I’m huddled up and ready to go. I’m hitting the road for three weeks and leaving this here computer behind. I’m not sure if I’ll get a chance to post anything here when I’m gone; if I do, it will be only occasionally. Have fun without me (It’ll be just like the month of July).
Monthly Archives: September 2008
Nothing Left To Replace
The second round of Replacements reissues hit the street today. Though none of these are as essential as Let It Be or Hootenanny, but their pretty worthwhile. I’ve only played Tim thus far (I gotta go chronologically), but the sound is great. Most importantly, they’ve included the original acoustic demo version of “Can’t Hardly Wait”. I’ve had a boot of it for years, but this remaster is ace. In celebration, you should watch one of the greatest videos ever – “Bastards of Young”.
One Last Thing About David Foster Wallace*
The Onion has made me laugh for the first time in a dog’s age: NASCAR Cancels Remainder Of Season Following David Foster Wallace’s Death.
*(*) I reserve the right to address the work or person of David Foster Wallace at a later date. The header was more to indicate that, at the present time, I have no further thoughts, links, or ephemera to pass along concerning his unfortunate demise, rather than an indication of true finality on the subject. Nothing is final.
(*) I was unable to figure out how to get a superscript numerical identifier in the header, thus the all-purpose asterix. As this explanation was not pertinant to the matter addressed in the prior note, I felt compelled to explain my odd notation in a seperate, and secondary** notation.
** You could also call it a tertiary concern within the greater post. And yes, I’ve got multiple systems of notation working, which ideally would have been addressed seperately. I felt relatively secure in the fact that, in such a short entry, the intent would be clear. If I have misjudged and should have, in fact, addressed my myriad notational systems at either greater length or in a seperate entry, I apologize. I also apologize for this cheap, and rather poorly planned, homage to the late Mr. Wallace, known for his penchant for copious foot- and endnotes. I”m just not over it.
Lil Epiphany
I just decided that Sabbath’s “Children Of The Grave” and Floyd’s “One Of These Days” are kissing cousins. Must have been something in the English air in 1971.
Death Stay Thy Hand
What the hell? BBC is reporting Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright passed away after a brief fight with cancer. I was an absolute Floyd nut early in high school, and still rate the early, pre-Dark Side years rather highly. Sad times here in downerville.
Here is one of Wrights few vocal leads, the beautiful “Paintbox”.
That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore
I’m jumbled up in the wake of the death of David Foster Wallace. I’m not going to wax poetic about levels and layers of meaning in his work or what it has meant to me; suffice it to say I am a great fan, and will miss what might have been in some possible future. I found his mind, as expressed in his work, fascinating.
Check out this appearance on the Charlie Rose show (the interview starts around the 23 minute mark). Rest in peace.
The Genius Test
Apple added a feature to the latest iTunes called Genius. It is supposed to make a playlist based on some unknown Apple criteria when you choose a song and press a button. It doesn’t recognize anything not in the iTunes Store, so though I have tons of AC/DC and Beatles mp3s they don’t show up. It doesn’t seem to care about album titles, only songs; my many boots seem to show up no problem. The following is my first Genius playlist that worked – it recognized the first song and – magic!
