Archives : all posts by Dan

Queen - "Don't Stop Me Now"

Tom Scharpling and The Best Show on WFMU are raising money tonight for freeform radio. It's my favourite radio show in history, and every day inches closer to its inevitable legendary status. Be a part. Listen tonight 9pm-12am EST at wfmu.org and pledge during the show.

For a 75$ pledge:
• Rated GG 7", cleaned-up versions of GG Allin songs by Ted Leo, Mountain Goats, Ty Segall, Fucked Up and more
• original Scharpling & Wurster content
• a Best Show poster by Charles (holy, yes) Burns!

and the person who pledges the most of the whole marathon gets the lightbox pictured above.

[Buy]

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The Barbarians - "Moulty"
Zoobombs - "Highway A Go-Go"

A New England siren song and steep Japanese shoals.

[DL Mississippi Records' Afraid of the Dark]
[site for La Vie en Jupon]

BOAT - "Dress Like Your Idols"

The world of BOAT is ultimately cold. Although full of chorus and smash, there always seems to be something underneath, some pensive distraction, like talking to someone with the television on in the background. BOAT seem to have really perfected their entire aesthetic with their new record "Dress Like Your Idols". BOAT have always seemed to say that cool is a thing that, even though we may not like it, we all have to give a try. They have advance hangovers, they're recovering addicts of drugs they never even liked, they sing about being young and having no choice but to squander youth. Their love songs are honest, they come from a true place, but are always sung from echoing halls. Bare-walled, pin-pocked, palm-streaked halls, two-tone and barren. BOAT comes from some kind of post-alcohopalyptic world, where no matter what age you are, you're never too far from the next binge, the next break-up, the next never-was. The sky always has warm gathering clouds, but never a storm, buds on the trees but never never never a leaf. Beer-soaked branches and limbs like sticks, weak but striving. And every night there's a vernissage, a book launch, a CD/vinyl release, an open mic, a non-pro fashion show, an embroidery seminar, a pick-up soccer game, a night-nic (BYOBFFs and wine), and birthday drinks. And all of them are okay. None is worth canceling the other.

[first 100 pre-orders get secret cassette with covers!]

(image by Irina Werning)

Crystal Swells - "Swamp People"

My partner (in crime? I guess you could say we were both accomplices) and I have had a hell of a few weeks. My partner tends to talk with his hands, and not in the way my aunts Susanne and Blondie used to talk with theirs. Not so much she had a pair of bazoobs like this and more bam! there's a word, bam! there's another one until we had written enough for a Sunday Edition. And that was fine. I mean, it was hell and I couldn't eat without my stomach crumpling like a paper cup, but at least I understood it. Fight or flight, one of the most understandable feelings there is, actually. Hard to sit in that pool of adrenaline for days like some kind of sick jacuzzi, but understandable. What I didn't understand was the silent treatment that came after. Eventually it turned into the silent long-term care, and I was beginning to wonder if I could even speak English anymore. We spoke in sex. I like this about you, I hate this about you, this is what you mean to me. It's a lot. It's nothing at all. It's fucking less than nothing. The only words that he spoke the entire two weeks before we broke up, were: "Must suck to be mute, huh?" And he said it while he was coming into the kitchen and I was leaving it. Like we were passing each other on the street. That made me think he must have been saving it up for a while. What a great line to save up. A doozie. The way I see it, that's like choking for air when you're drowning, catching your breath for a second, and your only words being, "It's hard to breathe down there!" Nothing about the ocean or the corral or the fish or the taste of the salt water, just "Must suck to be mute, huh?" So that's when I dumped him. And I did it with sex. This is the last thing you'll ever get from me.

Boris with Merzbow - "Akuma No Uta"

[Buy Crystal Swells' Goethe Head Soup for an amazing 2$USD]
[Buy Boris & Merzbow's Klatter from the admittedly suspicious Aural Exploits]

(photo by Lu Chusheng)

Lykke Li - "Unrequited Love"

1A-8F is business, beige, and cowards. 9A is t-shirt, 9B is skirt. 9C looks to D, his leg in the aisle, strap of his bag. 9E is already nodding off, 9F has a part like a chasm, a scalp canyon. 10A is guided, 10B atoning with Koontz, 10C a garbage bag poncho sudden rain, still deciding whether to rip it off or try and save it. 10D is thinking about two twenties or one in the wallet, lists transactions like old lovers. The noodles, did I have to do the noodles. 10E Sudoku, 10F plus size. 11A Greek to the max, 11B flat-brimmed headphoned hooded, 11C and D couple touching with a look, 11E and F their children, eating the day's dessert before its meal. 12A model hot, 12B obsessed with Truth, 12C given to addictive behaviour. Solitaire, brooding, seeking approval. 12D a-mare-ican, 12E a-mare-ican girlfriend, 12F blackberry Harry, as no one has ever called him. 14A looks at the screw-cap jet, 14B too much coat, 14C is empty but paid. 14D is imagining herself from outside herself, 14E this makes it a million, 14F is tired in a brand new kind of way. The way a machine would be tired if it could be. The way a pier would be tired, no more waves, thank you, I'd really like to be a tree again. [Site]

Jib Kidder - "Interlude"

15A-67F

[5$]

(photo of Buffins, the winner of the Cat With the Most Appealing Expression award, courtesy of Jez Burrows)

Unknown - "Unknown Title"

