Oh dearest journal, I have so little time for you these days. I am in the midst of concocting a fake 60's band in the mold of The Walker Brothers, and being exhausted from work, and pining away, and contemplating my next move. It seems Seattle awaits me.

Here are some things:

A slew of cheesy, but delightful Italo that entertained me last night.

Cock-heavy.

Noise expedition.

I remain captivated by the discussion of music and culture of the 00's at Monitor Mix.



This song is devastating to me. "Does nausea ensue when you chance upon a memory of someone you used to know?"

Various entanglements

While I was listening to "Gloomy Sunday" by The Associates yesterday, it occurred to me that The Associates be something like perfect make-out music. Their music is ornate, a lush parlor embodied. It made me feel like I wanted to take someone somewhere dark and secret and engage in lascivious activity. Then I mused upon my own troubled relationship with music in romantic contexts. It seems the few times music has been involved in past romantic endeavors, I just ended up being distracted from matters at hand by the music playing. I can't think about tongues and lips and groping when this song is playing - wait, which album was this from?

With this in mind, I wondered whether the presence of music can really enhance a make-out session or whether I would ultimately just end up being distracted by a good turn of phrase say, or a startling strain of skronk. Would certain music induce amorous feelings more, or just make one feel silly? Maybe I have just been missing out. There have been rumors of effective music for these situations - My Bloody Valentine, Portishead, Neutral Milk Hotel. But what if something like Jordy's "It's Tough to Be a Baby" came on, what then? A fit of guffaws, perhaps, which would likely be welcome. Actually, I think I would prefer that to most "romantic" music, anyway.

I do know there are certain songs that induce amorous feelings by dint of their sheer sexiness - say, The Sisters Love "Give Me Your Love." Good heavens, the Albertson's parking lot is such an inappropriate place to listen to that song. Maybe that is the thing, it is good for inducing amorousness or encouraging it, but not necessarily for the act itself.

Excursions, 10.9

KARP on Wednesday night (as I was tucked away in the Capitol Theater, which is appropriate).

Sugar Pie Desanto, of Chess Records, a real bad-ass lady. There is a fairly new compilation of her Chess-era recordings on Kent Records.

Sparks, as always, especially "Whippings and Apologies" and "Moon Over Kentucky" from Whomp that Sucker. Ridiculously sexy, especially said whippings.

James Carr, from the compilation "You Got My Mind Messed Up", also put out by Kent. A certain Mr. Jonty introduced me to Clarence Carter's version of James Carr's "The Dark End of the Street" that was a minor hit, but Carr's original kills me in the best possible way. Heartbreak embodied, about cheatin', a back-street affair, etc. His vocal delivery is devastating. If I remember correctly

Speaking of cheating, I found this LP in Aberdeen a while ago that was nothing but country cheating songs called Back Street Affair that had an amazing cover, but I didn't get it, alas. I now regret it. I can't find a picture of it online, but it was this business fellow in a car pulled up the curb, propositioning a lady in garish finery, while equally garish city lights twinkled in the distance. So sleazy. I think there was a George Jones song on it, I can't remember what else.

Now I am listening to Wire's Chair Missing. I was prompted to pay it another visit because it was being blasted from Phantom City Records earlier today. I sang along to myself softly, but became self-conscious when I ran into another person, and thus, quieted myself. I especially am fond of the song "Used To". I do seem to have a fancy for melancholy songs.

I also heartily recommend Satanicpornocultshop, an avant-garde bumpitty electronic squeaking mash-up good time band from Japan. I've been listening to the .aiff skull EP, which has the best 90's pop hits covers I've ever heard, which reminds me, you need to get the new Ergo Phizmiz covers release, "Now That's What We Pump at the Party".

On repeat

From the month and year I was born. Oh, oh!

The waters so deep

I've understood this lovely song a number of different ways over the years. When I first heard it years ago, I interpreted it as a declaration of accepting one's essential solitude, of being alone. I thought of it as a renouncement of coupledom, of reliance on another. I have found the lyrics "I never will marry, I'll be no man's wife" empowering in a way, although I don't believe this was the intention of the song. Misinterpreting a song can be problematic, as attributing personal meaning to the lyrics can detract from the intent. "I Never Will Marry" is clearly about something else, or otherwise it wouldn't have impacted me so strongly. "I Never Will Marry" is heartbreaking. It poignantly hints at what awaits us in the end. In that way, it addresses the essential solitude of death, either single or as anothers' beloved:

"The shells in the ocean
will be my deathbed
and the fish in the waters
swim over my head"

The subject/narrator of "I Never Will Marry" has thrown herself into waters, which seems to function as a metaphor for the acceptance of her fate of singledom. Her lover has left her, and she intends to remain single, and in doing so, has thrown herself into oblivion or "the waters so deep." It has much in common with murder ballads in its subject: a woman being consumed by the depths, a theme recurrent in folk ballads.