“It’s So Easy” – Hawkwind (from Hall Of The Mountain Grill)
“Requiem” – Killing Joke (from Killing Joke)
“Motorhead” – Motörhead (from Motörhead)
“Prince Charming” – Adam & The Ants (from Prince Charming)
“Ziggy Stardust” – Bauhaus (from Swing The Heartache)
“Ride A White Swan” – T. Rex (from 20th Century Boy: The Ultimate Collection)
“Space Is Deep” – Hawkwind (from Space Ritual)
“Making Plans For Nigel (live)” – XTC (from The Rhythm bootleg)
“Idiot Wind (rehearsal)” – Bob Dylan (from Going Going Guam bootleg)
“Hanging Around (live)” – The Stranglers (from Toronto 80 bootleg)
“We Care A Lot (live)” – Faith No More (from Live In The USA bootleg)
“See Emily Play (alt. mono mix)” – Pink Floyd (from Interstellar Overdrive: The Alternate Masters bootleg)
“Planet Earth” – Duran Duran (from Greatest)
“Crosstown Traffic” – The Jimi Hendrix Experience (from Electric Ladyland)
“Ashes To Ashes” – David Bowie (from Scary Monsters)
“Babylon’s Burning” – The Ruts (from No Thanks! The ’70s Punk Rebellion)
“Bomber” – Motörhead (from Bomber)
“Sonic Attack” – Hawkwind (from The ‘1999’ Party)
“Perfect Day” – Lou Reed (from The Very Best Of Lou Reed)
“Elected” – Alice Cooper (from Billion Dollar Babies)
“Tommy Gun (live)” – The Clash (from This Is Radio Crash bootleg)
“Wot’s… uh the Deal” – Pink Floyd (from Obscured By Clouds)
“The Boy With The Thorn In His Side (live)” – The Smiths (from Thank Your Lucky Stars bootleg)
“Christine” – Siouxsie & The Banshees (from Once upon A Time)
“Blockbuster!” – Sweet (from Greatest Hits)
Some quick thoughts: it isn’t a bad playlist, though I tend to try to avoid multiple songs from a single artist. I’m wondering if the Genius algorithm knows Lemmy was in Hawkwind – two Motörhead tracks to go with the three Hawkwind ones is a whole lotta Lemmy (not a bad thing, mind you). Obviously time period plays a part; most of this is from the few years to either side of the release of Hall Of The Mountain Grill in 1974 (the big outlier is the Faith No More from the early 90s). The transition from “Space Is Deep” into “Making Plans For Nigel (live)” works surprisingly well; the later picks up mid-drum intro and the sound quality is similar, like a band flowing from one cut to another. Some good keyboard playing throughout, whether atmospheric washes or straight vamping. The Dylan doesn’t work at all – Going Going Guam is an interesting artifact, but not listenable in anything more that curio fashion (the sound quality is mediocre at best, and it is all about trying different arrangements of familiar work). “Planet Earth” into “Crosstown Traffic” is interesting from a beat perspective; the end of one to the intro of the next doesn’t flow, but the two drum patterns are complimentary. The airraid sirens at the end of “Bomber” flow beautifully into the phase oscillation of “Sonic Attack”. You can’t go wrong with “Blockbuster!”, wherever it shows up in a mix.
I’m not sure how often I’ll play with this feature. It apppears genre limited to great extent – no r&b, blues, jazz, etc show up here, though I have lots of other stuff on my hard drive. Not recognizing artists outside the store is hugely limiting, though I don’t know how they would be able to account for everything under the sun. I’ll probably stick with plain shuffle.
The Little Post That Can
This post is responsible for approximately 1/4 of all hits this website receives. I’m happy people are seeing it – Evan Shaner did a great job – but I would have loved something I wrote to be the main attraction.
Hanging Out With Dad
The title is what I’ve been up to, and what I will be up to for a few weeks at the end of this month and the beginning of October. It is also a song on Yep Roc’s recently released Robyn Hitchcock box, Luminous Groove. This is the second in their series of reissues (the first, I Wanna Go Backwards, I mentioned here; rumors are a Soft Boys box will follow at the end of this year or the beginning of the next), and covers the Egyptians work prior to signing with A&M Records. As with the prior set, the sound is better than the Rhino remasters of the mid-90s; sadly, as with the prior set, not all the bonus tracks included on those earlier reissues are retained this time ’round.
Fegmania!, the studio album from 1985, loses “Dwarfbeat”, an off-kilter number that hearkens back to the Soft Boys with its lurching shuffle; demos of “Egyptian Cream” and “Insect Mother” (the first was recorded along with tracks that appeared on Groovy Decay – incidentally, an album relegated to download only status at Yep Roc’s site – while the second belongs to the era of I Often Dream Of Trains); and a live version of “Egyptian Cream”, date and place unknown. Gotta Let This Hen Out!, the live album from 1985 thankfully stays intact, with a few tacked on bonus tracks recorded four years later (more on this later). The last re-release in this set is perhaps the most consistent and beautiful album in Robyn’s career, Element Of Light. Sadly, once again, we lose a handful of quality demos (“If You Were A Priest”, “The President” and “The Leopard”), a nice, if inessential live version of “Airscape” (I think his solo version from Storefront Hitchcock is better), and to my great dismay, “If You Were A Priest” b-side “The Can Opener”. This is one of Hitchcock’s short stories, enacted in drunken revelry by the Egyptians. I always saw it as a farewell to the true lunacy of his early work; Element Of Light marked a maturation of his songcraft, and started the direction he followed in his “pop” A&M years.
