Archives : all posts by Dan

P.S. Eliot - "Entendre"

I will never delete this voicemail. It's a performance just for me, a completely unscripted masterwork. It has all the curves of a voice that's electric with teenage anticipation, it's a smiling sound, a kiss from a machine. It's wet from when we weren't even together, it's cracked in all the most beautiful places, it's made of marble, and marbles, and theories, and gold. [MySpace]

Fontana - "Gotta Split"

That was The Shitters with their spit-drenched A-side "Here Comes The Coming" from their 7" called Butt's Up? released on Head of the Dead Records. That's a small DIY cassette label out of Newmarket, which has recently moved into the realm of vinyl, so I guess they're making a buck or two over there at Head of the Dead. Good scene out there in Newmarket, actually. Growing. I went to the "NewCarcass" festival out there in early June of this year, and there was a lot of good bands, some really visceral shows, with big names from around the country. I saw Tillborn, The Drugs, Heath Mighty (from Benton Massachusetts), but I think the stand-out show of the whole festival was Skunk Munch from Texas. Skunk Munch features Gareth Paré formerly of Night Danger and Please the Press, finally in a role where he can really show his stuff. And sometimes he literally shows his stuff, so be warned. But a great show, completely messy loud screamy stuff that kind of lifts itself on top of itself and keeps going, like there's almost like two shows going on at once, that's how dissonant some of the live versions can sound. Anyway, that's enough about that, it's almost time for a ticket giveaway, so if you want tickets to David and Go Riot this Friday at The Gum, give me a call and I'll hook you up. As I was saying, David and Go Riot are local kids, they're all under 16, but they're a lot of fun and they show a lot of potential, so if you're interested in that kind of thing, supporting new talent, give me a call 306 3066. Also going on this weekend there is an event called "Bikes for Murder" which is a fund-raiser for Bi-Psychos, the anarchist bike shop up in Magsden Heights, you can check that out, it's from 2-8pm on Saturday, in Pilon Park, and there will be a bike ride scavenger hunt planned, which, I've been told, may or may not involve the theft of people's property. That's 2-8pm Saturday in Pilon Park, I will be there, hope to see you too. Coming up on 2:30 here on Postmodernism and Cocktails, CVUB, and this is Fontana with "Gotta Split"... [MySpace]

The xx - "VCR"

In ancient Norse history, certain clans were persecuted by the gods more than others. Most of the families in these clans would crumble under the superior intellect and supernatural powers of the gods, but some would rise above it. These became warlike clans, their entire existence based upon self-defense and self-preservation. Weapons could be formed ingeniously from any material or object. Eggshell Claws, Splinter Swords, Ash Gas, all these famous weapons came from these incidental inventors. But the most valuable and powerful weapons were the ones that rose above the material realm. The most successful, of course, is the duet. The act of sharing a single song, while a simple idea, was a critical turning point in the war against gods. As the story goes: Tåemir, the "jinx" god, was putting sprigs of burnt saltflower in all the potato sacs and feeding fire to every second-born child in the small clan of Øraptïn. He giggled through his rock-pointed teeth as he perched on the spire of the small church at the gates of town. Two lovers were coming home late from making love in the tundra, and the young man was singing his lady a song. A traditional song from the time, called "The Nantha" which spoke of creating children from the clouds in the sky. Tåemir swung down from his perch and tackled the young man, gleefully and without pause. The young man was just starting the chorus: "when you see a cloud try not to breathe it in...". And as Tåemir ate his stomach out of his body, his lover, stunned and gawking, could think of nothing else to do but finish the chorus, "...unless what you desire is a child within". She sang it, her voice shaking, but clear. The words rent Tåemir asunder, and his foul deeds bled into the softly thawing earth beneath. And as her lover died there at the gates, they finished singing the other eighteen verses of The Nantha together and she married his corpse at dawn the next day. Six days of revelry followed and after that she started the Choir of Chaos, an army of shared singers, waging war for nine straight months on the gods who terrorized Øraptïn.

