Archives : all posts by Dan

Swan Lake - "Spanish Gold, 2044"

At the entrance of the hall is a cracked and dusty arch. At the threshold of the hall, beneath the cracked and dusty arch, stands Mikaeus Andante, hero of his own story, and regrettably of ours. In his pockets a few coins, some matches and his cigarettes. On his face, a disgusting mustache. What a clever drunk girl from the night previous had called "a disgustache". He spreads it with his greasy fingers, he thinks of the soup he refused out of pride at the cafe and regrets not taking it. Looking into the hall, faced with huge sky ceiling, the walls windowed at their tops, facing what he knows is called an "Alma Muerte", but what he thinks of only as a monster. For Mikaeus is not clever like the drunk girl from the night previous. Now sleeping, the Alma Muerte has been terrorizing the town down in the valley below for a whole summer. Now here it lies, huge as a ship or a great house, surrounded by as much of its own shit as by its spoils. A pile of bodies, used up like rags, lies stacked in the corner, shiny objects of various sizes and values lie thrown in the corner, or hung from spikes on the walls. For all its baseness, the Alma Muerte is at least an organized thing. Lungs now unbearably filled with the smell of the giant thing, Mikaeus Andante takes a step inside. Dumbly, as if waiting for a friend to drink beer with, he lights up a cigarette while he thinks about his options. Before he can get through run away and never go back to the village start a new life, the smell of the smoke wakes the beast. Mikaeus Andante now faces the Alma Muerte, it poised to attack, and him struck agape at the sight of the huge thing.

Mikaeus Andante has never even been in a single real fight before. Growing up he would always sleaze and slime his way out of situations. When caught planting kisses on Joquita Jimenez behind the meat store, he claimed that she was to blame, that she had hypnotized him and brought him behind the store to take advantage of him. And when Nicota Valde, her boyfriend, took a swing at him anyway, Mikaeus pushed Joquita in front and she took the blow, knocking four of her teeth loose. When he got caught stealing whiskey during the distraction of the floor show one night at Toquito's, he claimed that he saw others do it, and ratted out half the bar for his own stealing.

And now, sleazy, slimy and disgustachioied, he faces his first unavoidable fight. Unwinnable, surely, but at least unavoidable. As Mikaeus is about to receive his comeuppance for a life poorly lead, a final justice for all the prejudiced jokes, the inappropriate slaps, the lascivious comments about the wives of his friends, he begins to scream. A scream so primal and desperate that the Alma Muerte gives something of a smile; finally, an opponent. And with this scream, his eyes beginning to redden and bulge, Mikaeus flicks his cigarette, as if it were the last step before rolling up his sleeves in some casual bar hall brawl. And the cigarette, what Mikaeus will call his "bravery" when he re-tells the story, flings and flips through the horrible shit-smelling air and lands, burning cherry directly on the right eye of the Alma Muerte. It rears up, seared, and stumbles backward, Mikaeus still screaming, his neck looking like it will near burst. The Alma Muerte takes a few blind steps, thrashing its head from side to side. It steps in the majestic pile of its own shit, clanks and clambers into the unhung golden treasures, and rips flesh as it lurches backwards onto the pile of bodies. As if trying to shake loose the pain, the Alma Muerte swings its head wildly around, and accidentally shoves its head sideways onto one of its trophy hangers, a spare spike that sticks right out of the wall and into its head, its body falling limp. Still screaming and turning blue from the stress of it, Mikaeus watches for nearly ten minutes the many death throes of the monster.

Finally, his throat raw, dizzy, Mikaeus heads down the hill. In a daze, he ends up at the cafe. "I just killed the monster. The Alma Muerte. I'll take that soup now." [Buy]

--

Elsewhere: Very good friend of the site Carl Wilson (guest post, week-long residency) has some exciting news. As you may or may not know, he wrote a fantastic book last year, an installment in the 33 1/3 series, called "Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste". It's about Celine Dion, and we wrote about it here, here, and here. Well, at the Oscars last Sunday, James Franco was interviewed about his "guilty pleasures" on the red carpet before going in and mentioned that he was reading Carl's book. Now Carl will be on the Colbert Report next Wednesday, March 4th, and we couldn't be happier for him. Buy the book, watch the clip, and watch next Wednesday.

Condo Fucks - "Dog Meat"

Rick leaned hard into the table and said, "This shit is awesome, it tastes like 1991," and then threw up hard across the table. He had on purple shoes with purple leopards, chocolate pants, a sweat shirt, as in "made of", and hair that fell limp like greasy knotted laces. He walked like a sinkhole when he was drunk, and he'd tell off his friends one by one, like he was checking items off his to-do's. Did you. Did you. You're done. Did you. Got what I wanted from you. You don't even like me. You fucker. He was the kind of guy that wore a spiked ring turned in most of the time, until he was dead done drunk, and he'd turn it out in case someone pissed him off. I know because one night I pissed him off. He was ranting on and on about parliament, or maybe it was Parliament, and I turned to him, cut him right off, "Good point." He knew he wasn't making shit sense, so he swung at me and got me right under the eye. I kicked him in the hip and he flew back into the bushes. Smelly bushes, on the garbage side of the park. As I walked away, half running, half looking back, I realized what he meant about 1991. Same on the way down as on the way back up.

