Saturday, May 08, 2004
Sorry for the absence: The glue they use for these "I Support Our Troops" bumperstickers is a bear to dissolve.
Spaceland show not exactly packed, given short notice; I kinda went cathartic (for me) in the midnight hour, covering both "Angst In Your Pants," which I haven't done for a while, and Bonnie Hayes "Shelly's Boyfriend" (from Valley Girl, listen to the witty and empathetic verses some time). Urinals fine as their current incarnation always is, dedicated new song w/ apocalyptic freight to Rumsfeld, encored w/ "I'm A Bug," which is tighter than 1978 but no less dumb-smart. Miss Fortune Cookie features Joe Nolte of not-often-remembered L.A. band The Last, who never quite fit into SST or Bomp! molds despite releasing records on both -- his guitar is the drawing card, the material is catchy but univentive powerpop of a kind I once cared about considerably more; dropping the uninventive might get you The Fastbacks. Precise cover of "The World's A Mess It's In My Kiss," which I suppose might have been similarly dedicated (though what to make of the interpolation of the counting breakdown of "Add It Up" in the bridge)? Rounding out: Low Flying Owls, a Sacto-based band that would appear to own some Doors records. I wasn't taken with them, but felt for them when I saw that they were on self-released album number three -- it is, I think, awfully difficult to be 'indie' in fact but not in genre, as you get no infrastructural love and probably a lot of snotty looks.
Otherwise, this is in danger of turning into 'Recent [i.e., un-dealt-with] Acquisitions." Yesterday's mail: A Bridge Street Books order that included the audio version of Christian Bok's Eunoia, the print correlate of which I am glad to have lead Douglas to, and which you can be sure I'll be mentioning again, and Jeff Clark's deceptively plainly-titled Music and Suicide. (Design, which one can assume is the author's, is odd too -- more boutique-hotel than I'd have expected.) If I'd known three words of my rev of The Little Door Slides Back were to be quoted on the jacket flap ("thick, purring music," not exactly immortal), I might have tried to score a freebie. Anyway, proud to assist. And: a promo of the new DNA reissue I requested from Forced Exposure, along w/ several intriguing things I didn't and which will stare me down guiltily. Maybe I'll be able to get down to words-on-page and bits-on-disc soon.
Saw two Yvonne Ranier films Monday, but am waiting until I can get to Mean Girls for the sake of a more complete report on how the personal-as-political is faring this millenium. For now, will note that Ranier was present at the screening, is vital at 72 in a way that argues for dancing, and was articulate in a matter-of-fact way that made for the least disappointing artist-on-her-work Q&A I've seen for some time. (When she didn't know why she'd done something 20-odd years ago, she said so, but she was also not afraid to establish some interpretive limits.)
Discovered after screening that this fellow Hayden (spelling? last name?) that I see at nearly every movie I go to, but only started speaking to recently (through Joseph and Rita, sorry for insularity) is finishing his film history doctorate at UCLA, with a dissertation on -- police procedurals, including Dragnet, including the radio version. Acquaintance-to-be-cultivated: On.
The post-reunion chapters of David Nichols' newly revised Go-Betweens bio (now from Verse Chorus Press, and much more attractively produced than the old one) shame me: I hadn't noticed that "Mrs. Morgan," on the last album, featured a character that has appeared in a couple of other McLennan songs (under that name), nor the relation of "Caroline and I" (about Princess C. of Monaco) to "Lee Remick," obvious now that I think of it. I sloughed of Bright Orange, Bright Yellow on release, now I'm worried that the problem is that I don't have the kind of time I did to unravel, say, the 12" of "Part Company" when I bought it w/o ever having heard of the band circa 1986. "Bleddyn Butcher" -- their usual photographer, whose credits show up on a good number of Australian releases -- still seems a name to conjure with.
Still too many intended post-topics behind. But tomorrow's Mother's Day, I'm behind on a Phoenix piece, and the key lecture of the 2nd half of my course is up on Tuesday; must gather thoughts on causal character of photography, try to avoid overuse of "indexical."