[Buy]

(photo source)

Jeff The Brotherhood - "Mind Ride"

Buddy, you're getting pretty drunk. You look like you're at sea, a bit. Like, the sea on valium. You're eyes are like clotheslines, you could hang a sweater from that stare. You talk like you're already throwing up, like you're afraid the words might slip back down your throat. You're checking your pockets for your consonants. You're holding a speaker up to one ear like a pillow or an important call. You're dismissing everyone for offenses they haven't committed, you're flitting your wrist in such a way I can't tell if you think we're snobs or whether you're being a snob. I think even your clothes want to get away from you, and by the looks of things, you're starting to think you'll help them. You're poking the fire, you're whacking a tree with a stick, you're yelling like you just invented yelling. You're talking about swimming and everyone is just trying to be quiet to see if you can still be affected by your surroundings. You're on the diving board, and you're looking at the water, and now you're hovering above the water. The lights of the pool are blue, they're lighting your face from below, as you're hovering there in mid-air, and..oh. You're a demon. Okay, you're a demon. My bad. It's all good. Good times. [Heavy Days drops mid-Oct but Buy buy buy Jeff's old releases, powerful stuff]

Little Birdy - "Brother"

While standing in a walk-in closet, I started to lose all perspective. When I came out I was as tall as mountains and as small as penny candy. Everything seemed in reach, as close as anything else, sometimes so close that it felt like it was pushed up against the glass window of my eyes, and would just pour into my head. It felt as if with each inhalation I was breathing in all the air in the world and then giving it back with every exhalation. Clouds rubbed against my eyebrows and I would check for fluff, puddles felt like they would run like tears down my cheeks, fences and ladders became the same thing, ceilings and floors could only be told apart by which was cleaner. The refrigerator can often seem like another world, a desolate ice prison, each item in its own tupperware cell. The bookshelf like a multicoloured forest, the carpet like a giant field of red grass, the couch like a piece of doll's furniture. It's horrible, pictures and people are very hard to tell apart. Sometimes when we sit in silence too long, I forget. [Buy]

(photo by riø)

Yoni Wolf - "Shoot the Singer (1 Sick Verse)"

Amidst storms of backslashes, through mires of colons, and over huge highways of underscores, Ampersand headed headlong to an unknown anywhere, a desperate attempt to get off the grid. He wandered sullen and wide-eyed through clouds of accented characters, all similar to ones he knew but ultimately different. Like an n with a line through it or a t wearing a hat, a g with angry eyebrows or a b in a blanket. Things joined together in new and interesting ways, ways that would make him smile or giggle or look away. An a literally attached to an e, an s with a skunk stripe (or maybe a stripper pole?) an o that walks around looking at itself in the mirror every second of every day. His path, arduous and often boring and barren, lead him to the base of a great mountain, a small creek of equals at his feet, he thought whatever happens must happen over this. In a lonely pile of discarded hash marks, he found an upside-down question mark that still worked. He rode it up most of the mountain like a chairlift and found himself suddenly face to face with the Twelve Guardians of the Grid, of legend, he thought were a lie. They each have their own function, but the legend says that one will set you free. He told F1 about the people he's met along the way, F2 and 3 spoke in unison that the world is a strange and beautiful place, and the others nodded in agreement. F12 came over, moving strangely like a living statue, and whispered to our hero: "&#esc"

[Eskimo Snow by WHY? released on Sept. 22]

(sculpture by Alex Queral)

Nurses - "Bright Ideas"

I was at the ballet tonight, I went alone despite trying desperately to bring Thomas along. He is completely consumed with work and is only melancholic and distant when taken away from it so I decided against pressing the matter. Even though it's the first snowfall tonight and the city is swirling with holiday gasps and bristles, and it's so beautiful that I can't imagine anything else I'd like to do than share that with him. But so it goes sometimes. I sat in the orchestra section, and in the row in front of me, a gentleman was speaking to his wife throughout the entire performance. Muttering under his breath while still watching the dancers, and it went on so long I was able to write some of it down: they're separating like a drop of oil on water, the outer ring is melting like warm snowflakes and the center is raising arms to the sky and dressed in red. The legs are all scissors--cut cut cut cutting everything, cutting the audience--the men are fiery, more fiery even than the one in red, and suddenly everything stops, you can hear they've stopped--the one in red is coming center stage and slowly opening her hand, and what is it, you can see it, it's the most beautiful and luscious thing, a gift of--oh my and the chaos is like windy snow, and it's gorgeous. As gorgeous as you, my love. Having seen that ballet countless times in my life, this was a unique experience among them. And it's with guilt that I admit I embellished their relationship ever so slightly. I added, "as gorgeous as you, my love." For I simply wish he had said that, but in fact he did not. Though in the re-telling, somehow, it must be added.