Condo Fucks come from that illustrious dreamworld we know as the 90s. Obviously, their cult status needs no introduction from me. A trio of pretend musicians coming together to spurt and chuck out some of the most out-of-print EPs in existence. Now a new practice of theirs recorded and being released by none other than their brother, Matador. [pre-order]

Red Red Meat - "Gauze"

"We," in stunned whisper, hands propped like folding a thought out of the air. "Whee?" fake confused and confident, looking at light, looking suddenly at the same soft light. "We...get...great." A more reasonable piece of nonsense I'd never heard. Slow, those caveman words sunk in and rested embossed and gleaming, like an implant, a living tattoo. Like if you actually had another heart, with an arrow through it, on your shoulder. Or an actual bird down the middle of your back, its feathers and eyes dark and quiet. Sleeping hadn't been that easy before that was out there, said, hung on bending string from the corners of the ceiling. [pre-order]

Ganache - "In Pidgin"

The Grey Wizard is gonna start living his life & not worry about what anyone else thinks anymore cuz in the end it really doesn't matter. at 8:19pm Thursday

The Grey Wizard is sitting next to the weirdest guy on the bus right now. at 9:14am Friday from mobile

The Grey Wizard is text me, I'm going to Rise of the Lycans! at 7:16pm Friday

The Grey Wizard has a pretty great belly-button. at 12:33pm Saturday

The Grey Wizard just bought a sweet new couch! at 4:04pm Saturday

The Grey Wizard wants chocolate. at 7:41pm Saturday

The Grey Wizard is excited to see his friends tonight! at 5:04pm Sunday

The Grey Wizard is casting spells. at 10:10am Monday

The Grey Wizard is settling his debts. You know who you are. at 2:00pm Tuesday

The Grey Wizard looks good in a ball cap. at 4:46pm Tuesday

The Grey Wizard is jonesing for Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 6. at 8:12pm Wednesday

The Grey Wizard loves curling. at 7:34pm Thursday

The Grey Wizard is so sleepy, but yet here I am. about 14 hours

The Grey Wizard is watching wrestling. Randy Orton is EVIL. about 12 hours ago

The Grey Wizard is can't wait for a weekend in NYC!!!! about 5 mintues ago

[Ganache is Thom Stylinski of The Whiskers, and his record comes out in March]

--

Eternal Summers - "Able To"

Are you able to? Are you able too? Are you Abel II? Are you a bull too? Eternal Summers tune their guitars apparently using my heart, because I feel it every time they play. Even when they practice.

[their EP is cheap and Great]
[previously]

The Meanest Boys - "I'll Take Whatever It Takes"

Smash my door in, burn my couch, take a crap in my sink. Break all my old VHSs, leave wet black ribbons of The Lion King and Velvet Goldmine all over my cracked and crushed tile floors. Put my books in the microwave, my CDs in the toilet, throw my stupid posters out the window. Sell all my clothes for a high-five, pawn my computer for the price of the plastic it's made of, get as much as you can for my tube tv, you can take it all. Just don't touch my skin, my body, don't look at me, I couldn't stand that. I don't know what I'd do. [MySpace] [via the surprising and oneiric No Pain in Pop]

Casy and Brian - "Rumble In The Jungle 1974"

This song has its shorts around its ankles, beer and a tambourine, trying to walk, screaming and spasming and bellyflopping. The most chaotic, spasmodic, endoscopic, gin-n'-tonic tribute to the most choreographic, naturopathic, calligraphic, stoppin'-traffic fighter in history. [Buy]

--

In today's Time Magazine, Said the Gramophone was named one of the Top 25 Blogs. If you're new, welcome. If you're already a reader, thank you.

Click on the arrow beside any recent song to listen to the song while you read, or download it by right-clicking and choosing "Save as". We write about new songs every weekday.

You can subscribe to Said the Gramophone's RSS feed here or click here to bookmark the site.

Josephine Foster - "I love you & the Springtime Blues"

He always smelled like dried soup when he came in from outside. He would kick off one boot normally, and then flip the other one off against the wall, like an 8-year-old. And if it was wet outside, a little line of brown water would fling off the toe in a circle, or off the laces. He would take off his hat and run his fingers through his hair, and hang his hat on the hook before his jacket, so his jacket would cover the hat. He would smile, which I one day saw for the first time, realising he didn't have to smile, so I appreciated that.

He gets really jealous of me, but gets all quiet instead of speaking out. I knew when he used to show up to kiss me, he used to kiss me for hours at a time, sometimes while we were walking around or between the aisles at a general store or behind my step-mother's, and he would look down at the ground and frown, that he had seen something that he misunderstood. "What is it?" "You know." And I'd have to guess, going back through all the moments in the last day when I had talked to another boy, or looked happy with anyone else. It was tiring, but when I guessed it right, I always knew because he would look up at me, desperately, and I would tell him I only had fun when he was around. He would act like nothing had happened and he'd skip and pull my hand down the road in the sun.