However: Independent of how it's answered -- when people ask whether song lyrics are poetry, why is that supposed to be an interesting question, and to whom?
Spaceland show not exactly packed, given short notice; I kinda went cathartic (for me) in the midnight hour, covering both "Angst In Your Pants," which I haven't done for a while, and Bonnie Hayes "Shelly's Boyfriend" (from Valley Girl, listen to the witty and empathetic verses some time). Urinals fine as their current incarnation always is, dedicated new song w/ apocalyptic freight to Rumsfeld, encored w/ "I'm A Bug," which is tighter than 1978 but no less dumb-smart. Miss Fortune Cookie features Joe Nolte of not-often-remembered L.A. band The Last, who never quite fit into SST or Bomp! molds despite releasing records on both -- his guitar is the drawing card, the material is catchy but univentive powerpop of a kind I once cared about considerably more; dropping the uninventive might get you The Fastbacks. Precise cover of "The World's A Mess It's In My Kiss," which I suppose might have been similarly dedicated (though what to make of the interpolation of the counting breakdown of "Add It Up" in the bridge)? Rounding out: Low Flying Owls, a Sacto-based band that would appear to own some Doors records. I wasn't taken with them, but felt for them when I saw that they were on self-released album number three -- it is, I think, awfully difficult to be 'indie' in fact but not in genre, as you get no infrastructural love and probably a lot of snotty looks.
Otherwise, this is in danger of turning into 'Recent [i.e., un-dealt-with] Acquisitions." Yesterday's mail: A Bridge Street Books order that included the audio version of Christian Bok's Eunoia, the print correlate of which I am glad to have lead Douglas to, and which you can be sure I'll be mentioning again, and Jeff Clark's deceptively plainly-titled Music and Suicide. (Design, which one can assume is the author's, is odd too -- more boutique-hotel than I'd have expected.) If I'd known three words of my rev of The Little Door Slides Back were to be quoted on the jacket flap ("thick, purring music," not exactly immortal), I might have tried to score a freebie. Anyway, proud to assist. And: a promo of the new DNA reissue I requested from Forced Exposure, along w/ several intriguing things I didn't and which will stare me down guiltily. Maybe I'll be able to get down to words-on-page and bits-on-disc soon.
Saw two Yvonne Ranier films Monday, but am waiting until I can get to Mean Girls for the sake of a more complete report on how the personal-as-political is faring this millenium. For now, will note that Ranier was present at the screening, is vital at 72 in a way that argues for dancing, and was articulate in a matter-of-fact way that made for the least disappointing artist-on-her-work Q&A I've seen for some time. (When she didn't know why she'd done something 20-odd years ago, she said so, but she was also not afraid to establish some interpretive limits.)
Discovered after screening that this fellow Hayden (spelling? last name?) that I see at nearly every movie I go to, but only started speaking to recently (through Joseph and Rita, sorry for insularity) is finishing his film history doctorate at UCLA, with a dissertation on -- police procedurals, including Dragnet, including the radio version. Acquaintance-to-be-cultivated: On.
The post-reunion chapters of David Nichols' newly revised Go-Betweens bio (now from Verse Chorus Press, and much more attractively produced than the old one) shame me: I hadn't noticed that "Mrs. Morgan," on the last album, featured a character that has appeared in a couple of other McLennan songs (under that name), nor the relation of "Caroline and I" (about Princess C. of Monaco) to "Lee Remick," obvious now that I think of it. I sloughed of Bright Orange, Bright Yellow on release, now I'm worried that the problem is that I don't have the kind of time I did to unravel, say, the 12" of "Part Company" when I bought it w/o ever having heard of the band circa 1986. "Bleddyn Butcher" -- their usual photographer, whose credits show up on a good number of Australian releases -- still seems a name to conjure with.
Still too many intended post-topics behind. But tomorrow's Mother's Day, I'm behind on a Phoenix piece, and the key lecture of the 2nd half of my course is up on Tuesday; must gather thoughts on causal character of photography, try to avoid overuse of "indexical."
However: Independent of how it's answered -- when people ask whether song lyrics are poetry, why is that supposed to be an interesting question, and to whom?
