Said the Gramophone - image by Daria Tessler

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Poolside Deliberations
by Jordan

Gorky's Zygotic Mynci - "Better Rooms"

1. St. Francis of Assisi studied with the Troubadours. That's one fact about that saint. Another is that such was St. Francis's charm and his sympathy for all living beings that none could resist him, not even the birds, the bees, the bears or the trees. Anyway, I don't know why Gorky's Zygotic Mynci didn't name the song "St. Francis of Assisi," but I've renamed it that anyway, so it doesn't matter.

2. My buddy Claire gave me this song. Claire likes desert folk music. The dustier, the hotter, the drier, the harder to breathe, the better she likes it. Sometimes she doesn't drink water for weeks at a time. Half of what she sees is mirage, her favourite chocolate bar is Mirage, she only drinks Shiraz... out of a canteen.

3. Can you hear the clatter of spurs, the play for guns, the spit into spittoons?

4. The snare hits in the second verse provide an example of how little needs to be done in order to avoid repetitiveness, to reframe a theme, to deepen and illuminate. [Buy]

***

Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers - "If The River Was Whiskey"

I could deny it and evade your questions, but eventually you would discover the truth: that I love Diet Pepsi. It's my favourite drink. My favourite drink, that is, to the extent that a cigarette is a smoker's favourite thing to put in her mouth, light on fire, and its contents inhale. I'm addicted and have been for as long as I can remember.

If there was in fact a river of whiskey, I would probably take from it an occasional nip, and in it, an occasional dip, but really, it would mostly serve as a novelty to show out-of-town friends. However, by simply transposing whiskey into Diet Pepsi, I can relate to Charlie's desire to "dive to the bottom and never come up." [Buy]

10:24 PM on Aug 15, 2005.
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J'ai dormi pendant 13 heures la nuit dernière
by Jordan

I write this from Paris, and I do so slowly. Slowly, because this keyboard has forced me to revert to the two fingered approach to typing I favoured prior to grade nine keyboarding class. As I mentioned in my last post's comments, I'm here for a week and looking for suggestions for what to do (my interests include music and baseball).

Because I forgot to upload songs before I left Montreal, I will not be posting any today. I will instead refer you to the website of an artist whom I've long wanted to post, but whose music has eluded me (I'm Captain Ahab; the non-streaming music of Yellow Jacket Avenger is Moby Dick).

I particularly recommend "Moonlighter, Prizefighter," a masterful piece of pop counterpoint. The guitar work is elaborate and quick and the vocals clipped and energetic, yet the overall effect is one of delicacy and vulnerability. Interestingly, Rocky Balboa could also be described as quick and energetic, yet delicate and vulnerable, and he was, in fact, both a moonlighter and a prizefighter.

***

I also recommend Paul Simon. And for those of you who like everything up to, but excluding Rhythm Of The Saints (I know you're out there), listen to "She Moves On," bracket out the highly dubious slap bass, and bask in the Americo-Brazillian sunlight.

7:04 AM on Aug 11, 2005.
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One's Own Head
by Jordan

Angels Of Light - "Forever Yours"

It's the brightest day of your entire life. Stopping at a roadside antique shop, you park in the yard among rusted tools and bed frames, broken down vehicles and bath tubs. There's a slow moving man with a tape measure on his tool belt. He watches you, but says nothing. Inside the store - a creaky wooden house - there is row upon row of stuff: wooden chairs, porcelain plates and lampshades, old board games hermetically sealed in plastic bags, a collection of pornographic plastic figurines, an ancient guitar with the neck bent so far back it would be useless even for slide, a plastic banjolin, warped beyond repair, but miraculously in perfect relative tune. Near the door are the two brothers who run the store - one rustic, with stubble and overalls, the other, like Willy Loman, in a cheap suit and a perfect side part. You don't buy anything. You pass the stoic worker on the way out, his eyes fixed unabashedly on yours. You drive away, and trying to get your mind off the oppressive heat, you turn on the radio. If this song isn't playing, go back, park, and repeat until you get it right. [Buy]

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Dan Goldman - "The Kids' Song"

There is something scary about Dan Goldman's rendition of Dr. Seuss's "The Kids' Song." That's good, because fear and wonderment are close friends (with a common interest in questioning and a common distaste for answers), and any friend of wonderment is a friend of any kid. [Info]

2:45 AM on Aug 9, 2005.
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What Is Like A Planetarium?
by Jordan

Robert Fripp - "North Star"

A couple of years ago, on the way back from a road trip/mini tour out east, my editor, Max Maki, put on a mix tape I had made for her a few years prior. When this song came on, we were near home (Ottawa) and were bone tired and stir crazy. Max's insistent calls for "small talk and chit chat" had driven us (me and our drummer, Kyle) into a murderous rage. "North Star" had a calming effect. The rhythm guitar, perfectly clean, in the right speaker. And the Frippertronics, like the cooing of a love-struck whale, in the left.

