2009

The year of being 27.

The age that Jim Morrison, Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Robert Johnson, Kurt Cobain, Dave Alexander, Pete Ham, Chris Bell, D. Boon, Jacob Miller, and Basquiat all bit the big one.

And I felt it - breath on my neck.

It was the terrifying din of chaos gaining on me. A more potent force than I’ve ever experienced. The winds took me horizontal and I was clinging to the last telephone pole.

The choice was always there. Let go and allow yourself to depart with everything you’ve known. Or hold on and be sure of your existence after the storm.

I don’t want to exaggerate the drama too much, but it’s far more engaging this way. Like a Roland Emmerich joint.

But so as the wheel sinks down, so must it come back up.

Surrounded by wreckage I can now feel the sky draw back a breath to silence. The moment after it happens, anything happens, when you can start to get your head back. The loudest nothingness you’ve ever heard. You start to look around and measure the damage. But before you feel anything, all that’s recognizable is the vast flatness of everything.

Henry Miller says in “Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch” that:

“Man builds on the ruins of his former selves. When we are reduced to nothingness, we come alive again. To season one’s destiny with the dust of one’s folly, that is the trick.”

So that’s where we’re at coming into 2010.

Thus ends the craziest year of my life.

A new life, born of the ashes of those before it, begins here in Los Angeles.

--

So as you might guess from the over-the-top-ness of that little story, the musical year was also a turbulent one. Music has most certainly served as a salve but also as lighter fluid. I found solace in words, sounds and imagery but I also found choked throats, watery eyes and frustration.

The compulsive research continued through it all and I’ve pulled together a taste of 2009’s discoveries. Some reflective of the ups, downs and what-have-yous of the year and some not. Best idea is not to read into any of it and just enjoy the music of itself. That’s why it’s here.

I’m hoping this effort marks my return to this blog. As a good friend warned me, “The Lunchmeat is getting kinda smelly.”

Well here I am to refridge' the shit. As Paul Newman said so poignantly at the end of The Color of Money…

“I’m back.”

I’d have thrown in a “bitches” at the end, but I’m no Scorsese.

1. Serge Gainsbourg – Le Deuxieme Homme

2. Frankie & The Butlers Beverly – Love (Your Pain Goes Deep)

3. Bell + Arc – Let Your Love Run Free

4. Aphrodite’s Child – Babylon

5. Leaf Hound – Freelance Fiend

6. Shocking Blue – Send Me A Postcard Darling

7. Mindless Boogie – El Toro (Prins Thomas Edit)

8. Blair – Nightlife

9. Oneohtrix Point Never – Behind The Bank

10. Eno/Moebius/Roedelius/Plank – Johanneslust

11. Popol Vuh – Kleiner Krieger

12. John Fahey – Desperate Man Blues

13. Six Organs of Admittance – The Desert Is A Circle

14. Arthur Russel – Nobody Wants A Lonely Heart

15. Graham Nash – Better Days

16. Moby Grape – Lazy Me

17. The Flamin’ Groovies – Slow Death

18. Stray – All In Your Mind

Download 2009 Here

oh.

and i apologize for the delay.

i moved to california where sun is as fresh as a newborn's fingernail.

y'all is missing out.

DON'T CALL IT A COMEBACK

ok. call it one.

been running around. but i've stopped running.

I'm still panting so I ain't posting right now.

But just know. I'm gonna knock you the fuck out very, very soon.

POEMS FO YOEMS

My fine friend Chris Kursel has published a collection of his poems using Flickr. They are tip top notch. Funny, dark and riddled with rye. Digest and disseminate. Homeboy should be famous.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ckursel

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE

I had given up on Animal Collective. And even after the release of this album (which I’ll give you in a minute), my dissatisfaction with their work remains. Their last two joints “Feels” and “Strawberry Jam” slipped on and off of my radar screen without a moment’s connection.

No need to scramble my mind military.

“Sir, we’ve got a bogey at 12 miles due west. Priming F-18s for intercept.”

No. Nothing there. Just sounded like “Fun With Loop Pedals starring Regis Philbin!” No heart. Just electronics.

The blip on my radar with this new one, “Merriweather Post Pavilion” isn’t as large as the album itself, but simply the size of a single song: the second track, “My Girls.”

Thing’s a fucking jamnation. It sliced into my brain like a warm knife through birthday cake. Once the slice was eaten, it planted little song seeds into the hole and sewed it up. After about a week, those little fuckers began hatching and messed up my whole existence.

I can’t stop thinking about that goddamn song. It’s taken over my days (and nights). When I’d normally wake up in a sweat after a dream-state sexual romp with a Celtics cheerleader (that really happened…awesome), I emerged from sleep with “whoos” and digital “clap-claps” and other monstrous groove-inducing mechanisms warping my dome.

When you first fall in love, she’s stuck in your head. You can’t stop thinking about her. It’s like a record stuck at the end of a side blipping as the needle skips. Yet, for some frightening reason, it sounds perfect.

I have fallen in love with this bitch of a song. And she’s on repeat.

Join the insanity:
Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion

EDDY CURRENT SUPPRESSION RING

Eddy Current Suppression Ring?

What the fuck does that mean? Fucking Australians.

If I didn’t like their music as much as I do, I’d spend this whole rant ranting about how dumb that name is. But because I like their music as much as I do, it transforms my take on the name. I like it now.

This is a hot one, people. Punk (a la Stooges) boiled down to its most elementary form. A simple sauce, if you will, poured over freshly baked asparagus and eaten with your hands. It’s delicious and messy and makes your piss stink.

We’re working in a similar world that Iggy was working in when The Stooges put out Fun House. We’re all scrapping to make something beautiful from what little we have. The repetitiveness of life is louder than ever. The clanging machinery from the automotive assembly lines has been silenced so we create our own clang. The echo of Detroit has reached Sydney and Eddy Current Supression Ring is its manifestation.

But they’ve got patience where The Stooges didn’t. They got time. And they use it extremely well. On songs like “I Admit My Faults” and “Colour Televion” you can really hear bands like The Feelies coming through. Milking the simplicity and then blowing your face off with change. Just when you’re ready to accept that things are the way they are, they pull the rug out from under you leaving you floating in a confused rock bliss.

This is what happens when The Stooges are bottled and fermented for 20 years and sipped for the first time in a dank pub where the toilets flush the other way. It’s a stronger solution so you can’t gulp it. It doesn’t come at you as fast, so it sits with you longer. You let the flavors rest on your tongue and smoke out your nose. Notes of aggression, iron, confidence and entertainment.

This shit is fun as hell.
Jump around.

here's the link, steve:
Eddy Current Supression Ring - Primary Colours