[Pre-Order]

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I Come To Shanghai - "Your Lazy Eye"

I met my father-in-law-to-be for the first time tonight. I will say generally that I am glad he lives in a remote filling station off the Cape, because I would be completely content only seeing him every three or four years at the most. I hope you'll forgive my incontrovertible condemnation and not think I am entirely vindictive. I feel I can speak honestly here and it's simply something I've had welling up in my breath for what seems like countless hours, and just had to extricate it from the confines of my chest. With that unpleasantness behind us, I can describe him more objectively. He is a short man, with a deep complexion, his hair, I believe, he must have found on the driveway in front of the house, and his halitosis reminded me of rancid crackers. He has a rat's demeanor and a horse's awkwardness. I of course don't mean a horse unbridled and free, they are as graceful as clouds in the sky, but a horse in a stable at night, the way they shuffle and look behind them and are unable to turn around. He has an exclusionary way of talking that makes simply everyone who listens feel completely unimportant and prisoners of whatever happenstance he is recounting. He has one eye that looks around the room as normal, and one eye that slinks and crawls around the room, as if with one half of his face he is pretending to act as normal, and with the other half revealing his leering and peering true persona. His teeth can't be described as anything other than little bullets stuck dumbly into his browning gums, and his smile is like that of a split and rotting apple. His compliments stick like peanut butter to the floor, and lay embarrassingly for everyone to gawk at, and who can be blamed. To quote this incomparable cretin: "You, my dear, your flesh gleams like a cooked cornish hen, and you could put out a cigarette with those legs." I didn't dare tell Thomas why I was crying.

[Buy at a sliding scale]

Boat - "Name Tossers"

Beyond a creature who perceives and interprets signs and symbols, it seems virtually impossible to define a "self" without a relationship to other similar or dissimilar beings. A "relationship" meaning both a set of circumstances and a set of opinions, that are both given and received. Even for a person who is perhaps raised by wolves, or grows up in solitary confinement, these things would be integral to their definition of self. A true definition is perhaps "monadic" in the sense that you can see every other person reflected (whether distorted or not) in the mirrored surface of the self. Like an online photo catalogue, where the "photographer" has a set of photos where you can't see who is taking the pictures, and the "narcissist" has themselves tagged in every pic. This song is sunny and grassy and reflective, and so is this summer, and so is my mind, as I read with my hands (like a kind of braille) all the things and people about me, at once a tactile history and a definition of self. And I am realizing the very real possibility of falling anywhere in that spectrum of your own life. Like getting all tossed around in one of those Wayne Coyne bubbles.

[album out later this year]
[buy old stuff from Magic Marker]

Googoosh - "Respect"

Amber tea and whole flower pedals. Muslin dress and shoes with a little heel. Semolina and raisins, and a slap across the face. Dark brown streets and occasional neon, a blue and handsome midnight. A crowded apartment building with young boys that hang out staring at the floor of the lobby all night grinning and humming. Up the tiles, stairs, halls to a chipped door. Making money the only way they know how. Pages from a comic book, crude and hard to understand. One picture has a French stereotype, the other an American, they are arguing, one of them is farting, and there are a pair of tits in there somewhere. A neighbour pokes his head out, to see what's the noise, can't tell if the scream was in danger or in fun. Out the balcony and into the hot cloud of the night. Soft street lights and distant sparse cafes, smells like food at all hours in this part of town. [Buy]

(image source)