Said the Gramophone - image by Danny Zabbal

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What Do Bike Thieves Really Deserve?
by Dan

Mt. Eerie - "Uh Oh! It's Morning Time Again"

We were talking in the comments about being able to imagine the look on someone's face, the way their mouth is moving, just by the way they say something. Well, this song is like that; it starts with a bunch of that "we're just lettin' the tape roll" stuff, which I, like a sucker, always find really evocative. But it's like getting to know the choir before they sing their song. Like sitting in the audience and just watching the band hang out before the song starts (but they can't know you're there, otherwise they're performing). And then when Elvrum hits the line "So if she's dead, then I'm dead too" you know exactly what he looks like, and you know what everyone else looks like, holding their breath and their bongos, waiting. Humanity (hilarious, gentle, cloying, annoying) is what makes this song g-o-r-g-e-o-u-s.

[Buy]

*****

Neutral Milk Hotel - "Engine"

Sean talking about NMH yesterday made me want some of the real thing. I hope you haven't heard this song before, or you've listened to it once or twice, but never sat in it like a chair made of concrete, comfortable somehow. I hope because for me it was the last thing I found by this band, and it's the perfect last thing to find. Like a really compelling clip show (yes, I've been brought in by a clip show). It has everything: tea-stained imagery, a melody that's too simple to be true, the soundscape as music (sign of things to come) and the most insane intensity hidden under a veil of right notes and restraint. I know people say "i've been listening to this song on repeat" to make a point, but I'm not here to make a point (yes I am), it's true.

[Buy]

2:50 AM on Sep 23, 2005.
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The Suicide Song
by Dan

This is the story of a song that causes people to commit suicide. Hungarian composer Reszo Seress wrote the song Gloomy Sunday, apparently while depressed and during an actual gloomy Sunday, and soon after people started turning up dead.

Artie Shaw (with vocalist) - "Gloomy Sunday"

The sheet music was reportedly found close by, or witnesses heard or saw them listening to the song performed, sung, or even whistled, merely hours before their death. All unsubstantiated gossip of course, but interesting. Since then, 1932, the song has been much recorded, including the most famous rendition by Billie Holiday,

Billie Holiday - "Gloomy Sunday"

but also by other newer artists like Diamanda Galas and Bjork.

Diamanda Galas - "Gloomy Sunday"

and most recently, the inspiration for this post, by Venetian Snares.

Venetian Snares - "Öngyilkos Vasárnap"

The number of suicides, however, at least to my knowledge, has not increased, even though many more people have heard the song than in that time. If anything, it's gone from some to none (reported, anyway). So, why has Gloomy Sunday lost its power? Why aren't the bodies dropping the way they did in the old days? Well, in my opinion, there's no version here which truly captures what makes this song sad: the melody. That's why, if we were to make a chart, the body count goes steadily down from Artie Shaw's version (probably a tame version of what used to exist), because he is the only one who knows that the clarinet is essential (it should sing the song), and the melody should be forefront. The vocalist is tacked on for whatever reason, and the song devolves into what the others suffer from: huge sweeping melodrama, big band swell. There's no point in swelling, there's no point in making it epic, and there's no point in focussing on the lyrics, it only distracts from the tears I could be shedding. Especially since the lyrics are literally about contemplating suicide; let me get to that on my own! So forget Diamanda Galas (and Bjork, for that matter) this song isn't about screaming anguish, it's about covering your vision in a continuous dripping stroke of tunnelvisioned melancholy. THAT'S how we'll get the kids sad, Reszo. That's how we'll make the papers. You'll be famous again.

4:48 AM on Sep 19, 2005.
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She's Terrible For You, And That's Not How It Should Be
by Dan

this isn't music, but it's sounds that move me:

WWII Reporting - "Crossing the Rhine"

Did you ever have a friend that had a lover that just turned them into an unrecognizable, generally unpleasant person? Yeah, me neither. This is what this piece reminds me of. There's something so loving (lustful respect, let's say) about the way this man talks about the power of the tanks (the Buffalo, that strange, all-purpose vehicle) when they 'open up' to full throttle. This is from March 1945, a time, it would seem, when real evil and real good existed. There's so much 'glory' in his voice. It's like soldiers started dating Glory, and they didn't break up when they became veterans. So we just have to be nice to Glory, tell them they're good together, because at this point, there's no point in telling them otherwise, it would only hurt them unnecessarily.

*********

Orson Welles - "Commercial"

This is a sound clip that floats around on the P2P servers when you search Orson Welles. It usually bears the title "Drunk Celebrity" or just straight-up "Fukkin-Drunk-Orson-Welles-Idiot-This-Guy-is-Crazy.mp3". Being a big Welles fan, this is completely unfunny to me, much rather like an old, ratty lion at a dirty crumby zoo. Some total perversion of something that should probably be really impressive, and an entirely depressing reminder that everything goes down hill one way or another. You can hear in every word how exhausted he is; how fed up he is with the "I'm just doing my job" expression on everyone's face. So he acts terribly to these poor gentlemen. It's as if he could already hear the downloaders laughing at his own pettiness, and just makes it worse, let them laugh, I'll be dead soon anyway.

Happy Monday, Everyone!