So what does this latest box set add to Hitchcock’s oeuvre? Element of Light contains a few new tracks and one (“Into It”) that was on the prior odds and ends set You & Oblivion. Nothing especially noteworthy, though nothing fails either; I was surprised that the demo version of “Bass” brought to mind the guitar part of “Jean Genie”, as I don’t hear it at all in the finished track. Fegmania! gifts us with some quality stuff: “The Drowning Church” has Hitchcock’s processed vocals over a simple keyboard bit with a drum loop, intoning deeply such wonderful lines as “See the vicar read his sermon/blowing bubbles like a merman”; an instrumental version of “The Man With The Lightbulb Head” which reminds me that the music does a great job of supporting and amplifying the creepiness of the lyrics, and how in some ways this is the anti-“Balloon Man”; “Lady Obvious” is a kissing cousin to prior odds and ends like “Keeping Still” and “Mr. Rock ‘N’ Roll”. Gotta Let This Hen Out!, strangely enough, adds a batch of songs recorded in 1989. They’re good, rollicking versions (including A&M-era songs “Freeze” and “Unsettled”) that, in tone and energy, match nicely to the 1985 show; however, other songs from that same date are included on the new outtakes collection in this box, Bad Case Of History. Why they weren’t kept together is a mystery. But then again, the incredible live version of “Heaven” that is on both the Rhino and Yep Roc versions of Fegmania! is from 1992.
Bad Case Of History is two discs – the first is unreleased studio demos and unissued tracks from the A&M years, the second is live recordings covering the same time frame. Obviously, Hitchcock does not see a reissue of the A&M recordings anywhere on the horizon; this is his way of giving fans a glimpse into those years. The studio tracks mix early versions of songs released later in his career (“In Agony Of Pleasure” surfaced in a solo version on Eye; “I Am Not Me” and “Beautiful Queen” were showcased on the Warner Brother’s release Moss Elixir) and a dozen tracks new to official release. Some of these, such as “Surfer Ghost”, “Bad Case Of History”, “Live Man Die” the aforementioned “Hanging Out With Dad” and “Ivy Alone”, were played at gigs and radio station appearances. Others I haven’t heard mention of, like the country rock of “Poisonous Angel” or the heaviest, ballsiest track I’ve heard from Hitchcock, “Zipper In My Spine”. Overall, the studio tracks add to the Egyptians’ legacy, much as Invisible Hitchcock and You & Oblivion did to Robyn’s solo eighties work.
The live disc is another animal altogether. Gotta Let This Hen Out! sets a high bar for live Robyn recordings; though this is from a later, more pop oriented era, it is hard not to compare, and this set comes out far, far behind. Part of this is inherent in it being from many years and many sources. Lacking coherence, it doesn’t feel like anything but a bunch of odds and ends. The sequencing doesn’t do it any favors; instead of a purely chronological archival approach, or an attempt to recreate a possible show, it just seems random. There is no flow, from section to section, or even in some cases song to song from the same show. Every song first appeared on an A&M release, excepting the cover of Dylan’s “Chimes Of Freedom”. I’m glad to see so many tracks from Respect, the Egyptians often overlooked swan song, and these are often the best on this disc (Respect has less studio sheen, multitracking and effects than the previous albums; the songs lose less and need less alteration in a live setting). “Wafflehead” is deliciously dirty, disturbing and unsettling, just as it is on the original album. Of the non-Respect tracks, “Wax Doll” (from Queen Elvis) is gorgeous, with Andy Metcalfe’s keyboard transforming and transcendant. Overall, it just seems to be lacking something, thouh I can’t quite put my finger on it.
This set is not as good as the previous one, though the original albums it includes are just as good, and even slightly more consistent, than those included in I Wanna Go Backwards. The extras, however, pale in comparison. Of course, I’m biased in that I think Invisible Hitchcock is his greatest work, and You & Oblivion isn’t far behind. While Thatcher Mauled Britain contains most of both (though annoyingly, not all of either) and elevates the first set, I Wanna Go Backwards, to a must have. In comparison, Bad Case Of History lowers this sets overall quality, though I’d argue the three remastered albums make Luminous Groove nearly as indispensible. Of course, this is my third time buying some of these albums, so what do I know?
It’s Not Easy Being Bale
I promise I have some actual content to post soon, but until then, check out Christian v. Kermit.
I Am Not Me 