Archives : all posts by Sean

Dead Heart Bloom - "Flash In A Bottle". The idea was this: take a photograph of a fish, swimming; and use a flash; and the flash could scare the fish right out of the water, bucking through the air to the shore. This was the idea. It was first devised by Charlie "Marks" Markie, of Hazeldean, ME. It was first written down by his nephew, Louis Pontoon, who settled in Thunder Bay, ON. It appears in his book, Fishing Notions. Very few people bought Fishing Notions. One of these was Charlene Markie (no relation), of Toronto. The volume was inherited by her son, Purcell Holmes, and by his son, Invictus Daughter. Invictus was an opium addict; sold his leather-bound version of Fishing Notions to a Montreal book-seller. 20 years later, this was purchased by Jacques Thibodeau, the infamous "Dog-Catcher of Lachine". Thibodeau left it on a bench, where it was found by Marco Penni, a tourist visiting from Barbarossa, Italy. Penni brought it home. His daughter read it front to back. His daughter went to the lake at Esteval, Tuscany, near where she lived. She brought her Leica. She spent the rest of her life taking photographs, flashbulb popping, waiting for the miracle. I will leave the rest to your imagination. [buy In Chains]

S.E. Rogie - "Man Stupid Being". Boy has S. E. Rogie got our number. Human beings are lazy, greedy, deceitful, inefficient and late. We are rude and sinning. This morning I flew across an ocean, belched ten thousand pounds of seal-slaying carbon. I threw out half a breakfast roll. I stole someone's wi-fi and then neglected two emails. My lovers spurn me, my friends resent me, my co-workers hate my jokes. I'm not being self-deprecating; I'm being universally deprecating. We are lousy people, all of us. You there, reading this: you suck. You stupid being. S.E. Rogie's got it right. But you already know the thing, the thing about all of this: Rogie has that other quality of human beings, too. He has a messy grin and a voice as pretty as the morning. I could listen to him sing until the sun comes up. And we could dance. [buy]

Caribou Vibration Ensemble ft. Marshall Allen - "Melody Day". Imagine there is a tree, somewhere, with the most beautiful fruit. Perhaps it is just one or two fruit. Perhaps they are not the same; this is a hypothetical fruit-tree, a magical fruit tree. An apple, a pear and a plum, suspended and softly glowing, on the imaginary tree. These are the most delicious fruit in the world, sweet and tart, with supple flesh. These fruit endow their eaters with deep wisdom, great knowledge, remarkable skills. The fruit-tree is not hidden. It is on every map and easy to reach. Now, imagine the fruit is allowed to remain. Imagine nobody takes it. Daughters are born, and sons, and across every generation the fruit-tree is undisturbed. [buy on vinyl at Caribou tour-dates]

Parlovr - "Hell, Heaven" Alex from Parlovr wrote to me to tell me what "Hell, Heaven" is about. It is about when he was a teenager living in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and he fell in love with a girl who lived on a military base. Her father was a helicopter pilot. When Osama Bin Laden threatened to blow up Alex's school, the principal declared a holiday. Alex went to the military base. He went to the girl's house. He sneaked in through her window. They kissed, more than once. She was from Kentucky. They are not lovers any more. He was a teenager. This is a true story, I think. These years later, Alex lives in Montreal. He drinks beers at Casa del Popolo, at least sometimes, and coffees at Café Olimpico. There is no sand, no gleaming bone-white city. There are boulevards garlanded by falling leaves, and places to lock your bike, and girls who say Bonsoir. Alex says Bonsoir back. It means Good evening, and Alex cannot help, now and then, from imagining a hidden bomb. [the Hell/Heaven/Big/Love EP is out October 19 / MySpace]

Hello Shark - "My Life". Imagine if a garage were a person: what sort of life would she have? And imagine if a parking-lot were a person, making rich business. Imagine these dumb ideas. // I was born in a place that I didn't think had any people. The garages were not people; the parking-lots were not people; my friends and parents were not people. I decided when I was eighteen years old that no one was real except for myself. They were all made of asbestos, stuffed with straw. // I was wrong. [MySpace]

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M60: the Montral 60 Second Film Festival takes place this Thursday (tonight!), Friday and Saturday. I'm one of the organisers of this DIY film festival, which sees hundreds of Montrealers making 60-second movies over the course a month. At each of this week's screenings, we'll be showing all 80 completed films - including a movie by me, titled IN COLD BLOOD. Tickets are just $7. It's enormous fun. I hope you'll come.