Unfair, she thought, running her fingers down the yellow piping of her skirt, his hair always looks marvelous when he comes in from the rain. Nolan shook off his coat, sniffed and smiled. "My darling, it's been ages," he stepped towards her, his golden coif glistening with rain, a curl falling near his eyes. She turned abruptly towards the crystal carafes of bourbon, and poured herself a drink, now a habit. "Damn your jaw," she said out loud, to the wall. Her back to him, she raised her eyebrows in surprise at herself in the mirror. It's true, damn his jaw, her mind was racing now, it's ugly the way a statue is ugly, nothing like that truly exists. "I beg pardon, my dear?" he stopped mid-stride, his shoes sopping a spot on the fine new rug. She spun around, "I don't think I want to see you right now. Or ever again, for that matter." He stood frozen, in that dumb pose, as if a photographer had yelled at him to hold steady, wonderfully powerful legs all bent and gangling, overcoat dripping, mouth slightly agape. "Surely you must be joking," his piercing blue eyes were now worn with age, no longer a boy but too beautiful to be a man, "I just travelled two days to get here." "Well, that was your decision, I didn't ask it of you," her bottom lip, the back of her shoulders, hell, her entire being quivered beneath his gaze, as she steeled herself for his reply. "Very well," he said, in his damn calm way, breathy and confident, "Seems I misunderstood the situation." And with that, he walked out the door. As quickly and dream-like as he had entered. She looked down at the wet footprint on the carpet. Unfair, she thought, of him to leave a goddamn mess on my carpet. Were it not for that, I might believe he was just like his jaw, too goddamn lovely to be real. [from Yeti 5]

Unknown - "Chemirocha"

Sisters are for stealing. If it's late and it's dark and you want a grape or two to help sleep come, send your sister to the fruit bowl. If your brothers have a comic book, with pictures of girls in shorts and ads for sugar cereals, send your sister to nab it while they're on the toilet. If you know where little Ricardo hides his garden snake, in a shoebox under the stairs of his house, covered in leaves and held fast with a rock, send your sister to sneak it away while he's having dinner. But tell her to watch out, it's angry. [from Yeti 4]

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Both songs today are from old Yeti compilations. I highly recommend these compilations, they're full of extremely rare gems and also just wonderful music of all kinds. Hidden unreleased songs from Destroyer, personal donations from Jeff Mangum (of which "Unknown Title" is one) and tons of other great stuff.

Also: I greatly enjoyed the ten minutes it took to play The Great Gatsby NES game.

Kurt Vile - "Ghost Town"

Let me lead you to a secret.

Put down your paper crafts or whatever you think is cute right now, shake off whatever creaky cobwebs or skinny dust that lines your pillows or your sheets and put clothes on that'll take the weather and let's go. Hit the sidewalk and walk hunkered to the corner on the hill. See the park, go into the park, with the beaver crest and the frost fencing covered in ratty hedges. Step on white mounded puddles to the pines, where the pines gather, short and silent, grey sky waiting, breathless. In amongst the pines is a passageway downwards. It's the foot path to the underground train. It used to be used by nobles but now for maintenance. See the old plaques, names and dates, deeds done, days and weeks spent over this thing that just sits there. Stuff always just sits there, and people notice or they don't. Now head to the train, take the train as far north as it will go. Get off and follow the plaques to a passageway up. You'll come up in a kitchen, warm and brown, bread will be baking. Have a piece, you'll be hungry. Look out the window, see that car. It's broken. But this house is by a cliff, and the wind kicks up like a horse so watch your footing. Walk to the edge of the cliff and lie on your stomach where the grass is parted, so your chin hangs over the ledge. Crane your neck as far as it will go, and you should be able to see just under the lip of a rock. See? The writing? Written upside-down, so you can read it just right? It's the secret. "HS+TT=♥ LET'S GET FUKKIN BLAZED"

What's that? It's not of interest to you? Well, perhaps secrets are of relative value. To me, it's an absolute truth. Aitch ess plus tee tee does equal heart shape, and indeed let's get fukkin blazed, that rings true in my heart. It resonates like rolling thunder, it laps against me like waves. I am full and happy and pianos burst and jangle in my ears.

[pre-order]

(pic)

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A very nerdy but fascinating clip from There Will Be Blood, run through a filter that tracks people's eye movements. After I marveled at how magnetic Daniel Day-Lewis' face is, I realized this is a tribute to Jack Fisk, one of the best production designers I've ever seen. Watch that wrench/weight on the map, and then see his talents explode like fireworks in that travelling shot with the car. (thanks, Vinny!)

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And today is your last chance to vote for us over at the CBC Radio 3 poll. wouldn't it be great?

Shotgun Jimmie - "Late Last Year"

Short short long, that's the signature buzz. Get inside, take off scarf, take off toque, take off mittens and boots, switch to slippers. Take off heavy coat, stuff the pockets with the rest and hang it in the closet. Sit down, crackers and aged cheese (cheddar fort, like snow fort but with cheddar) and do a jumble together. TRIPE. BUFFET. HEALED. GRUNT. (where the billiard champ left his keys = corner pocket) Do a coupla clues of the cryptic together, while tapping fingers and letting the clock tick loudly. Fresh weight for Isaac (6). "Hey, I figured something out last night when I was walking home." The bananas in the bowl are starting to waft, they want attention, they're growing spots. "I figured it out," slippers pap on the floor, juice sits limitless in the glass, meniscus whisping to infinity, "I love you." "Newton." [coming soon from You've Changed Records]

Andre Afram Asmar - "U Too Can Syn"

Tagline for Club Night, Ice Cream Commercial, Post-Edge-Murders-Bono Headline, or Text Messsage from God? [Buy]