He never knew I existed when he was a little boy. He would scream and run around with other boys, and I would stand there, holding a flower or a mud cake, ready to have fun too, always turning to face whatever direction they were in, but never moving from my one spot. I saw him once get beaten badly by a teacher. Another kid watched it happen, and I suppose I did too, but I hit that other kid for snooping, and when he got free from the teacher, I could tell he was crying, but spoke so clearly like nothing was wrong, "Oh, my, seems there was quite a misunderstanding." And I thought, yes, forever, what a grown-up. [Buy]

Handsome Furs - "Evangeline"

I've started smoking my pencil stubs, snorting my hand sanitizer, shooting up my compost, and freebasing my wallet. I'm selling my collected works in a single bound volume, called "It Ends In A Tie", and I'm moving the fuck out of here. Nothing can grow when it's stuck in the same place. You don't see it, but even the trees in the forest take a step to the left every so often.

We have a drawing set up with Insound this week. You can go there, sign up for their mailing list, and get put in a drawing to win a digital version of the new Handsome Furs album Face Control and a t-shirt. It's Gramophone-specific, so you do have a chance of winning.

[WIN ALBUM & SHIRT]
[live version of song]

Jumbling Towers - "The Kanetown City Rips"

We lived in the roof of a warehouse for four years. Thirty-seven of us, there was this door in the ceiling that lead to this extra space between the ceiling and the underside of the roof, and we would live up there. Everyone kept their stuff in their zipped and locked sleeping bags, jammed into the crevice at the edge of the room during the day, and you'd sleep with your legs around your comic books and preserved snacks at night. The steely streetlight would shoot up through the tops of the far windows and lay jagged across the bare roof for you to look at while you drifted off or sung to yourself. The only adult who knew we were there we called The Pig, and he made sure no one found out about us. Sometimes he would walk around the huge floor at midnight, and you could see his silhouette cast against that jagged light, and the way he walked made you want to throw up. He walked with his stomach, if you can imagine that. Like as if his legs came straight out of his stomach, the way he walked. It was disgusting. That's why we called him The Pig, I think.

Jumbling Towers - "Untitled"

Like I say, we lived like that for four years, but not all of it was hard. It was hard keeping quiet a lot, mostly I just longed to be able to scream and kick and laugh. But we had fun sometimes, we would play word tag, where you had to capture people with a word, and someone could set them free with another, or you could fight your way out with two words. It's hard to explain. Summer afternoons were the hardest. But it was in the summer when we left.

On what became the last night that we lived there, someone stabbed The Pig in the armpit with a piece of a mirror and he lay there squealing and trying to use his cell phone. It was the middle of the night, and windy because the smoke from the stacks was blowing in front of the windows. We just gathered up our sleeping bags and our extra shoes and headed out the door. All single file and orderly, as if we were going for a meal, and one of the youngers whispered, "I forgot my notebook," and everyone was sure he stayed there because he was afraid to leave. Sick.

--

Jumbling Towers, from when I first heard them back in May of last year, have been working themselves steadily into one of my favourite new bands. "The Kanetown City Rips" is from their forthcoming album, and was specially released to us, and you, in advance. Jumbling Towers are fiery, flourishing, fearless, and their weapons are many and strong.

[Buy via eMusic]
[free EP at their site]
[MySpace]

Laura Gibson - "Spirited"

A cowboy listens to his monologuing horse, "...through the whole forest. But I don't think anyone heard. We all just pretended nothing had happened and went on about our business. If you ask me, that's what one ought to do, go about your business and focus on surviving, because freedom is a thing not to be mucked about with. I mean.." the horse pauses, realizing what he's said. "I mean freedom can kind of chain you down in a way, really, you hold onto it so fervently. It's not as if anyone really enjoys being free, they're always too concerned about losing it." The cowboy sips his water. "I guess it's like anything, I guess. You have to enjoy what you have, and you can't trouble your mind too much about circumstances, because if you could change them you would. Wouldn't you? I would." They saunter slowly, and it's dawn.

"You ever been to Montana?" says the horse, absently. "Gee, I'd love to go to Montana. A free and open land, totally free and untouched. And every year I hear it freezes over and all the horrible things that happened in the stench of the summer completely disappear for months. You get to start fresh, you know?"

And now the light is harsh as it is in the morning, and the horse and the cowboy have stopped to rest in the bright bright morning light. "I bet I would have invented the steam train if I'd been asked to. I simply didn't think there was a need for it, but if I'd been thinking about it in that way, I suppose I would have come up with the idea just as much as the next one. It seems pretty obvious to me, though I don't pretend to be an engineer, I certainly couldn't build a bridge, those things puzzle me. What puzzles me most is: why isn't everything a bridge? If a bridge is good to walk on, if it keeps you off the rocks and steep hills and dirt and water, why isn't it all bridges, everywhere? That's what really puzzles me."

"Horse," said the cowboy, finally, his first words in days. "Enough."

[Pre-order and she'll autograph it]