’t ever get released. Their other album is pretty cool.
14_ Bark, Hide And Horn – This Abdomen Has Flown
They write most of their songs based on National Geographic articles that they read. This song is about Honey Ants.
15_ Modernstate – Storyteller Is The Story
One man weird band.
16_ Point Juncture, WA – Seven
Indie Rock… Influenced by Radiohead & Yo La Tengo.
17_ Nick Jaina – Seems To Calm The Baby
Just a good singer songwriter type. My friend Ali plays in his live band and on most of his album as well.
In the Great American Novel, Philip Roth compares legendary Negro League pitcher Satchel Paige to Mark Twain’s slave Jim, from Huckleberry Finn. “Students of Literatoor, professors, and small boys who recall Jim’s comical lingo will not be fooled just because Satch has dispensed with the thick dialect he used for speaking in Mr. Twain’s book.”
Paige’s six-point list for “How To Stay Young” (first published in Collier’s in 1953 and reproduced by Roth) sounds like it’s straight out of Twain, though (I think) could be any one of Twain’s folk weirdoes, white or black. Or maybe I’m just a white liberal.
1. Avoid fried meats which angry up the blood.
2. If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts.
3. Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move.
4. Go very light on the vices, such as carrying on in society. The social ramble ain’t restful.
5. Avoid running at all times.
6. Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.
“Wild Night” – Van Morrison (download here)
from Tupelo Honey (1971)
released by Polydor (buy)
(file expires April 15th)
Here’s Dad’s video for Martha & the Vandellas’ version of Van Morrison’s “Wild Night.” Originally animated for the pre-MTV NBC show Friday Night Videos. (The date at the beginning is incorrect, FWIW, the final credit of the previous clip on the reel.)
Two-thirds through Tom Stoppard’s Coast of Utopia trilogy at Lincoln Center (thanks, G’ma!!). Some things I have loved, so far:
o The frayed scrim that drops almost to the stage, reflecting off the shiny floor to create a fairly literal illusion of coastline (which promptly disappears during the rising dystopian tides of part II: Shipwreck).
o Stoppardian zingers like “the whole Army’s obsessed with playing at soldiers” — spoken by deserting military student/future anarchist Michael Bakunin. I thought of it frequently as I passed through TSA checkpoints en route home from Minneapolis earlier this week.
o The woman across the aisle from us in the loge who brought her shaggy, craggy old black dog to the theater, who dozed peaceably under her seat throughout the performance and was quieter than many audience members (myself included) sniffling with mild late-winter colds.
o The ridiculously clever conceit Stoppard uses to establish that, while the play is English, the characters are speaking Russian. The first line, spoken at a dinner table scene on an idyllic estate north of Moscow: “Speaking of which — Liubov, say something in English for the Baron.” Later, the “English” dialogue is spoken with a thick Russian accent.
o The manner in which (as always) Stoppard is able to wrench fabulous emotion from potentially (and, probably, actually) pretentious plotlines — in this case, the entwined lives of privileged Russian radicals in the post-Decembrist/pre-Marxist period. The literary critic Vissarion Belinsky, played by Billy Crudup:
I’m sick of utopias. I’m tired of hearing about them. I’d trade the lot for one practical difference that owes nothing to anybody’s ideal society, one commonsensical action that puts right an injury to one person. Do you know what I like to do best when I’m at home? — watch them build the railway station in St. Petersburg. My heart lifts to see the tracks going down. In a year or two, friends and families, lovers, letters, will be speeding to Moscow and back. Life will be altered. The poetry of practical gesture. Something unknown to literary criticism!
“Take Me Out to the Ballgame” (a capella) – Bob Dylan (download here)
from Theme Time Radio Hour, ep. 04: Baseball
(file expires April 12th)
I think baseball’s slowness, exactly what most people seem to hate about the game, is exactly what I love about it: being able to watch characters develop slowly, over (if we’re lucky) eight months, both in action and in repose, in micro (at bat by at bat) and macro (the story arc of an entire career), and having plenty of time between pitches to boggle about it all.
Of course, whenever I try to boil down why I love baseball and not other sports, it’s all sort of arbitrary — which isn’t to say unimportant, just more akin to a religion one is born into, and accepted as meaningful many moons ago. Except for the fact that baseball begins with the spring, and ends as the leaves die. Anyway, it’s April, and the Mets are 3-and-0, so here’s Bob Dylan singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” from the fourth episode of his Theme Time Radio Hour.
Here’s some music by the Grateful Dead. Perhaps, if you have not liked the Grateful Dead before, you will like this. It begins with some noisy avant-garde electronics by Phil Lesh and guest keyboardist Ned Lagin. They are joined by the band, who eventually play florid hippie-jazz & a beautiful song about a doomed alcoholic.
1. “Introduction” – some French dude (from 4/17/1972 Tivoli Gardens)
2. “Frow Show Theme” – MVB
3. “Seastones” >
4. “Eyes of the World” >
5. “Wharf Rat” (from 9/11/1974 Alexandra Palace)
