Archives : all posts by Dan

Marmoset - "Run Away, Teri"

Clothes held together with glitter glue, skin like rocky planet smoothscape, smile twisted twice like party streamers, taped at the corners. A walk basmati, speech untied, gestures make-believe, jokes gummy-shy. Incomplete mannerisms, unfinished philosophy, step-printed attitude and gorgeous guff. Warm heft, and night-cry pinball flash-picture catch pose. Unintelligible, thankfully unheard. Complete space-out, ripped-shirt filth. [info]

Rat Tail - "Racecar (demo)"

I'd call her writing a piece of 'ergonomic fiction', it's fitted with the body in mind, the shape and placement of body parts in a comfortable fashion, maximizing ease of movement. I'd call her body a work of 'homophonic friction', she's a tease, drinks teas, wears tees, lisps t's, climbs trees. In the dark sweaty concrete of summer she lives and hoos this song to windows open and blown. Her voice like a flag at night, stark simple beauty hidden under cover of the fact of no wind and no eyes. [MySpace] (thanks, Michelle!)

(image source)

Megafaun - "Darkest Hour"

The rain fell as it normally does, in thick brazen sheets. But as I looked out at the soggy, humiliated trees and streets, I couldn't help but think very specific drops were hitting my window. Like letters cut from a magazine to form a ransom note, each drop meant something, they were trying to tell me something. They started to present themselves in a pattern I could discern. It was repetitious, though complex, and I can't describe the message as being in any "language", as there were no rules to the evocation of meaning, just a pure sensory response. The way mountains don't "tell" you what it feels like to look at something huge, to feel small and intrepid, you just start feeling it. It was telling me direction and history, travel and distress, the message swayed and dipped and strummed and sunburst and ---oh, it's music. forget what I said, it's music.

[MySpace] [on tour with Bowerbirds in July and August]

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enter the Monks contest below!

Garnette Mimms - "Cry Baby"

I deliver pizzas. For 8 hours, sometimes 9, at a time, I drive around and get as many pizzas to as many people as possible. When you think about how much pizza that is, and how much pizza people are eating, it's kind of disgusting. But if you let the poetry of it be the shining quality, it can be nice. I get to see a small window, opened briefly and slightly hidden from me, of people's lives. A tall girl with a short boyfriend who acts like I'm trying to interview him for his court case. A fat man alone. A bunch of teenagers laughing and showing off their beers. People who apologise for ordering pizza, as if I'm taking note or casting judgment. Gruff people who grab the box and stare at me like I should leave. Overly nice people who put the money on the box, so I can't even get it without putting it down. People who are trying to be funny, with me as an uninvited audience of one, people who look like they pity me, and people who look right through me out into the street. I take my tips as a measure of how much my charms are working. On average, they're not working very well, but cold calls were never my strong suit. The wet streets sing a song between houses, and the red lights, reflected, like chorus singers, triple-lunged baaabyyy...

Tarheel Slim & Little Ann - "You're Gonna Reap"

In the realm of the first slowdance, sweat is an international power. It casts its name firmly in the iron of history, written a signature of closeness and smell that will last eternally. I remember the smell left on the shoulder of my long-sleeve shirt, a smell I left there for as long as I could. In the May heat of the darkened afternoon gymnasium, her chin hooked over my shoulder and her neck, perspiring quickening on my shoulder, it was indelible, permanent. I succumbed to its firm policy of maintenance, upkeep and heed. I'm left scarred, proudly, as if each mark on my character were an initial, a signature in the guestbook of my existence. An "i was here" where someone thought my body worthy of such vandalism.

[from a compilation called A Little Bit of Hurt available to buy only at the Mississippi Records Store]
[Mississippi Records Store in Portland]

(image source)

Religious Girls - "White Mage"

They were standing completely still. Kind of posing, completely rock solid still. It was hard to tell they were real people, because they were standing next to fake museum ancient people, like those mannequin-type wax people, churning butter or hunting or something. But obviously they were real people. They were wearing now-time clothes, and they weren't in the exhibit, they were outside it. It just caught me off guard. They were seething. He was breathing really slowly but really hard, and she was breathing like she was under water, she would hold it in and then tilt her head up to take a breath. She had curly hair that went out in a triangle from the top of her head, and a baggy t-shirt, and shorts, and he had jeans and a golf shirt and his hair looked like it was made to hold sunglasses. You could see there was a relationship between them. Not like the wax people who looked like unused puppets, no these people had a connection between them that was bright and visible, like when people hold a flag between them at a soccer game. You could see their connection, it was all fingerprinted and greasy, and it had the sense that it was really well used. It was stretched tight between them and it was dripping. Dripping like carrying a bag of melty ice. Finally she turned around and faced him, her hands kind of on her hips but holding her big bag.