3:06 AM on Sep 12, 2005.
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Begin the Beguine
by Dan

Last week I saw Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! in Montreal. I taped the show (for all of us) and here's what I found.

first the show itself: my jaw did drop (see these songs), but not as much as I would have liked. they seemed tired. if you've ever seen Bob Dylan live, you know he sings the songs way different from how you recognise them, but that's because he's been touring for nigh on 3000 years, and it's pretty easy to cut the guy some slack. But CYHSY were doing the same, although not so extreme. Just not doing all the wails and yelps we love so much (when he did do them, the crowd went insane - maybe that's why he doesn't). I passed up seeing Sunset Rubdown to see them, and I can't help wondering if I made the right decision. However, these two songs are incredible, and performed incredibly well (they, like Frog Eyes, who I saw tonight - fucking amazing - I'll get to that later, seem to much prefer performing new stuff, with which I sympathize).

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! - "Graceful Retreat (live)"

I will start by apologizing for the quality of the recording. What can I say, I'm not a professional.

It starts out normal enough, like a nice letter to an old lover. But then while writing it, reading the words just written and thinking of the ones to come, it all comes flooding in at once. It turns from replayed niceties into a yelling match with the page. The song just steadily blooms into swirly paint, and then back into a straight line for the second verse. But the feeling isn't all gone. We're all changed, and we're all bouncing. And bouncing. It never has to go away, it can come back every time you write a letter.

They go right into "Is This Love?" at the end there (this was there first song), but I faded it out, despite how energizing it is. We don't have all day!

*********

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! - "Satan Said Dance (live)"

Next, a slight departure. The distorted synth is a very exciting character to have entered this song. It is the biggest difference I saw from other songs by this band, but here are a list of the friendly familiar elements that, combined with their friendship of the new character, make for a fabulous play:

1. the beat from Yellow Country Teeth.
2. the repetition from Tidal Wave of Young Blood (it sounds like both 'stay tuned, stay tuned' and 'satan, satan'. guesses?)
3. the delicious pap-pap from Is This Love.

I think we're all excited for what comes next, but I know that still not all of you have bought what is out already.

They played other new stuff, too, including a slow song that I really hope makes it on the radio, because I want high school dances to play it, that's its home.

*********

Now, Frog Eyes. After tonight's show, I think they are currently my favourite band in the world. I didn't tape it (highly unfortunate, I left my house in a stressy way) so I can't share anything, but it probably wouldn't have turned out anyway, it was so loud. They just had so much power and frenzy, yet on this leash of melody, so that their heads were suspended right out over the audience, so they couldn't quite bite our faces off, though we knew they wanted to. I think they should call the next album The Monster King, or The Crowned Beast or something, because that's what the new stuff evokes in me; such insane destruction, but all for the betterment of us, like devastation for a genuinely good reason.

[Buy]

1:34 AM on Sep 7, 2005.
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Fall Colours : Video Games as Down : Out
by Dan

John Prine - "It's a Big Old Goofy World"

About once a year, I listen to John Prine's The Missing Years and cry my frigging eyes out (with smiles, not tears). He's so virginal in his approach to songwriting; as if a song had never been written before ["hey guys, look what I learned to do"]. And this way of being, not ignorant but innocent in a way, makes his songs so fresh, so warm [red dress, slowdancing], so very true. Dignity is for winners. The rest of us can't afford it, so may as well stop trying to have it.

[Buy]

*******

Subtle - "I Love L.A."

My sister first told me about Subtle a while ago. Her thoughts on Doseone (who is this guy?): "kinda sounds like Zack from Rage, but fronting Portishead and !!! 's baby". My sister, as this song's black and slick back, is cool. And it's dark, like a shark swimming silently next to, or around in circles, you, with "i'm gonna fuck you up" written in stock-ticker style led's scrolling across its body.

I highly anticipate the next Subtle album. Does anyone have any information on that for me?

[Buy A New White]

4:04 PM on Sep 1, 2005.
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Bob Wiseman Hates My Comedy
by Dan

Bob Wiseman - "Born To Love You"

This song is a straight line, perhaps a phoneline, through an unknown part of town. It's like there used to be a regular, kind of played, song about love with lines like "I was born to love you" and a melody that's cool but not amazing. But then, after it was recorded, there was too much real love infused into the song, too much sincerity and open-eyed truth, that it electronically exploded inside its 1:40-skin. It's shaking with vitality. Plus there's a great video that goes with it (simple, also a straight line), but apparently Much Music won't (haven't) play(ed) it.

*********

Bob Wiseman - "Cousin Dave"

Hear we here the best example of Bob Wiseman's style and charm. It's the super-honest, songs-are-my-diary style of music done so perfectly that it proves this style can work, and be fantastic. Not only is he wearing his heart on his sleeve, he's also a wearing a shirt that says "my heart is on my sleeve". At first listen, it might appear like this is a "joke song", but as I've said before, it's when upon second and third listen when you can reach past the joke and feel the back of a head, a nervously bouncing knee, a real mouth with a real tongue, then you know you've come the right way: you were right to take the time.

[Buy It's True and his other albums or visit his site]

4:42 AM on Aug 29, 2005.
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A Constant Wellspring
by Dan

Friday posts are the best. but Jordan's post yesterday was so good I don't want it getting overlooked (it was only up for like 6 hours). So here's a song for your party tonight, and then consider yesterday's and today's post as a send-off to the weekend after the great greatness that was Will Sheff's contribution this week.

Organized Rhyme - "Check the O.R." I grew up in Ottawa, so I will always believe that Tom Green is everything he doesn't claim to be; very very smart. Beyond this getting some attention after his rise to fame (simply for that reason), it deserves acclaim on its own merits. I can't think of another Rap Song that makes me grin so wide.

|
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| go here now. and then have a good weekend.
V

2:04 AM on Aug 26, 2005.
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