I started thinking about this song a lot not long after I had read Moby Dick. In one of the last few chapters of Moby Dick, a female character makes a rare appearance, in the form of the ocean that threatens to consume the passengers of the Pequod. Ishmael muses upon the eternity of the seemingly endless ocean for an entire chapter, and addresses it as a feminine entity. The theme of a woman being consumed by waters is probably a recurrent theme through art history, and "I Never Will Marry" is a perfect example of this. This is, of course, based on my scattered knowledge of the subject on the representation of femininity in art.

The whistling winds and roaring waters of "I Never Will Marry" represents the anguish of the young woman who has accepted her fate. Unlike Polly of "Pretty Polly" and various other characters from ballads who have been thrown into the waters or early graves, she is throwing herself in, with full knowledge of what she is doing. Having been spurned, she is returning to herself.

"She closed her pretty blue eyes
In the water so deep"

Alva!

I don't have a radio show anymore, so I suppose I will have to wax on about music here. I've been thinking a lot recently about Alva's Fair-Haired Guillotine. I don't know much about them, but according to a blog, they met and formed in Tampa, Florida in the mid 90's and released two albums, one of which I have forgotten the name of. Win Records labelmate Miss Murgatroid has a similar sound to Alva in its delight in avant-garde gothic sensibilities. They also remind me of Caroliner in the fixation on the old-timey. Both of Alva's records are some of the best CDs in the KAOS music library.

Fair-Haired Guillotine is like a children's playground where the children are ghoulish fiends from the 19th century, haunting a lakeside holiday retreat. It is eerie, with alarming titles, such as "The Warped Oar" and "Clues from Under the Carousel". The titles of these song accurately describe the sort of songs they are. It sounds rooted in improv, given the interplay of the organic (violin, piano, brass instruments) and the electronic dabblings. However, the record is mostly the organic, especially with its focus on vocal play. It is perfect for prairies dotted with the occasional ramshackle museum. There is even a brief piccolo played, and one is reminded of jaunty war marches from the mid 19th century. This album is a delight, through and through.

A smidgen.

the final show - 9.8.09

Debbie Deb - "When I Hear Music" - Dreams Come True: Classic First Wave Electro
Bran Flakes - "Kitty Takes A Ride" - Tipsy Remix Party - (Asphodel)
Johnny Guitar - "Dance of the Ngeo" - Thai Pop Spectacular - (Sublime Frequencies)
Tony Alvon and The Belairs - "Sexy Coffee Pot" - What It Is! Funky Soul and Rare Grooves - (Rhino)
Joe Meek - "Telstar (Demo)" - Songs in the Key of Z: The Curious World of Outsider Music
Jean-Claude Vannier - "Mort Du Roi Des Mouches" - L'engant Assasin Des Mouches - (B-Music)
The Centimeters - "Daddy's Gone" - The Lifetime Achievement Awards - (Space Baby)
Pathe Freses Phonograph Co. - "Pathes Demonstration Record"

Harry Partch - "The Beginning of a Web" - Delusion of the Fury - (Sony)
People Like Us and Ergo Phizmiz - "Smiling in the Rain Suckling" - Perpetuum Mobile
Polar Goldie Cats - "Beast of Exmoor" - Feral Phantasms - (Up!)
Arrigo Barnabe - "Tubaroes Voadores" - Tubarous Voadores
Felix Kubin - "Russian Robot in N.Y" - Axolotl Lullabies
The Tiger Lilies and Kronos Quartet - "The Learned Pig" - The Gorey End

Emeralds - "Alive in the Sea of Information" - What Happened - (No Fun)
Solid Eye - "Gigantor" - Fruits of Automation - (WIN)
Matmos - "Public Sex for Boyd McDonald" - The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast - (Matador)
Dance Reaction - "Disco Train"
Lindstrom - "I Feel Space" - It's a Feedelity Affair
Solvent - "My Radio" - Apples and Synthesizers

unknown - "Blue Basket" - Cambodian Cassette Archives: Folk and Pop Music of Khmer - (Sublime Frequencies)
Kishore Kumar and Asha Bhosle - "Ek Main Hun, Ek Tun" - Darling, Darling
Sparks - "A Song that Sings Itself" - Pulling Rabbits Out of a Hat
The McKinleys - "Give Him My Love" - Dreambabes Volume Three: Backcomb N' Beat - (RPM)
Glenda Collins - "Paradise for Two" - This Little Girl's Gone Rockin' - (RPM)
Lee Hazlewood - "What's More I Don't Need Her" - Cowboy in Sweden

Roy Montgomery - "For the Imperiled" - Silver Wheel of Prayer - (VHF)
The Space Lady - "Major Tom" - Live in San Francisco
Shirley Collins - "One Night as I Lay in My Bed" - Fountain of Snow
Ennio Morricone - "Un Uomo De Rispettare (Tioli)" - Crime and Dissonance - (Ipecac)
Legendary Pink Dots - "Hanging Gardens" - Chemical Playschool Volume One and Two