"So?"

And, to me, this is the way I remember it, it was like some sort of cue. The big fake birds that were circling, fake vultures flying high above fake dog skeleton, started really flying, started really screeching. The big fake half elephant covered in fur, started moaning, the fake leaves in the painted trees started rustling. And the fake people started lurching and bounding.

And these real people didn't notice! They didn't blink an eye when it happened. She just stared right at him and he just stared right back, even though all this other noise and other stuff was happening.

"Okay." he said, and it all, everything at once, stopped.

[MySpace]
[via the unquestionable No Pain In Pop]

Reading Rainbow - "Totem Pole"
Reading Rainbow - "In the City"

Grown on a field, raised by grass and old leaves, taught by ants and rain. Subsisting on loose dirt, worms, and fine-tasting roots. Given gifts of wind-blown seeds, sung to at night by creaky trees and warm stars. Held tight by snow drifts, held in empty arms. Thoughts without language, a smell that sweet stings, breath like discs of grey light.

[MySpace] a full length is coming...

[image source]

Carole King - "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman"

I imagine a hundred thousand different situations. I imagine he died in a car crash, I go into gory detail. I imagine the shards ripping at his face, tugging on his mustache as he passes through the windshield. I think about him cheating on me. Picking up some girl, some whore, underage and strung-out, asking for cigarette money in the night street light. I think about them in an alley. And then to punish myself for thinking so negatively about him, I imagine him shot to death, after trying to retrieve an old woman's purse from a mugger, I see the images like panels in a comic. I open my eyes and the lights are still on. I try to remember what shirt he was wearing when he left. I can see four or five different ones, each as vivid as the other. I could get up and check which ones are here and eliminate, but that would be crazy. When I have to identify his body at the coroner's office it'll just be a shirt and it won't matter. Instead, I clean the house, cleaning things that are already clean. At this hour, I look four or five times at the coffee table, trying to decide if I can say 'clean' in my mind or if I need to keep looking at it. I finally turn the lights off and lie down. It's not long before the fist in my chest loosens and I fall asleep. And when I wake up it tightens right up and I get up. I hear the shower running. And there it is. A half-finished glass of red wine, fingerprinted in the 7am kitchen sun.

The shower is warm and giving and restful and smiling. I think there are still pears in the fridge for an omelette. [Buy]

Sunset Rubdown - "Coming To at Dawn"

"Opine," he thought, "opine". The flat grey wind gusted up the edges of his coat, "opine is not an imperative verb". The trees were leafless, not for long, "special treatment". A story about a child who adopts a piece of fruit as a kind of pet, a face in black marker, eyebrows over-thickened in attempt to have a change of mood. "Now it looks angry all the time," he, smiling, squinting, thought. [Buy]

Machesa Traditional Group - "Rarichama"

I make the food, my family eats the food. I work the day through, the night pays me back with sleep. I read all my books, my mind runs up and down the hill and around the town in circles. I kiss my girl, my friends get jealous. I help all the old folks, they tell me stories. I give away my money, and happiness comes in like morning. I bend down to pick up a heavy sack, my back shouts a number, a countdown. I laugh with my children, I see that when you're young you breathe Heaven. I eat rice, I shit rice. I tell the truth, and lies glow red like red hot metal. I feel the rough surface of my hands, I think about the rough surface of the ground. My hands have it easy. I think about great sickness that comes across like clouds, I think about beer and dancing and dust. I feel the drip from a leaky roof, I put my lemon grass underneath. I walk as if on a clothes line down the middle of the road. It's orange, the sky, and light white cream. Nothing is in my way.
(thanks to the consistently great Moss Bailey. Maybe they can provide a Buy link, as I can not)

Elizabeth Cotten - "I'm Going Away"

My favour-asking muscles are sore. The bridges between me and all my acquaintances used to look like big steel bridges, now they look like spittle trails. The steam-rolled half-promises and over-baked wishes are lined up like stale muffins, all crumbs and crust. I've stuffed my mattress with weak smiles and missed appointments. But I've got energy enough for one more: can you leave the door unlocked when you leave? I'm going to be sleeping in the wet spring air through the window and I don't want to have to get up to let the grocery boy in. Let him come, sneak into the kitchen, and take a finger full of peanut butter before he leaves. Thank you, dear. Thank you in advance. [Buy]

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Elsewhere: there is a lovely little web series made by a friend of mine, called Jordan & Bear. It has such a strong tone, like Elizabeth Cotten in a bear costume, it's exactly right where it should be, and it's great.

Thank you: for making us #6 in the Best of Montreal. Up a spot from last year :)