If M60 doesn't feel right, there are some other options this week: Hello Shark are playing at tonight (and a house party tomorrow), as part of a spoken word night at Lambi. 15 of the city's "best amateur poets" will do short readings. Meanwhile, Mainline Theatre hosts MProv, the Montreal Improv Festival, with the best of local and visiting troupes. The Bitter End - starring Said the Gramophone's own Dan Beirne play tonight.

(image source)

Still recovering from my Pop Montreal, brushing the sparkle from my shirt.

The fivest highlights were these:

1. Khaira Arby at Balattou
2. Shotgun Jimmie, glowing with charm at Cagibi
3. Van Dyke Parks, slinging new catchphrases at the Agora
4. Adam & the Amethysts, autumn- and springing under Phonopolis
5. YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN's decorated drone & ring

Thanks to P, D, A, and all the LMNOP.

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Cass McCombs - "Dreams Come True Girl". James played this song for Alex and I. It was Wednesday. We were about to go out. We sat beside his space-age turntable and this tune was there too, like fruit in a bowl. James had called this "a perfect song" and we were all three listening hard, hearing the guitar solo as if it were an instruction from someone very important. This, this and this. We were serious and smiling. At a certain point I felt a laugh unfurling in my heart, because there we were, three men with legs crossed at the knee, each of us imagining our "dream-come-true girl". These women were floating above our heads like watercolours. They would be skeptical of us, and loving. They would speak three languages. We were such boys, sitting in that basement apartment, preparing for the evening. Karen Black sang "wah wah wah wah" and I felt like the punchline of a gentle, grateful joke. [buy]

This Is The Kit - "Waterproof". Lucy woke up thinking of Tom. She hadn't thought of him in six months, seven; but her eyes opened on the pillow and she thought of him in Victoria, at the very end of the world, in a flat filled with plants. She rubbed her eyes; she showered; she pulled into clothes and went downstairs. At the mailbox, her key went in with a faint ding, like a bell, a bell and a mechanism, and when she opened the hatch there was just one envelope there, hatched in red and blue. The return address said, T.W. / VICTORIA.

And as Lucy stood with one hand on the envelope, and one on the key in its keyhole, her body twisted to look out out the front door at the gathering cloud, she had the quiet intuition that fate is not always benevolent, that it is not always good, that it is sometimes sinister. She did not know what was inside this letter, and her heart shivered, and she was not certain that this coincidence was kind.

[very smitten with this song / buy Wriggle Out The Restless from Bristol's Dreamboat Records]

Women - "Can't You See". Inside the mountain, mechanisms groaned. Clockwork sheared and righted itself. Grass pushes up from earth and hands touch envelopes and inside the mountain, gears are turning. Mechanisms are groaning. Things with hands like clocks are fulfilling circuits, and their nails are clean.

[buy]

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If you are at Pop Montreal, my guide to the festival is here. Big day today, and I'm on a panel at 4:30 pm.

(photo is of Chernobyl's Control Room One)

Anna McGarrigle & Audrey Bean - "Louis the Cat". I am not going to write a story about this song; everything important about the song is contained within its two minutes and sixteen seconds. It was recorded by two friends in the early 1970s. They were in a living-room. There was a piano. And Louis the cat had disappeared.

I was born in 1982. As a kid we would drive through Algonquin Park at night and my mother would put on a cassette of Kate & Anna McGarrigle's songs, and I'd squirm, I'm not now sure why; something too-tightly blossoming in their blending voices. And now, as an adult, I hear their songs and cherish them but it evokes a long-ago, perhaps my childhood or perhaps a lamp-lit decade, a strange 1970s, a time I never knew.