I didn't recognize the song as "North Star," and thus did not recognize the singer as Daryl Hall. This latter irrecognition aided my appreciation. And allowed me to forgive Daryl for his great many sins. Absolved and benign, Daryl did the same for me. We still live together. [Buy]


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Jonathan Richman - "New Kind of Neighborhood"

Well, this new kind of neighbourhood sounds pretty good. The song’s great coup is that it sounds like the neighbourhood it describes. You don’t have to be Kurt Godel then, to deduce that the song sounds pretty good. You do have to be Kurt Godel, however, to deny this song’s goodness (that would require an advanced (modal) logic). But since none of you are KG, we all agree. Good. [Buy]

1:25 AM on Aug 5, 2005.
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Kitty Takes A Bath (Reads YA Novel)
by Jordan

Buffalo Springfield - "Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing"

Are you thinking about Ennio Morricone and Love right now? It’s OK if you are. Though you have reason, I think it is important to keep in mind that those reference points don’t matter. In fact, nothing in this song matters a hoot, except for the 26th second. That second, and also the 88th. Those seconds are second to none.

Neil Young wrote “Nowadays,” a fact which only compounds the goodness of the 26th second switch to 3/4 time. Mr. Young’s devotion to that time signature is like my cat’s devotion to Meow Mix: unwavering. [Buy]


***

John Cale - "You Know More Than I Know"

Much of John Cale’s solo career has been dedicated to the pursuit of the perfect pop song. Much of John Cale’s solo career has been a miserable failure.

Yet, here Cale grapples with every saccharine pop-ballad stereotype (strummed acoustic, arpeggiated electric, climactic drum fills, a chorus of rising piano and crescendoing harmonies), and emerges unscathed, in control, the master of his art. Though there’s nothing restrained about the arrangement or the production, the music seems entirely unforced. With "You Know More Than I Know" Cale seems to have stumbled onto a song whose every detail is - as in all the best pop songs - necessarily as it is.

So, well done John Cale - you’re the Beatles. [Buy]

1:06 AM on Jul 27, 2005.
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Losing Our Way
by Jordan

The Book of Lists - "Sweet Malady"

There are few things in this world that I love as much as I do the Book of Lists (ice cream, my girlfriend, Rance Mulliniks: to name three of five). The book is a Siren: its song is that of inane trivia; its murder, that of the intellect. I know this, yet I'm drawn in again and again. Fucking Sirens.

This isn't the sound of the Book of Lists (though, of course, analytically speaking, it is). The Book of Lists would sound like a cat finding its owners after having been separated by five years and an ocean. It would sound like the results of surveys: the five most evil people of all time, 1973; the four most beautiful living women, 1980 (Bo Derek!); the greatest American President.

The Book of Lists, on the other hand, doesn't sound like the Book of Lists, but like a spastic epiphanic dance. Like an Ian Curtis epileptic seizure. (A sweet malady.)

The drummer's insistent thumping of the snare is almost comically linear, organizing waves of reverb guitars into an endless subway tunnel haunted by that voice (a ghost), disembodied and vaguely threatening. [Info/Buy]

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Big Star - "Thirteen"

I recently posted this cover of Big Star's "Thirteen," which got me listening to the original.

My editor, Max Maki rightly points out the that the singer is not unlike Cher. Is this bad? No. Cher is the perfect complement to circular guitar patterns, round root-based bass, backing la-la-la's (also by Cher), and the sweetest high school love song lyrics. [Buy]

3:14 AM on Jul 21, 2005.
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Who Wins?
by Jordan

Heroes and Villains - "esa-2000"

Ian Curtis and Calvin Johnson stand atop a precariously swaying tower of song. "esa-2000" is the most successful game of Jenga you've played since... God knows when. As such, there's a level of anxiety unknown to you since the last time you played such a successful game of Jenga. This anxiety is exacerbated by the hand-claps almost to the same degree that your aesthetic environment has been improved by them, and your life consequently enriched (if you understand the word 'almost' to mean 'not even close to,' as I do).

At 2:16 something like a guitar solo takes place. It's like everything good that ever happened to you, happening again, at the same time. Really, it is. [Info]

***

Duke Ellington and John Coltrane - "In A Sentimental Mood"

It's fitting that the young drummer and the young saxophonist play like they're hurt - their pain bottled up, but rising uncontrollably and fitfully to the surface (anguished runs and tight snare rolls); whereas the older pianist maintains perspective, moves a simple chord progression around the piano like he's examining a memory from every angle. How does it sound if I play it like this? Or like this? Ellington returns to his theme again and again: while the rest of the band tries to fight its way out of the titular sentimental mood, he simply revels in it. [Buy]

10:44 AM on Jul 14, 2005.
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