Listening to "Louis the Cat", I have a very different feeling. It's not the same as when I hear "Work Song", "La vâche qui pleure", or "Heart Like A Wheel". This is not something that has been passed down to me: a poem, a photograph, a stuttering black & white film. Here, I hear two friends my own age. They are in a living-room. There is a piano. Louis the cat has disappeared.

This is a song that could be sung by people I see every day. And if it were, I would listen quietly and think in my heart: what a beautiful song. I would wonder where Louis was, and how lucky he was to have had these two. I would think of the time we had all had dinner together, spontaneously, calling & finding everyone home and idle; and how we had trudged through the snow to their door and there had been soup and fresh bread, red wine and rhubarb pie; and how Louis had wound between our legs before scampering away.

This is a song that could be sung right this instant, by two girls lying on the hardwood floor and singing at the ceiling.

Anyway, I like it a lot.

ODDiTTiES is the first McGarrigles release since the passing of Kate last year. It is a collection of unreleased tracks, including "A la claire fontaine (live)", and an alternate version of the famous "Logdriver's Waltz". And this. It is available exclusively on iTunes.

Kate is dearly missed.

[This is a photograph by Harry Kerr of Henry Behrens, the smallest man in the world ca 1956, dancing with his pet cat.]

The Lightning Bug Situation - "This Body". The ghost stayed out late with friends. He came home with his cell-phone over his heart, the lawns smelling like white wine. His apartment was empty. He disrobed in the glow of the streetlight through the blinds, and as he lay in bed he realised he was still smiling.

The ghost woke up with his alarm. He stood under a cold shower. The ghost had recently fallen in love, but he had not told her yet. He bought a wholegrain muffin at the bakery, crossed the road and into the office where he worked. The ghost was a copywriter. He had two computer monitors. At lunch-time he went with some colleagues to Magpie and they shared a large margherita pizza. They did not argue over the pieces. He walked home from work through the park, watched the dogs run past him.

The ghost was sitting at home listening to Gillian Welch when he began pursuing a strange line of thought. It began with his recollection of the dogs, at the park, running raggedly past. They had not even looked at him. This was not so strange; they were running. But the ghost had this odd sense, this shadowing or premonition, that animals never looked at him. It felt like a premonition because it was something the ghost felt he was on the verge of realising, but hadn't yet. He felt himself suppressing it. He thought of Neale and Raffi's cats, and how they wove between his feet, and never looked up.

The ghost stood at the window. The city flickered. He had never been stung by a hornet, by a bee. He considered mosquito bites. He laughed at himself. Considering mosquito bites! He set the thoughts aside. As soon as they were set aside he began thinking about them again. Am I real? he asked himself, suddenly. Do I exist? These were not obvious thoughts to have, after seeing dogs run past. They signalled a deeper suspicion; the ghost knew this. He lay in bed.

The ghost began to wonder if he was a ghost.

What the ghost wanted to know, was: If he were a ghost, could he tell her?

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"This Body" is a single from the new album by the Lightning Bug Situation, Call (buy). There is a chance it could take your breath away. I am privileged to offer it up, in fact the whole single proper, with artwork and b-sides, including a weary song called "Hold On". We have written about Lightning Bug Situation before; it is the project of the Speakers' Brian Miller. Visit his blog.

Download the "This Body" single (zip, 20.5mb)
01. This Body
02. Hold On
03. This Body (peter musselman shoe in a dryer mix)

Here are the lyrics to "This Body", because I like them:

Leaves, on an old suitcase:
Wet and red,
Buried deep in the woods in the fall.
We stumble upon it as we walk in the rain,
Our hoods pulled tightly over our heads.

We crouch down and push the leaves off to the side.
A rusted buckle breaks right off.
I look at you and you smile at me,
Your wet hand on my shoulder.